“But using ‘Wayne’s’ car is a breach of your security protocols,” she said, frowning. Then, after a short pause, she added: “Oh.”
“What do you mean, ‘Oh’?”
“‘Oh,’ as in: ‘Oh—I get it.’”
“Get what?”
She sighed. “Don’t play dumb, Dylan. We’re in this armored tank tonight because he’s out there somewhere. So it is for security.”
He didn’t answer.
She remained quiet, too, as they emerged from her Falls Church neighborhood onto Route 66 and headed toward Washington. After a while, she said:
“You’re worried about him. And mainly for my sake, right?”
“We both just have to be a bit more cautious, that’s all . . . So, how’s the mole hunt going?”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“Yes, I am. So, how’s the mole hunt going?”
“Dylan, you’re impossible.”
“Yes, I am. So, how’s the mole hunt going?”
She punched his arm lightly. “Okay, we’ll change the subject . . . Ah, yes, the Great Mole Hunt. Grant and I are just starting to launch the plan we hashed out after our dinner a couple of weeks ago. We have to narrow down the vast list of potential suspects. So, we’re leaving multiple hooks dangling in the water, baited with the sort of information that would interest any Russian spy. But in each case, the bait is different, and accessible only to a specific, limited group of potential suspects. So if one piece of bait is taken, then the people in that group go on our short list for closer investigation.”
“How are you supposed to find out if and when somebody takes the bait?”
“That’s what has taken so long to work out. First, we need to find out which directorate the mole works in. So this week, Grant will put in a different request to each one, trying to stir the pot.”
“What do you mean? Give me a for-instance.”
“For instance, on April 15th Grant will visit the Director of Science and Technology in person and ask him to assemble his top people for what he’ll describe as an urgent, high-priority request. He’ll tell the group they need to design and supply him, within the next twelve hours, a miniaturized communications device with burst-transmission capability. He’ll say it will be left by one of our case officers in a dead drop outside of London, then picked up on the evening of April 17th for use by a newly recruited, highly placed Russian agent. Grant will give them the exact address of the supposed dead drop, so they can research the site and camouflage the item to blend in. Then he’ll say, ‘I can’t stress how important and sensitive this is. What I’ve told you must stay inside this directorate.’”
“That should arouse curiosity.”
“Exactly. Any mole in S&T will have his antenna up for anything this big. He or she will immediately notify the SVR, and they’ll hustle a team out to the dead-drop site to wait and see who their traitor is. The only access into the area is an isolated country road. Grant will hide a small surveillance team near the site to see if the SVR shows up. If they do, then we’ll know our mole is in S&T.”
“Of course, there’s no real Russian agent, and nobody will plant that device in the dead drop.”
“True. But if the SVR is tipped off about the drop, it should drive them crazy with paranoia, wondering who their traitor could be and why the drop never took place. And it will be a nice bonus if our surveillance team also gets some photos of any SVR illegals they dispatch to the site.”
“It’s a clever plan. Tell Grant I’m impressed.”
She turned to him with a smug smile. “Actually, I came up with that plan myself.”
He grinned. “Now, I’m really impressed. But a bit scared, too. I had no idea you were so sneaky, Annie Woods.”
“Just remember that, if you’re ever tempted to cheat on me, Dylan Hunter. And you’d also better remember I’m pretty good with edged weapons.”
“Ouch. Copy that.”
She spent the next few minutes describing several other schemes to smoke out the mole.
“The thing that scares us most,” she added as they crossed the Roosevelt Bridge into the city, “is the possibility that the mole is someone on the seventh floor. Grant worries it might even be one of the people who attended that confrontation meeting with him in the director’s conference room.”
“How can you determine that?”
“Grant plans to vet each of them, subtly, by dropping fake-but-juicy-sounding information on operations in progress in different locations. He’ll instruct the relevant station chiefs and case officers to be on the lookout for any increased surveillance or tell-tale reactions from their Russian counterparts, and to notify him directly if they spot anything.”
He nodded slowly, thinking it through. “I hate to say it, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s one of the top people. Somebody even higher on the totem pole than Grant.”
“Well, if it is, we have to find him or her fast—before somebody figures out what we’re up to and shuts us down. So while Grant works from the top ranks down, I’ll be working from the bottom up, in each of the directorates. If I can narrow the hunt to one directorate, then I’ll have to try to isolate a specific division. But he and I can’t be seen communicating, so I’m pretty much on my own.”
The traffic was light, so he ventured another look at her. She was staring out her passenger-side window, toward the glowing obelisk of the Washington Monument that pierced the dusk sky as they passed. The city’s lights flickered on strands of her short chestnut hair. Beneath her open, light-brown cashmere coat she wore a white silk blouse and a long, dark-brown skirt. She looked petite, feminine, vulnerable. But the fragile appearance was deceptive. He knew her strength.
“I’m so proud of you, Annie.”
She turned, raising a brow. “Thank you. What prompted that?”
“Damned if I know. Hmmm . . . could it be love?”
She looked away, but he noticed the little smile.
2
Hunter pulled into a C Street parking garage behind the Newseum, the site for the CNN-hosted town hall. To avoid being spotted together, he and Annie separated before they reached the elevators. They made their way independently to the first floor, through the heavy security, past the coat check and reserved ticket desks, and into the Annenberg Theater.
Hunter hated crowds, and his situational awareness was dialed up to the max. He decided to head up to the balcony on the right. He walked past a middle-aged Secret Service agent, feeling the man’s eyes following him as he took the aisle seat in the back row. From this darkened spot Hunter could watch everyone else and the proceedings on the stage without being visible.
Then he settled in to wait out the hour before the program began. He liked Roger Helm, and he was curious to see how well he would perform tonight against his two main rivals in this sort of setting.
More importantly, he knew that the fate of the nation would rest on which of the three men about to take the stage would become America’s next president.
At nine p.m., the CNN anchor delivered his opening monologue and introduced to the stage each of the candidates in turn. Senator Carl Spencer was the first to emerge from the wings, to the applause of his partisans among the 450 audience members. Spencer stood by his chair under the bright lights, boyishly handsome, grinning and nodding in appreciation. His gaze sought out his family in the first row.
Avery Trammel did not trust Carl Spencer to remain on message tonight. To make sure he did, Trammel had arranged conspicuous seating for himself and Julia in the second row, directly behind Spencer’s wife and children. A pointed reminder of what was at stake.
When Spencer’s eyes met his, Trammel gave a little smile and nodded. He saw Spencer’s grin waver. Still watching the senator, Trammel leaned forward and said to Jill Spencer, “You must be so proud of your husband.”
She tilted her head, smiled and nodded. “Oh, I am!” She turned back to face her husband, applauding vigorously.
For an instant, Spencer looked scared, but recovered immediately. He flashed the grin at full wattage again, pointed toward them and gave a slight wave, then took his seat. It had been but a momentary lapse, no doubt unnoticed by the millions watching at home. But that little wave told Trammel his message had been received and understood.
For the first time in weeks, he began to relax. It did not matter that the applause was louder when Roger Helm was introduced. Just as the latest polls did not matter.
None of this will matter in eight more days.
“What are you laughing at, Avery?”
Julia was looking at him strangely.
He patted her arm. “I am merely amused by the carnival of American politics.”
The candidates sat side by side in the middle of the stage, with their CNN host to their right, facing them. Crew members maneuvered cameras around the stage and on the auditorium floor below, projecting their images onto the large screen hanging behind and above them, and into millions of homes around the country. The moderator announced that the forum would begin with three-minute opening statements from each candidate.
Hunter pulled out a notepad to record his impressions.
First up, as winner of the coin toss, was the front-running Republican candidate, Governor Tom “Stonewall” Waller. To the cheers of his boisterous fans, the beefy man leaped to his feet and trotted to center of the stage. His curly black hair, twinkling blue eyes, and jutting jaw filled the screen behind him.
“Okay. Thank you, everybody,” he began. “So, let me tell you about my life and why it qualifies me to be your next president.”
Waller spent the next three minutes swaggering back and forth across the stage, making grandiose gestures as he boasted about his rags-to-riches rise. It all began in Boone County, West Virginia, he declared, as the only son of a poor coal miner who died from black lung disease. But by hard work and sheer determination, he won a football scholarship to West Virginia University. There he caught the eye of NFL scouts, became a first-round draft pick, and soon, “the star fullback” for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“That’s where I earned the nickname ‘Stonewall.’ Because that’s what my opponents thought they ran into.” Waller mugged and flexed his bicep, like a bodybuilder; the audience roared with laughter and applause.
After his football career ended, Waller landed TV and film roles, then hit it big as an action-movie star. (“You’ve all seen my movies, right?” More laughter and applause.) As he entered his fifties, his celebrity and wealth allowed him to reinvent himself once again—this time as a politician. Three years ago he ran for the governorship of his home state as a Republican, on a populist platform— “and I won in a landslide,” he crowed.
“I have succeeded spectacularly in everything I’ve ever done,” he concluded. “It’s because I am a winner—and I’ll never accept anything less than winning. I started with nothing, and with lots of privileged and powerful people against me. But I beat them all. I know you folks want to be winners, too. But the privileged and powerful are holding you down. And you can’t fight them all by yourselves. You need a champion—somebody tough enough to stand up to the Establishment big shots—somebody who will put those bastards in their place.”
He brandished his fist as his voice rose.
“I want to be your champion! I want to beat these guys for you! Because when they lose, you’ll win! And that’s gonna happen this November, when you elect ‘Stonewall’ Waller to be your next president! Thank you, my friends!”
Raucous cheers followed him as he trotted back to his seat.
In the darkness of the balcony, Hunter shook his head.
“God help us,” he muttered to himself.
Next up was Roger Helm. He rose to enthusiastic applause, took a single step forward, then stood still, waiting for the crowd noise to die down. When he spoke, it presented a deliberately low-key, dignified contrast to the bombastic Waller.
“Thank you. I am not here tonight to talk about myself or my personal success. If that interests anyone, you can look it up. Instead, I want to talk about a subject that should interest you as voters: my vision for America.”
He paused again, and the audience fell completely silent. The stage lights made his gray-blond hair look almost white, and his chiseled face projected both strength and warmth.
“Unique among all nations in world history, America was founded on a ‘live-and-let-live’ social philosophy. It was to be a beacon of liberty for the world: a country that allowed and encouraged each of us to enjoy productive lives, in peace and freedom. A land where we would relate to each other voluntarily and cooperatively, but would otherwise mind our own business. Where we would interact with each other by trading—not by taking.
“That was the unique vision of our nation’s Founders, institutionalized in our laws and in our free enterprise system. And that’s the vision that enabled America to rise to unparalleled greatness. Our nation thrived because of our mutual respect for each other, as individuals—because we viewed each other not as threats and adversaries, but as partners in friendship and trade.
“America became the greatest nation on earth because our entire system was built on ‘win/win’ social and economic relationships. Not on predatory relationships, in which one person or group wins only by making some other person or group lose. That us-against-them outlook was the dominant worldview of humanity’s tribal past. Back then, our primitive ancestors lived, not by producing wealth, but as nomadic scavengers. In such a world, the rules were: eat, or be eaten; kill, or be killed; my tribe survives only by beating your tribe. And this zero-sum, win/lose worldview filled mankind’s history with horrifying acts of plunder and warfare and bloodshed.
“Even today—despite enjoying the enormous benefits of a modern society based on ‘win/win’ relationships—too many people have never gotten out of the jungle, at least not in their minds and values. Take my opponents, for example. They would divide us into warring economic classes of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots,’ and into warring racial, ethnic, and nationality groups. But whether they divide us based on class or tribe, both accept the same relic of humanity’s violent past: the belief that you can only succeed in life at someone else’s expense. They seek to elevate themselves to the presidency by promoting such conflicts.
“If America is to continue to thrive—or even survive—we must cast off the curse of primitive, divisive tribalism, once and for all. I see a future for America based on trading, not taking—where each of us is a maker, not a taker. That was the vision of America’s Founders, and it is my vision, too. It’s that individualist vision that sets me apart from my tribalist opponents. It’s the same vision that enabled me, a kid from America’s heartland, to take nothing but an idea and build it into a dynamic, hugely successful enterprise.
“That vision has a name: the American Dream. And this is my promise to you: My commitment to restoring the American Dream will guide me every day, if you honor me by electing me to be your next president. Thank you.”
Helm sat down to thunderous applause.
Hunter found himself clapping loudly, too.
Finally, it was Senator Carl Spencer’s turn to rise. Hunter had seen him on television many times. Tonight he was surprised that the usually smooth, confident politician looked uncharacteristically nervous. On the big screen, the man’s eyes seemed to be glancing a lot at some particular spot in the audience.
Spencer began with his usual rhetoric about “compassion and economic justice for all the forgotten people left behind in America.” To Hunter, it was the tired, insincere platitudes of a rich career politician who had never known personal privation or struggle, but who postured incongruously as a man of the people.
But suddenly Spencer paused. He wet his lips with his tongue before continuing.
“Yet while my enduring commitment remains to economic justice for all, I come here tonight to raise a different concern.
“As a member of the Senate Foreign Relati
ons Committee, I gain access to important intelligence sources. Because of their highly classified nature, I cannot be too specific about some of the reports I see. However, recently I received an alarming warning from a knowledgeable intelligence official about planned terrorist attacks on the homeland.
“Now, you have heard very little from my Republican and Independent opponents about the ongoing dangers of radical Islamist terrorism on American soil. Perhaps they’ve not given the issue much thought. But protecting the American people against such threats is the first responsibility of any president. And it certainly will be my top priority as your next president.
“We need to do far more to identify the would-be Islamist terrorists in our midst, and to neutralize them before they can wreak havoc upon us—as they have all over Europe. Whatever other issues are raised tonight, I plan to focus on this topic, and to return to it repeatedly in the coming days and weeks. We are rapidly approaching a dangerous moment. And I aim to sound the alarm, loudly and clearly—before it is too late, and before my warning tonight proves sadly prophetic. Thank you.”
Spencer gave a brief, unsmiling nod, then retreated to his seat. The applause in his wake was tepid, and a buzz of voices rose around the theater. The CNN host had to call for silence before moving on to ask the candidates the first question submitted by an audience member.
“What in hell is he doing?” the woman seated in front of Hunter said to her male companion. “He sounds like a right-wing Republican tonight!”
The man shrugged. “He’s way down in the polls. Maybe he thinks by moving right, he can siphon some votes away from Waller and Helm. They call it ‘triangulation.’”
WINNER TAKES ALL: A Dylan Hunter Justice Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers Book 3) Page 22