It was Pike Logan, and he had a story to tell. When he was done, George Wolffe had a hard time assimilating all of the information. He homed in on the most drastic.
“Are you telling me you killed two people in Australia? While you’re on vacation?”
“Yes, sir, but that’s not the point. They were targeting Dunkin, and they pulled a gun on me. It was self-defense. Did you hear what I said about Dunkin?”
“Pike, hold on a minute. Yes, I heard about Dunkin, and that you believe he’s being targeted for something that you don’t understand—but you killed two people? If you say it was self-defense, then it was self-defense, but that’s not going to help with a police investigation. Have you thought about that? You need to get the hell out of Australia. Right now. We’ll have to start burning your existence to the ground.”
“That’s exactly what I want. That’s why I’m calling. Can you send the Rock Star bird down here to pick me up? I want to evacuate Dunkin with it. Get him out of the blast radius until we can figure out what’s going on.”
The “Rock Star” aircraft was a Gulfstream 650 that was ostensibly leased by Pike’s company, Grolier Recovery Services, but in reality was owned completely by the Taskforce, which meant it would need release authority from Wolffe to fly to Australia.
While Wolffe thought over the ramifications, Pike continued, “Don’t worry about a police response. I just want to get out of here without going through a commercial airport. I told you the guys were professionals. They cleaned up the mess they left behind. Nobody interceded. It’s Dunkin’s apartment, and he’s not coming back. There will be no police response, unless it’s in China.”
And that got Wolffe’s attention. “China? Why do you say that?”
“The people who are tracking Dunkin—including the two we killed—are Chinese. I’m sure of it.”
“Why?”
“Because the entire team was Asian, and nobody else around this part of the neighborhood has the skills to do what they did. The Japanese could have done it, but they don’t play that way, and it sure as shit wasn’t a team out of Laos. It’s the Chinese.”
“What was Dunkin working on in Australia?”
“I have no idea. Something with artificial intelligence and the F-35.”
Holy shit. Alexander Palmer was right. Even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while.
He said, “What’s your status now?”
“I’m in Sydney. We’re getting a hotel and crashing until Dunkin arrives. Can I get the plane?”
“Yeah. You got the Rock Star bird, but it’s coming with your team. Don’t evacuate. I have to brief the Oversight Council today. You just get your hands on Dunkin and hold fast.”
Chapter 22
Wolffe heard his name called and saw his escort coming down the stairs. The man held out a lanyard with the lowly “V” for visitor badge, and Wolffe put it around his neck. The man said, “Follow me,” and turned without another word, walking back up the stairs. Wolffe fell in behind him, still wondering if he should broach the fact that he’d launched an entire team to Australia.
He’d been given the go-ahead to explore options, and his purpose today was to brief those options for a decision—only he’d already made one. But it was a little late for hand-wringing, because the briefing he’d sent earlier was in black and white. If anyone did any prereading, it was done.
His one saving grace was that it had been forced on him. He didn’t ask the Chinese to attack Pike—hell, he was the one who said the Taskforce shouldn’t be targeted against state systems. The Oversight Council set the ball in motion, not him.
Or so he told himself.
Before he knew it, he was outside a secure door. He saw no Secret Service men, which meant the president wasn’t inside the room. That wasn’t a good sign for Wolffe. President Hannister was one of the few who could look past the politics of an operation and deal solely with the costs and benefits.
The man said, “Electronics?” Wolffe put his cell phone in a cubby and said, “That’s it. My briefing came over JWICS.”
The man pressed a buzzer, and a red light came on over their heads. The door unlocked with an audible buzz, and Wolffe left his escort in the hallway, the man uncleared for what was happening behind the door.
Alexander Palmer greeted him, and Wolffe took a quick appraisal of the room: secretary of state, secretary of defense, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a few private citizens who had been pressed into service to oversee the most volatile organization in the U.S. arsenal.
A fickle bunch, more often than not they’d fallen prey to the optics of an operation instead of the charter they’d been tasked with upholding. But after spending nearly three decades as a paramilitary officer in the CIA, Wolffe was well versed in politics. If Palmer thought he was going to run roughshod over him, he would learn the hard way.
Palmer met him at the door, saying, “So, you’ve developed some plans for China?”
Wolffe started walking to the front of the room, saying, “Yeah, I’ve done a little work. You told me to get a plan in motion. Remember that. This is on you.”
He left Palmer with his mouth open and went to the computer system for his briefing. He booted it up, found the PowerPoint, and turned on the projector.
Without preamble, he said, “Thank you for having me here today. As you know, Project Prometheus actions are highly volatile. We don’t use the project just because we can, and we shouldn’t use it as a crutch when other systems fail to produce. Our charter is substate terrorist groups on the Department of State’s sanctioned list.”
He saw eye rolls and people looking at their watches, not wanting a lecture. He then plunged right in. “Having said that, I was asked to develop options for counteracting Chinese malign influence against our national interests, contradicting the Taskforce charter and—honestly—my own intuition. Before I could complete the analysis, though, a prior member of Prometheus was attacked in Australia by what I believe are Chinese assets. The man in question left us a year ago, and now works for a company that builds the artificial intelligence for the helmets used in the F-35. Because of the extraordinary confluence of events, I’m not here to brief you on options, but about an ongoing operation.”
Nobody was nodding off now. Easton Beau Clute, the chairman of the powerful Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said, “What do you mean?”
And Wolffe told him, succinctly summing up what Pike had stumbled across, ending with his order to send the rest of Pike’s team to Australia under the cover of Grolier Recovery Services, Pike’s company.
Alexander Palmer pinched the bridge of his nose, then said, “Wait, wait, wait. Pike conducted lethal operations in a Five Eyes state? Against China? Without any sanction whatsoever?”
The so-called Five Eyes was the intelligence collaboration of the English-speaking countries of the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the United States. In addition to sharing intelligence with one another, each country had made a formal commitment not to conduct any spying operations inside the other member states. Wolffe knew that by invoking the nickname, Palmer was telling him this was bigger than a simple operation. It was tantamount to breaking an agreement that had been in place since the end of World War II.