Irene flicked her forefinger at him. “Bingo.”
“And what about Comrade Daddy?” Boxers asked. “Yuri.”
Wolverine’s face darkened. “Actually, that didn’t go so well. The agency wouldn’t break him free from his agreement to snitch on the Kremlin. Things were coming undone so quickly by then that the need for intel was insatiable. Plus, he knew about what was happening with his daughter, and was convinced that the KGB would figure it out and kill him.”
Jonathan could tell from body language alone what was coming next. “Let me guess. That’s what happened.”
Another forefinger. “It didn’t happen until after Yelena’s testimony. They took him to Lubyanka, and he never came out. We presume they executed him, but Perestroika didn’t extend to the release of those records. Now that the new regime has re-embraced the Cold War mentality, I expect we’ll never know for sure.”
Silence reigned as Jonathan and Boxers processed what they’d just heard. Jonathan had to say it aloud, just to make sure that he hadn’t gone nuts: “So, the First Lady of the United States is a former terrorist who is part of the witness protection program.”
“Yes.”
“And every hotheaded Russian with a jones for the good old days has a motivation to kidnap and kill her.”
Irene seemed less certain on that score. “It’s been a long time,” she said. “And we paid for some major plastic surgery to change her appearance.”
Boxers laughed. “Holy shit. Only in America.”
Irene seized on it. “You know what, Big Guy? You’re absolutely right. Only in America. The land of second chances. And third.”
Jonathan intervened. “I don’t think he meant to impugn the honor and dignity of the nation he’s risked his life for dozens of times.” Subtext: This was the wrong table at which to play the guilt card. “I find it astonishing, though, that some intrepid reporter didn’t dig this stuff up during the campaign.”
Irene gave a coy smile and a shrug. “We’re good at what we do.”
“That’s not what astonishes me,” Boxers said. His ears were red, a sure sign that he was pissed. “How is it that the FBI can know that a terrorist is on her way to the White House and still sit on the information?”
The coy smile turned into something malignant. “What are you suggesting, Big Guy?”
“Suggesting my ass.” He shot a look to the statue of the Blessed Mother. “Sorry. I think it’s irresponsible that the American people didn’t get to know about this.”
Irene steeled herself with a deep breath. “Two points,” she said. “One: Never once in the history of this nation has a single American cast a vote for a spouse. They vote for the candidates.”
Jonathan wasn’t buying. “So, there’s no restraint by the media if a candidate’s teenage kids step out to grab a drink at a bar, but having a wife who’s a bomber gets a pass? Come on, Wolfie. That can’t sit right with you.”
“Which brings me to point two,” Irene said. “We have no way of knowing that the president himself knows of her past.”
“Bullshit,” Boxers said. Then, to the Blessed Mother: “Sorry. Again. He’s the president, for God’s sake.”
Irene tossed off another shrug. “As I say, we’re very good at this sort of thing. Or, more to the point, the Marshals Service is very good at this sort of thing. If Yelena didn’t reveal the secret to him, then no one else would.”
Jonathan thought his head might explode. “What about you guys, Wolfie? We’re talking national security here. Don’t the people of the United States have a right to know that there’s a terrorist in the White House?”
“Digger, you want things to be blacker and whiter than they ever are. I’ll use the T-word if that’s what you want, but the fact of the matter is that the same woman you characterize as a terrorist in fact did a wonderful and noble thing for her adopted country by sending a lot of very bad people to prison.”
It was Jonathan’s turn to laugh. “You accuse me of not dealing in shades of gray, and then you put out a purple argument. By your own words, there wasn’t a lick of patriotism in what she did. That was all about saving her father’s ass. How do you know that her very presence in the White House isn’t part of some massive plan for revenge?”
“I know that because we don’t live in a James Bond novel. There is no Dr. No, there’s no THRUSH, and there’s no KAOS. And there’s no way to plot a course to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — especially not as a First Lady. I mean, think about it.”
She had a point. In fact, Venice had told him that Anna and Frank Darmond had met before he had even run for the House of Representatives. It would have been foolish to roll the dice on becoming a mole at the highest level even before a first vote was cast. What seemed less outrageous, though, was the thought of a developing plan to squeeze the most out of an evolving opportunity.
“While under protection, what were her political activities?” Jonathan asked.
“Mostly quiet. Once you cut off ties with your revolutionary brethren, and send the bosses to prison, there’s not a lot left.”
“What about the friendships she developed afterward?” Boxers asked.
“No one particularly scary, I don’t think. You’re not going to find any Tea Partiers in her Rolodex, but I’m guessing there aren’t many Communists in there, either.”
“Can you get us a list of acquaintances?” Jonathan asked.
Irene nodded, but said nothing. It was her tell for unease.
“A complete list,” Jonathan pressed. “Anything less than complete, and we’re all wasting a lot of time.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Warning bells pounded like a great gong in his head. “Why are you gaming me like this, Irene? That’s not like you.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Life’s complicated.” Jonathan leaned in closer. “Understand me, Madam Director. I am a micrometer away from pulling the plug on this whole thing. The stakes here are huge, and whenever that happens, the danger to me and my team gets huge, too. As this is fundamentally not my problem, I will not go forward without the trust that I have earned from you and the rest of Uncle Sam’s legions.”
Irene nodded some more. Jonathan could read in her eyes that he’d nearly convinced her, so he let the silence prevail. She signaled that the decision was made when she inhaled deeply through her nose and blew the breath out as a silent whistle. “I’ll give you everything we have,” she said. “I’ll have a courier bring it to your office first thing in the morning. And I won’t insult you by telling you how sensitive it is.”
Jonathan turned more in his seat, and settled in for the next chapter of this conversation. “Did you know that while there were street surveillance cameras in place at the Wild Times Bar on the night Mrs. Darmond was kidnapped, none of them were in fact working?”
“Yes,” Irene said. “I own those cameras, at least in a manner of speaking.”
“That doesn’t seem odd to you?” Boxers prodded.
“Oh, it seems very odd to me. Just as it seems odd to me that the attackers knew that the First Lady was on an OTR to begin with. It’s odder still that by all accounts, the car that pulled up with the shooters was a big SUV. There’s some disagreement whether it was a Suburban, an Escalade, or a Yukon, but everyone agrees that it was a big, dark-colored sports utility vehicle.”
“Like the ones your guys drive?” Jonathan asked.
“Like the ones that all of official Washington drives. I’ve got a few agents working that angle, trying to track the whereabouts of all of them, but I don’t expect much. Heck, if I were a bad guy pulling off something like this, maybe I’d just rent a look-alike vehicle to throw everyone off the scent.”