by Vince Flynn
A month later she’d lost five pounds and was set on losing at least another five. She’d talked to her dentist about getting some veneers for her teeth and was finally convinced it was time to have a little minor face work done. Just around her eyes. None of that Botox stuff, though. She’d come across one too many of those crazy bitches at fund-raisers. They looked like freaks, walking around with that stupid, wild-eyed permafrost expression. She wasn’t going to complain to her colleagues about it, but there was no doubt it was much more difficult for a woman to do this job.
As Lonsdale slid her feet into a pair of black pumps, she reminded herself to keep that placid expression on her face. Slowly but surely she was reprogramming herself to be more self-conscious about the faces she made. She stood and grabbed the bottom of her silver jacket, giving it a tug. Down the aisle she went, tucking first her shoulder-length raven black hair behind her left ear and then her right. As she reached the well, she turned right and slowed as she passed her party’s leadership table.
“Wonderful job, gentlemen,” she said with false sincerity. She stopped in front of the senior senator from Illinois and bent forward. With a congenial smile on her face she said, “Get your shit together, Dickie. You’re embarrassing all of us.”
Lonsdale left the floor and entered the cloakroom. Two of her staffers were waiting for her. A man and a woman, or more accurately, a boy and a girl. The girl had her burgundy leather briefing folder clutched tightly against her perky breasts, and was wearing a short-sleeved ivory cashmere sweater. Lonsdale suddenly resented the woman’s youth. That and the fact that she was pissed about losing the vote caused her to ask a bit impatiently, “What now?”
The woman, in her early twenties, tilted her briefing folder forward and scanned her notes. “You have a photo opportunity with the Pipefitters Union…”
Lonsdale listened as her aide spoke excitedly about the day’s remaining events. It was an entirely boring litany, and she unfortunately had no choice but to attend each and every one. The boy stepped forward. His name was Trent or Trevor or something like that.
“Wade Kline is waiting for you in your office.”
“Which one?” Lonsdale asked, trying to sound uninterested.
“Upstairs.”
As the senior female senator in her party, Lonsdale had an office in the Capitol as well as her larger one in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
“Did he say what he wants?”
“No.”
Without wasting another moment, she turned and left the cloakroom. She took one step toward the stairs and then headed for the elevator. Her heart was beating fast enough over the prospect of seeing her favorite Justice Department employee. She didn’t want to show up flushed and out of breath. Paula or Pastel or Pearl or whatever her name jumped into the elevator along with Trent. She waited to see which button her boss pressed. Down meant the tram over to Dirksen and the Pipefitters and up meant the handsome lawyer from the Justice Department. Lonsdale pressed the button for the fourth floor and the aide immediately began pecking an e-mail on her BlackBerry that would alert the rest of the senator’s staff that she would be late for the photo op.
Lonsdale’s Capitol office consisted of five rooms: a reception area that was staffed by two receptionists, a conference room, a bullpen stuffed with five legislative assistants, a good-sized office for her chief of staff, and a massive office for herself with a veranda that looked out over the Supreme Court, the Russell, Dirksen, and Hart Senate Office Buildings, and Union Station. Lonsdale knew Kline would be waiting in her office. She walked past her receptionists, ignoring their pleas for a word, and she continued straight into her office, closing the door behind her.
Kline didn’t bother to stand. He was sprawled out on the leather couch, his suit coat open, his narrow waist and lean chest on display. He looked at the senator from Missouri and said, “You look fantastic. What is that, Donna Karan?”
“It is, as a matter of fact.” Lonsdale placed the toe of her left foot out in front of the other foot, bent her knee, and held out her arms, striking an elegant pose. Her silver jacket and matching skirt were accessorized with a black belt, black blouse, and black pumps. She did not look fifty-eight.
“You’ve lost weight.”
“Please.” Lonsdale spun and walked over to her desk. She was extremely pleased he’d noticed.
The office looked like a European drawing room with its fifteen-foot gilded plaster ceilings, massive stone fireplace, and large oil portraits of well-fed men from centuries before. Lonsdale opened the top left-hand drawer of her desk and pulled out a pack of Marlboro Lights. She held the pack up for Kline to see.
“Care to join me?”
“Why do you think I’m here?” Kline smiled. “Other than to see you, of course.”
The two headed out onto the veranda, like high school kids sneaking a smoke at lunch. It was a gorgeous afternoon. The sun was out, there was a hint of humidity in the air, and the flowers were blossoming. Lonsdale looked into Kline’s eyes as he lit her cigarette and she felt herself stir. She looked away and exhaled a cloud of smoke. It was his damn eyes, she told herself. They were this crazy blue gray that sucked you right in. If you looked at them for too long you’d begin to think of things that you shouldn’t be thinking of in the middle of the afternoon.
“That thing you wanted me to dig into,” Kline said as he finished lighting his own cigarette.
The spell was broken, and Lonsdale was momentarily confused. She shook the flustered look from her face. “What thing?”
“These black-bag guys over at Langley. Rapp and Nash.”
“Oh, those two,” moaned Lonsdale. “Please tell me you’re getting ready to indict them.”
“I wish, but at the rate things are going, we’ll both be retired by the time I actually get a chance to question them.”
“They’re stonewalling you?”
“I wouldn’t even say stonewalling. I can’t track them down. For a month straight I’ve been requesting meetings with them and I’ve got nothing. I finally got Director Kennedy to show up on Friday. What a coldhearted bitch she is, by the way.”
“Not my favorite person in Washington.”
“Well, she and I locked horns and it wasn’t pretty. I pretty much told her that if she didn’t put Rapp and Nash in front of me by this Friday I’d start serving subpoenas.”
“And?”
Kline took a drag and shrugged his shoulders. “The woman’s a coldhearted bitch. I don’t know what to tell you. She just sat there and stared back at me.” Kline looked off in the distance toward Union Station and after a moment said, “To be honest, she kind of gave me the creeps.”
“How so?”
“I got the impression she’d like to hurt me.”
Lonsdale giggled like a little girl.
“It’s not funny,” Kline said with a frown. “She has a lot of power.”
Lonsdale covered her mouth. She was laughing because she herself would like to hurt Kline, but probably not in the way Kennedy would like to. “Sorry…I didn’t mean to be so insensitive.” She reached out and touched his firm bicep. “You’re a big boy. I think you’re more than capable of taking care of yourself.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’ve put a lot of nasty people away, but these guys are different. They’re not your average criminal.”
“I disagree. That’s exactly what they are, and that’s why they need to be locked up.”
“Barbara,” Kline said in a tone absent frustration, “I am not lacking in conviction. I firmly believe that these guys need to be brought to justice, but ignoring the fact that they are dangerous would be foolish.”
“I’ll grant you that point, but now is not the time to be timid. This fictitious war on terror has dragged on for far too long. Now is the time to act. Did you see the damn Post this morning?”
“Yes.”
“You need to get that reporter to sit down in front of a grand jury and tell you who his sources were for
that article and then you need to start handing out subpoenas.”
Putting reporters under oath would not work. It had been tried by a lot of prosecutors and about all it did was ensure that the reporter would get turned into a martyr and offered a big advance for a book. “It would help,” Kline said, “if you could get your committees to put some pressure on them.”
“Wade…darling, I’ve tried that, and I will continue to put pressure on them. Nash will be appearing before the Intel Committee this afternoon. A one-front assault against these guys will never work. We need to squeeze them. We need to catch them in their lies.”
She watched as Kline looked away. He took a long pull off his cigarette and frowned. “What?” she asked, too impatient to wait for him to speak his mind.
“The president.”
“What about him?”
“I hear he and Kennedy are close. I’ve even heard he’s fond of Rapp.”
“Don’t worry about the politics of this thing. That’s my arena. Just get these bastards and make an example of them. Show the American people that we are a nation of laws.” Lonsdale pointed a perfectly manicured fingernail at him and added, “You do that, Wade, and you’ll be able to write your ticket in this town.”
CHAPTER 32
CAPITOL HILL
NASH rested both arms on the table and looked up at the nine men and women sitting in judgment. The only good thing about the briefing so far was that six of the members hadn’t even bothered to attend—ten, if you counted the four ex officio members—the old-timers who were granted a special status so they could keep a hand in the affairs of one of the more important committees. Nash bet if they were over in Room 216 and the meeting was open to the press, they’d all be there mugging for the cameras, showing their constituents how hard they were working. Feeding their insatiable egos.
But they weren’t, they were in the Chamber, one of the most, if not the most, secure rooms on Capitol Hill. There was no ornate seal or gold script announcing to anyone who walked down the hall that this was where the Intelligence Committee met. Just two letters in caps and three numbers—SH 219. The SH stood for Senate Hart, and the 219 for second floor, room 19. The entire space was encased in steel, making it impossible for electromagnetic waves to enter or leave the room. The only people allowed access were committee staffers, the most vetted on the Hill, committee members and only their most senior and vetted staffers and those who were invited to testify or brief. The room itself was more of a suite with smaller rooms for individual briefings and a larger room for the entire committee to sit and hold a hearing in supposed secrecy.
Cell phones, cameras, and digital recorders were collected at the door. What was said in SH 219 was supposed to stay in SH 219, but more and more that wasn’t the case. Nash didn’t blame it on the Intelligence Committee staffers, he blamed it on the committee members themselves. While most adhered to the rules, Nash and his coworkers felt that at least half of the members leaked secure intelligence on a regular basis. Some of it was the result of idle gossip. They were politicians who were asked to speak to group after group all day long, seven days a week. When you talked that much it was hard to remember what was okay to say and what wasn’t. The ones who were really dangerous, though, were the senators who held positions of power within their own party. They drank the Kool-Aid and bought into the idea that the other side was trying to destroy them and therefore it was okay to leak classified information if it made their opponents look bad.
In another time these power brokers would have been hanged or worse, but in this great democracy, this coequal branch of government closed ranks and protected itself. They saw in their opponents the same weaknesses they saw in themselves, so when a scandal broke from within their exclusive little club, they pulled their punches and let their colleague off the hook. But God forbid if anyone else broke the rules.
Nash was grateful that O’Brien had decided to show up. No one was willing to admit it, but Nash knew his colleagues were worried he was coming unhinged and didn’t trust him to keep his temper in check in front of the committee. They were right because they were only twenty minutes into the session and he was thoroughly disgusted. Of the nine senators in attendance only two of them could be considered pro-CIA. Six were firmly in the anti-CIA camp and only one of the six independents on the committee had shown up. That part was surprising. They didn’t want to sit through all the blustering and threats. The moderates would come in later and read the transcripts or get briefed by one of the committee staffers.
Unless one of the senators had some damaging information, nothing eventful was going to happen today. This was the game they played. The senators asked for the truth. Some of them wanted it and others didn’t, but they still asked. O’Brien and Nash would look up at them and lie to the same question asked nine different ways. This was the gray area that had shrunk to almost nothing before 9/11 and had since become huge. The military had tried Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and now the Intelligence Committees had an Ask and Please Don’t Tell the Truth policy. At least until the press got ahold of something and then all hell broke loose. Then they were right back to the famous “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here” scene in Casablanca.
“Mr. Nash, there are certain members of this committee who feel that you have been less than forthright with us in the past.”
Nash looked back at the senator from Vermont. The man was possibly the worst leaker on the entire committee. “Is that a question or a statement, sir?”
“Both.” The man flashed Nash a smile that looked like he wanted to eat him for dinner.
Nash would love nothing more than to tell them he had lied to them, and that they all knew he’d lied to them, and that he knew that they wanted him to lie, because he was keeping them safe, but that wasn’t how the game was played. He was in the business of deception and busting up terrorist networks and trying to save American lives. With that in mind, why in the world would he tell the truth to a committee of politicians who overwhelmingly had proven that they couldn’t keep a secret to save their lives? But he didn’t say that. Instead, he looked back respectfully at the senator and said, “Sir, if you have a more specific question, I would be more than happy to answer it.”
“What my esteemed colleague is too nice to say is that he thinks you are a liar.”
A minor uproar ensued as several of the committee members objected to the tone of the senator from Missouri. Nash turned and looked at Barbara Lonsdale. She was an attractive woman with deep brown eyes and a tiny little nose. She was always dressed in the latest designer clothes and took great pride in her appearance. At the moment, those beautiful eyes were locked on Nash and her perfectly lined lips were turned ever so slightly upward at the corners. She was obviously pleased that she had upset the decorum of the meeting.
When it had calmed down enough, Nash said, “Madam Senator, do you feel that I’m a liar?” Nash felt O’Brien nudge him under the table.
“I am a deliberate person, Mr. Nash, so I will choose my words carefully. I’m one of the members who feel that you have been less than forthright with this committee.”
“In other words, you think I’ve lied to you?”
“If that is the word you would like to use, I am fine with it.”
“Madam Senator, I can promise you that this story in the Washington Post is completely inaccurate. Why would the CIA launch an operation that is so clearly outside our mandate?”
“It is more than outside your mandate. It is illegal, and I promise both of you if I find out that either of you have lied to me, which I suspect you have, I will make sure you spend as much of your remaining days behind bars as possible.”
“Why are we indicting these men over one article written by a newspaper that has shown a consistent animosity toward the CIA? Can anyone answer that question?”
It was Senator Gayle Kendrick from Virginia. She and Lonsdale did not get along, even though they were in the same party. Kendrick was sma
rt enough to understand that one of the largest employers in her state was the CIA and its sister agencies in the National Security sphere. Kendrick also knew that when another attack occurred it would likely affect the people of her state more than those of Missouri.
“I have found in the past,” Lonsdale said, “that newspapers like the Post are usually the first to break stories like this.”
“I’m sorry, I know I haven’t served in the Senate as long as you, but I’m a little more suspicious of what I read in the newspapers.”
“I have found,” shot back Lonsdale in a very authoritative tone, “that the Post does not print articles unless sources have been checked.”
“And sources have a history of lying. If we’re to believe everything that is written in the Post, then I’d have to believe you’re currently dating a dozen or more of the most powerful men in Washington.”
It was Nash’s turn to kick O’Brien under the table. He leaned over and whispered, “This is going to be good.”
Kendrick was every bit as good-looking as Lonsdale and ten years younger, and she was also faithfully married, or at least appeared to be. It was obvious by the constipated look on Lonsdale’s face that Kendrick’s jab had hit home. Before anything further happened, though, Ralph Wassen, Lonsdale’s chief of staff, entered the room and slid around to whisper in his boss’s ear. After a brief exchange, Lonsdale stood and followed Wassen out of the room. Before Nash could think anything of it, the junior senator from Kentucky fired a question at him.
CHAPTER 33
LONSDALE and Wassen ducked back into her office in Dirksen using her private door so they could avoid the lobby and anyone who might be waiting for her. As they passed the senator’s administrative assistant, Wassen told him to hold all calls. Once inside her inner sanctum, Lonsdale kicked off her shoes and sat behind her desk. Wassen took off his jacket and pulled his tie loose. He folded his jacket once and laid it across the armrest of the long sofa. Returning to his boss’s desk, he held up his hands palms out, but before he could say anything further Lonsdale silenced him with a look. She opened a drawer and retrieved cigarettes, a lighter, and a fresh tablet of paper. She lit the cigarette, dropped the lighter, and grabbed a pen. In the middle of the page she wrote down Mitch Rapp’s name in caps.