34

After a brutal weeklong trip to Europe, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, followed by another week of strong-arming congressional leaders, President Amanda Hamilton woke on a rainy Friday morning to a new domestic crisis. Following a two-day deluge, the Susquehanna River in northeastern Pennsylvania had flooded its banks at a level not seen in a hundred years, forcing the evacuation of nearly a hundred thousand people and causing more than forty casualties. At Scranton, the river had crested at forty-seven feet, five feet higher than the 1972 flooding from Hurricane Agnes.

Other presidents would have just declared a state of emergency, clearing the way for federal aid, and then toured the damage with local officials. But Amanda Hamilton and members of her staff believed in getting their hands dirty. The day after the waters began subsiding, she was on the ground in Scranton, working at a Red Cross disaster-relief outpost, serving meals for people who found themselves homeless. Amanda and her husband, Jason, a professor at Yale University, served the lines for more than two hours, slapping food on plates and talking to the beleaguered residents.

That afternoon, they put on waders and worked with “mud-out” crews, helping to remove limbs and other waterlogged debris from nearby homes. It was a reminder that Amanda Hamilton was young and healthy and a woman of the people. By the end of the day, she was covered in mud and seemed happier than she had been in a long time.

She toured a shelter in a high school gym that evening. Some local kids had started a pickup basketball game, and soon the president and her husband joined them. Secret Service members stood nervously to the side as the president showed she could still hang with the guys. She ended up taking a blow to her left eye that resulted in profuse apologies by the embarrassed young man with the sharp elbow and a nice shiner for the president.

Once the medics were done looking her over, she insisted on finishing the game, and Kilpatrick figured her poll numbers went up a half-dozen points based on that decision alone. With a little luck, he thought, they would soon be able to put the lawsuit behind them, build a real coalition of allies in the Middle East, and cripple the Houthis and Iran.

The press had other ideas. Amanda Hamilton’s swollen face graced the front page of the Washington Herald the next morning. They must have stayed up late working on the headline: “A Bruising Week for the President.”

While the president was getting elbowed in a pickup basketball game, Paige Chambers met with Wyatt and Wellington in the RV that Wyatt had dubbed Court. Clients kept coming over and rubbing against Paige’s leg until she scratched him under his chin. He lay down for a few minutes and then circled back for some more attention. This was not the way Paige had envisioned things in law school.

She told Wyatt about her conversation with the Patriot, but Wyatt wasn’t about to drop the lawsuit. Handing it off to the political hacks in D.C. was a guaranteed way to make sure nothing happened, in Wyatt’s opinion. He didn’t know what to make of the information about Yazeed Abdul Hamid, so he did what he always did when he was in doubt—asked Wellington to research it.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if the CIA deputized a couple of SEALs and took that guy out,” Wyatt said. “This shadow war is out of control.”

They batted around legal arguments for a while, and then Wyatt broke out a fat cigar and started chewing on the end of it. Paige shot him a glance—this place was cramped enough without somebody smoking.

“Don’t worry,” Wellington said. “He never lights them up inside.”

They analyzed the meager evidence they had mustered, with Wyatt doing most of the talking. Paige interjected a few times, but Wellington was conspicuously quiet.

“What’s your theory?” Wyatt asked his young associate. He spit some of the cigar’s outer wrapping into an ashtray.

Wellington spoke softly, hesitantly, as if he didn’t want to rain on everybody’s parade. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” he began, “and I keep asking myself the same question: What if Cameron Holloman really was a CIA agent just like the Houthis said?”

He looked from Wyatt to Paige, waiting just long enough for the thought to sink in. “What if he used his journalistic credentials as cover and pretended to be sympathetic to the Houthi cause? That way he could interview a few of their top leaders, and the drone pilots would know which houses to hit.

“Maybe the president and Marcano didn’t want anyone else in the cabinet to know, so she sent her chief of staff to talk to Marcano privately about what they should do. Maybe the CIA had some concerns that the SEALs’ mission was compromised, which explains why she worked so hard on the speech that she would only give if the SEALs died. But maybe she felt like she had to send in the SEALs because the CIA doesn’t leave its operatives behind any more than the SEALs leave their men behind.”

Paige thought it through, and despite the fact that there were a lot of maybes in that theory, it made some sense. It was the truth hiding in plain sight. And it would explain a lot of things.

“No chance,” Wyatt said. “Have you read any of Holloman’s articles?”

“Over a hundred of them,” Wellington said.

“Then you know he’s a real liberal wacko. No way he’s working with the CIA.”

“Did you know that the CIA has set up fake news organizations in the Mideast to spread propaganda?” Wellington asked. “They’ve also paid millions of dollars to Mideast news outlets so they would weave in favorable stories about America from time to time. The CIA believes in the long game. I wouldn’t put it past them to have somebody like Holloman write articles critical of the United States and Saudi Arabia for a year or two just to gain credibility.”

“Was he married?” Wyatt asked.

“Yes. His wife is Muslim. Immigrated to the United States from Lebanon.”

Wyatt chewed on his cigar and thought about it. He stood up and began pacing.

“He always does this when he’s thinking,” Wellington whispered to Paige.

“I think we should go pay the missus a visit,” Wyatt said. “She’ll know if he was a spy.”

Wellington was sitting across the table from Paige and gave his head a little shake as if to tell Paige that spouses seldom knew whether their significant others worked for the CIA. But he didn’t say anything to Wyatt.

“All right then, we’ve got a plan,” Wyatt said. “This calls for a smoke.”

He stepped outside and lit up his cigar. But a few minutes later, he was back, the lit cigar still in his mouth.

“Where are you working now?” he asked Paige.

“I’m setting up my own firm.”

“That’s a bad idea. It’s hard to get clients in this environment, especially ones that pay. Plus, you’ve never worked in a private firm before, so the learning curve will be steep. You ought to come and work for me.”

“Thanks. But I’m good.”

“Wellington, how much are you making?”

“Um, about sixty grand.”

“That’s what I thought. Paige, I’ll pay you sixty thousand, take care of your malpractice and health insurance, and you can start first thing next week.”

“Again, like I said, I’d rather start my own firm.”

“Five-thousand-dollar signing bonus, plus I’ll teach you how to be a real trial lawyer.”

“What part of no don’t you understand?”

“I don’t understand any part of no,” Wyatt said. He smiled with the cigar wedged between his teeth. “And that’s why we’re going to win this case.”