The Sniper and the Wolf

45

Robert Pope opened his eyes to see the president standing at the foot of his bed in the subdued lighting of his hospital room. His first thought was that something had gone terribly wrong in Turkey. “Has something happened to Gil, Mr. President?”

The president shook his head. “No, Gil’s fine. He and the others left Istanbul for Moscow half an hour ago. I’m here at this untimely hour because I need your counsel on a very personal matter.”

Pope adjusted himself in the bed, wiping his face with his hands to wake himself up. “You look worried, sir. What can I do for you?”

The president took the phone from his pocket and stepped around the side of the bed. “I received this… message… from Tim Hagen two hours ago.” He put the phone into Pope’s hand and touched the screen to start the video clip.

In the video, the president was sitting beside a young Korean woman in the back of a limousine. He was clearly drunk and quite taken with the young woman. He was kissing the side of her face, running his hand in and out of her blouse and up and down the inside of her thigh, beneath her skirt. She was laughing and rubbing the bulge in his trousers. The voice of Tim Hagen could be heard very close to the phone, talking and chortling as if he were having a conversation with someone on the other end. After twenty seconds, the video cut to the president performing cunnilingus on the woman. Twenty seconds later, it cut again to her straddling him, and the president moaning that he was about to climax. After a full minute, the video stopped.

Pope gave the phone back to the president. “That’s obviously an edited version?”

“Yes,” the president said quietly, slipping the phone into his jacket. “I expect it probably is.”

“And you had no idea he was filming you?”

“None. We’d just won the Iowa caucuses, and I was drunker than the Lords of London. I thought he was bragging to someone about the victory.” The president massaged the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “I trusted that man with my life, and he put me in the White House. I had no idea I’d made a deal with the devil.”

Pope blessed his luck. “Why have you shared this with me, sir?”

“Hagen’s letting me know that if he goes down, he’s taking me with him. My wife is nothing like Hillary Clinton. She would divorce me immediately — and publicly.”

Pope nodded his understanding. “With respect, Mr. President, that doesn’t really answer my question.”

The president spoke to him gravely. “Can you stop this video before it goes viral?”

“Is this a frank and open conversation, sir?”

“It is.”

“In that case, I can stop it with a ninety percent certainty,” Pope replied. “But I’ll have to remove Hagen from the game board to do it. There’s a slight chance he’s arranged for the video to go viral in the event of his death, but under the circumstances, I believe that to be unlikely.”

“Under what circumstances?”

“I’m extremely close to Hagen, Mr. President. I have been since shortly after I ended up here. For all intents and purposes, I might as well be in the room with him at this very moment. If he’s arranged for that video go viral automatically, he did so a long time ago — which isn’t likely, in my opinion.”

The president let out a heavy sigh and stood away from the bed, resting his weight on the back of a chair near the window. “I can’t give you an order like that to protect my own hide.”

“You don’t have to order anything,” Pope said. “All you have to do is agree not to ask any questions about him after tonight. Hagen’s a traitor, Mr. President. Innocent people are dead because of him and his coconspirators.”

“But can you prove that?”

“In a court of law? No. But one of the CIA mainframes was accessed by an old series of codes that Hagen would have had access to during his time as chief of staff. Normally that series of codes would have been canceled after Hagen’s resignation, but the agency’s a mess, and a number of department heads have been slacking off. The day I get out of here, I plan to fire more than fifty people.”

The president felt sick to his stomach. “I know I’m a pathetic coward for asking you this, Robert, but what are the chances of it coming back to bite us if he’s removed?”

“Zero,” Pope answered. “He’ll simply vanish. The FBI will be left to assume that he’s gone on the run. He has plenty of money offshore, so it’s more than believable. He should have run already, but he’s a very foolish man.”

“Foolish how?”

“Foolish in that he’s too stubborn to admit that he’s lost. He lost the day you asked for his resignation. He’s the one who burned Gil in Paris, Mr. President. He did it to get revenge against me — and Gil — for reasons probably only he would truly understand.”

The president stared. “You said you’re in the room with him right now. That means you’d already planned on his disappearance, doesn’t it?”

Pope smiled. “Maybe not quite this soon…”

“So I’ve unnecessarily shown you my ass this evening.”

“I wouldn’t say so, sir. A man like Hagen could do a lot of damage with that video in a very short period of time. The sooner he takes a little vacation, the better.”

“A vacation…” The president thought it over at length, at last deciding that Hagen had asked for whatever Pope had in mind for him. “Okay. I won’t ask about him again. Now, what about the CIA? Can you save it, or will I have to dissolve it?”

“If I’m given a free hand, sir, you won’t even recognize the CIA nine months from now.”

The president touched Pope on the shoulder. “Heal up, Robert. I’ll look forward to seeing you at the White House for dinner the day you’re released. We have a lot to talk about.”

“I appreciate the invitation. Thank you.”

The president went to the door and was about to step into the hall when he turned on his heel. “Will Putin let Shannon out of Russia, or will he hold on to him?”

Pope grinned. “Do not fear, sir. Everything is going according to plan.”

The president shook his head as he slipped out of the room.