The Secret Service agents were gone now. They were waiting in another room well away from this one. Bill had insisted on their leaving as a condition of talking to Dorn further about Red Cell Seven. The president had agreed, much to the intense aggravation of Richard Radcliff, the agent in charge.
In this room were stored many different china patterns, silverware sets, and crystal used for formal state dinners. The elevator the three men had just used ran directly between the ground floor and the little-used third floor. It didn’t stop on the state floor or second floor and was used mostly as a means of transporting the formal dining room ware. However, the still-lingering rumor was that, during the Clinton administration, it had also transported a covert human cargo named Monica, so she could come in through the kitchen mostly unnoticed and meet the president on the third floor, bypassing the other residence floors where she might run into someone she shouldn’t.
President Dorn shook his head. “I’m not commenting on that, Bill. Mr. Clinton was a tremendous president and a great man. It’s not for me to speculate on innuendo.”
“So, how much have you told your chief of staff about Red Cell Seven?” Bill asked.
“For the last time,” the president responded in a steely tone, “Stewart Baxter knows nothing important about RCS.”
“What exactly does ‘nothing important’—”
“Look,” Dorn interrupted sharply, “I can’t keep the FBI blindly looking for my assassin for much longer. I’ll have to let them know Shane Maddux was responsible. I won’t say that directly, of course. That could bring Red Cell Seven into it, and none of us want that. So I’ll whisper it to them anonymously somehow. The thing is, I’m going to have to do it soon. I can’t keep them tied up this way.”
Bill had told the president that Maddux was responsible for the assassination attempt, Troy knew. And he’d told Dorn that Maddux was involved with the LNG tankers that had been heading for Boston and Norfolk. He’d explained that Maddux had done all that to push Congress to give the U.S. intelligence infrastructure broader surveillance and investigative powers at home and abroad, and to incite the American public against terrorism at a time when Maddux believed the population was losing touch with 9/11. With people forgetting the devastation, Maddux believed the country was becoming vulnerable to another attack.
“It’s too much law-enforcement manpower to lock up indefinitely,” Dorn continued, “and they’re going around the clock.”
“Of course,” Bill agreed. “The public demands that the shooter be caught and punished. It terrifies people to think someone could get away with shooting their president.”
“Exactly.”
“Just give me a little longer,” Bill said. “Let me find Maddux and deal with him myself. I don’t want the FBI taking him into custody and giving him any incentive to talk about Red Cell Seven. I can’t have him rolling over on us.”
That made no sense to Troy. Maddux was guilty of terrible things, but he was a patriot. In Maddux’s eyes, Dorn was the traitor because he’d been planning to eliminate Red Cell Seven, as well as seriously limit what “official” U.S. intelligence agents could do to fight terrorism, including the torture of suspects to gain information — which Maddux believed was an essential interrogation tool. Therefore, Maddux didn’t consider it a crime to assassinate David Dorn. Maddux believed that the assassination would save Red Cell Seven and, by extension, the country.
Troy seriously doubted Maddux would ever give away RCS secrets. Even if he thought he could make a deal by doing it and avoid or lessen jail time.
More to the point, Troy doubted the FBI would ever catch Maddux — not alive, anyway. So RCS secrets were safe with Maddux. Troy couldn’t understand why his father would think any other way. But then, Bill was privy to much more information than he was.
Troy doubted anyone would ever take Shane alive. And if somehow his father managed to catch Maddux, he certainly wasn’t going to turn the man over to the FBI — which Dorn had to know.
“All right, Bill,” Dorn agreed, “a little more time.”
“How much are we talking?”
“I’ll let you know before I leak any information about Maddux to the FBI. But that’s all I can promise. Let’s just leave it at that.” Dorn’s eyes narrowed. “Bill, how many individuals defected with Maddux out of RCS?”
“Only a few, and I have people searching for them as well. But when we find Maddux, we’ll find the rest of them.”
Troy disagreed with that, too. But he kept his mouth shut.
Dorn eased back into the wheelchair. “Okay, guys,” he muttered after taking a deep breath. “Tell me everything I need to know about Red Cell Seven.”
Bill glanced at Troy. “Go on, son.”
And Troy glanced at the president. “I want to be as efficient as possible, Mr. President. What do you already know?”
“Your father gave me some information to review while I was in the hospital. It described certain of Red Cell Seven’s activities over the past four decades. And of course, over the last year, since my election, Roger Carlson would report to me face-to-face from time to time. On average, that was about once a month. But he never told me much. He was a crafty man.”
“Experienced,” Bill countered.
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
“I do.”
The president shrugged. “I made the mistake of telling Roger I wanted very specific information. And that I was going to put a buffer between us.”
Bill shook his head. “I doubt that went over very well.”
“No, it did not. He was furious.”
“Knowing Roger, he probably took that as a signal that you were going to shut RCS down.”
“Probably,” Dorn agreed. “And that’s probably what initiated the plot to kill me.”
“I doubt it, sir,” Bill disagreed. “In my opinion Roger Carlson would never endorse a plan to assassinate the president of the United States. I believe that all originated with Shane Maddux, that it was his idea alone.”
“Don’t you think Roger told Maddux what I said?”
“Maybe, but I think Maddux was already planning it before Carlson would have said anything to him.”
“How would Maddux have known before Roger told him?”
Bill shot Troy a knowing look. “You don’t know Shane Maddux the way we do.”
“And I’m very glad of that.” Dorn gestured to Bill. “Did Roger tell you what I said to him?”
Bill pushed out his lower lip then shook his head deliberately. “No.”
“Mmm.”
It seemed obvious to Troy that Dorn wasn’t convinced by his father’s answer.
“Roger died of a heart attack,” the president said, “didn’t he?”
Bill nodded. “He was found slumped over the steering wheel of his car outside his townhouse in Georgetown.”
Troy and Bill had talked about Carlson’s death on the way down to Washington. They both suspected Maddux of somehow being involved. The thing was, the coroner had confirmed the cause of death as a heart attack. Despite that, they still weren’t completely convinced. But they’d agreed not to say anything about their suspicions to Dorn.
“How many agents does RCS have?” the president asked.
“Ninety-two,” Bill answered.
Interesting. A month ago Troy had heard the number was ninety-eight.
“Are they divided into units? I mean, how does that work?”
“We call them divisions,” Troy explained. “They include out-of-country terrorism, counterterrorism, interrogation, communications, and assassinations.” President Dorn seemed to have suddenly lost the little color he had in his face. “Are you all right, sir?”