The Enemy Within

Thorn shrugged, smiling. “I suspect you’ll find out a hell of a lot sooner than I will.” He motioned in the general direction of the rest of the complex. “How about giving me the fifty-cent tour before we get down to business?”

“To hear is to obey.” Rossini led the way down the right hand corridor.

“We’ll start with the Regional Analysis sections…”

Beyond the meeting room, the Intelligence Liaison Unit’s quarters branched out into a warren of small offices crowded with cubicles, desks, computers, and filing cabinets. Maps, blackboards, and bulletin boards hung from the walls almost everywhere Thorn looked. Every room held two or three people either hunched over computer keyboards or conferring together in earnest tones. Television sets flickered in several corners, tuned to the major news networks with the sound muted.

The whole organisation gave off a feeling of energy and quiet excitement. One bulletin board held rows of small black-and-white snapshots showing the high-ranking terrorists confirmed killed in Amir Taleh’s crackdown. Another tracked the ongoing disintegration of the HizbAllah’s command structure.

Thorn liked what he saw so far. These people weren’t just going through the motions. They were genuinely committed to their work.

He could also sense Rossini’s pride in his creation. In a little over a month, the big man had molded a disparate collection of forty or so counterterrorism experts drawn from everywhere across the vast alphabet soup of U.S. intelligence agencies into a unified team. That was an impressive accomplishment. Thorn knew a lot about motivating soldiers to work hard when their lives and those of their comrades were on the line. He was savvy enough to realise that he knew a lot less about motivating people when the stakes were more abstract.

The JSOC Intelligence Liaison Unit might be Major General Sam Farrell’s brainchild, but it was obvious that Joe Rossini’s drive and dedication had brought it to life.

His office was about as far back inside the complex as it was possible to get right next to Rossini’s. They shared a secretary and a photocopier. Beyond that and the same basic floor plan, the two rooms didn’t have anything in common.

The deputy director’s office was a mess. A series of framed photographs on the walls gave the room a personal touch. They showed a smiling Rossini, his wife, and an assortment of four or five children in a variety of settings. Everything else was work-related. Almost every square inch of desk and floor space was piled high with computer printouts and floppy disks. And books. Books on terrorism and psychology. Books on weapons, explosives, and sabotage. Books on the climates, cultures, and histories of different parts of the world. Stacks of books that were piled so high and so precariously that you had the feeling the slightest tremor would start an avalanche.

Slightly stunned by the sight of so much crammed into so little space, Thorn pulled his head out of Rossini’s room and ushered the big man into his own barren work area. None of his own personal effects had arrived from Fort Bragg yet not that he would have very much to hang on the walls even when they did, he realised.

He shut the door behind them, tossed his uniform cap onto his empty chair, and perched himself on one corner of the desk. He gestured toward the room’s only other seat. “Take a pew, Maestro.”

“Thanks.” Rossini sat down heavily.

Thorn watched the big man closely, noting the way he winced as he straightened his left leg out. He had been limping by the time they finished the brief tour. “Your knee giving you trouble?”

“A little. Too much football when I was younger and too many extra pounds now. My wife and kids watch my calories for me, but the weight doesn’t seem to come off.” Rossini dismissed his personal problems with a disinterested shrug. “What would you like to know first, Pete?”

“Well, I’d like a rundown on exactly how the outfit’s shaping up. Plus, where you see us fitting into the JSOC and Pentagon scheme of things.”

Thorn had read a huge stack of reports before flying up from North Carolina, but he wanted to hear it straight, without the usual official gobbledygook. From what Sam Farrell had said, Rossini had a reputation throughout the intelligence community for not pulling any punches even when keeping quiet might benefit his career. This seemed like a good time to find out how much of that reputation for candor was deserved.

Rossini didn’t disappoint him.

“We’ve got some damned good people working here, Pete.” The big man smiled gently. “Some of their social graces aren’t exactly up to snuff, but they’re some of the brightest puzzle-pushers I’ve ever seen. Too bright for the powers-that-be in their old agencies, I guess.”