“I can’t believe this,” Rodgers said. “We’re talking about children being held hostage!”
“Unfortunately,” Herbert said, “as angry as it makes us all, the threat to the delegates and to Paul’s daughter doesn’t fall under those parameters. Saving her is a luxury we may not be able to afford.”
“A luxury?” Rodgers said. “Jesus, Bob, you’re talking like a goddamned Camp Fire girl!”
Herbert glared at Rodgers. “That was my late wife. She was the Camp Fire girl.”
Rodgers looked at Herbert and then looked down. The ventilators in the ceiling sounded very loud.
“Since the subject has been raised,” Herbert continued, “my wife was also a victim of terrorists. I know what you’re feeling, Mike. The frustration. I know what Paul and Sharon are feeling. And I also know that Lowell is right. The place for Op-Center in this fight is on the sidelines.”
“Doing nothing.”
“Surveillance, tactical assistance, moral support — if we can contribute those, they aren’t nothing,” Herbert said.
“ ‘They also serve who only stand and wait,’ ” Rodgers said solemnly.
“Sometimes, yes.” Herbert patted the arms of his wheelchair. “Otherwise, you could end up sitting and waiting. Or worse.”
Rodgers glanced at his watch. Lowell Coffey had made valid legal points. And Rodgers’s stumble about Yvonne Herbert had given her husband the right to sermonize. But that didn’t make either man right.
“I’ve got about fifteen minutes to meet the plane,” Rodgers said quietly. “Bob, I’ve already put you in charge. If you want to stop me, you can.” He looked at Liz Gordon. “Liz, you can have me declared mentally unfit, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, whatever the hell you want. If you do, I won’t fight either of you. But barring that, I won’t stand and wait. I can’t. Not while a band of murderers is holding kids hostage.”
Herbert shook his head slowly. “This one’s not that black and white, Mike.”
“That’s no longer the issue,” Rodgers said to him. “Are you going to stop me?”
Herbert stopped shaking his head. “No,” he said. “I’m not.”
“May I ask why?” Coffey asked indignantly.
Herbert sighed. “Yeah. In the CIA, we used to call it respect.”
Coffey made a face.
“If a superior wanted to bend the rules, you bent them,” Herbert went on. “All you could do was try not to bend ’em so far that they came around and bit you in the ass.”
Coffey sat back. “I expect that from the Cosa Nostra, not the lawful government of the United States,” he said unhappily.
“If we were all so damn virtuous, lawful government wouldn’t be necessary,” Herbert said.
Rodgers looked at Liz. She was not happy either.
“Well?” Rodgers said.
“Well what?” Liz said. “I’m not a brick in Bob’s wall of silence, but I’m not going to stop you. Right now, you’re being headstrong, impatient, and you’re probably acting out, looking to hit someone hard for what your captors did in the Bekaa Valley. But unfit? From a psychological standpoint, not a legal one, I can’t say you’re unfit.”
Rodgers looked back at Herbert. “Bob, will you try to get me into the CIA shell?”
Herbert nodded.
Rodgers looked at Coffey. “Lowell, will you go to the CIOC? See if they’ll call an emergency meeting?”
Coffey’s thin mouth was tight, and his polished fingernails were tapping the table. But above all, the attorney was a professional. He hooked back his sleeve and looked at his watch.
“I’ll call Senator Warren on his mobile phone,” Coffey said. “He’s our most sympathetic ear over there. But those people are tough enough to reach on a weekday. On a weekend, at night—”
“I understand,” Rodgers said. “Thanks. You, too, Bob.”
“Sure thing,” Herbert replied.
Coffey was already looking up the phone number on his electronic pocket directory as Rodgers looked over at Matt Stoll and Ann Farris. The technical genius was staring intently at his folded hands, and the press liaison was quiet, her expression noncommittal. He thought he might get her approval since he was trying to help Paul Hood, but he wasn’t going to ask. He turned toward the door.
“Mike?” Herbert said.
Rodgers looked back at him. “Yes?”
“Whatever you need, you know you’ve got our support back here,” Herbert said.
“I know.”
“Just try not to destroy the Secretariat Building, okay?” Herbert said. “And one more thing.”
“What’s that?” Rodgers asked.
“I don’t want to find myself running this goddamned place,” Herbert said with the hint of a smile. “So make sure you get your headstrong, impatient, acting-out self back here.”
“I’ll try,” Rodgers said, smiling slightly himself as he opened the door.
It wasn’t exactly the endorsement Rodgers had hoped for but, as he hurried through the cubicles toward the elevator, at least he didn’t feel like Gary Cooper in High Noon—alone. And right now, that was something.
SEVENTEEN
The short-lived but legendary Office of Strategic Services was formed in June of 1942. Under the leadership of World War I hero William Joseph “Wild Bill” Donovan, the OSS was responsible for collecting military intelligence. After the war, in 1946, President Truman established the Central Intelligence Group, which was chartered to gather foreign intelligence pertaining to national security. A year later, the National Security Act renamed the CIG the Central Intelligence Agency. The act also broadened the scope of the CIA charter to allow it to conduct counterintelligence activities.
Thirty-two-year-old Annabelle “Ani” Hampton had always enjoyed being a spy. There were so many mental and emotional levels to it, so many sensations. There was danger and there was reward proportionate to the danger. There was a sense of being invisible or, if you were caught, of being more naked than naked. There was a feeling of having power over others, of risking punishment and death. There was also a great deal of planning involved, of positioning yourself just so, of patience, of catching someone in the right frame of mind, of seducing emotionally and sometimes physically.
It was, in fact, a lot like sex only better, she thought. In spying, if you grew tired of someone you could have them killed. Not that she ever had. Not yet, anyway.
Ani had enjoyed being a spy because she’d always been a loner. Other children had no curiosity. She did. As a child, she liked to find out where squirrels made their homes or watch birds as they laid their eggs or, depending on her mood, help wild rabbits escape from red foxes or help red foxes snare the hares. She liked to eavesdrop on her father’s pinochle games or on her grandmother’s teas or on her older brother’s dates. She even made a journal of the news she picked up while spying on her family. Which neighbor was “a prick.” Which aunt was “a bitch on wheels.” Which mother-in-law “should learn to keep her mouth shut.” Ani’s mother once found the journal and took it away, but that was all right. Ani had been smart enough to keep a duplicate book.
Ani’s parents, Al and Ginny, had owned a women’s clothing store in Roanoke, Virginia. Ani used to work at Hampton’s Fashions after school and on weekends. Whenever possible, she would study everything about the people who came in to browse. She attempted to hear what they were saying, tried to guess what they were going to look at based on how they were dressed or how well they spoke. And then she moved in to make the sale. If she’d been careful and smart, she got it. Usually, she was.