The Colonel's Mistake Read Online Free PDF Page A

been visiting an orphanage. On her own time. For the purpose of donating $500. When Mark had investigated the payment, he’d learned it had come from her modest personal bank account and had gone directly toward food and medicine for the kids. And when he’d investigated the orphanage, he’d learned that it was just a straight-up charity, with no ties to terrorists or corrupt money-launderers.
    Mark knew, however, that fear often trumped logic at the CIA. As a result, most Agency officers were white guys like himself, men who had to struggle to blend in with the locals in Azerbaijan and Iran. And it was on Iran that Daria, with her honey-toned skin and fluent command of Farsi, had been recruited to spy, using Azerbaijan as a base. Her posting had been a welcome exception, an exception Mark had hoped would mark the beginning of a new way of thinking at the CIA.
    That hadn’t turned out to be the case. When Mark had quit the CIA, Daria was the only operations officer in Baku who wasn’t vanilla white. And Kaufman had never liked, or trusted, her.

Washington, DC
    Colonel Henry Amato eyed his boss—National Security Advisor James Ellis—from the opposite side of an oval table. Ellis was a tall man, with a prominent chin, deep-set eyes, and a patrician air that had been perfected at Harvard and elite think tanks. On television, when he was wearing makeup and standing side by side with the president, he looked distinguished. But at ten to midnight, in a basement conference room beneath the West Wing of the White House, under fluorescent lights that exposed Ellis’s yellowing teeth and deep wrinkles, Amato thought cadaverous a better description.
    And then there was the chewing.
    Amato watched with disdain as Ellis methodically ground his jaw in small circles. It was a habit his boss lapsed into when other people were speaking, as if to suggest he was so engaged that he was literally chewing over what was being said. Which certainly wasn’t the case now.
    At the moment, Ellis was pretending to listen to the director of national intelligence. Reading from a file marked
Top Secret
, the DNI was sharing preliminary satellite evidence and intelligencereports that suggested a limited troop mobilization was underway in Iran.
    Upon finishing, the DNI dropped the file on the table and shook his head. “Now maybe I’m grasping at straws, but I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that Campbell’s assassination has something to do with this activity in Iran. God knows what the Iranians are really up to, but the timing is too suspicious to ignore.”
    Ellis said, “What’s your take, Henry?”
    Instead of answering, Amato—who was Ellis’s top Iran advisor—remained perfectly still, as though standing at attention before a superior officer. The fluorescent lighting above was unnervingly bright and flickering a bit, contributing to his feeling of nausea.
    “Henry?”
    He hadn’t seen any of this coming. It was as if someone had cold-cocked him with a two-by-four.
    He was a deacon at Saint Mary’s. A volunteer at Walter Reed. His wife had died two years ago but he’d remained faithful to her since her death, just as he had for the twenty-three years they’d been married. What sins he committed, he regularly confessed to God. As of a few days ago, he’d thought that all he needed to do was to soldier on through a few more years in government and then tolerate a quiet retirement.
    And now this.
    Daria had survived, but they would hunt her down. They had the men and the resources. Good God, he wasn’t prepared to shut down the whole operation, but he had to do something.
    “Henry?” repeated Ellis, and this time his tone was sharper.
    “Sorry, sir. I worked with Jack Campbell years ago and I confess the news of his death hit me pretty hard.” Amato turned to face the DNI. “I don’t see a link between the troop movements in Iran andCampbell’s assassination,” he lied. “More likely what happened to Campbell is about