Page 9 of Red Line

After Red snapped the picture and forwarded it, she tapped her phone to mute, then stumbled toward the toilet. Dropping her pants, she flung herself onto the clean whiteporcelain seat. Her body, given an opportunity to purge, did nothing but spasmodically cramp.

Holding the paper up, Red tried very hard to focus.

Army Sgt. Danny Poole got fifty thousand United States dollars for sensitive information that he downloaded using his top-secret clearance and brought with him to give to my boss. (I calculated the Lebanese pounds three times. It is far more than I am paid in a year. It’s an astonishing amount of money.) This money was passed to a bank account in Belize. The money is there now. He didn’t get any cash to spend here. My boss was very excited with what was brought to him, and he said that it was worth every cent. Scent? No, it must be cent. Like a small coin. How do I know this? The door was closed, but I had hidden a cell phone in a plant in his office, and I listened to everything all day long. They speak in English so I write this in English so the words don’t change with translation. I do my best. While Poole (Spelling is right. I saw it written in the private ledger. ‘Army Sgt. Danny’ was written. ‘Danny,’ though I think that name might formally be Daniel, yes?) transferred the information to my boss. Poole said he was on something called “a wall.” Poole laughed a lot. I think maybe he was nervous and excited. My boss says to Poole that Poole’s girlfriend wishes for him to go back to the Army with a tale of being sick or robbed. In this way, he can get more information. Poole said first he wants to see some of Syria. A colleague—a friend of my boss's—has family there, so this was arranged. Iknow where his family is, so I found the GPS coordinates, and I put them below. They said he would be in the friend’s house from the 26thuntil the 28th,and then he will go into the city which is Damascus. He wishes to surprise his girlfriend. I believe she is Hellannah. This is why I must see you today. Once Poole is in the city, you will have trouble finding him again. I’m sure you wish to find him. Poole said he would decide while in Syria whether or not to return. Being “a wall” (I don’t understand this, and my translator does not help me. It sounds like a single side of a room where there might be perhaps a door or window. Maybe this refers to something he was observing for my boss? Perhaps it means he was silent and listening; there is the phrase, ‘a fly on the wall,’ correct?) Poole said being a wall was a big deal, and he’d have to make up a very good story. My boss is offering him a lot of money if he goes back. My boss asks Poole how he got into our country without passing through customs, and Poole laughs. He did not answer the question. Poole asked if their tangos (like the dance?) are on the southern border in the United States. My boss tells Poole that friends from Tajikistan were flying to Central America. This group has selected eight members—who had already proven themselves as effective when they attacked in Kabul years ago—this is why they were the ones chosen to go to the United States. They would cross over the southern border and move into place any day now. For their safety, they would not be in touch until the time was closer. Then my bossand Poole speak of other things. But these things had to do with which foods to try and tourist travels.

Time passed while everyone read and digested the contents.

One thing for sure, Moussa was right; the United States needed this information. Today was the 27th.

Finally, Grey said, “Move into place? Can you talk to your asset about that?”

Red reached down to tap the unmute and spoke toward the phone lying between her feet. “He’s not involved other than transcribing. He won’t have any insights that he didn’t write down. And yes, I know this page is poor tradecraft. I wasn’t expecting this. I thought I had some time to work on his training.”

“This is your new shipping asset?” Black asked from stateside.

Black worked out of Langley while Grey did fieldwork like she did. Although, Grey’s job had a decidedly more tactical bent than hers. Red’s bread and butter was in developing assets and gathering intelligence to act on. Lunch and chit-chat, it was a whole lot of boring with occasional flashes of adrenaline.

She wasn’t free of danger—she had to keep herself fit and her tradecraft sharp—but being a CIA officer was much less Bond and a lot more mother hen than most would suspect.

“Import-export asset, yes, sir. I’ve been building our relationship slowly because he’s well-placed but has an anxious personality. He called me out of the blue with this. Speaking of blue, he showed up dressed in his blue business suit in a sea of desert tactical and traditional robes. He stood out, which means I stood out. I’ll work with him.”

“Craft aside, if this is accurate, it’s a hell of a first scoop,” Grey said. “It could also be a setup trying to capture CIA or maybe even special forces over the Syrian border. Could he be playing us? What’s your read?”

Yeah, that was a danger.

Given her present state of disrepair, Red wasn't sure she could accurately read the tea leaves here. This she could say with conviction, “He’s got that shiny look of victory on his face. He’s not ballsy enough to try to pull one over on me, not with a first offering.” Yes, that felt correct. She’d go down that path. “I trust the intel is good. But listen, that GPS coordinate listed means if our wayward soldieristhere, he’s moving on tomorrow. We don’t have much time for a plan.” Was it weird to be talking to her colleagues with her panties around her ankles and her chest resting on her lap?

Yes.

Could she do anything about it?

Absolutely not. “Do we have a friendly in the area that could grab Sgt. Poole and find out what the hell information he downloaded and passed on and why that would trigger eight tangos to head into the United States?” She closed her eyes and took a breath before adding, “Using the word tango is weird, right? It sounds like Poole wants the team to go. But Tango is the target.”

“Or terrorist. And he might be working with a group of terrorists and enjoy using the term. I don’t know,” Grey said. “And I won’t know until he and I are face to face having a little chat.”

“You’ll connect with the FBI to make sure they know to keep a lookout for the team crossing over the southern border?” she asked, then quickly pressed mute to give herself some necessary privacy.

“I’ll reach out to Frost on the Joint Task Force as soon as we get off this call,” Black said.

There was a muffled discussion on Black’s end while Grey asked, “How are you feeling, Red? On the upswing? You sound like shit.”

She reluctantly pressed the unmute. “We donotsay that word right now, please and thank you. I’m still messed up. But duty first, right? Listen, I’m going to head back to my table before my asset’s nerves get too raw. Let me know what you find out.” She tapped the mute button.

“Stay on the line, Red.” Black stopped her. “My analyst is speaking with our Pentagon contact now. Before you hand this guy a bag full of cash, let’s see if this Sgt. Danny Poole even exists, what kind of clearance he holds, and if he’s on base where he belongs. Those facts are easy enough to corroborate.”

“Since the asset information says they have people actively trying to come across the border into the United States, we don’t want to take a swing and a miss,” Grey said. “As we’re waiting to see if the asset uncovered an unfolding act of espionage, let’s act as if this is accurate and develop next steps. Tonight, we know where Poole is. Tomorrow, according to the dates on this paper, he’ll reach Damascus, where we won’t have an address. And even if we did, urban extraction can get messy. We have this window. We need to pull him out.”

“It has to be a covert mission,” Black said. “And that means we can’t reach out to our military even though they’re only about four hours away. Our bases are under constant surveillance. Even though Poole’s an American citizen, his presence is illegal. While he’s breaking American laws, he isn’t on American soil, and we would need to defer to the Syrian legal system. With people staging to cross over into the United States with an unknown agenda, we don’t have time for Poole’s case to work its way through the courts. This is black ops. One minute,Poole is a guest sleeping in a bed; the next minute, he vanishes into thin air.”

Red released the mute button. “It would be ideal if we had friends in the area that could keep the American government at arm’s length. What about Iniquus? I think Panther Force is somewhere in eastern Africa. If not, my second choice would be to call in a Special Activities Unit. Are any of them close enough to move into place in time?” The Special Activities Unit—SAC—was the tactical branch of the CIA. In their younger days, both Grey and Black had been members. It was the CIA’s special operations forces–who performed covert paramilitary operations–that Uncle Sam wanted the ability to disavow. The U.S. government would deny all knowledge of the team members and their mission, and nobody was going in to save them.

“Neither Panther Force nor a SAC unit is close enough to act as fast as we need them to,” Grey said. “But I just finished meeting with a group from the House of Delegates in Türkiye. Delta Force Echo is providing their close protection. Echo could reach our Turkish base in the southeast in short order. I trust they can get the job done if JSOC is willing to sign off.”

“Echo won’t abandon their principals,” Black said. “We need to find another team that are close enough to get in there in our short window of time.”

“Echo is the group that pulled me out of my own impossible situation,” Grey said. “I like to lean on teams I know. We’re talking about special forces being in the country without crossing a border, capturing an American soldier who is also over their border without seeming to have come through proper customs channels? That’s a red line. Diplomatically, if anything were to go wrong, they’d have Uncle Sam’s nuts in a vice. I’m advocating for Echo if possible.”

“Which sounds nice,” Red paused. “Let’s get real here. Things are heating up in the area. If Echo gets caught, using our regional allies as a jumping-off place isn’t going to come with a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

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