Exasperated, I said, “The proof is the very fact that Iranian Quds Force operatives are down here with a renowned assassin at the same time the prime minister of Israel and our own secretary of state are visiting! The proof is they broke him out of our prison!”
He knew I was correct. He wearily nodded and said, “Okay, okay, but it’s going to be a hard sell. You basically want me to convince the president to give you a blank check.”
Mollified, I said, “Yes, if you don’t mind. Or I can do it myself if that’s a better option.”
He’d smiled for the first time and said, “No, no, that won’t be necessary. You’ve already killed one guy last night. Giving the president a heart attack won’t make things go any better.”
Chapter 41
While we waited for the big show, I caught Knuckles’ eye and nodded, letting him know that this was all going to work out—even as I wasn’t so sure. I saw movement on the wall monitor, and Wolffe turned to our camera, saying, “You got anything else to say before I put you on mute?”
Like he had the last time, Wolffe was sneaking us into the Oversight Council meeting. Instead of being dialed into the call where the Council would see our login, we were dialed into the camera in the conference room, watching the meeting unfold without them knowing. Well, that, and it allowed Wolffe to prevent me from saying anything stupid. Like that would ever happen.
I said, “Nope. You got it all, sir.”
He shook his head, clicked mute on the remote, and said, “Yeah, you can say that again.”
President Hannister was the last to arrive, and after he was seated, he simply asked Wolffe to give the update on the mission. Wolffe did so, and even though he’d shaved down the sharp edges as much as he could, predictably, the Oversight Council began to lose their minds.
He didn’t lie outright, claiming something like the IRGC guy had assaulted Knuckles with a machete while Knuckles was walking by, but he’d come pretty close. Even so, the fact that we’d conducted a lethal operation without Omega authority against a target that wasn’t the Ghost was bad enough.
From the screen, I thought Alexander Palmer was having an aneurysm, his face blotted red and his eyes bulging out. He interrupted the briefing with, “Are you saying a Taskforce team killed an unarmed, unnamed target in a foreign country while they were supposed to simply be locating the Ghost?”
“He wasn’t unarmed,” said Wolffe. “He chose to use lethal force, which led to the outcome, and he’s not unnamed. He’s an IRGC logistics officer whose specialty is advanced force operations for Unit 840, meaning there’s more to this than just the Ghost. There’s an operation in play right now. We don’t know what it is, but we know, with this level of infrastructure and planning, it’s something big. Don’t forget, they broke out the Ghost to begin with.”
“Wait, wait, so now you’re saying this is all a giant Iranian plot?That’syour excuse? Sounds to me like you’re trying to cover your ass by making linkages that don’t exist. Where is this intelligence?” Palmer looked at Kerry Bostwick, the director of the CIA and said, “Have you seen anything like this in our systems?”
Before Kerry could answer, Wolffe said, “Sir, we don’t have it in our system. We came up blank, but the Israelis have a much deeper bench when it comes to these things. It’s from them.”
Palmer’s face split into a smug, slimy grin. He said, “Well, that’s convenient. This supposed intelligence just appears after the guy’s dead, thrown out by two Israelis who we don’t even know, and who have their own agenda.”
I saw Shoshana lean forward, a molten look of anger on her face. I wondered if her little ESP skill worked through the internet. Or maybe it was just because Palmer was a raging prick.
I said, “Hold on there, Carrie. They can’t hear you so there’s no need to start yelling.”
She said, “Who is that little worm?”
I said, “No one of consequence. The only one who matters is President Hannister, and he knows both of you.”
She had really become livid, angrier than I’d ever seen her. She said,“That bastard wasn’t there when Hamas came across the wall. Didn’t see the rapes. Didn’t bury the murdered children. Didn’t have to suffer the pain.” She turned to me and spat out, “He didn’t have any ofhisfamily yanked bleeding into a tunnel to die, and I won’t sit here and let them do it again.”
I was taken aback, and Aaron put a hand on her shoulder, whispering something in her ear. I glanced at Jennifer, and she simply nodded, understanding. Like most everyone in the Taskforce, I’d heard about the atrocities committed by Hamas, but it had always been abstract. Something terrible that had happened to someone else, but now I was in the room with those who had suffered.
In all the work of planning and executing my missions, sometimes it was easy to forget exactlywhyI was doing it. I was a little ashamed that Shoshana had to remind me. The men we were after were stone-cold murderers, and she was right, Palmer didn’t understand.
I said, “Shoshana, don’t worry about Palmer. Watch.”
I knew what was coming next.
Wolffe said, “Mr. President, the information is from Aaron and Shoshana.”
At that, President Hannister leaned forward and said, “The same two Israelis from President Warren’s assassination?”
Unbeknownst to Palmer, Aaron and Shoshana had helped defuse a major conflict involving the United States and Russia after the previous president had been blown out of the sky over Ukraine, with Russia wrongly being blamed. President Hannister had been vice president then, and the Israelis’ actions had been key to preventing a global catastrophe. I knew he wouldn’t forget it.
Wolffe knew it too. He said, “Yes, sir. While we were chasing the Ghost, they were working this from the other angle. The Israelis were chasing a threat stream from Iran, and we met in the middle.” He glared at Palmer and said, “I didn’tconvenientlymake that happen.”
President Hannister said, “What else do you have to go on? Do you have any actionable intelligence?”
