Call to Treason (24 page)

    "Sweet. We could use a lift."

    Hood gave the younger man's shoulder a squeeze, then went back to his office. He had never felt so torn in his life. His position made him unavailable for office gossip, let alone the gossip of other offices.

    Nor had Op-Center ever been a place where workers had a reason to gripe. There had been sadness and setbacks, but always due to missions. There was never a sense that the organization itself was in jeopardy. Certainly no one ever believed that Op-Center would be blindsided by the CIOC and other government agencies. Like Paul Hood, the National Crisis Management Center was the golden child of intelligence.

    They thought.

    Hood reached his office and shut the door. He stood inside, staring at his desk. If Hood accepted the president's offer, he would be participating in the spoils system he had always fought. His guiding principle would not necessarily be what was right but what was right for Op-Center. He would no longer be Pope Paul, as Herbert and the others sometimes called him in jest, but Apostate Paul.

    But was anything so clear cut anymore? It did not matter whether the president was right or wrong about the threat Senator Orr represented.

    That was psychological spin-doctoring. What mattered was hanging on to men like Matt Stoll and Darrell McCaskey. Hood would not like everything the new NCMC was asked to do. But this was not about his comfort zone.

    This was about preserving enough of Op-Center so that their important primary mission of crisis management could continue.

    Hood went to the phone to call Senator Debenport. He would agree to the terms Debenport and the president had presented. He would ask for guarantees, not to be made an ambassador but to protect the existing staff.

    He would make his deal with the devil.

    

    Washington, D.C. Tuesday, 11:50 a.m.

    Kenneth Link sat alone in the conference room, reviewing a computer file of layout plans for the convention floor. Eric Stone had E-mailed a suggestion for the location of the podium. He felt the stand should be moved fifteen yards closer to the north side of the convention center. That put the speakers closer to the right when people entered the arena through the main gate. Link felt the change was gimmicky and declined to approve it.

    Or maybe Link was just being contrary. He was not sure. The interview with Darrell McCaskey had left him in a sour mood. It had not gone the way he had anticipated. The admiral believed that by being forthright about his team and his dislike of Wilson, he would convince McCaskey of his innocence. Instead, something about their talk had caused Op-Center to harden its position. Link was a naval officer and a former head of covert operations for the CIA. He would not permit the tinsel-eyed former mayor of Los Angeles to hunt him. Or, even worse, to judge him.

    Throughout his career, Link had always found the struggle between need and protocol, between expediency and restraint difficult to rectify.

    Right and wrong are subjective. Legal and illegal are objective. When the two forces are in conflict, which one should be followed?

    Especially when a legal wrong has the potential to rectify countless moral wrongs.

    Link invariably put self-determination above regulations, which meant honoring right above legal. It meant more than that, though. Working in national defense was not a job for the fearful. It also was not a job for the unprepared. A man needed resources. Fortunately, Link had them. He was loyal to people, and people were loyal to him.

    This matter of William Wilson should never have become the problem it was. Everything had been done the right way and for the right reasons.

    Looking under the man's tongue was on the medical examiner's checklist, but the tiny needle left no obvious trauma in the soft, vein al under tissue Only someone who knew that anatomy well would have picked it up. Wilson's death should have been news for two days. After that, he would have been fodder for the weekly news magazines and monthly financial magazines for an issue or two. Most importantly, his banking scheme would have been forgotten. Others could have moved in with different opportunities for investors. Domestic opportunities that would be part of the USF platform. A program based on investments in American technology, manufacturing, and resources. A program that would have put money into the economy and given citizens deep and extensive tax benefits.

    A program that would have really put the United States First Party on the political map.

    In all their planning, no one had ever imagined that an intelligence service would get involved. Until this morning, Link had not thought they would stay in this for more than another day. He had thought the hiring of Mike Rodgers would discourage them, and the publicity about opportunism would be embarrassing. He had obviously underestimated Paul Hood. Link did not know if the investigation was a result of the man's fabled idealism, Hollywood-bred narcissism, or a combination of both. Regardless, the admiral could not let it get in his own way.

    There were still actions to be taken, and Op-Center would interfere.

    There was a point in intelligence and military operations when there was no longer any benefit to being clandestine. When a covert assassination fails, the strategy must shift to a Bay of Pigs scenario albeit one that is designed to work. When the so-called architect group reaches that point, the question is no longer whether people suspect you did it but whether they can prove it.

    Kenneth Link went to a floor cabinet in the far corner of the conference room. There was a safe inside. He opened it and removed a STU-3 a Secure Telephone Unit, third generation. He jacked the all-white phone into a socket behind a regular office phone on the conference table. The STU-3 looked like a normal desk set but with a crypto-ignition key that initiated secure conversations. This model interfaced with compatible cell phones, which is what he was calling now.

    Bold action had to be taken. The action would be condemned, but it would also discourage others from pursuing Link. The police would look elsewhere for the Hypo-Slayer, as the media had taken to calling it.

    Before long, the investigation would all but disappear. The killer would not be found. The public would lose interest.

    Besides, there would be other news to replace it.

    

    Washington, B.C. Jliesday, 12:10 p.m.

    Mike Rodgers felt like Philip Nolan in The Man Without a Country.

    Whereas Edward Everett Hale's protagonist had been exiled for his part in the treasonous activities of Aaron Burr, Rodgers felt as if he had been banished by timing and circumstance. He was still employed by Op-Center, which had betrayed its charter. The general believed that Paul Hood was pursuing what the military described as a directed service agenda. That was a program masquerading as patriotism that was designed to help the branch itself, like starting a war to test new weapons or burn through old ordnance. Op-Center had a marginally legitimate reason to look into Wilson's death. Now they were pursuing it beyond that original mandate for self-serving reasons. Ironically, part of Rodgers understood those reasons. It had obviously hurt Hood to ask for Rodgers's resignation. He wanted to make sure there were no more firings. But part of Mike Rodgers also wanted to go to Op-Center and call Hood out, challenge him for the sludge he was flinging on Rodgers's new employer.

    Instead, Rodgers sat down with Kat Lockley and Kendra Peterson and reviewed the plans for the convention as well as Senator Orr's platform. Now and then, they solicited Rodgers's opinion. The women were responsive to the handful of suggestions he made. The staff had spent so long knocking ideas around just between themselves, they were happy to have a new set of eyes. The experience was a good one for Rodgers. It was nice to be heard.

    When the meeting was over, Rodgers asked Kat Lock-ley to lunch. She said she could get away in about a half hour. Rodgers said he would wait for her on Delaware Avenue. That lifted his spirits even more. At Op-Center, he had to remain detached from the women because he was the number-two man. He did not want to be emotionally involved with someone he might have to overrule or send into combat. It was pleasant to get in there and push around ideas, especially among young women who had energy and fresh ideas. And, yes, killer smiles. Bob Herbert had once described a meeting with young women at some university mock think tank as "PC."

    "Not politically correct," Herbert said. "Pleasantly coercive."

    This meeting was definitely PC.

    On the way out, Rodgers bumped into Admiral Link. The future vice presidential candidate did not look happy.

    "Is your friend Mr. McCaskey usually so bullheaded?" Link asked. "I don't mean that meeting," he added. "McCaskey called back to tell me we were going to see some rising tide on this investigation."

    "What?" Rodgers said. "That doesn't sound like Darrell at all.

    Someone must be holding his feet to the flame."

    "Is Hood usually this reckless?" Link asked.

    Rodgers shook his head firmly. "This budget crisis must have really shaken him up. Do you want me to talk to him?"

    "I don't think so "

    "I don't mind," Rodgers said. "I was thinking about going over there anyway and kicking up dust."

    "No," Link said. "Hood is going to do what he wants. Let him. Why fight a battle we're going to win anyway?"

    "Because I've got rockets in the launcher, and I've flipped open the safety cover," Rodgers said.

    Link smiled. "Save them for the campaign, General. This is a sideshow. That's all it is."

    Rodgers reluctantly agreed. There were times when he simply wanted to engage the enemy, and this was one of those times. Link thanked him for his support and went to see Kendra. Rodgers walked out to Delaware Avenue, sat on a bench, and let the sunshine wash over him. It was amazing how different the same sun felt in different parts of the world. It was searing in the deserts of the Southwest where he had once trained a mechanized brigade, impotent in the Himalayas, slimy in the humid Diamond Mountains of North Korea. It was full of warmth and vitamins in the South American plains, an outright enemy in the Middle East, and comforting here, like freshly brewed tea. Individuals and institutions had almost as many colors as the sun. Everything depended on the place, the day, and the circumstances.

    There was a time when Op-Center had nourished Rodgers, too.

    While the general sat there, he checked his cell phone for messages.

    There was one call from psychologist Liz Gordon, checking to see how he was, and one from Paul Hood asking him to call as soon as it was convenient. Hood sounded annoyed. Rodgers smiled. He could guess why. He speed-dialed Hood's direct line. Apparently, he was going to get his confrontation after all.

    " "Loyalty is missing in action, along with honor and integrity," Hood said angrily, without preliminaries. "Mike, did you give that quote to a reporter named Lucy O'Connor?"

    "I did," Rodgers replied.

    "Why?"

    "Because it is true. And don't take it too personally, Paul. I told her it was missing everywhere, not just at Op-Center."

    "How I take it doesn't matter," Hood said. "It's how the rest of the team takes it. Mike, I thought we had discussed the circumstances surrounding the budget cut, that you understood "

    "Paul, this is not just about me getting shit-canned," Rodgers said.

    "It's about this whole stinking investigation of Admiral Link."

    "Stinking in what way?" Hood asked.

    "It's harassment for gain," Rodgers told him.

    "You know us better than that, dammit."

    "I know Darrell better than that," Rodgers said. "I'm not so sure about you anymore, and I can't believe he did that without your okay."

    "Yeah, I approved it," Hood told him. "Hell, I encouraged it, and with good reason. I didn't suggest the ramping-up, though. I shouldn't be telling you this, but that was Bob Herbert's idea."

    "Bob?"

    "Bob," Hood said.

    That took Rodgers by surprise. It also stripped him naked. He looked around with slow, probing eyes. His gaze moved along the avenue, across the street, peered into parked cars and the windows of office buildings. Rodgers knew all the tails Op-Center used. He half-expected to see one of them watching him from behind a hamburger or a paperback book. The thought was also a disturbing reminder of how quickly an ally could become an adversary.

    "Look, I'm not going to get into a howling contest in the press," Hood went on. "I told Ms. O'Connor that I disagree with your view and left it at that. But I do want to remind you that Op-Center is my first concern "

    "I have my dismissal to remind me, thanks," Rodgers interrupted.

    "I thought you understood what went down," Hood said.

    "I do. I thought you understood that I did not like it."

    Both men snapped off the conversation. The crackling cell phone silence was heavy, but it did not hurt. Rodgers felt that Hood was out of line. As he sat there, his eyes continued to search for familiar faces. Aideen Marley, Maria Corneja-McCaskey, David Battat, some of the others that Rodgers himself had trained. His heart ached over what they must be feeling.

    "Mike, we both want the same thing," Hood said. "Whichever way it goes, we want this to be over as soon as possible. So I'm going to ask you to cooperate by letting Bob's people work "

    "Christ, you don't have to ask that," Rodgers said. "I know the drill.

    Just don't put any of them on me."