“Yes?”
“You asked me what his name was when I was heading for Dulles to go to North Carolina. But you already knew him, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Bill answered, almost inaudibly.
“Why didn’t you just—”
“You were right about Jennie,” Bill cut in, “in a way, at least. She was approached by people claiming to be terrorists. Imelda Smith contacted her, and they were trying to get information on RCS, as you assumed. And they did tell her Lisa had been murdered by someone inside U.S. intel. But it turns out Jennie Perez is a patriot as well. She told me exactly what was going on when she contacted me. Apparently Lisa had told Jennie about the two of you and that I was your father. I asked Jennie if she would help us by appearing to cooperate with the terrorists. She said she would. She’s a brave young woman, Troy.
“And yes,” Bill continued, “there was information on that cell phone she bought at the store the other day. She had it transferred from her old one before she left the store. I told her she needed to make certain she had a record of what she gave them, even though the information was useless. It was full of red herrings. It would have seemed important to the people who got it, but it really wasn’t.”
Troy nodded as it all hit him. “She had no idea about the attacks. She thought she was just meeting her contact that day at the mall.”
“That’s right, and I don’t think they meant to shoot her. She got in the way of a bullet, probably when she was saving that little girl’s life. But they still got the phone.”
“How do you know?”
“Someone followed up on information on that phone. We set up a couple of data traps, and one was hit.”
“So that’s why they didn’t execute her the way they did the other two people.”
“I can only assume,” Bill agreed.
“Why did you have the doctor tell me she’d been shot in the back?”
“I wanted it to look real to you because I wanted you to leave her alone. I figured you’d hear about the other two being killed at close range and wonder why Jennie hadn’t been.”
“That’s why you told me it was a waste of time to see her.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”
“I couldn’t have anyone else knowing what was really going on with her. It was too big a risk for her and RCS, too covert an operation. I trust you completely, of course, but you could have been kidnapped and tortured, had drugs administered. All the typical stuff, so I was simply keeping to the RCS code. Need-to-know only.” Bill hesitated. “Once the attacks hit, I was hoping we could get information on the identity of the terrorists through Jennie. But they haven’t reached out to her again.”
“Her contact went missing,” Troy pointed out. “Something happened to Imelda Smith. Maybe her own people figured she had to be taken out. Maybe they suspected something.”
Bill shook his head. “No, it was Maddux. He got a blind tip about her from somebody at Fort Meade, I’m guessing, and he interrogated her. You know what happens to anyone Maddux interrogates.”
A sinking feeling rushed through Troy. “What about her son?”
Bill shook his head again. “No.”
“Maddux killed him, too?”
“Apparently.”
“That’s…that’s awful.” Troy glanced back at his father. “Did you know about the plan to assassinate President Dorn? Did you back it?”
Bill stared at his son for a long time without answering.
“Tell me the truth, Dad.”
“Yes,” Bill finally murmured.
For a few moments all Troy saw in front of him was a fury-wall of red. “When we were at the White House,” he spoke up, doing his best to control his anger, “you gave me that whole song and dance about how there could be no excuse for killing the president of the United States.” But the emotion was still coming through.
“It was a matter of national security, Troy. David Dorn is making us weak. He and people like him are bringing this country down. Look at the attacks that are happening around us right now. This country is being shut down by a small group of lunatics, and Dorn can’t seem to do anything about it. Despite the mayhem, he wants to shut RCS down.”
“I thought we were going to be a cornerstone of his intel strategy going forward.”
“Come on, son.”
Troy couldn’t argue with that. Hell, he’d felt the insincerity himself at the White House the other day, even mentioned it to Bill. Dorn had been on a fishing trip, nothing else. And Baxter clearly wanted to do anything he could to destroy Red Cell Seven. “We didn’t catch the Holiday Mall Attacks, Dad.” Another sinking feeling rushed through Troy. In fact, maybe they had, but his father had another agenda. “Or did we?”
“No.”
These multiple shades of gray were hard to deal with. How could he know if his father was telling the truth about anything at this point? What about Roger Carlson? What if his father had known and hadn’t done anything? What if he’d known about the LNG tankers as well? “Was Carlson backing Dorn’s assassination, too?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Protecting the United States is a complicated proposition, son.” Bill had suddenly gone pale. “It’s a minute-by-minute ordeal on a global scale, and it’s getting harder by the day. You of all people should understand that.”
“There has to be a chain of command that’s never broken, Dad. This is a democracy.”
“Grow up, son,” Bill snapped angrily, though his face was still ashen. “Democracy doesn’t work anymore. It’s a fractured model of government for our country at this point. Our society’s too splintered. We’ve got too many special-interest groups fighting to get a piece of a federal pie that isn’t big enough to go all the way around, not nearly. Too many lazy bastards want entitlements, they don’t want to work for a living anymore, they want it all for nothing. It’s too easy, and worse, too profitable not to steal from the government. Decisions can’t be made by the population anymore, son. Congress can’t agree on anything. How can you expect the population to? So, in effect, we’re paralyzed. A small collection of individuals have to make the decisions that really matter. It’s the only way we survive. Otherwise it’s gridlock that only gets worse and worse. It’s a few of us taking matters into our own hands because we have to. It’s called leadership.”
“I hope you’re not serious,” Troy murmured. But he knew Bill was. He recognized the truth tone. “You’re rationalizing what you’ve done, you’re making excuses.”
“When was the last time you looked at one of those old paintings of the founding fathers ratifying the Declaration of Independence or signing the Constitution?”
Troy shrugged. “I don’t know.” Where had that question come from?
“Look at one when you get a chance.”
Was this some kind of secret that had been handed down for hundreds of years to a limited few? Was there some kind of code embedded in those paintings, and now he was finally being let in on the secret — like the real meaning of the eye atop the pyramid on the back of the dollar bill?
“Why should I?”
“All those men in the paintings look the same.”
Troy stared at his father quizzically. “What?”
“They’re all the same, Troy. They’re all middle-aged white men. Some are skinny, some are fat. Some are wearing white wigs, some dark. Other than that, they couldn’t be a more homogeneous group if they tried. They all basically wanted the same things, and they’d just come off all having a common enemy, which they’d beaten against all odds. They were one. Democracy was easy back then, but it isn’t now. We have lots of enemies now, and the worst and most powerful one is ourselves. Troy, every face in that painting of the Constitution signing would be a different color if the signing was today.” Bill’s eyes were flashing. He wasn’t visibly upset anymore. He’d regained his signature calm, and the color was back in his cheeks. “And I’m not saying that’s bad. Don’t mistake what I’m saying for bigotry. Have I ever once made any remark about Little Jack’s bloodline?”