Well, he decided, the more he knew about what was going on in the world, the sooner he could get on top of this job. He set his coffee cup on the desk, opened the director’s file cabinets and started in where he had left off.
An hour into the mess, he found a Top Secret memo, or report, generated by the Pentagon’s IT staff. If had been forwarded to Tomazic by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Copious amounts of Tomazic’s green ink were all over the margins and footers.
The Chinese had hacked into the Pentagon’s computers. The signature of Chinese computers was unmistakable in the telltale mouse droppings. U.S. Navy operational schedules were compromised. Apparently all of them. Nuclear submarine schedules and missions, aircraft carrier task groups, port calls, manpower problems, projects, budgets … It looked as if they had seen everything except technical data and ship plans. No, wait. Maybe they had cracked into those files, too.
When he finished the printed report, he started on Tomazic’s handwritten notes. “Chinese espionage a huge problem. Their new stealth fighter an obvious clone of the F-35. Must get a handle on this. Our encrypted communications are obviously compromised — if the Chinese know what the messages might say, then they are easier to crack. How do we keep them out of this closet? Can we keep them out?”
He stared at the memo. After scanning it quickly, he reread it slowly, carefully, ensuring he got every word and nuance.
“Or should we simply let them look?” Tomazic had written in the right-hand margin.
Grafton took out his pen and wrote in blue ink, his favorite, “Can we get into Chinese navy’s computers?”
The phone buzzed. “Mr. Merritt, sir.” Robin must be overcaffeinated, he thought, calling him sir. The last time she got on a sir kick she wanted a promotion and pay raise.
Jake opened the door. “Come in, Harley.”
“I just had a long talk with Sal Molina,” he said. “Congratulations.”
“I didn’t ask for this job,” Grafton muttered as he sat down on the couch, “permanently or on an interim basis.”
“I didn’t either,” Merritt said blandly.
“The job was offered, so I took it. If it had been offered to you, you would have taken it, too.”
“Yes, I would have.”
“Harley, I need your help. If Tomazic was murdered, we have a serious can of worms buried somewhere. We’re going to have to turn over every rock to find it. If there are physical clues that the killer left, the FBI will find and follow them. They will look into Tomazic’s private affairs, family life, military career, old enemies, all of that. We must start on our end, a motive due to his job as director of this agency. I want you to head up that staff review you ordered this morning. We have got to rule out people inside the Company, if we can, and try to decide if anything the Company has going could have stimulated a foreign government to kill him. Someone wanted Mario Tomazic dead for a reason. Let’s see if we can find it.”
“We may find a half-dozen reasons.”
“Or none,” Grafton said wearily. “Tomazic wasn’t the CIA; he was one man. You can’t kill a bureaucracy, no matter how hard you try.”
“We don’t know that he was murdered,” Merritt objected reasonably. “Assassinated. We may be snipe hunting.”
“Assume it’s murder until I tell you it wasn’t.”
Merritt thought about that, then nodded once. “Okay.”
Grafton eyed the man, sizing up his body language. Yeah, Merritt was disappointed, but he was a professional.
“I didn’t want this job,” Jake said, “but I’ve got it. Let’s talk about how we can get me up to speed.”
He had a short interview with both of Tomazic’s executive assistants, telling them he had been told the president was going to appoint him interim director and he wanted them on the job tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. Then Jake Grafton left. He went to the parking lot, got in his Accord and motored off for the beach to pick up Callie. The gate guard gave him his usual friendly wave. Fortunately he was on the front end of rush hour so got around the Beltway and over the Bay Bridge without much trouble.
As he drove he thought about Callie, his wife, about how she would take the interim appointment thing. They were married after the Vietnam War, while he was a young attack pilot. She had loyally supported his naval career, done all the things officers’ wives were supposed to do, while she continued to work as a teacher of languages at the college level. Hell, she knew seven or eight, last he heard. On the other hand, lately she had been dropping not-so-subtle hints about retirement. He spent too many hours at Langley. With his navy retirement pay as a two-star, bumped up some due to more federal service, they didn’t need any more money to live comfortably. They were already socking away a large chunk of his salary now.
Retirement. He had done a couple of years of that before going to the CIA. Flew all over the country in his Cessna 170B. Still had it, but hadn’t flown it in six months. No time.
What was he doing at Langley that someone else couldn’t do? Couldn’t do as well or better? Didn’t he and Callie deserve a few years of retirement while they were still hale and hearty? After this interim thing. Then, he thought. Then. Get the plane out. Go on some cruises. See some of Europe. Maybe Israel. Spend some time with daughter, Amy, and the grandkid.
Jake Grafton promised that to himself.
He arrived in Rehoboth Beach on the Atlantic about seven o’clock Monday evening. Callie was packed and ready. After a kiss, he hit the bathroom, showered, shaved and changed clothes. He felt better. At least the director’s office had a shower, and he vowed to use it. He topped off his suitcase, loaded their bags into the car, locked up the house, and off they went the other way, back toward Washington.
“It was on the evening news Saturday night that Mario Tomazic is dead,” Callie said. “Big write-up on Tomazic in the newspaper this morning. I kept a copy of the Post in case you didn’t see it.”
“We couldn’t sit on it,” Jake explained. “The local sheriff was there, plus the county coroner. There was a news chopper overhead before I could get out of there.”
“Drowned!” Callie exclaimed. “With his daughter and grandchildren asleep in the house. How horrible!”
“Yep.”
Jake concentrated on driving.
“Was it an accident?” Callie asked suspiciously. She could read him like a book.
“Maybe. Maybe not…” He decided to be honest. “Probably not.”
“Who in the world?”
“Damn if I know.”
“So is Merritt going to run the agency until a new director is confirmed?”
“No. I am.”
“You? For Christ’s sake, Jake! You?”
“Yep. President’s choice, according to Sal Molina. I didn’t want the job — don’t want the job — but thought it over and said yes.”
“Oh, my God!” his wife moaned. “There went our holiday season!”
“You getting hungry? I thought we could stop somewhere ahead and get a hamburger.”
“Amy is coming in two weeks, bringing the grandbaby,” Callie said bitterly. “And you’ll be locked in at the office. Damn it!”
“No, I won’t. You’ll see.”
“Why can’t you just retire, for God’s sake?”
“Tomazic was probably murdered, Callie.”
“Maybe, you said.”
“It’s just an interim appointment. I’ll be acting director. Get to use the director’s parking place for a couple months, shower in his office, deal with the Beltway trolls for a while, make lots and lots of new best friends, then that will be that.”
His wife sat watching the countryside go by. Jake had been lukewarm to the idea of retirement in the past, told her he’d think it over. Now this!