Read Online Mission of Honor by Tom Clancy, Steve Pieczenik, Jeff Rovin - Free Book Online Page A
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pep talk, and eye on the prize seemed to have done that. Rodgers had been upbeat when he came in to talk to Herbert.
But Herbert was the intelligence chief. Hood should have consulted him. Herbert should have been briefed about this new unit at the same time that Mike Rodgers became involved.
Hood did not speak to Herbert about the new undertaking until after the routine five P.M. intelligence briefing. The briefings were held at both nine in the morning and again at five P.M. The first briefing was to keep Hood abreast of activities in Europe and the Middle East. Those regions had already been active for hours. The second meeting was to cover the day’s intelligence activities involving OpCenter as well as events in the Far East.
After the fifteen-minute update, Hood regarded the Mississippi-born intelligence chief.
“You’re upset, aren’t you?” Hood asked.
“Yeah,” Herbert said.“
“About Mike’s new operation.”
“That’s right,” Herbert replied. “Since when is my input a threat?”
“It isn’t,” Hood told him.
“For that matter, since when is Mike’s ego so delicate?” Herbert asked.
“Bob, this had nothing to do with letting Mike ramp this thing up on his own,” Hood assured him.
“What then?” Herbert asked indignantly.
“I wanted to keep you clean,” Hood said.
“From what?” Herbert asked. That caught him off guard.
“From the CIOC,” Hood said. “My sense of what they decided last night was to try to push Mike to resign. Senator Fox and her allies can’t afford public hearings, and they don’t want Mike around. He’s a loose cannon who gets things done. That doesn’t work in their bureaucratic worldview. The solution? Terminate his primary responsibility. That gives him a disciplinary kick in the ass, and it leaves him without much to do.”
“Okay. I’ll buy that,” Herbert said.
“So I had to give Mike something else to do,” Hood said. “If I had made it part of your intelligence operation, that would have given the CIOC a new avenue to attack us. They could have gone after your budget, your personnel. What I did was give Mike responsibilities that fulfill both the CIOC action and his own job description. If Senator Fox decides she isn’t happy with what I’ve done, and they question you about it, you can honestly tell them you had nothing to do with it. Your job or your assets can’t be attacked.”
Herbert was still pissed. Only now he was angry at himself. He should have known that Hood had a reason for doing what he did. He should never have taken it personally.
He thanked Hood for the explanation. Then Herbert returned to his office to do something constructive rather than brood. Emotion was a quality intelligence operatives were trained to avoid. It fogged the brain and impeded efficiency. Since he had taken an office job, Herbert often forgot that. One of the first questions Hood had asked Herbert before hiring him was a good one. Herbert and his wife had been working for the CIA when they were caught in the Beirut embassy blast. Hood wanted to know whether Herbert would trade information with the terrorists who had destroyed his legs and killed his wife.
Herbert said that yes, he would. Then he had added, “If I hadn’t already killed them.”
If Herbert had thought this through, he would have realized that Hood was trying to insulate him. That was what the professionals did. They looked out for their people.
Herbert had just returned to his office when the desk phone beeped. His assistant, Stacey, told him that Edgar Kline was calling. Herbert was surprised to hear the name. The men had worked together in the early 1980s. That was when the Johannesburg native first joined the South African Secret Service. They shared information about terrorist training grounds on the African coast along the Indian Ocean. The SASS was responsible for gathering, correlating, and evaluating foreign intelligence with the exception of military data.
But Herbert was the intelligence chief. Hood should have consulted him. Herbert should have been briefed about this new unit at the same time that Mike Rodgers became involved.
Hood did not speak to Herbert about the new undertaking until after the routine five P.M. intelligence briefing. The briefings were held at both nine in the morning and again at five P.M. The first briefing was to keep Hood abreast of activities in Europe and the Middle East. Those regions had already been active for hours. The second meeting was to cover the day’s intelligence activities involving OpCenter as well as events in the Far East.
After the fifteen-minute update, Hood regarded the Mississippi-born intelligence chief.
“You’re upset, aren’t you?” Hood asked.
“Yeah,” Herbert said.“
“About Mike’s new operation.”
“That’s right,” Herbert replied. “Since when is my input a threat?”
“It isn’t,” Hood told him.
“For that matter, since when is Mike’s ego so delicate?” Herbert asked.
“Bob, this had nothing to do with letting Mike ramp this thing up on his own,” Hood assured him.
“What then?” Herbert asked indignantly.
“I wanted to keep you clean,” Hood said.
“From what?” Herbert asked. That caught him off guard.
“From the CIOC,” Hood said. “My sense of what they decided last night was to try to push Mike to resign. Senator Fox and her allies can’t afford public hearings, and they don’t want Mike around. He’s a loose cannon who gets things done. That doesn’t work in their bureaucratic worldview. The solution? Terminate his primary responsibility. That gives him a disciplinary kick in the ass, and it leaves him without much to do.”
“Okay. I’ll buy that,” Herbert said.
“So I had to give Mike something else to do,” Hood said. “If I had made it part of your intelligence operation, that would have given the CIOC a new avenue to attack us. They could have gone after your budget, your personnel. What I did was give Mike responsibilities that fulfill both the CIOC action and his own job description. If Senator Fox decides she isn’t happy with what I’ve done, and they question you about it, you can honestly tell them you had nothing to do with it. Your job or your assets can’t be attacked.”
Herbert was still pissed. Only now he was angry at himself. He should have known that Hood had a reason for doing what he did. He should never have taken it personally.
He thanked Hood for the explanation. Then Herbert returned to his office to do something constructive rather than brood. Emotion was a quality intelligence operatives were trained to avoid. It fogged the brain and impeded efficiency. Since he had taken an office job, Herbert often forgot that. One of the first questions Hood had asked Herbert before hiring him was a good one. Herbert and his wife had been working for the CIA when they were caught in the Beirut embassy blast. Hood wanted to know whether Herbert would trade information with the terrorists who had destroyed his legs and killed his wife.
Herbert said that yes, he would. Then he had added, “If I hadn’t already killed them.”
If Herbert had thought this through, he would have realized that Hood was trying to insulate him. That was what the professionals did. They looked out for their people.
Herbert had just returned to his office when the desk phone beeped. His assistant, Stacey, told him that Edgar Kline was calling. Herbert was surprised to hear the name. The men had worked together in the early 1980s. That was when the Johannesburg native first joined the South African Secret Service. They shared information about terrorist training grounds on the African coast along the Indian Ocean. The SASS was responsible for gathering, correlating, and evaluating foreign intelligence with the exception of military data.
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