Free Portrait of a Spy by Daniel Silva Page B

He lasted only a few months, but that doesn’t stop him from describing himself as a veteran of the CIA. To hear McKenna tell it, he’s an Agency man who has the best interests of the Agency at heart. The truth is somewhat different. He loathes the Agency and all those who toil within its walls. Most of all, he despises me.”
    “Why?”
    “Apparently, I embarrassed him during a senior staff meeting. I don’t remember the incident, but it seems McKenna has never gotten over it. Beyond that, I’m told McKenna regards me as a monster who’s done irreparable harm to America’s image in the world. Nothing would make him happier than to see me behind bars.”
    “It’s good to know the U.S. intelligence community is functioning smoothly again.”
    “Actually, McKenna is under the impression it’s working just fine now that he’s running the entire show. He even managed to get himself appointed chairman of our new High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group. If a major terrorist figure is captured anywhere in the world, under any circumstances, James McKenna will be in charge of questioning him. It’s a great deal of power to place in the hands of a single person, even if that person were competent. But, unfortunately, James McKenna doesn’t fall into that category. He’s ambitious, he’s well intentioned, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing. And if he isn’t careful, he’s going to get us all killed.”
    “Sounds charming,” said Gabriel. “When do I get to meet him?”
    “Never.”
    “So why am I here, Adrian?”
    “You’re here because of Paris, Copenhagen, and London.”
    “Who carried it out?”
    “A new branch of al-Qaeda,” said Carter. “But I’m afraid they had support from a person who occupies a sensitive and powerful position in Western intelligence.”
    “Who?”
    Carter said nothing more. His right hand was shaking.

Chapter 12
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
     
     
    T HEY ADJOURNED TO THE REAR terrace and settled into a pair of wrought-iron chairs along the balustrade. Carter balanced a coffee cup on his knee and gazed toward the gray spires rising gracefully above Georgetown University. Paradoxically, he was speaking of a shabby district of San Diego, where, on a summer day in 1999, there arrived a young Yemeni cleric named Rashid al-Husseini. With money provided by a Saudi-based Islamic charity, the Yemeni purchased a run-down commercial property, established a mosque, and went in search of a congregation. He did most of his hunting on the campus of San Diego State University, where he acquired a devoted following among Arab students who had come to America to escape the stifling social oppression of their homelands, only to find themselves lost and adrift in the ghurba , the land of strangers. Rashid was uniquely qualified to serve as their guide. The only son of a former Yemeni government minister, he had been born in America, spoke colloquial American English, and was the not-so-proud owner of an American passport.
    “All sorts of strays and lost souls began stumbling into Rashid’s mosque, including a pair of Saudis named Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.” Carter glanced at Gabriel and added, “I trust you’re familiar with the names.”
    “They were two of the muscle hijackers from American Flight 77, personally selected by none other than Osama Bin Laden himself. In January 2000, they were present at the planning meeting in Kuala Lumpur, after which the Bin Laden Unit of the CIA managed to lose track of them. Later, it was discovered that both had flown to Los Angeles and were probably still in the United States—a fact you neglected to tell the FBI.”
    “Much to my everlasting shame,” said Carter. “But this isn’t a story about al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi.”
    It was a story, Carter resumed, about Rashid al-Husseini, who soon developed a reputation in the Islamic world as a magnetic preacher, a man to whom Allah had granted a beautiful and seductive tongue. His