The Scorpion's Gate Read Online Free

The Scorpion's Gate
Book: The Scorpion's Gate Read Online Free
Author: Richard A. Clarke
Tags: Fiction, General
Pages:
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Representatives from both parties had essentially forced the President to name Ambassador Sol Rubenstein to head the new agency, the sixty-eight-yearold government veteran had almost turned them down. It was only after he’d gotten every possible operational and budget issue resolved in his favor that he’d turned to the issue of the location for his new agency.
    When he had cocktails on the roof of what was then the new Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, over thirty years ago, Rubenstein had been fascinated by the complex of old buildings he had seen nearby on the hill above the Potomac. They sat across the street from the State Department in the Foggy Bottom section of the city. Called Navy Hill, it had been the first home of the Naval Observatory. After the Observatory had moved in the nineteenth century, the Navy’s Bureau of Medical Affairs had taken the Hill. In theory, they were still there, but at the outset of World War II some of the Navy buildings had been emptied out so that America’s first real intelligence agency, the Office of Special Services, the OSS, could move in.
    Ambassador Rubenstein had insisted on the ten-acre site for his new agency. He took as his own office the suite on the ground floor that had been home in 1942 to Wild Bill Donovan, the first OSS director. Rusty MacIntyre, the first Deputy of the Intelligence Analysis Center, had the office next to his new boss. Both men loved their river views, but the two spent as much time as they could wandering through the three buildings they called “our little campus.”
    MacIntyre had been Rubenstein’s first hire for the new agency. The silver-haired retired ambassador picked him out of the executive suite of a defense contractor because, as Rubenstein had said, “You have a reputation for getting shit done and not worrying about who you run over while you do it.” MacIntyre worked hard to live up to that reputation. Rubenstein had also been very clearly told by Senator Robinson that MacIntyre would be a good pick.
    “I’m sorry that I pushed Debbie so hard to see you tonight, Mr. MacIntyre. I know you are busy with the Bahrain bombings, but you said that whenever we really needed . . .” Susan Connor was clearly nervous as she walked into the big room and sat on the edge of the couch, sweat showing on her high forehead.
    “It’s Rusty. Mr. MacIntyre was my late father,” the Deputy Director reassured the attractive twenty-three-year-old African American. He then fell into his beaten-up leather chair by the window. “I said that whenever you really needed to see me, anytime, day or night, you could see me. So what’s up?”
    “Well, sir, you told us at the off-site that intelligence analysis was ‘literally looking for needles in haystacks. The trick is looking in the right haystack, the one where they don’t expect you to look.’ Right?” Connor seemed to be reciting the lines from memory.
    “That does sounds like something I might have said.” MacIntyre smiled, amused to hear his own words bounced back at him and pleased at the impact they had clearly made on at least one listener. “So, have you found an interesting haystack, Susan?” What the hell was Connor’s assignment anyway, Saudi—he corrected himself— Islamyah military?
    “Maybe, sir. Maybe an interesting needle.” Connor began to relax, warming to the story she was about to tell. “I found this 505 report this morning.” A 505 report was a type of dissemination from the National Security Agency, the electronic listening headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland. It was a routine, low-priority report without special restrictions on its distribution. The NSA issued thousands of these reports every day, jamming the e-mail in-boxes of intelligence analysts connected to the highly secure interdepartmental Intelwire network.
    “Okay. Well...?” MacIntyre wanted to cut to the chase. He stared out at the river, which was now being pelted by a January rain. He pushed
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