Caitlin watched McCutcheon in her peripheral vision as he circled around to stand over by the French doors. She couldn’t keep an eye on him while Blackstone expected to have her full attention.
‘These men, from Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, had jumped into Normandy, toughed out the siege of Bastogne and muscled their way into Adolf Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest. They had been tested. They had been scourged. They had reason to respect the Germans’ fighting abilities, but no reason to admire them as a people. They had suffered too much for admiration. And yet, when they found themselves in Germany at last, they also found themselves admiring the spirit and tenacity of the German volk.’
The Governor was warming to his topic now, reminding her of an eccentric professor rather than an ego-driven homicidal maniac. Caitlin had the impression that this was a lecture he had delivered many times before. She would’ve liked to have checked whether McCutcheon’s eyes were glazing over.
‘Their army defeated,’ continued Blackstone, really beginning to sound as though he was quoting himself, ‘their Reich in ruins, their most treasured myth of the Aryan superman torn apart by a mongrel alliance, the Germans nevertheless wasted no time in applying themselves to the mission of rebuilding and recovery. It was in such stark contrast to the French civilians the paratroopers had encountered earlier in the war that, in some ways, the men of Easy Company found the Germans to be more like them than the people they were fighting for.’
‘So, you’d like to be a good German?’ she asked.
‘No, I’d settle for being a good American. I’d settle for us all being good Americans. And I do believe that anyone can be a good American, as long as they commit to it. A commitment that asks more of us than simply memorising a cheat sheet for a citizenship test and learning how to fill in a welfare form.’
‘Look, I can see this is important to you, but it’s not to me.’
‘WELL, IT SHOULD BE!’
A few droplets of milk from the bottom of the glass splashed on his dressing gown as he roared at her. He brushed them off as he recomposed himself and the dog fled from the room.
She’d actually flinched a little bit when Blackstone exploded. But Caitlin used the opportunity to steal another glance at McCutcheon … Still standing by the windows. Still training his pistol on her.
‘I apologise,’ said Blackstone. ‘But it’s that sort of attitude which came so very close to laying us low before the Disappearance. The Germans, and for that matter the Japanese, whom we once considered to be an inferior race, did not create the miracle of their postwar reconstruction because of some genetic superiority. They did it because of cultural superiority. Some cultures, Miss Monroe, are meant to succeed. And some are meant to fail. Some cultures - and take a deep breath now, because I’m going to be controversial - are better. And that is where I part company with President Kipper. He will not acknowledge this basic truth. I do not believe he can even see it. And his policies are leading us into perdition because of that. I cannot control what happens in Seattle, or anywhere Seattle holds sway. Not yet. But by God, I can control what happens down here. And I will not allow this country to go down the toilet because of the weakness and self-indulgence of a man who cannot recognise a simple truth. Some cultures are strong. And some cultures are weak. And he is rebuilding this country from the wretched, cast-off failures of some of the most benighted cultures on the face of this planet. He will bring us to ruin.’
‘I really wish you’d mentioned that this morning,’ said Caitlin. ‘When I had my Spy Girl outfit on. That was quite a rant. It’d go viral on MSN.’
*
‘Do we have any idea where she is?’ Culver asked, wondering if there might be a chance to avoid a second civil war. His head was completely clear. He felt absolutely wretched and sick, but his mind, at least, was moving.
‘If she’s with her personal data unit,’ said Larrison, ‘I’m afraid she appears to be at Governor Blackstone’s residence.’
Okay, thought Jed, we probably just crapped out on avoiding that whole second civil war thing.
‘Any way of confirming that, Mr Director?’
‘Not unless we can get eyes on the target. And right now we have none. Agent Monroe does have an extraction plan. Overwatch is attempting to open a secure comm channel to an effector, a Ranger non-com by the name of Milosz.’
‘Why can’t you get him now?’ asked Jed. ‘Surely he’s got a cell or something.’
‘I said we were trying to open a secure channel, Mr Culver. There’s no point telling Milosz to attempt a hostile extraction if they know he’s coming.’
Hostile extraction? Oh, sweet Jesus.
Jed tried to think it through. To calm the black panic gnawing at him. The situation wasn’t entirely bleak. Caitlin Monroe, it seemed, had done an extraordinary job. She had somehow obtained the entire contents of a computer used by Blackstone’s principal aide and delivered them safely to Echelon. Larrison’s people were going to be days unravelling the treasurer trove of data and documents, but already there were indications they had enough to charge Blackstone with everything from violation of federal occupational health and safety laws up to and including treason.
In that sense, it was all hookers and blow from here. Even the most shell-backed conservative could not support Mad Jack when they had a look at the New York files.
But it still left Culver exposed. He’d sought the dispatch of an Echelon agent on a mission for which the legal standing was questionable at best. More importantly, it was a mission the President had expressly forbidden. There was no parsing the language to obscure the fact that the Chief of Staff had disobeyed a direct order from James Kipper, and in doing so had probably broken enough laws to see him jailed until sometime after the heat death of the universe.
That wasn’t great. But even worse was the fact that with Monroe compromised, Blackstone was aware, at least to some extent, that he too was exposed. If he knew that Echelon had his files, he was entirely capable, in Jed’s opinion, of seceding from the union. If he wasn’t aware of what they had on him, he might try to cover it up by simply disposing of the woman and turning her presence in Texas back on Seattle. This was what a guy like Wales Larrison called ‘blowback’. The deputy director sounded calm, even sanguine, on the line from Vancouver. Jed supposed he was used to these things blowing up in his face. After all, he’d seen most of his network in France rolled up back in ‘03. Caitlin Monroe was the sole survivor of that betrayal.
Although the best outcome to the immediate crisis would be for Monroe to disappear, while leaving Jed with enough documentation of Blackstone’s villainy to destroy him at his leisure, the White House Chief of Staff knew he had to act quickly to maintain some semblance of control.
‘The Federal Center down in Temple,’ he said. ‘Talk me through what kind of assets we have down there, Mr Director.’
*
‘Really. This is fascinating, and not at all creepy,’ Caitlin continued. ‘But really off topic. You asked what I hoped to achieve? I want to know what the fuck went wrong in New York.’
Blackstone shifted uncomfortably in his chair and shot a glance over at McCutcheon, before trying to cover up his loss of self-control with bombast.
‘What happened in New York, young lady,’ he said in a lecturing tone, ‘is that President Kipper learned a harsh lesson in the realities of life. He had been running down the defences of this country, selling off some of our finest assets in the worst sort of dime-store auctions, and in New York the chickens came home to roost.’