“Who do you guys have in mind?” asked the president.
Dobson didn’t hesitate. “Karcher,” he said.
“Karcher? He wasn’t even on the short list.”
“That’s not what the Times, the Post, and Politico will be reporting in a couple of days,” said Landry, all but bragging.
“And what about Bass?” asked the president. “What am I telling him?”
With a quick nod, Landry deferred to Dobson. Golden parachutes were strictly the chief of staff’s domain.
“You simply tell Bass that his support collapsed in the wake of the assault-rifle ban bill, and that he’s the sacrificial lamb for the Republicans on the committee looking for payback,” said Dobson. “I’ll take care of the rest. After three months, he’ll land on K Street clearing a million five a year. Trust me, he’ll play along. He’ll have no choice.”
Tink-tinkity-tink. The president rattled his glass again, his eyes narrowing in thought. Five seconds passed. Then ten.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Wake the poor son of a bitch up.”
Dobson and Landry both quickly assured their boss that he was doing the right thing. Then, even faster, they left the Oval Office before he could change his mind.
President Morris was prone to that sometimes. Uncertainty. As a Blue Dog Democrat from Iowa, he managed a straight-shooter persona in public, but behind closed doors, according to “unnamed sources,” he had a tendency to agonize over decisions. His critics relentlessly seized upon this as the ultimate sign of weakness. A particularly scathing article in the New York Observer went so far as to attribute it to his height, or lack thereof. Only two presidents in the past century have measured under six feet tall, the article pointed out: Jimmy Carter and Bretton Morris.
But as he sat behind his desk and waited for Dobson to patch him in with Bass so he could break the bad news, President Morris felt something deep and strong in his gut. Something certain. That this night, of all nights, was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.
Clearly, Dobson hadn’t shared the details of that file in his hands because what was in that file could embarrass the hell out of the administration, if not worse. Giving specifics to his boss meant knowing the truth, and knowing the truth meant accountability.
Rule #1: Presidents don’t get impeached for the things they don’t know.
So leave it at that, right? Lawrence Bass had been involved in something he shouldn’t have been, and whatever it might be was enough to keep him from becoming the next director of Central Intelligence.
There was just one problem, one more thing the president didn’t know. That file in Clay Dobson’s hand?
There was nothing in it.
It was empty.
Chapter 31
“Who is he?” asked Dobson, pausing before a sip of coffee. At nine a.m. the following morning in his West Wing office, he was already on his third cup of the day. At least three additional cups, if not more, would follow before noon. Always black. Just black. No sugar.
“Maybe it’s better if you don’t know,” replied Frank Karcher, sitting on the other side of Dobson’s desk with his thick arms folded. The current National Clandestine Service chief of the CIA never drank coffee. Nor did he smoke or consume alcohol. From time to time, though, he did give orders to have people killed.
This was the first time the two were meeting publicly, as it were, in Dobson’s office. For the past two years, they had met in secret, a routine that had been no small feat given that the beat bloggers working the nation’s capital made Hollywood paparazzi look like agoraphobic slackers. The empty parking garages after midnight, the abandoned warehouse in Ivy City — that part of their plan was over. It would now be expected that Karcher’s name show up on the White House visitors’ log.
Dobson forced a smile, an attempt at patience with his strangest of political bedfellows. “If I didn’t need to know the guy’s name, Frank, you wouldn’t be sitting here,” he said. “Your mess is my mess.”
Karcher couldn’t argue with that, choosing instead to simply scratch the back of his very large head before opening the file in his lap. This one wasn’t empty. “His name is Trevor Mann,” he began, summarizing in bullet-point fashion. “Former Manhattan ADA with an outstanding conviction rate... left to become general counsel for a hedge fund... apparently that didn’t go too well.”
“What happened?” asked Dobson.
“The firm was sued by one of its largest clients, the Police Pension Fund of New York City. This guy, Trevor Mann, discovered during the trial that the hedge fund managers were withholding evidence that should’ve been given to the prosecution. In short, the cops were getting screwed out of profits.”
Karcher was about to continue when he glanced up at Dobson and suddenly stopped. There was something about Dobson’s expression, although Karcher couldn’t quite peg it. “What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Dobson lied. “Go on. Or better yet, let me guess. The lawyer grew a conscience and sold out the hedge fund managers.”
“Something like that,” said Karcher. “He ended up being disbarred. Now he’s teaching at Columbia Law. Ethics, no less. Just finished his second year there.”
Dobson took another sip of coffee, leaning back in his chair. He knew that Karcher, all six foot two and two hundred and forty pounds of him, could be a sick fuck with a short fuse, if provoked.
But Dobson also knew what they had in common, what had initially brought them together.
A complete and thorough understanding of leverage.
Chapter 32
“Frank, did you ever take Latin?”
Karcher, a bit wary of the lack of segue from Dobson, slowly shook that large head of his. When he first enlisted in the army over thirty years ago, they had to special-order his helmet. “I’m assuming you did?” he asked.
“Yeah, four years of it at Phillips Exeter Academy,” said Dobson, fully aware of how pretentious that sounded. “And you know what the irony is? The only Latin expression that’s ever had any meaning to me whatsoever in my job is one that most anybody would know without studying the language for a single goddamn day. Quid pro quo.”
Karcher was well acquainted with the expression. He also knew where Dobson was heading with it. But before he could even open his mouth to mount his defense, Dobson went right on talking.
“Last night, I convinced the president of the United States to make you the next director of the CIA. You, Frank. Not the half dozen or so more qualified men at the top of the intelligence world, but you. I did this because this was our agreement, what you got in return for helping me with my plan. And everything was going well with that plan, wasn’t it?”
Dobson paused. It was a rhetorical question, but he still wanted at least a nod from Karcher, something that would make it all very clear. Not that Karcher agreed with him. Screw that. Rather, that Karcher understood just who exactly had the leverage.
So let’s see it, big boy. Tilt that huge melon of yours up and down like a good soldier.
And there it was, right on cue. It was the slightest of nods but a nod just the same, and for a proud man like Karcher, easily more painful than passing a cactus-sized kidney stone.