The Asset (16 page)

“Fuck off. My kids thought you were a manatee when we were in Tampa last Christmas.”

“Bullshit. They were looking at your
second
ex-wife.”

“Can we talk about the thing, please? I know it's comms, but I don't have any white paper.”

“The
thing
, which is its scientific name,” Leo said, “allows autopilot to communicate independently with the tower using a system that can't be accessed by the cockpit and can't be intercepted or hacked by anyone other than the one with the transponder, which is the tower mainframe. Tower mainframe access is controlled like a missile silo, with several key turners needed to alter it. Bottom line is this little baby is going to make planes hijack proof. Pilot wants to use the plane as a missile, override. Some camel jockey tries to take the wheel, override.”

“Camel jockey? Really, Leo?”

“Are you listening? This shit is revolutionary. Airbus developed it after that German nut job decided to plow his 320 into the French Alps.”

“Why isn't it being implemented in US aircraft already?” Lambert asked.

“Pilots' union,” Leo said. “They're freaking out about it.”

“Thanks, Leo. Hello to the missus.”

Lambert hung up and phoned Alia. As expected, she wanted him to buy up a sample ASAP. He drained his last Bud, set an early alarm, and wondered how the hell he was going to survive another day in the heat.

T
he next morning Lambert paid
the avionics company a visit at its head­­quarters in an industrial wasteland on the outskirts of the city. He had ­developed a nasty cough from moving in and out of heat and air-­conditioning and from the malevolent haze of the city's notoriously bad pollution. The reception area felt like a steam room, and he had to fight off cock­roaches as big as his thumb trying to crawl up his pant legs. After ­swelter­ing in what he was convinced might actually be one of the lower levels of hell, he ­finally met with one of the company representatives. The man was very friendly, spoke English well, and nodded approvingly at Lambert's ­credentials.

“Is this for commercial or military use?” the man asked.

“That's classified.”

“Our government does not allow us to sell to foreign military.”

“I work for a major carrier in the US. The proposed use is civilian.”

“Fine. Follow me.” That was easy.

The man took Lambert to the production line and showed him the part and how it worked. Afterward they went to accounting to draw up the purchase order. When the man logged into his computer, Lambert captured his password with an RFID skimmer device and sent it to Langley. The analysts there were able to see the network ID and log-in as soon as the man logged out, allowing them to download the company's customer database.
As soon as they acknowledged a successful download, Lambert paid for the part and went back to his hotel. He was packing for a late flight back to DC when his room phone rang. It didn't stop, so he picked up, annoyed.

“I'm here to pick up the package,” a man on the other end of the line said with an Australian or maybe a light British accent.

“Who is this?”

“Alia sent me. She doesn't want you carrying it back with you through customs. Too risky. Can I come up?”

“Give me a minute.”

Lambert hung up. Alia would have told him if she were sending someone. He called her on his satellite phone.

“Guy just called me from the lobby. Said you sent him to pick up the part. I drop-shipped it to you from their office like we agreed—”

“Get out of there now,” she said and hung up.

There was a knock on the door.

“Hey, it's me. Front desk let me up,” the man called from the hallway, definitely a Brit.

Lambert grabbed a cigarette lighter from his pants pocket, got up on a chair, and flicked the lighter flame under the glass bubble on the fire sprinkler. The glass bubble broke and the sprinkler went off, along with the building's fire alarm system. The deafening tone started a panic on Lambert's floor. He grabbed his satellite phone and passport and jammed them in his pocket. The man was knocking hard on his hotel room door, yelling for him to open it, warning him there was a fire in the building. Lambert knocked hard on the door of the adjoining room.

“Who is it?” a voice called from the other room.

“Hotel security!” Lambert yelled back.

A frightened elderly couple opened the door. Lambert went into their room and locked the door behind him. Right after he did, he heard the door to his room being kicked in.

“You need to evacuate,” he told them.

“I just need to get my purse,” the wife said and went into the bedroom.

She got her bag and hurried back into the room.

“Mr. Lentz sends you his regards,” the husband said.

“What did you just—” Lambert began but was cut short when the wife pulled a Beretta 93R machine pistol with a barrel suppressor from her purse and emptied its twenty-round mag into his head and back at point-blank range.

Day 22

K
ennedy poured another mini bottle
of Jim Beam into a plastic cup in his room at the JFK Sheraton and ignored the incessantly vibrating Red Carpet satellite phone on the dresser. He sat in a worn vinyl chair, fully dressed, with his packed luggage on the bed. It was 4:30
A.M.
and nightmarish flashes of Tad Monty's cronies, blood gushing out of their ruined heads, were playing on repeat in his mind. Kennedy had seen dead people, but even in Tel Aviv he had never seen anyone killed right in front of him, close enough to touch. The way their eyes bulged and rolled back as their bodies crumpled like marionettes clipped from strings would haunt him for the rest of his life.

“This is the job,” Kennedy said out loud and drained the cup.

He went for another bottle from the minibar and stopped himself.

“But this is not me,” he said. “Time to go home.”

He grabbed his bags and walked out, leaving the sat phone on the dresser.

There was a 7:00
A.M.
flight back to Los Angeles out of Newark, and Kennedy was going to be on it. Alia could keep her money and hero scout badges. The spectrum of potential consequences, he knew, started at grim and ended with catastrophic. There was a real chance they would kill him before they would let him walk away. He had seen damning things. And after all, he would not be missed. On the other hand, they could
easily implicate him in the two TSA agents' deaths—what would probably amount to a capital murder case in federal court—so that might be enough to leverage him to keep his mouth shut. In any case, it didn't matter. Death, or even imprisonment, was far less daunting than having a front-row seat to another business-as-usual CIA snuff job.

Newark Airport was quiet when Kennedy arrived at 6:00
A.M.
He had purchased first class so he could go through priority check-in. He passed the ID checkpoint without incident and cleared the millimeter wave body scanner. But the luggage-scanning agent asked him for a bag check and then took her sweet time swabbing his carry-on and briefcase for bomb materials. After she inserted the swabs into the machine for analysis, her demeanor of routine-induced boredom turned to one of suspicion. She stared for an uncomfortably long moment at the analysis screen.

“Sir, I'm going to need you to come with me for an additional luggage screening.”

Kennedy knew that meant the bag had tested positive for chemical residue, which made no sense.

“Is there a problem?”

“This machine isn't giving me an accurate readout so we'll need to try another.”

She signaled her supervisor, who walked over and looked at the scanner screen. Kennedy tried to relax. If he missed the flight, it would give Juarez time to track him to Newark. He just needed to stay cool and cooperate to avoid delays.

“Could you please come with me, sir?” the supervisor asked firmly.

Kennedy nodded and the supervisor led him through a door with a keypad entry, then down a long, blinding-white fluorescent hallway. Two male agents came around the corner from an adjoining hallway and greeted them. Kennedy could tell they were armed.

“Hello,” one of them said in an overly friendly way.

“Hi,” Kennedy replied amiably, knowing they would be looking for all the things he trained TSOs to look for—agitation, dilated pupils, heavy perspiration, nervous affect. He'd been up all night and was sweating Jim Beam, so trying to appear “normal” was taking every ounce of composure he had left.

“Thanks so much for your cooperation. If you'll come with us, we'll get this sorted out.”

“May I ask what needs to be sorted out?”

“Agent Hickman's equipment is a little glitchy today, so we're going to analyze it with another machine and get you on your way,” he reassured, nodding at Hickman to leave, which she did quietly.

The other male agent said nothing and took the bags as the three of them walked down the hall and into a room with what Kennedy recognized as sophisticated bomb detection scanning equipment. While the silent agent analyzed the bags, the other agent continued their friendly chat.

“Where you off to today?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Great. Love it there. Business or pleasure?”

“I live there.”

“Lucky you.”

The other agent walked over and handed Mr. Friendly a paper. Mr. Friendly stopped being Mr. Friendly and Kennedy's heart sank. This was the room where they weeded out the false positives. At that moment, he was clearly a positive, and if Kennedy had been advising these agents, he would have told them to take him into custody.

“Will you excuse us for a moment?”

Kennedy nodded, his face feeling numb. What the fuck was happening? It was impossible that his bag had explosives residue on it. It had been in his possession the entire time they were working the airports. He never checked it, and Juarez and his team had never asked him to carry anything. Juarez and his team . . . It had to be them. They were already onto him. That was the only explanation. And if the police came to take him into custody, they would not be police officers.

They would be a CIA cleanup crew.

T
he door opened to the
Draconian TSA interview room and Kennedy was surprised to see Alia walk in, carrying his luggage. A look of contempt had frozen over her usual warm smile as she sat across from him and handed him the carry-on and briefcase.

“Good-bye,” she said without feeling.

“You went to all this trouble to say good-bye?”

“What trouble?”

“Bomb chemicals on my luggage?”

“I was going to send Juarez to debrief you, but I wanted to see this for myself.”

“See what?”

“You turning tail. I must admit, I'm surprised.”

“Turning tail?”

“Yes, isn't that what you're doing?”

“I'm quitting because I didn't sign up for—”

“I'm aware of
why
you're quitting. You've made that obvious. It's the act of quitting itself that has me puzzled.”