Chapter Twenty
Twenty
Hanley went on. “A few housekeeping items. Firstly, code names and code words.
This location, and the operation we are all collectively conducting, will not be referred to in any commo as ‘Hampton Roads,’ ‘Norfolk,’ or ‘TerreCom.’ For operational security reasons, this location, this operation, is to be referred to as Ghost Town.
“Each member of Ghost Town will be given a code name; these are in addition to your domestic aliases and any cover for action aliases you will use abroad while in the field.”
He turned to the open hallway door. “Come on in.”
Erin Childers entered along with a young Asian female and an older Hispanic male. The young woman was dressed in office attire: a pencil skirt, a floral blouse, her hair in a ponytail. The man wore a black suit over a slightly wrinkled blue shirt.
“Meet the team.” Court couldn’t tell if Hanley was saying it to the three operators at the table or the three office staff just inside the door. The Asian woman smiled and gave a shy little wave, Childers nodded, and the Hispanic man just stood there with his hands in his pockets.
Matt said, “Firstly, my code name is Pilgrim. Erin is my number two. If you need something, logistically speaking or otherwise, and you don’t get me, go to her. Her code name is Conductor.
“On the technical side, this is Jill Mori. She is former CIA and will serve as our IT and OSINT expert.
“Jill’s code name is Gumdrop.” He added, “I know what you’re thinking.
Jill might be young, but she’s one of the top ten best open-source intelligence analysts that I’ve ever known.
I met her when I was DDO; she had just joined the Agency and was already impressing.
I got her down to Colombia to work with me there.
Earlier this year she was let go, her position was taken over by a Gauntlet contract employee, and I knew it wouldn’t take any time for the private sector to snatch her up for her skills, so when I set up Ghost Town, I appealed to her sense of duty and got her to join our outfit. ”
Jill smiled a little. “He’s paying me, too, by the way.”
The men at the table laughed, and Jill, Erin, and Arnold sat down, while Matt continued to stand.
He said, “When the CIA sends us on an operation, Jill will use OSINT to make certain you guys have the details you need, not just what comes down from the CIA. She will save all your lives; I’m absolutely convinced of that.”
The three assets all thanked her in advance. She said, “I promise to do my best.”
Hanley motioned to the older man next to her.
“Arnold Reyes here is our logistics coordinator. Code name Bricklayer. He’s a civilian, did a few stints as a contractor in Afghanistan, then was brought into JSOC, and finally into Ground Branch.
” After waiting a beat, Hanley said, “You know you can trust him with your lives, because some of you already have. Lyle and Jason, Arnold has done more for you guys when you were in Ground Branch than you will ever appreciate.”
Reyes was deep into his forties and wore his thinning gray hair combed over. He had a slight build, eyeglasses, and a reddening to his face that made it clear he didn’t enjoy being complimented, talked about, or even looked at by others.
Still, he was thanked by the three assets, and he nodded, now looking at the table in front of him.
This was all pretty standard stuff for Court and the other two seated at the table. Court rose and refilled his coffee from the insulated decanter, Hightower finished his donut and licked his fingers, and Travers leaned forward, his elbows on the table’s edge.
Hanley said, “The security staff here at Ghost Town are five in number. I’ve taken to calling them ‘the Five Guys.’ They’re not going to be involved in anything operationally; they are just here for the safety of the building.
These are guys I’ve known forever. You’ve probably trained with them all at one point or another. Ernie Gamble runs security.”
Hightower sat up now. “Gamble from Harvey Point?”
Harvey Point was a CIA training facility in North Carolina.
“That’s correct. Ernie was an armorer and a range safety officer there.”
“Shit,” Hightower said, looking away.
“A problem?” Hanley asked.
“I owe that dude some money. He outshot me once on the range. There was a bet involved.”
“I can direct you to the security room after our meeting.”
Hightower shook his head. Sheepishly, he said, “I’ll catch him later.”
Hanley continued. “Now, for the assets. Travers…your alias is Jason Reed, and your code name with Ghost Town will be Teddy.”
“Roger that.”
“Six…your alias is Brian Webb and your code name…will be Six.”
“Creative,” Hightower said, and Hanley just shrugged.
To the three office personnel sitting with them, he explained. “It was one half of his call sign on his Ground Branch team, way back when.
“It’s secure enough, and three of us know him as that already.”
He turned to Zack. “Hightower, your alias is Lyle Hart, and your code name is—”
“If you say Romantic,” Hightower interrupted, “I’m walking out that door.”
Hanley pointed a finger at the operator now, spoke forcefully. “You are not walking out that door, even if I call you Tinkerbell.” When his voice subsided, he said, “Your code name is Night Train.”
Zack executed a silent and subdued fist pump, but he said nothing.
Hanley said, “Okay, with all that out of the way, let’s get to it. As of now, we are now officially active, and I will start by saying, we’re in deep shit.”
Now Hightower sat up straighter and looked to Hanley. Notably, both Court and Travers continued sipping coffee as if they were not surprised in the least by what their boss had just said.
“The breach in our national security apparatus has continued.
So far, the CIA has not been able to determine the location or means of the breach.
ODNI, NSA, DIA, State, Department of Defense…
everyone is running into the same thing.
Classified operations are being disrupted in ways that make it seem like someone deep inside the IC is involved.
“We dealt with a leak a couple of years ago, as you all know. That specific compromise was contained to CIA’s logistics, specifically air transport. The Agency tied that off back then, so this is something new, and something more pervasive.”
“What has been leaked?” Hightower asked.
Hanley looked to Chris Travers. “Teddy? Why don’t you start?”
Travers said, “I was in Tunis with my team back in late October. We were blown. Ambushed at a safe house that was not known to the local station, so we think the leak came from stateside. One of my men was killed, three Russian nationals were killed.
“At the ambush, we managed to get two of the Russians. The third squirted. We were ordered home immediately, but I had an idea about where the survivor was heading. I sent my team home with the body of my number three, and I found the Russian eight hours later near the Algerian border.”
It was quiet in the conference room till Zack sat forward suddenly, grabbed a jelly donut, and brought it to his mouth. Just before he took a bite, he said, “And you smoked that motherfucker on your own, without special sanction.”
Chris Travers nodded solemnly. “I did.”
“You got shitcanned from the Agency for that?” Court asked.
“Affirmative,” Travers said. “It was payback, what I did. Not operationally necessary, or so they said.”
Court examined the man a moment, then asked, “Are you having trouble with your decision?”
“No trouble at all. That’s what’s giving me trouble.”
“First thought, best thought,” Hightower said, nonchalantly. He was halfway finished with his donut already. “I trust you, man. If it felt right at the time, you did the right thing.”
“Anyway,” Hanley said, “I snatched him up to work with us. He understands the gist of what we’ll be doing.”
Changing the subject, Hanley then said, “So that was Tunis. In Ethiopia another operation was compromised. Local ISIS took out several of our indigenous assets. Not a cell of locals, I mean, but men and women walled off from one another. The only way ISIS could have known about them all was a breach from the U.S.”
He added, perhaps unnecessarily, “The call definitely came from inside the house.”
Hanley looked to Court. “After these disasters in Africa, plus word from other agencies that they were having the same problem, Trey Watkins came to me personally, wanting me to send Six to do an in extremis job down in Central America. The thinking was, it would minimize the number of people at CIA who knew about the op if they contracted it out. Six would go down alone, and since he’s not an Agency employee, he might have better luck. ”
Court corrected him. “Actually, I was sent because they didn’t want to lose another Agency employee.
” He turned to Travers and Hightower across from him.
“It was an extraction of an asset in Nicaragua. The fact that I wasn’t Agency, the fact that the locals didn’t get the information on the location of the extraction till the last minute…
none of that mattered.” He sighed. “We were most definitely compromised on our end, and we lost four FORNAT agents. I got the asset out, but in the process, I wasted a couple of Chinese MSS officers. The Agency has kept a lid on that, so far at least.”
“Someone in the U.S. government gave intelligence to the Nicaraguans?” Travers asked.
Hanley shook his head. “Or Chinese intelligence passed the intel on to the Nicas. Either way, it has to be a leak in America.”
Travers said, “So what do we know for sure?”
Hightower said, “Sounds like we know that we’re going to have to depend on one another, and no one else.”