“And you notified the FBI in advance.”
“Yep, twice, and they didn’t want it.”
“But you didn’t talk to Fullwood?”
“Asked for him. He put Gilbert on me both times.”
“What did she say?”
“That they had their own sources. I think it’s possible she gave some credibility to my information but doesn’t have the balls to defend it to Fullwood. So I set up a safety net to stop the smuggler if and only if the FBI didn’t stop him before he entered Iraq.”
“You were certain there was uranium in that car?”
“There were radioactive emissions from the car and from the Russian himself when he was out of the car. I’m absolutely sure of that.”
“How did Fullwood know you were involved?”
“He’s bluffing. Couldn’t know.” Warfield was that certain Abbas didn’t leak it. No one else knew — except Fleming.
“What about Earl’s story that CIA was the source for the trial-run intelligence?”
“If it’s true, could mean another mole. Maybe in the CIA. Or the FBI.”
“That’s a jump, Cam. Could just be bad intelligence. It’s not a perfect world, you know.”
“If they got the dry run story from the CIA, their intel was wrong and mine was right, if you believe the Geiger-counter. So one possibility that has to be considered is that the dry run report was engineered.”
“And it couldn’t have been our boy Joplan.” Cross was thinking out loud.
“Right. It was long after Joplan’s arrest that the FBI said they received the intel from CIA. Me too.”
“What about your source?”
Warfield nodded. “I’d bet my life on him. Fact is, I have, more than once.” He told Cross of Abbas’s return to his own Iran after he graduated from MIT, and his eventual escape to Paris with his family and most of their wealth just before the religious regime took over Iran in the seventies; of his engineering firm in Paris that was a front for his operation to undermine terrorists and rogue regimes; and that Warfield and Abbas had cooperated in several operations over the years.
“CIA know him? Abbas, I mean.”
“He worked with CIA twenty years ago.”
Cross thought it over for a minute. “Look, don’t worry about this. I’ll handle Earl when we meet tomorrow. Keep your nose clean ’til then.” He patted Warfield on the back and left him standing there.
Warfield stayed over at Fleming’s that night and when he stepped out of the shower the next morning his cell phone was ringing. He grabbed the phone next to the bed as Fleming, now waking, rolled over, revealing the whiteness of her breasts in the tangle of sheets.
“Yeah,” he answered, somewhat preoccupied. Fleming was teasing him.
“Garrison here. Read this morning’s Post yet?”
Warfield was caught off guard. Cross didn’t place his own calls.
“Uh…no, sir.”
“Call me when you’ve read it.”
The front page showed a ten-year-old 2x3 photo of Warfield in uniform, and the headline, “Cross Assistant Foils FBI Operation in Turkey”. The story quoted “most-reliable unnamed” sources as saying Cross recruited Warfield to work behind the scenes, and that had led to Warfield’s interference in an FBI operation that compromised national security. Cross and Warfield may have operated in violation of federal law, according to the sources. Warfield was described as a forced-out army colonel who was handed a lucrative government contract to run a small training center subsidized by Congress. It went on to describe the border incident with details that could have come only from someone present at yesterday’s Oval Office meeting.
Fleming was reading over his shoulder. “Know who leaked it?”
Warfield couldn’t rule out Otto Stern or Bill Reynolds, but he put his money on Fullwood.
“Fullwood. Welcome to politics,” Warfield muttered.
Now the President would take plenty of heat, and any retaliation by Cross against Fullwood would give credibility to the story. Warfield knew he couldn’t so much as empty the president’s wastebasket now without it showing up in the news, leaving one avenue for him: He had to resign the White House post, and there was even a chance Lone Elm could be in political jeopardy if the story lingered on.
Later that morning in the Oval Office, Cross told Warfield, “I’ve put you in a lousy position. You could’ve gone into politics if you wanted this kind of harassment.”
“It’s my own doing.”
“You mean Habur? I hope I would have had the guts to do what you did.”
“I’m a liability to you now, Mr. President. If I disappear, so will the story. And you can get back to work. You hired me to handle this but you’re having to spend time on it.”
Cross weighed that for a moment. “Let’s hang in there, Cam. Years ago, I was naïve to think I could get into politics and stay above this part of it, but now that I’m in, I can play the game.”
Warfield shook his head. “It’s no good. The advantages I held for you — my anonymity, independence — that’s gone now. And the longer this lives, the worse it’ll get. Congressional hearings, investigations, special prosecutors. There’d be no time left for me to do what you hired me for. I leave, the problem goes away.”
Cross thought it over. “Tell you what, Cam, don’t jump yet. Spend your time at Lone Elm instead of this office, but keep working on this. It’ll be unofficial. We’ll say you’ve resigned the post here at the White House. I’ll keep the followup meet with Fullwood and Reynolds at noon and see what they have to say about their sources.”
Paula Newnan sat with Warfield while he packed up the personal items he’d brought to the White House. She cursed Fullwood. Warfield put the boxes in his car and headed to Lone Elm.
Cross called Warfield after his noon meeting with Fullwood and Reynolds.
“Told them you decided to go back to Lone Elm.”
“Made Fullwood a happy man.”
“Looks like the CIA source came through Quinn himself via a former KGB officer he met in Russia when he was in the Senate. Quinn doesn’t want to identify his source — a commitment he made to him.”
“This was direct from the KGB officer to Quinn?”
“So it seems.”
Warfield thought about that. It sounded too much like his own relationship with Antonov. An incredible coincidence. What about Antonov? Could he be Quinn’s source also, playing both ends against the middle? Could Quinn, the CIA director, be lying? Not possible.
“You there?” Cross said after a few seconds.
“Just thinking. Now what about Fullwood’s claim that I set up Habur? He tell you how he got that?”
“Nope. He chewed on that cigar and tried to explain but he’s shooting in the dark.”
“What about the Post story?”
“Fullwood knows that I think he leaked it,” Cross said.
Warfield was putting his Lone Elm office in order the next day when Abbas Mozedah called. “This may or may not be important, Cameron, but very interesting. Our friend Seth has a sister in America — right there in Washington.”
“Yeah? Seth, the terrorist?”
“Name is Ana Koronis.”
“Koronis.” Warfield knew the name. “Married to—”
“Spiro Koronis. Was. As you know, he is dead now.”
The former U.S. Ambassador to Greece! Warfield was stunned. Not only was Seth’s sister the widow of the ambassador, she had been the constant companion of Austin Quinn for some time! Also a prominent lawyer and high-profile Washington socialite, Ms. Koronis was often in the news.