Chapter 20
Vice President Lee McKeon stared across the white linen tablecloth at the Japanese woman and picked at his pheasant and pasta without looking down. Still brooding over Drake’s recent growth of a spine, McKeon had skimmed over the portion of the menu that said the dish was seasoned with fennel. The chef in the Navy Mess must have bought it by the bushel — and then used half of his purchase in this serving alone.
The mess, located within a stone’s toss from the Situation Room, was actually only open for seating during breakfast and lunch — making takeout orders for dinner — but none of the staff had argued when the Vice President sat down with his companion.
“I wish you’d let me sort out your wife,” Ran said, chewing a bite of bourbon-glazed salmon as her eyes flicked around the empty dining room. McKeon was certain that the assassination attempt had put her on edge, but there was little that could put her off a meal. Ran Kimura ate little, but she ate often, a function of all her physical activity, he supposed. Had it not been for McKeon’s own case of nerves the thought would have made him smile.
“The situation with my wife will work itself out in time,” he said, pushing away the plate. “Right now I’m more concerned with getting word from China.”
“About our friend Jericho Quinn?” Ran scoffed, chasing a bite of salmon around the plate with her fork, catlike. “You should have let me handle him personally from the beginning.”
“It should be a fairly easy endeavor at this point,” McKeon said, resolving to swear off fennel for the foreseeable future. “My sources say they have him located, and, for all practical purposes, cornered.”
“As they have in times past.” Ran’s lips turned up in a sarcastic smirk. “I prefer to do things myself. All this talking to others gives me a headache.”
McKeon cocked his head to one side. “But if you left, then who would look after me?”
“I suppose that if I had been gone this morning, Agent Knight would have been successful.” Ran shrugged, nodding in thought. “That would have been unfortunate.”
“Unfortunate, indeed.” Looking into her dark eyes, McKeon was taken back to that night years before, when Ran had come within a hair of taking his head. Her father’s organization had been hired by a rival to kill Qasim Ranjhani, a Pakistani fixer who was actually McKeon’s distant cousin. McKeon had been the governor of Oregon at the time. His father’s plan was still in its infancy and McKeon had been visiting with Ranjhani when Ran had slipped into the room, sword in hand, completely naked so as not to stain her clothing with blood from the planned slaughter. Certain he was about to be killed, McKeon had found himself transfixed by the incredibly intricate black and green ink of the tattoo that covered this beautiful woman from shoulder to mid thigh like a bodysuit. Coincidentally, Ranjhani had been in the toilet so McKeon faced her alone. Instead of striking him dead at once, she had paused, studying his face as her sword moved slowly, back and forth like the tip of a hunting cat’s tail, bleeding off coiled energy.
The look in her eyes at that moment was one he often recalled and one that he would never forget.
“Why did you not kill me?” he said, blurting the words much louder than he’d intended. A nearby Navy steward looked at him, then turned away so as not to be rude. “I only know that you stopped,” McKeon continued, quieter now. “What I do not know is why.”
“Because you frightened me.” Ran blotted at her lips with a linen napkin, leaving a telltale pink stain of lipstick. “And I am not an easy person to frighten.”
“Me, frighten you?” he said. “That’s laughable. I know I’m tall, but in a physical confrontation I would be worse than useless. That night… I was unarmed and you held a sword that you have proven you know how to use all too well. What was it about me that could have possibly frightened you?”
Ran stared at him, her oval face serene. She wore very little makeup, the natural flush of her cheeks providing plenty of contrast. “My father was a strong man,” she said, hands placed flat on either side of her plate as if she were meditating. “There was a time when I was younger that I thought he might be invincible. Over the years I learned that his heart was like iron and there was truly no room in it for me. I was led to believe that my target, Qasim Ranjhani, worked for a man who was as violent as my father was strong, a man who had some grand notion of global jihad — a new world for which he was willing to fight and die. I found the idea of a person with such lofty, impossible goals to be intriguing. When I came into the room that evening, I realized you were that man. I saw in you a similar strength that I’d seen in my father.” She leaned forward, almost imperceptibly, just enough that he caught a sultry glimpse of tattoo at the edge of her collar. “But I saw in you one fatal flaw.”
“And what was that?” he asked.
Ran leaned back and dabbed at her lips with the napkin again. “Even with all your grand plans of death and war,” she said, “your heart had room for someone else. I never saw that in my father.”
“So that is what kept me alive?” He forced a smile.
“So far.” She shrugged. “Time will tell.”
He wanted to ask her what she supposed she was going to get from following a man like him. He could understand it if she was after a man with power, but his mission was to bring down the very government that he now led. He was Muslim and she was kafir, an infidel from a nation of idol worshipers. His actions might be permissible under the principle of Muruna, a doctrine that allowed believers to suspend Sharia law in order to further Islam. But a woman like Ran who had covered herself in tattoos and held her head up like a man during conversations would be stoned or hanged once the law was reestablished.
In the end, he supposed that they both realized the likelihood either of them would live that long was very slim. The cell phone in his shirt pocket began to buzz, momentarily saving him from his philosophic self-flagellation.
“Yes,” he said, expecting it would be his secretary or the Chief of Staff. He felt a surge of anticipation when he heard Glen Walter’s voice. The IDTF agent was too intelligent to call unless there was something interesting going on.
“Mr. Vice President,” Walter said. “I’d like to brief you on a matter if you have a moment.” There was an urgency in his voice that made McKeon sit up straighter in his chair.
“By all means, Glen,” he said. “Brief away.” He flipped his slender fingers at Ran to bring her in closer so she could hear both sides of the conversation.
“I’ve taken the liberty of assigning agents to keep tabs on various members of Congress who have voiced vocal opposition to the administration—”
“Wise,” McKeon said, genuinely impressed.
“Thank you, Mr. Vice President,” Walter said. If he was happy with the praise he didn’t gush over it. “But that’s not the end of it. The two agents I have on Senator Gorski from Alaska just called in. Seems she’s driven up to Gettysburg this evening with Congressman Dillman.”
“An affair?” McKeon asked, raising an eyebrow at Ran.
“That could be it, sir,” Agent Walter said. “But it doesn’t really jibe with their personalities or backgrounds. Gorski is driving and my agents say she’s executing various countersurveillance maneuvers — doubling back, slowing down and speeding up, taking exits and then getting right back on the freeway. It’s as though they are trying to shake a tail.”
“So,” McKeon said, “you believe they are meeting someone.”
“I do, sir,” Walter said. “There’s always the possibility that it’s some sort of decoy or ruse, but I think they’re going to meet someone from the conspiracy.”