As the senior-ranking person, Sullivan set the culture for the men and women he led. Rapp was no stranger to long surveillance operations and the friction they generated between teammates. Take five high-performing individuals, stuff them into a house meant to hold two people, and give them a job that incorporates hours of boredom interspersed with infrequent and brief moments of terror. Viewed from that perspective, it was a wonder any long-duration surveillance team came through the operation without killing each other.
But that was the job.
More importantly, it was the job of team leaders like Sullivan to show his subordinates the correct way to manage the stress and defuse petty squabbles. Rapp knew that the three men and two women who staffed the safehouse and had manned its surveillance tools for the last three weeks were frustrated.
That was understandable.
But allowing their frustration to boil over into disparaging comments about adjacent teammates had the potential to put the mission at risk.
“That woman is a Farm-trained case officer,” Rapp said. “She grew up in Pakistan, speaks the language, and looks like she belongs here, which is something no one else in this house can claim. She was recruited for this operation by Mike Nash and vetted by me. She’s good to go because I say she’s good to go. Anyone have a problem with that?”
Judging by the answering silence, no one did.
The gang was on edge. Not only were they at risk of constant detection, but the pressure from headquarters to figure out who was in the compound kept increasing. SEAL Team 6 assaulters had been practicing on a compound identical to the one he was viewing on the combination day TV/infrared sensor for three weeks. At some point, the national command authority had to authorize the mission or the decision would be made for them. While the Agency people surveilling the compound were good, they were not perfect. Sooner or later, a mistake or even just bad luck would tip the balance. A local would get suspicious of the strangers and whisper something into the wrong ear. Or maybe one of the couriers would get tipped off to the Agency presence courtesy of a countersurveillance team of their own. There was also the possibility that the compound’s mysterious resident might get antsy and decide to change locations.
If the man who paced the compound’s grounds in loose-fitting clothing and a broad-brimmed hat really was bin Laden, he’d managed to remain undetected for almost ten years. A person couldn’t stay free for that long without developing some sort of sixth sense about his enemies. Bottom line, the Agency surveillance team was on borrowed time and needed to produce results.
Which was exactly what Rapp intended to do.
“No questions about her performance,” Sullivan said, answering for the team, “but this is the first USPER to approach the compound. If things go bad, what are we prepared to do?”
This time Sullivan was asking a good question.
USPER stood for United States Person. It was a generic term used to delineate assets from people with US citizenship and/or a legitimate reason to consider America their home.
People like Noreen.
The doctor who’d been turned away during his attempt to vaccinate the compound’s occupants was Pakistani and therefore an asset. While his safety and well-being were important to his handler and the CIA writ large, he was not in the same category as Noreen. The cold, hard truth was that assets were often deemed expendable.
Case officers were not.
But Sullivan’s question got at something even deeper. Sullivan might be asking about Noreen, but Rapp thought the question also applied to bin Laden. If Noreen somehow spooked the terrorist, would Rapp stand by while the Al Qaeda leader slipped through their fingers?
No.
But Rapp didn’t say this to Sullivan.
The CIA officer was already under enough stress. No sense adding Rapp’s potential one-man assassination operation to his worry list. Instead, Rapp decided to go with something reassuring.
“If Noreen gets into trouble, we will do whatever is necessary to extract her. Questions?”
“Right on,” Taylor said.
Rapp eyed the analyst, considering.
His remark to Sullivan wasn’t pure bluster. Rapp had no intention of letting anything happen to Noreen. He’d gone into hell multiple times before to save comrades, and he wasn’t planning on changing strategies now. That said, there was something to having a fellow operative watching your back.
As legendary Marine Jim Mattis had once said, when going to a gunfight it was wise to bring all your friends with guns. But that was a thought for later. At the moment, Rapp had more pressing concerns.
Noreen was knocking on the compound’s gate.
CHAPTER 62
FOR once, Noreen was grateful for the unseasonably warm and humid weather.
The thick humidity wrapped her in a stifling blanket, but the 85-degree temperatures also provided cover for the rivulets of sweat dripping down her face. She’d once heard a Farm instructor describe a spy’s glamorous life as standing outside an apartment building in the pouring rain, aiming a bit of electronics at one particular door and praying that this wasn’t the night you went to jail.
Noreen had laughed at the anecdote along with the rest of her class.
She wasn’t laughing now.
The compound had seemed big in the surveillance pictures Rapp had provided. Standing next to the green metal gate, it looked positively massive. Though the structure was imposing, it also had a slightly decrepit air. The gray cinder-block walls towered above her, but the sides were pitted and damp with condensation. Lime-colored mildew covered the sections not exposed to direct sunlight, giving off a moldy smell. Razor wire glittered from the top of the wall, reflecting the sunlight like an alligator’s gleaming teeth. Her head knew that the one-man wrecking ball that was Rapp was watching her every move from the safehouse.
Her heart wasn’t so sure.
She’d experienced the Rapp effect firsthand and now understood why he was able to so easily bend politicians, Agency bureaucrats, and captured terrorists to his will. Rapp’s presence was tangible. He exuded raw intensity. After hearing his plan and her part in it, Noreen had been ready to run through a brick wall. Now that she was faced with one made from cinder blocks, she wasn’t as confident.
Much to her surprise, the steel gate had begun to swing open at her first knock, but Noreen didn’t stop pounding on the metal. For one thing, her legend said she was a nurse delivering a vaccine to the rural parts of Abbottabad. The compound, while impressive, was just one of many houses she needed to visit today.
But that was only part of the reason.
Pounding on the rusted gate gave Noreen’s hands something to do besides quiver.
Even though it had to weigh twice as much as she did, the gate opened smoothly. One moment Noreen had been confronting a pitted, rust-flecked surface. The next she was face-to-face with a dark-complected man.
A frowning dark-complected man.
According to safehouse analysts, two Al Qaeda couriers lived in the compound and served as the conduit between the structure’s unseen residents and the outside world. The men posed as brothers claiming to be Pakistanis who had been born in Kuwait. Whether this was true or not, Noreen didn’t know or particularly care. The men’s origins were no more important to her than their true names.
