Firestorm. Don Pendleton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ in the other.

      She flashed Bolan a warm smile, which he returned. The two often spent time together when Bolan was at the Farm. He’d left her room only minutes before the meeting, after he’d received Brognola’s page, to get cleaned up and change clothes.

      She leaned against the door, holding it open for Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman, the head of the counterterrorism facility’s cyberteam. The computer expert guided his wheelchair into the room and exchanged greetings with the other two men.

      On the arm of his wheelchair, he balanced a carafe that Bolan assumed contained coffee. Kurtzman buzzed up to the table, set the carafe on the tabletop and pushed it toward Bolan.

      “Top off your cup,” Kurtzman said, nodding at Bolan’s coffee.

      For several seconds, the soldier stared at the carafe. Finally he unscrewed the cap and poured some of the steaming liquid into his cup. The coffee’s color looked like dirty motor oil mixed with black shoe polish.

      Price moved around the room, distributing folders to everyone. When she finished, Brognola, anxious to continue the briefing, waved her to her seat. In the meantime, the big Fed poured himself some coffee.

      “Initially, the NSA wasn’t sure what to make of the deals. Garrison’s people had a history of being approached by unsavory people. Occasionally, it cut deals, but did so at our behest, as a way for us to gather intelligence on various countries and terrorist groups. But it never passed along any cutting-edge technology or items related to nuclear proliferation.”

      “Back up,” Bolan said. “These guys have sold weapons to our enemies before? And did so with government consent?”

      Brognola nodded.

      “Most Garrison employees have no idea that this goes on. But, yes, they do exactly that. They have a few agents who essentially work as hard as they can to hook up with the bad guys. Word gets around, usually through some cutouts. Pretty soon, the bad guys come to them. They fork over bribes, ask for stuff they’re banned from having. The Garrison people nod their heads, and go along with the gag.”

      “And feed whatever information they collect back into the intelligence network,” Bolan said.

      Brognola nodded. “The Garrison agents almost never hand over anything of consequence, at least not on a global scale. The thinking has been that it’s better to hand these jerks a couple of RPGs and know they have them than allow them to buy weapons from some freelancer in South Africa, Libya or Iraq. And, historically, the Company—I mean the CIA, not Garrison—always kept close tabs on the weapons. That’s why these particular transactions set off alarm bells. But we’ll cover that in a minute.”

      “What’s the breakdown on what they sell?” Bolan asked.

      “They have a network of soldiers, intelligence people and support personnel they contract out, mostly to our government. We’ve used their people for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Colombia. The majority are top-knotch soldiers, not rogues. They do on-the-ground fighting, security and training so that we don’t tie up too many people in overseas operations.”

      “What about their weapons design and development operations?” Bolan asked. “I assume most of their R&D work also is for the United States.”

      Price leaned forward on the table. “Mostly,” she said. “About seventy-five percent of it is for us and another twenty-four-and-a-half percent is performed for our allies.”

      The Executioner set his coffee on the table. “Which leaves a half percent unaccounted for. Give me that list.”

      Brognola sighed. “It’s the countries that keep us up at night—North Korea, Iran, Syria. And some bad elements in allied countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have also been known to tap Garrison for equipment.”

      Price continued, “The intelligence community tried to build in safeguards to minimize any blowback against us or our allies. Sometimes the buyers ended up dead from natural causes.” She gestured quotation marks with her fingers to highlight the last two words. “Or thieves stole the weapons. But the thieves actually were on the CIA’s payroll. Or we sent in proxies to buy back the weapons. It wasn’t a perfect system. It’s not unreasonable to assume that some weapons fell into the wrong hands, that someone, somewhere slaughtered innocents with those weapons. But the operation did generate good intelligence for us. I guess the National Security adviser considered any mistakes a fair trade in exchange for the benefits.”

      “A fair trade, maybe,” Bolan said, “but not an equal one.”

      “Intelligence gathering isn’t always neat and clean, Mack,” Price stated. “I know that from my own experiences with the NSA. It’s as much an art as it is a science. Perhaps more art than science. It’s as imperfect as hell. You know that.”

      Bolan acknowledged her words with a nod.

      “And Garrison’s been doing this for how long?” Bolan asked.

      “About twenty years,” Brognola said.

      “And we’ve known about it how long?”

      “About twenty years,” the big Fed stated.

      Bolan searched his old friend’s face and waited for the punch line.

      “I’ll bite,” Bolan replied. “So it’s twenty years later and suddenly we learn that someone within the organization has gone rogue, and we have an emergency. Are we just concerned about the satellite parts and the tubes?”

      Brognola shook his head. “It seems that some of these creeps have begun moving up the Garrison food chain. They’re getting their items more quickly. They get to meet with select members of the senior management team. We’re worried that the Iranian and Chinese transactions are only the tip of the iceberg. So was the CIA, which is why they sent a team of agents down there to investigate.

      “And it gets even more complex. Garrison doesn’t just play these cloak-and-dagger games out of a sense of patriotism. They’re sort of enmeshed in the intelligence community.”

      “Enmeshed with or part of the intelligence community?” Bolan asked.

      “Give the boy a cigar,” Kurtzman said.

      “The whole damn operation was planned and sanctioned by the National Security Council,” Brognola said. “Using money from a slush fund, the council bought a small research-and-development firm a couple of decades ago and grew it into what it is today. Unfortunately, it seems to be taking on a life of its own, which has everyone from the White House on down worried.”

      The big Fed set down his cigar long enough to take a swig of coffee. His face puckered in distaste, and he shot Kurtzman a dirty look. The computer genius just shrugged and studied at the contents of his coffee mug.

      Brognola continued, “Most of Garrison’s money comes from black budgets. Or it uses its proceeds to pay for operations. Traditionally, most of what it made, it sold back to us or other allied governments. So the few politicians who knew about it, ignored it. The thinking behind it is that it allows us to have more control over the weapons we make and buy and it’s a source that, at least ostensibly, has our best interests at heart.”

      “Plus it helps folks sidestep congressional scrutiny when budget time comes,” Bolan said.

СКАЧАТЬ