CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
6:55 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time
Special Activities Center, Directorate of Operations
Central Intelligence Agency
Langley, Virginia
“I feel like you may be losing control over this situation.”
The old man warbled in that unspeakable voice of his. There was driveway gravel lodged deep in his throat. He had just finished smoking a cigarette down to the nub, and now he was using his trembling yellow fingers to light a new one with the dying embers of the old.
He took a deep suck on the fresh cigarette, as if the heinous thing emitted life-giving oxygen, instead of so many toxic poisons it was impossible to analyze or even accurately quantify them all.
“Of course I disagree,” Wallace Speck said.
“Oh?” the old man said. “I’d love to understand your position. You see
