"He's fine. He had his hip replaced when you were over in Afghanistan." O'Brien checked his watch. "He's expecting you. Drop me back at the main door. Oh, and one other thing. The Intelligence Committee wants someone up there at two. I'm sending you."

"Come on..."

O'Brien looked at him sideways. "Are you done pissing and moaning, Major?"

Nash knew the use of his Marine Corps rank was intended to remind him that a chain of command was still in place. "Yes."

"Good. And no arguing when you get in front of the committee. Keep your temper in check. Don't give them a reason to hate you any more than they already do."

CHAPTER 26

TRIPLE FRONTIER.

THE men moved into their final positions thirty minutes before the assault was to begin. So far the morning had gone according to plan. The noises of the jungle masked their movement. Exotic birds sang and chirped, rodents scurried and scratched and a whole host of things living in the trees made the most bizarre noises of all. After more than six months, Karim was finally used to it. Maybe he would miss this place after all. As if on cue, a mosquito landed on his exposed wrist and began drawing blood. No, No, Karim decided, Karim decided, I will not miss this place I will not miss this place.

After breakfast, which consisted of energy bars and some salty peanuts, he'd given them one more chance to pray. No one complained about the food. They'd grown used to it. They'd packed four days of light rations, just in case something went wrong. Water was the main thing, though. They had plenty of that and purification tablets if they ran out. After breakfast they did a weapons check, and then Karim spent a moment with each man, asking him to recite his duties for the raid. All seven knew what was expected of them.

The planning session the night before had been brief. They were, after all, using the same plan they had already practiced several months earlier. It was a variation on a simple L-shaped ambush. Technically, it was a raid, since they were attacking a fixed position, but the men kept referring to it as an ambush, and Karim saw no sense in correcting them. It was fairly straightforward, with the assault force of four men providing direct fire, and the support force of three providing indirect fire. The only real deviation he made was to position Ahmed three hundred meters down the runway and slightly up the rise, so he could provide cover with his long rifle should anything unexpected occur. He didn't like the idea of retreating, at least not here, for it meant failure, and if they couldn't execute this simple plan, maybe they deserved to die here in this inhospitable place.

As Karim looked through his Trijicon Reflex Sight he wondered yet again if this would really be a test or simply a slaughter. If it went according to plan it would be the latter, and Karim saw no reason why it wouldn't. He was far more nervous about the other part of his plan - the one involving their transportation. It was by far the biggest risk he was taking. There would be dozens of assets waiting for him to make his journey to Mexico City, and he was about to not only disappoint them, but not even tell them what he was up to. Karim had decided the organization had been penetrated and he had neither the time nor the assets to figure out where. The choice was actually simple. Just disconnect himself from the entire organization. The al-Qaeda leadership would have to learn of his exploits in the paper.

With his camouflage-striped M-4 carbine leveled, he looked through the sight at the bunkhouse, a mere thirty meters away. He had one man on his right and two more to his left. They were spaced five meters apart; each man lying on his belly at the edge of the jungle. They'd all applied black and green face paint for the assault. With their camouflage uniforms and floppy hats they were all but impossible to see, even in broad daylight.

The bunkhouse was almost identical to the one they had lived in for months. It was elevated a meter or so off the ground and covered with screens along the sides. The big difference was that these men had sheets along the perimeter of the sleeping area so they could block out the sun. Karim never allowed his men the luxury. They awoke when the sun rose and slept when it went down. Just as Karim had figured, it was almost nine and still no one had emerged to do any work.

He'd figured this thing would go down one of two ways. The first was that they would riddle the bunkhouse with bullets while the men slept. He was hoping it wouldn't come to that. He'd spent the better part of a year teaching these men to carefully pick their targets. To have them simply hose down a building blindly was beneath them. He'd considered planting a bomb under the structure, but he had to balance that against his desire to keep things quiet. Not that he expected anyone to stumble upon them or come to the aid of the drug runners. He didn't, but he wanted this first engagement to be as perfect as possible. He wanted it to last no more than twenty seconds, and he wanted it to be totally silent.

That was the interesting thing about guns. For those who had never experienced combat, the loud report of a rifle did funny things to the body. Time would stop, fear would grip the brain, and the body would be stuck in a moment of limbo that was usually followed by panic. To those who were used to the noise, though, the reaction to gunfire was instantaneous. Find the source and return fire, and good soldiers could do it within seconds. Karim wasn't going to give them that chance. He was going to draw them out. The plane would fly over once at nine, buzzing the strip. He was confident that would wake the men from their slumber and draw them outside. With or without guns, it did not matter. Their attention would be directed skyward. They would never notice the four men concealed to their right or the other three behind them.

At ten minutes before the hour, Karim heard someone stirring within the bunkhouse. A moment later a man appeared. He stumbled down the wood steps and relieved himself right there next to the building. When he was done he walked over to the well and stuck his head under the faucet. After he'd doused most of his face and upper body with cold water, he stumbled over to the open-air warehouse where they stored their drugs. He disappeared between two pallets of neatly wrapped cocaine and then reappeared a moment later, wiping the white powder from his nose. He moved around the other side of the building and Karim lost sight of him. A short while later, he heard a churning noise. It was very mechanical. Suddenly, there was a loud rumble and a plume of dark smoke belched into the air. Then came the unmistakable rumble of a diesel engine revving. It was the tractor.

Karim's thoughts lurched backward to the previous evening. It had been Ahmed - no, that was not right, it was Fazul who had mentioned it. They were talking about how lazy these men were and that it was a rarity to see anyone emerge from the bunkhouse before noon. Fazul said that on one occasion he had seen a man grading the runway with the tractor well before noon. The conversation quickly moved in a different direction. Karim was now struck with the horrible visual of the plane turning away because the tractor was blocking the runway.

The gears ground together and a howling clutch shattered the calm morning air. All of this racket would undoubtedly wake the others. Karim thought of them stumbling out of the bunkhouse one at a time, spreading themselves around the compound. He couldn't allow it. He needed to keep them together. If they spread out, things would get very complicated.

The tractor lurched into view. Karim moved his rifle to the right and put the red dot of his sight on the man's head. He was approximately eighty meters away. Karim had the shot. He knew no one else would take it unless he ordered them to do so. He had been specific about that, "No one shoots until I give the word."

The soft pad of Karim's right index finger moved onto the curve of the trigger. He began to increase the pressure and then thought of a better solution. Each man was wearing a headset that was plugged into a digital radio. Before heading out this morning they had all placed them in transmit mode and checked to make sure they were working. "Ahmed," Karim whispered into his thin mouthpiece.

"I see him."

"Do you have a shot?"

"Yes."

"When he gets to the runway, before he makes his turn, shoot him in the head."

"Yes, sir."

Karim had no illusion that the man would keep his foot on the gas after he was hit. He wouldn't. The silenced Heckler & Koch PSG-1 would fire the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge and would likely separate the man from the tractor in a very violent way. Karim was hoping the momentum of the tractor would carry the vehicle clear to the other side of the runway. If not, they would have to move it themselves.

As Karim was watching the tractor through his sight, he was startled by the loud noise of a screen door slamming shut. Not wanting to move the rifle, he slowly lifted his head from behind the sight and scanned to the left. There, standing at the base of the steps, was a second man wearing nothing more than a pair of dirty white underwear. He was facing Karim, underpants pulled down, eyes closed, holding his pecker in his hand, relieving himself. His eyes suddenly opened, and for a moment he seemed to stare right at Karim's position. Then his head snapped around and craned skyward.

It took Karim a second to realize that the man must be looking at an incoming plane. Surrounded by the thick undergrowth, Karim had yet to hear the plane, but he knew it had to be what the man was looking at. The man began barking orders in Spanish and darted back into the bunkhouse before Karim could make a decision. A moment later the man reappeared, this time in a pair of jeans, a rifle in one hand and a T-shirt in the other.

The man took a dozen long strides toward the warehouse and then stopped. Karim could hear the plane now. Based on how loud it sounded he guessed it was nearing the far end of the runway. Karim didn't like the fact that the man was moving away from the bunkhouse, but the situation was still manageable. Then unexpectedly the man raised his rifle and aimed it down the length of the runway. At that same moment the screen door slammed again. Karim didn't bother to see who or how many men just left the bunkhouse. The thought of the man firing on the plane forced his hand.

Karim maneuvered the red dot onto the man's head and kept both eyes open. He didn't wait for the man to fire his weapon. He knew it would cause the others to grab their own rifles and come running out, possibly more alert and ready to fire. This thing had played itself out as far as he was willing to let it go. It was time to abandon the perfect plan and get to the killing.

Karim was a good shot, one of those guys who didn't have to put a lot of thought into it. The technology helped, of course. More and more it was like a video game. Put the red dot on the person and squeeze the trigger. Never pull it, always squeeze. Don't make it more difficult than you need to. He placed the dot directly in the center of the back of the target's head and put a smooth, even squeeze on the trigger. The .233 round spat from the end of the silencer. The weapon jumped an inch and then the big square viewfinder came back to level, just in time to see a cloud of pink mist erupt from the man's head.

"Fire," Karim said, as he moved his rifle back toward the bunkhouse. Just as he was putting his next target in the crosshairs the man went down. At the same time the plane screamed in low overhead. With both eyes open, Karim saw there were two more men, but by the time he could get to either of them they were both taken care of. By his own count five men were outside and that left two more inside. As per the plan, the men switched to fully automatic and began pumping rounds into the bunkhouse. Karim expended his first thirty-round magazine and moved to reload. That was when he noticed someone screaming from inside the bunkhouse.

Without hesitation Karim chambered a fresh round and stood so he could shoot level with the floor of the bunkhouse. The other seven men did the same. They marched out of the jungle, closing in from two sides until they were no more than ten meters from the structure. Karim burned through another magazine and paused to look at his men. They were firing away, sweeping their rifles back and forth, taking care of their assigned areas. He was proud of their discipline. Two perfect skirmish lines doing exactly as he had told them. The opponent may have been weak, but his men had performed exactly as instructed. He felt great pride in how far they had come, and allowed himself for one brief moment to think of the legendary status he would obtain after he had struck at the heart of America.

CHAPTER 27

BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL.

NASH caught the tail end of rush hour as he crossed the Chain Bridge. The Little Falls to the north wasn't so little. Heavy spring rains had the Potomac as swollen as he'd seen it in years. For all of the things that were wrong with Washington the vistas were not one of them. Nash rolled down his window and listened to the roar of the rapids. His headache eased a bit. When he reached the far bank his thoughts turned to Stan Hurley. The man was everything that epitomized the old CIA. An outsider might think it odd that Hurley, at seventy-eight, and officially retired from Langley for nearly thirty years, was on the mind of the CIA's director on this media-crazed morning.

For those who knew Hurley, however, it was far less a surprise that Kennedy had ordered Nash to go see the old man. In the business world, there is a top cadre of lawyers that high-powered people turn to when they get in trouble. These lawyers are experts at manipulating the system, and working behind the scenes to make their clients' problems simply go away. In the insular world of espionage, Stan Hurley was such a man. Brave, brash, and although one would never know by his appearance, fabulously wealthy. Unlike those high-powered lawyers, though, Hurley was as rough as a street fighter from the South Side of Philly.

He was a man who could, with a simple expression, send a chill down your spine, or bring a tear to your eye. There was no one else quite like him. Nash supposed Rapp was the closest thing he'd ever encountered, but Rapp was more of a single-minded force of talent and sheer determination. Hurley was whatever the situation dictated. He was a magician, an entertainer, a philosopher, an assassin, and a man with passions that at times could seem insatiable. He was without question the most colorful person Nash had ever met. He somehow always found a way to bring out in you the things you least wanted to discuss. This was both his gift and his curse. He forced you to confront your problems.

As Nash worked his way through the District toward Maryland, he asked himself what it was that Kennedy felt Hurley could do to solve his crisis. He either knew something that could help him out, or he had an idea that would more than likely keep him awake at night. That was another thing about Hurley. He was old-school and was not above using the most unsavory tactics to win his battles.

Hurley made him nervous and Nash wasn't afraid to admit it. It wasn't that he didn't like the man. He absolutely did. His wife adored him, his kids got a kick out him, and Nash himself couldn't help revering some of the man's accomplishments in the world of espionage. But the two men had chosen significantly different paths in life. Nash didn't like the fact that, with everything that was going on this morning, Kennedy wanted him to see Hurley. Hurley was the emergency brake. The ejection handle. The guy they went to when the options were slim and the problem was big.

It could be that Kennedy was losing her nerve, or, more accurately, her calm. There was no denying the fact that she had changed since the attack on her motorcade in Iraq the previous fall. She had been an extremely intelligent and capable boss who under the right circumstances might crack a smile, but would never under any circumstances show anger. Her patience, more than anything else, had amazed him. She was surrounded by passionate field operatives like himself, O'Brien, Ridley, and Rapp. Cowboys who were not afraid to speak their minds in a very forceful and sometimes uncouth manner. Even with all the big egos and big dicks speaking their minds, she'd keep her cool.

Things had changed since the abduction, though. She was far more prone to letting her displeasure be known, and her hallmark patience was all but gone. The thing that worried Nash the most was her new aggressive behavior. For years Nash and Rapp had been pushing for bolder operations. It was Kennedy who challenged their every idea and dissected their every move. She would patiently listen to their often harebrained schemes and then methodically shred their plans and expose the myriad of pitfalls. Her constant pushback made them sharper and their plans better. The ones that truly sucked never got off the ground, thanks to Kennedy's ability to extrapolate - to look at things from every conceivable angle and project them to the end.

Those days seemed to be gone. She was no longer challenging them. Nash feared that the war had gotten personal for her, and in her zeal to take the fight to the enemy, she was making careless decisions. Things were out of balance, and Nash couldn't shake the feeling that some eight-hundred-pound gorilla was about to jump all over him. He'd seen far too many good men and women get caught in Washington's incessant political cross fire. Real lives and national security were trashed for political and personal gain, and it was never pretty.

Nash pulled up to the main gate at the National Naval Medical Center and flashed his government badge. The guard signed him in and waved him through. After parking in the visitors' lot, Nash began what ended up being a twenty-minute search for a seventy-eight-year-old man who was supposedly laid up after his surgery. Nash eventually found him sitting in a wheelchair under a shady tree with a well-fed nurse fawning over him.

Nash's first observation was that the two looked a little too cozy. As he approached, he saw Hurley reach out and place his hand on the nurse's ample upper thigh. The nurse playfully slapped his hand away and started giggling.

Anyone else, Nash might have been surprised, or thought he was reading more into it than was wise, but not with Hurley. The man was a legendary pussy hound. He loved women and he loved to chase them. Eight feet away Nash stopped and cleared his throat. "I hope I'm not interrupting something."

D.C. had thousands of federal law enforcement officers who worked for everyone from the FBI to the U.S. Postal Service. Many of them fit a pretty basic description. Short hair, athletic build, dark, boxy suit, and bulges on each hip - one from mobile phones and the other from a government-issue sidearm. Mike Nash fit the bill perfectly.

Nash watched the nurse blush and said, "Miss, do you know you are associating with a known felon?"

Hurley roared with laughter. "Beatrice, darlin', don't listen to a word this moron has to say. Based on what I read in the paper today, I'm not the one who has to worry about going to jail. Now, honey, why don't you run along and give me a few minutes alone with my friend here. But don't go far, I want to be able to keep an eye on you. I don't want you flirtin' with any other patients."

"Oh..." She slapped him on his good leg. "You are just horrible." The nurse stood and retreated up the path.

"Wait till you get me in bed," Hurley said under his breath. "Then you'll see that I'm downright nasty."

The nurse looked back over her shoulder and asked, "Did you say something?"

"No, darlin'. I was just admiring that gorgeous figure of yours."

Nash unbuttoned his jacket and looked at the nurse's pear-shaped butt. She had to weigh as much as Hurley, if not more. "You are unbelievable."

"Use it or lose it, buddy."

"Yeah, right." Nash sat down on the bench. His shoulders slouched.

Hurley looked at him with the eyes of someone who'd spend a life studying people. "Everything all right with Maggie and the kids?"

Oh fuck, Nash thought to himself. Nash thought to himself. Here we go. Here we go. He was afraid to look the old spook in the eyes. There were times like now when he'd swear the man was a mind reader. "Sure... everything's great. They love the fact that they've seen me for a total of about eight hours in the last two weeks." He was afraid to look the old spook in the eyes. There were times like now when he'd swear the man was a mind reader. "Sure... everything's great. They love the fact that they've seen me for a total of about eight hours in the last two weeks."

Hurley grabbed a mobile phone out of his robe pocket and pressed a few buttons. The device was equipped with anti-eavesdropping measures to frustrate anyone who might try to listen in on their conversation. "What's going on?"

"You know how it is. I'm flying all over the place, and when I'm not flying and I'm supposed to be with them the damn phone is ringing."

"It's not easy. I fucked up three marriages. Two kids talk to me... three don't."

"And then there's all the ones you don't know about."

Hurley nodded. "And then there's those. Shit, I bet I got another half dozen running around."

"At least."

"Who knows?" Hurley got a faraway look in his clear hazel eyes. "God, I had a lot of fun. That's one thing I can never complain about. I bet I bagged more ass than any spy in the history of the country."

"I bet any country. I'm amazed your pecker hasn't fallen off."

"Speaking of peckers... is everything okay between the sheets?"

The question caught Nash so off guard he was unable to play it off as nothing. His brain raced off in multiple directions wondering in quick succession; how Hurley could know, was it a lucky guess, did Maggie talk, or was his house bugged? His job was more conducive to fits of paranoia than perhaps any other occupation in the world, and now it had caused his brain to freeze half a second too long. Just long enough for Hurley to notice.

"Kid," the old spook said in a sad voice, "once you stop sleeping with each other, you're screwed."

"Okay, Yogi."

Hurley scooted forward, ignoring the reference to the great Yankees catcher and all of his upside-down sayings. "Kid," he said, "take those glasses off."

"Why?"

"Because I want to look you in the eyes."

Nash reluctantly took off his glasses.

"You've got the weight of this damn ungrateful country on your shoulders. I know because I've been there."

"You're still there."

"Not anymore. Shit, I was never in as deep as you are. Back in the day I could count on any one of a couple dozen senators and a good fifty congressmen to support what I was doing. And by support I mean a lot more than money. They understood that we had to operate in the shadows. That we were going to get our hands dirty and occasionally shit was going to blow up in our face. This new generation..." Hurley shook his head. "They're worthless."

"You're not going to get an argument from me."

"This shit festers. It all gets thrown into the pot whether you want it there or not. It's your own little personal goulash. You might not think one thing is going to affect another, but listen to me when I tell you it does."

"Yeah... I know."

"So tell me," Hurley said with genuine concern, "what's wrong with you and Maggie?"

"I didn't come out here to talk about my marriage."

"I know you didn't, but right now you're one of my starting pitchers and I need you to get your head screwed on."

"My arm feels great."

"Bullshit. I spoke with Irene before you got here."

"So?"

"She told me you lost your cool in front of Glen Adams."

"Big deal."

"She said Adams already filed an official complaint claiming that you physically assaulted him."

"All I did was grab him by the arm."

"You need to act like a professional. Especially around clowns like Adams."

Nash looked across the lawn and nodded. "Message received. What else?"

"I called Maggie."

"You called my wife?" Nash said in shocked voice.