Joseph Patchin stood in the large living room of the house in Georgetown, D.C., and listened to the cocktail party chatter all around him. For a Georgetown soiree like this, it was surprisingly free of bureaucrats and politicians. Most of the guests were well-heeled supporters of the Athena Foundation, a philanthropic organization in the arcane and confusing business of supporting other, less connected and smaller charity groups around the world.
So, why on earth was he standing here in a tux with a glass of Midleton Very Rare Irish in his hand? He wasn’t wealthy, he wasn’t particularly well connected politically, at least by most of the guests’ standards, and he was certainly no philanthropist. He was a divorced man in late middle age who’d taken a beating from his ex’s lawyers as well as the markets and was one administration away from being unemployed.
The CIA operations director went through his mental address book and tried to remember the names of anyone he knew who was directly or indirectly involved with the Athena Foundation, but he came up empty. When he’d received the invitation, he’d asked Becky, his secretary, to discreetly find out if the invitation had been sent to him rather than to his ex-wife by some sort of oversight, but she’d struck out, as well. In the end he’d decided to attend the party just in case; turning down any social invitation in D.C. could be fatally dangerous to your career, while accepting cost nothing more than a wasted hour or two on a weekday evening and gave you the chance to drink someone else’s expensive booze.
After an hour the only thing Patchin had discovered was that the house he was in was a Washington pied-à-terre belonging to the recently retired U.S. ambassador to Brazil and his wife, heiress to an old Florida sugar fortune as well as being on the board of directors for the Athena Foundation. From what Patchin had overheard at the party, the ambassador and his plump, dark-haired wife spent most of their time in Palm Beach or on their Mediterranean-based yacht in Monaco. None of it was ringing any bells in Patchin’s mind, but he assumed that if he stayed long enough he’d find out why he’d been invited.
He was right; halfway through his second glass of the honey-smooth Irish whisky, he felt a light tap on his shoulder. He turned and found himself staring at the leonine, white-haired and statesmanlike figure of Max Kingman, CEO of the Pallas Group and father of Rufus Kingman, Patchin’s own deputy director.
Max Kingman shook Patchin’s hand warmly in a solid grip and simultaneously squeezed his left biceps with the other hand. Kingman looked like a shanty-Irish version of the Godfather: white hair swept back from a broad forehead, mustache neatly trimmed, cheeks and jowls freshly shaven and rosy with the unhealthy glow of a little too much alcohol and blood pressure sneaking up into the dangerous numbers. He was bucking the trend wearing a decades-out-of-date but perfectly tailored three-piece, dark blue pin-striped suit, a Valentine red bow tie and old-fashioned wing-tip brogues.
“The library is on your left at the end of the hall. Ten minutes,” said Kingman. He released Patchin’s hand and his arm, then turned, making his way though the crowd, glad-handing men and giving the women courtly little bows as he maneuvered his way across the room like a shark swimming through a swimming flock of penguins.
Ten minutes later Patchin went down the hallway and stepped into the library of the ambassador’s house. It was a large room with a huge mullioned window looking out on a very private, stone-walled rose garden. The ceiling was high with plaster moldings and there were three walls of floor-to-ceiling bookcases crammed with volumes that appeared to have been actually read rather than purchased by the yard by an expensive Washington decorator who gets to spend other people’s money to give them good taste that his or her clients don’t have. There were a number of old, well-worn leather club chairs gathered around a glass-topped, wood-strapped steamer trunk, a small but elegant wood fireplace and an eighteenth-century Chippendale desk that was doubling as a bar. Kingman poured himself a drink as Patchin entered the room and closed the door behind him.
“Get something for you?”
“No, thanks,” said Patchin. Two drinks was his limit when there was business in the offing; anything more than that and he’d probably wind up on the short end of any bargain.
“Sit,” said Kingman, gesturing to one of the leather armchairs. Patchin sat. The white-haired man dropped a trio of ice cubes into his amber-colored drink and sat down across from the CIA director. He sipped the drink, smacked his lips and set the glass down on the coffee table. He smiled at Patchin. “Canadian rye,” said the older man. “A weakness of my youth. Cheap duds, cheap broads, cheap booze.” Not likely. Kingman had been born with an oily Texas spoon in his mouth.
Patchin smiled and kept his mouth shut.
“How are things working out with Rufus?” Kingman asked. “I knew your man, Mike Harris. Not well, but we’d met on occasion. Drank too much and a bit unstable, frankly. We all thought Rufus would be a perfect fit to replace him and he was being wasted at Justice.”
“He certainly knows what he’s doing,” answered Patchin, keeping his tone neutral. He didn’t ask who the “we” was in Kingman’s statement.
“Surprised at being invited to this boring little get-together?”
“More curious than surprised,” said Patchin.
“More than the walls have ears these days,” sighed Kingman. “If we’d met in a civilized manner—in a restaurant, at your place of business or mine—it would be on everyone’s damnable Blueberry in five minutes.”
Patchin smiled. He was reasonably sure that Kingman knew perfectly well that it was BlackBerry, not “Blueberry,” and he was just as sure that the sly old bastard liked to keep up the sleepy, simple country-boy facade as a way of catching his adversaries off guard. Once again he made no response.
“But I do believe that old saw about there being safety in numbers.” The man who effectively managed the biggest private army in the United States paused for a moment and then continued. “Which is why I have the ambassador throw these little booze cruises every once in a while.”
In other words, thought Patchin, you’re telling me you’ve got an ambassador and his billionaire wife in your hip pocket; a big stick wielded softly.
It was time to wield his own stick.
“Your corporation does business with the Pentagon and the agency all the time,” he said quietly. “Your son is my deputy director, which is certainly no secret. So, why the need for discretion? Your offices are closer to mine than this house is.”
Kingman picked up his drink, swallowed two fingers of rye whiskey in a single gulp, then cracked an ice cube between his molars and chewed on the bits and pieces. “Some meetings require more discretion than others,” said the old man. “This is one of those meetings.” He rattled the remaining ice cubes in the glass. “The man my son replaced was a fucking cowboy. Ernest goddamn Hemingway on steroids. He made his bed with the wrong whore and he paid for it with his life. We’re hoping you don’t make the same mistake.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” answered Patchin.
“You don’t know it yet, boy, but the whole world’s about to blow up in your face. It’s going to cost the man in the White House his second term unless he does exactly as he’s told, and whether he does or not you’re going to wind up being a sacrificial goat tied to a god-awful big stake. We’re offering you a way out.”
That regal “we” again. “Do tell,” said Patchin mildly.
“Well,” began Kingman, “we’ve got this little operation going on in Cuba….”
19
“The planes out there under the camouflage nets are Super Tucanos. I guarantee you they were provided by International Aviation Services, which is a subsidiary of Blackhawk Security,” said Carrie Pilkington, her voice firm with conviction. “I knew they weren’t Cuban Special Forces.”