Page 48 of The Fourth Option
“Doesn’t look that way. We all thought we’d keep a small footprint here if we stuck to the political drawdown timetable, but it looks like everyone is pulling chocks, to include us.”
“When do we leave?”
“Nothing official, but unofficially, we’re out of here in a month. Maybe less.”
“You get a list of asset evacuees?”
“Eyes-only file. Chief said it’s in the system. I can pull it from here.”
Walker slid his chair aside. “Well, here’s the system. Let’s see the list.”
Staub logged in. It took five minutes of multifactor authentication, biometric scan, and rotating encryption keys appropriate for SAP-level access. Finally, a list populated the screen. No names. Just six-digit identifiers. Roughly a hundred of them.
“Just numbers,” Staub muttered.
Walker leaned in. His eyes scanned the list, looking for the cryptonym Fisk had given him that represented Naji. He walked through the first three digits of all the lines.
“They’re leaving Mongoose behind,” he said. “Those fuckers.”
“That can’t be right. After everything he’s given us?”
Walker pulled a folded slip of paper from his shirt pocket, double-checking the alphanumeric string. He held it up to the screen. “This is Mongoose. He’s not on here.”
Staub reviewed the list and cursed under his breath. “That’s low. Even for Langley. Why would they leave him behind? A mistake?”
Walker’s voice was flat. “I don’t know, but if we leave him, he’s as good as dead, and so is his family.”
“The chief said to keep all assets in place, but maybe we can find a way to get him out sooner,” Staub said.
“We could ask him to get some intel in Pakistan, tell him to take his family, something like that.”
Staub looked at him. “You’re talking about a black extract. Off the books.”
“Maybe we just give him a little help to make it to the other side of the border.” Walker gestured to the screen. “No one at Langley is going to notice that he’s gone anywhere. They’re not tracking him and with a withdrawal coming things are going to get fast and loose. I saw it when we left Iraq. We can take advantage of that.”
“Taliban might be watching to see who moves. They are going to note a change in our posture, no way around that. If they want to know who turned, they will be watching for people and families trying to get out before we leave.”
“Then we protect him.”
“Fuck, for all we know, Langley sold him out,” Staub said.
“Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know, some backroom deal? Whether intentional or an inadvertent oversight, I’d say Naji is cooked.”
“He’s our responsibility.”
Staub exhaled slowly. “You want to whisk Naji and his family out of here. No Agency support. No air cover. No backup. Just us.”
“Tertia optio,” Walker said, invoking the Latin phrase for “third option,” the motto of the covert Special Activities Division of the CIA. The first option was diplomacy. The second was war. They were the third.
“I think your math is off,” Staub said. “The system has failed and we are on our own, which makes us—you and me—Quarta optio, the fourth option.”
Walker stared at the screen, then back at his friend.
“We owe Naji,” he said.
“You make this shit personal and bad things happen,” Staub responded.
