Full Black - Brad Thor [82]
To cater to the smokers, he’d built what became known as “the coffin”—a small glass booth, barely big enough for two people, at the far end of the office. It had an intense air-purification system that roared so loudly you could barely hear yourself think.
It wasn’t supposed to be comfortable. There wasn’t even a place to sit down inside. You went in, got your fix, and got out. Strangely enough, no one ever saw the Old Man using the coffin, and it was widely suspected he had had an equally efficient, though much quieter, system placed in his office allowing him to smoke whenever he wanted to.
The other exception to Reed’s Rules of Order had to do with his newest employee, Moonracer. He was an eccentric little man who was also particularly cunning. The Old Man didn’t trust him a single bit.
When it came to bringing Nicholas on board, Carlton had been one hundred percent against it, but Harvath had made a very compelling case and he’d eventually relented once the man had been able to secure his presidential pardon. That didn’t mean that he had changed any of his ways. The Old Man had created a secure area within which Nicholas operated, and within which he could constantly be monitored.
Nicholas had refused to shave his beard and had also insisted that the two enormous white Russian Ovcharkas, or Caucasian Sheepdogs, he owned, which were never away from his side, be allowed to come to work with him. Though Reed Carlton loved dogs, he had refused the request. The little man then claimed they were service animals and hinted at bringing a suit against him for violating the Americans with Disabilities act. The Old Man didn’t know if Nicholas was pulling his leg or if he was actually serious.
Once again, Harvath had stepped in and had lobbied for the dogs, explaining that the Group wouldn’t secure Nicholas’s cooperation unless the dogs were part of the deal. Carlton relented once more. It was obvious that Harvath had appointed himself the little man’s guardian. That point was driven home shortly after Nicholas’s first day on the job.
Because of the man’s physical limitations, a special Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, SCIF for short, had been built for him. A SCIF was an enclosed area within a building used for processing sensitive information. Nicholas’s SCIF was built to his specifications on a raised floor and stuffed full of all the computer equipment and data links he had asked for. As with the other sections of the Carlton Group, Nicholas’s SCIF had been assigned a title based on its function. A white sheet of paper with the words Digital Ops had been printed out and taped to the door.
The next day it had been taken down and replaced with another sign: The Lollipop Guild. When Harvath heard about it, he had hit the roof.
It took him less than fifteen minutes to track down who had done it. And cornering him in the men’s room, it took every ounce of restraint he had for Harvath not to punch the man’s lights out. To his credit, the man didn’t deny that he had posted the sign. In fact, he owned right up to it and launched into what a mistake he felt it was having brought a criminal like Nicholas into their operation.
Harvath didn’t care what the man thought. He told him that if he didn’t stay away from Nicholas, he would put a bullet in his head and dump his body where his family would never find it. Five minutes later, the man was in his supervisor’s office registering a complaint against Harvath. To the supervisor’s credit, he had backed up Harvath and told the man that if he didn’t close his mouth and get back to work, Harvath wouldn’t have a chance to shoot him because he was going to do the job himself. That seemed to put an end to things. Word quickly got around that anybody who screwed with Moonracer was going to get a visit from his big brother, Norseman, and that Harvath had carte blanche to do whatever he wanted and management would turn a blind eye.
Arriving at the SCIF, Harvath punched in his code, waited for the green light to come on, and listened for the locks to slide back