Interesting. She cleared her throat. “Say what you came to say.”
“I won’t bother with cheap theatrics,” Eric said. A stunningly beautiful woman with blond hair and cold blue eyes approached and handed them each a thick red folder. When the woman handed her the folder, Barbara shivered.
The man, Steeljaw, might be in charge, but the woman… she’s not like him. She’s a killer.
She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she would have bet her life on it, and then her heart skipped a beat when she realized she had bet her life on it.
“What is this?” she asked.
“What Nancy just gave you is a high-level summary of a few of the OTM’s operations,” Eric said. “I’ve scrubbed certain details, but that gives you an idea of some of the threats the OTM has stopped over the years.”
The men and women around her opened their folders and started flipping through the files.
“That dirty bomb in New York,” Gary Simmons said. “That was you?”
“Yes,” Eric said.
“The missing WMD in Iraq,” Arron Mitchel said. “We wondered where they went.”
“We kept AQ from using them in Paris,” Eric said.
As Barbara read her own packet, her stomach tightened into a knot. “There were attempts on the queen’s life?”
“Numerous attempts,” Eric said. “Other leaders as well. Assassinations. Bombs. Attacks on the public. And other, less obvious threats. The OTM disclosed information to auditors about the savings and loan collapse. Without our early intervention, it would have caused a global panic and a worldwide depression, pretty much destroying the eighties.”
Burrow frowned. “Wait a minute, I was a senator then. We had a recession—”
“We’re not omnipotent,” Eric said. “We’re just men and women doing what we can.”
“Black Swan events,” Barbara said, staring at the piece of paper on the top of the stack. “Pittsburgh. My God, there was an atomic bomb?”
“Yes,” Eric said. “You think the OTM is a threat. I understand your concern.”
“You are a soldier,” Barbara said. “Or, you were a soldier. You pledged to protect the United States from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. Well, we took an oath.”
Eric smiled sadly. “Ask yourselves this. If given a choice between defending the Constitution and saving the country, which do you do?”
Nobody spoke.
“It’s an easy question,” Eric said, “and a hard one. Of course, you defend the Constitution. But what good is a Constitution if everyone is dead? Is that what you want? To have followed your ideals to your own destruction? I battle with that question every day. It… eats at me. What am I willing to do, what am I willing to sacrifice, so that others can live?”
He turned to each of them. “Some of you I respect, and some of you I don’t, but I would give my life to save yours. I know about duty and honor. I know what it means to pay the ultimate sacrifice for this country. A friend died stopping that nuclear bomb in Pittsburgh. He deserved better, but he sacrificed himself to save us. All of us. I ask you, what are you willing to do?”
The sounds of planes filtered into the hangar, but inside nobody spoke.
“We can’t… just… let it go,” Barbara said.
“You can,” Eric said. “You will. My predecessor was a good man. He served his country as best he could, but I’m choosing a different path. Close your investigation. Declare it a hoax.”
Behind Eric, the woman watched them without blinking. It was one of the most unnerving things Barbara had ever seen. “There is a carrot,” Barbara said, “and there is a stick. What is the carrot?”
Eric smiled, and this time, a little warmth made it to his face. “If you close the investigation, I’ll make sure the OTM, once we’ve recovered, consults with the Gang of Eight.”
“You’ve recovered?” Nancy Schreck asked. “From what?”
“We’re going radio silent for a few months so that we might rebuild,” Eric said. “I would tell you more, but then Nancy might have to kill you.”
None of the Gang of Eight laughed.
Dear God, I think he means it.
“If that’s the carrot,” Ford asked, “then what’s the stick?”
“You could carry on with the investigation,” Eric mused, “but then we would be forced to leak information proving that the Gang of Eight was involved with the OTM. That you were, in fact, its leaders.”
“You — you can’t be serious,” Lampert sputtered.
“I rarely lie,” Eric said. “I don’t usually have to. But, in this case, I’ll step forward into the light and lie my damned ass off. We’ve created an unassailable string of records showing your guiding hand in payoffs, assassinations, and torture around the world.”
“You expect us to go along with this?” Barbara asked.
Eric’s eyebrow quirked up. “No matter your faults, I know that none of you want to harm this country. Oh, you might push and shove politically, maybe cause some trouble here and there, but I actually believe that you are all patriots. The Gang of Eight have traditionally kept their mouths shut, and you didn’t get to your positions by disclosing classified intelligence. It’s not like you were on the Appropriations Committees. Well, except for Ford over there.”
Ford blanched and shrank back.
“Say we agree to this,” Barbara said. There were murmurs from the other members, but she raised her hand. “You will keep us informed?”
The woman, Nancy, stepped forward and took the red folder from each member’s hand. When Nancy was done, she headed back to the Gulfstream. A man exited the Gulfstream, and this man wore a dark suit and tie, with close-cropped hair.
Eric nodded at the man. “This is Special Agent John Waverly of the FBI. He’s in charge of the Nashville office. He will be my liaison.”
“The Nashville office?” Lampert asked. “Didn’t I meet you at the commencement?”
Waverly eyed the man with distaste. “Thanks for your support, Senator Lampert. I know you kept denying the funding—”
“Gentlemen,” Eric said. “Let’s put aside our previous disagreements. Today is a new day. A new beginning. The OTM will no longer be a silent partner protecting this country. With your help, we will rise from the ashes and continue our mission, and each and every one of us will do our part.”
Eric spun on his heel and headed for the Gulfstream, dismissing them. Waverly shook his head and turned to follow.
For a moment, Barbara could only stare at Eric’s back as he took the steps into the Gulfstream with the fluidity of a wild animal.
If I were thirty years younger and wasn’t married, I think I might enjoy bedding that man.
Chapter Twenty-One
Senior Airman Joel Pendergast roared north past the new drone-testing facility just completed the year before. A fine haze of dust blew against his face in the warm morning. It was January, but almost fifty-five degrees already, and it looked like it might peak out at sixty.
It beats Minot. What a hellhole.
In his three years at Groom Lake, he had seen everything. Highly classified stealth fighters that he’d pretended not to acknowledge. A multitude of drones, including some that looked like they came from a science-fiction movie. He had also witnessed several of them go down in spectacular crashes, and then it was all hands on deck to recover the wreckage before one of the Russian spy satellites passed overhead.
But, in all his years, there was one thing that security team never joked about. When he had arrived, his commanding officer — a no-nonsense old bastard — had taken him aside and said, “Don’t ever, and I mean ever, talk about the men in the mountain.”