attack on the embassy. The intelligence from the UAE came in eleven minutes, thirty-four seconds before you took off. You were on your way to DCA, you were almost there to board a plane to Berlin, when Sultan al-Habsi tipped you off.
“You are going to look me in the face again and tell me you didn’t know about the attack beforehand?”
Hanley deflated. “No, sir. I did not know about the first attack, specifically. But I did know an attack was coming.”
“One of your secret initiatives?”
Hanley went for a joke. A Hail Mary. “They wouldn’t be secret initiatives if I told you about them, now would they?”
The Hail Mary was tipped out of bounds in the end zone. “The investigation also revealed that you have been conducting intelligence operations on the United Arab Emirates. Do I have that right?”
Hanley knew there was no answer that would save his career. If there had been, no matter how outrageous the lie, he would have told it with a poker face.
But instead, he told the truth. “I uncovered a plot by the SIA to goad the United States into war. It wasn’t something I could sit on, despite current U.S. foreign policy with regard to the UAE.”
“The SIA. The organization that gave us General Vahid Rajavi on a platter? The organization that warned us of the first Mirza cell attack on the embassy?”
“Yes, but they did this not to help us but to hurt us. The first act was to incite Iran. The second act was to establish their credibility before Haz Mirza’s second attack, which was partially conceived and, I feel certain, fully funded by Sultan al-Habsi himself.”
“The new ruler of Dubai? The man we trained from a college student into the deputy directorship of the intelligence shop of one of our closest allies? Do you have any fucking clue what you are saying?”
“Yes. I do. It’s called ‘the truth.’”
The director bit his lip. “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
The Bible verse John 8:32 was etched into the wall to the left of the main entrance at Langley, just inside the lobby and seven floors below where Hanley stood now. But Hanley didn’t think the director was quoting scripture for benign reasons.
And he was right.
The director said, “I’m going to set you free, Matthew. You will be reassigned. Effective immediately. Obviously we will give you a few days to get your affairs in order here in Washington, but there is an urgent need of someone of your . . . caliber, at one of our foreign stations.”
Fuck, thought Matt Hanley, but he didn’t say this out loud. He did, however, ask the obvious question. “Where am I being sent, sir?”
The fat man sniffed, then looked around left and right, as if he were thinking this over. Hanley didn’t buy it. Finally he said, “I’m wondering if, in all your travels that come with all your derring-do, you might have had occasion to visit the lovely city of Port Moresby. It’s in Papua New Guinea. I confess I have not been there myself. To be honest, I had to look it up on a globe. Sort of the ass end of planet Earth. You should fit in quite well.”
This was the exact threat Hanley had used on Berlin Chief of Station McCormick. Kevin had ratted on Hanley to the director, this much was obvious.
Hanley said, “Let me guess. I will be the assistant station director of logistics?”
The director made an astonished face, but only for an instant, because it was another put-on. “Oh, dear heavens, no. You will be the chief of station.” The big man’s face darkened. “The biggest fish in the smallest, dirtiest little backwater shit creek I could find for you.”
Matt Hanley wanted to stand up and tell the director to shove the New Guinea assignment up his fat ass, but he didn’t. He had hit speed bumps like this in his career. No, not like this, he had to admit. He’d never fallen nearly so far. But the U.S. intelligence community was a game you had to be in to play. He’d take the hit, and he’d take the shit.
“I will happily serve my country in whatever capacity you ask, Mr. Director.”
“Good. Now, get out of my office. I have a meeting on the books now to speak with a woman about a promotion.”
* * *
• • •
Hanley stepped out into the anteroom of the director’s seventh-floor corner office. There, seated on a