Nods all around, including — finally — Canby.
Harrison said, pointedly, “Director Shaley, get me the information I need. ASAP.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Anyone else care to add anything?”
Senator Blount lifted a hand, a shy student seeking to make a point in class. His blond hair going silver lent him a boyish quality despite his age, though his tortoiseshell-framed bifocals and sagging neck told a clearer story of his sixty-seven years.
The Senator said, “The eyes of the nation, of the world, are upon us, Mr. President. All due respect, sir — spinning our wheels is not enough... you have to do something.”
“I am, Senator — I’m gathering facts. Only then will I make a decision.”
The President rose and so did they all. He said, “Get to your posts and we’ll convene here again this evening. Tim will text you with the time.”
As the senior official in the room, Vice President Mitchell was the one to say, “Thank you, Mr. President.”
Turning to Reeder, the President said, “Joe? With me, please.”
Reeder followed Harrison out of the room, Vinson and the Vice President right behind them, leaving the others standing there a little dumbstruck, staring at the screen with its image of a battlefield that seemed more field than battle.
The elevator doors slid shut and, as they went up, Vinson said, “Jesus, are the hawks getting hard!”
“They have a reason for once,” President Harrison said. “Four Americans are dead.”
“You’re right, sir,” Vinson said, quietly.
The elevator door opened and the Vice President made her nodding exit while the Chief of Staff fell in step with the President and Reeder. Harrison paused.
“Tim, you’ll be in your office, if I need you?”
The sideways dismissal froze Vinson momentarily. “... Certainly, Mr. President.”
Vinson headed off to his hidey-hole.
The two men remaining walked in silence until they were inside the Oval Office. As he moved around behind his desk, Harrison waved Reeder to a chair on the opposite side. In previous meetings, they had used the couches and comfortable chairs in the informal central meeting area. The formidable desk said the words to come would be important, official.
“So, Joe — maybe you can use your fabled people-reading skills to tell me if Director Shaley is lying about not knowing who sent our agents into Azbekistan.”
Reeder didn’t hesitate. “He’s lying.”
Harrison’s eyebrows went up. “You can tell?”
Reeder nodded. “He had his mouth open.”
The President offered up a weak smile. “I was being serious.”
“So was I,” Reeder said. “The man is a professional spy, buttoned-down and hard as hell to read, even by a kinesics expert. That said, he lies for a living, Mr. President. It’s a habit with him.”
“What does your gut say — is he the one who sent our agents over there?”
Reeder considered that. “If you’re asking me if he signed the actual order, I have no idea. If you mean do I think he was aware of it? Damn likely. Shaley has been Director of the CIA since I headed up the presidential detail. In my experience, no one passes wind at Langley without Shaley knowing.”
“But what the hell is the motivation here, for Shaley or anyone else, to kill four Americans?”
Reeder shrugged a shoulder. “War is big business. We both know, even if it’s not general knowledge, that Azbekistan has some very valuable, as yet unexploited mineral rights.” He shrugged the other shoulder. “And, then, Russia always makes a good bad guy.”
The President nodded, but said nothing, thinking.
Finally, Reeder said, “With all due respect, Mr. President, surely you didn’t bring me in this morning to read Director Shaley — you already knew he was a liar.”
Harrison smiled a little. “You’re right — he’s so opaque he’s transparent. I called you in because I know — hell, everyone in this building knows — the Russians killed our agents.”
“So the hawks are right.”
“They’re right. But they’re also wrong.” Harrison slid a thumb drive across the desk to Reeder. “This is the information we have. Or I should say, that I have. You’ll have to find out the rest yourself, Joe. Because it’s not the Russians we’re after here.”
Reeder took the thumb drive. Tucked it away in a coat pocket, then said, “It wouldn’t seem to be. Someone on our end sent those four to die.”
The President swallowed thickly, then he waved a hand. “Hell, given the situation, I’d have done the same thing the Russians did — what would we do if four Russians showed up in the middle of our war?”
“Our people never even identified themselves as Americans. They may have been taken for resistance.”
“Either way, it just doesn’t matter. The thing is, Joe, as you heard in the Sit Room, I had ordered that no one be sent to Azbekistan... yet someone deliberately disobeyed. I want to know who that someone was — who that someone is — before I take any action. Can you do that, Joe? Can you find that person?”
“I can try, Mr. President. But I’m just one man.”
“One man will have to be enough. And do it fast, Joe — that sound you hear is the clock ticking. And it may be attached to a bomb.”
“Yes, sir.”
Reeder rose, but the President said, “Just one more thing.”
“Sir?”
President Harrison slid a cell phone across the desk. “This is encrypted, safe, and programmed with my personal number.”
Reeder picked up the phone, slipped it into his coat pocket with the thumb drive.
“Report any time, day or night.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
“Don’t thank me yet — this is an unenviable assignment and inherently dangerous. Try not to be the fifth American killed in this thing.”
Reeder nodded.
“The hawks want war and I’m trying to prevent one. No bullshit, Joe — we’re talking World War III if Canby and his cronies get their way. Someone inside this government put this thing in motion. Find him.”
“I will, Mr. President.”
Reeder turned, walked confidently out the door of the Oval Office, shut it behind him, then let out a long breath. He looked at his right hand and it was shaking.
Emily Curtis, the President’s secretary, eyed him with concern.
“Are you all right, Joe?” she asked.
He nodded, forced a smile. “Never better, Emily.”
But he knew that she could read people, too, and recognized a lie when she heard it. Still, she just nodded and bestowed a maiden-aunt smile upon him.
As he left the White House, its picture-postcard perfection looming behind him, Reeder was struck by one overriding thought.
Things were bad when the President felt the only person he could trust was an ex-Secret Service agent, no longer in government, name of Joe Reeder.
“America is the land of the second chance — and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.”
Four
At the wheel of her government Ford, Patti Rogers sensed she was embarking upon a wild goose chase; but when Joe Reeder gave her a lead, she followed it up, no questions asked — particularly when she and her task force were so desperately in need of a significant case.
She did not share her misgivings with Special Agent Lucas Hardesy, her ride-along on this trip. The senior agent, with whom Rogers was enjoying an uneasy truce, wore shoes as shiny as his shaved head, and an immaculate off-the-rack suit — a good agent who shouted ex-military even at his most quiet.