The Assassin by Andrew Britton Page B

oversight on HUMINT and counter-intelligence as well. I do get called to those hearings, John. She could have made things hard for us more than once, especially after what happened last year, but she cut us some slack. That’s why I went along so easily when she was nominated. When you get to the top, you have to pick your battles.”
    “I had wondered about that.”
    Andrews nodded again. “She’s like me… still hitting her stride. This thing with Kealey… I think it bothers her because it could cause us some serious problems. She’s not just being malicious, and she’s right about Kassem. He can’t be allowed to talk.”
    Harper’s gaze drifted to the windows on the west side of the room. Weak light broke against heavy clouds, the melancholy end to a dreary day. “I’ll give Ryan the word once he checks in,” he finally said. “As for Ford… I’ll try to cut her a break, but with Vanderveen active again, we can’t afford to lose Kealey over internal dissent.”
    “I’ll talk to her… She’ll come around. Where do we go from here?”
    “It’s like I said; we have to wait and see if Kassem gives us anything useful. Kharmai’s flying into Dulles tomorrow with a diplomatic courier. Once we have the tape, we’ll get the voiceprint verified on our own equipment. Unfortunately, I think we’ll find that the Brits were right.”
    “Wouldn’t surprise me,” Andrews said. “You know, I already briefed the president, John. He wants to keep Vanderveen’s reappearance under wraps. Nobody gets to know, not even the Bureau.”
    “What about Kharmai’s friend in the Ministry of Defence?”
    “She had to be hushed up, of course. Brenneman placed a call to Ten Downing Street while I was in the room, and the prime minister agreed to keep it quiet.”
    “For how long?” Harper asked. “Until after the election, I should imagine.”
    Andrews addressed the obvious sarcasm. “John, it’s all politics. You know that. The last thing the president needs right now is Vanderveen’s face back in the spotlight. The public would go crazy. Of course, the escalating situation in Iraq isn’t helping, either, so we’ll have to see how it plays out.”
    The DCI fell silent for a moment as he finished his drink. “I noticed that you left something out when you told Rachel about what happened in Maine.”
    Harper shrugged. “She can read about it if she wants to; it’s all on record. It doesn’t really matter, anyway.”
    “It matters to Ryan. What do you think he’ll do? I mean, when he finds out about Vanderveen…”
    “I don’t know,” Harper brooded. He drained his glass and stared out at the flat sky. “I just don’t know.”
     
     
    At that precise moment, Ryan Kealey was standing outside an abandoned, crumbling stone house three miles north of Amiriya, a small town situated on the northern banks of the Euphrates. It was a rural area; the closest house could be seen to the west, a gray smudge barely discernable in the dawn light. A rucksack containing a Raytheon AN/PSC-5 satellite radio rested on the ground a few feet away, next to a 20-liter can of kerosene. The radio was still packed away; he had not bothered to set up the collapsible dish, and the proper frequencies had not been loaded into the base unit. As a result, he was unaware of the decisions that had been made in Langley. He didn’t know that what he was about to do had already been cleared, but in truth, he wouldn’t have cared either way. In his mind, he had already decided that Arshad Kassem was going to die. The man had betrayed the Agency’s trust, which, in itself, was not surprising — Kealey would have called it inevitable — but more than that, he had actively worked to procure weapons for the insurgency. Kealey had learned this and a good deal more over the last eighteen hours.
    After his seemingly impromptu actions back in Fallujah, his return to the marine base east of the city had not been well received. Owen had vowed