A logo came up. Under the logo were the words Whitewater Encryption Systems. Under that was a prompt for a password, which of course I didn’t have.
A sense of relief flooded over me. Yes!
I managed to smile at Nate. “He had it on him,” I said.
When I called Jake Grafton to give him the news, he listened without a question. After I ran down he remarked, “The folks at the FBI and Justice aren’t going to like that warrantless arrest.”
“They aren’t,” I agreed.
“Why did you do it?”
“He was a neatnik. Nothing personal in the apartment. It felt like a hotel room, but with a little food and coffee. Whatever he had had to be on him.”
“Well … let’s hope what you found takes us somewhere. I’ll call Harry Estep and kiss his ass, and you give Sarah that stuff as soon as you can get here. After she’s mined it, she can pass it along to the FBI.”
“That will add to their unhappiness.”
“Everyone’s unhappy,” Grafton shot back. “All of us.”
He hung up.
FBI Interim Director Harry Estep had already heard about the arrest when Grafton called him.
“That son of a bitch Carmellini was just supposed to search,” Estep said bitterly.
“I know. He used his judgment and discretion, based on experience. We have Chu’s laptop, a thumb drive with an encryption system on it and three cell phones. I’ll let you know what we find, then send them over.”
“Grafton, you bastard! Counterespionage is our goddamn turf. Not to mention the two agents that traitor Zoe Kerry shot dead. I agreed to let Carmellini search because I thought he knew the rules. I should have known better. You damned people don’t play by the rules. I want that gear and I want it right fucking now.”
“Get a warrant,” Jake Grafton said, and dropped the phone onto the cradle.
CHAPTER TWENTY
For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.
When Captain H. Butler Spiers, the commanding officer of Naval Base Norfolk, got home after McKiernan’s brief he poured himself a glass of Jack Daniel’s, added one ice cube and, still wearing his coat, went out onto the enclosed porch of his quarters. The temp was about fifty, and there was a breeze. The lights of the base made the overcast glow. He lit a cigar to go with the whiskey.
He knew what he was going to do, although he had refused to admit it to himself. When he had told Admiral McKiernan he wanted leave because his daughter was going to have a baby, he had been a wee bit less than honest. His daughter lived in an apartment complex just a few blocks from the community college where her husband was a history instructor. In Norfolk.
Spiers was never going to make admiral, and he knew it. Command of NB Norfolk was the final tour of a thirty-year career that had started in minesweepers. He then went to destroyers and after commanding one had been chief of staff for an admiral. After a tour as an instructor at the War College in Newport, he became CO of the base here, which was, by the way, a major command for an officer of his rank.
He and his wife, Katherine, Kat to her family and friends, had only one daughter, even though they had tried for more children. Her name was Ellen, or Ellie. She was something of a flake. She had never been a good student, yet, poorly informed or misinformed with only a few facts, she arrived at opinions about people, politics and morals that were unshakable, and always Liberal with a capital L. For Ellie, life was not complex but simple. And everyone who disagreed with her was wrong. She walked through life with a certainty and confidence that were awe-inspiring. The truth was, her father didn’t like her.
Nor did he think much of her husband, Harold, another mediocre intellect who had managed a master’s in history from some little college in Georgia that no one ever heard of and wormed his way into the substrata of academia, where he would undoubtedly spend the rest of his working days, happy as a termite. Harold and Ellie. A perfect match.
Kat was the one he cared about. She had doted on Ellie, everything for Ellie, and no doubt spoiled her. The news of Ellie’s pregnancy had filled her with joy. She was going to be the world’s best grandmother, just as she had been the world’s best mom; it was her destiny, the yardstick by which Kat measured the value of her life.
She should have had three or four kids, Butler Spiers thought again tonight, as he had many times through the years. The real problem, Butler told himself, was that Kat hadn’t really been cut out for life as a naval officer’s wife. The constant transfers meant that she couldn’t have a career. For a woman of her intelligence and education, that left her only one outlet, her daughter. Kat had concentrated too much love on one child, one of average intelligence, physical ability and attractiveness. The incandescent glow of her love had merely reinforced Ellie’s inability to see the world from any vantage point other than the pedestal on which her mother had placed her.
Now the grandchild, a boy, was due in three weeks.
With a possible Chinese nuclear warhead ready to detonate at the naval base. Jesus Christ!
If it detonated, Kat and Ellie and Harold and the boy yet unborn would instantly perish. Kat didn’t deserve that.
He had about finished the cigar when he heard her car in the driveway. He left the cigar in an ashtray and went inside. He had poured himself another drink when she came in, smiling.
She had spent a few hours with Ellie, talking about the baby to come. “They decided to name the boy Harold Butler,” she told him, a grand announcement.
“At least they didn’t decide to name him Herman,” he said. Herman was his first name, and he hated it even more than Butler, which had been his mother’s family name.
He took another sip of whiskey and led her out onto the porch. She hadn’t taken her coat off, and he was still wearing his. He stubbed out the smoldering cigar and faced her.
“I want you to go back to Ellie’s, get her and Harold and take them to your mother’s place in Massachusetts. Ellie can have the baby there over the holidays.”
She stared at him, trying to understand. “Harold won’t be done with school until the end of the semester, five days from now. He can’t leave.”
“He can call in sick, and if that doesn’t work, he can quit his job. He can get another job in New England. We’ll help with the family finances until he does.”
“Butler,” she said, shaking her head, “I won’t do it. And they won’t go. Harold had a devil of a time finding this job. The baby shower is three days from now. Invitations have been sent. Two dozen women are coming, her friends and—”
“You must talk them into it.”
“I can’t. It’s silly. I won’t try.”
He leaned forward and looked into her eyes. He didn’t want to tell her classified information, but there was no other way. So he told it.
She had a few questions, then sat processing it.
“You can’t tell them the reason,” he said, even though in the back of his mind he knew she would have to, as he had. “If this gets out, there’ll be mass panic. Everyone on the peninsula and over in Newport News will try to leave, and the roads are just too small. Worse, the watcher may hear of it and decide to detonate the weapon without waiting for the carriers. We don’t know that he is waiting for the carriers, but it’s almost a certainty. If the mission was simply to blow up the place, he could have already done it.”
“Maybe the SEALs will find the bomb,” Kat whispered.