“What about support?” Ellis said.
“I want as few people knowing the details as possible,” the president cut in. “Julian here, and Chad Fordham, will oversee this operation personally.”
Speers’ protest came immediately, but the president cut him off. “You both have competent deputy directors. Let them run things for a few days. I want your full and undivided attention on this.”
“This is a mistake,” Carver said. “We should have dozens, if not hundreds, of people on this.”
“I think I’ve made myself clear. We can’t afford a leak.”
She had a point. As the business of keeping secrets went, this was about as big and juicy as they came. “When can I see the London crime scene photos?”
Speers sucked his teeth, as he always did when he was about to say something disappointing. “You can’t. MI6 won’t chance transmitting anything electronically.”
Carver’s face felt suddenly hot. “We have a pact to share intelligence data that is mutually beneficial to international security.”
“Oh, they’re fully willing to cooperate. It’s just that they insist on doing it in person.”
“What is this, 1985?”
“The hactivists have them spooked,” the president explained. Earlier that year, a group claiming to be former WikiLeaks members had risen from the organization’s ashes to release sensitive video that MI6 had shared with the CIA. Before either side could deploy its forces to shut the video down, the Allied Jihad had used the material to identify a British double agent within the Iranian government. He had never been heard from again. Similar moves by hacker activists — who believed that governments had no right to withhold even sensitive information from the public — had so terrorized governments across the globe that even diplomats had been transported back to the industrial age, at times refusing to communicate even benign correspondence by email.
“Fine,” Carver conceded. “I’ll go to London if that’s what you want. But I suggest that Ellis stays here.” He deliberately avoided eye contact with his new partner. “We can’t afford to let the trail in Washington get any colder.”
“Noted,” Speers said, “But denied. Chad and I will supervise the domestic end of this. You are both to go to London and anywhere else necessary to find out who did this.”
The president stood up. “Until we know who’s behind this, and why, we are fully exposed.”
Speers glanced at his phone, reading an incoming text message. He looked up, apparently horrified by what he had read. “Madam President…Senator Preston’s house just went up in flames.”
Before anyone could react, Fordham also received a text. “It’s Bowers,” he said, gazing into his screen. “He’s all right.”
“Thank God,” Speers gushed in relief. “And the senator’s assistant?”
Fordham shook his head grimly. “Doesn’t look good. She was inside.”
Carver felt sick. It wasn’t just that Mary Borst was likely dead. All forensic evidence had just burned up in the senator’s brownstone.
Eisenhower Building
Washington D.C.
Speers ran his fingers over the oak surface of the partners desk that he had used during his seven years as White House Chief of Staff. Despite finding a few new nicks in the wood, he smiled, knowing that he wouldn’t be headed back to McLean tonight. After his debrief with the president and the others, he had stayed behind and formally requested permission to reclaim his old office in the adjacent Eisenhower Building.
The president was visibly irritated, but granted the request nonetheless. Speers didn’t mind a bit of social tension. That was part of the game. And timing was everything. As he had hoped, his audacity was trumped by the president’s desire to stay in the loop during the investigation into Senator Preston’s assassination.
The office’s current occupant, a GS-14 from the Office of Management amp; Budget, had been out when Speers arrived. His startled assistant, who sat in the neighboring office, was trying to get hold of him at this very moment. Speers couldn’t wait for the guy to get back here and take his horrendous photos down. A few beach pics from Guam, a random picture out the window of an airplane, and one of an old dog with an old woman that, for some reason he couldn’t put his finger on, depressed him.
He sat in his old chair and adjusted the lumbar support and height to suit him. Then he set his computer on the desk, fired it up, and logged into the secure network. Per the president’s directive, he dialed Claire Shipmont to temporarily delegate oversight of the ODNI daily operations to her so that he could focus on the crisis at hand. “Don’t ask,” he said before Claire could get the first question out of her mouth. “Just know this is temporary, so don’t go making changes that can’t be undone a few days from now.”
“Yeah, I was thinking Mondays should be wear your pajamas to work day from now on.”
He liked Claire. He had, after all, plucked her from a Bay Area data analysis company to be his second in command. “Just one thing. There’s a technical support analyst named Arunus Roth. He works under Blake Carver in the NCC. Give him access to my office. He’ll be working in there.”
“I know who he is. He’s like a G-8 or something. He’s always hitting on my assistant.”
“Roth might be a little rough around the edges, but he won’t trash the place. He needs complete privacy for the next few days, and we won’t be seeing much of Carver, either.”
As Speers signed off, a file request notification appeared in the corner of his screen. Someone was requesting access to a file that Speers owned. He didn’t receive many these days, since he almost never had time to create any, much less administrate them. In the time that he had been heading up the ODNI, he spent more than 70 percent of his time in meetings, and the rest problem solving, reviewing reports and news. He scarcely had time to create anything of his own. Even his news releases and quotes were written for him.
He clicked on the file share request. It was from Chad Fordham. He was requesting access to Blake Carver’s official dossier.
Speers called Fordham, knowing that the FBI Director would be startled to hear his voice. Making a file share request outside of one’s own agency was a completely blind process. You couldn’t see who owned them.
The FBI Director answered on the first ring. “Anything you want to know about Carver,” Speers declared, “You can ask me right now.”
It took Fordham a moment to form a response. “Sorry, Julian. I never guessed this would go through you personally.”
“Just tell me what you’re looking for.”
“Well, everything, frankly. The president requested Carver’s involvement, not me. I want to know more about who I’m working with.”
Speers wasn’t about to lay everything on the table. Besides, Carver’s most interesting work had been deliberately omitted from the record. “You called me last year asking who the hell he was. You remember what I told you?”
He heard Fordham take a sip of something hot before speaking. “You said if I needed someone to parachute into a mountain fortress in the middle of the night to get somebody important, then Carver would be the guy.”
“That’s right. And here’s what I should have said — if you needed someone to figure out that the target was there in the first place, then Carver would also be the guy. You remember two years ago when the CIA foiled an Allied Jihad plot to kidnap that drone pilot out in Nevada?”
“Don’t tell me that — ”
“Yes, that was Carver’s operation. What else?”
“There’s a rumor that he’s in trouble with the House Committee on Domestic Intelligence.”
“Then you already know he’s protecting Nico Gold. It’s not what I’d do, but at least Carver’s loyal, which is more than I can say for most people.”
“And that’s all there is to it?”
“That’s right. He’s protecting an asset. That’s it.”
Fordham thanked Speers for his time and hung up. Speers had hunch that Fordham wasn’t the type to be satisfied that quickly, though. He’d find a way into Carver’s file with or without permission. Speers unwrapped a grape lollipop and decided he better see if anything needed editing.