by J C Ryan
And it was the honorable and patriotic way.
It didn’t hurt his feelings any that he’d also get a chance to spend time alone with Daniella. In his eyes, she was the perfect woman. Slightly above average height for a female, she was, nevertheless, enough shorter than his six feet two inches to make him feel manly when standing next to her, even when she was wearing those ridiculous four-inch heels women seemed to favor these days. He guessed she must be about five six, maybe five seven. Her thick, shoulder-length, chestnut hair looked just right to run his fingers through, usually styled in loose waves. Her deep blue eyes were startling against her flawless tan.
Crane shook. Mooning over her beauty wasn’t going to solve his dilemma.
His next move was to contact the subject of his attraction, White House Press Secretary Daniella Stewart, and invite her to dinner. He hinted he had some information she’d definitely want to know about.
She met him at the best steak house he could afford, and they exchanged pleasantries while waiting for their meals to arrive. Crane could tell Daniella was impatient to hear about the information he had, but he couldn’t mention the nature of it in a public place, even at a whisper.
After the server left them alone with their food, Crane took a small bundle of papers from his inside pocket and handed it across the table to Daniella. He felt a bit of apprehension. He’d tried to write his questions in non-confrontational language, but the likelihood of his ever being able to date Daniella after this was slim to none if she read them.
“Daniella, what’s in these papers is controversial, and for the President’s eyes only. I’d have asked for one-on-one time with him, but I thought it best if you show him this first. Would you deliver them to him?”
Daniella looked down at the folded bundle, which wasn’t sealed. “For his eyes only, but you didn’t seal them?”
Howard nodded. “I trust you.” It was a ploy, to be sure. But he’d bet a fortune nothing would make her look at the questions now. “One more thing, Daniella. The story is time-sensitive. If he chooses not to answer me within ten days, I’m going to have to run with it. Will you tell him that?”
Daniella’s tone turned frosty along with her expression. “That sounds like a threat, Howard.”
“No. It’s just a fact, nothing more.”
“And if the President takes it as a threat?”
“I can’t control how he’ll react. But I’ll guarantee this. If I have to break this story without his side of it, there’ll be hell to pay. Believe me. You don’t have to tell him that. If there’s any truth in the allegations, he’ll know it as soon as he sees the questions.”
He watched her tuck the papers into her purse.
With his last statement, he’d opened the possibility she’d look at the documents after all. He couldn’t be concerned about his love life or lack thereof, though, not when the President of the United States might be a criminal of the worst sort.
Chapter 15 - Ten more days
March 1
President Grant re-read the questions his press secretary had passed him with dismay and then handed them to his chief of staff. He wandered over to the windows to look out at the White House Rose Garden, the stalks of the rose bushes just beginning to turn green in anticipation of spring.
He wondered if he’d be there by the time the roses bloomed.
Behind him, Scott Eadie, Chief of Staff, first turned pallid and then exploded. “What the hell! Where’d this come from?”
Sam half turned. “Keep reading. He signed it.”
When Scott finished reading, he looked up and found the President looking at him. “I know Howard Crane,” Grant said. “He asks the toughest questions during my press conferences. I know he’s not a supporter, but I’ll give him this. He had the integrity to approach me first and not trumpet it out in the media first.”
“But how could he have gotten this?” Scott whispered. “He must have a source inside the White House—close to you, Mr. President.”
“Scott, you know our enemy. For God’s sake, they even had George Robertson under their thumb. Does it surprise you that they would have someone else? A high-ranking someone, who’s kept a low profile?”
“Mr. President, this is a fiasco. There’s no way out that doesn’t end with you in jail and the party out of office.”
“I knew I was carrying the risk of exposure when I made my decisions. I’m satisfied I did the right thing, and if I go down because of it, so be it,” the President replied.
“But Mr. President—”
Scott didn’t get any further. “I think we need Bill, James, and Irene in here for a powwow immediately.”
“I’ll get hold of them right away, sir.”
Half an hour later, a breathless Irene arrived on the heels of Bill and James and apologized. “Sorry! I was—”
“It’s all right,” the President interrupted. “I know you have a life. I’m sorry to have disturbed it.” He waved Irene into a seat and gestured for Scott to explain.
“Earlier this evening, Daniella Stewart brought us this list of questions,” he began, waving the papers. “Very disturbing questions, I have to say. And the message from the journalist who handed her the list is he is going to publish the story in ten days. If we provide answers, he will publish those as well.”
With that, he began to read the questions, interrupted periodically by exclamations of enragement from Bill, James, and Irene.
When he came to the end of the last question, he looked up at them and said, “We have to formulate a response, or a plan, or some way out…,” he trailed off. Abruptly, he sat down. “What a clusterfuck.”
“Scott,” chided the President gently.
“Apologies, Mr. President, Irene. But I feel that’s exactly what it is,” Scott replied.
Bill spoke up. “Scott’s right; it’s a titanic Charlie Foxtrot. But right now, we’ve got to consider our options.”
“Blackmail or threaten Howard Crane,” the chief of staff suggested.
“No, that I won’t do,” Grant said firmly. “We have enough trouble as it is. We can’t and won’t use illegal means to silence Crane. Anyway, even if we could silence him, his source would just go to someone else.
“We can’t go after his source, even if the information was obtained illegally—unfortunately, journalists are protected by law against having to reveal their sources.”
“Not to mention, that would just bring more attention to the whole pile of shit,” Scott moaned. At an admonishing glance from the President, he amended it to, “whole pile of crap.”
“Scott, no matter what we call it, the reality we have to face is that everything is true. That is what happened,” Grant reminded him.
“What if we offer him a deal? Prior notice of breaking news events in return for not breaking this story?” Irene offered.
“Wouldn’t work,” Bill said. “This one will get him a Pulitzer. I doubt there’d be anything we could offer that would stop him. What could be better than this, from his perspective? He will bring the President and his party down in one fell swoop—he will be a hero.
“The point we’re missing is this is not about Howard Crane. This is about the force behind him. That force is out to destroy the President, his party, and everyone who was involved with this.
“If Crane doesn’t publish it, someone else will. You can bet your sweet a… sorry, you can bet your life on it.”
They sat glumly, trying to come up with a better solution.
“I know,” said James. “Issue an Executive Privilege Order classifying all the information as top-secret. That way, we can threaten him with jail if he publishes.”
“Two problems with that,” Grant answered. “First, criminal behavior by the President can’t be top-secret, even if much of this subject matter really is. That would lead to a situation where a felonious President can’t be brought to justice. All I have to do to turn us into a dictatorship after that is to appear on TV on horseback without m
y shirt.
“In Russia and a few other countries, maybe. In America, no chance.”
“And the second thing?” James asked.
The chief of staff answered for Grant. “Let’s say he does. Then the journalist publishes a story that says, ‘I have information about criminal behavior by the President, but I can’t print it because he classified it.’ How’s that going to go over in an election year? It would hand the election to the other party, that’s what.”
“We could tell Crane the truth and appeal to his patriotism,” Irene suggested. The others just stared at her in disbelief. “What?” she asked.
“The whole truth is a dangerous thing in the hands of an ambitious journalist,” the President answered. “And besides, this journalist is of the opposite political persuasion. As much as I’d like to think an appeal to his patriotism would work, I can’t trust that it will. But some of it’s going to have to come out. We’ll have to sanitize some of it for the sake of national security, of course.”
“Sam! Doing that means you’ll probably go to jail!” Bill exclaimed.
“I don’t see any alternative. Maybe I could pardon myself and anyone else involved,” Grant quipped. “Or the new president could do it. Maybe I should start wooing the other side.”
Scott Eadie grinned. “Nah, your new Veep owes you for his office. He’ll take your seat, and he’d pardon you right away. Which is lucky, because the newly-elected President won’t take office for ten months or so. That’s a long stretch in the slammer, and if this comes out, like you said, the new President’s likely to be of the opposite political persuasion anyway.”
James brought them back to business. “Mr. President, I recall our conversation over breakfast one morning shortly after the raid on the Saudi facility outside Mecca. The three of us” —James pointed to Bill, Irene, and himself— “made you a promise then we would stand by you if this situation ever arose.
“I’m prepared to take the fall. The rest of you stay out of it. You can pardon me on your last day in office. I need a bit of a break in any event.”
President Grant was on his feet. He had turned his back on them and was looking out the window. What they couldn’t see was he was fighting back tears. After a long silence, he turned slowly and spoke softly, “James, I appreciate that more than you will ever know.
“But that’s not going to happen. I’m prepared to face the music. I wouldn’t run away from the consequences of the decisions I made in good faith and the best interest of my country when I had to.
“If I must go to jail, then so be it—I’m prepared to accept that. What I won’t do is let anyone who works for me take the blame. I’ll also not reveal top-secret information that could endanger the US just to save my own skin. I did what I did at the time because it was in the interest of national security, and it was the right thing to do.
“And in the interest of national security, I can’t and won’t give any top-secret information to the press, or the courts, or a Congressional Oversight Committee, even though it could save me from prosecution.”
Irene snapped her fingers. “That’s it! We need to buy time!”
Grant didn’t know what extra time might do for him, but it couldn’t hurt.
So, he called in Daniella and handed her the papers. “Your friend has presented us with a dilemma. This story touches on national security. We need more than ten days to answer.
“If you agree to help, it could put you in a bad position, so think carefully before you agree.
“First, read the documents, ask what you want to know, and then decide if you want to help. You’ve got no obligation to help. You have my word, your position on my staff is secure.”
Daniella paled as she read the papers. She looked up at him to find him gazing at her with an open expression.
“Mr. President… is this... ah… is it…?” she stammered.
“Yes, Daniella, it’s true, and I want to warn you there is probably a lot more to come,” he answered without hesitation.
She’d admired the man, helped him get elected to office, and served as his spokeswoman since before he became president. She trusted him. He was an honorable man, and she respected him as much as she respected her own father.
“Yes, I’ll help. And yes, I know I don’t have to and that I might end up in a bad position, as you’ve put it, Mr. President. But I have no hesitations.”
“Thank you, Daniella. Please keep me posted.”
***
At a different restaurant, this time one of her choosing, Daniella let her expression soften and leaned forward to plead her case with Howard. His gaze was on her low-cut blouse, so she believed the battle half-won.
“Howard, the recipient of your letter sends his thanks that you were considerate enough to go to him before publishing your story. And I thank you for coming to me with your questions.
“I’ve been asked to tell you there’s much more to the story than meets the eye, and most of it touches on national security. More time is needed to prepare the answers—it is critical to have more time.”
Howard’s eyes lifted to look into hers. Worried that she was losing him, she slowly put out a soft hand, covered his with hers, and lowered her voice. “I need more time, Howard.” She looked at him with pleading blue eyes. “I’m authorized to give you prior notice of breaking news events, if you’ll hold off. Just for a while,” she added.
Crane looked away, and she thought she’d overplayed her hand.
But then he turned his hand face up and grasped hers. “Ten more days,” he said. Almost apologetically, he added, “That’s really it. If I don’t break the story in the time I was given by my source, I’ll lose it to another reporter. You understand, don’t you? If you lose me, you’ll have to practice your charms on someone else, who might not feel the same about you as I do.” He smiled.
“Perfectly,” she breathed. He gulped as she leaned over the table to kiss his cheek. “Thank you, Howie.”
Chapter 16 - A hand-delivered package
Kelly leaned back into the arms of Russell McCormick and sighed. The more she tried to untangle the Gordian knot of the source of the information leak, the more people she found who could have been that source.
How could such a crucial secret have become so widespread?
“What is it, Kell?” Russell asked.
“I can’t get my head around it. This is the most open top-secret, Q Clearance, eyes-only information I’ve ever heard of.”
“Never mind all that. Let’s work through it. How does the information get disseminated again?” Russell knew the answer, but asking the question served to focus Kelly. Together, they could trace the path the information took from there.
“Okay. The original plates are at Carter Devereux’s ranch in Canada. Freydís. They’ve got a team of techs and translators working on it, about ten people. The contents of the plates are fed through a computer translation algorithm, and then humans check to make sure it makes sense, editing as required.
“After that, the translations, in digital form, are placed on mass storage devices, which are locked inside a steel box. So, the first place for a leak is among the people working on Freydís.
“The box can only be opened by the retinal scan of a handful of authorized people, including Devereux, Bill Griffin, James Rhodes, Irene O’Connell, and the President. Unless those individuals are involved, there’s no way for the leak to happen during transport.
“The box is transported by plane to DC, where either Rhodes or O’Connell pick it up in person and transport it to CIA headquarters, and Griffin personally locks it in a secure vault. Again, unlikely for the leak to happen in that part of the chain, unless those people are involved.
“However, the antimatter information, specifically, was given to three people at DARPA, who all work with the information and know where it came from. So, that puts them on the suspect list as well.
“Right now, everyone is a suspect, and the people I’ve named, the
team at Freydís, and the DARPA people are in the top tier of suspects.
“I’ve got to consider that the second tier could be involved as well. That’s the pilots and crew of the transport plane.”
“Don’t waste too much time on them,” Russell said. “Despite what they show us in the movies, there is no way to defeat the retinal scans.”
“Right, makes sense. It still drives me crazy that I can dig into the background and setup surveillance on most of them, but just to keep up appearances, we can’t touch some of the suspects. I’m forced to start at the one end and work my way through everyone in the hope I’ll eventually get to them through the process of elimination.”
Russell hesitated. Was she saying what he thought she meant? “And those are?”
“Griffin, Rhodes, O’Connell, and God forbid, the President.”
Russell whistled. “Wow, you don’t pull your punches, do you? So, what if it comes down to those four? What will you do?”
“Let’s just hope it doesn’t. But for now, I don’t trust anyone. Everyone in that chain is a suspect. They all have opportunity. I may need to find motive before I can go after any of them, but if I do, I’m going in with blazing guns. I will get to the bottom of it.
“Nobody kills three-hundred and fifty servicemen and gets away with it on my watch.”
True to her word, Kelly ordered intensive surveillance on everyone but the four VIPs. Her team bugged their homes, their phones, their cars, computers—everything.
To her relief, the meteorite story and repetition thereof worked well enough as media speculation about the blast died down as other news took over the headlines. That gave her leeway to do her job properly. But nearly two weeks passed without a breakthrough. It was beginning to look like she’d have to make herself very unpopular, not to mention potentially damage her career, by expanding her investigation to the four VIPs.