“That’s what you got? Hope?” said Schroeder in a voice laden with anger. “Hope gets us all of nothing. People are scared. And they’re right to be. They should be terrified. It’s gonna happen again, and who’s to say it won’t happen on American soil again next time?”
“Not us, that’s for damn sure,” said Chapman ruefully.
Schroeder stared intensely at Chapman. “I know you have contacts, Buck,” he said in a low voice. “You’ve delved much deeper into the intelligence rabbit hole than me or anyone else in this group.”
Chapman looked at Schroeder, taken aback. He was right, of course. Chapman had worked in extralegal intelligence for over ten years, collecting information from sources that ranged from shady to outright criminal. He often tapped in to his eyes and ears in the underworld—it was what made him such an asset. But this time, even in the criminal underworld, all he’d heard was crickets. “I’ve exhausted all the resources that I had in this, Bill,” he said. “I’ve done everything I can.”
“Don’t give me that crap,” said Schroeder. “It’s time to pull out all the stops, Buck. This cannot go on. Not on our watch.”
“Jesus, Bill, what do you think I’ve been doing for the past—”
“Do more,” said Schroeder. “The lines you wouldn’t cross before? It’s time to cross them. Do you understand what I’m saying, Buck?”
“I do,” said Chapman, his heart sinking.
He left the situation room with his mind a jumble of thoughts and misgivings. There were lines he hadn’t crossed, had told himself he wouldn’t cross. He knew that some doors, once opened, couldn’t be shut again. But what was he supposed to do? How could he hold anything back in a situation like this? And now Schroeder was pushing him as well.
Chapman walked out into the parking lot to make the fifteen-minute drive back to CIA Headquarters. He called his second-in-command at the CIA Crisis Response Team, Cynthia Gillespie.
“Talk to me, Cyn.”
“Waiting on updates from Paris, Buck. Just like when you last called, twenty minutes ago. I told you, if something turns up, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Make sure to do that,” he said.
“Are you coming back now?” she asked.
“I just have to make one quick stop.”
Chapman hung up. As he drove listlessly down the George Washington Memorial Parkway, he wondered how fast he could get ahold of a secure phone line.
CHAPTER 2
Budapest, December 27
“I’m here to see Roman Lubarsky.”
The voice was self-assured, brash even; if the accent had not given away that he was not from Budapest, but rather from America, then surely the characteristic lack of subtlety would have been plenty to identify the nationality of the speaker.
“I’m afraid Mr. Lubarsky isn’t seeing anyone at the moment, sir,” said the girl at the hardwood and brass reception desk, offering him a “what-can-you-do?” shrug and a practiced look of commiseration from across the counter, and motioning him out of the wood-paneled, red-carpeted foyer into the brisk grey morning.
“Oh, I think he’s going to want to see me,” the man said, then grinned. She did not smile back at his comment. He was approaching middle age, but still handsome in that rough American way, with a chiseled jaw, a full head of dark hair with grey streaks, and a trim mustache with a goatee. He was not tall, but had broad shoulders that were emphasized by his grey pinstripe suit. He had an expensive-looking black leather briefcase in his right hand, which she had noticed when he’d walked into the lobby. She had also noticed that he was unusually fit and vigorous. The kind of man who could cause a lot of trouble if he wanted to—of one kind and the other, she couldn’t help thinking, looking him up and down. She shut those thoughts out. She had to look at him as a security risk and nothing more, and those thoughts only compounded the danger. Under his suit jacket she could see a well-concealed gun holster. Barely perceptible, but it was the kind of thing she was paid to notice.
She could tell she wouldn’t get rid of him easily, but this wasn’t the first person who had insisted on coming in off the street to see the boss. He was definitely not the first one who had come in packing heat. But she knew how to deal with this type.
“Mr. Lubarsky does not receive anyone without an appointment,” she told him. She leaned in closer, resting her weight on her right elbow on the counter, as if to say something confidential, just between him and her. “Trust me, sir,” she said. “It will do no good to insist.” As she spoke, she reached down discreetly with her right hand and pushed the tiny button hidden on the underside of the counter.