A Hostile State Adrian Magson (reading e books txt) 📖

When he arrived he dropped into a seat opposite Callahan and looked around with ill-concealed interest.

‘I haven’t been up here before. Is this where you send out men to do dastardly things to our enemies?’

‘That’s pretty sexist,’ Callahan told him mildly. ‘We have female field officers, too.’

Andrews looked unabashed. ‘My bad. How can I help?’

Callahan had been rehearsing just how much he could tell the researcher, and he’d decided he had to be as frank as possible, otherwise he’d be asking Andrews to operate with his hands tied. He explained what had happened to Portman, how he was being hunted by a kill team belonging to a hostile state who appeared to be operating with the guidance of someone using Portman’s location tags.

Andrew dropped the boyish air and got serious. ‘You mean someone in here? Jesus. Are you sure?’

‘Not yet, which is why I need your help. I don’t have proof other than that the opposition have now turned up three times for sure right on Watchman’s last known location.’

‘I get it. Too much to be a coincidence. But isn’t this a job for internal security?’ He added quickly, ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking to palm it off on some guy in uniform who knows nothing about Russian ops, but I don’t want to tread on any toes.’

‘I’ll cover you on that, don’t worry. But as of this moment, you keep this to yourself, you hear? I don’t want it doing the rounds that you’re working on our behalf. Should anyone ask, we’ll keep it to a simple research job.’

‘No problem. What do you want me to do?’

‘I want you to take a close look at how these details might have got out; where there might be a weakness in the system that allows someone not in this office to have picked up data received or circulated internally. Also, who it might have been passed to on the outside, although that might be expecting too much.’

Andrews nodded. ‘If they committed the details to memory and walked out the door then passed it on, there would be no trace.’

‘In that case it would be the potential recipient I’d like to know about. There has to be an external contact point somewhere. I figured you might have some views on that.’

‘A Russian contact? There are a few I can think of, some of them right here in DC. If you have any hints, though, it would help me narrow down the search field.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, an idea of who not to look at is always good. It saves time and from what you say I’m guessing this is time sensitive, right?’ When Callahan nodded, he continued. ‘You mentioned that this photo has been outed once before, and has now turned up again?’

‘Correct. We don’t know exactly how, but we think it was acquired a few years ago from the entrance security system at one of our field offices. The person we think was responsible was using an outside source with access to the building – but they’ve now gone dark or are deceased.’

‘I get it. In that case turn it on its head: who benefited most the first time by getting the photo out there?’

Callahan was impressed. He was no investigator himself; he kept his analytical skills for a different kind of search and detect – the kind that looked for people in foreign lands who might prove useful to the endeavours of the CIA. He’d been instinctively thinking about current events, not whether they might have some relevance to what had happened in the past. But already a fresh mind looking at the issue had come up with a new perspective, and Andrews could be right: the original theft of the photo might prove the lead they required.

He thought back to when the photo had first popped up. Portman had been tasked with pulling a State Department official named Edwin Travis out of Ukraine, where he’d gone to conduct talks. Instead Travis had been held hostage by one of the factions in a bid to disrupt progress. It was while he’d been getting the man out of the country that he’d run into opposition from some FSB operatives, one of whom was carrying photos of both Portman and Travis.

‘We were told a senator named Benson instigated Portman’s photo being outed, but that was on the say-so of a man we haven’t been able to trace, so it’s unconfirmed. And since Benson is dead that avenue is closed, too.’

‘Unless he had associates,’ Andrews pointed out. ‘Maybe someone who shared a grudge against your guy and is still out there.’

‘That could be a broad field. Benson had been around for a long time and had a lot of supporters. As to grudges against Portman, I wouldn’t know where to begin looking.’

‘So we should look at who knew Benson best. He might have confided in someone he was close to, maybe someone who felt they wanted to get pay-back. If so they could have been sitting on the information ever since, biding their time.’

‘Good point. How do you reckon on moving it forward?’

‘Was he married? Did he have children?’

‘Not as far as I know. But you can check that out, I’m sure.’

‘Will do. If I can focus on a couple of people to start with, it might help me before I have to look wider at other candidates. I’ll start close to home, say, associates and the people he worked with.’

‘You’re thinking like a cop,’ Callahan said. ‘Does this mean you can do it or not?’

Andrews looked pleased. ‘Actually I wanted to be a cop at one time, but I got side-tracked into this job and never looked back. And yes, I can do it. You get me covered for a free rein with my supervisor and I’ll see what I can turn up.’

‘Good. I’ll send over whatever we have on Benson and you can start from there.’

TWENTY-SIX

I took a rental car and headed south-west out of Paris on the E5, then