The empty rooms around him seemed to whisper Helen's name, to ring with laughter from the children in their younger days. Aware that he might never see his family alive again, Brognola welcomed lighter memories, of birthdays, high school proms and graduations, weekends at the lake-shore.
Weekends...
Somewhere in the midst of a dream of courting Helen, he was suddenly awakened by the shrilling telephone. Immediately terrified that he had somehow overslept, had missed the noontime rendezvous, Brognola checked his watch and found that it was barely 6:00 a.m. Outside, the pearly light of dawn was filtering through ground fog that had twined itself around the trees.
He fumbled for the receiver, brought it to his ear.
"Brognola."
"Chatsworth, here."
He recognized the voice of his direct liaison with the Oval Office, puzzled by the hour and the call itself. No one had ever phoned him at the cabin, and Chatsworth rarely called at all these days, since the debacle with the CIA at Stony Man.
"What is it?"
"Sorry for the wake-up call." But Chatsworth's tone informed Brognola that he wasn't sorry in the least. "The Man desires your presence. Ten o'clock all right with you?"
It hadn't really been a question, and Brognola didn't bother with an answer.
"What's the flap?" he asked.
"I couldn't say."
Or wouldn't. Either one might be the truth. Brognola never really knew how much the President confided in his aide.
"Okay. I'll see you then."
He replaced the receiver swiftly, beating Chatsworth to the punch by maybe half a second, satisfied with the petty victory. The two of them would scarcely pass for friends, Brognola viewing Chatsworth as a combination hatchet man and gopher, Chatsworth doubtless viewing him as something of a bureaucratic drone. But they were not required to love each other. Chatsworth was a fact of life at least until the next election, and Brognola frankly didn't give a damn about the guy this morning. He had other things in mind.
The summons back to Wonderland eliminated any thought of sleep. In any case, his nerves were strung too tightly now for relaxation to become reality. The drive would do him good, providing him with time to think, uninterrupted, and devise a course of action for the retrieval of his family.
For now the presidential summons was an inconvenience, threatening to blow his schedule and prevent him from receiving what could be the most important phone call of his life. Brognola was determined to be at his desk by noon, no matter if he had to fake a coronary and leave the Oval Office on a stretcher. He doubted it would come to that. The President was busy seven days a week, and he could scarcely spare two hours for a confab with the man from Justice.
Still, the summons on a Saturday was strange. He wondered if the President had somehow learned of his predicament, then decided that it was impossible and instantly vowed to preserve the secret. Theoretically possessed of sweeping powers, there was nothing that America's Chief Executive could do to help him at the present time. If federal officers were mobilized before he knew what the abductors had in mind, Brognola ran the risk of losing everything. A hasty move against the enemy would doom his family, and he was not about to waste their lives in pursuit of reckless vengeance.
There would be enough time to even up the score when they were safe.
With that in mind, he set about securing the cabin, locking up and making ready for the drive back home. They could come back for Helen's car another time, when she was safe and sound. If something happened to it in the meantime, he was perfectly prepared to write the damned thing off. Brognola's first priority was the recovery of three people who meant the world to him, and nothing less would put his tortured mind at ease.
The President could not assist him now, but that did not preclude obtaining help from other quarters. Once he spoke to the abductors, once he learned precisely what they wanted, there was still a chance of rescuing his family, of bringing down the predators without conceding anything of substance. It was chancy, but there just might be a way to pull it off.
With luck.
And with a little help from friends.
Just save the hero bullshit for the movies.
Fine.
But if Brognola was required to play the pacifist, it didn't mean that others might not take the field on his behalf. One other, in particular. One man.
One hero who had never saved it for the movies.
3
"He'll see you now."
Brognola had been waiting twenty minutes, and he didn't care for Chatsworth's tone. He followed the aide past the secretary's desk and on through tall familiar doors that opened on the Oval Office, waiting as they closed behind him silently. Brognola waited stoically while Chatsworth crossed the navy carpet that was decorated with a giant presidential seal, and stood before the desk.
The President was winding up a phone call, speaking in monosyllables, his face set in a stormy frown. Whatever he was hearing, it had not improved his temperament.
"Keep me informed," he said at last, and hung up. He swiveled his chair toward Chatsworth and stood up.
"Brognola, Mr. President."
"I see him, Emil."
He was circling the desk when Hal moved forward, grateful for the outstretched hand, but still alert to the apparent weariness — the sadness? — etched in his commander's face.
"Sit down, Hal."
The sweeping hand included Chatsworth, and they settled into chairs positioned near the desk. The President was silent for a moment, drifting toward the windows where he stood, arms folded, staring off across the White House gardens and the broad expanse of lawn.
"How are you, Hal?"
Brognola searched for hidden meanings in the question, came up empty. "Well enough, sir."
"And the family?"
It took a moment for Brognola to respond. A sudden tightness in his throat was threatening to strangle him, but he was more concerned with studying the President, his tone. It wasn't like the Man to play at cat and mouse. Brognola felt himself beginning to relax. He didn't know. The early-morning summons was concerned with something else.
"They're well."
Please, God.
"I'm glad to hear it."
Silence stretched out between them like a steel garrote, uncomfortable, tense. Beside Brognola, Chatsworth made a show of studying his wing-tip shoes.
At length the President declared, "We've got a problem, Hal. I need your input."
Chatsworth snorted, covering belatedly with an exaggerated coughing fit. Brognola didn't waste the energy to glance in his direction.
"Yes, sir?"
"We've received persuasive circumstantial evidence to indicate you've got a leak at Justice. A mole. High placed."
Brognola's mind was racing, trying to digest the President's announcement. Always on alert for leaks, for any vestige of corruption, he was not aware of any ongoing investigations. There had been some trouble — plenty of it — with the FBI and NSA last year, but that had been wrapped up by Christmas, all the leaks securely welded tight. Or all the leaks they knew about, at any rate.
The President returned to sit behind his massive desk, eyes locked with Hal's, ignoring Chatsworth for the moment.
"Word is that it touches Phoenix."
Something dark and dangerous was stirring in the shadows of Brognola's mind. If there was a connection with his family's abduction, something to provide him with a handle...
"Sir, I have to say this comes as a complete surprise. I've had no indication from my staff of an investigation under way. If you could let me have specific information..."
"Chatsworth?"
Seated on Brognola's right, the aide de camp was riffling through a thin manila folder, nodding to himself and clearly looking forward to the game now that the coach had called him in to play.
"Let's call our suspect 'Mr. X'," he said dramatically. "We were apprised of his alleged involvement with a leak by an informant who has furnished reliable info
rmation in the past."
Brognola knew the line by heart. "Reliable informants" might be bugs or wiretaps, documents obtained through shady means, or any one of countless snitches trading in the vital currency of information. Confidential sources were the backbone and the lifeblood of the vast intelligence establishment. Access to their secret information was the key to power, sometimes to survival.
It would do no good to ask for the identity of Chatsworth's source. Brognola knew the presidential aide would keep the information to himself and lie, if necessary, to preserve the source's confidentiality. A name would not add anything of substance to his understanding of the case, Hal realized. The President seemed satisfied, or very nearly so, and for the moment that was good enough.
"Our source relates that Mr. X has been in contact with a list of ranking orgcrime figures, under circumstances that remain unclear." As Chatsworth spoke, his eyes were fixed upon Brognola. He did not consult the folder in his lap, and Hal surmised that he had found the information interesting enough to memorize. "Pursuant to his information, an investigation was initiated, and..."
"I should have been informed," Brognola said, ignoring Chatsworth, speaking to the President.
"We didn't think it wise, all things considered."
Brognola was chewing over that as Chatsworth cleared his throat, resuming as if Hal had never interrupted his report.
"Pursuant to his information, an investigation was initiated, and material collected implicates our Mr. X in covert dealings with the syndicate."
"What kind of information?"
"Stills and videos. Accumulated phone logs. Affidavits from recipients of classified material. The whole nine yards."
Brognola frowned. "I'd like to take a look at what you've got."
"It's classified at present."
"I've got clearance."
"Not for this," Chatsworth replied smugly.
"Since when?"
"Since your department has been compromised."
"Goddammit, Chatsworth..."
"Gentlemen."
They both turned toward the President and found him leaning forward, elbows planted on his desk, his dark eyes boring into each in turn.
"Excuse us for a moment, Emil."
Chatsworth seemed about to protest, but he reconsidered instantly, unwilling to let momentary anger pull the plug on job security. He spent another moment glaring at Brognola, then retreated from the Oval Office, the manila folder tucked beneath his arm.
"I'm sorry, sir."
The President was not concerned with his apology. "I understand your feelings, Hal. There were compelling reasons for excluding you from the investigation."
"I'd be very interested in an explanation, sir."
"Security was paramount."
Alarms were going off inside Brognola's brain now, but he forged ahead. "You indicated that the problem touches Phoenix?"
"Intimately."
Hal made no attempt to mask his rising irritation. "Mr. President, I cannot hope to offer any meaningful advice if I am kept in ignorance."
"I didn't call you in to ask for your advice."
Brognola spread his hands. "Then, what?"
Behind his massive desk, the chief executive was scowling like a man beset with sudden pain. "I've got no stomach for this double talk and innuendo," he declared at last.
"I called you in because our information indicates that you are Mr. X."
Brognola felt as if someone had sucker-punched him, hard, below the heart. For just a moment he was stunned. The Oval Office seemed to shrink around him. His stomach did a sluggish barrel roll, and throbbing pain erupted in his temples, keeping perfect time with his accelerated pulse.
"There must be some mistake." It sounded lame, the desperate defense of an embezzler or adulterer confronted with his secret sin.
"As Chatsworth said, we have the tape, the stills. Your phone logs have been triple-checked."
A momentary sense of outrage kindled in his chest, extinguished instantly as Hal digested the apparent situation. It did not surprise him that his phone calls had been monitored, his movements filmed. He had been fingered as a mole, and SOP surveillance had been instituted automatically. He had helped to set the system up himself in the wake of the disastrous raid on Stony Man, and he could not complain if it had worked efficiently.
Except it hadn't worked. There was no proof of his complicity. There couldn't be.
The President had settled back into his chair, regarding Hal with mingled sadness and a sort of morbid curiosity.
"I thought we'd better talk it over one-on-one."
Brognola's mind was racing, searching for connections, links between this latest bombshell and the disappearance of his family. Discounting any possibility of mere coincidence, he sought some common thread between the two events.
"I can't respond to any charges without looking at the so-called evidence."
"You'll have that opportunity, of course."
"And the informant?"
"Will remain anonymous," the President replied. "For what it's worth, we don't know who the hell he is. There have been two communications, written, both unsigned. Both posted here in Washington."
"That's pretty thin."
"The letters won't be used as evidence. They put the wheels in motion, nothing more. Whatever Justice has collected came through channels, SOP."
"I see." Brognola was astounded by the sudden calm that settled over him, as if he were a mere observer to a drama that concerned some other life, some other idiot's career. "Is Justice moving for indictment?"
Frowning back at him, the President appeared confused. "I wanted to consult with you before it got that far. I'm interested in hearing your impressions, your response."
"I've been set up," Brognola told him flatly. "It has all the earmarks of a classic frame."
"It crossed my mind," the President conceded. "But the film, the phone logs..."
"Can be doctored, manufactured or explained," Brognola said. "I want a polygraph as soon as possible."
"You have that right, of course, although the end results are inadmissible."
"I'm not concerned about admissibility. Iknow this thing is bogus. It's important to me now that you believe I'm innocent."
The President seemed touched. "I understand," he said. "But there are statutory guidelines to be followed. I cannot involve myself before judicial findings have been made." There was a momentary hesitation as he pondered something privately. "If we could single out a motive..."
Trapped, Brognola was confronted by a pair of odious alternatives. He could inform the President of his family's abduction, thereby risking interference that might jeopardize their lives, or he could stonewall, risking summary suspension or incarceration, which would render him incapable of helping them in any case.
And finally it was no choice at all.
He told the President his story from the top, omitting nothing, ending with the order that he be available by noon. It was five minutes past eleven when he finished, settling back to wait for the President's reaction.
"Jesus Christ."
Brognola swallowed hard. "Whoever has my family..."
"Might want to frame you. Yes, I get the picture." For an instant Hal imagined that he heard a tremor in the famous voice. "What does the Bureau say about all this?"
"I haven't spoken to them yet."
"Of course, I understand. But in the interest of your family's safety, you should try..."
"My family's safety may depend upon the Bureau staying out of it," he told the President emphatically. "The last thing I need right now is fifty college boys in three-piece suits obscuring the evidence."
"There must be someone. Able Team or Phoenix Force?"
Brognola shook his head. "I had another source of aid in mind."
The man behind the desk mulled that one over for a moment, furrows of concern etched deep across his forehead, eyebrows creeping in on each other till they met above his nose.
> "You can't be serious."
"I'm deadly serious," Brognola said. "In my opinion no one else could pull it off."
"Could he?"
The question had been nagging Hal almost continuously since the call at 4:00 a.m. He knew the answer now, or part of it, at any rate. He had no choice except to try.
"I think so, yes."
The President was clearly worried now. "I can't approve this."
"Sir, I haven't asked you to approve of anything."
"The man's an outlaw, dammit."
"He's my friend."
"A pardon is impossible."
"He wouldn't take it if you offered."
"Mmm."
"I'm speaking off the record now — or on the record if you like, it doesn't matter. From the looks of things I'm finished anyway."
"See here, Hal..."
"My family is all that matters to me now. Whatever happens with the job and Chatsworth's 'evidence,' I have to see my wife and children safe at home. My resignation can be on your desk this afternoon."
"Hold on a second. Don't go flying off the handle."
"I don't have a second, sir. My time is running out. I need to make that contact now."
"As I recall, your man is marked as hit on sight."
It was a startling admission from the chief executive, committed as he was on paper to defend the Bill of Rights.
"That is my understanding, yes, sir."
"Makes it sticky, eh?"
"It's where he lives."
"You understand that I can offer no assistance if you should pursue this course of action."
"I'm not asking for assistance, sir. I just don't want an army on my heels the next few days."
"All right, the Bureau's out. I still think Able Team could help."
Brognola shook his head again.
"They're in Miami and heavily involved. A disengagement now could be disastrous. Anyway, they couldn't make the trip in time."
"And Phoenix Force?"
"In Bogota. They couldn't pull out at the moment if they wanted to."
"I see."
"One man," Brognola said again. "One special man is all I need."
"Goddammit."
"Yes, sir."
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