“You would be an asset.”
“Think of this another way, Paul,” the senator said. “If this undertaking is a success, the new president might consider you for a different post. An ambassadorship, perhaps.”
That should not have been unexpected. Embassies were political coin, the medium for payback. They were the ultimate pedestal for a bureaucrat, and Hood was surely that. Still, when he heard the proposal — the hypothetical phrasing was simply the language of barter — everything changed. Against Hood’s will, his indignation deflated. He no longer viewed cooperation as capitulation. It was part of the job.
It was business.
“Let me talk to Darrell when he gets back,” Hood said. His voice was low and conciliatory. “I’ll see what he found out and where he thinks this can go. Then I’ll call you, Senator.”
“It sounds as if we have an understanding,” Debenport said hopefully.
Hood did not want to say yes. “I understand,” he replied.
“We can accept that for now,” the president interjected. “When do you expect to hear from him?”
“I’ll call him on the drive back. If he is finished with the interview, I will call the senator immediately.”
“Sounds good,” the president said. He offered his hand to Hood. “Paul, I know this is not easy. But I believe we all want the same thing. A prosperous and secure United States of America.”
“We do,” Hood agreed. He wanted to add, With the Bill of Rights intact. But he did not. And he knew, then, that he had agreed to help them.
Hood left the Oval Office in something of a daze. Debenport was right. The men did have an understanding. Not that this plan was perfect or legal, only that it would go forward. Maybe it would move by inches at first, but it would proceed because there was no clearly defined ethic.
In an ideal world, men would fight ideas with other ideas, Hood told himself. But this was far from a perfect world. Every weapon in the sociopolitical arsenal had to be used.
Including rationalization? Hood asked himself.
Is that what this was?
On one level, what the senator and the president had asked him to do was wrong. They wanted him to broaden a legitimate but still very young investigation. They wanted him to pepper it with innuendo, to create gossip and not justice. Yet on another level, while their reasons were political, their argument was not wrong. It did not matter whether Donald Orr’s vision was heartfelt or manipulative. It was impractical at best, dangerous at worst.
Hood reached his car. It was hot from sitting in the sun. In a way that was fitting. He had just made a pact with the devil.
Hood had been seduced intellectually and professionally. Though he hated himself for succumbing, he had to be honest: he was not surprised. Hood had felt distant from Op-Center, from friends, from his family for so long that it was nice to be plugged into something.
And there was something else, something the one-time golden boy mayor of Los Angeles did not like to admit. Idealism was great in theory but unwieldy in practice. In the end, Hood was like the world itself: a compromise; a surface of attractive, sun-hungry green and inviting blue concealing a hot, muddy interior; an imperfect paradox.
Hood turned on the car, cranked up the air-conditioning, and set the secure cell phone in its dashboard holder. He slipped on the headset and autodialed Darrell McCaskey’s number. As he pulled from the parking area, Hood did one thing more.
He prayed that McCaskey found just one reason to continue the investigation.
TWENTY-FIVE
“How did it go, Darrell?”
After punching in the number, Hood grabbed a can of Coke from a cooler under the glove compartment. He always kept one there for emergencies, beside an ice pack he replaced each morning. The caffeine helped him focus. Once in a while he also reached for the ice pack. That was for meetings that ran too long, got too loud, and went nowhere. Presidential meetings were invariably very direct.
“The interview went all right,” McCaskey said. “Mike was there, which was rough. He is not happy.”
“No one is,” Hood said. He could not concern himself with Mike Rodgers right now. “What about Link?”
“I have to say, Paul, the admiral was pretty forthcoming. The nutshelclass="underline" Link did not like William Wilson and does not care that he’s gone.”
“Not a surprise but also not damning,” Hood said. He took a long swallow of Coke. Motives could be elusive and misleading. He wanted to stick to the mechanics of the assassination itself. “Is there any evidence that Link has the assets to carry off these kinds of missions?”
“Evidence? No. Potential? Yes. Link has two former Company people on staff. One is a guy named Eric Stone, who is running the convention. He was Link’s assistant and supposedly is a very efficient organizer. The other individual with intelligence credentials is the senator’s executive assistant, Kendra Peterson. It turns out Kendra had medical training in the Marines.”
“That’s not in her file, is it?” Hood said. His head was still in the Oval Office, on the decision he had to make. Dossier data was swimming, anchorless, in his memory. He took another hit of Coke.
“No, it isn’t,” McCaskey said. “Kendra spent several months working in health care but left because of tendonitis in her hands. Presumably, the affliction was temporary. If a disability had been noted in Kendra’s record, it might have impacted her career in the military and afterward. The staff sergeant probably let her transfer without remarking on what was a very brief tenure.”
“Or her medical experiences may have been deleted more recently by a really efficient organizer who had access to them,” Hood pointed out.
“It’s possible. The point is, one of the first skills Kendra would have learned over there was how to give an injection,” McCaskey said.
“I’ll have Matt Stoll run a comparison on images captured by the security camera and at this morning’s press conference,” Hood said. “That may tell us if Ms. Peterson goes on the suspect list. What was your impression of Link himself?”
“He’s very confident and a bit of a bully,” McCaskey said. “He also made it clear that he feels extremely inconvenienced by our investigation. It’s difficult to tell whether he’s guilty or whether he just resents the hell out of our probe.”
“Or he may just have it in for Op-Center,” Hood said. The NSA and the NCMC had experienced a few run-ins over the years, including the exposure of former operative Ron Friday as a double agent. “If you had to guess, which is it?”
“That’s tough to say, Paul. Link definitely views the investigation as politically motivated,” McCaskey said. “He thinks Op-Center is using it to try to roll back the budget cuts. Truth is, I think we’re going to hear a lot of that as long as we’re involved in the Wilson killing.”
“When have we ever worried about what people think?” Hood asked. It was ironic, though, Hood thought. Link could end up being right for the wrong reasons. “I’m going to get Matt Stoll working on that image comparison. What are the codes for the hotel image files?”
“WW-1 and RL-1,” McCaskey replied. “I’m going to call Bob Herbert and pick his brain, then pop over to the British embassy. I rang George Daily. He’s setting up a conference call with their security chief here. He was going to see if the Brits have anything on file about Wilson being watched, stalked, or threatened.”
“Good idea. We’ll talk more when you get back.”
Hood hung up and called Bugs Benet. He asked him to access the online news photo services. He wanted images of Kendra Peterson, including this morning’s press conference. They should be appearing online by now. Hood asked to have the pictures sent to Stoll’s office along with Darrell’s image files on the Wilson and Lawless killings. When he reached the office, Hood went directly to Matt Stoll’s office.