“Tony’s been under a lot of pressure lately, like we all have been, but this is the first I heard anything like that.”
“Terrible,” Lindsay said, moved. He shook his head. “Do you have the woman in custody?”
“We don’t even have her name yet,” Pierone said. “But she promised that she would call back with more information. She told us that she had to take care of something first, for her own protection.”
“Who would want to kill him, and why?” the President asked.
Pierone girded himself for what he was going to have to say next. He laid a leather-bound folder on the President’s desk. Neither the President or Secor reached for it. “I don’t know how to give this to you, Mr. President, except straight. It’s very likely that I’m going to be subpoenaed by Sam Blair to turn over what we’ve come up with in the Joseph Lee investigation.”
“What are you talking about?” Secor demanded. “What information?”
“It looks fairly certain that the bombing in Georgetown on Friday was aimed at Kirk McGarvey by someone who not only knew he was being proposed as the CIA’s new deputy directory of Operations, but who wanted for some reason to stop him. At any cost. One of the terrorists was identified as a former employee of an operation in Hong Kong owned by Lee.”
“A former employee?” Secor said.
Pierone nodded. “He was fired two years ago.”
“What does this have to do with Tony Croft?”
“Saturday morning Tony held a private briefing here in the White House for Mr. Lee—”
“How do you know that?” the President demanded.
“One of Croft’s staffers told us. We weren’t given the substance of that briefing, except that it was extensive and dealt with a current hot-button topic. Twenty-four hours later Lee returned to his home in Taiwan. He stayed there overnight, then disappeared. The CIA spotted him in Tokyo this morning, but lost him again. Nobody knows where he is now.”
Pierone was speaking like a prosecutor, he could hear himself, but he didn’t know any other way to lay this on the President’s doorstep.
“Mr. Lee is under investigation for a possible connection to illegal campaign funding, and there’ve been a lot of leaks from Sam Blair’s office and from the grand jury. If I’m forced to give him this information, the media will have it within twenty-four hours and there’ll be a lot of questions.” Pierone felt like hell. He admired this President for the good job he was doing. Lindsay had only two years left in his second term, and he didn’t need something like this to mar his record.
“I thought you should get a chance to see this first.”
“I appreciate it, Jerry,” the President said tightly. He looked angry, but he was holding it in check.
“You don’t have to turn any of this over to Blair,” Secor said.
“I’m not going to volunteer it,” Pierone said. “But I have a job to do, and I’ll do it. My hands may be tied.”
“Bullshit—” Secor exploded, but Lindsay held him off.
“Nobody will interfere with your job, Gerald,” the President said. “You have my word on that. And I want to thank you for coming over here like this. Can I ask a favor?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Keep me abreast of what you come up with.”
“Naturally,” Pierone said. “After all I am working for you.”
“Yes, you are,” the President said, and something about the way he said it troubled Pierone.
Harold Secor had not recovered from the stunning news Gerald Pierone had handed them by the time the Chinese and Japanese ambassadors arrived at 7:30 P.M. Neither had the President, but this was a meeting that simply could not be delayed and one that would have to be played straight from the hip if they expected to somehow calm the Sea of Japan situation before more lives were lost.
Both ambassadors were similar men in that they were career diplomats with more than sixty years of foreign service between them and each was a soft-spoken, brilliant, tough negotiator. Jun Zheng, the Chinese ambassador, worked under a handicap in that he did not have the negotiating freedom that his Japanese counterpart, Ryutaro Mitsui, enjoyed — it was a manifestation of the differences between totalitarian and democratic regimes — but he was every bit as capable despite it.
If there was any tension or hard feelings between them, Secor could not detect it. They were consummate diplomats.
“Good evening, Mr. President, Mr. Secor,” Zheng said, bowing slightly.
“Mr. President,” Mitsui said, his English even better than Zheng’s.
“Gentlemen, thank you for coming over on such short notice,” the President said. “But we’ve been monitoring an increasingly troubling situation in the Sea of Japan involving your two countries.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, unless you’re referring to the explosion at North Korea’s nuclear power station,” Zheng said blandly.
“I’m talking about the eight warships your country has sent into the region,” the President said. “Our satellites are monitoring their progress right now. Along with the several warships Japan has dispatched. Are you going to tell me that you know nothing about that?”
“There was an accident with one of our submarines,” Mitsui broke in smoothly. “We have mounted a recovery operation, nothing more.”
“Can you tell us why all of your military bases have been put on alert?” Secor asked.
“Merely a precaution,” the Japanese ambassador said. “I think the North Koreans made their position perfectly clear in the aftermath of their unfortunate accident at Kimch’aek. We would be reckless not to take certain steps to prepare for our defense should the unthinkable happen.”
“Is that why China has sent its navy?” Secor asked. “Has Pyongyang asked for your help?”
“So far as I’m aware, no such request has been made of my government,” Zheng replied. It was impossible for Secor to determine if he was lying. The ambassador’s expression was perfectly neutral, as was Mitsui’s. They could have been discussing the weather.
“Are you telling us that your navy is simply conducting an exercise?” Secor asked.
Zheng inclined his head slightly. “It’s not uncommon.”
“You can understand our concern, because very soon ships of both your navies will be in close proximity to each other,” the President said. “Accidents have been known to happen in such situations.”
“We are aware of such dangers,” Mitsui agreed. “Our commanders have been given very specific orders to operate with extreme caution.”
“I’m glad to hear that, because it will make it easy for you to take a message back to both of your governments.”
“Yes, Mr. President?” Mitsui said.
“We would like to see the situation stabilized by an immediate withdrawal of your forces to a safe distance. A one-hundred-mile separation between your ships and the coast of North Korea would be reasonable. I have ordered the Seventh Fleet into the area as observers. Like both your governments, the United States is deeply concerned by the incident at Kimch’aek. In the morning I shall call for a UN investigation to make sure this doesn’t go any further. Until we have all the facts, any military operation there would not only be foolish but would certainly be dangerous.”
“We have the right to defend our homeland,” Mitsui said.
“With the help of the United States through our Joint Forces agreement,” the President said. “We intend honoring our responsibilities to Japan with the same vigor we have in the past. Believe me, we understand perfectly well the threat that Kim Jong-Il represents, and we won’t allow him to take any action whatsoever against you. He understands the consequences.”