Chapter 40
The room was decidedly glum as we all waited on the Oversight Council meeting to begin. We’d set up the laptop on the kitchen
table of Shoshana’s little three-room safe house, and were simply staring at the screen, nobody speaking. Like before, the
camera was focused on the giant VTC monitor on the wall of the Taskforce SCIF, a small section of a table visible with George
Wolffe seated, studying his notes. The monitor itself showed the Oversight Council conference room, the chairs empty. Occasionally,
some staffer would pass by, but the only human of any consequence on our feed right now was George Wolffe.
He was seated on the left side of the Taskforce table, and I did not envy what he was being forced to report, mainly because
it was my fault. I only hoped my mistake didn’t force the Oversight Council to ignore the lead we had.
It would be somewhat of an understatement to say I was surprised when Knuckles had arrived at the linkup point with a dead
man over his shoulder—and one who wasn’t the Ghost at that. He’d given me a CliffsNotes version of what had transpired, and
I’d immediately started contingency planning, as we were still in the middle of a mission.
I’d released Jennifer and Shoshana from the linkup point, getting them clear of any chance of being remembered, then had directed
Brett to gather a complete biometric profile of the body, to include fingerprints and photographs, while I decided our next
move.
For obvious reasons, toting a dead body around with us was a nonstarter, and the only decision remaining was where we were going to leave it.
Knuckles and I debated the DNA problem, and, given his description of the fight, I decided that trying to clean the body of all traces of him would be impossible.
We took the belt with the blade that had scraped him, but left the remains right there, at the linkup site.
It was an old, weathered greenhouse deep in the jungle at the end of a nature trail.
Fortunately, the trail didn’t look like it had been a used hotel attraction for years, and with any luck, the body wouldn’t be found for months.
Even if it was, we stood a better chance of getting out of there clean without trying to move it with us.
Thinking like this made me feel a little bit like the character from Dexter, but the mission took priority, serial killer vibes or not. We could deal with the fallout after we were clear.
We’d made it back to Shoshana’s safe house on foot and I’d gotten a complete debrief. After he’d described in clinical detail
all that had happened, I’d asked about the command I’d given him: What hostile intent was shown to initiate the assault?
There hadn’t been any, and unspoken was the fact that he’d conducted the operation even though it might not be the Ghost because
he was sure of two things: one, the guy in the room was bad, and two, because of that, even if it wasn’t the Ghost, he could
lead us to him. Now, neither could be proven. I could tell Knuckles was a little torn up about the debacle, but it wasn’t
his fault. It was mine.
Whenever something goes wrong on a mission, it’s rarely a one-off single point of failure that appears out of nowhere. Usually,
it’s a culmination of things that individually wouldn’t have mattered, but together resulted in a catastrophe. In this case,
it was a string of events, starting with me believing Shoshana had seen the Ghost in the first place. I still thought she
had, but I’d proceeded without confirming the intelligence, pushing the operation even after only one man had returned. From
there, it was easy to list off the breaks in the chain:
I’d given Knuckles the authority to execute without positive identification of the Ghost, even as I knew he was leaning to assault regardless, allowing him the leeway after I’d expressly been told not to by my higher command.
Knuckles had made breach when his PID plan had failed, and without any indication of hostile intent that put the team in jeopardy.
I’d ordered them to exfil with the target instead of leaving him when they were still clean—after I knew it wasn’t the Ghost.
Brett had failed to conduct a detailed search, missing the hidden blade in the belt buckle.
The lovebirds had arrived and stayed long enough to engender a lapse of the tranquilizer we’d employed.
The target had chosen to fight, using lethal force.
Any single one of those would have resulted in not finding the Ghost, but worst case, it would have given us either a clean
break to recock for a follow-on mission or at least a live target to interrogate. Together, they’d conspired to seal his fate.
Knuckles was beating himself up over his decision to assault, as if that was the single point of failure, but in truth, I
was to blame. I knew he wanted to execute regardless of the evidence, and deep inside, so did I, so I’d passed that hard choice
to him with a limp rejoinder of “hostile intent,” knowing he would use it. Out of all the points of failure, mine alone stood
at the top.
I’d told the three team members on the assault to shack up a complete SITREP and then go catch some rack time, meeting back
at the safe house at 9 a.m. While bad news didn’t get better with age, since the target was a cold slab of meat, I didn’t
see the need to wake up George Wolffe with a Prairie Fire emergency.
Shoshana hadn’t been the least bit disturbed by the end state of the mission, convinced that we’d simply removed an Iranian assassin off the board, and I hoped she was right.
Aaron had taken all the intel we’d collected—biometrics, passport information, credit cards, and SIM card data—and had passed it to his people.
Ten minutes before I was supposed to speak with Wolffe, he’d returned with a single bit of good news: the dead guy was a known IRGC logistics officer, working with Unit 840.
By the time Wolffe had connected to the VPN he’d read the SITREPs and was in a predictably bad mood. His first question was,
“What part of ‘get positive identification by someone on your team’ was confusing?”
I’d said, “Sir, I know. It was my fault. We had a plan for that, but it was a little bit risky, involving close contact with
the target. I gave your instructions, but added that if hostile intent was shown regardless of who appeared, they had authority
to execute.”
“Pike, the teams always have that authority. What you did was give Knuckles permission.”
Which was absolutely true. No mission ROE ever superseded self-defense. But that wasn’t the worst part. He continued, “And
where was the hostile intent here?”
“Instead of answering the door, the guy hid behind the bed.”
“That was hostile?”
“Well, no, but it was an indication of guilt. With the preponderance of evidence, Knuckles assumed it was the Ghost.”
“You mean instead of some unarmed random guy who thought you were trying to roll him for money at four a.m.? Which is apparently
what he ended up being?”
Wolffe rarely took jabs like that, keeping most ass-chewings purely professional, which told me he was steaming mad.
I said, “Sir, that’s not true. For one, he was armed and used lethal force. More than that, the Israelis have run him through their databases, and he’s an Iranian operative
known to work for Unit 840. He’s a black hat, and he’s here with the Ghost for a reason. This is no longer us stopping the
bleed to cover our ass for a simple escape. Iran’s up to something big, and we’re smack in the middle of it.”
That brought him back down to mission world, and I gave him everything else the Israelis had found, along with the one lead
we had, asking him to take it to the Oversight Council. He’d said, “You want me to brief this shit show, then ask them to
continue?”
I’d said, “More than that, I want you to convince them of a mission shift. This is no longer about recapturing the Ghost. It’s about preventing some sort of attack. I want authority to explore why the Ghost is here, not just focus on his rendition.”
“From last night’s op, it sounds like you’ve already taken that step without the authority.”
I took that jab, not the least because it was true, and said, “Well, I’d prefer having official sanction. Convince them to
let me continue with the expanded mission. Forget about where the Ghost is and focus on why he’s here. I’ll still roll him up, but we’ll also quite possibly break up a terrorist event. Just capturing him and calling
it a day might not do it.”
“They’re going to call that mission creep. You know how Palmer will take it. We have no concrete proof of anything nefarious.”
Exasperated, I said, “The proof is the very fact that Iranian Quds Force operatives are down here with a renowned assassin
at the same time the prime minister of Israel and our own secretary of state are visiting! The proof is they broke him out
of our prison!”
He knew I was correct. He wearily nodded and said, “Okay, okay, but it’s going to be a hard sell. You basically want me to
convince the president to give you a blank check.”
Mollified, I said, “Yes, if you don’t mind. Or I can do it myself if that’s a better option.”
He’d smiled for the first time and said, “No, no, that won’t be necessary. You’ve already killed one guy last night. Giving
the president a heart attack won’t make things go any better.”