The president was dressed in a black suit and silver and black striped tie. A rich yellow light gleamed off the panes of bulletproof glass behind the president. Beyond it, the Rose Garden looked rich and alive. Everything seemed so right here, so healthy and normal, that for a moment Hood doubted himself.
But only for a moment. Hood’s instincts got him where he was; there was no reason to start doubting them now. Besides, the battle was always somewhere else, never in the command tent.
The president finished writing, put down his pen, and looked at Hood. His face was drawn and wan, but his eyes had their usual gleam.
“Talk to me, Paul,” the president said.
Hood grew warm behind the ears. This wasn’t going to be easy. Even if he were correct, it wasn’t going to be easy convincing the president that members of his staff might be running an operation of their own. Hood did not have a lot to go on, and part of him wished that he had gone to the First Lady before coming here. It would have been better to let her talk to him in private. But if the intelligence Herbert had received was right, there might not be time for that. Ironically, Hood would have to keep Megan Lawrence out of this. He did not want the president to know that his wife had been talking about him behind his back.
Hood leaned forward. “Mr. President, I have some concerns about the United Nations intelligence operation.”
“Jack Fenwick is setting it all up,” the president said. “There’ll be a comprehensive briefing when he returns from New York.”
“Will the NSA be running the project?”
“Yes,” the president informed him. “Jack will be reporting directly to me. Paul, I hope this visit isn’t about some kind of territorial pissing contest between Op-Center and the NSA—”
“No, sir,” Hood assured him.
The intercom beeped. The president answered. It was Mrs. Leigh. She said she had something for Paul Hood. The president frowned and asked her to bring it in. He looked at Hood.
“Paul, what’s going on?”
“Hopefully, nothing,” Hood said.
Mrs. Leigh walked in and handed Hood a single sheet of paper.
“Is this all?” Hood asked.
She nodded.
“What about the file itself?”
“Empty,” she said.
Hood thanked Mrs. Leigh, and she left.
“What file is empty?” the president asked irritably. “Paul, what the hell is going on?”
“I’ll tell you in a moment, Mr. President,” Hood said. He looked down at the paper. “From eleven A.M. this morning until four P.M., Jack Fenwick was scheduled to meet with representatives of the government of Iran at their permanent mission in New York.”
“Impossible,” said the president.
“Sir, Mrs. Leigh obtained this from the NSA office,” Hood said. He handed the president the paper. “It has their file number on top. And according to intel we received, Fenwick did spend a good part of the afternoon at the Iranian mission.”
The president looked at the paper and was still for a long moment. Then he shook his head slowly. “Fenwick was supposed to be meeting with the Syrians, the Vietnamese, a half-dozen others,” he said. “That’s what he told me last night. Hell, we aren’t even close to reaching an intelligence agreement with Iran.”
“I know,” Hood said. “But Fenwick was there. And except for this document, the file is empty. As far as the NSA is concerned, there is no such thing as the UN initiative.”
“This has to be bullshit,” the president said dismissively. “More bullshit.” The president jabbed the intercom button on his phone. “Mrs. Leigh, get me Jack Fenwick—”
“Sir, I don’t think you should talk to anyone at the NSA,” Hood said.
“Excuse me?”
“Not yet, at least,” Hood said.
“Hold on, Mrs. Leigh,” the president said. “Paul, you just told me my national security adviser is way off the playbook. Now you’re telling me not to bother finding out if that’s true?”
“Before you do that, we need to talk,” Hood said.
“About what?”
“I don’t believe this situation with Fenwick is a miscommunication,” Hood said.
“Neither do I,” the president said. “My conversations with him were very explicit. That’s why he and I need to talk.”
“But what if something is very wrong?” Hood asked.
“Explain.”
“What if this is a rogue operation of some kind?” Hood asked.
“You’re out of your mind,” the president said. He appeared stunned. “Christ, Paul, I’ve known most of these people for fifteen, twenty years — they’re good friends!”
Hood understood. And all he could think to say was, “‘Et tu, Brute?’”
The president looked at him. “Paul, what are you talking about?”
“When Julius Caesar was killed by republicans in the senate, it was his closest and oldest friend who organized the assassination,” Hood said.
The president looked at him. A moment later, he told Mrs. Leigh to forget the call. Then he shook his head slowly. “I’m listening,” the president said. “But this better be good.”
Hood knew that. What he didn’t know was where to begin. There was a possible conspiracy and possible mental illness. Perhaps both. He decided to start at the beginning and work his way through.
“Mr. President, why did Fenwick call you last night?” he asked.
“He had finished a day of meetings with ambassadors at the Hay-Adams,” the president said. “There was strong opposition to the intelligence initiative from several key governments. He was supposed to let me know if and when he finally pulled it all together.”
“Mr. President,” Hood said, “we don’t believe that Jack Fenwick was at the Hay-Adams Hotel last night. The call he made to you was apparently routed to the hotel from somewhere else.”
“From where?” the president asked.
“I don’t know,” Hood admitted. “Perhaps he was already in New York. Was Fenwick also liaising with the CIOC?”
“No,” the president said. “Getting approvals from the Oversight Committee was the responsibility of Fenwick’s deputy, Don Roedner, and Red Gable on this end.”
Hood didn’t know Roedner any better than he knew Gable. He didn’t even know Gable had a nickname.
“Sir,” Hood continued, “last night, when you thanked Senator Fox for budgeting Mr. Fenwick’s initiative, that was the first she’d heard about it.”
President Lawrence froze, but only for a moment. His expression changed slowly. He looked very strange for a moment, both twenty years older and like a lost boy. He sat back.
“Gable wouldn’t go behind my back on something,” the president said faintly. “He wouldn’t. And if he did, I’d read it in his face.”
“When was the last time you saw him?” Hood asked. The president thought. “Friday, at the cabinet meeting.”
“There were a lot of people there, a lot of issues on the table,” Hood said. “You might have missed it. Or maybe he was snookered by the NSA.”
“I can’t believe that, either,” the president said.
“I see,” Hood said. “Well, if Fenwick and Gable aren’t rogue, there’s only one other option I can think of.”
“Which is?”
Hood had to be careful how he said this. He was no longer floating ideas about the president’s staff but about the president himself.
“Maybe none of this happened,” Hood said. “The UN initiative, the meetings with foreign governments — none of it.”
“You mean I imagined it all,” the president said.
Hood didn’t answer.
“Do you believe that?” the president asked.
“I do not,” Hood replied truthfully. If nothing else, there was the rerouted phone call from the Hay-Adams, and the president didn’t imagine that. “But I won’t lie to you, Mr. President,” Hood went on. “You do seem tense, guarded, distracted. Definitely not yourself.”