Page 5 of Spymaster

They had their own private elevator, with access from the garage, which allowed them to secretly whisk people up without passing through the lobby—a must for a private intelligence agency, especially one now tasked with some of the CIA’s most sensitive assignments.

Because they handled classified information, the entire space had been constructed to the strictest TEMPEST requirements. Meant to safeguard against “compromising emanations” or CE, TEMPEST regulated the mechanical, electrical, and acoustic signals from all equipment used for receiving, transmitting, processing, analyzing, encrypting, and decrypting classified information. Every possible step had been taken to prevent both active and passive eavesdropping.

The firm had been just as diligent in protecting its IT, as well as all of its communications systems. In fact, wherever they could, they exceeded the standards. It put their facility years ahead of anything the government was doing.

It had cost a fortune, but it was an investment Reed Carlton had been willing to make. He was blazing an entirely new trail with his firm and being on the cutting edge of technology was sine qua non.

Carlton had a gift for recognizing threats before they ever appeared on the horizon. He also had the type of mind that was always steps ahead of everyone else.

During his three decades at the CIA, he had traveled the world, battling everything from communists to Islamic terrorists. His greatest achievement, though, was establishing the Agency’s now famed Counter Terrorism Center. There, he had dreamed up and carried out some of its most daring operations.

When the time had come to retire, he tried it, but it didn’t agree with him. He missed the “great game.” Part of him resented its going on without him. What’s more, the threats facing America hadn’t abated. They were growing. And as they grew, his beloved CIA was changing—and not for the better.

It was being overwhelmed and subverted by bureaucrats. Operations were being scaled back, or scuttled altogether. Management was obsessed with minimizing losses. An infamous maxim, pinned to the wall in one manager’s office, readBig ops, big problems. Small ops, small problems. No ops, no problems.

Like a terrible vine, the bureaucracy had wrapped itself around Langley’s throat and was choking it to death. No longer was it a vibrant, dynamic agency carrying out some of the nation’s most dangerous and necessary business. It had all but come to a halt.

The calcification had terrified Carlton. Without an effective intelligence service, the United States was in serious trouble. So Carlton had done the only thing he could do. He had come out of retirement and had founded his own private intelligence firm.

Unlike private military corporations, The Carlton Group offered more than just hired guns; it offered global intelligence gathering and analysis. For select clients, it went even further—offering full-blown covert operations.

In essence, he had created a smaller, faster version of the CIA. The United States government quickly became one of his biggest customers.

He had modeled his new company upon “Wild Bill” Donovan’s OSS—the precursor to the CIA. Their guiding principles were the same—if you fall, fall forward in service of the mission. Only the mission mattered.

To staff his operation, Carlton recruited the same type of individuals as Donovan. He wanted courageous, highly effective self-starters for whom success was the only option. He focused on the elite tiers of the military and intelligence worlds, people who had been proven, people who had been sent to the darkest corners of the world, tasked with absolutely impossible assignments, and had prevailed. He had an exceptional eye for talent.

Looking across the hall, Lydia Ryan could see Scot Harvath’s office. It was smaller than hers, but that had been his choice. He had turned down the Director position.

Carlton had been disappointed. His greatest asset, the foundation his company was built upon, was his wisdom, his hard-won experience, and his global network of intelligence contacts.

He had distilled his thirty-plus years of espionage experience and drilled it as deeply as he could into Harvath’s bones. He had forged him into one of the most cunning weapons the United States had in its arsenal.

He had also taught him about leadership and running an organization—specifically The Carlton Group. But any time the subject of one day “taking over” had come up, Harvath had made it abundantly clear he wasn’t interested. He preferred being in the field. That’s what he was good at.

When Carlton was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, he pulled out all the stops. Harvath was too valuable to keep putting into the field. Scot was his protégé and he wanted him as his successor. And, like any good intelligence officer, Carlton was willing to use anything, even a personal tragedy, to get what he wanted.

He played upon Harvath’s emotions—particularly his sense of duty. He used guilt, leveraging their father-and-son-like bond. He even tried to shame Scot, suggesting that he owed it to the family he was starting to stay home and to limit going overseas.

That last attempt was particularly egregious. Harvath was dating a woman whom he was very much in love with and she had a little boy. It was the perfect, ready-made family, especially for a man who had spent the better part of his adult life kicking in doors and shooting bad guys in the head. To drag them into this discussion showed him how desperate and even how fearful Carlton was of the future. Not only the future of his business, but more important, the future of the country.

Out of his love for Carlton, or the “Old Man,” as Harvath affectionately referred to him, he agreed to a compromise. Harvath would keep one foot in the field and one foot in the office. To do that, though, he insisted Carlton hire a full-time Director.

After a lengthy meeting in the Oval Office with the President and the Director of Central Intelligence, approval was given to hire Lydia Ryan.

Up until that point, she had been Deputy Director at the CIA. The President had handpicked her, and her boss, to clear out the deadwood at the Agency, streamline it, and get it aggressively back in the fight.

It was a Herculean task—akin to cleaning out the Augean Stables—and they soon realized it would take far longer than any of them ever anticipated. Entrenched bureaucracy needed to be torn out, root and branch. The most difficult part of tearing it out was that it fought like hell every step of the way.

While the Director tried to rescue the CIA, Ryan came over to helm The Carlton Group. It would function as a lifeboat of sorts—a place where critical operations that couldn’t be handled by Langley, would quietly be carried out until the Agency could be rehabilitated.

A handsome New Englander with a prominent chin and silver hair, Carlton had been a legend in the intelligence business—the spymaster’s spymaster. He was brilliant. To have his mind taken from him was the cruelest twist of all.

It robbed the nation of one of its greatest treasures. He literally knew where all the bodies were buried—names, dates, accounts, passwords, places, times, who had screwed whom, who owed whom.... He was a walking encyclopedia of global espionage information and it was all slipping away—quickly.

Harvath and Ryan were in a race against time, harvesting what they could. They took turns visiting with him, never knowing when Carlton would have enough energy or lucidity.

Some days were better than others. Carlton would drop cognitively, then level off, and drop again. It tore both their hearts out, but especially Harvath’s.

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