The Russia Account

by Stephen Coonts

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The Russians just want America tied up in knots. Sending fake money over here cost them pennies. It was a classic KGB operation.”

  She was right, of course.

  “If we tumbled to it, the Russians could deny everything, and even if we proved they did it, so what? Westfall and friends, however, have more at stake.”

  I stared at her. When Grafton sailed off into the sunset, Sarah Houston should be the next director of the CIA.

  “Let’s go back upstairs,” I said.

  The security man was still outside Grafton’s room, and the door was closed. The door across the hallway was standing open. I looked in. The room was empty.

  I went to the desk where the wings came together, where the elevators were. The nurse on duty was a man. “403. Grafton. I want him moved to another room. That room right across the hallway, 404, is open. That will do nicely.”

  The guy looked at me. “I can’t just shuffle patients around willy-nilly on your say-so. Who the hell are you, anyway?”

  I opened my sports coat so he could see the gun under my armpit. “I’m the meanest son of a bitch you ever met. I was in Grafton’s room, 403, a half hour ago and saw a rat, a big sewer rat. 404 won’t cost the government a dime more than 403. If you don’t move the admiral right fucking now, I’m going to call a reporter and my lawyer.”

  “So you’re CIA?”

  “No, Clara Barton. I’m with Murder Incorporated. Come on, let’s move the bed and all that equipment.”

  Yocke was still reading. We left him at it and the nurse, Sarah, Callie and I moved the bed and computer monitor and IV trees. Then I hustled Yocke across the hallway and brought the chairs over.

  When I was finished, I carefully closed the door to 403 and had the security man sit in front of it, just where he had been sitting. Looking right, he could see along the hall to the nurse’s station and the elevator doors. To his left, he could see all the way down the hallway to the end, where there was a door to the emergency stairwell. That fire door, I knew, was rigged so that it only opened from the hallway side. Once a person was in the stairwell, he was going to the bottom unless he was a fireman or had the keys to the floors.

  I went into the new room to see how Grafton and Yocke were getting along.

  Yocke had apparently finished his assigned reading. The pile of papers was on a chair beside him. “It’s dynamite,” he was saying, “and you knew I’d have to take it when you called me.”

  Grafton didn’t acknowledge that. “Tomorrow Sarah can give you audio on the transcripts you want to use. Take the transcripts—these are just copies—and use them to put this together into a narrative, then run it as soon as possible. However, you cannot say how you got this, who you got it from, how it was obtained, any of that. Is that understood?”

  “A little bird gave it to me.”

  Grafton wiggled a finger at Yocke. “Nobody at all gave you anything unless you’re under oath in a courtroom and the judge orders you to answer the question. Then and only then can you give my name, and only to keep from going to jail on contempt charges.”

  I couldn’t resist. “If you are really ambitious, Jack, you could give the judge the finger and go to jail standing up for the First Amendment. The network would have you out by Labor Day and you’d be a rock star. The female anchors would be bopping you off-camera.”

  “Or on,” Sarah said brightly.

  Callie Grafton didn’t say a word.

  Sarah, Jack Yocke, and Callie Grafton left a half hour later. Since I’d made such a horse’s ass out of myself over the admiral’s room, I thought I had better wait to meet the villains, if they came. If they didn’t come, all would be well. Since I couldn’t stay awake all night I called a couple of colleagues, Willis Coffee and Travis Clay. I had known and worked with them for years. Willis agreed to relieve me at midnight. “Bring a shotgun,” I said.

  Saturday morning Nanya Friend went to the office. Running the CIA was a seven-days-a-week job. She was up to her eyeballs in reports and phone calls from senators, the White House, and the FBI when Grafton’s senior executive assistant brought her a court document that had been served upon the gate guards. It was a cease and desist order signed by a federal district judge. Friend told the receptionist to hold the telephone calls and settled down to read it.

  Upon information received, Senator Harlan Westfall alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency was monitoring his telephone calls and had installed listening devices in his computers. He went on for a page or so, leading up to the allegation that all this was grossly illegal. The judge had found that an injunction would probably be granted if the allegations were proven at a hearing, but considering their sensational nature and the fact that there would be no legal way for the said agency to monitor the said senator, a cease and desist order should be immediately issued. And it was. The thing was stapled to the back of the document. A date two weeks in the future was set for a hearing in United States District Court.

  Friend called Sarah Houston and asked her to come to her office. When she arrived, Nanya showed her the court order.

  Sarah read it carefully and handed it back. “So what do you want me to do, Ms. Friend?”

  Nanya Friend knew Jake Grafton, and she knew the admiral was playing a dangerous game. She also thought Jake Grafton knew the risks he was taking. She turned the question around. “What do you suggest?”

  “We’ve made transcripts of every word Westfall has uttered as well as every word uttered in his presence since we got the bugs in. Every word. The admiral wants those transcripts. He already has a stack of them.”

  “What about this court order?”

  “We’re obeying the court order,” Sarah Houston said. “Westfall has already gone dark. We’re not hearing anything from Westfall unless someone else whom we are monitoring calls him. I think you should pass this document to Admiral Grafton. He’s still the director of this agency.” Sarah Houston stopped right there. She was unwilling to tell Ms. Friend about Grafton’s deal with Jack Yocke. Grafton could tell Friend whatever he wanted her to know, Sarah thought. Two weeks! America would die whimpering or explode into civil war long before anyone had to face a federal judge.

  Friend was not stupid and knew that she was not getting the whole picture. The silence shrieked. Friend broke it with the comment, “That he is.”

  “An assassination attempt was made on a Russian under interrogation at a safe house,” Sarah said. “The assistant director of this agency shot the director, almost killing him, and murdered two people—this has gone way beyond court orders and nice little statutes. It’s gone way beyond poisonous politics and impeachment of the president. We’re into murder and treason.”

  “Treason?”

  “Treason,” Sarah said flatly. “A conspiracy to bring down the government is treason.”

  Friend decided she didn’t want to touch that comment. She said, “Levy said you shot Jack Norris.”

  Sarah’s head bobbed. “That I did. Shot him dead. I put five bullets into him. He was trying to kill me and Tommy Carmellini with the rifle he used to shoot Jake Grafton.” She made a gesture, dismissing the whole subject, then asked, “How did Westfall find out he was being monitored?”

  Friend’s eyes narrowed and she scrutinized the younger woman. “Obviously someone told him. Any idea who?”

  Sarah Houston considered her answer. “Jack Norris is the most likely source. We think he initiated the attempted hit in Utah. But perhaps he didn’t tell Westfall that he was being monitored by the agency. The timing isn’t quite right. We’re mining the telephone numbers of people who talked to Westfall. We should know something soon.”

  “Try to do that,” the acting director said. “I’m going to the hospital this afternoon to see Admiral Grafton. I’ll show him this. Meanwhile I have to talk to Robert Levy again. The FBI is getting a tremendous amount of heat. Levy thinks this agency, and Admiral Grafton, know a lot more than we are sharing.”

/>   “We certainly do,” Sarah shot back. “I hope we know enough.”

  Harlan Westfall was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He kept reviewing the conversations he had had with his political allies over the last week. But that wasn’t enough time. Ten days. No, two weeks, or three. Maybe more. The FBI agent didn’t know.

  Jake Grafton. That… that… Who would have believed that an agency of the federal government would monitor him, the Senate Minority Leader?

  No wonder the battery in his cellphone wouldn’t hold a charge: it never rested. It had been constantly on, transmitting everything it heard. Westfall had stopped his car on the Chain Bridge over the Potomac, and as motorists behind him honked and shouted, got out of the car and threw the cellphone over the railing into the river.

  He felt better without it. Felt clean. The only consolation was that that asshole Grafton would never be able to use recordings he and his agency had obtained illegally. Feloniously. No judge in America would allow that crap into his courtroom.

  The IT people were going over all the computers in his office at the Senate Office Building and at his condo. Apparently all were infected by a virus that turned them into listening devices. Outrageous. That Grafton! He had to go, if he didn’t die. Maybe he would die. He certainly deserved to go to the graveyard. A coffin would be the perfect place for him!

  The CIA had gotten too damn big and evil for its britches. He would introduce a bill in the Senate to kill the agency, to split up its functions. Perhaps Congress should fire all the seventeen thousand maggots at Langley. No pensions. Just fire the sons of bitches. Even the Republicans would be outraged when they understood what Grafton’s CIA had done. And the people at Langley who knew about this, who helped do it, they should be prosecuted. Levy at the FBI would love to hammer them. Perhaps we need another special prosecutor.

  He sat in his office thinking about that as the tech people checked the office for bugs.

  Harlan Westfall would get even. Grafton would rue the day he strapped on Harlan Westfall.

  Then his thoughts turned to Vaughn Conyers. He was probably behind this. He probably told Grafton to do it. We’ll take that son of a bitch down!

  As he thought about Vaugh Conyers, Harlan Westfall wished he had recordings of everything that bastard said in the Oval Office for the last two years. Everything! The irony of that wish didn’t cross his mind.

  No one came to shoot Jake Grafton at the hospital Friday night or Saturday morning. I relieved Travis Clay, who had relieved Willis Coffee. The agency security guys also had a man on duty.

  Nanya Friend came to the hospital Saturday afternoon and stayed for an hour and left. After she left I went in to see Grafton. All the other patients up and down the hallway had their television babysitter on, but Grafton didn’t.

  He looked tired. “Hey, Admiral.”

  “Hey, Tommy.”

  “Would you like your television on? Washington is trying to incinerate itself. The impeachment, Russian money, accusations right and left, shouts of treason. America is tearing itself apart.”

  He looked sad. “This is the end game. Both sides are trying to destroy the other.”

  “Putin,” I said. “This is what he wanted.”

  “Oh, no doubt he’s enjoying the show, but this mess is American-made. We did it to ourselves.”

  “Barry Sotero. He and Anton Hunt. This is right down their alley.”

  “It wasn’t Barry,” Grafton said softly. He couldn’t speak much above a whisper. “And it wasn’t Hunt. Neither is smart or subtle enough for this maneuver.”

  “So who?”

  He told me.

  I didn’t believe it. “Got any proof?”

  “None. And we need to get some. I want you to get whatever you need to wire this room for sound and video. Put a computer across the hallway to capture every whisper or fart.”

  I thought he had lost his mind, but I played along. “When?”

  “Now. The other guys can watch for assassins. I doubt we’ll have any this evening or tomorrow, but I want that stuff installed, checked, and in perfect working order by tomorrow night.”

  “When Yocke broadcasts?”

  “Yes.”

  I was at a loss for words. Finally I said, “You going to watch Yocke on your TV?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it. Now go to Langley and get what you need.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Go, Tommy. It’s the only solution that makes sense.”

  So I left him lying there, took the elevator to the ground floor and walked across the parking lot to my truck. A light rain was falling from a gray sky. The puddles weren’t very deep, but I stomped in them anyway. The poor devil had lost his marbles. The job had been too much. He should have retired last year.

  I felt sorry for Callie.

  Jack Yocke’s Sunday evening show originated in a studio at the local Fox station in Washington. With over ten hours of audio to be edited down to a one-hour show, complete with streamers along the bottom of the screen for those who couldn’t quite hear what was being said, Yocke had a huge task getting ready for his Sunday night broadcast. His producer and an unpaid intern helped sort the material and offered suggestions. Commercials would eat up part of his hour: Yocke knew he was just scratching the surface with the audio intercepts that he would have time to air. And Grafton had only given him intercepted conversations in which Senate Minority Leader Harlan Westfall and House Speaker Judy Mucci participated.

  At first Yocke was tempted to limit the conversations to the attack on Conyers via impeachment, but he realized that story could wait for a few weeks. After tonight he might not have a television show. “We’ll go with the hottest stuff first,” he told his producer and intern.

  “This stuff sizzles,” the producer said. He was a thirty-something skinny guy with lumberjack facial hair and a ponytail. “How sure are you that this stuff is real?”

  That was certainly a valid question. If Yocke was the victim of a War of the Worlds fiction production, his career would be as dead as King Tut. The damage to the network would be incalculable.

  “Absolutely certain.”

  “Where’d you get this stuff?”

  “From an unimpeachable source.”

  When the producer took a potty break Saturday evening, he decided to visit the executive suite. Even if Yocke were willing to risk his career, the producer wasn’t. Twenty minutes after the producer returned to the studio, Yocke was summoned to the executive offices.

  The manager of the local station didn’t pretend he didn’t know what was going on. “Tell me about these telephone recordings you are going to use tomorrow night.” He was in his fifties and had begun, like Yocke, on a newspaper before making the leap to television. His name was Stu Metz.

  So Yocke told how he visited CIA Director Jake Grafton in his hospital room on Friday and was given this material by Grafton, on the condition that he not reveal his source. “Is it genuine?”

  “Of course. We compared tapes of Westfall and Mucci and the voice prints match up perfectly.”

  “Did the CIA have warrants for telephone taps?” Metz asked.

  “No.”

  “So these recordings are illegal.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your deal with Grafton—can you ever reveal your source?”

  “Under oath in a courtroom to avoid a contempt citation.”

  Metz frowned. “What if he denies it?”

  “He won’t. I’ve known him for years and he’s given me my biggest stories. Jake Grafton plays straight and fair, and he’s one of the few in this town who does.”

  “I want to see the show when you get it finished. Then we’ll decide if we are going to run it.”

  “It’s your network.”

  “I just work here,” Stu Metz said. “And I want to keep this job. I like it. I’ve got a mortgage and two car payments to make every month. However, I do know the guys who own a controlling interest in this network’s parent. They believe in cu
tting-edge journalism, but they are not interested in committing suicide delivering it. We’re in business to make a profit, not to provide full employment for the Washington legal profession.”

  “I understand. I’d better get back at it. I’ll call you tomorrow when I have the show in the can.”

  Jack Yocke’s intern, Gabriella Saba, was a young woman in her first year of grad school at George Washington University. She was shocked at the vitriol pouring forth from the computer. Mucci and Westfall! Who would have believed it? When she went home at nine on Saturday night, she told her boyfriend about the show.

  He was a bit farther left on the political scale that Gabriella, and so on Sunday morning after she had left for work, he called a buddy whose wife worked for Judy Mucci and told him about the show. “The congresswoman’s in it, Gabby says.”

  “And these are telephone taps?”

  “That’s what Gabby said.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  “She didn’t know. Yocke refused to say. My guess would be FBI.”

  “Holy… Thanks for calling.” And the buddy hung up.

  At eleven on Sunday morning, Judy Mucci called Stu Metz. “I hear you have some illegal wiretaps one of your people is going to use on a show tonight.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “That’s beside the point. Is it true?”

  “I’m not a lawyer. I’m a journalist.”

  “I give you fair warning, Metz. If you run anything obtained illegally that features my voice, I’ll sue your damned network until hell won’t have it.”

  “The courthouse is open Monday through Friday from nine to five,” Stu Metz told her.

  Then Metz called his boss in New York and told him about Yocke’s show and the speaker’s threat.

  “What’s Yocke got that’s so hot?”

  “I haven’t heard it yet.”