sat side by side in the limo’s backseat: Luther LaValle, the Pentagon’s intel czar, and his second, General Richard P. Kendall.
“So kind of you to join us,” LaValle said.
Kindness had nothing to do with it, Batt thought. A convergence of objectives did.
“The pleasure’s all mine, gentlemen. I’m flattered and, if I may be frank, grateful that
you reached out to me.”
“We’re here,” General Kendall said, “to speak frankly.”
“We’ve opposed the appointment of Veronica Hart from the start,” LaValle said. “The
secretary of defense made his opinion quite clear to the president. However, others,
including the national security adviser and the secretary of state-who, as you know, is a
personal friend of the president-both lobbied for an outsider from the private security
sector.”
“Bad enough,” Batt said. “And a woman.”
“Precisely.” General Kendall nodded. “It’s madness.”
LaValle stirred. “It’s the clearest sign yet of the deterioration of our defense grid that
Secretary Halliday has been warning against for several years now.”
“When we start listening to Congress and the people of the country all hope is lost,”
Kendall said. “A mulligan stew of amateurs all with petty axes to grind and absolutely no
idea of how to maintain security or run the intelligence services.”
LaValle gave off an icy smile. “That’s why the secretary of defense has labored
mightily to keep the workings clandestine.”
“The more they know, the less they understand,” General Kendall said, “and the more
inclined they are to interfere by means of their congressional hearings and threats of
budgets cuts.”
“Oversight is a bitch,” LaValle agreed. “Which is why areas of the Pentagon under my
control are working without it.” He paused for a moment, studying Batt. “How does that
sound to you, Deputy Director?”
“Like manna from heaven.”
Oleg had screwed up big time,” Devra said.
Arkadin took a stab. “He got in over his head with loan sharks?”
She shook her head. “That was last year. It had to do with Pyotr Zilber.”
Arkadin’s ears pricked up. “What about him?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes opened wide as Arkadin raised his fist. “I swear it.”
“But you’re part of Zilber’s network.”
She turned her head away from him, as if she couldn’t stand herself. “A minor part. I
shuffle things from here to there.”
“Within the past week Shumenko gave you a document.”
“He gave me a package, I don’t know what was in it,” Devra said. “It was sealed.”
“Compartmentalization.”
“What?” She looked up at him. Blood beads on her face looked like freckles. Tears had
caused her mascara to run, giving her dark half circles under her eyes.
“The first principle of putting together a cadre.” Arkadin nodded. “Go on.”
She shrugged. “That’s all I know.”
“What about the package?”
“I passed it on, as I was instructed to do.”
Arkadin bent over her. “Who did you give it to?”
She glanced at the crumpled form on the floor. “I gave it to Filya.”
LaValle had paused a moment to reflect. “We never knew each other at Yale.”
“You were two years ahead of me,” Batt said. “But in Skull and Bones you were
notorious.”
LaValle laughed. “Now you flatter me.”
“Hardly.” Batt unbuttoned his overcoat. “The stories I heard.”
LaValle frowned. “Are never to be repeated.”
General Kendall let loose with a guffaw that filled the compartment. “Should I leave
you two girls alone? Better not; one of you could wind up pregnant.”
The comment was meant as a joke, of course, but there was a nasty undercurrent to it.
Did the military man resent his exclusion from the elite club, or the connection the other
two had through Skull & Bones? Possibly it was a bit of both. In any event, Batt noted
the second’s tone of voice, tucked the possible implications into a place where he could
examine them later.
“What d’you have in mind, Mr. LaValle?”
“I’m looking for a way to convince the president that his more immoderate advisers
made a mistake in recommending Veronica Hart for DCI.” LaValle pursed his lips. “Any
ideas?”
“Off the top of my head, plenty,” Batt said. “What’s in it for me?”
As if on cue LaValle produced another smile. “We’re going to require a new DCI
when we can Hart’s ass out of the District. Who would be your first choice?”
“The current deputy director seems the logical one,” Batt said. “That would be me.”
LaValle nodded. “Our thought precisely.”
Batt tapped his fingertips against his knee. “If you two are serious.”
“We are, I assure you.”
Batt’s mind worked furiously. “It seems to me unwise at this early juncture to have
attacked Hart directly.”
“How about you don’t tell us our business,” Kendall said.
LaValle held up a hand. “Let’s hear what the man has to say, Richard.” To Batt, he
added, “However, let me make something crystal clear. We want Hart out as soon as
possible.”
“We all do, but you don’t want suspicion thrown back at you-or at the defense
secretary.”
LaValle and General Kendall exchanged a quick and knowing look. They were like
twins, able to communicate with each other without uttering a word. “Indeed not,”
LaValle said.
“She told me how you ambushed her at that meeting with the president-and the threats
you made to her outside the White House.”
“Women are more easily intimidated than men,” Kendall pointed out. “It’s a well-
known fact.”
Batt ignored the military man. “You put her on notice. She took your threats very
personally. She had a killer’s rep in Black River. I checked through my sources.”
LaValle seemed thoughtful. “How would you have handled her?”
“I would have made nice, welcomed her to the fold, let her know you’re there for her
whenever she needs your help.”
“She’d never have bought it,” LaValle said. “She knows my agenda.”
“It doesn’t matter. The idea is not to antagonize her. You don’t want her knives out
when you come for her.”
LaValle nodded, as if he saw the wisdom in this approach. “So how do you suggest we
proceed from here?”
“Give me some time,” Batt said. “Hart’s just getting started at CI, and because I’m her
deputy I know everything she does, every decision she makes. But when she’s out of the
office, shadow her, see where she goes, who she meets. Using parabolic mikes you can
listen in to her conversations. Between us, we’ll have her covered twenty-four/seven.”
“Sounds pretty vanilla to me,” Kendall said skeptically.
“Keep it simple, especially when there’s so much at stake, that’s my advice,” Batt said.
“What if she cottons on to the surveillance?” Kendall said.
Batt smiled. “So much the better. It’ll only bolster the CI mantra that the NSA is run
by incompetents.”
LaValle laughed. “Batt, I like the way you think.”
Batt nodded, acknowledging the compliment. “Coming from the private sector Hart’s
not used to government procedure. She doesn’t have the leeway she enjoyed at Black
River. I can already see that, to her, rules and regs are meant to be bent, sidestepped,
even, on occasion, broken. Mark my words, sooner rather than later, Director Hart is
going to give us the ammunition we need to kick her butt out of CI.”