“Doing what?”
“Talking to people.”
“Your ‘extensive resources’ probably told you I’m not very good at that,” Rodgers said.
“We heard that,” she admitted. “We also heard that you’re a quick study. It would help us all if the power brokers started to associate your face with this group.”
“A soldier who is seen is a target,” Rodgers said. “I prefer high ground or a trench.”
“Even in peacetime?” she asked.
“Is that what this is, Ms. Peterson?” Rodgers asked.
“Kendra,” she said.
“Kendra,” he nodded. “I see a lot of mobilization out there.”
“I suppose there is no such thing as neutrality in Washington.” She laughed. She removed a PalmPilot from her purse. “Would three P.M. tomorrow suit you to meet with the senator and Admiral Link?”
“Admiral Link,” Rodgers said. “I know that name.”
“Kenneth Link, the barrel-chested gentleman speaking with William Wilson,” she said. “Crew cut, red bow tie.”
Rodgers turned. “I see him. I still can’t place him.”
“He’s the former head of Naval Intelligence, later director of covert ops for the CIA,” Kendra said.
“Right,” Rodgers said. “Now I remember. I saw him at a number of NIPC meetings.” The NIPC was the National Infrastructure Protection Center. Based at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., it was founded in 1998 to bring together representatives from various U.S. intelligence agencies, as well as experts from private-sector think tanks. The NIPC was chartered to assess threats against critical infrastructures in energy, finance, telecommunications, water, and emergency services. “He was always complaining about special interests and compromise.”
“The admiral does not believe in making concessions where national security is concerned,” the woman replied. “Do you think you would have a problem working with him on a daily basis?”
“Not if we agree that there’s a difference between national security and paranoia,” Rodgers said.
“What is the difference?” she asked.
“One is a door that has a lock, the other is a door that’s completely unhinged,” Rodgers replied.
“I like it,” she said. “That’s something you can discuss together — assuming three o’clock is convenient.”
“I’ll be there,” Rodgers said.
“Good.” She tucked away her PalmPilot and once again offered her hand. “Thank you for coming, General. I hope this has been the start of a long and rewarding relationship.”
Rodgers smiled at the woman as she withdrew. He did not watch her go but turned back to the bar. He replayed their brief conversation as he finished his drink. The young woman had basically confirmed that Senator Orr would be ramping up a new party and running for president. Rodgers would enjoy being a part of that. His own politics were a little right of center. It would not be difficult supporting the Texan’s vision. Rodgers thought back to the early months at Op-Center when he and Director Paul Hood and Bob Herbert moved the newly chartered domestic-crisis organization into a two-story building at Andrews Air Force Base. They staffed the dozen departments with top people like Darrell McCaskey from the FBI, computer genius Matt Stoll, political liaison Martha Mackall, psychologist and profiler Liz Gordon, attorney Lowell Coffey III, and others. They built Striker and recruited the late Lieutenant Colonel Charles Squires to lead it. They saw their initial areas of responsibility expand from a national to an international arena. Those were exciting, rewarding times. There was also a sense of personal evolution for Rodgers. The warrior who had fought in Vietnam and had commanded a mechanized brigade in the Persian Gulf was running special ops missions in North Korea and the Bekaa Valley, rescuing hostages at the United Nations, preventing a new civil war in Spain and nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
He was making a difference.
Now I’m recruiting spies and analyzing data, he thought. It was honorable work, but there was a big difference between commanding and supervising. What was it the Chinese leader Liu Shao-ch’i had said? The true leader is an elephant. The rest are just pigs inserting scallions into their nose in an effort to look like one.
With a nod toward the bartender, Rodgers turned back to the room. There was nothing in here that appealed to him. Not the glad-handing, not the eavesdropping, not the neediness, and not the facades. But Rodgers was definitely beginning to smell onions in his own nose. It was time for a change.
Rodgers would talk to Senator Orr and Admiral Link, but first he wanted to talk to Paul Hood. For there was one concession Mike Rodgers would never make, however bored he became. It was a concept he did not think many people in this room would understand.
Mike Rodgers put loyalty above all else.
TWO
There was a time when the Liverpool-born William Wilson could not have afforded to stay in a landmark hotel like the Hay-Adams, with its view of the White House, the Washington Monument, and Lafayette Park. Or been invited to a Georgetown party hosted by a United States senator. Or been picked up by a woman who looked like this one did.
What a difference two billion dollars makes.
The lanky, six-foot-three-inch Wilson was the thirty-one-year-old inventor of the MasterLock computer technology. Launched five years before, it used a combination of keystrokes, visual cues, and audio frequencies to create hack-proof firewalls. Not content with revolutionizing computer security, Wilson bought the failing London Merchant-Farmer Bank and made it a European power-house. Now he was about to go on-line with MasterBank, an on-line service that invested in European businesses. Wilson had come to Washington to meet with members of the Panel of Economic Advisors of the Congressional Committee on Banking Financial Services. He intended to lobby for an easing of foreign direct-investment restrictions that were put in place during the War on Terror. That would remove hundreds of millions of dollars from American banks and stocks. In exchange, Wilson would guarantee an equal investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in American companies. That would keep cash flow circulating in the United States, though the bulk of the profits and tax benefits would still be his.
The stunning young woman had approached him early in the evening, just minutes after he arrived. She was a reporter. After assuring him that she was not angling for an interview — her beat, she said, was the environment and meteorology — the woman asked if she could stop by later in the evening.
“I’m drawn to men who create technological quantum leaps,” she said.
Who could resist a come-on like that?
Two hours later Wilson left the party with his two bodyguards and driver. He had agreed to meet the woman at eleven P.M. There were paparazzi outside, and Wilson did not want to be photographed leaving with anyone. The world was a conservative place. He preferred to remain a champion of the financial and science sections, not a libertine of the gossip page.
Wilson had the top-floor Federal Suite, and his bodyguards had the adjoining Presidential Suite. Motion detectors had been installed outside Wilson’s door and on the floor of the balcony. If anyone tried to enter without being announced, vibrating wristbands would silently wake the bodyguards.
Wilson had ordered a 1970 Dom Perignon from room service and a light gray beluga caviar. He had candles delivered, along with a dozen roses for the bedroom night-stands. He opened his bow tie but left it hanging around his neck and sprayed a hint of Jivago Millennium above the collar. He probably did not need any of that. After all, he had made a technological quantum leap. But growing up the son of a pub owner, it made him happy to smell something other than ale and cigarettes. It made him even happier to be with women who did not smell of them.