General Mike Rodgers stood with a Scotch in his hand, wishing it were a double and that he were free to slug it down. If he were in a dark saloon with Colonel August or one of his buddies from the Department of Defense, he would. Then he would nurse the sweet buzz with a beer chaser. But he was not with his colleagues. He was at a black-tie party in a three-story town house on N Street in the exclusive Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. The first-floor ballroom was crowded with nearly two hundred politicians and socialites, attorneys and foreign dignitaries, business leaders and television news executives.
They were all gathered in small groups. Though actively engaged with the people nearest them, each individual was also listening to what was being said in the groups around them. Rodgers could see it in the way their eyes moved. They always shifted slightly in the direction they were listening. Some of these silver-haired blue bloods possessed recon skills that would be the envy of CIA field ops.
On the battlefield, a man knew who the enemy was. At a party like this, alliances could be made and remade during the course of an evening. That was true throughout Washington, but the density of power brokers from so many arenas made it more likely here. In combat, a soldier knew when the fight was over. In Washington, the conflict never ended. Even at Op-Center, where Rodgers was deputy director, friendships were routinely tested by strong differences of opinion over high-stakes operations. Trust was frayed by competition for assignments. And loyalties were challenged and often destroyed by downsizing and bureaucratic squabbles.
The conditions at Op-Center were the reason Rodgers had come to this party. Since the disbanding of Striker, Op-Center’s rapid-deployment force that had been commanded by Rodgers, the general had been organizing an in-house human intelligence unit. He was not enjoying the work as much as he had hoped. Rodgers was a man of grapeshot and action, not observation and note-taking. The work was essential. It just was not for him. To make things worse, his efforts cut into the jurisdiction of Bob Herbert, Op-Center’s chief of Intelligence Operations. The strain on their relationship was subtle, but the impact was not. There was no antagonism; to the contrary, they were extremely cautious around one another, like outfielders going for a high fly ball and stopping short, letting it drop between them.
When an aide to Texas Senator Don Orr had called to say the senator was interested in exploring professional opportunities, Rodgers agreed to come. So far, the three-term, fifty-eight-year-old senator had not said much more than a big, “Hello, General! Thanks for coming,” before being swallowed by the party. The white-haired rancher-turned-politician said that to virtually everyone as he moved from group to group, shaking hands and kissing cheeks. All of them, Rodgers suspected.
Rodgers did not follow him, as several others were doing. Subtly, of course. They wanted to be noticed and introduced to people. They wanted to be legitimized, like made men at a meeting of the dons. Rodgers did not know any of these people, and so he stood near the wet bar, chatting with one of the two bartenders. As a grandfather clock tolled the half hour, a woman approached from the side.
“There is only one thing worse than being a Washington outsider,” she said as she asked the bartender for a Coke.
“What’s that?” Rodgers asked, glancing at her.
“Being a Washington insider,” she replied.
Rodgers smiled. There was a hint of Vietnamese in her strong, cultured voice, but the rest of her was pure Beltway insider.
“General Rodgers, I’m Kendra Peterson, the senator’s executive assistant,” she said, extending a slender hand. “I’m happy you could make it.”
Rodgers’s smile broadened as he shook her hand. The woman was in her mid-thirties and stood about five foot seven, with dark skin, exotic eyes, and straight black hair. She had the cool poise of someone who knew things. She was dressed in a strapless navy blue satin gown with a wide, translucent sash. Her wardrobe was seductive, but her expression said she was not interested, whoever you were.
“I’m pleased to meet you,” Rodgers said. “I was beginning to wonder why I was here.”
“I knew there wouldn’t be much chance for you to talk to the senator, but I wanted you to get a feel for the kind of people we work with.”
“I see. Care to tell me why?”
“The senator is interested in you,” she said.
“But you’re not at liberty to tell me more,” Rodgers said.
She shook her head once.
“I’ve heard rumors the senator plans to make a third-party run for the White House,” Rodgers went on. “Are they true?”
The woman smiled evasively. “Would you be available to meet with the senator tomorrow afternoon?”
“I might be if I knew why,” Rodgers said. “I don’t like to go into situations unprepared.”
The woman took a sip of her drink and turned toward the room. “This town house was built in 1877, four years after Georgetown was incorporated into the District of Columbia. Do you know what it was worth then?”
“Probably less than this party cost,” Rodgers said.
She grinned. “Somewhat less. Just under five thousand dollars, according to the tax rolls. Seven years ago, at the beginning of his third term, the senator bought it for $2.7 million.”
“Your point being–?”
The woman fixed him with those fascinating eyes. “The house was built by a sea captain who never intended to live in it. He willed it to his granddaughter. He knew it would appreciate far more than anything else he could leave her. That is how the senator feels about his political future. What we start here will increase geometrically over the years to come.”
“I know. I looked it up,” Rodgers said. “It’s conservative and protectionist, with a heavy helping of big stickism.”
“Are those very different from your own beliefs?” she asked.
“Not necessarily,” Rodgers said. “But you knew that, didn’t you?”
“The senator has powerful allies and extensive resources,” Kendra admitted. “General, people have a great deal of respect for you. The senator will need an adviser like you.” The woman leaned close. “Someone who has experience in the field, off the field, and is fearless in both arenas. Someone who also has experience in intelligence. You are uniquely qualified.”
“Thanks,” he said. After weeks of feeling like a bastard son at Op-Center, that was good to hear.
The woman finished her Coke. She set the glass on the counter. “General Rodgers–I’m tired.”
“You don’t look it.”
“I feel it,” she said. “My staff and I put a lot of weeks into this party. Now I’m going to slip away and get some sleep.”
“Actually, I’ll be leaving right behind you,” Rodgers told her. “Can I give you a lift?”
“You’re sweet, but Mr. Carlyle, the senator’s driver, is going to take me home. Besides, you should stay and be seen.”
“Doing what?”
“Talking to people.”
“Your ‘extensive resources’ probably told you I’m not very good at that,” Rodgers said.
“We heard that,” she admitted. “We also heard that you’re a quick study. It would help us all if the power brokers started to associate your face with this group.”
“A soldier who is seen is a target,” Rodgers said. “I prefer high ground or a trench.”
“Even in peacetime?” she asked.
“Is that what this is, Ms. Peterson?” Rodgers asked.
“Kendra,” she said.
“Kendra,” he nodded. “I see a lot of mobilization out there.”
“I suppose there is no such thing as neutrality in Washington.” She laughed. She removed a PalmPilot from her purse. “Would three P.M. tomorrow suit you to meet with the senator and Admiral Link?”
“Admiral Link,” Rodgers said. “I know that name.”
“Kenneth Link, the barrel-chested gentleman speaking with William Wilson,” she said. “Crew cut, red bow tie.”
Rodgers turned. “I see him. I still can’t place him.”
“He’s the former head of Naval Intelligence, later director of covert ops for the CIA,” Kendra said.
“Right,” Rodgers said. “Now I remember. I saw him at a number of NIPC meetings.” The NIPC was the National Infrastructure Protection Center. Based at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., it was founded in 1998 to bring together representatives from various U.S. intelligence agencies, as well as experts from private-sector think tanks. The NIPC was chartered to assess threats against critical infrastructures in energy, finance, telecommunications, water, and emergency services. “He was always complaining about special interests and compromise.”
“The admiral does not believe in making concessions where national security is concerned,” the woman replied. “Do you think you would have a problem working with him on a daily basis?”
“Not if we agree that there’s a difference between national security and paranoia,” Rodgers said.
“What is the difference?” she asked.
“One is a door that has a lock, the other is a door that’s completely unhinged,” Rodgers replied.
“I like it,” she said. “That’s something you can discuss together–assuming three o’clock is convenient.”
“I’ll be there,” Rodgers said.
“Good.” She tucked away her PalmPilot and once again offered her hand. “Thank you for coming, General. I hope this has been the start of a long and rewarding relationship.”
Rodgers smiled at the woman as she withdrew. He did not watch her go but turned back to the bar. He replayed their brief conversation as he finished his drink. The young woman had basically confirmed that Senator Orr would be ramping up a new party and running for president. Rodgers would enjoy being a part of that. His own politics were a little right of center. It would not be difficult supporting the Texan’s vision. Rodgers thought back to the early months at Op-Center when he and Director Paul Hood and Bob Herbert moved the newly chartered domestic-crisis organization into a two-story building at Andrews Air Force Base. They staffed the dozen departments with top people like Darrell McCaskey from the FBI, computer genius Matt Stoll, political liaison Martha Mackall, psychologist and profiler Liz Gordon, attorney Lowell Coffey III, and others. They built Striker and recruited the late Lieutenant Colonel Charles Squires to lead it. They saw their initial areas of responsibility expand from a national to an international arena. Those were exciting, rewarding times. There was also a sense of personal evolution for Rodgers. The warrior who had fought in Vietnam and had commanded a mechanized brigade in the Persian Gulf was running special ops missions in North Korea and the Bekaa Valley, rescuing hostages at the United Nations, preventing a new civil war in Spain and nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
He was making a difference.
Now I’m recruiting spies and analyzing data, he thought. It was honorable work, but there was a big difference between commanding and supervising. What was it the Chinese leader Liu Shao-ch’i had said? The true leader is an elephant. The rest are just pigs inserting scallions into their nose in an effort to look like one.
With a nod toward the bartender, Rodgers turned back to the room. There was nothing in here that appealed to him. Not the glad-handing, not the eavesdropping, not the neediness, and not the facades. But Rodgers was definitely beginning to smell onions in his own nose. It was time for a change.
Rodgers would talk to Senator Orr and Admiral Link, but first he wanted to talk to Paul Hood. For there was one concession Mike Rodgers would never make, however bored he became. It was a concept he did not think many people in this room would understand.
Mike Rodgers put loyalty above all else.
Chapter Two.
Washington, D.C. Sunday, 11:18 P.M.
There was a time when the Liverpool-born William Wilson could not have afforded to stay in a landmark hotel like the Hay-Adams, with its view of the White House, the Washington Monument, and Lafayette Park. Or been invited to a Georgetown party hosted by a United States senator. Or been picked up by a woman who looked like this one did.
What a difference two billion dollars makes.
The lanky, six-foot-three-inch Wilson was the thirty-one-year-old inventor of the MasterLock computer technology. Launched five years before, it used a combination of keystrokes, visual cues, and audio frequencies to create hack-proof firewalls. Not content with revolutionizing computer security, Wilson bought the failing London Merchant-Farmer Bank and made it a European power-house. Now he was about to go on-line with MasterBank, an on-line service that invested in European businesses. Wilson had come to Washington to meet with members of the Panel of Economic Advisors of the Congressional Committee on Banking Financial Services. He intended to lobby for an easing of foreign direct-investment restrictions that were put in place during the War on Terror. That would remove hundreds of millions of dollars from American banks and stocks. In exchange, Wilson would guarantee an equal investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in American companies. That would keep cash flow circulating in the United States, though the bulk of the profits and tax benefits would still be his.
The stunning young woman had approached him early in the evening, just minutes after he arrived. She was a reporter. After assuring him that she was not angling for an interview–her beat, she said, was the environment and meteorology–the woman asked if she could stop by later in the evening.
“I’m drawn to men who create technological quantum leaps,” she said.
Who could resist a come-on like that?
Two hours later Wilson left the party with his two bodyguards and driver. He had agreed to meet the woman at eleven P.M. There were paparazzi outside, and Wilson did not want to be photographed leaving with anyone. The world was a conservative place. He preferred to remain a champion of the financial and science sections, not a libertine of the gossip page.
Wilson had the top-floor Federal Suite, and his bodyguards had the adjoining Presidential Suite. Motion detectors had been installed outside Wilson’s door and on the floor of the balcony. If anyone tried to enter without being announced, vibrating wristbands would silently wake the bodyguards.
Wilson had ordered a 1970 Dom Perignon from room service and a light gray beluga caviar. He had candles delivered, along with a dozen roses for the bedroom night-stands. He opened his bow tie but left it hanging around his neck and sprayed a hint of Jivago Millennium above the collar. He probably did not need any of that. After all, he had made a technological quantum leap. But growing up the son of a pub owner, it made him happy to smell something other than ale and cigarettes. It made him even happier to be with women who did not smell of them.
His guest arrived on time and was announced. One of the guards met her at the elevator and escorted her to the suite. Wilson met her at the door with a rose. It made her smile. The rose seemed to disappear.
They ate caviar on toast tips. They drank champagne. They stood close on the balcony and looked out at the White House. They did not say much. She seemed content just to be there, and he was delighted to have her. As a distant church bell sounded midnight, they went quickly from the balcony to the authentic Hepplewhite mahogany settee to the bedroom.
The woman blew out the candles on the dresser, set her purse on the night table, and pushed him back on the king-size bed. She was as assertive as she was beautiful. Wilson understood that, and he went along with it. To succeed in her business, at her age, took confidence. She was showing that now.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“Just lie there,” she replied as she settled on top of him.
He looked up at her and smiled. She moved her fingers down his arms and pushed them to his side. She placed her knees in his open palms and dragged her long nails across his chest, along the side of his neck, his scalp. Her toned body moved in excited spasms, like a whip. Shining through the window, the lights of Lafayette Park showed Wilson occasional flashes of cheekbone and shoulder.
Lady lightning, Wilson thought. With thunder rolling from deep inside her.
Champagne always brought out the Byron in him. Wilson was about to share his little metaphor aloud when his companion suddenly leaned across his chest and pulled a large, full pillow from behind him. She dragged it across his face and then leaned into it, hard.
“Hey!” Wilson shouted. He repeated the cry but lacked the breath to say more. He shut his eyes and closed his mouth and tried to push up with his head. His neck cramped painfully, and he stopped.
Wilson’s hands were pinned by the woman’s knees. He struggled unsuccessfully to raise them while he wriggled helplessly from side to side. He screamed into the pillow, hoping his bodyguards would hear him. If they did, he did not hear them. He heard nothing but bedsprings laughing beneath his head, his heart punching up against his throat, and his own thick wheezing as he fought to draw breath. His hands throbbed and the flesh of his belly and thighs burned where it rubbed hers. The pillow was wet with perspiration and saliva.
This is a game, Wilson thought hopefully as rusty circles filled the insides of his eyelids. This is what turns her on.
If it was, he did not approve. But he did not dwell on that. His thoughts were not his own. Wilson’s head filled with visual doggerel, images that came from other times and places.
And then, suddenly, the slide show stopped. His face cooled, his mouth opened wide, and his lungs filled with sweet air. He opened his eyes and saw the woman. She was still perched above him, a slightly darker silhouette than the ceiling above. His eyes were misty with sweat. They smeared the woman as she bent close. The park lights sparked off something else, something in her hands. He tried to raise his arms to push her back, but they were still pinned. He couldn’t speak or scream, because he was still desperately sucking air through his wide-open mouth.
She moved closer and put the palm of her left hand against the bottom of his nose. She pushed up.
“What–?” was all he could say as his head arched back. He cried out weakly, but he sounded like a pig calling for dinner.
Or a man having sex, he thought. Christ. The bodyguards would not come, even if they heard him.
A moment after that, Wilson felt a cool sting in his mouth. He felt the weight of the woman leave him. He saw her get up. But that did not help. Within moments a cold, tingling numbness moved down from his ears along the sides of his neck. It filled his shoulders and arms and poured across his chest like an overturned bucket of ice. It tickled his navel and rolled down his legs.
This time there were no mental images, no struggle. The lights, and his lungs, simply snapped off.
Chapter Three.
Washington, D.C. Monday, 8:02 A.M.
Op-Center was officially known as the National Crisis Management Center. That was what it said on the charter, on the small brass sign beside the front door, and on the badge Paul Hood had just swiped through the lock to enter the lobby. Which was why Hood felt a little schizophrenic when he arrived and there was no crisis. He felt paradoxically relaxed and anxious.
Roughly half of the seventy-eight employees at Op-Center were dedicated to intelligence gathering and analysis. The other half handled crises that were imminent or had already gone “active,” as they euphemistically described rebellions, hostage situations, terrorism, and other crises. When half the team was idle, Hood worried that someone on the Hill would notice. The intelligence community could learn something from Congress. With nothing more than newspapers, gossip, and intuition, they profiled people and agencies with eerie accuracy. After that came the auto-da-fe. After that, people who once moved through the corridors of power became consultants. Hanging out the shingle saved face. What they really were was unemployed.
Hood did not know what he would do if the Inquisition came for him. Ironically, he knew how to stop it. Prior to joining Op-Center, Paul Hood was a two-term mayor of Los Angeles. He got to know a lot of people in the movie industry, and he learned that many of them were extraneous. If they did not find fault with perfectly fine scripts, there would be no reason for them to be employed. The United States military had somewhat the same mentality. Military intelligence financed “cheerleaders,” as they called them. These were both indigenous and undercover teams that fomented conflict around the globe. “Counterfeit mobilization,” they called it. A world at peace did not need increased military spending. And a downsized military would not be prepared to handle a real war when it arose.
There was some sense to the Department of Defense policy. However, counterfeit mobilization only worked one way for intelligence agencies. You had to pick a foreign national, frame him, and have your guys smoke him out. As much as he hated the sense of entitlement diplomatic plates gave diplomatic personnel, Hood had a problem with that. First, it tied up personnel from watching for real spies and saboteurs. Second, it could begin a pattern of escalation abroad until you actually turned allies into enemies. Third, it was wrong. It was not fashionable in Washington, but Hood believed in the Ten Commandments. He did not always keep them, but he tried. And bearing false witness was one of the You shall nots.
Hood greeted the guard, used his card to access the elevator, then descended one level to the heart of the National Crisis Management Center. There, Hood passed windowless offices that were set off a circular corridor of stainless steel. He reached his own wood-paneled office, near the back. He was greeted by his assistant, “Bugs” Benet, who sat in a small cubicle located to the right of the door. The young man was busy at the computer, logging the reports of the evening crew.
“Morning,” Hood said. “Anything?”
“Quiet,” Benet replied.
Hood already knew that, more or less. If there had been any kind of significant development, nighttime director Curt Hardaway or his deputy Bill Abram would have notified him.
“Did you hear about William Wilson?” Benet asked.
“Yes,” Hood replied. “It was on the radio.”
“Heart attack at thirty-one,” Benet said.
“Sex is among the most strenuous physical activities, up there with full court basketball and rock climbing,” Liz Gordon said as she walked by.
Hood smiled at the psychologist. “I’ll bet you wouldn’t have said that at the Brookings Institution.”
“Probably not.” Liz smiled as she continued toward her office. The thirty-five-year-old woman had given up a post at the independent research and policy institute to take this job with Op-Center. Initially, Hood had not put much faith in profiling. But Liz had impressed him with her insights about leaders, about field operatives, about soldiers, and about Op-Center staff that were bending under personal and professional stress. She had been especially helpful with Hood’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Harleigh. The eldest of his two children had been among the hostages taken by rogue peacekeepers at the United Nations. Liz had given him solid, effective advice about dealing with her post-traumatic stress disorder. The psychologist had also helped Hood reconnect with his twelve-year-old son Alexander after the stressful divorce from Sharon.
Hood shut the door, went to his desk, and input his personal computer code. It was not the name of his children, or his first pet, or the date he started working here. Those were things that a hacker might figure out. Instead, it was Dickdiver, the main character of his favorite novel, Tender Is the Night. It also made Hood smile to key it in. Hood and his long-ago fiancee Nancy Jo Bosworth had read it to each other when they first moved in together. When there was still magic in his world and romance in his heart. Before stolen software designs compelled Nancy to run off without telling him why or where. It took almost twenty years for Hood to find her. It happened by accident, during a trip to Germany on Op-Center business. Nancy told him she had wanted the money for them but grew ashamed. Since she could not return it, she kept it for herself.
Old feelings returned for them both. Though the passions were not acted upon, they helped to undermine what had been a colorless, rebound marriage to Sharon. While Hood was alone now, the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel was still the key to a sublime place, the last time Hood was truly happy. The password was his way of remembering that every day.
Hood started going through his E-mail. He used to come to the office and read the newspaper, then answer phone calls. Now the news was on-line, and the telephone was something you used in the car or at lunch. GovNet, which provided Op-Center’s secure Internet access, was devoting a lot of space to Wilson’s death on their welcome screen. That was not surprising, since his firewalls made it possible for most government agencies to link what had formerly been dedicated lines. They were reporting that he had gone to a party at Senator Don Orr’s town house, left around ten-thirty, and went back to his suite at the Hay-Adams. A woman had come to visit him. According to the hotel, she arrived at eleven and left around twelve-thirty. The concierge reported that she had been wearing a block print coat that came down to her knees and a matching crocheted hat with a black ribbon. The wide brim was dipped low. Obviously, she did not want to be recognized. That was not unusual. Many officials and businessmen had trysts in local hotels. They did not want their guests to be identified or photographed by security cameras. Typically, hotel management respected the desire for privacy by allowing expected visitors to pass without scrutiny.
The Metropolitan Police did not know who the woman caller was. She had given a name, Anna Anderson, which had led them to an elderly woman who was clearly not the perp. She may have selected the name as a joke, a reference to the woman who claimed to be Anastasia, the daughter of Czar Nicholas II. The security cameras in the hotel lobby and on the street showed her leaving unhurriedly and walking down Sixteenth Street, where she was lost in the night. Visitors like her seldom used valet parking. They did not want their license numbers traced. Washingtonians assumed that everyone, from waiters to cab drivers, was looking for a payday from a tabloid newspaper or television show. More often than not they were right. The police assumed that Wilson died after the woman left. Otherwise she could have called 911 and then slipped away. This belief was reinforced by the fact that there did not appear to be anything suspicious about Wilson’s death. He had perspired heavily–presumably from the exertion–and the bed suggested “an active evening,” as one source put it. Though Wilson was young and had no history of heart trouble, many forms of heart disease could slip past a routine electrocardiograph. The autopsy would tell them more.
There was nothing exceptional in the E-mails. A few resumes from agencies and private businesses that were being downsized. Op-ed pieces from the left, right, and center. Requests for interviews, which Hood routinely declined. He was not a self-promoter and saw no benefit to giving out information about how Op-Center worked, or with whom. His E-mail even contained links to password-protected web sites of individuals who were willing to provide intelligence from various countries and foreign agencies. He forwarded these to Bob Herbert. Most were con artists, a few were foreign agents trying to find out about Op-Center, but occasionally there were nuclear scientists or biotechnicians who genuinely wanted to get out of the situations they were in. As long as they were willing to talk, American operatives or embassy officials in their countries were willing to listen.
Hood was about to access his personal address for private E-mail when Bugs beeped him. Senator Debenport was on the line. Hood was not surprised. It was budget time on the Hill, and the South Carolina senator had recently replaced Senator Barbara Fox as the chairman of the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committee. Those were the officials who kept track of what the federal intelligence agencies did and how much it cost.
“Good morning, Senator,” Hood said.
“That may be true somewhere,” the sandpaper-voiced senator replied. “Not in my office.”
Hood did not ask why. He already knew the answer.
“Paul, last night the CIOC Budget Subcommittee agreed that we have to work out a strategic retrenchment,” Debenport told him.
The CIOC’s euphemism for budget cuts.
“We took a four percent hit last fiscal year and six percent the year before that,” Hood told him. “What’s the damage now?”
“We’re looking at just upwards of twenty percent,” Debenport replied.
Hood felt sick.
“The night crew is going to have to cut its staff by fifty percent. I know that’s a lot, but we had no choice,” Debenport went on.
“What are you talking about? You’re the head of the damn committee.”
“That’s right, Paul. And as such I have a duty that transcends my personal feelings about the value of Op-Center’s work,” Debenport said. “It will be my call where to make the cuts, though I want your input and I will rely heavily on it. We would prefer you work backwards. Make your way back to Op-Center’s original configuration.”
“Our original configuration had a military component,” Hood pointed out. “That’s already been cut.”
“Yes, and those funds were reallocated to General Rodgers’s field personnel,” Debenport said. “That’s an area we feel should undergo deoperation. We looked closely at the internal breakdowns of the other intelligence groups. The Company and the Feds have those areas covered. Merge that post with the political officer.”
“Senator, how much are you taking from the CIA, the FBI, and the NRO?” Hood asked.
“Paul, those are all older, established–“
“You’re not cutting them, are you?” Hood asked.
Debenport was silent.
“Senator?”
“If you really want to know, Paul, they’re getting a small bump,” Debenport told him.
“Amazing,” Hood replied. “How much time did they spend lobbying the committee?”
“They did the usual PowerPoint dance, but that wasn’t the key to the increase,” Debenport said. “Those boys grabbed a lot of Homeland Security detail out of the gate. We can write those budget request entries in ink.”
“Because of a buzz phrase,” Hood said. “We might have been in a position to reorient ourselves if our attention hadn’t been on stopping nuclear war between India and Pakistan.”
“Yes, and frankly your success is part of the problem. You’ve shifted the majority of your operations from the United States to other countries–“
“At the president’s request,” Hood reminded him. “He asked us to augment Op-Center’s domestic agenda after we stopped a leftist military coup in Russia.”
“I know the history,” Debenport said. “I also know the future. The voters don’t much care whether Moscow turns Red again or Tokyo is nuked or Spain falls apart or France gets hijacked by radicals. Not anymore. Foreign aid resources are being downsized across the board.”
“Your constituents may not care, but we know that what happens there affects what happens here,” Hood said.
“That’s true,” Debenport said. “Which is why the mandate the president gave you is not being changed.”
“Only our funding. We’re supposed to do the same job but with eighty percent of an already stretched budget.”
“American households are having to do more than that,” Debenport said. “As a senator, I also have a responsibility to help alleviate that burden.”
“Senator, I appreciate your position, but this isn’t right,” Hood said. “I used to work on Wall Street. I run a trim operation, leaner than the agencies that are getting an increase. I intend to request, in writing, a hearing of the full CIOC as permitted under charter–“
“You can have it, of course. But you will be wasting your time and ours,” Debenport said. “This decision was unanimous.”
“I see. Let me ask you this, then. Is the CIOC fishing for my resignation?”
“Hell, no,” Debenport said. “I don’t run when I can pass. If the committee thought you had overstayed your welcome, I’d tell you.”
“I appreciate that,” Hood said. “Did you discuss any of this with the president?”
“That’s my next call. I wanted to tell you first,” Debenport said. “But whatever his feelings, he has no veto power. He doesn’t even have a political majority on the committee.”
“So that’s it.”
“I’m sorry, Paul.”
Hood was angry, though not at Debenport. He was upset with himself. He should have smelled this one in the oven. He thought the departure of Fox was a signal that things were going to get better. And maybe they had, in a way. Fox did not see why Op-Center was necessary at all. She believed that the overseas intelligence activities of the CIA and the FBI were sufficient to keep America safe. Of course, she was also one of the senators who had put the bulk of America’s spy capabilities into electronic intelligence. That was a huge miscalculation. If there were no operatives on the ground to pinpoint the mud huts, bunkers, apartments, cars, and caves for audio surveillance and spy satellites, a lot of what was called “incipient hostile intent” went unnoticed. That was when surgical covert activity became a War on Terror.
Still, Hood had hoped that Debenport would fight harder to keep Op-Center fully staffed.
The senator hung up, and Paul sat there, looking at the last E-mail he had opened. It was from the CIA Office of Personnel Security, Department of Communication, regarding updated procedures for the evacuation and decontamination of juveniles in the event of a biological attack on child care facilities serving the intelligence community. It was an important document, but it emphasized the gulf between the agencies. Op-Center did not even have a child care facility.
Hood closed the E-mail and brought up the budget file. He called Op-Center’s CFO Ed Colahan and asked him to come to his office. He had come in early. Colahan knew their current fiscal year gave them another six weeks of business as usual. He wanted to be ready for whatever the CIOC decided.
Hood knew he would not be ready for this.
The question Hood had to address was whether to cut personnel from most or all of their ten divisions or whether to eliminate one or two departments entirely. He knew the answer even without looking at the figures. He also knew which departments would get him close to twenty percent. One of them would cost him efficiency.
The other would cost him a friend.
Chapter Four.
Washington, D.C. Monday, 8:20 A.M.
When Don Orr was a little boy, he used to look forward to June 22, the day Miss Clarion’s twenty-two-student school closed down for the summer. He did not dislike school. Just the opposite. He loved learning new things. But the first day of summer vacation was special. He would get up at sunrise. With an olive green baseball cap pulled low over his forehead, he filled his father’s canteen and slung it across a small shoulder. He made three or four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and pushed them into a knapsack, along with a package of oatmeal cookies and a compass. Then he took a shovel from the tool shed. That was for beheading rattlesnakes if he encountered any. Holding the shovel like a prophet’s staff, he walked out from the family’s cattle ranch in Kingsville, Texas. He walked into the hot, windless plain to think about everything he had learned that year. Being alone like that for a day helped to burn the important things into his brain. He had learned in Bible class that this was what Jesus had done, and Moses before Him. The young boy felt that the walk would help to make him a stronger, better man.
He was right. Don Orr did that for ten years running, from the time he was eight. What he did not know, until years later, was that for the first two years, his father had one of the ranch hands follow him. The tradition ended in 1967, when Orr turned eighteen and joined the air force. Orr knew what it was like to walk and ride. Now he wanted to fly. But the air force had other ideas. They wanted him to work with his hands, like he did on the ranch. Just two years earlier, the air force had established RED HORSE units: Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron, Engineering. These were divided into two squadrons: the 555th Triple Nickel and the 554th Penny Short. They assigned Orr to one of these. After nine weeks of training at Cannon Air Base in New Mexico, the young man was sent with the 554th to Phan Rang Air Base in Vietnam. There, his specialty was drilling wells to obtain drinking water, a skill he had learned on the ranch.
Orr did one tour in Vietnam and a second in Thailand. He was sorry he never saw combat. Like breaking a horse, herding cattle, or hauling yourself into the baking summertime wilderness, war was the kind of intense challenge that burned things into a man’s head, muscles, and heart. That was one reason Senator Orr had always gotten along with combat veterans like Admiral Link. Risk-taking had been hardwired into the systems of those men.
It was not risk-taking but a sense of duty that had inspired Senator Orr to found the United States First Party six months before. Each of the two major parties was like a Third World country, a collection of ideological warlords with only one thing in common: an overwhelming dislike for the other party. There was no singular, driving philosophy. It was discouraging. Orr’s idea was simple. The United States needed to become what the Orr Ranch was, a powerful spread run by men of vision. The nation should not be run by parties that burned up their energies playing a tug-of-war for inches. National growth should not be determined by an international consensus or by despots who bullied us with goods, from lumber to steel to oil. The USF Party would provide that. Orr had influence, resolve, credentials, and an American bloodline unmatched by any third-party leader in the past. The effort would also be good for Don Orr. The senator had influence on the Hill, but he did not have control. He was affiliated with good men, but he was not surrounded by them.
That would change.
The senator arrived at his office in the Russell Senate Office Building. Completed in 1908, the Beaux Arts structure was just a short walk north of the Capitol, bounded by Constitution Avenue, First Street, Delaware Avenue, and C Street NE. The senator’s office was just off the magnificent rotunda and had an inspiring view of the Capitol dome. It was also just two blocks from Union Station.
“That proximity gives me a comfortable exit strategy,” the outspoken senator liked to joke with reporters. When Orr first came to Washington, the Dallas Morning News sent him a coach ticket. The newspaper worried that he represented a nineteenth-century Manifest Destiny ideology in a more heterogeneous twenty-first-century world. The Dallas Morning News was wrong. He had nothing against a melting pot. He just wanted to make sure that the United States, and not radicals and petty tyrants, controlled the flame. Orr believed that Americans wanted that, too. On warm spring days, when his schedule permitted, the senator would do a short version of his childhood walk. He would take a brisk walk to the station and just stroll around, listening to what voters were saying. Then he would buy a bottle of water and walk back, letting their comments settle in along the way. It matched the E-mails and letters he received from his constituency. Americans embraced globalization, but they wanted a world that was fair. The United States made other nations rich by purchasing their cars, steel, oil, and electronics. We provided them with free military protection. In exchange, most of those countries gave local manufacturers tax breaks while imposing heavy tariffs on American goods. Even Orr’s family business had suffered. Cattle-men in Australia, Canada, and Brazil paid their hands far less than American workers received. Many of those ranchers fed their cattle with cheap grasses instead of expensive, healthier grains. It was increasingly difficult to conduct business in that kind of marketplace. Orr intended to change that. He would insist on equal access to foreign markets and matching taxes on imports. If he did not get it, the door would be closed. Critics said he was being naive, but Orr believed that princes and prime ministers, presidents and chiefs would find the world a less comfortable place without American markets–and protection.
The senator had been up late the night before, talking to opinion makers, fellow politicians, and business leaders. Most of those people were friends and allies. A few were not. They had been invited to see how Orr and his colleagues felt about their protectionist activities.
One of those outsiders was the late William Wilson.
Orr heard about Wilson’s death from Kat. As his driver moved through the thick morning traffic, Orr phoned Kendra Peterson to discuss the news. They both knew that Orr’s office would receive calls from around the world looking for comments about Wilson’s death last night. The woman was already at her desk helping to answer calls from reporters, commenting about the genius of Wilson’s MasterLock and lamenting his passing. She promised that the senator would have a statement later in the day.
Arriving at the office, Orr discovered that the press were not the only ones interested in speaking with him. Detective Robert Howell of the Metropolitan Police phoned the senator’s office shortly before nine. The senator respected law officers of any stripe. He took the call. Detective Howell sounded tense.
“Senator, we understand that Mr. Wilson attended a party at your residence last night,” the detective said. “Can you tell me anything about what Mr. Wilson did or who he may have spoken with?”
“We had two hundred guests, Detective,” Orr said. “I noticed him chatting with a number of guests, but I did not pay him particular attention. He left alone, around ten-thirty,” Orr said.
“You noticed his departure?”
“Only because he came over to thank me,” Orr said. “The Brits, like Texans, have manners. To save you time, I do not know what he said to other guests and I did not notice if he was drinking or what he was eating. I presume toxicology reports will tell you that.”
“Yes, sir. Do you happen to know if Mr. Wilson arranged to meet anyone after the party?” Howell asked.
“I do not,” Orr replied. “The newspaper said that he entertained a woman in his suite and died of an apparent heart attack sometime during the night. Do you have any reason to suspect otherwise?”
“Not at this time,” said the detective.
“I’m happy to hear that,” the senator said. He did not want a scandal attached to his name.
“But if someone was with him and failed to summon medical assistance–perhaps because she was married and feared publicity–that individual might be guilty of involuntary manslaughter.”
“I see. Don’t you have video from the hotel security cameras?”
“We do, but the woman was extremely careful not to show her face,” Howell told him.
“Which makes you even more suspicious,” Orr said.
“It does make us interested in her,” the detective agreed. “Senator, would it be an imposition to obtain a list of your party guests?”
“It will be an imposition if my guests are harassed by the police or the press,” Orr told him.
“We are only interested in locating the woman who was with Mr. Wilson last night. Our questions will not go beyond that.”
“In that case, my executive assistant Kendra Peterson will provide you with a list,” Orr told him.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Is there anything else we can do for you?” Orr asked.
“Nothing that I can think of right now,” Detective Howell told him. “I appreciate your cooperation, sir.”
“It was my pleasure, Detective.”
Orr hung up the phone and sat at his desk made of rare Texas aspen. It was the same desk the revered Sam Houston had used when he served in the Senate. As Orr had expected, the conversation with Detective Howell was direct but respectful. The D.C. police were good that way. They knew that politicians could shape innuendo as if it were plastique. Investigations were handled with exceptional care. Hopefully, William Wilson’s death did not become a distraction for the media. The senator had a plan, a vision for the United States, the unveiling of which was one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington. For the past several months Orr had been organizing funds and personnel to establish a new force in American politics. In two days he would acknowledge what many had suspected: that he would be making a serious third-party run for the presidency. He would make the announcement at a press conference at seven A.M. the next morning, when it was six A.M. in Kingsville. That was when he had first announced his intention to run for the United States Senate, with a big Texas sun rising behind him. The press conference would include an invitation for all Americans to join him at the USF Party’s first convention, to be held later that week in San Diego. There, they would define the party’s platform and name its first candidates for president and vice president of the United States. Orr did not intend to repeat the mistake of other third-party founders. He was not doing this for personal advancement, for revenge, or to appeal to a radical fringe. The USF was here for people who believed that the interests of America came before the needs of partisans.
Orr looked out the window at the Capitol. It was a bright day, and the 288-foot-high dome gleamed white against a cloudless sky. The senator still felt humbled to see it, to be part of an unbroken chain of leaders dating from the Founding Fathers and the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The dome was a daily, iconic reminder to him of why he had come to Washington: to serve the electorate fearlessly. To uphold the Constitution with his energy, his heart, and his judgment. If he did that successfully, he would continue to serve here. If he failed, he would go back to ranching.
Either way, Don Orr won.
Either way, he was still an American.
Chapter Five.
Washington, D.C. Monday, 8:24 A.M.
When is a postal carrier not a postal carrier? That was what Ed March had asked his old friend Darrell McCaskey to help him find out.
The two men had been college roommates at the University of Miami. While McCaskey was recruited by the FBI, March was asked to become a police officer with the U.S. Postal Service. For over ten years, March’s beat had been child pornography. Then the Internet virtually ended that use of the mails. He was shifted to Homeland Security activities where most of his time was spent doing the ABCs–alien background checks–of individuals who regularly sent packages to nations that sponsored terrorism. March was currently involved in a stakeout involving a postal carrier who was suspected of helping a certain individual bypass the ABC system by collecting packages from a specific drop box and bringing them directly to the overseas pouches. These were believed to contain materials that could not be sent via E-mail attachments: stolen documents, currency, and possibly computer components.
Right now, March did not want the mailer. He wanted the carrier so he could confiscate the truck before the package could be off-loaded. If the address on the parcel inside was the same that had been found in a terrorist hut in Gunong Tahan, the carrier would be persuaded to turn future packages over to the CIA before they were sent overseas.
March had backup a block away in an unmarked car, but he needed McCaskey to tell him whether he was being watched while he watched the mailbox and carrier. March had been in this location for several days, waiting for another drop-off. It was not uncommon for spies and terrorists to work in partnership with observers. These persons kept a careful eye on nationals in their employ. As often as not, nationals turned out to be double agents. Especially when they had been found out.
Posing as a flag vendor with a small white cart, March was standing on the corner of Constitution Avenue. Mailboxes were potential receptacles for bombs, and this was one of the few locations the USPS had left operational. The postal service police believed that the mailer came over the Potomac from Arlington and dropped it off on his way to work at the Embassy of Malaysia on Massachusetts Avenue. That was ascertained by following the staff members home and seeing who passed this way. There were two potential targets.
One of them had mailed a package at the box forty minutes earlier.
McCaskey was sitting cross-legged on a small bench closer to the Lincoln Memorial. Early-morning tourists and joggers moved by in all directions. McCaskey noticed them all to see if any came by again. That could mean they were watching the mailbox, looking for enemy recon. McCaskey also watched for the glint of binoculars or anyone who had a good eye line with the box.
In McCaskey’s hand was one of the greatest surveillance props ever invented: the cell phone. A user had to concentrate in order to hear, so passers-by assumed the caller did not see them. Pickpockets loved cell phones for that reason. McCaskey missed nothing, even as he pretended to talk to his wife, Maria. In fact, former Interpol agent Maria Corneja-McCaskey was sitting beside him on the bench. That irony was not lost on either of them. McCaskey had always feared that Maria was too wedded to intelligence work to have time for a marriage. That was the problem with McCaskey’s first marriage. He had married a fellow FBI agent, Bonnie Edwards, and had three kids with her. Bonnie quit to be a full-time mother, and McCaskey took a promotion to unit chief in Dallas to pick up the financial slack. A subsequent promotion took him to D.C., which was good for McCaskey but not for the family. In the end, after eight years of marriage, the McCaskeys agreed to a divorce. The children visited their father during school vacations, and McCaskey went to see them whenever he could get away. They lived outside of Dallas, where Bonnie had married an oil executive with three kids. She seemed to like her very Brady life.
The dueling careers had come between McCaskey and Maria once, when they first met in her native Spain. They had reconnected when McCaskey was on a mission in Madrid. Maria had agreed to give it up and move to Washington.
Now his beautiful, dark-haired wife was helping him with a stakeout. She woke up smirking. Though Maria was in character now, pretending to be an artist sketching the Memorial in pastel, the bemused look was still there.
“Honey, I am so incredibly bad at having these fake conversations,” he said into the deactivated phone. “Pausing and pretending to listen to someone.” He paused and pretended to listen. “Then laughing disarmingly.” He chuckled. “I’d rather be in a firefight.”
“You may have an opportunity,” Maria said from the side of her mouth. “Three o’clock, nanny with a stroller.”
McCaskey glanced over as the young woman passed. She had Asian features. She was dressed in a Georgetown University sweatshirt and jeans and was absently rocking a charcoal-colored Maclaren stroller with a hood.
“I don’t think so,” McCaskey said.
“Darrell, there’s no baby in the stroller,” Maria said. She put the ivory-colored chalk back in the wooden carrying case.
“I know,” he replied, still pretending to talk in the phone. “There’s a shopping bag in the stroller. It’s probably got everything she owns. Look at the laces of her Adidas. Broken and knotted, hole on one side. The foam handle of the stroller is torn. It was probably discarded. She’s homeless.”
“Or pretending to be,” Maria said as she selected a navy blue stick to lay in shadows.
“It’s possible,” McCaskey agreed. He looked toward the lawn beyond the path. “I’m more concerned about the guy sitting on the grass with the laptop.”
“The man in the windbreaker?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” Maria asked. “His back is to the mailbox.”
“But the web cam is not,” McCaskey said. “He could be teleconferencing, or he could be watching the mailbox.”
Just then the mail carrier pulled up in his small local-haul truck. A lanky, blond-haired young man emerged carrying a white plastic bin and stepped over to the mailbox. McCaskey continued to talk on the phone as March moved his cart so he was closer to the mail truck. The carrier did not seem to notice. He knelt, opened the front panel with a key from the ring on his belt, and slowly scooped the contents into the container. He appeared to be looking for something. When he found it, he swept the rest of the mail in quickly and shut the box. Evidently, that was all March needed. He stepped from his cart and intercepted the mail carrier. McCaskey saw March show the carrier his badge, but he could not hear what was being said. The carrier made a disbelieving, then angry face and shook his head. March was insistent as he got on his cell phone and made a call. He was summoning his backup.
The mail carrier moved toward the truck, still holding the bin. March grabbed his arm and said something.
“Hey, will someone call a cop!” the carrier shouted.
The man with the laptop turned. So did the homeless woman. The two of them started to rise.
“Are both of them in on this?” Maria said.
“I don’t know,” her husband said. “Stay here.” He got up and walked toward them. He was still holding the phone to his ear.
The man with the laptop had folded it away, slipped it into a shoulder bag, and also walked toward the mail truck. The woman was quickly pushing her stroller toward March. Other people stopped and watched from a distance.
The carrier attempted to pull his arm free. He yanked harder than March’s grip required, upending both the carrier and the bin. The woman with the stroller started running to where mail had been strewn across the street. McCaskey also rushed over. He got there first and, crouching, began pulling mail toward him. Most of it was picture postcards along with a handful of letters. He was looking for an oversized envelope or small parcel with a South Pacific or Far Eastern address. He found one, a fat manila envelope with a Kuala Lumpur address. McCaskey pulled over other letters so this one did not seem to be all that interested him. Maria, sitting close by, was watching the homeless woman.
The mail carrier hurried over. “Thank you, sir. I’ll take those,” he said, reaching for the letters.
“And I’ll take those,” March said as he leaned over the mail carrier and wrapped a thick hand around his key ring. He flipped the small metal latch and pulled it free. The ignition key to the truck was on the ring.
McCaskey released the mail. He stood and watched as the carrier put them back in the bin. Then the young man went to collect the rest of the mail. The homeless woman was on her hands and knees, also gathering pieces. The carrier went to take them from her and, with a snarl, she slapped over the bin and its contents. The package bound for Malaysia went spinning back onto the street. The woman scrambled after it. The mail carrier did not go after her.
McCaskey did.
“Hold on!” McCaskey yelled after her.
The man with the laptop was closer. He intercepted the woman as she tried to get away. March did not see him. He was busy waving over a blue sedan. There was a brief struggle, but the man with the laptop got the mail. The woman sped away as McCaskey arrived.
The large envelope was in the man’s hand, folded in half. “I’ve got it all,” he said to the mail carrier.
“Thanks. I’ll take it,” March said, walking over.
“Glad I could help,” the man with the laptop said. Then he turned and walked away.
McCaskey had an uneasy sense about this. He waited anxiously while March flipped through the few pieces of mail. He reached the envelope addressed to Malaysia. He held it so McCaskey could see. It had been torn open.
“Shit,” McCaskey said.
The carrier was no longer a problem. One of the plain-clothes officers had him in custody and was taking him to their car. They had to stop the man with the laptop and the homeless woman.
McCaskey and March exchanged looks. March set out after the man with the laptop. The other plainclothesman followed when the carrier was secure in the sedan. McCaskey turned toward the field that stretched to the Lincoln Memorial. The homeless woman was at the edge of the lawn, digging around in her stroller. If she were stowing the contents of the envelope, they would have a problem. They had no right to search her belongings. If she had a weapon, they could have an even bigger problem. There were hundreds of potential hostages out here.
The former FBI agent walked quickly toward the woman. He still had his cell phone. He pretended to be deep in conversation and walked into the woman. Her stroller was upended, and the contents spilled onto the grass.
“I’m so sorry!” McCaskey said, tucking the cell phone in his pocket as he bent to help retrieve her belongings. Among the clothes and a water bottle were passports from different nations.
“Stay away!” the woman shouted, pushing him back.
McCaskey did not have to yield. Not anymore. He moved to confiscate the evidence of either theft or passport forgery.
With a cry of rage, the woman drew a double-bladed knife from a sheath on her forearm. The leather hilt was in the center with a serrated blade on either side. McCaskey backed away, and she approached him, her legs wide as she slashed left and right. They were not the wild moves of a homeless woman but the centered attack of a trained fighter.
The former FBI agent did not carry a handgun. Only Op-Center field agents were issued firearms, and the shotgun he kept at home for intruders would not be appropriate in a situation like this. He watched as she cut from left to right and back in a dead-horizontal line waist-high. He had to get close to the hand with the knife and do a forearm break. That meant cupping her elbow in the palm of one hand and pushing up and placing another hand on the inside of her wrist and pushing down. The wrist strike would numb her forearm and cause her to drop the knife. The trick was not to get stabbed in the process.
McCaskey kept his hands level with the slashing blade. He did not blink. That had been part of his training. He had to wait for her to do so, then he would–
The homeless woman suddenly flew to her left as a wooden case of pastels smacked into the side of her head. The knife dropped as the woman fell to her knees. Maria was still holding the handle of the box tightly. She brought it back for a second blow, driving the brass hinges into the back of the homeless woman’s head. She fell forward on the lawn and landed on her face.
“I have always felt that aikido works better in the dojo than in the field,” Maria said.
“Not everyone carries a combat-ready art box,” McCaskey said.
The homeless woman’s eyes were shut. McCaskey put an index finger under her nose to make sure she was still breathing. Then he retrieved the knife and passports and motioned for the tourists to move away. Security officers from the Lincoln Memorial were running over.
Maria picked up her art kit. “I knew she was bad when she picked up the letters,” she said.
“Why?”
“Homeless women don’t use apricot-scented shampoo. That’s why I watched you instead of Ed.”
“I appreciate that, hon,” McCaskey said. He looked back toward the street. The plainclothesman was escorting the man with the laptop toward the sedan. The man was complaining loudly. March was walking toward the lawn. When he arrived, McCaskey handed him the passports and knife. March called his dispatcher and asked for emergency medical technicians to care for the woman.
“These are impressive,” the postal officer said. “Thanks. Both of you.”
“Glad we could help. What have you got on him?” McCaskey asked, nodding toward the man with the laptop.
“He didn’t stop when we asked him to,” March said.
“Is that a crime?” Maria asked.
“No. I’ve got a feeling he’s hiding something,” March said. “I want to have a look at the computer.”
“You are permitted to look at his computer files because of a feeling?” Maria asked.
“No,” March said. “We are permitted access to his computer under Section 217 of the USA Patriot Act. Suspected computer transgression, possible web cam surveillance of federal officers near a national monument is a crime. No court order required to investigate.”
“He may not have known you people were federal officers,” McCaskey pointed out.
“Perhaps,” March said. “But we have reasonable cause for suspicion. He handled the parcel from the embassy, and he did not stop when we asked him to, repeatedly. If he’s innocent, it’s a minor inconvenience, and we’ll apologize. If he’s guilty, we may save lives.”
McCaskey made a face as the security officers from the Memorial arrived. March showed them his badge, then asked them to watch the woman. He said an ambulance would be arriving in just a few minutes.
“Look, I’ve got to put this baby to bed,” March said. He offered his hand to McCaskey and Maria in turn. “I can’t thank you enough. If you ever need anything, just shout.”
“I will,” McCaskey said.
Op-Center’s top cop felt as though he should say something more on the man’s behalf but decided against it. Ed March had a point. He also had the law on his side. McCaskey himself had thought the man might be involved in this. That, too, had been a feeling. Sometimes, lawmen had to act on that.
McCaskey had parked on C Street. He walked back with Maria. His wife was scowling and complained that this was what Spain was like under Franco.
“If everyone El Caudillo arrested had actually been guilty of crimes, Spain would have been a nation of felons,” she said.
“The situations are not the same,” McCaskey said. “Franco was a tyrant. Ed is a good officer trying to protect American lives.”
“This is how good officers become tyrants,” she replied.
“Not always,” he said with more hope than conviction.
The American system was not perfect, but as they drove to Op-Center, McCaskey took comfort in a slogan that had been written on the blackboard of a Community Outreach Theory class he once took at the FBI Academy in Quantico. It was a reassuring quote from Jefferson: “The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.”
Chapter Six.
Washington, D.C. Monday, 9:02 A.M.
Mike Rodgers pulled into the Op-Center parking lot moments after Darrell McCaskey arrived. Their reserved parking spots were side by side, and McCaskey waited while Rodgers got out. The spots were numbered rather than named. If security were ever compromised and someone rigged a car to explode, the assassin would have to know which vehicle he wanted. That was why Rodgers had started leasing cars every six months instead of buying them. He had made a number of powerful enemies abroad with his Striker assaults. The general was not paranoid, but Bob Herbert once told him that Washington, D.C., had over five hundred freelance “street potatoes,” as they were called. Individuals who watched the comings and goings of government officials and reported the information to foreign governments. That data could be used for everything from blackmail to murder. Changing cars, like alternating the routes Rodgers took to work, was just good sense. Of course, the general half-expected to open the newspaper one morning and read about some poor joker with his last car getting blown up in a driveway or sniped at in a shopping mall. Then again, Rodgers always checked the provenance of his vehicle. He did not want to end up with a car that had been rented by an embassy employee or drug dealer who was someone else’s target.
“Did we both sleep in?” Rodgers asked.
“Nah,” McCaskey said. “Maria and I were on a stakeout for a friend with the postal service.”
“Some careless spy using the same drop box more than once?” Rodgers asked.
“Sort of. He was passing material to the carrier to bypass security inspections,” McCaskey said.
Our own people betraying us, Rodgers thought. Whenever he heard something like that, the general felt every civilized inhibition slide away. He would have no trouble executing someone to whom a payday mattered more than his country. “Did you get them?”
McCaskey nodded. “Maria had the spook spotted from the start. That lady’s intuition is amazing.”
“Jealous?” Rodgers joked.
“No. Proud. I went after a guy who was web camming the Lincoln Memorial. He turned out to be undercover with Homeland Security. I swear, we’ve got more cops here than gangsters.”
“There are still plenty of bad guys to round up,” Rodgers said as they entered the building.
“I know,” McCaskey said. “But when counter espionage units start taking friendly fire, it’s time to rethink our overall policy. We should be doing more of what you’re doing, training personnel to operate abroad and targeting ETs.”
ETs were not just aliens, they were exported terrorists. When Striker had been replaced by a human intelligence unit, the mandate was to infiltrate and undermine foreign operations before they became a real threat.
Rodgers did not disagree. But the intelligence community had spent decades relying on increasingly sophisticated ELINT–electronic intelligence–such as intercepted phone and E-mail messages, spy satellites, and unmanned drones. Human intelligence was deemed too risky and unreliable. Foreign nationals who could not be hired outright had to be blackmailed into cooperating. That was costly and time consuming and required a sizable support system. Even then, the nationals could not always be trusted. Ramping up HUMINT operations also took time and ingenuity. In the interim, United States intelligence operations had assumed a posture similar to the Soviet approach of defending the homeland during World War II. They threw every available body at the problem in the hope of stopping it.
The men emerged from the elevator and went in separate directions along the oval corridor. As deputy director, Rodgers’s office was located next to that of Paul Hood in the so-called executive wing. The only other office in that section was that of attorney Lowell Coffey III. McCaskey, intelligence chief Bob Herbert, computer expert Matt Stoll, psychologist Liz Gordon, and political liaison Ron Plummer were in the operations corridor. That was where all the real work was done, according to Herbert.
When Rodgers passed Hood’s office, Bugs Benet asked the general if he had a minute.
“Sure,” Rodgers said. “What’s up?”
“The chief wanted to talk to you,” Bugs replied.
“All right. When?” Rodgers asked. Hood’s door was rarely closed. It was closed now.
“He said you should go in when you got here,” Bugs told him.
“Thanks,” Rodgers said. He walked past Bugs’s cubicle and knocked on Hood’s door.
“It’s open,” Hood said.
Rodgers went in.
“Good morning,” Hood said.
“Morning,” Rodgers said.
Hood rose from behind his desk and gestured toward a leather sofa set against the inside wall. Rodgers walked over and sat. Hood shut the door, then joined Rodgers. His expression was curiously neutral. Hood was a diplomat, but he was usually open and empathetic. That helped people trust him, and that made him effective.
“Mind if I help myself to coffee?” Rodgers asked.
“No, of course not, Mike,” Hood said. “Sorry I didn’t offer. I’ve been preoccupied.”
“I can tell,” Rodgers said. He went to the coffeemaker on a small, triangular, teakwood corner table. “Want any?”
“No thanks. I’ve already had enough to float a horseshoe,” Hood told him.
“What’s going on?” Rodgers asked as he poured.
“I spoke with Senator Debenport this morning,” Hood said. “He wants me to make deep cuts.”
“More than the four percent we just gave him?”
“Much more,” Hood told him. “Five times more.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Rodgers said. He returned with his mug and took a sip. “You don’t trim that kind of money. You amputate.”
“I know,” Hood said.
“How far from that figure can you move him?”
“He’s not going to yield a dime,” Hood said.
“Balls. Everything is negotiable.”
“Not when you’re a politician in the public eye,” Hood said.
“I guess you would know.”
“I do,” Hood said. “People want to feel secure, and CIOC wants to give that to them in as showy a way as possible. That is where the money is needed.”
Rodgers was starting to get a very uneasy feeling about the direction of this conversation. Hood was not asking questions; he was making statements, as though he were building a case.
“Anything that has a redundancy somewhere else in the intelligence system has to go,” Hood went on.
“My field unit,” Rodgers said.
“Yes, Mike.”
There was something in Hood’s voice that said he was not finished.
“And me?” Rodgers asked.
“They want me to merge the political office and deputy director’s post,” Hood told him.
“I see.” Rodgers took a short swallow of black coffee. Then another. “Ron Plummer is more qualified for my position than I am for his,” he said. “When do you want me to clear out?”
“Mike, we need to talk about this–“
“Talk to Liz Gordon. That’s what she’s here for.”
“No, you and I need to work this out,” Hood said. “I don’t want our friendship to end.”
The sentiment made Rodgers squirm. He was not sure why. “Look, don’t worry about it. I’m probably overdue for a change. The army will reassign me. Or maybe I’ll do something else.”
“Maybe we can outsource some of our intel or recon activities, work with you on scenarios for the crisis sims,” Hood said.
“I’d rather look at other options,” Rodgers replied.
“All right. But the offer stands.”
“Was there an offer?” Rodgers asked. “I heard a ‘maybe.’ “
“It was an offer to try to find projects–“
“Busywork, you mean,” Rodgers said.
“No,” Hood replied. “Assignments for a uniquely skilled intelligence professional.”
Rodgers took a swallow of coffee and rose. He did not want to talk to Paul Hood right now. He had no doubt Hood fought to keep him. Perhaps he had even threatened to resign. But in the end, Hood chose to stay on and confront his “friend” with hard facts and cold efficiency. “When does the CIOC want me out of here?”
“Mike, no one wants you out of here,” Hood said. “If they did, we would have done this when Striker was officially disbanded.”
“Right,” Rodgers said. “It’s the position that’s being eliminated not the man. I’d like to resign rather than being downsized. That has a little more dignity.”
“Of course,” Hood said.
“How long will Plummer need to take my post?”
“Two weeks?” Hood guessed.
“Fine,” Rodgers said and turned to go.
“Mike–“
“I’m okay,” Rodgers said. “Really.”
“I was going to say that it has been a privilege working with you.”
Rodgers stopped. Screw this, he thought. He was a soldier, not a diplomat. He turned back. “Would it be a privilege to resign with me?” he asked.
“If I thought that would have changed Debenport’s mind, I would have done it,” Hood told him.
“As a maneuver,” Rodgers said. “A tactic. What about standing shoulder-to-shoulder as a point of honor?”
“To me, falling on my sword would be vanity, not honor,” Hood said. “It would be an act of surrender.”
“Backing a friend and coworker?”
“In this case, yes,” Hood said.
“Jesus,” Rodgers said. “I’m glad I didn’t have guys like you watching my ass in ‘Nam. I’d be under a pile of rocks somewhere.”
“This isn’t combat, Mike. It’s politics. People fight with words and access. They don’t die. They get marginalized, they get recycled, they regroup. It’s the nature of the beast. Some people do it for ego, and some do it for principle. I took this job to serve the people of the United States. That is sacred to me. I won’t give it up to make a dramatic statement. One that won’t change a thing.”
“Is that how you view loyalty, Paul? As a dramatic statement? Was I just being dramatic when I helped save your daughter in the UN takeover?”
“That’s not fair,” Hood said. “We’ve been in the line of fire for people we don’t even know. We agreed to do that when we went to work here. We agreed to protect our nation and its interests.”
“I don’t need the sermon,” Rodgers said. “I’ve served the country for my entire adult life.”
“I know, which is why you should understand what it means to work for a government agency,” Hood said. “Op-Center has this much in common with the military. We are impacted by political trends and public whim. Whoever sits in this office has to work with whatever he is given. And with whatever is taken from him.”
Rodgers shook his head. “That’s what the Vichy collaborators did when they capitulated to the German invaders.”
Hood’s expression was no longer neutral. He winced, as though he had taken an uppercut square in the chin.
“I’m sorry,” Rodgers said. “I did not mean to imply that you’re a coward.”
“I know,” Hood said.
An uncomfortable quiet settled upon the room. Hood stood. He walked toward Rodgers and offered his hand. The general accepted it. There was surprising warmth in Hood’s handshake.
“If you need anything, let me know,” Hood said. “Or you can talk to Bob, if you prefer.”
“I’ll talk to you,” Rodgers said.
“Good.” Hood held on to Rodgers’s hand. “Mike, I need you to believe something. This place cost me my family. If it costs me your friendship, I’m going to have to live with that. If it costs me your respect, I’m going to have to live with that, too. But I want you to know that leaving here would have been easier than what I just did. You talked about loyalty. I did what I believe was right for Op-Center, not what was convenient or comfortable or even best for me.”
“I believe you, Paul,” Rodgers said. “I just don’t agree with you.”
“Fair enough,” Hood said. “But you need to know this, too. If there were a resistance movement fighting the CIOC, I would join it.”
“We can start one,” Rodgers said. “I’ll have some free time.”
“I doubt that,” Hood said.
“We’ll see,” Rodgers said and withdrew his hand. He felt much better having taken a swing at Hood’s piety. He saw the man’s point, but he still did not agree with it. Friends stood by friends. Period.
Rodgers left and went to his own office. Or rather, Ron Plummer’s office. He already felt uncomfortable here, like a noncom cleaning out the locker of a dead soldier. He forced himself to look beyond this, to the meeting with Senator Orr and whatever lay ahead.
A little anarchy, Rodgers hoped.
He was in the mood.
Chapter Seven.
Washington, D.C. Monday, 9:27 A.M.
Hood was about to buzz Ron Plummer when his outside line beeped. He glanced at the Caller ID. It was his former wife. He did not feel like talking to her now. The conversations were usually difficult. Sharon was still bitter because he had not been around very much since they moved to Washington. Hood was angry because she had not supported the work he was doing at Op-Center. But none of that mattered. The call could be about the kids.
“Good morning, Sharon,” Hood said when he picked up the phone. He tried to sound pleasant.
“Hi, Paul. Do you have a minute?”
“Sure,” he said. Sharon sounded unusually relaxed.
“I need a favor,” she said. “You met my friend Jim Hunt.”
“The caterer.”
“The home party restaurateur, yes,” she said.
Hunt was someone Sharon had known for years, dating back to when she had her own cooking show. They used to have an occasional lunch together. Now the kids told him they were having frequent dinners together.
“His son Franklin will be studying poli-sci at Georgetown in the fall,” Sharon went on. “The school will give him college credit if he interns in a political institution over the summer. Is there anything he might be able to do at Op-Center? He’s a very sharp young man, Paul.”
Hood’s former wife, who had always resented the hours he spent at Op-Center, was asking him to help the son of her boyfriend get an internship there. And she happened to make her request on a day when Hood had been ordered to lay people off. Bob Herbert once said that CIA stands for Convergent Incongruities Abound. That certainly applied here.
“Does he have any particular interests?” Hood asked. He did not really care, but he needed to think for a moment. Did he really want to do this?
“He is a student of languages and maps,” she said. “He speaks French and is learning Japanese. In fact, he’s been teaching Harleigh basic Japanese grammar. But he would be happy to work anywhere, in any capacity.”
“I’ll ask around,” Hood told her. He would, he decided, though Op-Center rarely used interns, and only then as favors to influential members of Congress. “I just want you to know we had some major cutbacks today. So it may be difficult to place him.”
“He wouldn’t require compensation.”
“I understand,” Hood said. “What I mean is that people are going to be preoccupied.”
“Okay,” Sharon said. By the way she dragged out the second syllable Hood could tell she was not happy with that answer. “Can I have a time frame? If Frankie can’t intern with you, he’ll have to look into other places.”
“Give me a day or two to see how the new landscape looks.”
“A day would be good,” Sharon said. “That will give us time to explore other options. Thanks.”
She did not ask about the layoffs. To her, Op-Center was The Enemy. It had been the rival for her husband’s affection. Now it was like an organ donor, dead except for whatever his former wife needed from it. Sharon had also said “us” not “Jim.” Hood was a little jealous, not because Sharon had found someone but because she was involved in Jim’s life. She was engaged in a way she had never been with Hood’s work, she was simpatico. Even the kids were hitting it off. He should have been glad for them all, but he was not.
They chatted a little about the kids. Sharon said that Harleigh seemed to be doing better and had actually picked up the violin again. Alexander was playing too many computer games, listening to too much rap, and not paying enough attention to his grades. Hood said he would stop by and have a talk with him Tuesday or Wednesday. Sharon said Tuesday would be fine, that she was helping Jim on a catering job that night. Then she hung up.
Hood actually envied Sharon. She had an old friend to go to, someone who had known her even longer than Hood. For all he knew, Jim Hunt may have gotten divorced because he learned that Sharon was free.
Hood sat back and listened to the quiet. A decibel lower, and it would be death. Rodgers probably had not spoken to anyone about what happened, but intelligence people knew when the geometry of a room had changed. That was their job.
Hood wished he had someone to talk to. He had never felt more alone than he did at this moment. And he suspected that there were going to be rough hours ahead, when Lowell Coffey and Darrell McCaskey and especially Bob Herbert found out about the cutbacks. And the loss of Mike Rodgers.
Hood had never been one for self-pity. Adults made choices and lived with the consequences. But he had never been cut off from a support system.
That was how I ended up marrying Sharon, he reminded himself. Nancy Jo had left him, and he married the first woman who made him forget the hurt. Unfortunately, Sharon did not fill the void.
He wanted to talk to someone. Not a professional but a friend.
Hood considered calling Ann Farris. The former Op-Center press liaison had pursued Hood for years. Hood was married while Ann worked there, and after the divorce, there was no danger, no edge to the relationship. There was only Ann’s need. Hood did not care for the divorced young mother enough to be with her, which was why he did not call her now. It would not be fair to Ann.
He thought about calling Daphne Connors. However, several dates with the public relations queen had told him they could never be more than friends. In every restaurant they went to, at the movies, at each bar they visited, Daphne always had one ear on the conversation taking place beside or behind her. She never stopped looking for new accounts or useful intelligence to service existing clients. Hood may be a workaholic, but Op-Center did not come with him when he left the office.
Hood was tempted to call Sergei Orlov, head of the Russian Op-Center in Saint Petersburg. The men had been good friends since working together to thwart the coup against the Kremlin. But Sergei was not the kind of man you talked to over the phone. He was the kind of man you sat down with over a huge bowl of uha–fish soup–and vodka shots taken from twenty-five-gram glasses.
Okay, Hood thought. There’s still a lot of work to do.
Unable to think of anyone he particularly wanted to call, Hood placed the call that had to be made. He asked Ron Plummer to come and see him. Plummer was a team player. He would feel uneasy about Rodgers’s resignation, but he would assume whatever responsibilities Paul Hood asked.
As he punched in Plummer’s extension, Hood found himself suddenly feeling very insecure about his own future. It was in the nature of men to want to build things, not oversee their downsizing. Hood had always envisioned Op-Center as an increasingly vital part of the intelligence and crisis management community. What happened today was not a move in that direction. It was not about making Op-Center more streamlined, about reducing bureaucracy and internal redundancies. The NCMC was being gutted. Hood would still have a great deal of work to do, but how important would that work be? Where would it take Op-Center? Where would it take Paul Hood personally?
“That’s up to you, isn’t it?” he asked himself aloud, to chase away the silence.
Hood asked Plummer to come in. He would deal with the situation one minute at a time. After all, this was what Op-Center was about.
Crisis management.
Chapter Eight.
Las Vegas, Nevada Monday, 7:43 A.M.
The five-story, white-brick Atlantica was one of the older, less flashy hotels on the southern end of the Strip. There were no dancing fountains, no caged jungle creatures, no landmarks re-created half-scale. When the hotel opened thirty-seven years before, it was, as the flashing red neon sign in the window announced, Deluxe! Now it was simply convenient, located close to all the major casinos.
The Atlantica was also relatively inexpensive. Tourists came here looking for a place to drop their stuff before heading to the larger hotels to gamble or see shows. As a result, there were a lot of tourists and constant activity. It was easy to be anonymous here. That appealed to Tom “Melter” Mandor.
The thirty-seven-year-old drove his white Toyota van to the third level of the parking structure. He pulled into a space overlooking the hotel, then undid the seat belt, lit a hand-rolled cigarette, and waited for Richmond. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. It was idle tapping but not impatient. Mandor was never in a hurry. During the twelve years he had spent working as an oil rig roughneck, Mandor had learned to take things easy. All the workers had. Otherwise, the downtime would have driven them mad, and the bored, isolated oilmen would have torn each other apart. It was during his three years on the Alaskan North Slope that Mandor had met Michael Wayne Richmond, who drove an oil truck for the Trans-Eastern Shipping Company. He shuttled crude oil to ships that went to South Korea and Japan. That was where the men had come up with the business plan for their new line of work.
Richmond’s vintage Thunderbird pulled up fifteen minutes later. The five-foot-ten Mandor left the van and went down the concrete stairs. This was his partner’s contact, and he had not wanted to go in without him.
It was already hot, over eighty-five desert-dry degrees. Even though it was cool and dark when he had left his home on the northwestern shores of Lake Mead, he was glad he had worn Bermuda shorts and a white T-shirt.
Las Vegas was not an early rising city, but the man they had come to see was from Maryland. He was still on East Coast time. There was no one in the small casino of the Atlantica. Mandor waited at the entrance, looking at the slot machines as though he were trying to decide whether to play. There was a large, convex mirror in an overhead corner. It allowed the people at the hotel desk to see into the casino. Mandor used it to watch the lobby. The tall, powerfully built Richmond was on the house phone, beside the small bank of elevators. When he hung up, Mandor walked over.
The men did not acknowledge one another. There were security cameras in the lobby, by the casino. They walked to the elevators, and Richmond touched the button. When the door opened, both men stepped in. Richmond pushed the button for the fifth floor. When they arrived, he turned left. Mandor went right. There was a security camera inside the elevator as well. There were no security cameras in the fifth-floor hallway. When the door shut, Mandor turned and followed Richmond.
“How was the drive?” the bald-headed Richmond asked over his shoulder.
“Sweet,” Mandor replied as he caught up to his partner. He gave him a pat on the shoulder. Mandor liked his old friend, and he respected him. “There was no traffic at this hour.”
“Yeah,” Richmond said. “I made it from Oceanside in four hours flat.”
Richmond lived in a small cabin high in the Coastal Range of Southern California. He built the place himself four years ago. After years of freezing his ass in Chicago–where he was one of five kids raised by a single mother in a one-bedroom walk-up on the South Side–then as a driver in Alaska, Richmond wanted to live in consistently warm sunshine. That had been Mandor’s desire, too, though he had always wanted to be on the water.
Richmond did not know Eric Stone, the gentleman who had contacted them. All Stone said was that they had been recommended by Pete at the oil company. Peter Farmer was the foreman on the last rig where Mandor had worked. Richmond had recorded the conversation, and let Stone know it. Richmond made Stone state that he was not a government agent and this was not a sting.
The men knew what this was not. They did not know what it was. Richmond had called Pete to make sure Stone was legitimate. Pete said he was, though he did not know what the man needed.
They stopped in front of room 515, and Richmond knocked. Mandor pushed his shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair behind his neck. He did not like to wear it in a ponytail. He did not like restraints of any kind. That was how he ended up in the oil business. Back home in Toledo, Ohio, when he was twenty, he had beaten up Noel Lynch’s former boyfriend when he found them together. Rather than face charges and possible jail time, he fled to Mexico and then to Venezuela, where he was hired to work on an offshore rig. He loved the challenge. He actually enjoyed facing the battering winds, the savage cold, the endless hard labor. When that got routine, he traveled to Alaska. When that ceased to challenge him, he and Richmond came up with their new gig. One that had no overhead, was advertised by word of mouth, and was not taxed. They provided muscle for anyone who needed it.
The men had started doing that in Alaska. When environmentalists tried to block the tanker trucks or impede access to the rigs, the two men would cart the organizer away–or his wife, if she had come with him–and persuade them to take their grievances somewhere else. Roughing them up cost less than attorneys and was quicker and more effective. It also circumvented the police, whose arrests merely delayed the protests but did not eliminate them.
The work proved to be lucrative and something more. While Mandor was working in Punta Cardon, he learned that Noel had married the stupid jock he’d taken apart. Probably because she felt sorry for a guy who now had only one functioning eye. Each time Mandor hit someone, he was smacking that swaggering linebacker. Some people would call that sociopathic. To Mandor, it was cathartic. He felt that if everyone enjoyed their work as much as he did, the world would be a better place.
The door opened, and a short, well-dressed man stood inside. He was in his late twenties or early thirties, with straw-colored hair and a baby face.
“Mr. Stone?” Richmond said.
“Yes. You are Mr. Richmond?”
Richmond nodded. Stone looked at Mandor.
“Mr. Mandor?”
“Yeah,” Mandor said. He could not say “Yes sir” to this kid.
“Come in,” Stone said as he stepped aside.
Richmond entered first. “So how do you know Pete?” he asked as he stepped into the small foyer.
Mandor walked in, and Stone shut the door behind him. The room was medium-sized, with a king-size bed, a kitchenette, and a small dining area. The drapes were drawn, and all the lights were on.
“Before I answer, would you mind if I did a Raw scan?” Stone asked.
“What’s that?” Richmond asked.
“A check for radio waves,” Stone said. “I want to make sure you’re not broadcasting to someone on the outside.”
“Fair enough,” Richmond said.
Mandor shrugged.
Stone went to the luggage stand at the foot of the made bed. He removed a device that looked like a small flashlight with an earplug. He put the plug in his ear and slowly shone a cone of pale yellow light down each man in turn. He seemed satisfied with the results.
“Would either of you care for something?” Stone asked. “A beverage?”
“I’m okay,” Richmond said.
“Me, too,” Mandor told him.
“Tell me about Pete,” Richmond went on.
“Peter is an old friend of my employer.” Stone drew a cell phone from the inside left pocket of his tailored black blazer. “You may phone Peter if you wish. He will vouch for us.”
“I already spoke to him,” Richmond said. “He told me you were okay, but he did not tell me who you work for. Or what you want.”
“Or what it pays,” Mandor added. That was the only thing he cared about. If the price was right, he would pretty much do anything for anyone.
Stone sat in one of two wicker chairs beside a small dining area table. He invited the other men to sit. Richmond took the other chair. Mandor perched on the edge of the bed.
“I work for a gentleman who is an intelligence officer and political activist who has a great many supporters in the international business sector,” Stone said. “Peter Farmer is one of those men. When the time comes to tell you more, you will be very proud to be a part of what we are doing.”
“Will we?” Richmond said laconically.
“That’s assuming we decide to become a part of this,” Mandor said. He did not know what Richmond was thinking, but Mandor did not agree to anything blindly. “You want us to trust you, but you’re not trusting us.”
“An employer’s prerogative,” Stone said.
“We’re not employees yet,” Mandor said.
“True,” Stone said. “Let’s see if we can remedy that.”
Stone was smooth, probably a lawyer. Mandor did not like him. The young man smiled confidently as he slipped a slender hand into his shirt pocket. He withdrew a small manila envelope and placed it on the table. The package clanged lightly.
“There are two keys inside,” Stone said. “One of them operates a charcoal gray Dodge van on the bottom floor of the parking structure. The van is in your name, Mr. Richmond. The second key opens a safe-deposit box at the Las Vegas International Trust and Fund Company on Flamingo Avenue. Inside the box is twenty-five thousand dollars in cash. That is half the payment you will receive for what will be three days’ work. Would you like to hear more?”
Richmond and Mandor looked at the envelope and then at each other.
“Why the van?” Richmond asked.
“The windows are dark and bulletproof,” Stone said.
“Go on, Mr. Stone,” Richmond said.
“You have a cabin in the mountains in Fullbrook, Mr. Richmond,” Stone said. “There are no neighbors for acres in all directions.”
“Right. People come up to look at the view from the ridge some nights, but not often.”
“Can they see your place from there?” Stone asked.
“Not at all.”
“Good. In two days, at six in the morning, you will receive a call there,” Stone said. “You will be asked to drive somewhere, pick something up, and return to your cabin. You will wait there until you are told to drive somewhere else. When that is finished, your work is finished.”
“That’s it?” Richmond said.
“More or less. For you.” Stone looked at Mandor. “You will be needed in San Diego. You’ll be working security detail. You won’t need to do anything except sit, most of the time.”
“That is still pretty vague, Mr. Stone,” Mandor remarked.
“We’ve only just met.”
“So all we get is a good night kiss,” Richmond joked.
“Yeah,” Mandor laughed. “I’m assuming it’s outside the law, this thing we’ll be doing.”
“Laws are sometimes inadequate to deal with reality,” Stone said.
“They still put your ass in jail for breaking them,” Mandor said. “Mr. Stone, twenty-five grand apiece is real good money, I’ll give you that. And I appreciate careful security measures. But secrecy bothers me. A lot.”
“Then you have the option of walking away,” Stone said.
“Both of us?” Richmond asked. “Because I’m okay with trusting you.”
“This is a two-hander, a job for men who are experienced and cool under pressure,” Stone said. “I’ve checked both of you out, Mr. Richmond. But if you have someone else in mind–“
“That won’t be necessary,” Mandor said. “I’m in.” A man did not make money by being cautious. If Richmond was comfortable with this, Mandor could live with it.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Stone said. “And don’t worry, gentlemen. As you said, Mr. Mandor, the money is good. Beyond that, however, I must tell you–the upside is truly exceptional.”
“Are you saying there will be more work?” Richmond asked.
“That’s only a small part of what I’m talking about,” Stone assured him. “You can’t appreciate, yet, how significant your contribution will be. When you do, you will be justifiably pleased.”
“It may sound shallow to you, but being well compensated is all the pleasing I need,” Mandor said.
“That isn’t shallow at all, Mr. Mandor,” Stone said. “It’s one of the reasons this nation was founded. So that men would be free to pursue financial achievement.”
Mandor liked the sound of that. Greed as patriotism.
The meeting wrapped quickly after that. Richmond and Mandor chatted briefly as they walked toward the elevator. Richmond had taken the envelope and put it in his shirt pocket.
“Kind of a toady, don’t you think?” Mandor asked.
“Completely,” Richmond said. “Which is why he must be sitting next to some pretty serious power. That’s the only way a toady gets to swagger like he did.”
“I’m with you on that.”
“Let’s go down separately,” Richmond said. “We can meet at the van he’s giving us.”
“Why? You think this is a setup?”
“I think it’s legit,” Richmond said. “But we still don’t know who he is, or if there are other guys watching him. If there are, they may want to grab us, see what he said. If that happens, one of us needs to be a floater.”
A floater was a roughneck term for a jack-of-all-trades who hovered around a group on a rig. He only pitched in when necessary, usually when someone got hurt or a piece of equipment failed.
Richmond had a good point, so he went down first. Mandor followed a few minutes later. They met by the charcoal gray van.
“How does it look?” Mandor asked.
“As advertised,” Richmond said. “The floor is raised slightly in back. There’s a big hollow space under there.”
“What do you think it’s for?” Mandor asked. “Drugs? Illegals?”
Richmond shrugged. “Does it matter? I’ve gone through the border checkpoint on I-15. No one ever stopped me.”
Mandor leaned close to his partner. “What about a whack?” he asked in a loud whisper.
Richmond was silent for a moment. “Okay. What about it?”
“This is hit-level money. We’ve never gone there. Do we want to start?”
Richmond looked at his friend. “We get caught for some of the other stuff we do, it’s ten to twenty years. At our age, there ain’t much difference between that and a life sentence. I don’t have enough to retire. Do you?”
“No.”
“Then I say what the hell, we do this. We just watch every step and be a little extra cautious along the way.”
Mandor pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it. Richmond was right. What did it matter? Mandor asked himself. Every job has its risk. He had faced danger every day on the rig, from fires to pump room explosions to metal fatigue that could have resulted in the breakup of the platform. If he were a factory worker, he would face accidents or being laid off. Every day, every breath carried risks. Very few of them offered these kinds of rewards.
“I’ll tell you what,” Richmond said after thinking for a moment. “Let’s have a look at the cash. That will make you feel better.”
“Okay.”
“We’ll leave the van here for a day,” Richmond said. “I don’t want our friend to think we’re careless or predictable. You can come back for it later.”
Mandor agreed. They went to their own cars, left the parking structure, and drove to Flamingo. Mandor fired up a second cigarette while he made his way through the thin, early-morning traffic.
There was no logical reason not to go ahead. Pete Farmer had effectively vouched for Stone. The guy was trusting them with a lot of cash. All they had to do for the rest–and more to come, apparently–was to follow instructions. It sounded easy, like connect the dots. There was just one thing that bothered Mandor. It bothered him more than the other jobs they had taken over the years. Mandor had liked and trusted those other people, the bookies who sent them to collect overdue debts, the mobsters who needed bagmen. He understood them. Eric Stone was a mystery.
But as Richmond had said, they would move one step at a time. In the end, they had one advantage over Stone.
If things went south, they could always put him in that special storage compartment.
Chapter Nine.
Washington, D.C. Monday, 10:59 A.M.
It was one of those days. A day when Darrell McCaskey was working for everyone but his employer.
When McCaskey worked for the FBI, the agents and field directors called things like this tactical exchange activities. TEA time was when operatives for one law enforcement agency or intelligence group were loaned to another organization. Sometimes it was an official and open-ended seconding, such as General Rodgers being assigned to Op-Center. More often than not, it was unofficial, for a day or two, such as Darrell giving a hand to the postal police.
Or being asked just a few hours later to help Scotland Yard investigate the sudden death of William Wilson. Detective Superintendent George Daily, of the Special Branch of the Criminal Investigation Division, had been asked by the assistant commissioner to rule out the possibility of any “mischief.” McCaskey and the fifty-seven-year-old Daily had worked together ten years before on an international investigation of the abduction of Chinese-American and Hong Kong women. They were being taken to China to help populate a generation that had been gutted by strict birth control policies. Beijing began to worry that there would not be enough children to staff the military and workforce in the twenty-first century. The ring was broken, though the government officials were never punished.
“I’m sure the D.C. medical examiner knows how to do her job,” McCaskey told his old acquaintance.
“No doubt,” Daily replied. “But questions are already being asked, given Mr. Wilson’s standing. The AC would feel very much better if someone with experience in criminal matters had a look.”
“Do you have information that Mr. Wilson was the target of any particular group?” McCaskey asked.
“There is no such indication whatsoever.”
“So this is a cosmetic application,” McCaskey said.
“Hopefully, yes,” Daily replied. “None of us wants to find evidence of criminal activity in this matter.”
McCaskey looked at his watch. “Tell you what, George. I’ll make some calls and get myself invited over this morning. Do you want me to call you at home when I’m finished there?”
“Please,” Daily said.
“Same number in Kensington?”
“What was it your Western cavalry used to say? They would not be back ‘until the enemy is captured or destroyed. ‘ I’ll be here until the cavalry drags me away or my wife tosses me out.”
McCaskey laughed. He enjoyed Daily. The man took his cases seriously, but never himself. McCaskey also envied the detective’s relationship with his wife. When they were working in London, Lucy Daily was openly proud of the work her husband was doing. A childhood survivor of the blitz, Mrs. Daily was a strong supporter of law and those who maintained it.
McCaskey hung up, then called his contact at the FBI, Assistant Director Braden, to get him into the coroner’s office. Braden understood the drill and arranged for McCaskey to meet with the medical examiner. The Bureau had a lot of clout with other local offices and set up a meeting for 12:30. McCaskey left his office at once. On the way out, he saw Bob Herbert and Mike Rodgers talking outside Rodgers’s office. Herbert looked uncharacteristically sullen. The intelligence chief had lost his wife and the use of his legs in the Beirut embassy bombing in 1983. Tucked in a high-tech wheelchair, Herbert did everything with passion. He laughed hard, fought doggedly, took field assignments whenever possible, and had an explosive lack of patience for bullshit. To see him this quiet was disconcerting.
“Good morning,” McCaskey said as he passed.
Herbert’s back was to McCaskey. The intelligence chief grunted loudly but did not turn.
McCaskey stopped. “What’s wrong?”
“Obviously, you didn’t hear,” Herbert said. His voice was a gloomy monotone. “Mike Rodgers got canned.”
McCaskey’s eyes shifted to the officer. “For what reason?”
“I’m budgetary fat,” Rodgers said.
“You’re saying that Paul signed off on that?” McCaskey asked.
“He signed off on it and delivered the message personally, without offering to resign in protest,” Herbert said.
“That would not have accomplished anything,” Rodgers said.
“It would have made me respect him more,” Herbert replied.
“It also would have been easier,” McCaskey pointed out.
Herbert wheeled around. “Are you sticking up for him?”
“I didn’t realize we were taking sides,” McCaskey said.
“We’re not,” Rodgers said with finality.
Herbert continued to brood.
“It may be a stupid question, Mike, but how are you with this?” McCaskey asked.
“I’m a soldier,” he said. “I go where I’m told.”
That was what McCaskey had expected Rodgers to say. The general let you know what he was thinking. But with rare exception, he did not let you know what he was feeling.
“Will you stay with the army?” McCaskey asked.
“I don’t know,” Rodgers said.
“Jesus!” Herbert said. He was no longer brooding. “I can’t believe we’re hanging here, calmly discussing the screwing of a friend and coworker.”
“We’re not,” McCaskey said. “We’re talking about his plans.”
“Darrell, the man has no plans; he was just fired,” Herbert said. “As for you, you’re a company boy, you’ve always been a company boy, and you’ll always be a company boy.” Herbert pushed on the hard-rubber wheels of his chair and turned. “You may be next. You need to grow a pair, my friend,” the intelligence chief added as he maneuvered around McCaskey.
“Really?” The former FBI agent dropped a strong hand on Herbert’s shoulder. He gripped it hard and stopped the intelligence chief from leaving. “Yeah, I’m a team player. Always have been, always will be. Battles are won by artillery working in tandem, not by loose cannons.”
“What is that, a quote from the FBI manual?”
“No,” McCaskey replied evenly. If they both got angry, this would get ugly. “That’s a personal observation from twenty years of stakeouts, undercover stings, field work, and saving the asses of rogue warriors who thought they could handle entire operations by themselves.”
Herbert thought for a moment. “Okay. I deserved that. Now, take your hand off my shoulder before I go rogue warrior on it.”
There was a disturbing absence of levity in Herbert’s voice. He knew he had been the target of McCaskey’s remark and did not like it. McCaskey let go and stepped to one side. Herbert wheeled away. McCaskey would try to talk to him when he got back. Herbert’s temper had a way of subsiding as quickly as it flared.
Other Op-Center personnel had maintained a discreet distance from the three men. They moved through the corridors in silence, their eyes down or facing straight ahead. But this was an intelligence-gathering organization with sharp political hearing. The employees did not miss much.
“Sorry about that, Darrell,” Rodgers said. “Bob’s angry.”
“He’s Bob,” McCaskey replied.
“True.”
“Look, you’ve got things to do, and I’ve got to be somewhere,” McCaskey said. “Let me know when you’re free for a beer.”
“The end of the week should work.”
“Sounds good,” McCaskey said and shook Rodgers’s hand. It seemed a remarkably anticlimactic gesture after all these years and all they had shared. But this was not the time or place for good-byes.
McCaskey hurried down the corridor to the elevator. He got in his car and switched on the new FIAT device, the Federal Intelligence Activity Transponder. It was a chip built into his watch and activated by pulling the stem and twisting it clockwise. The signal was monitored by all mobile metropolitan and state police units. It was basically a license to speed or leave the scene of an accident. It told the authorities that the car was on time-sensitive government business and could not be stopped. The FIATs were introduced two years before so that unmarked Homeland Security officials would not be stopped or detained. Though McCaskey was not on a high-priority mission, Scotland Yard was an important ally. He wanted to get them what they needed as quickly as possible.
Wilson’s body had been taken to the Georgetown University Medical Center on Reservoir Road. That was where the medical officer was conducting autopsies while the coroner’s office was being modernized. McCaskey went downstairs to look at the body with Dr. Minnie Hennepin. The middle-aged woman had red hair and freckles. She was wearing a sharply pressed lab coat.
“I guess this is what the Feds refer to as ‘cover your ass,’ ” the slender woman said as they walked down the concrete stairs.
“There’s a little of that in everything we do,” McCaskey admitted.
“May I ask why Scotland Yard did not simply send over one of their own investigators?”
“The press would have been all over that,” McCaskey said. “It would be positioned as suggesting a suspicion of wrongdoing. British authorities want to put their minds at ease and also be able to tell Wilson’s shareholders that someone with criminal investigation experience had a look at the body.”
“You understand, Mr. McCaskey, that there was no evidence of lacerations or contusions other than what I would characterize as the natural result of an exuberant sexual encounter. We also did a very thorough toxicological examination. I’m not sure what’s left.”
“You checked for every chemical that could produce results consistent with natural organic failure?” McCaskey asked.
“Everything from formaldehyde to pancuronium bromide,” Dr. Hennepin said. “We found nothing.”
“Some of those chemicals dissipate very quickly.”
“That’s true, Mr. McCaskey. But they would have to be of very low dosage and injected relatively near to the heart in order to be potent,” the doctor said. “I did the pathology for that area of the body, looking for evidence of hypodermic trauma. There was none.”
“In the armpit?” McCaskey asked.
“Yes. I also checked the femoral artery, since that would be a rapid delivery system for chemicals.”
“Well, I’ll have a look at the body anyway,” McCaskey said. “You never know what will turn up.”
“Frankly, I’ll be interested to see a nonmedical approach to a cadaver,” the doctor admitted. “Have you done this sort of thing before?”
“I’ve sent a few people to the morgue but never had a look at them after they’ve made the trip.”
They reached the basement, and she turned on the light. The morgue was smaller than McCaskey had imagined, about the size of a bedroom. There were six stainless steel coolers on one wall in two rows of three. Cases filled with chemicals and equipment stood against the adjoining walls, and a lab table with a deep sink and a computer sat along the fourth wall beside the stairwell. Three autopsy tables filled the center of the room, each beneath a low-hanging fluorescent light.
“Do you want him out of the cooler?” the woman asked.
“That won’t be necessary,” McCaskey said. “Do you have a light we can bring over?”
“Yes,” she said.
McCaskey had been around death before. Too much, in fact. But that had been in shoot-outs or entering a drug den when someone had just ODed. However sad, however tragic, there was drama in the exit. It was the last act of a life. The exchange with Dr. Hennepin had been casual, as if they were deciding what to do with refrigerated leftovers. In fact, they were. There were no pyrotechnic or emotional fireworks, no memorable or even unmemorable gestures. Just the muted echo of their footsteps and low voices, and their curiosity, which hung in the air like buzzards.
The doctor pulled the heavy handle on cooler number four. Billionaire Wilson was not even in number one. Leftovers and one notch below the bronze. The morgue was one hell of an equalizer.
There was a rush of cool air and a smell like raw lamb meat. The body had not yet been embalmed. Dr. Hennepin slid the slab from the cooler. Then she got a workman’s light from one of the cabinets and hung it from the handle of the cooler above. It was not an elegant setup, but it did the job. She also brought over a box of latex gloves. They each donned a pair. Starting at the head, she rolled back the white sheet that covered the body. There was a large Y-shaped incision in the trunk. The area well outside the cut was purple. It shaded to surrounding flesh that was yellowish white. Instead of being sutured, the area had been covered with adhesive tape. The cut had been made through the white tape. After the autopsy was concluded, the wound was closed with a series of clasps built into the tape.
“That’s enough,” McCaskey said when she reached the waist. Since she had already looked at the femoral artery, he was not interested in any region that far from the heart. The first thing he did was look at the eyes.
“A drug might have been applied by eyedropper,” he said. “You often find broken blood vessels from the pressure of holding open the lids.”
“This is a little far from the heart,” the doctor pointed out.
“Yes, but a megadose of coenzyme Q10 could have been given that way–“
“Causing an infarction that would impact the heart quickly and directly,” the medical examiner said.
“And Q10 would not turn up on a routine toxological scan,” McCaskey added.
“How did you find out about the coenzyme?”
“I investigated a doctor who killed a patient with whom he was having an affair,” McCaskey told her. “When we had enough circumstantial evidence, he confessed and told us how he did it. In this case, though, the eyes look normal.”
They did not feel normal, however. The ocular muscles had begun to tighten, setting the eyes stiffly in their sockets. It was like working on a mannequin.
“May I borrow your microlight?” McCaskey asked.
“Yes,” she said, taking the tiny, powerful flashlight from her vest pocket. She handed it to him.
McCaskey angled the head back slightly and shone the light up the nose. The veins of the nasal passage were another area where a killer might have made an injection. The skin did not appear to have been broken.
“Do you need any of the cartilage retracted?” the doctor asked.
“No. There would be a small clot if he had been injected here.”
“And you know that because–?”
“Junkies,” McCaskey said. “There are a number of places they inject themselves so the track marks don’t show.”
“Interesting. I had heard of them using the areas between the fingers and toes,” the doctor said.
“Yes, but law enforcement can see those. That would give us reasonable cause to conduct a search.”
“Fascinating,” the medical examiner said.
McCaskey moved to the mouth. He checked the cheeks. There were no scars, nor any along the gums. Then he checked under the tongue. It was swollen with uncirculated blood. That made the veins underneath it particularly visible. One of them appeared to have a prick mark.
“Look,” McCaskey said.
He pinched the tongue between his index finger and thumb and shone the light into the cavity. Dr. Hennepin looked in.
“I see it,” she said.
The medical examiner retrieved a scalpel and a sterile test tube from the autopsy table. She also grabbed a small tape recorder. Narrating her activities for the official autopsy record, she carefully sliced a piece of skin from the area. When she was finished, she clicked off the recorder.
“I’ll get this to the laboratory at once,” she said. “It will be about two hours before I have the results.”
“Thanks. I’m going to keep looking, if that’s all right.”
“Of course,” she said. “Just don’t make any incisions.”
McCaskey said he would not.
The doctor went upstairs to arrange for analysis of the tissue. That left McCaskey alone with the cadaver. The former FBI agent found no other marks on the upper half of the body. He covered Wilson with the sheet and returned him to the cooler. He closed the door.
Wilson was not doing drugs. They would have shown up on the initial lab report. So would injections of insulin or some other medication. Unless the man had nicked himself on a fish bone at the party, this probably meant that someone stuck him under the tongue.
If William Wilson had been murdered, Washington would be turned into a pop-culture Dallas with public and private investigations and endless conspiracy scenarios about who killed the Internet tycoon.
The medical examiner returned. She took McCaskey’s cell phone number as well as his office number and promised to call as soon as she heard something. He thanked her for her help and asked for her complete discretion.
“The autopsy results will be sealed,” she said, “though in my experience that’s as good as saying we have something to hide.”
“In this instance, we may,” McCaskey remarked.
As he left the medical center, McCaskey found something ironic in how this had unfolded. Something that even Bob Herbert might find amusing.
That for a few hours at least, the quintessential team player would be working on this case alone.
Chapter Ten.
Washington, D.C. Monday, 11:00 A.M.
As the press secretary to Senator Donald Orr, twenty-nine-year-old Katherine “Kat” Lockley typically reached the office around seven-thirty each morning and stayed until seven or eight at night. That was fine with her. She loved her work. But it was intense and exhausting, and a midday lunch break was not a luxury, it was a requirement. She liked to get out of the office, go to the Green Pantry down the street, stock up at the salad bar, and do the New York Times crossword puzzle while she ate. Forty-five minutes. That was all she required to recharge her brain.
She would not be getting away from the office today.
Kat did not care about William Wilson personally. The two had barely made eye contact at the party, let alone spoken to one another. When she turned on the BBC news at six A.M., as she did every day, and learned of his death, Kat’s only concern was for Senator Orr and how the software magnate’s death would impact them. As someone who greatly admired the senator, Kat would have to work hard to keep the focus on politics, not gossip. As the daughter of one of Orr’s oldest friends, Lieutenant Scott Lockley of the RED HORSE unit, it was also Kat’s pleasure to help the senator.
Kat mentally composed a press release as she showered, made notes as she dressed, dictated the final draft as she drove to work, and plugged the digital tape recorder into her computer when she arrived. The voice recognition program transcribed her words, and she edited them while she phoned the senator. It had been a long night of meeting and greeting, and he was still asleep when she called. He listened to the news without comment, a talent good politicians practiced even in private conversations. Kat E-mailed the text of the press release to the senator’s laptop. He approved it, and the short statement was E-mailed to the press by eight A.M.
Although the media reported that Wilson had been with a woman he apparently met at the senator’s party, neither Kat nor Kendra knew who that was. The official party photographer had E-mailed all the images he took the night before, over two hundred of them. Wilson spoke to a number of women. He left alone. That fact was included in the press release.
At the Columbia School of Journalism they called this “drawing first blood.” You did not wait for reporters to come to you. You went to them and established the parameters of the dialogue. Kat had the senator state, “I have never been interested in the private lives of private citizens, so I will only comment on the man as I knew him: through his work.” She had made a point of specifying “private citizens” in case it ever became necessary to attack the personal activities of a fellow politician. Kat did not want to have their moral stand in this instance misunderstood as general disinterest in the morality of public officials.
After sending out the press release, Kat fielded calls literally from A to Z, from Blue Danube Radio in Austria to ZBC Television One in Zimbabwe. There were also interview requests from all the American network morning and evening shows. Kat declined to make the senator available to everyone but CBS Evening News and Nightline . That would give them several hours to find out more about what had happened to William Wilson and to formulate a response. She E-mailed that information to the staff.
Senator Orr sat in his sunny, wood-paneled office with Kendra and Kat and decided that Kat’s plan was a good one. The senator would stick to the day’s schedule. Wilson had not been a friend to the American economy. The only reason the Englishman had been invited to the party was so that key Washington bankers could make his acquaintance and try to discourage him from his Eurocentric banking plans. It was a delicate thing, mourning a man whose invention had improved everyone’s quality of life but whose politics were aggressively anti-American.
“I am curious, though, about who he might have met at the party,” the senator had said. “Any ideas?”
“I had the photographer send over his shots from last night,” Kat said. “He talked to a number of women, most of them married.”
“Which could be why there are no clear video images of her from the hotel security system,” Kendra remarked.
“She didn’t want to be identified,” the senator said. “Well, hopefully, it will not be our concern after today.”
“Which is why I’ve instructed the photographer not to provide any of those pictures to the press,” Kat said. “The fact that he was here shows that you were trying to be a mediator. That’s a good thing. Photographs of Wilson at the party will create a different impression.”
“In what way?” Kendra asked.
“I call it the stink of Pulitzer prize,” Kat replied. “What’s the first thing you think of when I say ‘John F. Kennedy?’ The Bay of Pigs invasion? The Cuban Missile Crisis? Marilyn Monroe?”
“The Zapruder film,” Kendra admitted.
“And what do we remember Dallas for?”
“I get it,” Kendra said, nodding.
“Death resonates, unnatural or otherwise, and pictures reinforce that,” Kat said. “Pearl Harbor, the World Trade Center, the Challenger and Columbia–the emotional power of the end of something overshadows whatever else it stood for. Images strengthen that impact.”
“But there’s something we want to strengthen,” Kendra said. “The difference between what Wilson stood for and what the senator and USF stand for. Wouldn’t this be a good opportunity to do that?”
“It would be convenient, but not good,” Kat said. “There is a certain level of tawdriness in how Wilson died. We want to stay clear of that, especially if it turns out he was canoodling with someone from the gala.”
“Couldn’t we use that to cheapen him and his ideas?” Kendra asked.
“That would cheapen us, I think,” Kat replied.
“Yes, I have to agree with Kat on that one,” the senator said.
Kendra nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I was just asking.”
Kat did not always like Kendra’s go-for-the-throat thinking, but at least the woman did not take the rejection personally. She was here for Senator Orr and the USF, not for herself.
“There is also the chance that late-night comics turn on Wilson and his lover in a day or two,” Kat added. “If that happens, we risk becoming part of the joke right when we are holding our convention.”
“Another good point,” Orr said.
“So how do we exploit the media exposure we’ll have tonight?” Kendra asked. “If the senator condemns Wilson, he’ll appear heartless. If he praises the man, we lose credibility. If he goes into his stump speech, then we’re obviously exploiting the media exposure. Could we move the announcement of a presidential run?”
“Ouch,” Kat said.
“Why?” Kendra asked.
“That would keep Wilson alive,” Kat said. “Wilson’s death and the senator’s candidacy become a run-on sentence, inseparable.”
“I see it as planting flowers in fertilizer,” Kendra said. “Something wonderful coming from shit.”
Kat frowned.
“Who cares if we are linked to Wilson?” Kendra continued. “I see that as a good thing. Wilson’s ideas were very bad for America. The USF is good for America.”
“But we’ll be linked to his death, not his ideas,” Kat said. “We’ll be seen as vultures, opportunists.”
“Just having the senator on one of those shows will be perceived that way, won’t it?” Kendra asked.
“Not necessarily. The senator will be seen as a diplomat. He can say things like, ‘Mr. Wilson and I had a different worldview, but his contribution to technology was invaluable,’ or, ‘Mr. Wilson was embarked on a path I opposed. His genius was in other areas.’ You start with the negative to make an impact, then sugarcoat it so you seem magnanimous.”
“I am magnanimous,” Orr teased.
The women laughed. It was true. Orr was a politician. Typically, that was not a good fit with idealism or philanthropy. All a philanthropist had to do was convince himself that something was worthwhile and make it happen. An elected official had to convince others, and there was often a considerable gulf between conscience and compromise. A man like Franklin Roosevelt may have felt it was the right thing to free Europe from Hitler. But he needed Pearl Harbor to make that happen. John Kennedy may have thought it was a good idea to send people to the moon, but he needed the threat of a Soviet space platform to get the funding. Fortunately, the senator cared more about getting his message across than about winning the White House.
“I agree with Kat,” Orr said. “I don’t want to dance too enthusiastically on the man’s grave. But I do like Kendra’s idea of making some kind of announcement as soon as possible. Kat, what USF personnel are we looking at today?”
“Just two,” Kat said. “A military adviser and an economic guru.”
“The military adviser is General Rodgers, the deputy director of Op-Center?” Orr asked.
“That’s correct, Senator.”
“He took our boys into North Korea, India, Russia, the Middle East to stop things from blowing up,” Orr said. “That’s good. It would make a good counterpoint to what Wilson stood for. Kat, would you give him a call and find out what he thought about the party, see if there’s anything we’ll need to show him or tell him to make him more comfortable?”
Kat said she would do that at once.
The media portion of the meeting was over, and Kat left the senator with Kendra. She returned to her office, pausing only to make sure the other staffers did not discuss William Wilson with the media. Orr’s personal staff of three men and four women were pretty sharp. Kat did not think they would have done that. But the D.C. press corps was smart, too. They had back-door ways of asking questions. “I’m not at liberty to say” could be written as “so-and-so refused to comment,” which suggested that there was something to hide. For Orr’s staff, the correct response to all questions about Wilson was, “Would you like to talk to Ms. Lockley?”
Throughout the morning, several people had wanted to talk to Ms. Lockley. She would call back later and tell them that the senator had nothing to add to the statement he had made that morning. Right now she needed to talk to Mike Rodgers. She called his cell phone and introduced herself. The general seemed happy to hear from her.
“Are the senator and I still on for this afternoon?” he asked.
“Absolutely, General Rodgers. The senator is looking forward to it. In fact, he wanted me to call and find out if you need anything. Additional information, a brand of cigar, a favorite beverage.”
“Actually, there are just two things I want,” Rodgers told her.
“What are they?” Kat asked.
“I want to meet a man with vision and the courage to see that vision through,” Rodgers said.
“You will definitely find that.”
“I believe I will,” Rodgers said. “I have read about the senator, and I admire the values for which he stands. The other thing I want to find is a man who is willing to listen to the people around him.”
“General, I just came from a meeting with the senator. I assure you, he listens and he hears.”
“Then I look forward to meeting with him, and hopefully to working with him,” Rodgers replied.
“May I ask a somewhat personal question, General?”
“Sure.”
“Are you eager to make a move at this time?”
“If it’s the right one,” Rodgers told her.
“I’m glad to hear that, sir,” Kat told him. “We all look forward to seeing you again.”
The woman hung up and relayed the information to Senator Orr. He was glad to hear how the general felt.
“He sounds like our kind of fighter,” Orr said.
Kat was glad to hear the senator excited. In a day that offered their first major challenge on the national stage, it was reassuring to find a potential ally.
Now it was time to call back the rest of the reporters who wanted to talk to the senator. First, however, she made another call. One that was more important to her.
She phoned the Green Pantry and ordered a turkey club sandwich.
Chapter Eleven.
Washington, D.C. Monday, 12:53 P.M.
On the way back to Op-Center, McCaskey stopped at a gas station market for lunch. He got a hot dog and a Mountain Dew. As he stood outside eating, he glanced at a rack of newspapers. The headlines of the Washington Post, USA Today, and a handful of foreign papers were all about the untimely death of William Wilson.
When he was with the FBI, McCaskey attended a class in ATT–antiterrorist tactics. The teacher, psychologist Vic Witherman, was an expert in what he called countdown profiling. Witherman maintained that it was possible to spot a terrorist who was within minutes of launching an attack. There was a dark brightness in their eyes, undistracted purpose in their step, a confident boast in the way they held their head and shoulders. It was the posture of a demigod.
“It comes from three things,” Witherman had said. “One, of course, is adrenaline. Two is the fact that they are out of hiding for the first time in months, maybe even years. But three is the most significant of all. They possess what no one else has: knowledge of the future.”
McCaskey was struck by that observation. But today was the first time he had ever experienced something similar. If he was right, he knew what tomorrow’s headlines would read.
McCaskey’s cell phone beeped as he was getting back into the car. It was Dr. Hennepin.
“It took exactly fifteen minutes for the laboratory to find something that did not belong in a man’s mouth,” she said. “Traces of potassium chloride.”
“Which is used for what?” McCaskey asked.
“Executing criminals by lethal injection,” the medical examiner told him. “It stops the heart.”
“Is there any way our subject could have acquired that substance naturally?” McCaskey asked. He was careful not to use William Wilson’s name, since this was not a secure line.
“Only if he had been eating dog food and certain brands of weight loss bars and dietary supplements,” she said. “I did not find anything in the contents of his stomach that indicated he had eaten any of the above. Moreover, in the case of the bars and supplements, potassium chloride would have been detected in conjunction with potassium citrate or potassium phosphate.”
“The sample you found was pure.”
“Yes,” she said.
“So he was murdered.”
“Unless it was self-inflicted.”
“Which does not seem likely,” McCaskey said. “Who has to be informed about this?”
“I have to send a report to the Metro Police superintendent of detectives and a copy to the MP forensics office,” she replied.
“When?”
“As soon as I can write it up,” the doctor told him. “They should have it within an hour.”
“Can you write slowly?” McCaskey asked. “I have to get back to my office and give Scotland Yard a heads-up. There may be individuals they want watched before the information becomes somewhat public.”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll have them run tests for other coronary inhibitors. That should take an extra hour.”
“Thanks, Dr. Hennepin,” McCaskey said. “Will you be able to forward a copy to me?”
“Sure.”
McCaskey thanked her again.
Op-Center’s top policeman was already on the road before the conversation ended. He did not want to call Op-Center or Scotland Yard from the secure cell phone in the car. He was not thinking about the empowerment he gained by possessing foreknowledge. Right now, the former FBI agent was thinking about everything that would have to be done to find the individual who had gone to William Wilson’s room and apparently assassinated him.
Upon arriving at Op-Center, McCaskey went directly to his office, shut the door, and called George Daily. The detective superintendent was less surprised than McCaskey had expected.
“It’s more credible, frankly, than hearing that he died of heart failure,” the British investigator remarked.
“I’m going to meet with Director Hood as soon as he’s free,” McCaskey said. “Do you want to approach the Metropolitan Police, or would you prefer that we work on your behalf?”
“We’d best do both,” Daily told him. “When the press gets hold of this, we will be pressured to take a direct hand. In the meantime, it would help enormously if you would earmark areas that we will need to examine. Local police can be very territorial about their sources and the interrogation process.”
“I’ll make sure you are represented, Detective Superintendent,” McCaskey promised.
“How long do we have until this news becomes public fodder?” the Englishman asked.
“The medical examiner is going to forward her updated report in about ninety minutes,” McCaskey said. “Fifteen minutes after that, most of Washington will have heard the news.”
Daily sighed audibly. “You know, it used to be panem et circensis, bread and circuses, that kept the populace happy. Now it is cell phones and the Internet. They allow us to savor the blood and pain of others in real time.”
“Not everyone does that,” McCaskey said.
“Indeed we do,” Daily declared. “Some of us don’t enjoy it, I’ll grant you, but most do. Recidivism, it seems, is not just for criminals. Society itself has retreated to barbarism.”
The harshness of the condemnation surprised McCaskey. He did not want to believe that the majority of people were rubberneckers at best and moral savages at worst, that they were no different than killers or molesters who could not be rehabilitated. He had always felt that society was basically sound, that it needed only occasional tweaks from people like himself and Daily to stay on course.
This was not, however, the time to debate philosophy. McCaskey rang Bugs Benet to find out if the boss was free. He was. McCaskey said he would be right over.
As the former FBI agent hurried along the corridor, he realized there was an aspect to foreknowledge that Vic Witherman had missed. Terrorism was easy. All it took was a moment of angry resolve to tear things down. Keeping things together required courage and commitment.
Humanism. That was difficult.
Chapter Twelve.
Washington, D.C. Monday, 1:44 P.M.
Paul Hood called around to find out if the department heads in nonclassified areas needed an intern. They did not. Lowell Coffey said he would be happy to work with a legal trainee. Frankie Hunt did not fit that profile. Kevin Custer in Electronic Communications said he would take on someone with interest in the field. Otherwise, it was a waste of everyone’s time. Other division leaders said more or less the same thing. Hood could have pushed them, but he did not. As he made the calls, he had already decided he did not want the kid working at Op-Center. Someone who helped a friend was “a nice man.” Someone who helped his former wife was “a man with guilt.” Someone who helped the lover of their former wife was not a man at all.
Working behind the scenes at Op-Center instead of in the light at Los Angeles City Hall had tempered Hood’s healthy but modest narcissism somewhat. But it had not quite turned him into a masochist. Sharon, on the other hand, was mossy with fresh self-interest and vanity. She felt her former husband owed her time, effort, and attention, and she was determined to collect.
Hood would wait a few hours before calling Sharon. That would make it seem as if he had made more of an effort than he had. At least he did not have a lot of time to think about it. Hood had spent a lot of time with CFO Ed Colahan working on the budget cuts. There was not a division of Op-Center that would be unaffected. Matt Stoll’s computer division would lose six of its twelve employees, Herbert would lose one of his six intel analysts, and the field force Mike Rodgers had assembled would be eliminated. Operatives like David Battat and Aideen Marley would be recruited on a case-by-case basis. Lowell’s four-person legal office would be cut to three. Custer would have to release one of his four electronics surveillance people. The night staff would also be reduced. Each time Hood okayed a cut, he knew he was not only affecting an employee but national security. Op-Center had established a singular way of working. Homeland Security could not simply reassign those tasks to the FBI or CIA; Hood and his people had the trust of agents at Interpol, at the Russian Op-Center, at other agencies around the world. Time, personnel, and funds were required to maintain the quid pro quo nature of those valuable relationships. The cuts were going to impact that severely.
Darrell McCaskey walked in just as Colahan was leaving with his laptop.
“How are you holding up, Paul?” McCaskey asked. He shut the door behind him as the CFO left.
“When I was mayor, I had to cut billions from the Los Angeles city budget,” Hood said. “That was politically painful but faceless. Each stroke of a key today was someone I know.” Hood sat back. McCaskey looked preoccupied. “You heard about Mike Rodgers?”
“Yeah. Bob was so mad he nearly ran me over.”
“I haven’t heard from him yet,” Hood said.
“He’s laying low till he cools off,” McCaskey said. “He should be in to see you some time next week.”
Hood smiled. “What can I do for you?”
“Ironically, you’re going to need to loan me out for a couple of days.”
“What’s up?”
“I think William Wilson was murdered.”
Hood’s smile evaporated. “Jesus.”
“Yeah. This is going to be a big one.”
“How did you get involved?”
“Scotland Yard asked me to bird-dog the autopsy,” McCaskey said. “I went to the Georgetown medical center and had a look at the body. The ME missed an injection in the root of the tongue. We sent a skin sample to the lab. There was a concentrated trace of potassium chloride, a drug that can be used to stop the heart.”
“That’s damned impressive, Darrell.”
“Thanks.”
“Have you informed the Yard?” Hood asked.
“I did,” McCaskey said. “They’re going to work through the British embassy to get their own people involved. Until then, they asked if I would be their point man on the investigation.”
“What are we looking at, time-wise?”
“Three or four days,” McCaskey told him.
“That’s when media attention will be at a saturation peak,” Hood said.
“I know. The good news is, public attention got us more money after the North Korean incident,” McCaskey said.
“That was a very different time, when Congress regarded the old institutions as tired, not blue-chip solid,” Hood said. “This is going to be a big, public investigation. If Op-Center is on the news every night, the CIOC may see that as a ploy for fund retrocession.”
“Please. The CIOC can’t be that naive.”
“Not naive, Darrell. Suspicious.”
“Of what? They know we have to help other agencies if we want their assistance,” McCaskey said.
“You’re assuming that we’re supposed to survive,” Hood said. “The CIOC and our older brothers may have other plans.”
“Staggered dismantling,” McCaskey said.
“It’s possible,” Hood said.
“Okay,” McCaskey said. “Assume the other agencies are leaning on the CIOC to cut us back–“
“I don’t have to assume that,” Hood told him. “They are. Senator Debenport told me.”
“In that case, we should not get locked into a siege mentality,” McCaskey said. “We should lean back, put our assets in peoples’ faces. Senator Debenport will probably be thrilled to take a corner of the spotlight. What politician wouldn’t want to be seen as a crusading crime buster?”
“He’ll say ‘Cheese’ and maximize the benefits of that exposure,” Hood agreed. “And when the lights go off, he’ll turn to me and say–prodded hard by the other agencies–that there is obviously too much fat on Op-Center’s bones. He may ask for additional reductions.”
“The electorate wouldn’t stand for that, especially if we’re working on a high-profile case.”
“The voters might surprise you,” Hood said. “They want to know that government agencies are doing their jobs. Our job is crisis management. Finding the killer is a Metropolitan Police matter, not a hostage situation or terrorist threat. Voters also don’t like it when the rich get special attention. Finding the killer of a European multibillionaire who was trying to take money from American banks, and jobs from our shores, is not as important as making sure landmarks and airports are secure.”
“I can’t believe our society has gotten that self-absorbed,” McCaskey said. “I refuse to believe it.”
“Oh, we have,” Hood assured him. “We once saw endless possibility and opportunity in all directions except down. That was the American definition of beauty. Do you know what happens to the narcissist who stops feeling beautiful?”
“Yeah. He gets botox treatments.”
“No,” Hood said. “He gets scared that he’s going to lose everything else.”
“He does that, or America does that?”
“Both, I suppose,” Hood replied.
McCaskey looked a little sad. Hood did not like where this was going. The next visit would be from Liz Gordon, who would chat and probe and try to determine if he were acting out.
Maybe with good reason, Hood thought. “Darrell, look. I’m not asking you to have a seat in my bunker.”
“I know that, Paul–“
“My personal concerns don’t change the fact that the threat to Op-Center is real,” Hood went on. “We lost a fifth of our budget today. We can’t ignore the possibility that there will be additional cuts.”
“I agree.”
“At the same time, we have to do what we can to help our colleagues,” Hood continued. “All I want you to do is fly as far under the radar as possible.”
“In D.C.?”
“I know,” Hood said with resignation. “Just be careful. If your name gets attached to this, I don’t want any interviews. Make sure your Yard contact understands the low-profile agenda, and maintain minimal C and C with your colleagues at the Bureau.”
C and C was contact and collaboration. It described the friendly enemy status of relations between rival domestic law enforcement and intelligence groups. Most international agencies got along fine.
“I will go out in stealth mode,” McCaskey promised.
“Good. And when you nail the guy who did this, we’ll have another look at how to play it with Debenport and the CIOC.”
“Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia, and then we’ll talk.”
“Something like that,” Hood said.
“Sounds good. And chief? I know it’s been a tough morning. If I came on a little hard, I’m sorry.”
“You asked the right questions at the right time,” Hood said. “If I can’t take that, I don’t deserve to be in this chair.”
McCaskey smiled. It was good to see that.
When McCaskey left, Hood told Bugs to hold his calls for five minutes. Then he rubbed his forehead and thought again about the situation with Frankie Hunt. If it were about his son, Alexander, Hood would not have failed to get him an internship. Sharon knew that. So she would know that her former husband had given this minimal effort–if that. Would the little bit of self-respect he gained be worth the little bit of self-respect he could give?
Hesitantly, as though it were a coiled snake, Hood reached for the phone. He began making more calls, in a less ambivalent voice than he had used that morning.
Chapter Thirteen.
Washington, D.C. Monday, 2:17 P.M.
The telephone call came from Detective Robert Howell of the D.C. Metropolitan Police. Kendra Peterson took it in her office. The detective asked to speak with the senator. He would not say why. Orr was working in the sunlit conference room with Admiral Link and Kat Lockley. Kendra conferenced in the senator, then joined them. Orr put the call on the speakerphone. His American flag tie was loose, and his shirtsleeves were opened at the cuffs and pulled back along his forearms.
“Senator, before the news hits the grapevine, I wanted you to know that William Wilson appears to have been murdered.”
Howell said it quickly, efficiently, and unemotionally. The impact was like Franklin Roosevelt describing the day that would live in infamy.
“How did it happen?” Orr asked. He realized he had to take charge of the discussion. Everyone else was too stunned.
“Mr. Wilson was apparently given an injection of a heart-inhibiting drug,” Howell replied.
“Presumably by the woman he met in his hotel?” Orr asked.
“That is our assumption. We’ll require fine tissue analysis beyond the scope of the original autopsy to determine what the heart muscle may have absorbed. That will take several days of extensive circulatory analysis.”
“Detective, this is Admiral Ken Link. Was the new evidence discovered after the autopsy was completed?” he asked.
“Just a few hours ago, Admiral,” Howell said. “The medical examiner tells me that a gentleman from Op-Center had a look at the body and discovered the puncture mark.”
“Op-Center? What were they doing there?” Link asked.
“I don’t have that information, sir,” Howell said.
“And they found this wound in the presence of an ME?” Link pressed.
“Yes. Why?”
“I wouldn’t trust those spy boys to run a fair Bingo game,” said the Oregon-born officer.
” ‘Those’ meaning from Op-Center?” Howell asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have reason to suspect they would falsify something like this?” Howell asked.
“Their budget was gutted this morning,” Link replied. “Paul Hood needs something to get back in the game.”
“Including sabotaging a body on short notice?” Howell asked.
“Jury-rigged sabotage is what field operatives do,” Link pointed out. “Detective, I’m not accusing Op-Center of wrongdoing. I am only saying that the timing is suspicious.”
Kat touched the mute button. “Ken, we can ask Mike Rodgers about that when he gets here.”
“That may not be wise,” Link said.
“People, we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Orr said. The senator deactivated the mute function. “Detective Howell, what kind of scrutiny is this office facing?”
“I honestly don’t know, sir,” Howell told him. “We need to find that woman. If he met her at a bar on the way home, or if he called an escort service some time during the day, then obviously you’re clear. If she was one of your guests, then I’m afraid the paddy wagon will kick up some mud.”
“Understandable,” Orr admitted. “You have the guest list from the party.”
“Yes, sir. We are in the process of interviewing the attendees.”
“Detective, I truly appreciate the call,” Orr said. “If we hear anything about the mystery woman, I will certainly let you know.”
“Thank you, Senator. I will do the same.”
Orr terminated the call. He sat back and crossed his big arms. “Who is she? Any thoughts, guesses?”
No one spoke. Orr was not surprised. When Ken Link worked at the CIA, Op-Center was perceived as a rival. The former admiral had an opportunity for payback and took the shot. There were always potential enemies among allies, and no one wanted to say anything that might backfire. Washington was a town of two degrees of separation. Between the four of them, they had known everyone at the party. Everyone at the party knew virtually everyone in D.C.
“All right then,” Orr went on. “Kat, does this change our strategy for the interviews tonight?”
“Not as far as the comments about Mr. Wilson,” Kat replied. She looked over her notes. “When asked about the death you were going to say, ‘As an inventor, Mr. Wilson left behind a significant technological legacy.’ Two mentions of his credentials as a scientist to suggest that Wilson was no banking genius. I do not see why we need to change that.”
“I agree, but the murder charge is sure to come up,” Kendra said. “The senator will need to address it.”
“I would deflect it with a boilerplate comment about the charges being hearsay or a police matter,” Kat told them. “Get in and out, say something that doesn’t invite a follow-up.”
“Why?” Kendra asked.
The question surprised Kat. “Because the press would love to link the senator or any public figure to a homicide,” Kat said.
“We’re already linked,” Kendra pointed out. “Wilson was dead within two hours of leaving the party.”
“Where are you going with this, Kendra?” Orr asked.
“The USF will have a platform built on the common-sense rights of American citizens. That includes justice for all and a presumption of innocence. Let’s be proactive about that. Tell the interviewer that innuendo is impertinent, intolerable, and eroding our society. That the quest for sensational headlines is counterproductive to the dignity inherent in our judicial system.”
“That’s like trying to reason with a cheetah or shame a snake,” Kat said. “A predator can’t change what it is.”
“Let them hiss. I’m talking about presenting our courage,” Kendra said. “We can’t be afraid to take on the press, and this would be a good time and place to marginalize them.”
“I agree that the point is worth making,” the senator said thoughtfully. “But the immediate aftermath of Wilson’s death is probably not the best time.”
“You’ll have the nation’s ear,” Link said.
The admiral did not usually weigh in unless he felt strongly about something. Orr could not remember a time when his inner circle was this divided. Kendra was sitting ramrod straight, her expression tense. Kat was drumming her pen on her pad. Link was hunched over the table as if he were playing a naval war game, staring at a map and toy battleships. Orr did not know whether it was the pressure of the upcoming convention, the shock of the latest revelation, or both. He could not let himself be affected by either of those. As president, which he hoped to be, Orr would have to respond to greater crises with vision, intelligence, and poise.
“Ken, are you at all concerned that we will appear opportunistic or defensive?” Orr asked.
“Not especially,” Link replied. “Speaking the truth aggressively is a mark of confidence. As for opportunism, it’s the media that is taking advantage of you. You’re only getting this particular airtime because of Wilson’s death.”
“The audience will perceive the media as neutral,” Kat insisted. “They are the medium. We are the message.”
“I agree completely,” Kendra said. “Which is why we have to defend the women who were at our party. Otherwise, we will be perceived as using this misfortune just to get the senator’s face out there.”
“Kendra, none of our guests has been charged with a crime,” Kat pointed out.
“But all of them, you and I included, will be investigated by agents of the law and by the press,” Kendra said.
“Both of which are Constitutionally protected activities,” Kat said. She regarded the senator. “Sir, I agree that there is mutual exploitation going on. We can use tonight as a staging area for the convention and use the convention to build our platform. To do more tonight is ghoulish.”
“That’s a strong word, Kat,” Link remarked.
“Isn’t that what we’re talking about, generating strong reactions?”
Orr could see this getting personal. Kat was very protective of her public relations activities, and both Link and Kendra liked to be involved in everything. Until now, they usually agreed.
The senator looked at his watch. “People, General Rodgers will be here soon. I suggest we do the following. I agree with Kat. I do not want to come on too strong tonight–about Wilson. But I do see one way in. This is a Metro Police matter. A federal agency like the National Crisis Management Center has no business being involved. General Rodgers works for Op-Center. He will know what is going on. That is something we can be aggressive about.”
“Right,” Kat said admiringly. “That will also shift the attention from us onto some vague conspiracy theory.”
“That’s a good one,” Kendra admitted.
“Ken, do you know anything more about this budget cut?”
“No. I saw it in the Congressional Intelligence Oversight minutes.”
“What other agencies were hit?” Orr asked.
“None,” Link told him. “They all received bumps, in fact.”
“So this is a big wrist-slap for Hood,” Orr said. “Kat, research the NCMC and talk to Senator Debenport. He’s the head of the CIOC. See if you can find out, informally, what precipitated the cut. That might be useful in the general election. Debenport will have to explain why he is putting our nation at risk. I’ll find out what I can from Mike Rodgers.”
“Senator, the CBS people will be here in a half hour to set up,” Kat said.
“I’m sure General Rodgers won’t mind a brief interruption.” Orr rose. “Thank you, all. This has been very stimulating.”
The conference room emptied quickly, and the senator went to his office. A sense of order had been restored, but one that was laced with healthy tension. The interns, assistants, and secretaries felt it and stayed focused. This was how Orr liked it. Direction with a whisper of urgency, purpose without desperation.
Of course, things might not remain this way. But that was all right, too.
Senator Orr shut his office door. The heavy silence felt good. He enjoyed it for a moment, then listened to the phone messages his secretary had passed on. He returned just one, a call to his wife. He wanted to tell her about William Wilson before she heard it on the news. Valerie Orr spent most of the year in Texas because she disliked catty Washington society. The senator missed her but was glad she chose the ranch over D.C. If anyone ever insulted her or talked about her, he would give that individual an old-fashioned switch-whipping.
As he sat down to review General Rodgers’s dossier one last time, Orr thought about something his father used to say on the ranch. Whenever money or water were precipitously low, Jeremiah Orr would push an ever-present plug of Red Man chewing tobacco between his cheek and gum, look down at his feet, and say to no one in particular, “I still like our position a whole lot better than the cows.’ “
Come what may, Senator Orr liked a good challenge. He liked testing his own ideas and hearing the ideas of his team. He liked his position.
He liked it a lot better than William Wilson’s.
Chapter Fourteen.
Washington, D.C. Monday, 2:59 P.M.
To most outsiders, the Capitol and the office buildings that serviced it defined the phrase corridors of power. For over a century, ideas that had first influenced the world, then dominated it, were debated here. Refined here. Presidents were humbled here or declared war here. Laws were passed or revoked here, causing ripples that affected every life in the nation, through every federal, state, and local court. Art and expression were financed here or restricted here.
What Mike Rodgers saw were not COPs. Whenever he had business here–which was mercifully rare–Rodgers felt as though he were entering an abattoir. Fortunately, until this morning, he had not been a very fat cow, so the blades did not usually affect him. But this was where budgets were hacked, policies were eviscerated, good ideas were whittled to nubs, and wise or well-intentioned men and women were cut down at the knees or decapitated.
Vietnam was lost here, not on the battlefield.
The Capitol was about power in the same way ice hockey was about travel. There was a lot of aggressive, muscular movement but very little progress. It was odd. Rodgers did not even see the white of the dome and columns as much as he saw the dark recesses and shadows that creased and abutted them.
Rodgers hoped that Senator Orr could change those impressions.
Military reservists were stationed outside the building, and Rodgers acknowledged their salutes as he was checked through. He went to Senator Orr’s first-floor office and was buzzed in. He did not need to announce himself. A security camera above the door did that for him.
Maybe they should call it the corridors of paranoia, he thought. He glanced along the hall. Security was an important issue. But he did not think it was necessary to have a camera above each door. The money the government spent on this surveillance system would be better spent on one or two good Special Ops agents who could track and eliminate assassins.
Rodgers refused to let any of this flavor his opinion of Donald Orr. Men could not be held accountable for the transgressions of their peers.
A sharp young female receptionist sat behind a mahogany desk in the small waiting area. The woman had already come from around the desk. She welcomed Rodgers with a large smile and a strong handshake.
“General Rodgers, thank you for coming. The senator is expecting you,” she said. The woman entered a code into a keypad by the six-panel cherry wood door. This opened into the main offices. “May I get you coffee or a soft drink?”
“Black coffee would be good. No sugar.”
She walked him through a short maze of desks and cubicles to the senator’s closed door. She knocked and was told to enter. The big Texan rose and walked from behind his desk. His eyes were squarely on the general.
“The man who prevented World War III,” Senator Orr said. “Twice.”
“I’m hardly that, but thank you,” Rodgers said.
“General, modesty is forbidden on the Hill,” Orr said. “We passed a law against it, I think.”
“I’m only visiting.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Orr said as the men shook hands. “I hear tin horns every damn day. When you’ve got Gabriel’s trumpet, play it.”
Rodgers felt old calluses on the senator’s palm and undersides of his fingers. He knew that the Orr family was in ranching. He was glad to see the senator had not been too privileged to work.
“Besides, I’m hoping we can convince you to stay,” the senator went on. “Please, sit down,” he said, gesturing toward a leather armchair.
The receptionist returned with Rodgers’s coffee. He had not even seen her slip away. She set it on a glass-topped teapoy in front of the chair. Steam rose from a navy blue mug with the Camp David logo in gold. The logo was set facing Rodgers. It was just a cornet semiquaver but unavoidable.
A barrel-chested man entered as the receptionist left. Rodgers recognized him from the party.
“Admiral Link,” Rodgers said, rising.
“Sit,” the admiral said. He shut the door behind him before shaking Rodgers’s hand. He swung an armchair around so that there were three chairs in a circle. “Good to meet you. Sorry we didn’t have a chance to talk last night.”
“Those things are always so unmanageable,” said the senator, taking a seat. “Not like a good cattle drive.”
“You should hand out electric prods,” Rodgers said.
“Best idea I’ve heard in a while.” Orr laughed. It was a genuine laugh, not a performance.
“I heard about William Wilson on the drive over,” Rodgers said. “Has there been any fallout?”
“Not yet,” Orr said. “I have to do a live segment on the CBS Evening News in about twenty minutes, though. I’ll know more after that. Hopefully, you’ll stick around so we can talk more. I don’t want to rush this.”
“Of course,” Rodgers said. “I have to tell you, though, Senator. I’m not really sure what ‘this’ is.”
“A new political party, a new way of doing business in D.C.,” Orr told him. “You have heard this before, I’m sure.”
“So often that I’ve stopped listening,” Rodgers admitted.
“Most Americans have tuned out, General Rodgers, which is why we need to get their attention. We need to make a dramatic new start fast, no wasted time.” Orr leaned forward in his chair. “I am about to announce my candidacy for the presidency. I will be asking the admiral to be my running mate. None of that will surprise anyone. However, what I will be asking for in my acceptance speech will be different from typical convention rhetoric. I will demand what we are calling FAIR change. That’s full American infrastructure reform. Everything from the judicial system to Social Security will be reorganized to serve the people who need them.”
“That’s going to take clout and money,” Rodgers said.
“The funds will come from misguided programs, such as the billions we spend annually in unappreciated foreign aid and foreign products,” Orr said. “If other nations want access to our consumers, it will cost them in tariffs. As for clout, I’ll get that from the people of this country. We’ve forgotten the electorate, General Rodgers. If necessary, we will hold monthly plebiscites to decide issues. Representatives who oppose the wishes of their constituents will become former representatives.”
“It’s a program with hair on its chest, I’ll give you that,” Rodgers said.
Orr sat back. “But?”
“I’m from ‘show me’ Missouri by way of hell,” Rodgers said. “I’m a starry-eyed pessimist.”
“I like that,” Admiral Link confessed.
“Hope for something good but expect the worst,” Orr said.
“I would say ‘anticipate it,’ ” Rodgers said.
“Sam Houston was like that, and look what he accomplished,” Orr said. “He built a state.”
Rodgers grinned. “But then, he was from Texas. I’m from Connecticut.”
Orr smiled broadly. “Texas is a state of heart, not just geography. General, we’re a little different from you, the admiral and I. We are cautious optimists about how FAIR will be received. Regardless, once our campaign is under way, I will need a military adviser, one with chops. A man who has been out there getting his hands dirty and who also understands intelligence work. One who will become the secretary of defense in an Orr administration.”
“You are uniquely qualified,” Link added.
“I’m also a little confused,” Rodgers said. “Are you making me an offer?”
The senator laughed. That one was a short stage laugh. “As I said, Texas is in here.” Orr touched his chest. “I watched how you walked into the office. That’s the way I want my cabinet members to step to a podium.”
Rodgers was flattered and also suspicious. Either Orr was hooking him for some other reason, or he was exactly as he said: a straight-shooting politician.
“General, may I ask how things are at Op-Center?” Link said.
“Why?” Rodgers asked. “What have you heard?”
“Not much,” Link replied.
“In D.C.? That’s unlikely,” Rodgers said.
“He’s got you there, Ken.” Orr laughed, once again for real.
“Touche,” the admiral said. “The truth is, we just heard they’re spearheading the investigation into the murder of William Wilson.”
“Really?” Rodgers said.
Link was watching him. “You seem surprised.”
“I am. Who’s the point man?”
“I don’t know. But whoever it is, he’s good,” Link replied. “He’s the one who found signs of trauma under the tongue that the medical examiner missed. He turned this from a heart attack to a homicide.”
“I see,” Rodgers replied.
That sounded like a street-smart “get” by Darrell McCaskey. Op-Center must have become involved at the request of Interpol or Scotland Yard.
“General, we heard that the CIOC has instructed Op-Center to make budget cuts,” Link went on. “Why would Director Hood take on an outside project like this in an environment trending toward austerity and realignment?”
“You would have to ask him,” Rodgers said.
“Of course,” Orr said. “Ken, you’re asking General Rodgers to breach departmental confidentiality–“
“Actually, it’s more than that,” Rodgers informed the men. “This morning I learned that I am part of those bottom-line reductions. My tenure as deputy director is effectively over.”
“They asked for your resignation?” Orr asked, surprised.
“Two weeks from now I’m either working with you or back at the DoD in some other capacity.”
“Now that’s a kick in the damn teeth,” Link said. “They ship out an American hero, then help to investigate a decadent British billionaire.”
Orr’s phone beeped. He answered, listened, said he would be right there. “I’m expected in the conference room for a pre-interview with Mr. Dan Rather’s associate producer,” he said. “General, will you be able to stay for a bit? This should not take more than fifteen minutes.”
“Of course,” Rodgers said, rising as the senator did.
Orr left the room and shut the door behind him. Rodgers sat back down. Link was looking at him. Rodgers took a sip of coffee.
“General Rodgers–Mike, if I may–do you mind if I ask you something personal?”
“Go ahead.”
“Do you feel betrayed by Paul Hood or Op-Center?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Rodgers replied.
“How far would you go?”
That was a loaded question, Rodgers thought, though he was not sure what exactly it was loaded with. He knew at once that this was not idle chat.
“I don’t feel good about the way things happened, but this was an assignment, a tour of duty,” Rodgers replied. “For whatever reason, that job is over. I’m ready to move on.”
“That’s a healthy attitude,” Link said.
“Thanks. Now I’d like to ask you a question, Admiral.”
“All right.”
“Does it matter how I feel about Op-Center?”
“Not in terms of your working with us,” Link said. “It’s more a question of helping them.”
“I’m not following.”
“Paul Hood is moving them into a very dangerous place, not just for him but for us,” Link said.
“Why us?”
“It’s a question of appearances,” Link told him. “If the NCMC is ham-fisted about their investigation, it’s going to slop all over us, all over our guests, and all over our convention.”
“Why do you assume it will be handled badly?”
“Because Op-Center is suddenly very shorthanded,” Link said. “Let’s say that Individual X has taken on this assignment. He still has to perform his other duties, plus whatever new duties he inherits due to the cutbacks. I don’t have to tell you that in a reduced-personnel environment in the military, standard operating procedure is to shoot every door in a house and see which one groans. If Individual X is forced to take that approach here, we may suffer unwarranted hits.”
“Possibly. But the hits should not be serious.”
“When you’re launching a new political party, any stain on your credibility is serious,” Link said. “It scares away donors. Also, I’ve spoken to a number of people on the Hill. They wonder if Hood may be using this action to try to retrench, to fold the idea of international criminal investigation into crisis management. He did something like that before.”
“Actually, we backed into that one by stopping a missile attack on Japan,” Rodgers said. “The president asked us to take on additional responsibilities.”
“I understand that the situations are different,” Link said. “So are the times. The CIA was moving from human intelligence to electronic intelligence. Data was falling through the digital cracks. Op-Center was there to catch it. The Company won’t let that happen this time.”
“Okay. Even if that is true, why is it our concern?” Rodgers asked.
“Because the perception is that Paul Hood may have manufactured a situation,” Link replied.
“Horseshit,” Rodgers snapped. He hoped this perception was not something Link had whipped up. It was contemptible. “I know the people at Op-Center. They would never do that.”
