by Jon Land
“Maybe I should offer him the vice-presidency.”
“He could just as easily be thinking the same thing about you.”
The President leaned forward. “Well, then maybe I should let him try my job for a while and see if he can do better. Let him have a whack at convincing Congress to stop torpedoing all the programs he tries to get passed. Then take a look at his numbers six months down the road while I’m on vacation.”
Byrne’s eyes looked as empty and still as the surface of the pool.
“Jesus, Charlie, I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re discouraged. I can’t blame you for that.” Byrne paused. “I’d blame you only if you quit.”
“Do you think I have already?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Thanks for your honesty.”
The life returned to Charlie Byrne’s eyes. “We can still get it done, sir.”
“Sure,” the President sighed, “by watering down all the proposals we know this country needs. By kowtowing to the demands of those who couldn’t care less where it’s going. By choosing pragmatism and polls over principle.”
“You can’t change things overnight.”
“We’ve had eighteen months, and you know what? I don’t feel I’ve done a damn thing. I go to bed at night trying to figure out what I accomplished during the day, and usually I can’t find anything.”
“Your expectations were too high.”
“And now they’re too low. I want to make a difference, Charlie,” the President sighed. “It’s just getting tougher to figure out what the difference can be.”
The door leading to the pool opened and FBI director Ben Samuelson entered escorted by the Secret Service duty officer who instantly took his leave.
“I didn’t know we had a meeting scheduled for this morning, Ben,” the President said, pushing himself up from the chair.
“We don’t. I apologize for the intrusion, but I know you’d want to hear this face-to-face.”
The President saw the glum reserve in Samuelson’s normally bright hazel eyes. The FBI director was a thin, almost gaunt man who had recently exchanged his glasses for contact lenses, part of a makeover that included the Bureau as well. Samuelson has been one of the President’s most successful appointments, the FBI flourishing in both morale and performance under his charge.
He took a deep breath. “Clifton Jardine was found murdered in his study less than one hour ago.”
The President sat back down. “My God, how?”
“He was shot. Sometime between midnight and three A.M. by all accounts.”
The President let the news sink in. Jardine had been another of the few feathers he’d been able to stick in his cap. Charged with the monumental task of redefining the CIA in the post—Cold War world, he had been doing a brilliant job.
“Ben, we’re talking about the second-best-protected man in this government. His own people round the clock, and you’re telling me he was shot in his study?”
For a few seconds Samuelson was silent. “We’re interrogating the guards on that watch, sir.”
“I’m sure you already have something preliminary.”
“All of them claim they saw nothing.”
“Meaning …”
“Either the killer was an elite assassin …”
“Or?”
This time Samuelson said nothing at all.
“Jardine made an appointment to see me first thing this morning,” the President continued tensely. “It was penciled into my daily schedule some time late last night. That means something must have come up very suddenly, and then not much later he’s dead.” The President looked to Byrne. “Charlie, find out exactly what time the call was logged.” He turned back toward Samuelson as Byrne took his leave. “Unavoidable connection, isn’t it, Ben?”
“There may be another connection, sir. One of Jardine’s men was killed in Rock Creek Park last night. The word was passed to me by local authorities just before I left to come here. An apparent mugging.”
The President wrapped the towel around his shoulders. Suddenly he felt chilled. His robe was hanging on a hook by the door, but the walk over to get it didn’t interest him.
“Apparent,” he repeated. “This agent who was killed—”
“Career Company named Daniels. Nothing very much outstanding in his background. He was a gatherer and sorter, nothing more. A career bureaucrat with a competent but hardly distinguished career.”
“In other words, not the kind of man Cliff Jardine would take into his confidence.”
“Correct, sir. But the coincidence remains difficult to accept.”
Charlie Byrne came back through the door. It closed behind him with a slight rattle.
“Jardine’s call was logged in by the duty officer at just after two A.M.,” he said after he passed the start of the pool. “The duty officer returned that call at precisely eleven minutes after two. I just spoke to the officer at home and he said Jardine sounded harried, even panicked. He insisted on an early morning meeting but stopped short of having you woken up. He wouldn’t say what the meeting pertained to, or why no one else could be in attendance besides him and you.”
The President looked back at Samuelson. “What time was Daniels killed in Rock Creek Park?”
“Between nine P.M. and midnight is our best guess, pending an autopsy, sir.”
“Next questions: Was Daniels working on anything he would for some reason have reported to Jardine directly on? Had there been any contact between them in recent days?”
“The answers are forthcoming. This afternoon at the latest.”
“And maybe they’ll help us uncover what we need to know most of all.” The President paused. The chlorine had cast his light eyes in a red haze. “Finding out what Cliff Jardine wanted to see me about this morning.”
As was their custom, the two men met on the Metro under the heart of Washington itself. It made them feel they were living in the underworld, a stairway’s distance from claiming what lay above. They found the symbolism appealing.
The codes and procedures were complicated but remarkably unencumbering. Two hours after contact was initiated, inevitably, a meeting would take place. No disguise or subterfuge. Just two men taking a routine ride in the capital’s subway.
The larger of the two was astonishingly big, from his protruding forehead and almost grotesque jowls to the girth of his midsection and tree-trunk legs. The second was tall and lithe, with a disheveled crop of hair and round horn-rimmed glasses that made him look like an academic. The bullish-looking man had called the meeting and was waiting when the academic boarded the car. He sat down in the next seat and opened his newspaper.
“I gather from this meeting that things did not go completely as planned,” the academic started.
The bigger man’s expression remained flat. “The entire team dispatched last night was killed.”
The academic’s eyes flickered as much in anger as surprise. “By a bureaucrat?”
“No, not Daniels. Someone else.”
“The man he was to meet with?”
“By all indications, yes. The team erred in leaving Daniels for dead. He slipped away from them and managed to reach his rendezvous point.”
“With whom?” the academic wondered. “I imagine you know by now.”
The big man nodded without enthusiasm. “The bullets used were encased in full platinum jackets. While these are not uncommon in professional circles, one man is especially distinguished for their use: Blaine McCracken.”
The academic could not hide the uncertainty that stretched a grimace across his usually emotionless features. The train slid to a halt in the next station, and he waited for the familiar chimes signaling new movement before speaking again, glad for the opportunity to compose his thoughts.
“Containment?”
“We managed to remove the bodies and sanitize the scene, so the authorities would not be able to make an accurate appraisal of the situation,” the bullish man
reported. “None of this would have been necessary if we had carried things out as I suggested,” he added.
“Then our complicity in this failure is mutual. Yes?”
“Granted.”
“And we should move forward while the situation remains contained.”
“Agreed.”
“Good,” the academic said in a conciliatory tone. “Do we have reason to believe that Daniels passed on to McCracken what he knew?”
“Which amounted to little, virtually nothing.”
“To Daniels perhaps, but not McCracken. A few words, phrases, even inferences—that’s all he needs. Please answer.”
The bullish man nodded reluctantly. “We must assume at this point that Daniels had time to relay information to McCracken prior—”
“—to your team being executed,” the academic completed.
“They were not expecting him.”
“He wasn’t expected in Miami either, was he?”
Now it was the bullish man who hedged. “Could he have already been aware—”
“Not then. Now, well, what we’re facing here is a coincidence with potentially dire consequences once McCracken makes the connection.”
“Unless we can find him before he does.”
A look of taut concentration had returned to the academic’s features. “Or use the inevitability of his succeeding action against him.”
“How?” the bullish man wondered.
The academic told him.
For Vasily Conchenko, Russian ambassador to the United States, lunch at the Mayflower Hotel was a daily ritual, even on Saturday. The hotel was only a few blocks from the Russian embassy and Conchenko always enjoyed the walk, especially in spring. In fact, he enjoyed everything about America, more so than ever now that the old divisions were a thing of the past. He could walk the streets freely without concern of being followed or watched. His moves were no longer scrutinized because there was no reason to scrutinize them. He felt exuberantly free.
He ordered the Mayflower turkey club without bothering to gaze at the menu, then began to read Saturday morning’s edition of The New York Times, which he preferred infinitely to The Washington Post. He had barely gotten through the first article when a shape hovered at his side. Thinking it was the waiter with his sparkling mineral water he gazed up politely.
“Good afternoon, Comrade Conchenko,” greeted Sergei Amorov.
Amorov had been the final KGB station chief ever to serve in Washington. The Soviet Union’s tumble had left him nothing to return to. As a result he had remained here in the capital city of the United States he, too, had come to love very much. If his wardrobe was any indication, Amorov must have amassed quite a fortune in his years as KGB station chief. Today he wore an olive green full-cut Armani suit that fit him exquisitely. Conchenko had never seen him wear the same suit twice.
“We have nothing to say to each other, Sergei Ivanovitch,” the ambassador snapped at him, scanning the restaurant carefully in case anyone had noted their meeting. Fortunately, since it was Saturday, the restaurant was all but deserted.
“Ah, but we do. I’ve ordered a cocktail. It’s being sent over.”
“Have it sent somewhere else.”
Amorov frowned. “How, then, would I be able to do you the great favor I am prepared to, comrade?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Habit. Forgive me.”
Conchenko tensed as Amorov sat down after unbuttoning the jacket of his double-breasted suit. Again his eyes swam about across the other tables. He shifted his chair away from the former KGB station chief with noticeable distaste.
“This is not the way to treat a man who is going to make you a hero, comrade—excuse me—Vasily Feodorov.”
“Or make me a pariah.”
“You must learn not to judge so harshly.”
With that, Amorov pulled a small shipping envelope from his pocket and placed it within Conchenko’s reach. The ambassador made no move to touch it.
“What is this?” he demanded.
“More old habits, I’m afraid. Just to pass the time, you understand.”
“No, I don’t.”
“The greatest coup of my career. Even when the Union dissolved, I could not abandon it.”
“Abandon what?”
Amorov slid his chair closer and this time Conchenko made no effort to pull away. “I was able to have a bug planted within the office of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
“What? How?” Conchenko had to remind himself to stifle his enthusiasm. Old habits die hard and this was something that would have been cause for great excitement only a few years before.
“The CIA seal hangs behind his desk. When it was sent out to be refinished some years ago, we managed to plant a bug within it. The paint we used acted as a screen against detection.”
Conchenko fidgeted nervously. “Get to the point!”
“After my … reassignment, I, er, neglected to have it removed. I still listen to the recordings, out of habit mostly, I suppose, and boredom. They make for great entertainment sometimes.” Amorov tapped the mailing envelope. “Thursday night’s was a prime example.”
“This is a tape?”
“Yes, comrade, it is.”
Confusion crossed the ambassador’s features, then suspicion. “You’ve heard, of course, that the CIA director was murdered early this morning.”
Amorov slid the envelope closer. “I think you should listen to the tape, Vasily Feodorov, and maybe you will understand why.”
CHAPTER 8
“I don’t see any file folders in the vicinity, Hank,” McCracken said to the figure seated on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
“And you won’t, either,” Belgrade returned, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Sit down, McNuts. I’m giving you three minutes. After that, it might not be safe anymore.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“Two minutes fifty-five seconds. I don’t know what you got yourself into last night, but Washington’s gone crazy this morning. Langley, to be more accurate.”
Blaine had called Sal Belamo from a room in the Jefferson Hotel after fleeing Rock Creek Park the night before. He had abandoned that room as Soon as the phone call was complete and checked into a second hotel in Alexandria’s Crystal City.
“Wow,” Belamo commented after McCracken had filled him in. “Looks like I might be missing tomorrow’s episode of ‘As the Shit Chums.’”
“Find out what Operation Yellow Rose and Prometheus are and I’ll spring for a big-screen TV. Get Johnny Wareagle down here,” Blaine added, referring to the big Indian he called upon in situations like this, “and I’ll throw in a stereo.”
In hardly typical fashion, by this morning Belamo’s efforts on all fronts had proven futile. He could find no mention of Operation Yellow Rose or Prometheus on any data bank, accessible or otherwise. And Johnny Wareagle was nowhere to be found.
“That’s not all,” Sal had finished grimly. “Cops found no trace of the five guys you waxed. Can only mean somebody came in and got them, boss, and they must have been damn quick about it.”
The best Sal could do was set up a meeting for Blaine with someone who might have the answers that he lacked: Hank Belgrade. Belgrade was a big, beefy man who like a select few in Washington drew a salary without any official title. Technically both the Departments of State and Defense showed his name on their roster, but in actuality he worked for neither. Instead, he liaised between the two and handled the dirty linen of both. He had access to files few in Washington had any idea existed.
“Clifton Jardine was murdered,” Belgrade resumed after a long pause.
McCracken sat next to him on the far left-hand steps of the Memorial. The news didn’t surprise him. A man like Daniels wouldn’t requisition a paper clip without proper clearance. It figured the director would have been involved and aware. If Daniels was killed for what he knew, the same fate would very likely have awaited Clifton Jardine.
&nb
sp; “My clock still ticking, Hank?”
“Depends on whether the reason for this meeting’s linked to Jardine’s death.”
“You really want to know that?”
“I bring it up or what, McNuts?”
“Fine. Your choice. Jardine wasn’t the only Langley man killed last night. You get back to the office, see if anything’s come in on Tom Daniels.”
“You in the area at the time?”
“After the fact, mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Daniels had time to talk, Hank. Someone’s moving on the country. Someone’s trying to take over.”
Belgrade fixed his stare on Blaine. “We talking about an overthrow of the government here?”
“Daniels told me I had ten days to stop it, then died before elaborating further.”
“Ten days …”
“Maybe nine now. I killed the five men who killed Daniels. But don’t bother checking that part out on the wire, because the tracks have been covered.”
Belgrade’s hand swept nervously across his double chin. “Christ, that explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“It was Daniels who mentioned Operation Yellow Rose to you, right?”
“That and Prometheus.”
“Well, I drew a total blank on Prometheus and near total blank on Yellow Rose.”
“Near?”
“File’s been deleted, McNuts.”
“Even from your eyes?”
“You should’ve called me yesterday.”
“What are you saying?”
“That the deletion was logged on at two-thirty A.M. this morning. Sound familiar?”
“Jardine’s and Daniels’s murders …”
Belgrade nodded. “Somebody musta figured you or someone else would be looking.”
Blaine looked right at him. “And you wouldn’t be here if they didn’t leave something behind.”
“I did some cross-checking. Had to log on myself to do it, which means my access code was recorded. That means whoever made the file disappear will know I was looking for it. Under the circumstances, that doesn’t make me a very happy man.”