Ice Cold Kill Read Online Free PDF Page B

round, wire-frame glasses up onto his forehead and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “Our intelligence services have been taken over by fools. So. It is up to us to give our allies something to get behind. We go with the plan as it is.”
    He stood and crossed to the door. “I need coffee. Are you coming?”
    Schullman rose and the bed groaned in relief. “And food. I need food.”
    “Of course you do. Come.”
    They stepped out on the walkway. Schullman threw on a military-style jacket. “Does Hannah Herself still want to implicate Daria?”
    Asher smiled. Schullman always used the full nickname: “Hannah Herself.” He used it reverentially.
    “She does. The Group does. Daria and the Syrian, both.”
    “Daria is living in California. Did it ever dawn on the Group that if we leave her alone, maybe she’ll leave us alone?”
    Asher smiled up at his old friend. “The Group knows what it’s doing.”
    Schullman said, “And the genie?”
    “The genie, as you say, will be ours to command.”
    The big soldier grimaced. “Sure, sure. Because fairy tales that begin like that never end badly, do they?”
    Asher laughed. “We will control this particular genie.”
    “Which will kill thousands.”
    Asher said, “Yes.” The sun glinted off his flat round lenses.
    “Indiscriminately.”
    “No. Very, very discriminately. More’s the pity.”
    Langley, Virginia
    The CIA breaks down into roughly two camps: operations and analysis.
    John Broom was an analyst.
    A thin man with narrow hips, standing five-ten, he looked slighter than he was. He had a bachelor’s degree from Columbia in political science, a master’s from the Kennedy School of Government, and a law degree from Harvard. He had joined the agency two weeks after passing the New York bar and had proven adept at reading foreign crises. In a little less than ten years, he had become one of the agency’s premier crystal ball gazers in the arenas of foreign military endeavors and weapon development.
    Now, however, John was ready for a change. In a week, he was leaving to join the staff of the long-standing chairman of the Congressional Joint Committee on Intelligence. Such was John’s reputation as a guy who could deliver reliable intelligence that the director of Central Intelligence himself had dropped by his cubicle to try to talk him out of leaving.
    *   *   *
     
    It was going on 9:00 P.M. Eastern, on a Monday, his last Monday at the agency, as John hauled his fatigued body out to the underground parking lot and the tunnel that led to the metro. He’d spent hours holed up in a cubicle, peering at computer monitors. He longed for a good jog.
    A Lexus pulled in, half a row ahead of John. Stanley Cohen, assistant director for antiterrorism, or ADAT, struggled out of the car and set his attaché case down on the hood.
    John approached him. “Mr. Assistant Director.”
    “Mr. Broom.”
    John loosened his Italian silk tie. He looked around the underground garage. Without moving his feet, he could see no fewer than seven CC cameras.
    “So. You’re moving to Congress, huh?”
    “Better cafeterias.”
    “Can’t argue that.” Stanley Cohen was a waspish man who squinted and held himself in tight check, shoulders always slightly forward, his head moving only when necessary. It made him look volatile or vigilant when, in fact, it was the result of a lifetime of back pain.
    Cohen said, “You have a certain flair, John.” He pulled a pack of wintergreen gum out of his pocket, pulled out a stick. He waved it toward John, who shook his head. Cohen slid the gum into his mouth in lieu of the cigarette he so wanted. “You should hang around. You don’t completely suck at this.”
    “Thank you. But I resigned.”
    “You could unresign.”
    “Yes, but—”
    “Bullshit. You’re a natural. You are hell on a pogo stick. You are exactly the guy we need doing exactly what you’ve been doing.”
    A couple of cars exited the underground lot, their tires screeching