“You rather they get the bomb, Mr. Shafer? That what you’re telling me?”
“Do the President and Donna Green agree?”
Carcetti’s thick black eyebrows rose, the movement as surprising as an Easter Island statue coming to life. They came down fast, but Shafer saw that he’d scored. Carcetti didn’t know what Hebley was telling the White House. Shafer suspected that Hebley was keeping his doubts, if he had any, to himself.
Shafer looked at Bunshaft. “Hebley’s taking all of you over Niagara Falls. Except he’s the only one with a barrel.”
“If only you and Duto had actual evidence for this crazy theory you’re peddling. Aaron Duberman, right? Who just happened to give two hundred million dollars to the same President who fired Duto.”
“That’s a feature, General. Not a bug.”
“What?”
“Ask your friend here about Adina Leffetz.”
Another score. Carcetti’s big Marine head wobbled a fraction on his big Marine neck.
“You don’t know her, but she ran the job for Duberman. Used to work for a Knesset member named Daniel Raban. Nice guy. One of those Jews who think Israel should treat the Palestinians like crap for the next two thousand years to make up for what happened in the last two thousand. I can say that because I’m Jewish. You can’t.” Shafer shifted his attention to Bunshaft. “Come on, tell the general about her.”
Bunshaft shook his head.
“I still don’t hear any evidence,” Carcetti said.
Shafer wondered if he should mention Witwans and decided to hold off.
“You can do the right thing, General. You can walk this back.”
“They blew up a plane.” Carcetti tapped the table, clanking metal against metal.
For the first time, Shafer noticed that in addition to his heavy yellow gold wedding ring, Carcetti wore a thick platinum ring etched with the Marine Corps insignia. On his right hand was yet another ring, this one dull steel, almost black with wear. Intentionally or not, the rings looked like makeshift brass knuckles on Carcetti’s meaty hands.
Carcetti caught Shafer’s glance. He tapped the steel ring. “This was my granddad’s. He died on Tarawa. November 22, 1943. My dad lost his right eye at Khe Sanh, March 7, ’68.”
“And now you get to start your own war, kill somebody else’s father. Circle of death. Congratulations.”
A crimson flush spread up Carcetti’s neck. His big hands bent into fists. Shafer knew he’d gone too far.
“General,” Bunshaft said.
Carcetti exhaled long and loud. “An angel on my shoulder. Lucky for you.” He took a phone from his pocket. “I answered your question. Time for you to do your part.”
“Call John, you mean? You get service down here?”
“We’ll go outside.”
If he hadn’t just almost talked himself into a beating, Shafer would have laughed. “I don’t know his number. He’s on a different burner every time we call—”
“So email him, tell him you have to talk to him—”
“More important. Did you really think I’d call him for you?”
Bunshaft broke the silence that followed.
“But you promised.” The shock in his voice sounded genuine.
Carcetti looked from Shafer to Bunshaft like he was trying to figure out which one to shoot first. He grabbed Bunshaft’s arm, tossed him off his chair. Bunshaft was hardly skinny, but he flew like a bag of sticks.
“Get out,” Carcetti said. “Close the door. And walk. Until you can’t hear anything.”
Bunshaft opened his mouth and closed it again and did what Carcetti had told him. Shafer and Carcetti waited in silence as Bunshaft’s footsteps receded down the hall.
When they were gone, Carcetti stood. “People fall down stairs.” He swung his head side to side, rolled his shoulders like a boxer trying to get loose.
Shafer realized he needed to make sure Carcetti knew that Lucy Joyner knew what was happening. She had to have cleared the campus by now.
Carcetti stepped toward him—
Shafer bit back the words. Let Carcetti crack his ribs, blacken his eyes. He’d be digging an even deeper hole. And Shafer would prove, to himself, to Wells, or both, that he wasn’t afraid.
Though he was.
Carcetti pushed over Shafer’s chair, sent him sprawling, his knees clapping the concrete floor. Shafer lay on his back. That quick, his fear vanished. This was Langley, not North Korea. Carcetti hadn’t earned three stars in the Marines by making dumb mistakes. He wasn’t going to hurt Shafer, no matter how furious he was.
“Last chance.” Carcetti squatted beside him. “I will break your neck.” Carcetti put a hand on Shafer’s throat, squeezed lightly.
Time to end this nonsense. “You will not. And fyi, Lucy Joyner saw me this morning. I was down at her office while you and Bunshaft were waiting for me. She’s got a picture to prove it.”
Carcetti cursed, stepped away from Shafer, kicked the table over. The metal clattered against the concrete, as loud and empty as Carcetti’s threats.
“I’d say you have three options. Put us all under quarantine down here. Lucy and my wife and Vinny, too. It could get cramped. Though maybe if we have snacks. Everyone loves snacks.” Shafer pulled himself to his feet, hoping Carcetti didn’t notice the tremble in his legs. “Two, let me go. Though I have a feeling that isn’t on the agenda. Three, go for a warrant, do this right.”
“You want me to call that bluff? We have tapes of what you told Wells. We play them, you spend the rest of your life in prison.”
Carcetti might be right. Federal judges didn’t love CIA officers who disclosed classified information. Stopping a war would be a mitigating circumstance, but only if Shafer succeeded.
Yet at this point Shafer didn’t care. To get a warrant, even in a case that supposedly presented an immediate national security threat, Carcetti and Hebley would have to talk to the CIA’s lawyers, who would insist on calling the Justice Department. Justice would be predisposed to believe whatever version of the story Carcetti gave. But once they got involved, Hebley would have a much harder time ordering the CIA’s black-ops teams after Wells — who, if nothing else, had constitutional protections as an American citizen.
Carcetti opened the door, stepped out. Then turned back, looked at Shafer from the doorway.
“Just one thing, Ellis. I know you and your buddy have looked all over the world for that HEU. So have we, believe it or not. We can’t find it. Tell me, if it’s not Iranian, whose is it?”
Shafer could only shake his head.
“Whose?” Carcetti shouted now. “Tell me. Whose?”
Shafer felt no choice but to answer “I don’t know.”
“And you know why? Because it’s from Iran.” Carcetti slammed the door so hard as he left that the plaster wall beside it cracked from floor to ceiling.
Shafer sat alone, wondering how long Carcetti would leave him here, whether he’d have a warrant when he returned. Either way, Shafer believed he had done all he could to take the red dot off Wells’s chest. He wasn’t the praying type. Never had been. So he settled for crossing his fingers and hoping Wells would use that freedom.
20
Wells found a computer in the corner of a crowded café off Tahrir Square and logged into the account he’d created to email Adina Leffetz. He wasn’t expecting a response. To his surprise, he found not one but two replies.
Both from her, though from two different accounts. The first was blank. Wells suspected it contained a tracking virus, because his computer briefly froze when he opened it. No matter. Let Salome try to find him in Cairo.