For once, Rogo agrees. “Take it as a sign, Wes. For all we know, she’s only gonna make it worse.”
“You don’t know that,” I whisper.
“Hey,” Lisbeth calls out, popping her head over the cubicle just as we approach. She reads our reactions instantly. “What’s wr—?”
I put a finger to my lips and cut her off. Holding up my jacket, I point to the lapel pin and mouth the word bug. “Thanks again for having us over,” I add as she pantomimes and points to her own ear.
They can hear us? she asks.
I nod and drape the jacket across the back of her chair.
“Sorry about the air-conditioning,” she adds, already one step ahead of us as she grabs a thick file folder from her desk. “If you want, just leave your jackets here…” Before we can react, she’s out of the cubicle and darting up the hallway, her red hair bouncing and her arms swaying at her sides. The way the sleeves of her crisp white shirt are rolled up to her elbows, I can see the pale freckles that dot most of her forearm. Trailing behind her, Rogo sees them too, but he doesn’t say a word. He either hates her or loves her. As always with him, it’s hard to tell which.
“I’m Rogo,” he says, extending a hand and racing to catch up to her.
“In here,” she says, ignoring him and pulling open the door to a sunny conference room with three glass walls, each of them with open vertical blinds. Lisbeth circles the room and, one by one, tugs on the pull cords, snapping the blinds shut. She does the same with the blinds on the plate-glass window that looks out over the front parking lot. Within three seconds, sunlight’s replaced by the quiet drone of fluorescents.
“You sure no one can hear us?”
“Editorial board meets here every morning to decide whose lives they’re ripping apart each day. Rumor is, they sweep it for bugs at least once a week.”
Unlike Dreidel or Rogo, or even myself, Lisbeth’s not the least bit thrown or intimidated. We’ve been out of fighting shape since the day we left the White House. She picks public battles every day. And she’s clearly good at it.
“So who gave you the pin?” Lisbeth asks as we take seats around the large oval conference table.
“Claudia,” I stutter, referring to our chief of staff as I accidentally back my chair into the black Formica credenza that runs against the back wall. “It goes to whoever’s late…”
“You think she’s the one that put the mike in there?” Dreidel asks.
“I–I have no idea,” I say, replaying yesterday’s meeting in my head. Oren… Bev… even B.B. “It could’ve been anyone. All they needed was access to it.”
“Who was wearing it last?” Lisbeth asks.
“I don’t know… Bev maybe? Oren never wears it. Maybe B.B.? But by the end of the week, people sometimes just leave it on their desk. I mean, I wouldn’t have noticed if someone went into my office and pulled it off my jacket…”
“But to squeeze a wireless mike into something so small,” Dreidel says. “Doesn’t that seem a little high-tech for — no offense, Wes — but for the scrubs on the White House B-team?”
“What’s your point?” I ask, ignoring the snobbery.
“Maybe they had help,” Dreidel says.
“From who? The Service?”
“Or the FBI,” Rogo suggests.
“Or from someone who’s good at collecting secrets,” Lisbeth adds, a bit too enthusiastically. The way her fingertips flick at the edge of her file folder, she’s clearly got something to say.
“You got someone who fits the bill?” Dreidel asks skeptically.
“You tell me,” she says, flipping open her file folder. “Who wants to hear the real story behind The Roman?”
48
Mostly, it was like the hum of an escalator or the churn of an airport conveyor belt. Soothing at first, then maddening in repetition.
For The Roman, it’d been almost half an hour since he’d heard Wes’s scratchy voice echo through the wiretap. If he was lucky, it wouldn’t be much longer. But as he picked up his rental car, fought through the airport traffic, and eventually made his way down Southern Boulevard, the wiretap hummed with nothing but emptiness. Every once in a while, as two people passed by Lisbeth’s cubicle, he’d pick up the distant buzz of a conversation. Then back to the hum.
Gripping the steering wheel as his white rental car scaled up the Southern Boulevard Bridge, he tried to calm himself with the aquamarine views of the Intracoastal Waterway. As usual, it did the trick, reminding him of the last time he was here: during Manning’s final year, casting in Lake Okeechobee, and reeling in nothing smaller than nine-pounders. No question, the bass were bigger in Florida — back in D.C., a six-pounder was considered huge — but that didn’t make them any easier to catch. Not unless you were willing to have some patience.
With a glance at his silver briefcase that sat wide-open on the passenger seat, The Roman double-checked the wiretap’s signal strength and readjusted his earpiece. After a sharp left on Ocean Boulevard, it wasn’t long before he saw the top of the squat, glass office building peeking above the green leaves of the banyan trees that were relocated there to shield it from public view. As he turned left into the main driveway, he knew they’d have security. What he didn’t know was that they’d also have two police cars, two unmarked Chevys, and an ambulance right outside the building’s entrance. They were definitely starting to panic.
The Roman banked into a nearby parking spot, shut his briefcase, and pulled the earpiece from his ear. Wes was smarter than they’d bargained for. He wouldn’t be hearing Wes’s voice anytime soon. But that was why he made the trip in the first place. Having patience was fine for catching fish. But the way things were going, some problems required an approach that was more hands-on.
From the bottom of the briefcase, The Roman pulled his 9mm SIG revolver, cocked it once, then slid it into the leather holster inside his black suit jacket. Slamming his car door with a thunderclap, he marched straight for the front entrance of the building.
“Sir, I’ll need to see some ID,” an officer in a sheriff’s uniform called out with a hint of North Florida twang.
The Roman stopped, arcing his head sideways. Touching the tip of his tongue to the dip in his top lip, he reached into his jacket…
“Hands where I can—!”
“Easy there,” The Roman replied as he pulled out a black eelskin wallet. “We’re all on the same side.” Flipping open the wallet, he revealed a photo ID and a gold badge with a familiar five-pronged star. “Deputy Assistant Director Egen,” The Roman said. “Secret Service.”
“Damn, man, why didn’t you just say so?” the sheriff asked with a laugh as he refastened the strap for his gun. “I almost put a few in ya.”
“No need for that,” The Roman said, studying his own wavy reflection as he approached the front glass doors. “Especially on such a beautiful day.”
Inside, he approached the sign-in desk and eyed the sculpted bronze bust in the corner of the lobby. He didn’t need to read the engraved plaque below it to identify the rest.
Welcome to the offices of Leland F. Manning. Former President of the United States.
49
The Roman’s a hero,” Lisbeth begins, reading from the narrow reporter’s pad that she pulls out of her folder. “Or a self-serving narc, depending on your political affiliation.”
“Republican vs. Democrat?” Dreidel asks.
“Worse,” Lisbeth clarifies. “Reasonable people vs. ruthless lunatics.”
“I don’t understand,” I tell her.
“The Roman’s a C.I. — confidential informant. Last year, the CIA paid him $70,000 for a tip about the whereabouts of two Iranian men trying to build a chemical bomb in Weybridge, just outside of London. Two years ago, they paid him $120,000 to help them track an al-Zarqawi group supposedly smuggling VX gas through Syria. But the real heyday was almost a decade ago, when they paid him regularly—$150,000 a pop — for tips about nearly every terrorist activity hatching inside Sudan. Those were his specialties. Arms sales… terrorist whereabouts… weapons collection. He knew what the real U.S. currency was.”