Free Portrait of a Spy by Daniel Silva Page A

atop the sideboard in the dining room. “High blood pressure,” Carter explained, as he drew coffee from a pump-action thermos. “It started on Inauguration Day, and it rises and falls in relation to the terrorist threat level. It’s sad to say, but after ten years of fighting Islamic terror, I seem to have become a living, breathing National Threat Advisory.”
    “What level are we today?”
    “Didn’t you hear?” asked Carter. “We’ve abandoned the old color-coded system.”
    “What’s your blood pressure telling you?”
    “Red,” said Carter dourly. “Bright red.”
    “Not according to your director of homeland security. She says there’s no immediate threat.”
    “She doesn’t always write her own lines.”
    “Who does?”
    “The White House,” said Carter. “And the president doesn’t like to needlessly alarm the American people. Besides, raising the threat level would conflict with the convenient narrative making its way around the Washington chattering classes these days.”
    “Which narrative is that?”
    “The one that says America overreacted to 9/11. The one that says al-Qaeda is no longer a threat to anyone, let alone the most powerful nation on the face of the earth. The one that says it’s time to declare victory in the global war on terror and turn our attention inward.” Carter frowned. “God, but I hate it when journalists use the word ‘narrative.’ There was a time when novelists wrote narrative and journalists were content to report facts. And the facts are quite simple. There exists in the world today an organized force that seeks to weaken or even destroy the West through acts of indiscriminate violence. This force is a part of a broader radical movement to impose sharia law and restore the Islamic Caliphate. And no amount of wishful thinking will make it go away.”
    They sat on opposite sides of the rectangular table. Carter picked at the edge of a stale croissant, his thoughts clearly elsewhere. Gabriel knew better than to rush the proceedings. In conversation, Carter could be a bit of a wanderer. Eventually, he would make his way to the point, but there would be several detours and digressions along the way, all of which would undoubtedly prove useful to Gabriel at a later date.
    “In some respects,” Carter continued, “I’m sympathetic to the president’s desire to turn the page of history. He views the global war on terrorism as a distraction from his larger goals. You might find this difficult to believe, but I’ve seen him on just two occasions. He calls me Andrew.”
    “But at least he’s given us hope.”
    “Hope is not an acceptable strategy when lives are at stake. Hope is what led to 9/11.”
    “So who’s pulling the strings inside the administration?”
    “James McKenna, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, also known as the terrorism czar, which is interesting since he’s issued an edict banning the word ‘terrorism’ from all our public pronouncements. He even discourages its use behind closed doors. And heaven forbid if we happen to place the word ‘Islamic’ anywhere near it. As far as James McKenna is concerned, we aren’t engaged in a war against Islamic terrorists. We’re engaged in an international effort against a small band of transnational extremists. These extremists, who just happen to be Muslims, are an irritant, but pose no real threat to our existence or way of life.”
    “Tell that to the families of those who died in Paris, Copenhagen, and London.”
    “That’s an emotional response,” Carter said sardonically. “And James McKenna doesn’t tolerate emotion when it comes to talking about terrorism.”
    “You mean extremism,” said Gabriel.
    “Forgive me,” Carter said. “McKenna is a political animal who fancies himself an expert on intelligence. He worked on the staff of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee in the nineties and came to Langley shortly after the Greek arrived.