We were alone on the deck and we stood for a moment watching fleets of clouds sail majestically across the endless Pacific. We’d brought fresh cups of coffee up with us and Harry sipped his, looking up and out rather than at me.
“Sorry you had to see all that,” said Harry.
“Your dad was pretty rough on you.”
“You have no idea.” He stopped, shook his head. “Shit. Forget I said that. Everything’s fine, it’s all good.”
I turned and leaned against the rail, standing more squarely in his peripheral vision until he finally cut a sideways look at me.
“What?” he asked cautiously.
“Can I give you a nickel’s worth of free advice?” I asked. “One guy to another.”
“Let me guess, something like ‘man up’? Or one of those ‘that which does not kill us’ speeches? No offense, Captain Ledger, but I’ve heard a lot of those over the years. I get them all the time from my station chief. Or… well, I used to. He’s dead now.”
“Yeah, well that sucks, too. I didn’t know him,” I said. “I barely know you, and I only met your dad yesterday.”
“And yet you want to life coach me? This should be fun.” He gave me a tentative up-and-down appraisal. “My dad hates you. Did you know that?”
“Bullshit.”
“Hand to God. He’s been talking about you for a couple of years now.” Harry nodded toward the building. “You and what you do? The Department of Military Sciences. You’re the real deal. You are actual superstars in special ops and top-grade espionage. You’ve out-CIA’d the CIA by like… miles. There is no one in Washington who isn’t scared to death of Mr. Church. They all think he has files on them and on the president and that’s why he’s still in power. Everyone knows about MindReader and how it can intrude anywhere. They’re as afraid of that computer as they are of the Chinese Ghost Net and the North Korean hackers. You know what’s happened since word about MindReader got out? People — here and all through the world’s espionage communities — have switched back to verbal orders and paper records. That made my dad’s job a shit-ton harder because he relies so much on computers to keep his Mr. Voodoo vibe going. But you, Joe, you’re the real problem. You’re Dad’s boogeyman. You’re him thirty years ago. You’re what Dad hoped I’d be. That’s why I was born. I was his career equivalent of buying a midlife crisis sports car. He found a trophy wife and got her pregnant and when she gave birth to a son my dad went to work on trying to make me into Harcourt Bolton Two Point Oh. It’s all about the Bolton legacy. For thirty years he was the top spy. Not top ten or top five. The best. No one had a win record like his. Maybe Church did. He was a field operator, but all of the records of his operations have mysteriously vanished.” He fake-coughed and made it sound like “MindReader.” “When the DMS was formed I remember Dad going through a real shit-fit. He took it as a slap in the face that the president chartered the DMS and gave it the autonomy to pick its cases and even cherry-pick jobs away from the CIA, the FBI, the DEA, ATF, and NSA. I remember Dad saying how unfair it was. How it was a betrayal after giving America the best years of his life.”
I said nothing. Pretty sure that henceforth the dictionary entry for “dumbfounded” just shows a picture of my slack-jawed face. Harry nodded, though, as if I had spoken.
“Yeah, the DMS came at the wrong time. Dad was starting to lose his swing. He may know more about being a spy than anyone, maybe even more than Mr. Church. But James Bond versus the villain’s hollowed-out volcano fights aren’t really for middle-aged knees and middle-aged reflexes. Dad’s resentment started with the first real DMS superstar, Colonel Samson Riggs. Man oh man, Riggs came on the scene like a rocket. He was James Bond. Riggs worked two assignments with my dad and I’ll bet if you looked real close at the after-action reports you’ll see that it was Colonel Riggs who made the biggest plays. But because the DMS tends to step away from the spotlight, Dad got the commendation. You guys don’t give commendations, do you?”
I shook my head.
“Of course not. Humility along with nobility,” laughed Harry. “That torqued Dad’s nuts even harder. Maybe you’re one of his cheerleaders, so this might all be coming out of left field, and you might be thinking this is a brat kid dissing his old man, but think again. I’m a fucking disgrace as a spy. I’m done, probably. I got nothing left to lose so I might as well tell the truth. Want to know what my dad did when he got the news that Samson Riggs was killed? He opened a seven-hundred-dollar bottle of French champagne. Didn’t offer me a glass. He sat in front of the fire and drank the whole thing. He never stopped smiling once.”
I couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe.
“And then,” said Harry, “you come along. You even look like Dad. Blond-haired, blue-eyed all-American boy with a good tan and laugh lines and all that hero shit. You could play Captain America. You are Captain fucking America. And now Dad’s older and he’s not a field op anymore. He sits at a desk and has to rely on his contacts and his network to keep putting numbers on the scoreboard. And, okay, so he’s making some big plays. Mr. Voodoo still has some magic, but how long can that last? He’s not out in the field making new contacts. His network has to be getting up there, too. Soon he’ll be yesterday’s news and he won’t be relevant and it’ll absolutely kill him. It’s already eating at him. He’s always taking naps, and my therapist tells me that’s a sign of depression. You sleep to run away. Well, Dad’s taking a lot of goddamn naps, because he’s scared.”
“You are absolutely out of your mind,” I said, finally finding my voice. “I’m just not that impressive. I’m a grunt with good aim.”’
Harry Bolt laughed. A harsh, bitter laugh. “God, you don’t even know, do you? You might actually be that humble or that focused on the prize that you don’t know what people in the intelligence community are saying about you. After the Jakobys? After the Seven Kings? After Majestic? Oh, don’t look surprised. The public may not know who scored those touchdowns, but the intelligence community knows. The DMS was on the clock, and in most of those big wins you were running the touchdown plays. You. Joe Ledger, superjock.”
I drank most of the coffee in my cup without tasting it. “Your dad and I are friends. We respect each other.”
Harry dumped his coffee over the rail. “For a guy who’s supposed to be sharp you are kind of a dumbass.”
He gave me a mock salute and went back inside.
I stayed out there and watched the clouds. Before, they were a gorgeous fleet of magical ships sailing across the sky. Now, like the old song said, they only blocked the sun.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
Mr. Priest made Dr. Kang stand in the corner like a naughty little child. He did this after Kang had gone through the complex log-in procedures, which included a phone call to the security officer to give that day’s code. Then Mr. Priest had the scientist remove his cell phone and then turn to face the corner, hands deep in his pockets.