“Shit!” Garrity said loudly, too much so, as evidenced by the “What’s wrong, dear?” from his wife in the kitchen. He dispatched with her question and went back to the notes. “They know,” he said more quietly. “But how…?” He found the answer on the next page. “Oh, my God.” That guy wasn’t just blowing smoke after all. He instinctively looked around the room, afraid for the first time since beginning his treachery that there was a real danger of being discovered. He knew that the DDI, that Drummond asshole, was looking for a leak in the wrong place, but what the Agency knew now could lead to his employers, which could lead to him.
He had to warn them that the Agency knew. He quickly saved the data and switched the computer off, then went to the front room. “Where’s the paper?”
“The Post’s on the couch,” his wife answered from the other room.
“No, the USA Today.” His eyes frantically searched the living room.
“Probably on the porch.” The back door closed, and the motor of their new Taurus started up as his wife headed off to work.
Garrity was out there and back with the desired paper as his wife pulled out of the driveway. He flipped hurriedly to the sports section and looked for the… The Cards did it again, defying all… A. That was it. A was 1. The keying system was simple enough. Find the seventh word in the first story on the sports page concerning the dominant sport in season. There was none more dominant than baseball. The first letter of that word would then yield a number. A was 1; B, 2. And so on, stopping at 4 and starting with 1 again when E was reached, and again four letters later. The corresponding number was then added to the telephone number of a phone booth Garrity had preselected, and that number was then to be entered on the touch-tone phone after dialing his contact’s pager. It would then be reverse-deciphered, giving his contact a place to reach him in one hour. That was the drill — one hour from the time he entered the number.
For added security he never called the pager from his home phone; that he would do from a pay phone chosen at random as he drove. He grabbed the keys to their old Audi — he and his wife, because they worked non-concurrent schedules, always took the nicer Taurus to their respective jobs — and went out to the double-wide driveway. The cracked vinyl of the Audi’s front seat squeaked under his weight when he climbed in. He pumped the gas several times in the ritual they had mastered over the years to get the finicky car started after a long time dormant. From the gas gauge it looked as if neither he nor his wife had driven it in days. He turned the key, keeping his foot on the accelerator. The starter spun, the engine coughed, then a series of rapid clicks came from the front, and the coughing ceased. He twisted the key again, getting the same clicking, but no motor sounds at all.
“Damn!” It was the starter! He’d replaced it just three months ago with that reconditioned one his wife had warned him about. ‘Just buy a new one.’ She’d been right again.
He got out and raised the hood in the expected and useless way. There was nothing under there he could fix. The damned thing needed a new starter…again!
Why now? He couldn’t walk to a pay phone and just hang around for an hour, not in the neighborhood surrounding his quiet residential enclave. The phones there were frequented by drug dealers, and often by the police busting them. That he couldn’t chance. There was only one way, and it was a breach of the security measures he’d agreed to. But there was no other way. He walked into the house and dialed the number of his contact from memory, adding the 1 to each of the digits in his home phone number as he entered them with ten touches on the keypad.
“DiContino,” Bud said into the phone, checking the time on his Casio. Drummond would be there any minute.
“Bud, it’s Ellis. Listen, I don’t know what’s going on, but I just ran interference for the President with the chairman of House Armed Services. He called and wanted to know why Kneecap was rolled out at Andrews with General Granger on board, and also about the chopper out back.”
Vorhees was such a control freak, Bud had come to know firsthand. His domain was his, and in a way the NSA could understand that from recent experience, but he took his legislative duties to the line where oversight blurred with command. Never made it past colonel, did you, Richard? Maybe this was his way to get what had been denied him by that mine. “Ellis, you did right. Just spout the party line if he keeps bellyaching. The Pentagon is quietly calling it a readiness exercise.”
“That’s what I figured, and I told him so,” the President’s chief of staff explained. “But Vorhees isn’t the big problem. Jack just got a call from the Post asking for confirmation that the congressman had contacted the White House asking about ‘emergency relocation procedures’ for the President.” Jack Duffy was the White House director of communications, the newly in-vogue position that had replaced the press secretary as the President’s point man with the media.
“Damn. Is it spreading?”
“The senior White House correspondent from ABC is digging. If they get any sort of confirmation on this, we can expect something on the tube.”
“Jack didn’t give the Post anything even close to one, right?”
The COS snickered. “He’s going to ‘get back to them.’ ”
“I suggest he takes his time,” Bud said. “The day’s half-gone already.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
“Things should be under control by then.” I hope.
Gonzales heard the words “under control” louder than the rest of the weak assurance. “Bud, is there anything I need to know? Anything the Secret Service detail should be aware of?”
Bud knew he’d have to expand the loop, because the COS had a right, and a responsibility, to know the story now that things were accelerating toward some sort of resolution… or confrontation. “The DDI is due here anytime. Where are you?”
“My office.”
The COS’s office was just down the hall from the NSA’s. “Why didn’t you just walk over for this?”
Another snicker. “Your deputy is as much a pit bull as I am when it comes to protecting his boss.”
“Nick takes his job seriously. Why don’t you come over and sit in with Greg and me. We’ll fill you in.”
“Bless me with your gatekeeper?”
It was Bud’s turn to laugh. “Done.”
“Now is the time, Fidel.” Raul had never seen his brother like this. He no longer resembled the charismatic, vigorous leader that he was just hours before. There was a look about him that was peaceful, of all things. A sort of resignation, but without the sorrow he had expected to see. Was the revenge they were going to unleash really that redeeming for him? Raul could think of no other reason for his brother’s demeanor.
“Yes.”
Raul unfolded the paper he had jotted his notes on. “There are several target options, Fidel. Of course, there is the obvious one of Washington, but I believe others should be considered.”
The president’s eyes looked upward as he leaned back. “The guilty parties must pay. Those responsible for destroying the Revolution must feel its wrath.”