Chapter 31
WASHINGTON, DC
IRENE Kennedy was doing her best not to look impressed.
She wasn’t succeeding.
“It can feel a bit overwhelming the first time.”
Irene turned from her study of Teddy Roosevelt rendered for posterity astride his horse in the famous Rough Rider painting, the canvas mounted above a gaping fireplace, to her companion.
Thomas Stansfield smiled from across the conference table.
The deep, nutty-brown wood glowed with freshly applied polish that reflected his visage.
Usually when she looked at the old spy, she saw her boss, but on moments like this one, she recognized someone else.
Her surrogate father.
“A bit,” Irene allowed.
She kept her face impassive as she spoke, but judging by his arched right eyebrow, Stansfield wasn’t fooled.
“It’s amazing,” Irene continued, raising her hands in surrender. “Every CIA officer hopes that the intelligence they gather will help to shape the president’s thinking. Very few ever have the opportunity to sit in the Roosevelt Room, let alone brief the nation’s commander in chief in person.”
Stansfield nodded. “That’s exactly right, but never forget that this office, this nation, is bigger than any one man or woman.
Beautiful buildings aren’t what make America unique.
That belongs to our founding fathers, who had the audacity to believe that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.
Many nations have beautiful buildings. Our majesty lies in the ideals that embody our national identity. ”
“Well said, Thomas. Sounds like the beginning of a stump speech. You sure you’re not considering a run for office?”
Irene followed Stansfield’s example and got to her feet. Turning, she was about to address the president, but his attention was still focused on Stansfield.
“Quite, sir,” Stansfield said. “I had my fill of politics back when I was mediating internecine squabbles within the French Resistance. On more than one occasion, I had to remind my agents that the Nazis, rather than their fellow countrymen, were actually our enemy.”
The president laughed along with Stansfield, but the amusement didn’t seem to reach his eyes.
A sanitized version of Stansfield’s exploits as a long-serving intelligence officer had been released to the press as part of the confirmation process for his new position as director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
As a result, his public profile had been raised substantially.
If the polls could be believed, he also enjoyed a healthy approval rating with the American people that cut across party lines.
If he’d ever considered a career in politics, this would be the time to start laying the foundation.
Irene knew that Stansfield didn’t have a political bone in his body.
He was committed to doing whatever it took to keep the nation he loved safe regardless of who occupied the White House.
He was about as likely to take up pottery as he was to run for office.
Anyone who’d spent more than a minute with the spymaster would know that.
Anyone but his new boss, apparently.
“Understood, Thomas. But I do wish you’d reconsider. It’s to the nation’s detriment that men like you remain on the sidelines.”
Irene bristled on Stansfield’s behalf.
Her surrogate father had done anything but remain on the sidelines.
He’d been recruited into the OSS from college and had been stealing the secrets of his nation’s enemies ever since.
To characterize his fifty years of service as somehow less noble than life as an elected official was a slap in the face.
If Stansfield agreed with her assessment, he didn’t show it.
Instead, he inclined his head as if the president had just offered a piece of sage advice.
Then he pivoted to her. “Mr. President, I’d like to introduce Dr. Irene Kennedy. She’ll be handling today’s briefing.”
Irene smoothed any residual anger from her face before offering the president her hand.
The man’s offhand remark still stung, but she was a professional who served at his discretion, not to mention a spy.
Case officers who couldn’t maintain a straight face didn’t last long in the espionage profession.
“Dr. Kennedy,” the president said.
“Honored to meet you, sir. Please call me Irene.”
“Irene,” the president said, inclining his head. “Please, both of you, take your seats. Irene, I’ve got about fifteen minutes. The floor’s yours.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll be done in ten.”
This was another skill she’d learned as a case officer.
Long, detailed conversations with an asset were a luxury.
More often than not, Irene had had to convey or receive vital information in a furious burst while lurking in a dark alley or sitting on a lonely park bench.
Compared to issuing linkup instructions to a terrified scientist in the pouring rain while dodging counterintelligence agents, briefing the leader of the free world in the Oval Office was a walk in the park.
At least that’s what she told herself as she marshaled her thoughts.
“We have reporting that suggests that the Iraqis intend to move chemical weapons to Syria,” Irene said.
The president’s gaze sharpened. “That’s one heck of a bottom line up front. What’s the source?”
Irene felt her shoulders tense.
Sources and methods were the coin of the espionage realm.
The reporting itself would sometimes be declassified depending on the sub-ject matter, but the manner in which it was collected was always a closely guarded secret.
Still, the man asking the question wasn’t just another bureaucrat who wanted to feel important or even a congressional oversight committee member.
The president was the commander in chief and the one person who possessed unlimited declassification authority.
If he asked her a direct question, she needed to answer it.
After a fashion.
“The information was validated by disparate sources, sir,” Irene said. “Satellite imagery correlated with HUMINT reporting.”
The mention of HUMINT, or human intelligence, seemed to interest the president. He leaned forward. “Is the HUMINT asset ours?”
Irene shook her head. “No, sir.”
“The Israelis?”
Irene glanced at Stansfield, hoping for a hint of what was at play here. Had this been anyone but the president, she would have demurred, focusing instead on the CIA’s assessed confidence level in the reporting itself.
But it was the president.
Stansfield’s face was carefully blank, but she thought she caught the hint of a nod.
Tucking a strand of auburn hair behind her ear, Irene answered. “Yes, sir.”
The president looked from her to Stansfield. “Quite the coincidence, wouldn’t you say, Thomas?”
Stansfield gave a wan smile. “Just because the Israelis have been hounding us about Iraq’s WMD program doesn’t mean their reporting isn’t accurate.
If this information had come to us in a vacuum, I would agree that we should take it with a grain of salt.
But as Irene said, the source’s information independently validates a finding from the CIA’s Iraq fusion cell. ”
The president sighed. “Iraq is the gift that keeps on giving. I’m not one to focus on the past, but my predecessor did me no favors there.
He marshaled the nation behind a war to evict Saddam from Kuwait and then stopped before finishing the job.
He then encouraged the people of Iraq to revolt.
When the Kurds took him at his word, he let Hussein slaughter them instead of providing those brave fighters with the air cover they so desperately needed.
Leaving that son of a bitch Saddam in power was the equivalent of locking a child alone in a candy shop and then telling him to keep away from the cookie jar.
Anyone with half a brain should have known that was the start of our Middle East problems, not their end. ”
Irene refrained from pointing out that the former president’s actions had won him international acclaim and resulted in the highest approval rates of his presidency.
Politics aside, stopping the invasion short of Baghdad did have a logical basis.
Sometimes the devil you knew really was better than the one you didn’t.
Absent the strongman’s stranglehold on his citizenry, there was ample evidence to suggest that Iraq would be anything but a unified nation.
Its Shia-majority population had been suppressed for decades by the Baathist party in an attempt to mitigate Iran’s influence.
Without Hussein’s iron fist, his countrymen might very well have turned east toward the mad mullahs.
Or worse.
But she didn’t think pointing this out would be conducive to her fledgling career as a presidential briefing officer. Or any other career in government service for that matter. Fortunately, Stansfield seemed ready for this conversational.
“I understand your frustration, sir,” Stansfield said, “but this might be an opportunity to take one of Hussein’s bargaining chips off the table.”
The president’s eyes narrowed. “How?”
“By being proactive. Much has been made of the difficulties of verifying that Hussein is abiding by the terms of the ceasefire agreement. Weapons inspectors routinely meet with subterfuge or outright resistance when they try to conduct surprise or even routine inspections of Hussein’s declared weapons sites.
This is to say nothing of the undeclared facilities or the instances when Saddam refuses to let United Nations personnel set foot in his country at all.
CIA analysts have spent years trying to ferret out the locations of his chemical weapons stockpiles.
If this intelligence is correct, Hussein is going to do the work for us by transporting his munitions to Syria. ”
“So, we use this opportunity to what—catalog the weapons?”
“That’s one possibility, sir,” Stansfield said. “I was thinking of something more… final.”