Blowback

Harvath and Schroeder would take Rayburn and an additional commando in the first Super Vivat Icarus, followed by Claudia, Jillian, and two more commandos in the second, and the final two motor-gliders would contain four commandos each. With such a short landing strip, it was important that each glider land, unload its passengers, and take off again in time for the next glider behind it to come in and touch down. It was going to be a delicate dance and one that they all wished they could have had time to rehearse.

The aircraft were given the call signs Silo One, Two, Three, and Four based on the order in which they would be landing at Aiglemont. While Silos One through Three would be immediately taking off after dropping their passengers, Silo Four would be required to stay on the ground in case the team needed to evacuate Emir Tokay in a hurry. Like the other pilots, Silo Four’s captain was a Swiss fighter pilot and had readily accepted his assignment, knowing that if things got bad, he would essentially be a sitting duck. Harvath, though, did his best to assure the man that he was going to see to it that things didn’t get too ugly too early.

The eight remaining commandos on the Stern team would be responsible for subduing the police at the base of the funicular in Le Râleur and joining the party once their colleagues had secured the railway’s upper housing.

After moving the Super Vivat Icarus craft out onto the runway, their pilots conducted the final preflight checks. Inside the hangar, the commandos did a final check of their own, going over their weapons and communications equipment and stuffing their pockets and pouches with as much extra ammunition as they could carry. When all of the motorgliders had been loaded and the first one was cleared for takeoff, the remaining commandos climbed into their two rental cars and headed out for Le Râleur.

SEVENTY-ONE

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

Brian Turner looked over both shoulders to make sure he was alone and then sat down at the terminal and logged in. He’d always marveled at how the CIA was more concerned with a hack from the outside than they were with an interior breach of security.

Turner had been fascinated with encryption technology since he was seven years old. While the NSA had heavily recruited him years ago during his senior year at Cal Poly, it was the snap and panache of the CIA that had ultimately won him over. But life at Langley, especially post-9/11, had failed to live up to his expectations. It was nothing like he had seen in the movies, and with all the bullshit rules he and his colleagues were expected to play by, he considered it only a matter of time until America was struck again by another devastating terrorist attack.

That was probably what had attracted him most to Helen Carmichael. That and the fact that after the Senate Intelligence Committee had toured the new counterterrorism center, or CTC as it was more affectionately known at the CIA, one of her aides had contacted him asking if he would be interested in participating in an above-top-secret focus group. Turner had jumped at the chance and was invited to dinner with the Pennsylvania senator.

It was soon obvious that Helen Carmichael had no intention of conducting any hush-hush focus group, but rather wanted to develop her own personal relationship with him. The first night Turner ever met with her one on one, she took him to one of the biggest power restaurants in DC, Smith amp; Wollensky, where they dined on thick steaks and discovered their mutual love of dirty martinis. Later, in the back of the limo the senator had rented for the evening, he discovered that she gave the world’s best blowjob.

The blowjob was followed by a night of incredible sex at his apartment-sex he never would have thought the senator from Pennsylvania capable of. Helen Remington Carmichael was a hot ticket, and as far as Brain Turner was concerned; her husband was missing out on a first-class freak. The things she did and said when they were together would succeed in getting even the most straight-laced accountant fired from a one-man office.

He was sick of life at the CIA and saw the senator as his ticket out. As the senator’s national security advisor, he would hold enormous responsibility when she came into the vice presidency and then, with enough patience, would hold the utmost power when she eventually became president. The petty thefts and incursions he performed on her behalf now were nothing. In fact, Turner saw them as serving the CIA its own just deserts for not better protecting itself from hackers based inside CIA headquarters.

Snarfing a handful of French fries he had purchased at the CIA’s all-night cafeteria, he launched his newest, untraceable, personal-best blind mouse program and awaited its results.