“McGarvey is working on it because it involved his daughter and his friend.”
“How have the French reacted?” Secor asked with interest.
“The DGSE is sending someone over to help with the investigation.”
“We’re allowing that?” Croft asked, interested too.
“Under the circumstance, of course. There’s no reason to tell them no.”
“Six weeks,” Paterson said. “That’s the timetable we’re working with. We need to develop plausible answers for his background and come up with the people and the reason behind the Georgetown attack to justify McGarvey’s violent reaction.”
“And the fourth hurdle?” Croft asked.
Paterson had to smile. “May be the toughest nut to crack of all. McGarvey himself. I’ve only met him a couple of times but it’s quite obvious that he has, shall we say, a forceful personality.”
“He calls them like he sees them,” Murphy said, understanding exactly where Paterson was taking this. “Won’t set well with the committee if he tells a couple of those senators what he actually thinks. Is that what you’re getting at?”
“He’s not a stupid man,” Paterson said. “Even though the CIA has treated him that way at times. If he wants the job he’ll have to play the game, and I don’t think it’s beyond him. It’ll simply be a matter of motivation. That too will have to be worked out over the next six weeks.”
“That’s my job,” Murphy said, and it would not be an easy one.
“Yes,” Paterson said. “Because he won’t listen to me; he doesn’t especially care for me.”
“He didn’t like Ryan, he’s indifferent to you,” Murphy said.
Paterson laughed again. His skin wasn’t as thin as Ryan’s had been. “Those are the problem issues, and now we have to come up with a plan to deal with them.”
McGarvey entered the fourth-floor conference room a couple of minutes after 10:00 A.M. Fred Rudolph had been surprised to hear from him so soon, but had agreed without hesitation to the unusual Sunday morning meeting. A couple of stacks of file folders were laid out on the table along with a carafe of coffee and a couple of cups.
“Good morning, Mr. McGarvey. Coffee?” Rudolph said. He was dressed in jeans, a short-sleeve yellow Izod and deck shoes. With his short hair and earnest attitude he looked preppy.
“No thanks.” Before McGarvey called for this meeting, he’d telephoned the CIA’s records section from Kathleen’s house for some background on the FBI Special Investigative Division’s assistant director. Rudolph had graduated from Fordham University with a law degree in 1982, summa cum laude, had joined the army’s Staff Judge Advocate’s office as a captain, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel in a short seven years. He worked briefly for the U.S. Supreme Court and the Department of Justice until signing on with the FBI five years ago. Although he’d had no direct experience in law enforcement, his specialty had been criminal law and he had headed a number of special investigative efforts for the military and Justice, so he was well qualified for his present position. The recommendations in his file all indicated that he was a straight shooter who might never head the Bureau but would almost certainly be its assistant director one day.
“I understand that congratulations are in order. Dr. Pierone said you’ve been appointed as deputy director of Operations. It’s an important position.”
“Yes it is, thank you. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you this morning.”
“We got off on the wrong foot Friday, but I was coming up short on a bunch of serious questions.”
“Forget it,” McGarvey said. “The attack was meant for me because someone doesn’t want me to take over the DO. It’s up to us to find out who it was and exactly what they have to lose.”
“Or hide,” Rudolph said. “Do you have any ideas?”
“A few. But first I want to get something straight between us, all bullshit aside. If there’s been trouble in the past between the CIA and the Bureau it stops now.”
“Fair enough.”
“That means I’m accessible twenty-four hours a day with one provision. You talk to me and you tell me the truth, all of it. Nothing held back, nothing classified for Bureau reasons. And if you have a problem with that, take it up with your boss.”
“I can envision some exceptions, but we’ll deal with them as and when they arise,” Rudolph said seriously. “It’s a two-way street.”
“Yes, it is,” McGarvey replied. “Tell me about the Bureau’s investigation of Joseph Lee.”
A flinty look came into Rudolph’s eyes. “Where did you hear that name?”
“Lee’s name was mentioned in a roundabout way by my predecessor, Howard Ryan, who knows Blair.”
Rudolph took a moment to answer. “Joseph Lee is very close to the President, so I’m going to have to ask you why you want to know about him. Where’s the connection?”
“It’s a tenuous one at best, but I was involved in a couple of operations that dealt directly with the Japanese. Could be there is something else going on out there that might involve some of the same people I came up against.”
“Two years ago, the airline disasters?”
McGarvey nodded. “I was told that Lee may have some connection with the Japanese, could be one of the groups I was involved with. He has a think tank in Tokyo which could be a front for something. If there’s a connection between that operation and the group that sabotaged our Air Traffic Control system it might provide a bridge back to me.”
“It’s all over, why come after you now?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I missed something last time, maybe, like I said, something else is going on. Two of the men involved who were sent to jail are out. In fact they were seen together a couple of weeks ago in Nagasaki.”
“Are you sending someone to interview them?”
“We’re working on it, but something is going on right now over there that might make that too politically risky for us to take the chance.”
“Are you going to tell me about it?” Rudolph said. “Because there are a lot of coincidences piling up here, all leading back to the White House. Lee spent Friday night in the Lincoln bedroom.”
“If I come up with a connection, I’ll brief you, but right now you don’t want to know.”
Rudolph was trying to come to a decision. It was obvious he was troubled. “Wait here,” he said. He got up and left, returning a minute later with a thick file folder bordered by orange stripes.
“Have you ever heard of Joseph Lee in any other connection, at any other time?” he asked, searching for something in the folder.
“First time I ever heard the name was from Ryan yesterday.”
“Shit,” Rudolph said. He looked up and stared at McGarvey for a long moment, then took a photograph from one of the other file folders and passed it across the table. It showed a young man wearing some kind of a uniform, a handgun at his hip. He looked like a cop.
“He was the one driving the car,” McGarvey said.
“His name is Akira Nishimura. Hong Kong police provided us with a fingerprint match. He’s Japanese, born in Kobe, but raised in Tokyo. Two years ago he was fired from his job as a security guard in Hong Kong at a place called Pacific Rim Development Institute.”
“What about the other two?”
“Nothing on them yet,” Rudolph said. He looked again at something in the thick folder. “Pacific Rim is a Joseph Lee operation.”
“Bingo,” McGarvey said, but for some reason he wasn’t really surprised. He did not believe in coincidences.
“The Hong Kong police report came in yesterday afternoon, but there was no reason for us to connect the two investigations.” Rudolph shook his head in amazement.