The Mark of the Assassin by Daniel Silva Read Free Book Online

rather
    interesting fax in our newsroom. I'm no expert, but it looks authentic.
    Perhaps you should have a look."
    Ferguson made a copy of the fax and kept the original for himself. He
    personally carried it downstairs to the lobby and waited. Five minutes
    later the car arrived. A young man with pockmarked skin and a cigarette
    between his lips came into the lobby and took possession of the fax.
    Niles Ferguson went back upstairs. The man with the pockmarked face
    worked for Britain's Security Service, better known as MI5, which is
    responsible for counterintelligence, internal subversion, and
    counterterrorism within the British Isles. He hand-carried the copy of
    the fax to MI5's glass and steel headquarters overlooking the Thames and
    presented it to the senior duty officer. The duty officer quickly made
    two calls. The first was reluctantly placed to his counterpart at the
    Secret Intelligence Service, better known as mi-6, which is responsible
    for gathering intelligence overseas and therefore considers itself the
    more glamorous and significant of the two services. The second call was
    to MI5's liaison officer at the CIA's generously staffed London Station,
    located across town within the U.S. embassy complex at Grosvenor Square.
    Within two minutes a copy of the letter was sent to Grosvenor Square by
    secure fax. Ten minutes later a typist had entered it into the computer
    system and forwarded it to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The
    agency's computer system automatically distributes cables based on key
    words and classification. The cable from London went to the offices of
    the director, the deputy directors for intelligence and operations, the
    executive director, and the duty officer on the Middle East desk. It was
    also routed directly to the agency's Counterterrorism Center. Seconds
    later it appeared on the computer screen of the officer assigned to the
    Islamic extremist group called the Sword of Gaza. The officer's name was
    Michael Osbourne.
    CHAPTER 6.
    CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia.
    HEADQUARTERS, Michael Osbourne's father always said, was the place good
    field men went to wither and die. His father had been a case officer in
    the Soviet Directorate. He had recruited and run agents from Moscow to
    Rome to the Philippines. James Angleton, the famed CIA
    counterintelligence officer who engaged in a destructive mole hunt for
    twenty years, ruined his career, the same way he ruined the careers of
    hundreds of other loyal officers. He spent his final years writing
    useless assessments and shuffling paper, and he left the Agency bitter
    and disillusioned. Three years after retirement he died of cancer.
    Michael's return to headquarters was as reluctant as his father's but
    brought on by different circumstances. The opposition knew his true name
    and occupation, and it was no longer safe for him to operate undercover
    in the field. He accepted his fate rather like a model prisoner takes to
    a life sentence. Still, he never forgot his father's admonition about
    the perils of life at Langley.
    THEY WORKED TOGETHER in a single room, known affectionately as the bull
    pen, on Corridor IF of the sixth floor. It looked more like the newsroom
    of a failing metropolitan daily than the nerve center of the CIA's
    counterterrorism operation. There was Alan, a bookish FBI accountant who
    tracked the secret flow of illicit money through the world's most
    discreet and dirty banks. There was Cynthia, a flaxen angel of British
    birth who knew more about the IRA than anyone else on earth. Her cramped
    cubicle was hung with brooding photographs of Irish guerrillas,
    including the boy who blew off her brother's hand with a pipe bomb. She
    gazed at them throughout the day, the way a girl might stare at a poster
    of the latest teen heartthrob. There was Stephen, alias Eurotrash, whose
    task was to monitor the various terrorist and nationalist movements of
    Western Europe. And there was Blaze, a six-foot-four-inch gringo