"You're being paranoid."
"Am I?" Gideon shook his head. "The Attorney General of the United States might have to resign over this, and he’s probably taking the fall for somebody—"
"Taking the fall?"
"I told you what I saw. Silencers? Black ninja suits with 'Treasury' hidden until the last minute? I doubt those were Lloyd's boys."
"So, what, you think you stumbled on some black op? Who by? The CIA?"
Gideon shrugged. "I don't know. An agency with the clout to stonewall a grand jury and convince Congress to close the investigation to public scrutiny."
The air was filled with the smell of roasting pork as the chefs emptied someone's bowl onto the grill.
"Free suggestion," Kendal said.
"Yes?"
"Walk away."
Gideon shook his head. "You think I could if I wanted to?"
Kendal attacked his bowl of chicken, pineapple, and rice. He took a few bites, shaking his head all the while. "You know the odds of you just stumbling in on someone's clandestine operation? And if you're right, you know what you're getting into? You're my friend, don't get mixed up in this."
Gideon leaned over and said, "I'm mixed up in it now. This is the nation's number one screwup and they need someone to hang the blame on."
"You think you're being prepped for that duty?"
"IA has been glued to me. This guy, Magness, eyes me like he's already scripting the trial."
"You need to get into this?" Kendal took another slow bite of his chicken. "You have a story, and you have the triggermen, right?"
"How long before they turn the screwup into the work of one reckless cop?"
"Was it?"
Gideon's throat clenched shut and his fork clattered to his plate. "How can you—"
"You're too close to this. Can you tell me that it wasn't?"
Gideon lowered his eyes and whispered. "He was my brother."
He heard the scrape as Kendal pushed his chair away. Gideon looked up at the man, who towered over him like an impending avalanche. "You aren't going to help me."
Kendal shook his head. "I've always been willing to back you up. You know that. I will look into this for you," he walked up and squeezed Gideon's shoulder. "But I just want you to know that there isn't
necessarily a conspiracy here just because you happen to need one."
1.09 Sat. Mar. 7
P resident John Rayburn sat behind his desk in the Oval Office, his chair half-turned toward the window, away from the other men in the room. He was possibly the most physically imposing man to occupy that seat since L.B.J. He loomed over everyone, even when he was seated and only half paying attention.
The two other men in the office with him were his National Security Adviser, Emmit D'Arcy, a short man with thick glasses that he kept adjusting on his nose; and the director of the CIA, Lawrence Fitzsimmons, a man with sandy brown hair and a dead gray beard.
Outside the windows, dawn was drawing a dull gray light across the rose garden.
"This is where we are right now," Fitzsimmons said. "There's no sign of any connection between Kareem Rashad Williams and Zimmerman, despite what the NSA's computers might have said. There's some chance that it might have been deliberate misinformation.
"We've coordinated efforts with the DISA to follow up every breach and near-breach of computer security in about twelve hundred secure intelligence and defense systems looking for any attacks that might have been engineered by Zimmerman. We have every regional office monitoring Internet activity overseas—"
Rayburn turned the pages on a file in front of him. Eventually he said in a slow Texas drawl, "Hellfire."
"It's only a matter of time before Zimmerman makes a slip—" Fitzsimmons started to say.
Rayburn shook his head. "Goddamn—I'm starting to think that the damage from the search is going to be worse than anything Zimmerman could engineer. This is the second shoot-out across the evening news. Things like this have sunk more popular administrations than this one."
"We are dealing with a severe threat to the National Security—"
"Don't patronize me, Larry. I was Army Intelligence when we self-destructed in Vietnam. I know exactly what kind of threat Zimmerman poses. I also know what kind of threat your own Agency poses."
Rayburn stood up. "You still can't even tell me who Zimmerman defected to."
"As soon as we can trace some computer activity . . ."
"That's what you were saying a week ago." Rayburn shook his head. "Larry, you aren't getting anywhere. The Daedalus theft was as close as you've managed to get, and all that's gotten us is two corpses, a wounded D.C. cop, and a half-dozen Central Americans who only know about some 'Deep Throat' in a Howard Johnson's parking lot. Meanwhile, I'm feeding my Attorney General to the dogs to cover this operation, and Zimmerman's trail is as cold as the chips in that damn computer."
Fitzsimmons seemed to wince slightly.
"It is unfortunate," D'Arcy said.
"Unfortunate?" Rayburn replied. "You have a gift for understatement, Emmit." He turned to Fitzsimmons and said, "At the moment, Emmit is the only thing standing between Congress and your balls-up operation."
Fitzsimmons looked across at D'Arcy.
"I'm giving D'Arcy overall control of the effort to recover Zimmerman."
"But," Fitzsimmons protested, "this was the Agency's—"
Rayburn stared at Fitzsimmons. "If you want to split hairs, this is counterespionage and should be the FBI's bailiwick. Especially since it looks like Zimmerman hasn't left the country."
Rayburn turned to the National Security Advisor. The man was small, but unlike Fitzsimmons, he didn't seem to shrink from under Rayburn's gaze.
D'Arcy took a handkerchief, removed his glasses, and began cleaning them. "We can't let rivalries or past mistakes cloud the issue." D'Arcy replaced his glasses, and his eyes enlarged behind the lenses.
"Zimmerman's a serious threat. We cannot dwell on this one 'cluster-fuck.' We're dealing with a time bomb here. We have to recover her before she irreparably damages the security of every computer system in this country. From what I know of the CIA's investigation, we only have one tenuous assumption—that Zimmerman is still in the country."
D'Arcy shook his head. "And whatever damage has been done, Zimmerman's retrieval needs to be covert. More covert than the Daedalus incident. If it became publicly known that she's.out there, it would be nearly as damaging to our security as her defection."
Rayburn walked back to his desk and picked up the file he'd been leafing through. "Back at square one."
D'Arcy shook his head. "No, we've lost ground. The Daedalus might have lured her in, but this 'accident' will have made her more wary. She's unquestionably a genius, and while she may be naive about covert operations, she won't make the same mistake twice."
Rayburn closed the file. "I hope I can say the same about the CIA." The President glared at the two men. "No more cowboy shit on CNN, understand? You have to take this woman, but goddamn you can be subtle about it. Get out of here."
D'Arcy and pitzsimmons left together, and as they walked down the hall out of earshot of the Oval Office, Fitzsimmons asked, "Emmit?"
"Larry?"
"Think I should start looking for a job in the private sector?"
Morris Kendal sat in a booth in the rear of a diner. The diner was on the fringes of Arlington, toward Largely. The booth was a little too small for him, the table pressed against his three-hundred-pound gut. He whiled away the time wondering if there could be anything to Gideon's paranoia. Even though he was here on Gideon's behalf, he still felt that his friend was engaging in an elaborate self-justification because his brother was the one who got killed in the shoot-out.