with CIA. She’d done some real good in their time, but there was no denying the CIA wasn’t what it used to be. The people were different and their motivations obscured by ambition. Nobody seemed to be “asking not what their country could do for them.” Worse still, the tentacles of Beltway politics had wound their way deeply into the intelligence community, and Mary Pat feared this was an irreversible condition.
“How long will you be?” Ed asked.
“Hard to say. Midnight, maybe. If it’s going too much past that, I’ll give you a call. Don’t wait up.”
“You hear anything juicy about the Georgetown business?”
“Not much beyond the newspaper stuff. Lone gunman, got a single shot to the head.”
“I heard the phone ring earlier. ...”
“Twice. Ed Junior. Just called to say hi; said he’d call you tomorrow. And Jack Ryan. He wanted to see how the book was coming. Said to call when you got a chance. Maybe you can squeeze some details out of him.”
“Not holding my breath.”
Both men were writing recollections of a sort: Ed a history, former President Ryan a memoir. They commiserated and cross-referenced memories at least once a week.
Jack Ryan’s career, from his rookie days at the CIA to his being thrust into the presidency by tragedy, was intertwined with Mary Pat’s and Ed’s. Some wonderful times and some downright shitty times.
She suspected Jack and Ed’s weekly phone sessions were ninety percent war-story talk and ten percent book-related. She had no complaints. They both had earned the right—in spades. Ed’s career she knew by heart, but she felt certain there were portions of Jack Ryan’s career only he and a couple of others knew about, which was saying something, given her access. Oh, well, she consoled herself. What is life without some mystery?
Mary Pat checked her watch, then downed the last of her coffee, scrunched up her face at the tang of it, then stood up. She kissed Ed on the cheek.
“Got to run. Feed the cat, huh?”
“You bet, babe. Drive safe.”
22
MARY PAT DOUSED HER headlights and pulled up to the guard shack and rolled down her window. A grim-faced man in a blue windbreaker stepped out of the shack. Though he was the only one visible, she knew half a dozen other eyes were on her, along with just as many security cameras. Like the rest of the facility’s protection force, the gate guards were drawn from CIA’s internal security division. Nor did the lone Glock 9-millimeter pistol on the man’s belt fool Mary Pat. Under the man’s windbreaker, within easy reach of his well-trained hands, would be a specially designed lumbar pack containing a compact submachine gun.
The National Counterterrorism Center, which had until 2004 been named the Terrorist Threat Integration Center and was now known to its employees as Liberty Crossing, sits nestled in the quiet suburbs of McLean in northern Fairfax County, Virginia. Composed of a whole lot of glass and gray concrete, it was more James Bond than CIA drab, something that had taken Mary Pat some time to get used to. Still, the walls were blast-resistant and the windows bulletproof, rated to stop sustained .50-caliber rounds. Of course, if things ever went so far south that bad guys were taking potshots at the building with a .50-cal, they would likely have bigger problems to worry about. All in all, though, despite the NCTC’s six-story exterior being a tad conspicuous for her taste, she had to admit it was a damned nice place to come to work every day. The on-site restaurant was top-notch, too, which drew Ed to Liberty Crossing every Wednesday for their standing lunch date.
She held up her ID for the perusal of the guard, who studied it carefully, matching it against both her face and the access sheet on his clipboard. Night had fully fallen, and in the bushes she could hear the croaking of frogs.
After a long ten seconds the guard nodded to her, clicked off his flashlight, and waved her through. She waited for the barrier to come up, then pulled through the checkpoint and into the parking lot. The security procedure she’d just undergone was the same for every employee at the NCTC, at all hours, every day, from the lowest-grade analyst to the director himself. The fact that she was the number two at Liberty Crossing was immaterial to the security guards, who seemed to develop amnesia for faces and vehicles and names within seconds of their passing through the checkpoint. It was not a