"Then I guess you'll have to make something up, Mr. President."
Rice looked at Nick as if he had just realized he was there.
"Perhaps you should consider a career in politics after all. You're suggesting I manufacture a bomber and a plot and sell it to the world."
Nick said nothing.
"I'll think about what you've said, Carter."
"I'm sure you'll find a way, Mr. President."
"That's what I like about you, Carter. Confidence." He stood up and Nick rose with him.
"I'm told that Director Harker will be unable to return to work for some time. In your opinion, is her deputy competent to take over?"
"Yes, sir. She's been with Harker since the beginning, she knows all the players. She's a good choice."
"You're sure you wouldn't like the job?"
"Stephanie will make a great Director, Mister President."
No way did he want the job. No way. He'd last about ten minutes in the political snake pit of the Capitol.
Rice nodded. "Then here's what I want you to do. I want both of you to assume leadership of the Project. Will you do that for me?"
"Sir…"
Rice held up his hand. "Don't say anything right now, Carter. Take some time off. Think about it."
"Yes, sir." What else was he supposed to say?
Rice stopped at the door. "I was supposed to be assassinated in Chicago today. It's a strange feeling." He looked at Nick. "Well done," he said. Then he was gone.
Nick left the White House. He wondered what the rest of the day would bring. He wished he was sitting on his cabin porch or maybe lying on the beach in Maui. Maybe he should resign. Maybe he would.
Years ago, he'd talk with Megan when he had a tough decision to make. She'd had a way of looking at things that helped him get his head straight. But Megan was gone. He'd talk it over with Selena.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Ronnie sat on Nick's couch munching cashews and watching television. The networks were covering the conclusion of an extraordinary meeting in Casablanca.
"It looks like Rice pulled it off," Ronnie said.
"He had some help." Nick stood by the kitchen counter. "No one wants World War III. At least the shooting's stopped."
Rice had spent eight days in Morocco meeting with the leaders of the Islamic world and of Israel, Russia, China, France and Great Britain. On the third day of the conference Israel and Iran had walked out. On the fifth day they declared a temporary cease fire. Nick wondered what kind of heavy arm twisting and deal making had gone on behind the scenes.
Rice had decided partial truth was the best strategy. In a speech televised around the globe, he revealed that Eric Reinhardt was behind the destruction of al-Aqsa, in a neo-Nazi plot to start a war and destroy the Jews. He presented proof. It got Israel off the hook. It shocked the world.
Rice emphasized that Reinhardt was not a native-born American. Everything about him had been uncovered. Rice pointed out that Reinhardt's father had been an SS General. He made no mention of the existence of the Council or its membership and influence.
No one knew Reinhardt had been at Greenwood's house. Rice said he'd been killed in a fiery car crash while trying to escape Federal Agents sent to arrest him. Dental records confirmed his identity. The remains of his incinerated body were shown to the world. He then announced a coalition of nations would rebuild the Mosque. He condemned hate groups and called for a new era of understanding and compassion.
Two days after the speech, Elizabeth was out of her induced coma. The team gathered in her hospital room. Her head was swathed in bandages. Her left eye was covered. It was too soon to calculate the full extent of damage to her brain, but she was weeks ahead of schedule in her recovery. She could speak, with a slight blurring of some of her words. She could think clearly.
Nick told her what had happened.
"They were going to sacrifice Selena? Really?" Her voice was a whisper.
"Yes. But no one will ever find out. The house went up in a firestorm. The fire trucks couldn't get near it. Everything turned to slag and ashes. Lodge shut the locals down before they could get going. It's amazing what the phrase 'National Security' will do. There's nothing left, nothing to point a finger at a Nazi conspiracy."
"The Lance?"
"Gone. Melted into nothing, and good riddance. They still have the copy in Vienna. As far as the world knows it's the real deal."
"Rice owes Lodge. I wonder how that will work out?" She coughed, reached carefully for a tissue. "I need a long rest." She looked out the window. "I'm tired, Nick." The words came out slurred.
Nick kept his face neutral. "You'll be back soon, Director."
She looked at him. "We both know it won't be soon. Maybe never. Rice spoke with me about you taking over the team with Stephanie. What's your decision?"
"I don't know. He said take some time to think about it."
"Rice needs you. With Stephanie, you'll be fine. She can handle the political and administrative side, but you're the best choice to deal with the tactical and strategic decisions. The two of you can make it work." She coughed. "Rice needs you," she said again.
A headache began. He needed time to think about it. He'd go to the cabin.
Stephanie said, "We've talked about it. We've got you covered, Nick. Take some time off. I'll call you if anything important happens."
Nick looked at the others. The team. His team. His friends.
"Thanks," he said.
Epilogue
Selena and Nick headed up into the Sierra Foothills. They turned off the paved road, bounced over a stretch of dirt and gravel and pulled up in front of Nick's cabin.
The cabin was at the end of the road on top of a good sized hill. Built of old, dark wood, it had a steep, hunter green metal roof sloping down over a covered front porch. The foothills rose up behind. East were the High Sierras. West was a wide vista to the coastal range. It looked like the Pacific might not be too far away, but it was a hundred and fifty miles or so to the beach.
The cabin was home. He always seemed to think better here. The place in D.C. was only where he stayed.
They stepped from the car under clouds of black, gold and deep red.
He unlocked the door, dropped his bag on the couch and opened a window. He opened the grate on the woodstove and set a match to the kindling and wood laid there.
He opened a bottle of wine. They went outside and sat on the porch, watching the sun go down in splashes and streaks of vivid color behind the Coastal Range. Shadows lengthened under the trees. The air smelled of wood smoke from the stove.
After a few minutes Selena said, "Do you think we got them all?"
"I think we wrote the last page of Himmler's medieval fantasy. But Nazis are like the Hydra in that Greek myth. You cut off the head, two more spring back. You can't ever get them all. But Greenwood's bunch, yeah. We stopped them."
Selena looked out at the afterglow of the sunset. "I was thinking about what I said a while back. About us being so different. How it was natural for you to jump into action and start shooting, but not for me."
He tensed. Natural born killer.
"Maybe we're not so different. It does seem to me that you…that you're more reckless than I am. But there's something that's the same."
"What's that?" he set his glass down.
"Instinct. You can't get where I am in martial arts without that. It's a zone, a place where I just do. Or it does me. I don't think about it. You do it too. Our training and experience are different but we both act out of instinct without thinking. So, it's the same."
She drank some wine. She frowned.
"I always thought my martial arts would protect me."