Ghosts of War Read Free

the extralegal force, along with a possible jail cell for every member of the Oversight Council.
    Kurt had tried to start the meeting off by asking for authority to continue surveillance of a suspected financier in Mali, and had learned how naïvely optimistic he had been.
    The president himself, Peyton Warren, had cut him off, saying, “Kurt, come on. We’re nowhere near ready to continue with operations. Get to the heart of this meeting. What’s the state of play with the motorcycle rentals in Norway?”
    Kurt had absorbed the rebuke, and saw that everyone in the room was hanging on the answer. Afraid for the skin they had in the game.
    â€œSir, there’s been no change from the last update, and honestly, there won’t be a change. The bikes were rented under aliases with credit cards that end in a PO box in Sacramento, California. We had four cutouts before that. There is no way to find a link between who rented the bikes and who was riding them.”
    Alexander Palmer, the president’s national security advisor, said, “Yeah, but that in itself looks strange. It
looks
like an intelligence operation, which is something the Taskforce said would never happen.”
    Kurt said, “Whoa. Wait. We can ensure we get out clean before an operation, but that statement is predicated on our operational footprint. A slow burn to build the infrastructure and accomplish the mission. This was a hostage rescue—something we don’t do. Secretary Billings put his
own
life in danger, and I had the assets to attempt saving his life.”
    He paused a beat and saw his words were having no effect. Exasperated, he said, “It didn’t work out, and now you want to accuse me of not preparing? Maybe I should have just sat on the sidelines. Let the suicide bomber destroy the peace talks. At least then I wouldn’t be having this conversation while letting other terrorists go free.”

3

    P resident Warren held his hand up and said, “Okay, okay, calm down. Nobody’s faulting the effort, but the fallout is something different. We’ve officially entered the silly season of a presidential election, and the questions arising from Billings’s death are almost overpowering. I can only shrug so long before it looks like I’m hiding something.”
    Left unsaid was that the shrug was tainting his vice president, Philip Hannister, the man who’d recently picked up the proverbial election staff and was running for the president’s seat. Forget about the opposition—he was now getting hammered by his own party as ineffectual and/or a liar.
    Kurt said, “Sir, it’s the best we can do. There’s no way to crack what happened. No way the Taskforce will be exposed, but those questions are going to remain. All we can do is shrug. Deny. Hell, ask them to look. They won’t find anything.”
    Palmer shook his head at the pat answer and said, “What about the diplomatic security guys? The ones protecting Billings? They saw Taskforce activity.”
    Kurt was incredulous. “You’re asking
me
to explain that? I don’t own them. You do. Who’s the next SECSTATE? Who’s the acting now? Read them on and start getting control of your own house.”
    And in the facial expressions of the Council he saw how far the fear had seeped. How little power he actually held.
    President Warren said, “I’ve got a man I’m thinking of. Woman, actually, but I’m not reading her on to Project Prometheus. The lasttwo nominees got hammered hard enough at the confirmation hearings until they quit, and honestly, I’m not that confident on this one. I don’t see the need to expand the circle at this stage. Anyway, by the time she gets through the confirmation process—if she gets through—it won’t matter.”
    Won’t matter? Why?
The answer was clear, even as he asked it. The president was saying,
We’re shutting