It takes a minute to absorb, and Brooks seems strangely agitated.
“Did the president know?” she asks.
Shane, exhausted, says, “No. Months earlier the president was briefed that we were trying to elevate someone inside ISA, a plan nearly two years in the making. That was all. Not the details. Not even that it involved Roderick or Morat. Not the attack. Nor would he be. This was advance action.”
Shane pauses. “I know you may think it’s strange to keep things from the president. But you know why we created advance action? Because the government has started leaking as never before. Sometimes people at the top leak without even realizing it. And some people leak to kill plans they don’t like. Diane Howell and Secretary of State Arthur Manion had seen a plan like this more than a year ago, allowing someone to rise in ISA by condoning a terror attack. They had been vehement in their opposition. We couldn’t risk their being in the loop. We couldn’t risk their leaking it to kill it.
“When it became clear our man could get very close to the top if he masterminded a major attack, we looked for a target opportunity for that to happen soon,” Shane says. “The plan for Oosay came up quickly, in a matter of a week or so—that Roderick would be there, that the Barracks would be complete. Frankly it was sufficiently risky that we were not going to ask permission.”
“Does the president know now?” Brooks asks.
“You mean has your task been a sham?” Shane says. “No, the president doesn’t know.”
Brooks looks like she is trying to decide whether she believes him. “Why didn’t you tell him?”
Shane straightens in his chair.
“Ms. Brooks, you have to understand something. General Roderick died. But the operation succeeded. Our man is there. In fact, Rod’s death made the operation more successful. It elevated our man higher inside ISA.”
Rena can see Roderick as he ponders killing himself to protect his man thinking along similar lines. Protect the operation; protect his man; Roderick’s death makes the covert operation a bigger success.
“Rod’s death was terrible, but our asset is still in the field. Our best chance was to keep operational security at the same level we always intended. That hasn’t changed.”
“So you told no one?” Brooks asks.
“I almost did. I called Spencer Carr that first night,” Shane says, referring to the president’s chief of staff. “I told him the Oosay incident involved an advance action operation and the president had not been fully briefed—but that the operation was still active and that our best chance to protect it was to maintain operational knowledge at the same level. He agreed and told me not to tell him anything more. The next day George Rawls called you in. I knew what Carr was doing. He was protecting our operation. And he was protecting the president at the same time.”
“Christ,” Brooks says.
“You two were public proof the president didn’t know the details.”
It sounds like Carr, Rena thinks. And Rawls.
Protect the president. It is the ultimate law of Washington.
“When the Tribune story broke, establishing that some of your cover story didn’t add up, you didn’t tell the president at that point?” Brooks demands.
“You were already investigating by then. We decided to see what you would learn. We figured you would always get closer than Congress would.”
Brooks glances at her partner. “And Diane Howell?” she asks.
Shane pauses.
“Diane puzzled some of it out. After the Tribune story broke, she came to me and Webster and confronted us. We told her this was an advance action, that Carr had told us not to tell the president or him. We asked her to abide by that instruction, to continue to protect him and keep operational security—not to go to the president with her suspicions. By then everything was in lockdown and everyone was wondering who had leaked to the Tribune. Diane kept her head down. She kept out of it.”
On one level, Rena thinks, their investigation provided Nash cover. And those involved waited to see how far he and Randi could get. Shane, Webster, Arroyo, and even Howell would judge what to tell the president, what to say to Congress, and how to protect their new asset inside ISA, based on what Rena and Brooks could learn.
“Who did know about the operation?” Rena asks.
“In general terms. Roderick. Me. Henry Arroyo. Willey at DIA. Eventually Owen Webster. We needed his cooperation. And then afterward Howell guessed some of it. I assume at some point Rod told his sergeant major,” Shane says with a glance at Franks.
“I don’t know who else on Webster’s staff. Or Arroyo’s. I would guess fewer than a half dozen people know the whole story.”
“And that night?”
“The plan came together very quickly. Days. General Willey at DIA and Arroyo came to me with it. I signed off. It was my responsibility. Not Rod’s. Not Henry’s. Not General Willey’s. Not the president’s.”
The tortured public servant. The Boy Scout. The devout soldier.
* * *
No one sleeps well with the secret they have uncovered, waiting for morning. In the middle of the night, Hallie Jobe receives a call. At first she doesn’t recognize the man’s voice.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you the truth.”
Then it comes to her. It is Adam O’Dowd.
“I didn’t tell you the truth. But I didn’t lie. I didn’t abandon my team. I followed orders.”
The words are slurred, and they remind Hallie of the last time she saw her father in the hospital before he died. They frighten her.
“Adam? I know. Where are you?”
“You know what’s it like out there.”
“Where are you, Adam?”
“I wish you knew better, Hallie.”
Then the line goes dead. And when she calls back O’Dowd has turned his phone off.