“Because you hate the Senate already. Think you’re too good for it. But you know there’s no way you’re ever going to be more than the junior senator from Pennsylvania unless lightning strikes. And this feels like lightning. Your friends inside Langley, and you still have a few, have told you the evidence isn’t as airtight as we’d like. You know we still can’t find the colonel who tipped us.”
News to Duto, valuable news, not that he was about to tell Green the mistake she’d made in revealing it. “All true.”
“Now you’re making the same mistake as Tehran. Underestimating POTUS, thinking that he doesn’t have the stones to attack. You know if I listen to you and we back down, we’ll owe you the kind of favor that will give you a whole new career. State. Defense. Whatever.”
“And John Wells is helping me with this?”
“Probably he doesn’t have the full picture. Just like you did with Whitby.”
“It’s a good theory, Donna.” Duto raised his right hand. “Only problem is it’s wrong. I’ll swear on whatever you like. I’ll swear on Home Depot.”
She shook her head. “I want evidence. Any at all.”
Duto realized he’d misplayed his hand terribly. He’d figured his time as DCI would count for something. And it had. The opposite of the way he’d hoped. He should have held off on calling the White House until he had something tangible.
Donna Green was even more cynical than he was. An impossible feat.
“I don’t have anything concrete to show you.”
“That’s no, then.”
Duto hadn’t planned to go into details, but he felt the need to explain. “A former case officer named Mason was running the op, but if you ask Hebley about him, he’ll say the guy died four years ago in Thailand.”
“But this Mason is actually alive.”
“No. He’s dead.” Duto remembered now why he hadn’t planned to go into details. “Last week. Wells killed him.”
“Where’s the body?”
Duto opened his mouth, but no words came out. Alarm flashed in Green’s eyes. Like she couldn’t decide if he was playing her or simply losing his mind.
“Gone. I know it sounds far-fetched. But it’s not like you have a ton of evidence tying the uranium to Iran either.”
“If it’s not Iranian, where’d Duberman get it?”
“We’re looking.”
“You must at least have a working theory.”
“We have several.”
Duto realized that as DCI, he would have fired any deputy who made a presentation this bad.
Green turned back to the convoy, giving him no choice but to follow. A signal that the conversation was over. “Vinny. Let me tell you something you won’t want to hear. If you don’t mind.” Her tone had a new breeziness that didn’t comfort Duto. She sounded like a cop trying to talk down a jumper. “The Indians found the guys who shot down United 49. We took ’em six hours ago. Predawn in Mumbai. A Delta team.”
“Delhi signed off on the Deltas?”
“We didn’t give them a choice. POTUS wanted to be sure we brought them in alive. And the Indians are embarrassed. We warned them about Chhatrapati. Years ago.”
“I know.” Duto had been DCI at the time. The Federal Aviation Administration had even considered banning American carriers from flying to Mumbai. But the Indian government protested and promised to improve security, and the FAA backed down. “So who has the shooters now?”
“They’re in the bath.” Meaning the Navy was holding them offshore. “They’re Lebanese. And we’re a hundred percent sure they’re Hezbollah.”
“They’re talking?”
“They’re bragging.”
For the first time, Duto wondered if he and Wells and Shafer had made a mistake. Maybe they couldn’t connect Mason to Duberman because the connection didn’t exist. But no. The thread they’d followed was real.
“If Tehran thinks we’re going to invade on false evidence, they’d have every reason to shoot down our planes. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that they haven’t even hinted at making a deal since we hit them? That they went straight to the wall?”
“Interesting theory, Senator.” The chill was back in her voice. As much as saying: I tried to make you see reason. And I failed. We’re done. “Two choices here. I go back to POTUS, tell him you’ve accused his largest campaign donor of treason without evidence. Get it in the record. When we hit Iran, find all that HEU you say doesn’t exist, that file magically finds air.”
“WikiLeaks?”
“Call me old-fashioned, but I just love the idea of it on the front page of the Times. Terrible way for a distinguished public servant like you to end his career. Second choice, we pretend this was a bad orange-flavored dream.”
The threat snapped Duto’s shoulders back, puffed his chest. Fight or flight. The amazing part was that for once his conscience was clear. He’d told the truth. He’d tried to warn her.
Last time he made that mistake.
“Do what you like, Donna. But I promise I’m gonna figure out where Duberman scored that uranium.” Duto raised his voice. “Then I’m going to call you and tell you. Just you and me, face-to-face. Then I’m gonna turn you around and bend you over so hard you won’t sit for a month. Like I did to Whitby.”
All the guards, hers and his, were listening openly, not even pretending they hadn’t heard. Kyle trotted toward them.
“Get that, buddy? Do I need to repeat it?”
“Enough, Senator.” Kyle inserted himself between Duto and Green, close enough for Duto to see what was left of the spinach Kyle had eaten for dinner. Duto hoped beyond hope that the guard would put a hand on him. He still worked the heavy bag four days a week.
Green guided Kyle aside. “No worries. We’re done here.”
Duto stepped back as Kyle hurried Green to her Tahoe. The rest of her guards followed. Doors slammed. Forty-five seconds later, the last of the SUVs crunched out of the parking lot and turned onto the turnpike, running lights flashing, no sirens.
Duto watched in silence, replaying snatches of the conversation, his adrenaline fading. Had he really threatened to quote-unquote bend over the National Security Advisor? In front of two dozen witnesses?
They better find that uranium.
12
The woman who called herself Salome wasn’t alone. A man stood beside the bed. His face was faintly asymmetrical, the left side wider than the right, like he’d had an accident that surgery hadn’t fully fixed. His right hand hovered over his hip. His eyes stuck to Wells’s hands.
A pro.
Wells stepped toward the bed.
“Close enough,” Salome said.
“All friends here.”
A smile spread from Salome’s lips up her cheeks to her eyes. North like a warm front. While it lasted, she was pretty. Alive. Then it was gone. She looked at him as coolly as a research scientist checking out a chimp. Don’t mind this old needle, Mr. Chips. Won’t hurt a bit…
In happier news, they’d left the window curtains open. So they didn’t plan to kill him. Not here, anyway. A tour bus idled in the parking lot below. As Wells watched, an old couple tottered toward it, hand in hand. He thought of Anne and all the lives he’d left behind.
“Mason told me you were trouble,” Salome said. Her English was measured, almost too perfect, a hint of eastern Mediterranean. She could have passed for first-generation American, the accent left over from her native-speaking parents. She wore only a wedding ring, no nail polish or makeup. All business.