with a disconcerting regularity. One day some group was an ally, the next it was a sworn enemy.
The CIA had advocated airstrikes against the Assad regime in Syria, which would bolster the Sunni jihadists there, and then a few months later, they’d advocated airstrikes against the same Sunni jihadists to bolster the Shia regime in Iraq, and he couldn’t imagine living his life in that way. Then there was Dan Crane, of course, the man who’d been saved by his father and had helped him find the secretary. The guy was a walking contradiction, too.
Thinking this he headed out of his second-storey bedroom and down the staircase without turning on the lights. Reaching his study he couldn’t remember where he’d left his small recording device. To the world, it was a fountain pen. Sam, his veteran DS driver, had told him once that when he had to meet with the CIA or Homeland Security he should tape it. Given that this meet had something to do with his father he felt it was doubly important.
He flipped the light switch. The sudden brightness had caused his tropical fish to dart for cover. The huge tank, which lined the fourth wall, appeared to be empty. It could be a full twenty minutes before they emerged from the encrusted rock formations and clumps of green plants, and begin to swim in the open again, circling the miniature Doric columns. They were timid souls, Tom thought; or perhaps paranoiac ones, like him. Not a bad trait for a fish in a tank to have. He scribbled a note for the lady cleaner to change the water and put in a fresh delayed feeder.
He got a text message, a world security update from the DS’s counterterrorism unit.
Truck bomb kills thirty-four in Ankara. Two American casualties.
Chapter 17
It was only a twenty minute journey to Fairfax County, Virginia. Tom was driving his Buick, the streets deserted but well lit. The CIA HQ was known as Langley after the unincorporated community it was situated in a few miles west of DC. But it had been called the George Bush Center for Intelligence since 1999, a compound consisting of a couple of major linked buildings set in two hundred and fifty-eight acres of land.
After passing through the high-level security checkpoint, Tom parked his Buick in the visitors’ car lot and walked to the entrance of the New Headquarters Building, or NHB. It was a chilly early morning, dawn still hours away. He passed the “Kyptos” sculpture, which ran from the entrance to the north-west corner of the courtyard, a massive S-shaped copper screen containing numerous coded messages, and felt his sense of unease heighten.
The single-storey section of the compound was flanked by two marble pillars, the glass facade on either side bathed in a yellowish glow from the security lights. Atop the pillars, an elongated, curved glass roof gave it the appearance of a modern art museum, rather than the most sophisticated intelligence hub on earth. The NHB, completed in 1991, was characterized by two, six-storey office blocks and was situated on a hill behind the well-known Old Headquarters Building, with its iconic CIA seal in the entrance lobby.
After being processed by internal security and given a laminated visitor’s badge, Tom entered the lobby area of the NHB, which was dotted with commemorative plaques and an impressive collection of donated statues. The four-storey glass atrium between the two tower blocks had three model drones suspended overhead. They were beetle-black and would ensure that visitors were left in no doubt that what went on here was deadly serious, Tom thought.
The main entrance to the NHB was on the fourth floor of one of the blocks, with an impressive skylight ceiling. Tom stepped out of an elevator into the corridor. At the end, he could see the still well-lit structure of the Old Headquarters Building, integrated by a network of further corridors, the wall space broken up by hung works of abstract art of the Washington Color School.
Before he could be
The CIA had advocated airstrikes against the Assad regime in Syria, which would bolster the Sunni jihadists there, and then a few months later, they’d advocated airstrikes against the same Sunni jihadists to bolster the Shia regime in Iraq, and he couldn’t imagine living his life in that way. Then there was Dan Crane, of course, the man who’d been saved by his father and had helped him find the secretary. The guy was a walking contradiction, too.
Thinking this he headed out of his second-storey bedroom and down the staircase without turning on the lights. Reaching his study he couldn’t remember where he’d left his small recording device. To the world, it was a fountain pen. Sam, his veteran DS driver, had told him once that when he had to meet with the CIA or Homeland Security he should tape it. Given that this meet had something to do with his father he felt it was doubly important.
He flipped the light switch. The sudden brightness had caused his tropical fish to dart for cover. The huge tank, which lined the fourth wall, appeared to be empty. It could be a full twenty minutes before they emerged from the encrusted rock formations and clumps of green plants, and begin to swim in the open again, circling the miniature Doric columns. They were timid souls, Tom thought; or perhaps paranoiac ones, like him. Not a bad trait for a fish in a tank to have. He scribbled a note for the lady cleaner to change the water and put in a fresh delayed feeder.
He got a text message, a world security update from the DS’s counterterrorism unit.
Truck bomb kills thirty-four in Ankara. Two American casualties.
Chapter 17
It was only a twenty minute journey to Fairfax County, Virginia. Tom was driving his Buick, the streets deserted but well lit. The CIA HQ was known as Langley after the unincorporated community it was situated in a few miles west of DC. But it had been called the George Bush Center for Intelligence since 1999, a compound consisting of a couple of major linked buildings set in two hundred and fifty-eight acres of land.
After passing through the high-level security checkpoint, Tom parked his Buick in the visitors’ car lot and walked to the entrance of the New Headquarters Building, or NHB. It was a chilly early morning, dawn still hours away. He passed the “Kyptos” sculpture, which ran from the entrance to the north-west corner of the courtyard, a massive S-shaped copper screen containing numerous coded messages, and felt his sense of unease heighten.
The single-storey section of the compound was flanked by two marble pillars, the glass facade on either side bathed in a yellowish glow from the security lights. Atop the pillars, an elongated, curved glass roof gave it the appearance of a modern art museum, rather than the most sophisticated intelligence hub on earth. The NHB, completed in 1991, was characterized by two, six-storey office blocks and was situated on a hill behind the well-known Old Headquarters Building, with its iconic CIA seal in the entrance lobby.
After being processed by internal security and given a laminated visitor’s badge, Tom entered the lobby area of the NHB, which was dotted with commemorative plaques and an impressive collection of donated statues. The four-storey glass atrium between the two tower blocks had three model drones suspended overhead. They were beetle-black and would ensure that visitors were left in no doubt that what went on here was deadly serious, Tom thought.
The main entrance to the NHB was on the fourth floor of one of the blocks, with an impressive skylight ceiling. Tom stepped out of an elevator into the corridor. At the end, he could see the still well-lit structure of the Old Headquarters Building, integrated by a network of further corridors, the wall space broken up by hung works of abstract art of the Washington Color School.
Before he could be
Similar Books
