The Kill Zone by David Hagberg

Roland.”
    â€œNone taken, Mr. President.”
    â€œI need a career intelligence officer at the helm. A man who knows the Agency, what it can and can’t do from the ground floor up.”
    â€œI was a shooter,” McGarvey said, no apology in his voice.
    â€œDid you ever shoot at anybody in your military career?” the President asked Murphy.
    â€œYes, as a tank commander.”
    â€œWith the intent to kill?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWe’re in trouble right now and you know it.” The President turned back to McGarvey. “Besides fighting terrorists, Pakistan has gone back to its old tricks. They’re on the verge of developing a thermonuclear device that could be strapped atop one of their missiles. The PRC is on the verge of a Pearl Harbor attack on Taiwan. Russia is falling apart faster than we thought would happen. All of Lebanon is on fire again. And half of the African continent is slaughtering the other half. I need information. I need it fast. And I need it unvarnished. You’re the only man I know who can do the job the way I want it done, because you’re not afraid to tell the truth no matter how much it hurts.” The President sat back. He’d taken his shot. “I need you to run the CIA. Will you do it?”
    â€œI’ll think about it,” McGarvey said.
    â€œFair enough. When Roland steps down you’ll take over as interim director until you’re confirmed or until you step down.”

    Once an intelligence officer, always an intelligence officer. God help him, but the past couple of months had been interesting.
    â€œThe matter before us today is whether this committee should recommend to the full Senate that it consent to or reject the President’s nomination of Kirk Cullough McGarvey as Director of Central Intelligence.”
    McGarvey took a look at his opening statement, which Paterson had completely rewritten this morning, as Hammond droned on about the procedures for the witnesses, the questions and evidence that could be presented, and the documents that the CIA might be required to turn over. Paterson’s theme was that since the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Pentagon, it was more important than ever for the United States to be well informed about what was going on in the world. There would almost certainly be more attacks on our military installations and ships, and on civilian targets. It proved that we needed a strong intelligence agency. In order to maintain superiority we needed an experienced man at the helm of the CIA. Not the CEO of a major corporation, but a person well versed in the business. Someone who had worked at every level; from field officer in Germany, France, Russia, Hong Kong, Japan and France to deputy director of Operations at headquarters. A loyal American. A man who obviously and repeatedly had placed his own safety and that of his family second to the security of his country. A man young enough to understand the new millennium with all of its technical means to lead the Agency to the next level of excellence.
    Hammond had started on his opening statement, but McGarvey wasn’t really listening. He laid Paterson’s document back on the table. This was not going to be so polite, so neat and tidy as the Agency’s general counsel wanted it to be. The hearings would mirror the real world; they would be down and dirty, contentious, and filled with bullshit because Hammond would tell a version of the truth as he saw it, and McGarvey would tell the committee a sanitized version of the way things really were. It would be like two women at an expensive cocktail party telling each other how good they looked while actually despising one another.
    The other senators on the committee paid no attention to Hammond. They shuffled through their files and notes. The opening hours of these kinds of hearings were usually mild and polite. The real fireworks wouldn’t start