"We couldn't, that's for sure." Soraya gave her a sardonic smile. "But terrorist networks have no infrastructure or bureaucracy to slow them down, so who knows? Part of the difficulty in locating them and taking them down is their infinite flexibility. This superior methodology is what Martin wanted for Typhon. That's my mandate."
The waiter took their half-eaten salads away. A moment later, their main courses arrived. Hart asked for another bottle of mineral water. Her mouth was dry. Now she had NSA on one side, an off-the-grid terrorist organization about to carry out an attack on a large East Coast building on the other. Scylla and Charybdis. Either one could wreck her career at CI before it even began. She couldn't allow that to happen. She wouldn't.
"Excuse me a moment," she said, getting up.
Soraya scanned the restaurant, but kept at least one of the agents in her peripheral vision. She saw him tense when the DCI went off to the ladies' room. He had risen and was making his way toward the rear when Hart returned. He reversed course, sat back down.
When the DCI had settled herself in her chair she looked Soraya in the eye. "Since you decided to deliver this intel here instead of the office I assume you have a specific idea as to how to proceed."
"Listen," Soraya said, "we have a red-hot situation, and we don't have enough intel to mobilize, let alone act. We have less than a week to find out everything on this terrorist organization based God only knows where with who knows how many members.
"This isn't the time or place for the usual protocols. They're not going to avail us anything." She glanced down at her fish as if it were the last thing she wanted to put in her mouth. When her gaze rose again, she said, "We need Jason Bourne to find this terrorist group. We'll take care of the rest."
Hart looked at her as if she were out of her mind. "Out of the question."
"Given the urgency of the mission," Soraya said, "he's the only one who has a chance of finding them and stopping them."
"I wouldn't last a day in the job once it got out that I was using Jason Bourne."
"On the other hand," Soraya said, "if you don't follow through on this intel, if this group executes their attack, you'll be out of CI before you can catch your breath."
Hart sat back, produced a short laugh. "You really are a piece of work. You want me to authorize the use of a rogue agent-a man who's unstable at best, who many powerful people in this organization feel is dangerous to CI in particular-for a mission that could have dire consequences for this country, for the continuation of CI as you and I know it?"
A jolt of anxiety ran down Soraya's spine. "Wait a minute, back that up. What do you mean the continuation of CI as we know it?"
Hart glanced from one of the NSA agents to the other. Then she expelled a deep breath and told Soraya everything that had happened from the moment she'd been summoned into the Oval Office to meet with the president and had found herself confronting Luther LaValle and General Kendall.
"After I managed to prevail with the president, LaValle accosted me outside for a chat," Hart concluded. "He told me that if I didn't play nice with him he'd come after me with everything he has. He wants to take over CI, Soraya, wants it as part of his ever-enlarging intelligence services domain. But it isn't just LaValle we're fighting, it's his boss, the secretary of defense. The plan is Bud Halliday's through and through. Black River had some dealings with him when I was there, none of them pleasant. If he succeeds in bringing CI into the Pentagon fold, you can be sure the military will come in, ruin everything with their usual war-like mentality."
"Then there's even more reason to let me bring Jason in for this." Soraya's voice had taken on added urgency. "He'll get the job done where a company of agents can't. Believe me, I've worked with him in the field twice. Whatever's said about him within CI is totally false. Sure, lifers like Rob Batt hate his guts, why wouldn't they? Bourne's got a freedom they wish they had. Plus, he's got abilities they never dreamed of."
"Soraya, it's been implied in several evaluations that you once had an affair with Bourne. Please tell