Taskforce, executing the operating procedures like a robot. Now, he was acting like a drunk businessman who’d come to Beirut for a convention.
He saw her draw back and took her hand. The act sent her instincts into the red zone, until she felt something in her palm.
“Don’t worry. I’m not trying to get in your pants. Unless you’d like it, that is.”
He grinned again and pulled his hand away.
“That’s an SD card with a complete rundown on a hit that happened in Tunisia three days ago. Taskforce took down a guy that was financing an assassination here in Lebanon. Originally, we didn’t care because all the indicators pointed to a simple sectarian hit against some other faction in this fucked-up country. Taskforce now thinks it may be directed against Western interests. Meaning the U.S.”
“So what are we supposed to do? Get this card to someone else? Why were we pulled from Syria?”
He snickered, then saw she was serious. “They didn’t tell you why you were sent?”
“No. All we got were the PM instructions.”
“Well,
operator
,” he said, “you’re here to save the day. Get the assassin. Protect American interests and all that bullshit. Same thing we always do.”
Jennifer said nothing for a moment, doing the wasted mental calculations of how the mission would affect her trip to Syria. Like a child who’d let go of a balloon, seeing it float inexorably skyward, shetried to find a way to get back what she wanted. She realized Syria was lost for good.
“All right. What can you offer me besides this SD card?”
“Well, for one there’s a very big discrepancy between the information found in Tunisia and what I know. I’ve been hearing about a hit for a few months, but it was always against internal Lebanese interests. Now, the intel weenies think the guy from Tunisia was financing a hit specifically against a U.S. government official. I think they’re wrong.”
“Why? If it’s single-source intel from the mission, it seems prudent. Not something to ignore.”
“It came from the hit, but there wasn’t any smoking gun. You’ll see when you boot up that SD card. The target hasn’t talked yet. The Taskforce intel folks went through his hard drive and pieced it together. They’re keying on the words ‘infidel’ and ‘American,’ and made a leap of logic. It’s prudent if taken by itself, but I’ve been working here for over seven years, feeding the beast quality intel. Those analysts go through one hit and all of the sudden everything I’ve said is discounted. I’ve been hearing those same words used in reference to plenty of assassination attempts, but not as the target.”
“You mean they’re going to kill a foreign national in the
presence
of an American? At an American-sponsored conference or something?”
“No. In this case, ‘infidel’ has a very specific meaning to these guys. I’m telling you the assassin
is
an American.”
12
B ack in our hotel room , Jennifer gave me a rundown of what she’d learned while I went through the SD card the agent had passed. I hated hearing the briefing secondhand, but I’d had to make a hard call on who went into the café and had decided that I’d do more good outside, ready to react should something go wrong. Jennifer possessed a steel-trap mind and would draw much less attention to the meeting than I would. Hot little hammer meeting a businessman was better than a roughed-up expat.
The case officer’s story certainly matched up; the SD card had a clinical report, with all primary references being the thoughts of some analyst with a fifty-pound head. No concrete information on the target or the timing, with every statement preceded by “appears to be…” or “suggests…” Not a lot of help in our decidedly fluid mission statement. I decided to do my own investigation.
“Come on. Let’s go see a guy I know.”
“Who?”
“A soldier I met a long time ago on a training package here. Before the Taskforce. Before
He saw her draw back and took her hand. The act sent her instincts into the red zone, until she felt something in her palm.
“Don’t worry. I’m not trying to get in your pants. Unless you’d like it, that is.”
He grinned again and pulled his hand away.
“That’s an SD card with a complete rundown on a hit that happened in Tunisia three days ago. Taskforce took down a guy that was financing an assassination here in Lebanon. Originally, we didn’t care because all the indicators pointed to a simple sectarian hit against some other faction in this fucked-up country. Taskforce now thinks it may be directed against Western interests. Meaning the U.S.”
“So what are we supposed to do? Get this card to someone else? Why were we pulled from Syria?”
He snickered, then saw she was serious. “They didn’t tell you why you were sent?”
“No. All we got were the PM instructions.”
“Well,
operator
,” he said, “you’re here to save the day. Get the assassin. Protect American interests and all that bullshit. Same thing we always do.”
Jennifer said nothing for a moment, doing the wasted mental calculations of how the mission would affect her trip to Syria. Like a child who’d let go of a balloon, seeing it float inexorably skyward, shetried to find a way to get back what she wanted. She realized Syria was lost for good.
“All right. What can you offer me besides this SD card?”
“Well, for one there’s a very big discrepancy between the information found in Tunisia and what I know. I’ve been hearing about a hit for a few months, but it was always against internal Lebanese interests. Now, the intel weenies think the guy from Tunisia was financing a hit specifically against a U.S. government official. I think they’re wrong.”
“Why? If it’s single-source intel from the mission, it seems prudent. Not something to ignore.”
“It came from the hit, but there wasn’t any smoking gun. You’ll see when you boot up that SD card. The target hasn’t talked yet. The Taskforce intel folks went through his hard drive and pieced it together. They’re keying on the words ‘infidel’ and ‘American,’ and made a leap of logic. It’s prudent if taken by itself, but I’ve been working here for over seven years, feeding the beast quality intel. Those analysts go through one hit and all of the sudden everything I’ve said is discounted. I’ve been hearing those same words used in reference to plenty of assassination attempts, but not as the target.”
“You mean they’re going to kill a foreign national in the
presence
of an American? At an American-sponsored conference or something?”
“No. In this case, ‘infidel’ has a very specific meaning to these guys. I’m telling you the assassin
is
an American.”
12
B ack in our hotel room , Jennifer gave me a rundown of what she’d learned while I went through the SD card the agent had passed. I hated hearing the briefing secondhand, but I’d had to make a hard call on who went into the café and had decided that I’d do more good outside, ready to react should something go wrong. Jennifer possessed a steel-trap mind and would draw much less attention to the meeting than I would. Hot little hammer meeting a businessman was better than a roughed-up expat.
The case officer’s story certainly matched up; the SD card had a clinical report, with all primary references being the thoughts of some analyst with a fifty-pound head. No concrete information on the target or the timing, with every statement preceded by “appears to be…” or “suggests…” Not a lot of help in our decidedly fluid mission statement. I decided to do my own investigation.
“Come on. Let’s go see a guy I know.”
“Who?”
“A soldier I met a long time ago on a training package here. Before the Taskforce. Before
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