The image of Calla Myers hung in the air, the projector enlarging her face to Hollywood size. No one in the room, least of all Secretary Dennis Paull, failed to notice the resemblance to Alli Carson.
“Gentlemen,” he heard the noxious Hugh Garner say in his most authoritative voice as he held up a bagged-and-tagged item. “We now have our smoking gun.”
Paull was part of a very select audience seated in Sit Room W in the Pentagon. With him were the president, the Secretary of State, and the president’s National Security Advisor. They sat around a polished ebony table. In front of each man was a pad, a clutch of pencils, glasses, and bottles of chilled water. After the meeting, all the writing materials would be gathered up and burned.
“This cell phone belonged to one of the murdered members of the Secret Service detail guarding Alli Carson,” Garner continued. “It was found near Calla Myers’s body. At the time of her death, the victim was employed by the First American Secular Revivalists. While it’s a sure bet that the late Ms. Myers didn’t kidnap Alli Carson, her implication is now all but assured.
“My guess is that she was getting ready to defect. She was going to the police with the cell phone. One of her compatriots found out about her act of heroism and killed her. She must’ve heard her attacker coming because she managed to toss away the phone. It was found in our initial search of the crime scene on the west side of the Spanish Steps, clear evidence that the FASR or E-Two is behind the abduction of the Alli Carson.”
“Well done, Hugh,” the president said. “Now if you’ll excuse us.”
“Yes, sir.”
Garner marched out of the room like a good soldier, but not before Paull caught the sullen look on his face.
The president cleared his throat. “This little item combined with the documentation President Yukin has provided will spell the end of the missionary secularists in America.”
He turned to Paull. “Dennis, I’m ordering you to begin taking members of the First American Secular Revivalists into custody. Since you have been unable to make any headway in identifying anyone in this underground E-Two, I want each one of the prisoners interrogated on the subject.” He raised a finger. “I needn’t remind you that my term of office is just about over. I personally won’t feel as if our job was finished unless we bring these homegrown terrorists to justice. I certainly don’t trust the incoming president to get the job done, so it’s entirely up to us.”
Paull, secretly fuming under the president’s veiled rebuke, nodded, said enthusiastically, “Consider it done, sir. Now that we have the weight of evidence, we can attack in a more public way that was closed to us before.”
“Good.” The president, appearing immune to Paull’s cleverly worded response, rubbed his hands together. “Now, to the business of what comes after January twentieth.”
The Pentagon was built on secrets, but Paull observed that today there was about this room the deathly hush of secrets held close to the chest. On his desk, Paull had a rosewood plaque given to him by his mentor. On it was engraved in gold leaf the famed Benjamin Franklin quotation: THREE CAN KEEP A SECRET IF TWO OF THEM ARE DEAD. Paull was never more aware of the wisdom of that saying than he was now. As he looked around the room, it seemed to him that the atmosphere was rife with secrets. Perhaps this is what happens when the skein runs out, he thought, when after eight years of hard decisions, close calls, and the need for frantic spin control, the trust among even the closest of colleagues turns rancid. He’d been warned by his mentor that the last days of an Administration are gripped either by ennui or by desperation. Neither was healthy. Both revealed the corrosive workings of corruption. Each man had to face his moment of realization: Either the power had worn him down to a nub or he couldn’t live without it. Over time, his mentor told him, all that’s left to flush away is sewage, the entropy of power slipping through your fingers.
“Gentlemen,” the president continued, “how goes our sub rosa campaign to ensure the continuance of our influence on Congress and the media when Edward Carson becomes president?”
Here, now, Paull faced the truth of his mentor’s words. He was disgusted with the tenor of this meeting, the scrounging of Caesar facing the blade of the ides of March, railing against time and history. But he knew he couldn’t allow the underlying wretchedness to blind him to the extreme danger of these last few orders. The desperate animal was the most dangerous animal. The question he had to answer, and soon, was which one of these three men was the most desperate and, therefore, the most dangerous.
It fell to Paull to discover for himself what form of damage eight years of power had worked on these three men. Which one was a nub, which one a junkie?
The Secretary of State, a large man with the flushed face of an inveterate drinker and the twinkling eyes of Santa Claus, was the first to take the president’s challenge by the horns.
“If we stay the course, we have nothing to fear. The evangelicals are still our broadest base, though admittedly the NRA is less fickle.”
“There’s a growing problem with the NRA’s power,” the National Security Advisor said. He was a Texan, with a leathery face, a raspy voice, and the no-nonsense, faintly intimidating demeanor of a federal marshal in the 1880s. “Latest figures find an alarming decline in the number of hunters nationwide. Our concern has been given an environmental spin by our media outlets. We’re worried because hunters keep the deer population in check, hunters are pro-environment, that sort of thing. Of course, the real worry for us is that faced with declining membership, the NRA is going to lose its clout on Capitol Hill.”
“Now that would be a real shame,” the Secretary of State said. “Can we find some way to funnel money in their direction to make up for the shortfall? By God, we don’t want them running out of money to pay their lobbyists.”
“I think we can twist some well-heeled arms in that direction,” the National Security Advisor replied.
The president turned to his Secretary of Homeland Security. “Dennis, we haven’t heard from you yet.”
Paull tapped a pencil on the table. “I’ve been thinking on the evangelical issue. We have all the usual suspects tied up, but the growing influence of the Renaissance Mission Congress is a real concern. I’ve gone over the post-election breakdown a number of times, and each time I’m more impressed. There’s no doubt its influence swung the election in Carson’s favor. It got out the black votes in every state with appalling efficiency.”
“What’s your point?” the Secretary of State said. “Surely you’re not advocating we turn Reverend Myron Taske into another Martin Luther King, Jr.”
“God no.” Paull poured himself some water to cover the wave of revulsion that washed over him. With all his heart, he prayed for God to protect him from people like the Secretary of State. “It happens that Carson’s own man, Jack McClure, has a relationship with Reverend Taske. With that in mind, I’ve been running a Secret Service special operative, Nina Miller, who I made sure joined Hugh Garner’s joint-operations task force.”
Once again, Paull paused to take a drink of water. As he did so, his gaze caressed the room like a lover, absorbing every texture, gesture, shift of body or head without seeming to do so. All these men were suspect; all of them, in one way or another, could have infiltrated his security measures. He was hoping one of them would betray himself—even by as little as the flicker of an eyelid—as he revealed the nature of the very operation his enemy had discovered.
“Now that McClure has found Alli Carson,” Paull continued, “the task force is disbanding. However, following my orders, Agent Miller has formed a bond with McClure. She now has his trust.” He turned directly to the president. “Here’s what I meant to do from the beginning and now propose to you: Agent Miller will get McClure to use his influence on Reverend Taske to take our side.”
“I’ve met with Reverend Taske several times,” the president said. “He’s as honest as he is black.”
The National Security Advisor nodded. “We’ve vetted Taske thoroughly. He won’t abandon Carson.”
“He will if we convince McClure that Carson’s values are not what they seem to be,” Paull said. This was a total fabrication, one that his enemy in this room would discover when Jack didn’t denounce the president-elect. But by that time it would be too late. All he wanted now was to buy enough time to get them all through the next couple of days. “What I’ve learned from my agent is McClure’s an odd duck—loyal in the extreme, but quick to turn on a dime if he thinks he’s been betrayed. I can use that to my advantage.”
“He sounds unstable,” the Secretary of State said. “I don’t like it.”
“Unstable or not,” the National Security Advisor said, “I like the shot. Dennis is right on target as far as the Renaissance Mission Congress is concerned. It’s powerful and getting more so every day. Of course, it would be ideal if we could wrap up the RMC and the Hispanic vote in one tidy ball, but I’m as much a realist as the next man. I know a goddamn pipe dream when I see one.”
“I concur.” The president nodded. “We’ll give Dennis his head with the McClure mission.”
“Dennis,” the National Security Advisor said, “if there’s any assistance I can provide, I’m only a call away.”
“I appreciate that,” Paull said. “That might be just the boost I need.” When there are ice cubes in hell, he thought.
The president held up a hand. “Please, all of you, keep our accelerated timetable in the forefront of your plans. Dennis, McClure has to be wrapped up and delivered before the twentieth.”
When Dennis Paull exited the Pentagon, he pulled out his cell phone, punched in a speed-dial number, said, “Latent,” and rang off. A moment later, he ducked into his limo, which took him to the nearby Nordstrom department store. Paull strode inside, went immediately to the men’s store. There, he spotted two of his men. While the first one covered his back, checking for tails, Paull went up to the second agent, took the large shopping bag out of his hand, proceeded to the entrance to the dressing rooms, outside of which another of his agents stood guard.
Inside, only one booth was occupied. Paull chose an adjacent booth, spent the next four minutes stripping off his fedora, midnight-blue cashmere overcoat, Brooks Brothers suit, Paul Stuart shirt and tie. He put his black brogues aside. From the shopping bag, he donned a pair of stovepipe-leg jeans, a blue chambray shirt, a pair of brown Lucchese cowboy boots.
Thus dressed, gripping a dossier he’d extracted from inside his overcoat, he knocked on the dividing wall between his booth and the other occupied booth. The fourth of his agents appeared with a brown shearling coat and a dun-colored Stetson for Paull. As the secretary vacated his booth, his agent, who was the same weight and height as Paull, entered, dressed himself in his boss’s clothes. He was the one who exited Nordstrom by the same doors Paull had used to enter. He climbed into Paull’s limo, which whisked him away. At the same time, Paull took a side door out to the mall, where an Empire taxi idled, waiting for him, its driver one of Paull’s agents.
The taxi took off as soon as Paull climbed in, swinging onto Washington Boulevard, heading toward Arlington. On the corner of Fourteenth and North Wayne, Paull got out, walked around the block to make sure he was clear, then went up North Adams Street. Just past where it crossed Fifteenth, a Metro Police car sat waiting. Paull opened the rear door, got in.
“All clear,” Paull said. “Do you have any news?”
“Yes, sir.” The agent dressed as a cop nodded. “The captain of your boat reads lips.”
“Damn it to hell!” Paull’s fist struck the armrest. “Who’s he reporting to?”
“It’s a mobile number we can’t get a handle on.”
“That figures.” He thought a moment. “How about a date and time the call was made?”
“That I can do,” his agent said, then gave the information to him.
Paull stared out the window at the civilians hurrying past him on errands to buy fish or pick up flowers. Little People, the National Security Advisor called them, with an arrogance typical of this president’s Administration. Of course, Paull himself was a member of the Administration, but right now he felt like a rat in the woodwork who suspected a slew of tomcats were waiting to snap off his head the moment he poked it into the open. “This is beautiful. Just beautiful.”
He nodded. “Okay, let’s get going.” And he opened the thin dossier, reading it one more time and wondering at the paucity of genuine information on Ian Brady, the government’s own crown jewel asset. But even in these few paragraphs, there was something for him, he was certain of it—trouble was, he was damned if he knew what it was.
“Howdy, cowboy,” Nina Miller said when he picked her up in the shadows of North Taft Street.
Paull shifted over. “I do look a sight, don’t I?”
She tossed his Stetson onto the front seat. As she settled herself beside him, he said, “We’ve got a problem.”
“Another one,” she inquired, “or the same one?”
That made him laugh, despite his foul mood. “I think all our problems devolve back to one person.”
“I only wish it was Hugh Garner,” Nina said. “Him I can handle.”
“He needs decommissioning, that’s for certain,” Paull acknowledged. “Any ideas on that score?”
“Jack told me he practically drowned Peter Link, one of the heads of the FASR. He would’ve done the same to Chris Armitage if Jack hadn’t stepped in.”
“Forget it. The president just ordered the arrest and interrogation of all FASR members.”
“Then it’s begun.”
Paull nodded grimly. “Despite all our efforts.”
“Jack’s, too. He intervened, stood up to Garner to stop the torture by threatening to call the president-elect. It was no idle threat, and Hugh knew it, so he backed down. But now he hates Jack’s guts.”
“All useful bona fides,” Paull said thoughtfully. “Is Jack one of us?”
Nina made a waffling gesture with one hand. “I don’t yet know whether he has a side. He seems to be the most apolitical person I’ve ever met. Systems—any system—are abhorrent to him.”
“So what is he, then?” Paull asked.
“Actually,” Nina said, “from all the evidence, I’d say he’s a humanist.”
Paull seemed lost in contemplation.
The police car had taken the Curtis Memorial Parkway and was now on the Francis Scott Key Bridge, heading into Georgetown. The early morning fog had lifted, revealing a high sky filled with sunlight. There was only a light breeze. Paull, who hated overheated vehicles, had rolled down his window partway. He enjoyed the crisp air on his face and neck.
“The problem,” Paull said, his eyes half-closed against the wind, “is that despite all my high-tech efforts at security, I’ve been undone by a very low-tech methodology: lip-reading.”
“Someone on your yacht?”
He nodded. “The fucking captain, of all people.”
“Wasn’t he properly vetted?”
Paull shot her a pitying look. “We’re talking someone inside the White House, very high up. All the vetting in the world is useless against being turned by someone of that stature.”
The car took M Street, then turned north on Rock Creek Parkway.
“Surely you don’t believe that the president recruited him directly?”
“I do not,” Paull said. The car pulled to the side of the road within Rock Creek Park. “Walk with me. The driver will pick us up at the food shack two miles on.”
They climbed out of the car and began to walk. The police car was soon gone. Paull had left his ridiculous Stetson in the front seat. The sun was but a sheen behind the tissue of white clouds. Nina pulled the collar of her peacoat up around her neck; Paull jammed his hands in his pockets as they set off together, surrounded by trees and brush.
“I’ve been thinking hard about your question,” Paull said. “No, the president is too wily to initiate anything against me on his own. I’m not even certain that he’s aware of the death of those two men who were following Jack to protect him. Therefore, he has to have a middle man.”
“You mean a hatchet man.”
“Call him what you will, Nina, we have a very potent enemy in the Administration.”
“It’s imperative we know his identity, don’t you think?”
Paull nodded. “I most certainly do. Because the president is involved, even if it’s on a nontactical level, our man has to be either the Secretary of State or the National Security Advisor.”
Nina shuddered. “I wouldn’t want either of them as an enemy.”
“I hear you,” Paull acknowledged, “but that’s the hand we’ve been dealt.”
They were nearing a fork in the road, and he directed them to the right, along a high embankment. A stream glimmered dully below. Apart from a smattering of passing cars, there was no one about.
“The good news is that I’ve worked out which one it is,” Paull continued. “The message the captain sent was on the same day you and I met on the yacht. The time was a few minutes after you left. At that time, the president was on his way to Moscow to meet with President Yukin. He could have taken the call himself, of course, but that seems unlikely. The president maintains a high level of plausible deniability by using selected intermediaries he deems expendable.”
“Both the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor were with him on Air Force One,” Nina said.
“So they were, but only one of them has knowledge of—and therefore access to—a specific high-level asset. I’m this asset’s handler, that’s how important he is. He’s abruptly dropped off the grid, he hasn’t made his dead drops in months. However, I have reason to believe that as recently as last week, this particular asset has been in touch with someone else in the Administration. I am very much afraid this high-ranking official is using this asset—a murderer without a speck of conscience—for his own purposes.”
“What purposes?”
“That I’m not at liberty to disclose.” How about kidnapping Edward Carson’s daughter so the crime can be labeled an act of terrorism and laid at the missionary secularists’ door, Paull thought. “At first, I suspected it might be the president himself, but now I think it might be the only other person who knows of the asset’s existence: the National Security Advisor.”
“So the National Security Advisor has been working, at the president’s behest, against us.”
Paull nodded. “It seems most likely. But I’ve bought us some time. I told him that I’ve been running you with an eye to getting closer to Jack McClure.”
“That’s too close to the truth.”
Paull smiled thinly. “Have faith; that’s as far as the truth goes. I sold them the story that I’m going to find a way to poison Jack against Edward Carson. Jack then goes to Reverend Taske, gets him to turn the power of the RMC against Carson.”
Nina shook her head. “What I wouldn’t give for fifteen minutes inside that brain of yours.”
“Now that we know who we’re fighting,” Paull said, “we’d better rally the troops and man the ramparts.”
“Good God, you’re not talking about an all-out war, are you?”
“Not out in the open. But we’ve already felt the first shot across our bows—the turning of two of my men, plus my captain. Our first order of business is to root out any others. We can’t mount a reasonable response if the opposite side knows every move we make.”
“I’ll get right on it,” Nina said.
“Use the Secret Service facilities, not Homeland Security’s.”
“Gotcha.”
They walked a bit farther, lost in their own thoughts.
“Now tell me what’s new with our boy, Jack,” Paull said.
“Sir, do you recall a double murder at McMillan Reservoir about twenty-five years ago?”
“That would be Metro Police territory, wouldn’t it?”
“Apparently not this one. I checked Metro’s records of the incident. There aren’t any. According to Jack, there was very little in the papers. I checked out his story, and he’s right. For that kind of crime, there was precious little ink spilled—not even the names of the victims. Everything was hushed up, so it must have been at a high government level.”
“What’s McClure’s interest in the double murder?”
“I don’t know, we haven’t had time to talk about it at length,” Nina said. “But he also has an intense interest in a local drug supplier working at the same time. Jack said no one knew who he was or where he came from, but that he had a tremendous amount of juice. No one could ever lay a hand on him, a man named Ian Brady.”
For a moment, Paull thought that he’d been struck by a car that had jumped the curb. For certain he was having an out-of-body experience. When he was able to gather his scattered senses, he said, “Come again?”
“Did I say something—?”
“That name.” Paull snapped his fingers impatiently. “Give me that name again.”
“What? Ian Brady?”
“That’s the fucking one.”
Beside her, Paull stared off into the distance, his eyes seeing nothing. Brady was the key, the lynchpin to events unfolding all too rapidly. A serial murderer, a schemer, most probably a psychopath—this was the asset Paull had inherited. The most important intelligence asset stretching back twenty-five years. This was the monster he was forced to protect, whose whereabouts he no longer knew. Who did, then? His mind snapped into perfect focus. “Get Jack McClure,” he said to Nina. “Bring him to me ASAP.”
Nina took out her cell phone. “I’ll call him right now.”
“No,” Paull said. “It’s all too likely that our cell conversations are being monitored. I don’t even want to use mine without prearranged coded signals.”
“I’ll find another way,” Nina said.
Paull nodded gravely. “I know you will.”