Liberty

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

In the weeks following Fleet Week, Jake Grafton’s ad hoc computer staff was transferred in toto, people and equipment, to the joint antiterrorism task force. Their labors had begun to bear fruit. The tangled skein of money transfers throughout the world was being untangled, the identities of those people and governments around the world who put up the money for terrorism were being established, and terrorist cells in America and Europe were being uncovered, cells that were made targets of traditional law enforcement investigations.

Tommy Carmellini went back to his regular job at Langley, only to find that the paper on his desk had accumulated dramatically in his absence. Rita Moravia went back to the Fleet Week staff, which was in the midst of its own post-event wrap-up and planning for the event the following year.

Gil Pascal left for a Pentagon billet, and Toad Tarkington received orders to the staff of Atlantic Fleet. Toad had to find a new job because Jake submitted his retirement papers, as he said he would, and scheduled himself for terminal leave.

Zip Vance married one of the secretaries after a whirlwind courtship and found himself assigned to the CIA’s permanent technical staff. He stopped in to shake Jake’s hand, muttered something about Zelda that Jake didn’t catch, and said good-bye.

Zelda Hudson’s future was very much up in the air. She stayed at the remnants of the bank of computers in the basement and finished her self-assigned project, which she titled “A Day in the Life of a Drug Dealer.” The video tracked a drug dealer through the streets of Washington using traffic surveillance cameras, video cameras at convenience stores and those that monitored pay telephones, cameras in malls, department stores, and the public housing projects. The video ran for twenty-two minutes.

Jake sent it to the Justice Department for a screening. The legal eagles were horrified, apparently, because three days later an assistant attorney general telephoned Jake and demanded that he personally destroy the tape and delete the computer file.

“Outrageous!” the lawyer thundered. “Never in my career have I seen a more egregious violation of the civil liberties of an American citizen.”

“What did you think of that doper driving around the nation’s capital peddling poison?”

“The amazing thing,” the lawyer said, “is that you made the tape in direct violation of the statute that prohibits the CIA from spying on Americans.”

“I was thinking of sending copies to CNN and CNBC,” Jake said lightly. “Think they’d air it?”

“I am referring this matter to the attorney general with a recommendation that you be court-martialed.”

“Better hang on to your copy of that tape, then,” Jake retorted. “You’re going to need it as evidence.” He hung up on the assistant attorney general.

Three days later he was summoned to the White House by Sal Molina. The president wasn’t in town just then, so the White House lacked its usual charged energy, that center of the universe feeling. Jake found Molina in his cubbyhole office a few yards down the hallway from the Oval Office.

“So you’re retiring,” Molina said with amusement.

“Yep. Gonna become a civilian and get rich in corporate America. Get an accounting job with some stock options.”

“Sure. You’ll fit right in at America Incorporated. By the way, I got a call yesterday from an assistant attorney general. He wants your head on a platter. Demanded that you be court-martialed. What in hell was that all about?”

Jake told Molina about the tape, about how Zelda Hudson cobbled it together from various video feeds.

“You let her do it, of course.”

“Of course.”

Molina removed a classified file from his desk, took out the document and tossed it across his desk. “Page three,” he said.

The document was the daily intelligence brief for senior White House and National Security Council executives. Jake found a paragraph that had been circled. Walney’s Bank in Cairo collapsed three days ago, the item noted. Then last night, Cairo time, the president of the bank, one Abdul Abn Saad, was murdered with a car bomb.

“Saad, his wife, and their chauffeur — boom!” Molina said when Jake handed the document back. “You know anything about this?”

“I might be able to throw a little light in that corner,” Jake admitted. “I asked Zelda to loot the bank, bleed money from Sword of Islam accounts into some accounts Saad had in Switzerland. She told me she covered her tracks pretty well.”

Molina grinned. “Won’t be the same without you around here.”

Jake smiled.

“What are we going to do about Zelda?”

“I suggest you send her over to NSA.” NSA was the National Security Agency. “They’re tearing their hair out over there trying to decrypt these public key codes that every software store in the world is selling. Zelda is a certified genius. Maybe she can help.”

Molina thought about it, sighed, then said, “I’ll talk to the president about it.”

They chatted for a few more minutes, then Jake shook hands and left.

Molina was as good as his word. The Monday following the White House visit, Zelda stopped by Jake’s office. She was going to NSA. “Thanks, Admiral, for everything. You’ve saved my life twice now.”

A smile and a handshake, and she was gone. Jake pulled out the bottom drawer of his desk, propped his feet up, and was deep into a copy of Trade-A-Plane when he heard another knock on his door. “Yo.”

Tommy Carmellini came in and dropped into a chair. “I hear you’re retiring.”

“That’s right. Terminal leave starts in ten days.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

Jake held up Trade-A-Plane. “Going to buy a Cessna 170 and go flying with Callie. Been thinking about it for years. We’re going to do the whole lower forty-eight before the snow comes.”

“And after that?”

“Well, I don’t know. Might do it again next summer. And the summer after that. Might even take up fishing.”

Carmellini nodded. From his coat pocket he produced a postcard. “Got something I thought you might be interested in, Admiral. Arrived at my apartment in yesterday’s mail.”

The picture was of a riverboat on the Seine.

“Didn’t you meet Ilin in Paris?” Carmellini asked.

“Yes, I did.”

Jake turned the card over. It carried a French stamp and an illegible postmark. The message was in English. “I’ll be back someday. Love, Anna.”

“That her handwriting?” Jake asked as he passed the card back.

“I think so.”

“Looks like life isn’t over for you after all.”

Carmellini got out of his chair and stretched. A smile crept across his face, then he grinned broadly.

Jake Grafton slammed his lower desk drawer, grabbed his hat and the copy of Trade-A-Plane, and said, “Let’s give ourselves a meritorious day off. There’s a plane in Frederick the owner wants me to fly — he thinks I’m a sizzling hot prospect. Let’s go do it.”

As he walked out of his office with Carmellini trailing in his wake, Jake shouted, “Tarkington! Lock up and turn out the lights. Let’s go fly.”