The Deadly Secret by Hopkins J.K

Author:Hopkins, J.K.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stone Canyon Publishing
Published: 2022-09-27T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 31

It was midmorning, Sunday, as the black Suburban departed Langley, Virginia for the short ride to the White House. In the back, Sampson nodded at Paul Beckum and waited for him to put up the privacy divider. “Will the package arrive in Tehran on time?” he asked, once they were sealed off.

Paul nodded. “Agent Kashani should have the satphones in plenty of time to make the drop. He’ll call you just before midnight, their time, for your final instructions.”

“How much do you think Agent Stone really knows?”

Paul shrugged. “Considering the unorthodox way in which she was trained, it’s extremely difficult to get a good read on her, but her intellect and analytical skills are a big part of why you picked her. And when you throw in the fact that she was teamed with a man who has a major axe to grind and has no doubt kept his eyes open and his ears to the ground, don’t be surprised if she’s taken scattered pieces of information, putting two and two together, and now smells a rat.”

“Is Kashani right?” Sampson asked, dreading the implications. It was six hours since her call, and he would soon have to decide whether to support her or leave her out in the cold or consider even more drastic measures. “Is she going rogue?”

“Perhaps,” Paul said, contemplating, “but isn’t that what she was supposed to do?”

Sampson grunted. After hearing of Agent Stone’s predawn phone call, the President had blown a gasket, immediately regretting the operation he had only greenlighted under very strict guidelines. “She was supposed to improvise,” he testily replied, recalling how the President had hinted in a very roundabout way that the problem should be eliminated, with extreme prejudice, if necessary. “She was not supposed to go off in an entirely different direction!”

Paul checked his watch. “You’ve still got a little over six hours to decide how you want to handle it.”

As they crossed the Potomac River, entering into Washington D.C., Sampson pondered the presidential grilling the two of them were about to receive. “Are we on the same page for our briefing with the President?”

“Don’t worry,” he said, “it won’t be a problem.”

“Then tell me about Batebi. Is he really intent on seizing control of Iran and destroying Israel?”

Paul hesitated. “I have no doubt he was telling the truth, at least on the big issues, but his voice clearly demonstrated stress in a few places, such as the odd inflections.”

“I caught that,” Sampson said, noting the way Paul had parsed his words. “Considering everything we know about this guy, none of this makes any sense. For one thing, it would mean he was faking all of those speeches, from Berkley to Harvard to Oxford, in which he pontificated on the merits of freedom and democracy for Iran.”

“Since when do terrorists make any sense?” Paul asked, laying a single sheet of paper on the Director’s lap. “And if you need more proof, this is a summary of a message I received just before we left.

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.