Threat Vector Read online

  Lipton was in his fifties, but he wore his gray-blond hair in a boyish flop that somehow did not make him look any younger, just less put together. His face was pocked with acne scars and frown lines and he looked like he enjoyed sitting in the sun as much as he enjoyed drinking—Melanie pictured him doing a lot of both at the same time. He wore his aftershave so heavy that Melanie wondered if he filled his bathtub with it and took a dip each morning. He talked too loudly and too quickly, and, she had noticed the first time they met face-to-face, he went out of his way to stare at her chest while they talked, clearly taking pleasure from the fact that she knew what he was doing.

  He reminded Melanie of the uncle of an ex-boyfriend she had when she was in high school who spent way too much time staring at her and complimenting her athletic physique in a way that was obviously perverse but also carefully worded so as to be deniable.

  In short, Lipton was a creep.

  “It’s been a while,” he said.

  “I haven’t heard from you in months. I assumed you had moved on.”

  “Moved on? You mean out of the FBI, out of the National Security Branch, or out of Counterintelligence Division?”

  “I mean away from your investigation.”

  “Away from Jack Ryan, Jr.? No, ma’am. On the contrary, just like you, we are still very interested in him.”

  “You obviously don’t have a case.” She said it with derision in her voice.

  Lipton drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “The Justice Department’s inquiry is just an intelligence-gathering operation at this point; whether or not an indictment comes from this is yet to be determined.”

  “And you are running it?”

  “I am running you. You don’t really need to know anything more than that at this stage.”

  Melanie looked out the windshield at the concrete wall as she spoke. “When I first heard from you in January, after DD/CIA Alden was arrested, you said exactly the same thing. The FBI’s National Security Branch was looking into Alden’s concerns about Jack Junior and Hendley Associates, suspicions that Jack and his coworkers were getting classified intelligence about national security affairs to make illegal trades on world financial markets. But you said it was all speculation, and no determination had been made by CID that any crime had been committed. Are you telling me that here we are, six months later, and nothing has changed?”

  “Things have changed, Miss Kraft, but they are things you are not privy to.”

  Melanie heaved a sigh. This was a nightmare. She had hoped she’d seen the last of Darren Lipton and Counterintelligence Division. “I want to know what you have on him. I want to know what this is all about. If you want my help, you need to fill me in.”

  The older man shook his head, but he retained his little smile. “You are CIA on loan to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and you are, for all intents and purposes, my confidential informant in this inquiry. That does not get you a look at the case file. You have a legal responsibility to cooperate with the FBI on this, not to mention a moral one.”

  “What about Mary Pat Foley?”

  “What about her?”

  “When we met, you told me she was part of the inquiry into Hendley Associates as well, so I could not reveal any information to her. Have you at least managed to clear her in . . . in this yet?”

  Lipton just said, “Nope.”

  “So you think Mary Pat and Jack are somehow involved in a crime?”

  “It’s a possibility we have not ruled out. The Foleys have been friends with the Ryans for over thirty years. In my line of work you realize that tight relationships like that mean people talk to one another. We don’t know the details of the relationship between Junior and Director Foley, but we do know they have met a number of times over the past year. It is possible that, with her clearances, she could be communicating classified information through Jack to benefit Hendley Associates.”

  Melanie leaned her head back against the headrest and let out a long sigh. “This is fucking crazy, Lipton. Jack Ryan is a financial analyst. Mary Pat Foley is . . . hell, she’s an American institution. You just said it yourself. They are old friends. They go to lunch once in a blue moon. I usually go with them. Even entertaining the possibility that they are involved in some national security crime against the U.S. is outlandish.”

  “Let me remind you what you told us. When Charles Alden asked you for information tying John Clark to Jack Ryan, Jr., and Hendley Associates, you indicated your belief that they were, in fact, involved in something more than trading and currency arbitrage. You told me, in only our second conversation, that you believed Ryan was in Pakistan during the events that transpired there last winter.”

  She hesitated for a moment. “I thought he was. He reacted very suspiciously when I mentioned it. There was other . . . circumstantial evidence at the time that made me think he was lying to me. But nothing I could prove. But even if he was lying to me, even if he was in Pakistan . . . that does not prove anything.”

  “Then you need to dig a little deeper.”

  “I’m not a cop, Lipton, and I’m definitely not an FBI national security agent.”

  Lipton smiled at her. “You’d be a damn good one, Melanie. How ’bout I talk to some people?”

  She did not return the smile. “How ’bout I pass?”

  His smile faded. “We have yet to get to the bottom of this. If there is a crime being committed by Hendley Associates, we need to know.”

  “I haven’t talked to you for . . . what? Six months? Why haven’t you been doing anything for the past half a year?”

  “We have, Melanie, via other means. Again, you are just one tiny piece of the puzzle. That said, you are our inside man . . . I should say ‘woman.’” He said the last part with a grin and a quick glance down at Melanie’s tight Puma jacket.

  She ignored his misogyny and said, “So, what has changed? Why are you here today?”

  “What, you don’t like our little visits?”

  Melanie just stared at Lipton. Her look said Eat shit. It was a look he’d received from many beautiful women in his life.

  Darren gave her a little wink. “My superiors want movement on this. There has been talk of wiretaps, location-tracking equipment, even a surveillance team put on Ryan and some of his coworkers.”

  Melanie shook her head emphatically. “No!”

  “But I told them that was not necessary. Due to your . . . intimate relationship with the subject, any close surveillance would be an invasion of your privacy as well. My superiors were not moved by this. They don’t think you have been that helpful to date. But in the end, I bought you a little time to get us some actionable intel on your own, before the FBI orders a full-court press.”

  “What do you want?”

  “We need to know where he is, twenty-four-seven, or as close as you can get us to that. We need to know of any trips he takes, flight times and flight numbers, hotels he stays in, people he meets with.”

  “When he travels for business, he doesn’t take me with him.”

  “Well, you will just have to get more out of him through subtle questions. Pillow talk,” he said with a wink.

  She did not respond.

  Lipton continued, “Have him e-mail you his itinerary when he travels. Tell him you miss him and want to know where he’s going. Get him to send you his e-mail confirmation from the airline when he books his travel.”

  “He doesn’t fly commercial. His company has a plane.”

  “A plane?”

  “Yes. A Gulfstream. It flies out of BWI, but that’s all I know. He’s mentioned it a few times.”

  “Why don’t I know about this?”

  “I have no idea. I told Alden about it.”

  “Well, you didn’t tell me. I’m FBI, Alden was CIA, and Alden
is under house arrest at the moment. He sure as hell isn’t working with us anymore.” Darren winked again. “We’re the good guys.”

  “Right,” she replied.

  “We need you to get intel on his coworkers as well. Who he travels with, primarily.”

  “How?”

  “Tell him you are jealous, suspicious he has other lovers. Whatever it takes. I saw the two of you together just now. You have him wrapped around your finger. That’s great. You can use that.”

  “Fuck you, Lipton.”

  Lipton smiled wildly; she could see he enjoyed the repartee. “I can arrange that, my dear. Now we’re on the same page. Let me just lower the seat here. Not the first time the Sienna’s suspension has gotten a workout, if you know what I mean.”

  He was joking, but Melanie Kraft wanted to puke. Almost instinctively she reached out and slapped the middle-aged FBI agent across the jaw.

  The hard contact between the palm of her hand and Lipton’s fleshy face sounded like a rifle shot in the enclosed minivan.

  Lipton recoiled in pain and surprise, and his sly smile disappeared.

  Melanie shouted at him, “I’m done with you! Tell your bosses that they can send another agent to talk to me if they want, I can’t stop them, but I’m not saying one more word to you!”

  Lipton touched his fingertips to his lip, looked down at a small spot of blood from Melanie’s strike.

  Melanie glared at him. She considered just getting out of the minivan and walking to the Metro. Whatever Jack was involved in, it wasn’t anything that was hurting the United States. She’d done what they’d asked of her back in January.

  Now the FBI could kiss her ass.

  As she turned to reach for the door handle, Lipton spoke again. His tone was soft but grave. He sounded like a different person.

  “Miss Kraft. I am going to ask you a question. I want you to answer me truthfully.”

  “I told you. I’m not talking to you anymore.”

  “Answer this, and you can leave if you want, and I won’t follow.”

  Melanie slumped back in the seat. Stared straight ahead out the windshield. “Fine. What?”

  “Have you, Miss Kraft, ever been employed as an agent for a foreign principal?”

  Now she turned to him. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

  “A foreign principal is a legal term that refers to the government of a country other than the United States of America.”

  “I know what a foreign principal is. I don’t know why you are asking me that.”

  “Yes or no?”

  Melanie shook her head. Genuinely confused. “No. Of course not. But if you are investigating me for something, I want a lawyer from the Agency here to—”

  “Has any member of your family ever been employed as an agent for a foreign principal?”

  Melanie Kraft stopped speaking. Her entire body stiffened.

  Darren Lipton just looked at her. A fresh drop of blood glistened on his lip from the light of a fluorescent lamp outside the van.

  “What . . . are you . . . what is this?”

  “Answer the question.”

  She did so, but more hesitantly than before. “No. Of course not. And I resent the accusation that—”

  Lipton interrupted her. “Are you familiar with Title Twenty-two of the United States Code? Specifically Subchapter Two, section six hundred eleven?”

  Her voice cracked as she shook her head and softly replied, “I am not.”

  “It’s called the Foreign Agents Registration Act. I could recite it for you chapter and verse if you like, but let me just give you the takeaway from that little piece of American federal law. If someone is working for another country, as a spy, for example, and does not register with the U.S. government as such, they are subject to a sentence of up to five years in prison for each act as a representative of the other country.”

  A hesitant and confused “So?” from Melanie Kraft.

  “Next question. Are you familiar with Title Eighteen of the USC?”

  “Again, Agent Lipton, I do not know why—”

  “That one is awesome. My personal favorite. It says—and this is paraphrased, of course, but I can quote it backward and forward—that you can get five years in a federal lockup for lying to a federal officer.” Darren smiled for the first time since Kraft had slapped him. “A federal officer like me, for instance.”

  Melanie’s voice had none of the bluster and insolence it did two minutes ago. “So?”

  “So, Melanie, you just lied to me.”

  Melanie said nothing.

  “Your father, Colonel Ronald Kraft, passed top-secret military information to the Palestinian Authority in 2004. This makes him an agent of a foreign principal. Except he sure as hell never registered as such, and he was never arrested, never prosecuted, never even suspected by the U.S. government.”

  Melanie was dumbfounded. Her hands began to shake, and her vision narrowed.

  Lipton’s smile widened. “And you, sugar, know all about it. You knew about it at the time, which means you just lied to a federal officer.”

  Melanie Kraft reached for the door handle, but Darren Lipton took her by the shoulder and spun her back around violently.

  “You also lied on your application to the CIA when you said you had neither knowledge of nor contact with agents of a foreign government. Your dear old dad was a treasonous motherfucking spy and you knew it!”

  She lurched again for the door handle, and again Lipton spun her back to him.

  “Listen to me! We’re a quarter-mile from the Hoover Building. I can be at my desk in ten minutes working up an affidavit, and I can have you arrested by lunch on Monday. There is no parole for federal crimes, so five years means five fucking years!”

  Melanie Kraft was in shock; she felt the blood rushing from her head and leaving her hands. Her feet felt cold.

  She tried to speak, but she had no words.

  EIGHTEEN

  Lipton’s voice softened again. “Honey . . . calm down. I don’t care about your piece-of-shit dad. I really don’t. And I don’t even care all that much about his poor pitiful daughter. But I do care about Jack Ryan, Junior, and it’s my job to use every last tool in my toolbox to learn everything I need to know about him.”

  Melanie looked up at him through puffy, tear-clouded eyes.

  He continued, “I don’t give two shits if Jack Ryan, Junior, is the son of the President of the United States. If he and his fat-cat financial management company up there in West Odenton are involved in using classified intelligence to make themselves rich, I will take them all down.

  “Are you going to help me, Melanie?”

  Melanie stared at the dashboard ahead of her, sniffed back tears, and gave a slight nod.

  “There’s no need for this to take long. You need to make a point of noting things, writing them down, getting them back to me. No matter how insignificant they might seem. You are a CIA officer, for crying out loud; this should be child’s play for you.”

  Melanie sniffed again and wiped her eyes and nose with the back of her bare arm. “I’m a reports officer. An analyst. I don’t run agents, and I don’t spy.”

  Darren smiled at her for a long time. “Now you do.”

  She nodded again. “Can I go now?”

  Lipton replied, “I don’t have to tell you how politically sensitive this is.”

  She sniffed back tears. “It is personally sensitive, Mr. Lipton.”

  “I get it. He’s your man. Whatever. Just do your job and this will be wrapped up in a couple of weeks. If nothing comes from this investigation, you two lovebirds will be planted in your picket-fence house in no time.”

  She nodded now. Compliant.

  Lipton said, “I’ve been working
counter-intel operations for most of thirty years. I’ve worked ops against Americans working for foreign nations, Americans working for organized crime, or just Americans committing acts of espionage for shits and grins—assholes who leak classified docs onto the Internet just because they can. I’ve been at this long enough to where the little hairs on the back of my neck stick up when I’m being lied to, and I put people in federal prison for telling lies.”

  His voice had softened, but now the menace returned.

  “I swear to God, young lady, if I get so much as a twitch in the hairs on the back of my neck that you are not shooting straight with me, you and your father will be cellmates at the shittiest, tightest facility the DOJ can find for you. You got me?”

  Melanie just looked off into space.

  “We’re done,” Lipton said. “But you can be sure I’ll be in touch.”

  —

  Melanie Kraft rode nearly alone on the Yellow Line Metro, across the Potomac and back toward her little carriage-house apartment in Alexandria. Her face was in her hands for most of the way, and though she did her best to control her tears, she sobbed from time to time as she thought about her conversation with Lipton.

  It had been almost nine years since she’d learned that her father was a traitor to the United States. She had been a senior in high school in Cairo, she had her scholarship to American in hand, and already she planned to major in international relations and go into government service, she hoped at the Department of State.

  Her dad was attached to the embassy, working in the Office of Military Cooperation. Melanie had grown up proud of her father, and she loved the embassy and the people there, and wanted nothing more than to make that her own life, her own future.

  A few weeks before Melanie’s graduation, her mother was away, back in Texas tending to a dying aunt, and her father had told her he would be spending a few days on temporary duty in Germany.