Full Black - Brad Thor [36]
“I understand.”
“Just in case,” Standing asserted, “let me be perfectly clear. If I start smelling smoke, I am going to be very upset.”
“Believe me, I’m just as upset as you are.”
“Then get this handled. Immediately.”
“I’m working on it,” replied Ashford.
“You’ll want to do better than that,” said Standing. “This one could have a very big impact on your career.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Check the box,” ordered the billionaire who then terminated the call.
The box referred to the email account Ashford and Standing shared. It was an additional form of clandestine communication that allowed them to communicate without actually sending any messages over the web. They conversed by leaving messages for each other in the account’s draft folder.
Rising up from the conference table, Robert Ashford walked to his desk and sat down in front of his computer to log in through a cleansed, difficult-to-track server on the Isle of Man. He knew that whatever was waiting in the draft folder wouldn’t be good news. When he opened the message from Standing he immediately realized how much trouble he was in.
He had been careful, but apparently not careful enough. He scrolled through picture after picture of himself in Yemen. They showed him arriving at the apartment building and then atop the roof unpacking the RPG.
The very last picture in the series turned out not to be a picture at all, but a video. Though he knew what that would show as well, he still clicked on it. Instantly, he was sorry he had.
The video showed Ashford firing the RPG and then leaving the building, but several minutes of footage followed. It focused on the carnage the RPG had wrought: the twisted wreckage of the burning car that had been targeted, as well as the dead, dying, and wounded in the street. Before the video ended, it panned the café across from where the car had been parked. There, Robert Ashford saw a quick glimpse of a non-Arab face and knew exactly who it was.
It was the man who had captured Aazim Aleem, had stuffed him in the trunk of that white Toyota Corolla, and had driven him to the café to be given up to the CIA. The threat from Standing left no room for confusion.
Ashford’s migraine flared. He reached into his desk drawer for the bottle of painkillers, but then stopped. He’d have to work through the pain. He couldn’t afford to have his brain muddled.
He’d made a mistake trusting Standing. Actually, that wasn’t correct. He had never truly trusted the billionaire. He’d trusted their commitment to a shared cause, but he shouldn’t have overlooked Standing’s self-preservation instinct.
Ashford leaned back in his chair, shut his eyes, and massaged his temples with the heels of his hands. He was in a dangerous box and would have to chart a very careful course. Injecting Scot Harvath, the man from the café, into the game had just raised the stakes to a new level.
CHAPTER 18
SWEDEN
Harvath knew the Old Man was right. He was always right. Sightseeing was for tourists, not for counterterrorism operatives. They needed to get off the X, as it was called, as soon as possible.
The operation had been designed to last only a matter of hours, twenty-four, tops, and no more. Because of how vulnerable Chase would be, the insertion had been done completely clean. There were no follow cars and he wasn’t carrying any weapons or tracking devices. The assignment was incredibly dangerous. No one wanted to add to the jeopardy he was already in by throwing another ingredient into the mix that could get him killed. If anything happened to him, the Agency would devote its full attention to driving a stake through the Carlton Group’s heart.
Ever since the Old Man had started his organization, the powers that be at Langley had wanted it shut down. The Carlton Group was doing everything the Agency claimed couldn’t be done, and doing it better, faster, cheaper, and often a lot more quietly.
It upset the CIA to no end that the Old Man had sucked up a lot of their talent and