Hancock looked up from the Resolute desk as his chief of staff entered. “Tell me you have some good news, Ian.”
The faintest hint of a smile passed across Cahill’s face as he collapsed into a chair. The Irishman was typically rumpled, his tie loose around his neck — his sweat-stained collar unbuttoned. “You might call it that. You’ll be sitting behind that desk for another four years.”
The President fairly beamed. “I take it Senator Coftey was able to bring the Justice around?”
“As I had told you he would,” Cahill replied. “I’ve known the man for years — he didn’t become a Chief Justice by being a risk taker. Given a hard decision…and the right inducements, of course, he’ll make the safe choice.”
“And they say the Court is apolitical,” Hancock mused, getting up from his chair. There was a decanter on the endtable and he poured three fingers of brandy into a crystal snifter, handing it to Cahill.
“How soon will they make their announcement?”
“On the first of the new year, in a 5–4 decision. You’ll be sworn in on the 20th, right on schedule. We owe Coftey…his willingness to run with the ball on this has been invaluable.”
“I always pay my debts.” The President raised his glass. “To success — and the damnation of our enemies.”
“As ever.”
“How are things coming along?” Harry asked, coming back through the kitchen.
Carol didn’t look up. “Fine. I nearly have the botnet formed, just need to exploit a couple dozen more computers before I can run a test.”
“A botnet?” The term seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
“This one laptop doesn’t give me nearly enough firepower to bring down the grid. LA has used DHS dollars to harden their defenses over the last few years. I’ve been working since last night to build a network of a couple hundred infected computers. With their combined power, I can brute-force the system and bring it down — at least for a few minutes. Long enough for you and Han to get in. That’s the good news.”
“And the bad news?”
“From the energy outputs I’m seeing, it looks like Andropov’s security system is hooked to his back-up generator, located in the poolhouse…here,” she said, tapping the satellite photo with her index finger.
“How long does that give us?”
She shrugged. “Some of the modern generators…ten, fifteen seconds.”
Yeah, that didn’t give them much time. Not much time at all. He cast a glance toward the door of the bathroom where Pyotr was imprisoned, his mind working through the possibilities. But she wasn’t done talking. “You might be able to get over the wall and to the door of the house in that time, but then…”
“There’s a security keypad on that side patio door, isn’t there?”
“Yeah.” She finally glanced up to meet his eyes. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that Pyotr is going to give us those codes.”
A look of pain spread across her countenance. “Harry…”
“What’s wrong?” It seemed an inane question, but it was the one he asked. A human impulse.
“I don’t know.” Carol looked away, as if unwilling to face him. “He’s just a kid — a big, stupid kid. The panic on his face when Han ambushed him…”
She was silent for a long moment. “How do you deal with it — living life this way?”
He yearned to reach out, to hold her in his arms…to tell her that everything was going to be okay. But it wasn’t, and the walls he had built around his heart were too high, no matter what he might have wished.
“The same way you deal with anything in life,” he responded coldly. “Just keep putting one foot in front of another. Keep moving forward. Do what you have to do.”
“The end justifies the means?” she asked — a bitter echo of himself, years earlier. A lifetime ago, or so it seemed.
He shook his head. “No…no it doesn’t. It’s just a matter of deciding which set of consequences you can live with. That’s all it is, in the end. Nothing more complicated.”
Chapter 20
There’d been a six-pack of Coors in Stevens’ refrigerator. Past tense. There were only two left, including the half-empty one in Thomas’s hand as he leaned against the counter.
Nothing from Kranemeyer. He’d been gone for hours now, leaving them to guard the DCIA. Yeah…
He felt someone’s eyes on him and looked up to see Tex standing there in the doorway.
“How’s it going, bro?” he asked, registering somewhere in a dark recess of his mind that he was slurring the words. He hadn’t had that much to drink.
Tex crossed the kitchen, a strange look on his face. Darkness. “Just look at you.”
Before Thomas could react, the Texan reached out, ripping the beer can from his grasp and crushing it in one of his big hands.
“What are you doing?” Froth bubbled over the Texan’s fingers as he threw the demolished can into the sink.
“You are on duty, soldier,” he replied, taking a step into Thomas’s zone — a dark light shining from his eyes. It was the closest Thomas had seen the big man come to displaying emotion, but he ignored the warning sign.
“I…can handle my liquor,” he replied, putting up a hand. “You know that.”
“Handle it?” Tex demanded. “You shot the Director of the CIA. My op, my responsibility — you pulled the trigger.”
“It was dark, okay? He fired first.”
“And you’d been drinking.” It wasn’t a question, but a simple, cold accusation, hanging there between them. “I know Harry had been covering for you with Kranemeyer, before all this started. He never said anything, but he had to be.”
The Texan paused, as if choosing his next words carefully. “I won’t.”
“Convivial men the world over find pleasure and recreation in the association of others so minded.” So began the 1884 charter of the Alibi Club, but its founders had faced a far different world.
As for Kranemeyer, he was in anything but a convivial mood as he approached the 19th-century Italianate brick townhouse that housed D.C.’s premiere men’s social club. On foot, he carried the laptop in a carrying case slung over one shoulder.
The building itself was nondescript, the DCS thought, waiting on the doorstep. So unremarkable that the National Register of Historic Places didn’t even list the name of its architect. Which was as it should be — perfect for men who valued their privacy.
The Alibi Club had never numbered more than fifty, but they had counted among their ranks Washington’s most powerful in their day, including Allen Dulles — the director of the CIA during the ‘50s.
He left his coat with the doorkeeper, retaining the H&K under his suit jacket as a young blonde woman ushered him up a flight of stairs and into a second-floor den, its walls decorated with over a century’s worth of memorabilia. The room exuded warmth, flames crackling in the fireplace to Kranemeyer’s right. Age. Power.
“Barney,” a familiar voice greeted him, a silver-haired figure rising from a leather chair on the far side of the den. “It’s been far too long.”
“Likewise, Roy,” Kranemeyer responded, managing what passed for a smile as he reached out to shake the senator’s hand. Currently on his sixth term as a U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, Roy Coftey was the chairman of the powerful Senate Select Committee On Intelligence. And, in another life…a Special Forces lieutenant. “You had enough of the Democrats yet?”