Drone Strike: A Joe Matthews Thriller by David Austin

Author:David Austin [Austin, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-12-18T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 30

Scott Garrett threw his legs over the side of the bed and sat there, thinking about what he had just heard. He was quickly forming some conclusions, the only problem was that none of them were good, at least as far as Tariq was concerned. He pushed himself off the bed and headed for the shower.

Thirty minutes later he was walking through Post One of the massive U.S. Embassy on Al-Umawyeen street in the western section of Amman. The Marine Security Guard on duty, a corporal who looked young enough to be his son, greeted him. “Damn, Mr. Garrett. You’re getting an early start this morning.”

“That I am, Corporal Hall. I have a feeling it’s going to be an extra pot of coffee kind of day,” Garrett said as he crossed the lobby to the bank of elevators. Getting off on the fourth floor, he opened the vault door securing the CIA’s office space and punched his code into the alarm panel. After flipping on the lights, his first order of business was the coffeemaker. He put a pot on, making it extra strong, then went to his office to jot down some notes while he waited on the brew.

With a steaming mug of coffee and his thoughts lined out, he reached for the secure phone’s handset and hit the speed dial button for the DDO, Katherine Clark. With the time difference, it was a little past eight in the evening in Washington.

Katherine Clark collapsed on the couch next to her husband, looking forward to a quiet evening streaming a few episodes of their favorite show. He was about to hit play on the remote when they were interrupted by the unmistakable ring of the secure phone in the study. She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry, hon. I’ll try and make it quick.”

Being married to the nation’s top spook for over thirty years, he was accustomed to interruptions at all hours of the night. “No sweat,” he said, flipping over to the Georgetown basketball game. “You know where to find me when you’re done.”

Clark closed the door to the study and walked over to her desk. She picked up the phone and waited for the digital readout on the small screen to read SECURE before answering. An officer in the Operations Center at Langley said, “Sorry to bother you at home, ma’am. I have Scott Garrett in Amman on the line for you.”

She glanced at her watch and muttered, “It must be around three in the morning over there. This can’t be good. Put him through.”

Garrett spent the next ten minutes running her through the call with Tariq, the Russian coming on the line, and what he thought had happened. When he was done, he asked, “Can we get some of the DS&T whiz kids to try to track the last known location of Tariq’s phone? That will give me a starting place to begin my search for him.”

“Sure. Wait. What?” Clark said as that last sentence registered in her brain.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.