The White House driver swerved the car to the right and stopped. Hunt looked up from his notes and saw the flashing lights ahead. The Metro Police were clearing the way for yet another motorcade of shiny black cars. Probably the Japanese heading for the Hill, he thought.
The number of cars in a Washington motorcade always seemed to be in inverse proportion to the size and importance of the country involved. The British prime minister had taken just two cars to travel to Capitol Hill, while some little dictator had commandeered eighteen limousines to transport his entourage around town.
The driver then executed a U-turn and took a side street to avoid the parade. He pulled up to the entrance of FBI Headquarters at Ninth and Pennsylvania where Hunt asked him to wait, saying he was just going in for a short meeting. He leaped out of the car into the misty afternoon. The rain had tapered off, leaving a sky filled with gray clouds. He hoped it wasn’t a harbinger of things to come.
He went up the stairs and into a reception area. The secretary asked him to wait a moment, so he sat down in a corner chair and opened his leather folder. As he reviewed his notes, he remembered the old story about J. Edgar Hoover running this organization and how he had demanded that all memos be no longer than a single page. The director had received one particularly complicated memo and saw that the author had extended the margins almost to the edge of the paper to get all of his words on the one page. So across the top, Hoover scrawled, “Watch the borders!” And for the next week, additional agents were dispatched to monitor entry points from Canada and Mexico.
A few minutes later, Hunt was ushered into a large office with a dark wood desk in front of a wall of bookshelves separated by the familiar blue FBI seal.
He had tried to set up this meeting yesterday, but Janis Prescott, Deputy Director of the FBI, had been out of town. He had no intention of going to the Montgomery County Police to beg for a protection detail. He knew it would be a dead end. So he decided to finesse the situation with Stock, if and when he found out that Hunt had used a family connection to go over his head and deal with the FBI directly. Besides, he’d always rather apologize than ask for permission.
Janis Prescott came around from behind her desk and extended her hand. “Hunt, it’s good to see you again. How’s your mother?”
“Fine, she’s doing well. Busy with her charity work. You know how it is.”
“Yes, well, you give her my best. Please have a seat, and tell me what’s on your mind. I was surprised to get your call.”
Janis Prescott was an impressive woman. After attending Smith College where she and Hunt’s mother were classmates, she had gone on to get her law degree at Harvard and serve on the Law Review. She then worked in the United States Attorney’s office in Chicago and later served in the Department of Justice where the president took note of her talents, naming her Deputy Director of the FBI. Even though she was considered an old family friend, Hunt respected her position and hadn’t used that connection very often.
He sat down and checked his watch. He was going to be in and out in less than ten minutes. “I appreciate your seeing me on such short notice, especially with everything that’s going on.”
“Yes, I am a bit pressed today. But tell me, what brings you here?”
Hunt quickly described the new technology being developed by Cammy’s team at Bandaq, its breakthrough design, its importance to the US arsenal of defensive systems and also its allure to foreign governments.
He summarized the tensions building between India and Pakistan, the growing threat posed by the Islamic militants fighting in Kashmir and the likelihood that it was the group, Lashkar-i-taiba, who had stolen and launched the cruise missile against Indian forces.
Finally, he explained his suspicions of foreign involvement in the break-in at Cammy’s apartment and the accident in Bethesda. He told her about the tip from the Pakistani Ambassador that an Islamic militant may be in town and said that Cammy needed protection. He was trying to make a cogent case for FBI involvement not just to find the bad guy, but also because he desperately wanted to protect Cammy. He knew this would be a tough sell, but at this point, he didn’t know where else to turn.
He summarized his pitch. “While I know it may sound far-fetched, I think there’s a thread here that ties in with the intel on these groups.”
“Wait a minute. About the militant you said might be here in Washington. Who’s working that angle?”
“I passed that along to two of my counter-parts. One here at the Bureau and the other at Homeland Security.”
“Good. I haven’t been briefed on that yet. I’m sure I’ll hear about it if they find him.”
“Yes, but the problem is . . . until they find him, I’m very worried about Dr. Talbot. I feel her life is in danger.” Hunt leaned forward and suddenly realized that he was holding his breath.
“And you think that’s a job for the FBI?” the deputy asked.
“I know you’re swamped,” he conceded.
“To say the least,” she said. “Besides the terrorists we seem to be chasing around the country, we’ve got the drug lords, white collar crime, and that whole new bill on child abductions that we’re trying to enforce. I don’t know, Hunt, my people are stretched awfully thin at this point.”
“I know. I know. It’s just that I’m concerned that this woman has become a target. And if it is an Islamic group, or even ISI or New Delhi . . .”
“From what you’ve told me, I do believe that the Pakistanis and the Indians could be interested in this new project. We know that they’ve been involved in the industrial espionage game. They’re not quite as good at it as the French. Not yet anyway,” she said with a small shake of her head, “but they’d like to be. As for the militants, I doubt if they have the expertise. When that Lashkar group attacked Mumbai, it was just with guns, not missiles.”
“I know. And it’s true, I don’t know for sure who’s behind all this. At least not yet. The police checked for prints at Dr. Talbot’s apartment, but we never heard any more about it.”
“I do hate to disappoint you. But it really does sound like a job for local law enforcement.”
Hunt was stymied. The FBI had been his last hope. “It’s just that I don’t think they . . .”
“Hunt, I’m sorry. I’m just so short-handed right now. Until we have more . . .”
She needed more information. He needed more time. But time was running out. He glanced down at his watch. “I should get out of your hair. I’m leaving for India tonight. We’ve got an advance team going over.”
“Oh yes, to pave the way for the special envoy. I heard about that. Good luck.”
He tried one last tact. “But on this problem with Dr. Talbot, may I keep the lines of communication open on this one?”
“Yes, of course you may.” She took out a card, jotted down her private cell phone number and handed it to him as she got up from her desk. “Let’s just hope that it was a random burglary at Dr. Talbot’s home and then a bad case of road rage.”
He just knew that wasn’t the case. He was frustrated, stymied, and right now he felt like the prosecutor in the old Perry Mason re-runs. The guy who always lost.