Scorpion Deception by Andrew Kaplan Read Free Book Online

to spot the “Flagstaff” e-mail from one of Rabinowich’s cover Hotmail accounts. Flagstaff was the CIA’s current emergency code. It meant Flash Critical, the highest level of operational urgency. It was only used when all hell had broken loose.
    â€œS o the Company’s messed their diapers. What’s that got to do with me?” Scorpion said to Soames, his eyes restlessly checking Diamond Plaza through the store window.
    â€œIf you mean are they shitting bricks in Washington, that’s the understatement of the century,” Soames said. “Congress is ready to bomb the hell out of somebody. They’re just waiting for us to tell them who.”
    â€œAnd?”
    Soames shifted uncomfortably. He leaned closer.
    â€œThis is coming from the top. The Director of Central Intelligence himself wants you in on this. So does the National Security Advisor. They asked for you personally. It’s a mess.”
    Neither man spoke. From a radio somewhere came the sound of Kenyan hip hop; some song about “nothing to lose” heard over the street sounds and the calls of the Indian waiters to potential customers. Soames was wearing his sincere look like a merit badge.
    â€œLook,” Scorpion said. “I don’t know what Harris is cooking up, but what I said before goes. I’m not interested.” Soames put down his beer. He looked at Scorpion with pale unblinking eyes.
    â€œYou really think we’re all bureaucratic assholes, don’t you?” he said. “That we don’t have a goddamn clue.”
    â€œThe sad thing is, some of you do have a clue. But there’s too much politics. Anyway, let’s cut the foreplay, shall we?” Scorpion said. “You made your pitch and I’m not buying. What is it Rabinowich thinks I have to know?”
    â€œThey got everything,” Soames growled.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThose sons-a-bitches who attacked the embassy,” pushing the Tusker bottle away. “They got everything from the computers, from the ambassador and station chief on down. Everything! Everyone’s going nuts. State, DOD, NSA, the White House, us. Everyone!”
    Scorpion heard horns honking out on Masari Road and the klaxon of a police car. Another Nairobi smash-up, he thought. Shouting, bribes, and local Mungiki youths sneaking off with whatever in either car wasn’t locked down. It felt like a bad omen.
    He studied Soames’s posture. The man had a tell, rubbing his little finger. He was holding something back.
    â€œYou don’t have a clue who did it, do you?” he said.
    Soames nodded. “AQAP,” he said, meaning Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, “claims they did it, but no one believes them. They wore ski masks, spoke little. Security monitors only picked up a few words. English, with indeterminate accents. They hardly spoke. Not enough voice data to nail it down. We’re dead in the water.”
    â€œWhat does Rabinowich think?”
    â€œUh-uh, amigo.” Soames smirked. “You got to pay to play.” He sat there, a big man dwarfing the small plastic chair he was sitting in like an American Buddha.
    Scorpion picked up his bottle of Tusker by the neck. Something in the way he held it seemed to remind Soames that it could be used as a weapon.
    â€œI meant it. I’m not interested,” Scorpion said. “You jerks sent me a Flagstaff, so unless that doesn’t mean anything anymore, just say what you came to say and we’ll both get the hell out of here.”
    Soames shifted uncomfortably. “They got a list of all Company ops in Europe and the Middle East. Operations officers, Core collectors, joes, codes, the works,” he said.
    â€œAre you kidding?” Scorpion shook his head. “Somebody had all that on a computer in an embassy in Switzerland, where the only real business is visas and tax fraud, and you wonder why I think you clowns can’t be