Hostile Intent

Chapter Fifty

Senator Robert Hartley strode to the podium at his hastily called press conference. He was clean, shaved, and sober, and was glad that everybody could tell.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, beaming at the cameras, “I have an important announcement.”

A modest hubbub ran through the modest crowd. Hartley’s staffers had done the best they could on short notice, but their IMs were only just beginning to pull in the public. Right now, it was mostly media.

“As you all know,” he continued, “I have spent my career in the Senate, reaching across the aisle, striving for bipartisanship to solve the issues that divide us as Americans. To that end, I have work assiduously with this president, Jeb Tyler, in an effort to protect and serve the American people.” He made what is called a pregnant pause.

“I am sorry to tell you today that that effort — has failed.”

Gasps, especially from what was left of the once-formidable Washington press corps, now reduced through the collapse of most of the major newspapers in the country, to a few pool reporters and a host of cable-TV cameramen and producers. If there was one thing that Americans — at least, Ivy League-educated Americans — believed in more than God, it was bipartisanship. Except when they didn’t.

“After all, President Tyler was elected on just such a platform. And after the toxic partisanship of the past sixteen years, we all could see why. But now, certain documents have come to light—”

A buzz ran through the older members of the crowd. It was like a live baby seal thrown to the sharks. “Certain documents” could mean only one thing. The maleficent corpse of Senator Joe McCarthy was about to be exhumed and resurrected once more.

The newsies leaned forward, hanging on every word. Even though Hartley was a bona fide idiot, renowned as a human gaffe machine, called behind his back — and sometimes to his face — the “Senator from the Bar Association”—this was sure to be the lead national story in about two minutes. And, three minutes from now, bloggers from Indiana to India would be writing about What It All Meant.

Hartley beamed at the audience. It was great to see all the gray hair, the ponytails, the facial hair, the Botox, the hair plugs. One particularly ugly old crone in the front row shouted, “Does this mean somebody’s finally gonna put the son of a bitch in his place?”

Hartley held up his hands for calm. This was getting out of hand. Television, or what was left of it, was a cool medium. Plus, more and more people were streaming onto the shopping-mall plaza.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Hartley, “ours is a democracy.” Cheers. “A representative, republican democracy.” Boos. “Which is why — which is why — although it pains me to my core — I feel I must come before you today and share what I have learned. For it has come to my attention—”

Quiet, leading to silence.

“—that the events of the past few days…” He paused again. In high school, he had always wanted to play Hamlet, and now he was getting his chance, on a bigger stage than he had ever imagined.

“That the horrible, unconscionable events of the past few years — unprecedented as they are in American history, a history that stretches back to Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and FDR…” Maybe that was going too far. No matter — he plunged on:

“Have revealed the most monstrous…conspiracy is not too strong a word…against the American people. A conspiracy so vast…”

The cheering of the crowd, especially the reporters, was almost too much for him to continue. But he managed.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let me be the first to tell you — no secret, no e-mail, no conversation, almost no private thought, has been safe from your government. The National Security Agency — the one they used to laughingly call ‘No Such Agency’—has been spying on you, all of you, for decades. Since long before September 11.”

He held up his hands for calm.

“Yes, each and every one of you. Every one of you who owns an iPod. Or a BlackBerry. A cell phone. Maybe even a land line. Every one of your conversations has been grist for their evil mill, everyone one of your conversations — yes, even those with your Tante Emma, Grandma Mary, or Bubbi Sadie in Florida — has been intercepted, decoded, digested, logged, and analyzed by a sinister branch of the NSA called the Central Security Service.”

A ripple of outrage ran through the crowd. No one had ever heard of the Central Security Service, but they sure didn’t like the sound of it.

“So that’s why, today, I’m announcing the formation of an exploratory committee for a possible presidential run for the nomination of my party against my great and good friend, President Tyler. Because, friendship aside, we can’t afford politics as usual. We can’t afford the ‘system.’ We need action — and we need it now!”

The place erupted in cheers. Viewers watching at home were impressed by Hartley’s sheer, brave honesty. Bloggers pounded their keyboards. Internet servers hummed. Half the nation, watching at home, seethed.

“Are you aware?” Hartley shouted. Shouting was too hot for Marshall McLuhan’s cool medium, but luckily nobody knew who Marshall McLuhan was any more. “Are you aware that the entire ‘War on Terror’ has been a sham? A way to divest you of your civil liberties? A way to penetrate your most intimate conversations, your homes, your hearths, yes, even your bedrooms?

“We can’t afford four more years of the same failed Jeb Tyler policies. Because we can’t afford any change in the tax system, any change in our military preparedness, any change in our relationship with our allies overseas, any change in the polar ice caps, we have to maintain the status quo — and then make it better!”

The crowd lapped up the nonsense and the non sequiturs. Hartley took a deep breath.

“And that’s why, even at this late date, I’m asking for your support. I need money and I need your vote. To turn Jeb Tyler out of office, and take back our country!”

Apeshit was not too mild a word to describe the reaction. He was riding the wave now. He held up the folder that Tyler had given him.

“I have here in my hand”—he waved the folder, like the red flag before the bull—“proof positive that our government has been lying to us all along. Their promises of transparency were worthless. That there exists, at the deepest and most hidden levels of the NSA, a rogue agency devoted to the subversion of everything we hold dear as Americans. And personally authorized by President Jeb Tyler to carry out its mission.”

A gasp ran through the crowd. Shouts of “Impeach him!” were heard.

Hartley held up his hands again for quiet. “We don’t have to impeach him. We just have to beat him. And when I’m president, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’m going to unleash a full-scale investigation and those responsible will get what’s coming to them! Thank you, and may God bless America!”

For a brief, exhilarating moment, he actually believed his own bullshit, until he caught sight of the Whippet and the Refrigerator standing off to one side, out of the view of the cameras. Then he remembered where he was, what was happening, and where this was all likely to end.

“Good job, Bob,” said the Whippet as the Refrigerator fell in behind them. They were both dressed in black, just like real Secret Service agents now.

The Refrigerator handed him a secure cell phone. “You’ve got a phone call from the Big Guy.”

“Nice work,” came Tyler’s voice. “You actually sounded like you meant what you were saying out there.”

“Thank you, Mr. President. But there’s one thing I just don’t understand—”

Tyler knew where he was going with the question. “Why I’m doing this to myself, right? Simple. In order for me to deal with whatever the hell is going on here, I need to throw the jackals in the press some red meat. You know how they are, Bob. Basically, there’s room for only one story at a time in their precious little airheads. And now, thanks to you, the story today is that I’m a dirty low-down, double-dealing, malfeasant skunk who ought to be strung up on the Mall. Which is just fine with me at the moment.”

Hartley swallowed hard. “And I’m the red meat.”

“You more or less nominated yourself, didn’t you, Bob?”

“Who dropped the dime on me? I have to know?”

The president ignored the question. “Play this out until further notice and when we’re done, then you and I will call it even. The only acceptable answer is yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have a nice day,” said Jeb Tyler, ringing off.

They rode back to the Watergate in silence.

Hartley was alone in his bedroom. His babysitters were in the front room. They’d sealed the windows so he couldn’t jump out. They’d taken everything sharp away from him. The only shoes he had were loafers.

Hartley lit a cigarette. A plan was forming in his mind — a way for him to get out of this mess with his dignity intact. Sure, he was a douchebag, like almost everybody in Congress, a corrupt hypocrite who preached one thing and did another; a man who constantly brayed about his devotion to his constituents as he went about screwing them as hard as he could. But maybe now he could make up for it in some small way.

He dug the folder marked HARTLEY out of his briefcase and put it in the trash can. Too bad nobody used metal trash cans more, but the gray plastic one would have to do. He opened it up so that there was plenty of air around the pictures and then set fire to it.

It took a few minutes for the smoke detectors to kick in, setting off a screech. Hartley wasn’t sure whether alarms would ring all over the complex, but it didn’t matter; a localized ruckus would be just fine. As the alarms shrieked, he moved behind the bedroom door and waited.

He’d kept himself in good physical shape for a man of his age and he realized with grim irony that his fitness was finally going to come in handy for something other than a barroom pickup. Well, better late than never. He picked up one of his bookends, a heavy reproduction of the Maltese Falcon that he’d found in Provincetown one summer.

It was the Whippet first through the door, gun drawn, just as Hartley had hoped. He hit him square on the back of his head with the Falcon, fracturing his skull. As the man fell, Hartley quickly slammed the door and locked it. He knew the Refrigerator would burst though, but he only needed a few seconds. He grabbed the gun.

The Refrigerator didn’t bother with a knock. Hurling his weight he burst through the door. Hartley shot him three times, once in the chest, once in the groin, and once in the head, just for fun.

The trash can fire was still burning merrily. Hartley ran to the bathroom and sprinkled some aftershave on it, which caused the flames to leap higher. Then he wadded as much paper as could — the Washington Post came in handy — and finally the sprinklers went off.

Outside, in the hallway, he could hear shouting, running. Alarms started to whoop everywhere.

He sat on the bed, the water from the sprinklers pouring over him. He hadn’t prayed since he was a kid, but it was funny how the prayers came back to you when you needed them most.

His last thought was, This will really give them something to write about tomorrow. Then he put the Whippet’s gun in his mouth.

“Have a nice day, Jeb,” was his last thought before he pulled the trigger.

Chapter Fifty-one

Milverton picked up Hartley’s presser halfway through. He couldn’t believe his luck. Things were going just as they had planned. The bit about running for president was, he thought, inspired. He wondered if Hartley had thought of it all by himself.

Flush him out and kill him. That’s what Skorzeny wanted. Mission half-accomplished. If the FBI team he had sicced on his nemesis hadn’t succeeded, well, so what? He was better suited to do the job himself, right here in Blighty. Milverton had no idea why the old man was so keen on getting Devlin, but in this case business and pleasure were mixing admirably.

From the beginning, Skorzeny must have known, somehow, that they’d send Devlin to Edwardsville, must have known that Devlin’s catching sight of Milverton would only whet his appetite for score-settling, must have known that Devlin would then be a human yo-yo, shuttling back and forth between the coasts, trying to conceal his identity while wondering who the hell was doing this to him.

Milverton never made the mistake of underestimating an adversary, and he had learned the hard way that Devlin was every bit his equal in tradecraft. Hartley’s access, as head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had been solid gold, but Devlin had outwitted him in the battle of Fort Meade. Who knew, maybe he was on to him, on his way to him, and all Milverton had to do was sit back and await developments.

Hartley — now there was a good little boy. Milverton had to admit that Skorzeny’s Hoover-like collection of the personal peccadilloes of nearly every major political figure in Europe, China, Japan, and the United States was second to none. It was like acupressure — you didn’t need an MRI of the whole body to know what would happen to it if pressure were applied just so and to just the right place. And it was so easy — with the intrusive scope of information technology today, nobody in his right mind would run for office except sociopaths, who either didn’t care who knew about their manifold skeletons (several U.S. Congressmen came immediately to mind) or who felt they were smarter than everybody else (more than one American president). A more singular collection of intellectually mediocre, greedy psychopaths he had not encountered outside of a banana republic or sub-Saharan Africa or the city council of Milton Keynes.

What was it Ben Franklin once said about the American government? “A republic, if you can keep it.” Well, that question was fast being answered. America’s chickens were coming home to roost. It couldn’t happen to a worse country.

There was only one problem, from Milverton’s point of view: What if all this effort had been for naught, and Devlin would not engage in time? The clock was ticking, especially with Skorzeny’s demand that Amanda Harrington take the insurance policy to the country house in France.

That policy had been a tricky proposition, both in obtaining it and getting it conveyed to the proper place. It had cost him, personally, a lot, and the fact that Skorzeny suddenly wanted to shove his nose into what should have been a private — intimate, even — transaction between two consenting parties very definitely complicated matters. But then, when it came to affairs of Skorzeny’s heart, everything was unpredictable.

He rang Amanda’s number, but there was no answer. Ditto her mobile. Not a good sign.

Milverton had learned from long experience that when things went wrong, they went wrong in spades. And spades was his short suit at the moment. He didn’t have time for spades.

He rang Amanda again. No answer. Damn it!

OK, now he was officially worried. It made him hate Skorzeny all the more. It put him at a disadvantage, on the defensive, which was never a place he wanted to be. He was frozen in place, tethered to the timing of the “scientific experiment” off the coast of Baltimore, tomorrow. As the Clara Vallis approached port.

The weather balloon experiment. With nothing else to do at the moment, he decided to run through the codes, protocols, and security measures one more time.

Blowing operational security — the ultimate poisoned pawn gambit — was something only the best intelligence operatives could get away with. It was the ne plus ultra of the intel biz, beyond which there was nothing — only triumph or disaster. To blow one agent might look like a tragedy, but to blow an entire operation had damn well better look like carelessness, or you were well and truly fucked. Oscar Wilde would have understood the concept, if not the call letters: EMP. Electro-Magnetic Pulse. That was the genius of the thing.

Simplicity. First principles, as Hannibal Lecter or somebody once said, What is this thing in itself, by its own special constitution? What is it in substance, and in form, and in matter? What is its function in the world?

Since Reagan, the Americans had been obsessed with their SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars.” Friends in the American media — paid operatives, fellow travelers, Harvard-educated idiots — had done their best to mock it as an old cowboy’s fantasy, a pipe dream, something that, because it was not and could not be 100 percent foolproof, was therefore, QED, zero percent effective.

And yet, in the end, it was the thing that had brought down the Soviet Union. Milverton had been there, in Dresden, on that freezing cold night in 1985, when Erich Honecker, the last dictator of the late German Democratic Republic, had stood in forty-below-zero weather (no matter whether it was measured in Celsius or Fahrenheit, forty-below was the sole point of agreement on the two scales) and railed against the Stern-kriege. Five years later, he was gone, and the East Germans would be scarfing up bananas and porn and west-marks as the Wall came down. Whether SDI worked or not, it didn’t matter. Reagan had bluffed his ass off, and the Soviet communists, used to chess and not poker, toppled their king and walked away from the board.

And yet the movement had lived on, in men like Emanuel Skorzeny, who realized that true communism was capitalism by other means. There was no communist quite like a guilty plutocratic manipulator of the capitalist system. And, to paraphrase Baudelaire, Satan’s greatest accomplishment was to make the West believe that the two systems were fundamentally incompatible, when, in fact, they were the same thing, if only you know how to play the angles.

EMP.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, everything was for sale. Firearms, art, icons, women — it was a giant going-out-of-business fire sale. Seeing an opportunity where the hapless American administration had not, Skorzeny had swooped in, buying them all, and more. True, he had his setbacks; when “Captain Bob” Maxwell mysteriously went overboard on his yacht…well that was a deal gone wrong. But a lot of deals went right.

And now Emanuel Skorzeny had the ordnance to prove it.

Because missiles and missile shields were all beside the point. Like all right-thinking people, he had mourned the demise of the USSR as a noble experiment gone wrong. But the impulse that had given it birth, to control everything and everybody for their own good, was a fundamental human impulse. And so the Soviet Union had never really died; it had simply molted, mutated, gone both underground and above board — especially in the United States.

President Carter had cautioned Americans against their “inordinate fear of communism.” Stout fellow, laying the ground. The ongoing vilification of Joe McCarthy — never mind that the sainted Bobby Kennedy was his right-hand man — the destruction of Hoover’s posthumous reputation, the penetration of the American universities, political parties and media by brave men and women dedicated to the ideals of Marxism-Leninism — all this was at last bearing fruit.

Perhaps the most ambitious, and ultimately successful, operation had been the Soviet “illegals” program. This involved the expenditure of vast sums of cash — some of it financed by Skorzeny himself — in order to identify, indoctrinate, train and promote the careers of bright young things sympathetic to the Cause. Men and women who would benefit from fortunate and fortuitous scholarships to elite prep schools and universities, who would be mentored by former “radicals” turned “distinguished professors,” who relied on the short, indeed nonexistent, historical memories of their fellow countrymen; who would be taken in hand by powerful politicians in need of an infusion of cash.

It took a little longer than “direct action,” but the result was the same. And men like Emanuel Skorzeny could beam with pride at what they had wrought.

In a way, he thought, it was like the nexus of the Pill, the Sexual Revolution, and Roe v. Wade. Disrupt the understanding that had obtained between men and women for eons: that there were consequences to choice. Convince the women that they were being “liberated” from their bodies: sex without consequences. Convince the men that their dreams had come true: sex without consequences. Convince society that the “choice” was not between keeping the baby or giving it up for adoption, but between having the baby and killing the baby.

Win-win-win for everybody but the baby. Sheer genius.

And then, in two generations, suddenly there were no more generations.

Bereft of progeny, the insurance systems would collapse. Then the private pensions. Finally the government pensions. The end would come quickly, in mutual recriminations and, with any luck, civil war as the Party of Take battled the Party of Give.

But, for Skorzeny, time was running out. Even the election of an “illegal” president of the United States could not come quickly enough for him. Like all secular saints, he needed to hasten the day of his investiture into the pantheon. Needed to see his icon. If the world began the day he was born, then it must end the day he died.

EMP.

This was where al-Qaeda and the raggedy-ass terrorists had got it all wrong. You didn’t have to nuke New York or Los Angeles. You didn’t have to try a dirty bomb in the subways or in the cargo hold of a container ship.

Weather balloons.

They could easily launch to 95,000 feet. Near space. And, thanks to “global warming,” as pure and innocent as radiation-free snow. Off-shore, from ships beyond the twenty-mile limit. A scientific experiment, to gauge the ice-melt of the permafrost of Tucson, Arizona, since the arrival of the first SUVs from Britain in 1492. Whatever.

No worries about a weather balloon. No detection of a payload hovering in the semidarkness of the ionosphere. After all, a panel truck packed with explosives nearly took down the World Trade Center the first time. A couple of airplanes did the trick the second time.

And now a weather balloon. Asymmetrical warfare at its finest.

When the device went off, at his electronic signal, sent from the comfort of his study in Camden Town, the following would happen:

Every electrical system on the East Coast of the United States would immediately fail.

Telephone service would terminate. All cell phones would go out.

Nothing electrical would operate. Not ATMs, not gas pumps, not computers, not the Internet.

The United States would be blind, deaf, and dumb.

NSA would be dead.

SDI would be dead.

America would be vulnerable to every kind of threat. Fortress America, once so secure between her two vast oceans, would now be Sitting Duck America, a pincushion for every two-bit throw-weight power including France, Israel, and South Africa. She would be like one of those pathetic water buffaloes in the veldt, food for the lions, and then carrion for the jackals.

And yet, some would profit handsomely, Skorzeny foremost among them. There was a fortune to be made in catastrophe, as there had been ever since the year 410, Common Era. Just ask Alaric the Visigoth

Only this time, if he understood the man correctly, Skorzeny would be left to pick up the pieces, preserve what was left of the civilization, to be the Irish monks of his own time: the Saint Malachy, the Bernard of Clairvaux…

Clairvaux.

He punched back into the NSA net, using the codes that Hartley had given him. Thank God the Americans cared about security clearances for everybody but their elected officials.

The codes were still working.

One ’bot to another. Devlin, he was sure, would get the message, and come running to him. Back into his loving arms.

Right here, on Buck Street. Number 22. Camden Town.

EMP, baby. Have a nice day.

He thought up the simplest message he could think of and sent it off to Devlin. Three little stick-figure drawings. There would be multiple security cutouts, redirects, ’bots warring against ’bots, it didn’t matter. The more security protocols the better. He’d get it. He was that good. And he wouldn’t be able to resist.

Amanda’s life depended on it.

For the first time in his life, Milverton realized that he actually cared about somebody other than himself.

Better late than never.

Chapter Fifty-two

Not one American in a million had ever heard of Site R, better known as the Raven Rock Mountain Complex, or the RRMC. Located about six miles north of Camp David, it was one of the country’s most formidable centers of electronic intelligence, home to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a separate office for the secretary of defense, and the Joint Staff Support Center, among other things. With nearly forty separate communications systems, it was the nerve center of America’s ELINT apparatus, as well as the emergency operations center for the uniformed services. Not for nothing did its denizens refer to it as the “Underground Pentagon.”

Everything about Site R was classified. In fact, it was against DoD policy to take any pictures or make any drawings or maps of the complex without prior permission. It was at once a refuge and a command center for the highest-ranking officials in the U.S. government, the first and best “undisclosed location.”

It was also the perfect place for the meeting Devlin was about to call.

Wearing an Army uniform, “Lieutenant Colonel Dan Quigley” was on time for his appointment with Secretary Rubin. Civilians getting a tour of the Pentagon were always amazed at the relative informality of the secretary of defense’s Pentagon office: third floor, E-ring, between the eighth and ninth corridors. This office was similar, with the secretary’s private office just an antechamber away from the main hallway.

The orderly saluted him and waved him through. “The Secretary is expecting you, Colonel,” he said, and saluted.

Devlin returned the salute and walked to the open doorway. “Come in, Colonel Quigley,” said Rubin’s voice. “And please shut the door behind you.”

Rubin was a mild-mannered, soft-spoken man, not given to Tyler’s fierce fits of temper. But to say he was unhappy about this meeting was to say the least. “We meet at last. The most troublesome man in the service of the United States. There’s a dead FBI team in northern Virginia that I bet you know something about.”

Devlin didn’t have time either for apologies or pleasantries. “There will be a lot more dead people if you don’t listen to what I have to say and then do exactly what I tell you.”

Rubin bristled. Devlin was Seelye’s boy. He didn’t have to take this kind of lip. “Watch your tone with me, Colonel,” he said.

Devlin stood in the doorway, trying to decide whether to stay or to go. He believed in protocol, in playing by the rules, until he didn’t, and this was one of those times.

“Mr. Secretary, I can walk out of here right now and take what I know with me. You can either let me go or have me arrested, imprisoned, and killed, but none of those courses of actions will do you any good, because you’ll never get the contents of my head onto your desk until it’s far too late. And by then you’ll either be dead or most definitely out of a job. So why don’t you drop the attitude and listen to what I have to say? Sir.”

For just a moment, Rubin was tempted to tell this man where to go. And for another moment, even more chilling, he realized the Devlin could kill him right here in his office, in the safest place in America, and probably get away with it. That is what Seelye, and by extension the U.S. government, had raised him to do, trained him to do, rewarded him for doing. “It’s your meeting,” Rubin finally admitted.

“We’ve been penetrated. Somebody sent that FBI team to my home. Where I live is absolutely beyond top secret, which means it’s far, far beyond the capacity of the FBI to get its hands on that information. So if it was you, say your prayers right now, because no matter how fast you are, I’m faster, and you’ll be dead before you can pick up the phone. You’re alive only at my forbearance, so don’t push your luck.” He watched as the blood drained out of Rubin’s face, then continued.

“Luckily for you, I don’t suspect you. It’s either Seelye or Hartley—”

“Bob Hartley is dead,” said Rubin. “Nobody knows it yet, but he apparently shot himself and a couple of other people at the Watergate earlier today.”

“A couple of other people? Who?”

Rubin mulled whether to tell the truth or lie, but decided in favor of the former. Even without the scope on a Barrett, Devlin could spot a liar a mile away. “Secret Service agents. Members of the president’s own personal detail. They were, um, protecting the senator—”

“Son of a bitch,” exclaimed Devlin. “Tyler’s been running his own sting operation and didn’t tell anybody?” He thought things over for a moment. It was a smart play, a real smart play.

“So Hartley was your man,” said Rubin: a statement, not a question. “Let’s move on.”

“Let’s not and say we did. Hartley may well have been involved and, given his predilections, he probably was being blackmailed.”

“That is an accurate statement,” said the Secretary.

“But a dupe like Hartley is a two-way street of disinformation,” said Devlin. He placed his PDA on the desk in front of Rubin so that the secretary could see the screen. “This just came in,” he said.

Rubin looked at the message. Gibberish, in the middle of which he could just barely discern what might be three stick figures, each one of them waving a little flag. “What is this supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Other than illiteracy, do you have any other qualifications for your job, Mr. Secretary?” said Devlin, deliberately being provocative. He wanted to get a rise out of Rubin, to get his blood flowing, if he had any, if they hadn’t sucked it all out of him at Columbia, to make him understand the seriousness of the situation emotionally, not just intellectually.

Contemptuously, Rubin spun the PDA back around so that it was facing Devlin. “This is kids’ stuff,” he spat.

Devlin was on him so fast the last “f” wasn’t out of his mouth. He slapped the secretary of defense as hard as he could, right across the face. “This ‘kids’ stuff’ spells the end of the United States, you fool,” he said, “unless you listen to me, and do exactly what I tell you.”

Rubin’s face was red where Devlin had slapped him, but the other side was reddening almost as fast. Devlin continued as if nothing had happened—

“Ever since Edwardsville, I’ve believed that this whole thing, the school hostage situation, the bombing, everything — even the Stella Maris—has been a coordinated series of feints and misdirections, designed to sap our strength and our will, softening us up for the real blow — the one that we might have prevented were our attention not directed elsewhere.”

“Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?” said Rubin, trying to regain his dignity.

“But it wasn’t a simple misdirection after all — getting me involved so that they could set off the bomb in Los Angeles, and then the missile in London. It’s a double misdirection. A Trojan horse. Somebody — not Milverton, he’s not that smart — is inside our OODA loop, making us dance. I’ve been a puppet on a string, yo-yoing between the coasts, while very powerful forces have been having their way with us. Edwardsville was never about the school or the kids. It was about me.” There, he said it. “But this is where it stops.”

The orderly’s voice came over the intercom. “General Seelye is here, Mr. Secretary.”

Rubin shot a glance at Devlin, if only just to keep an eye on him. He nodded. “Send the general in, please.”

The door opened and in came Seelye. He started to speak, then did a double take when he saw Devlin standing there in the uniform of an Army officer. Devlin watched his eyes carefully for any sign of untoward suspicion.

“Hi, Dad,” he said. Rubin looked like he might topple out of his chair. “What the hell is going on here?” he barked.

Devlin looked at Seelye but spoke to Rubin, “General Seelye here is going to give us a little dog-and-pony show. Isn’t that right, Pops?”

Seelye thought seriously about trying to bluff his way through this, even as the look in Devlin’s eyes told him not even to think about it.

Devlin reached in his military attaché case and took out two books, their covers still stained, the stains a dark brown now instead of blood-red.

And then Seelye knew that the game was not only afoot, it was up.

Devlin didn’t wait for Seelye to sit down. “The answer was in here all along. I don’t know why he did it. Maybe to leave a clue. Maybe for me to find some day. Maybe to show both of us that he’s the smartest guy in the room, the smartest guy on the planet. And maybe, Army, he did it to fuck you over, the way you fucked him over. The way you fucked my mother, over, under, and sideways. The way you wrecked my family.”

Devlin spoke very softly, his body coiled. Army Seelye understood that if he so much as moved, tried to call for help, or worse, attack, Devlin would kill him on the spot and take his chances with Rubin later. Wisely, he did nothing.

Devlin opened one of the books. The pages groaned and cracked. “When you grow up the way I did, without parents, well…you don’t have many friends either. But I had these, books my father had given to me in Rome, and one of them was about the movies. So I became a movie fan. They were my escape. They were my family. And those characters played by Cagney and Bogart and Brando became more real to me than anybody real…including you, Dad.”

“Why do you keep—” interjected Rubin, but Devlin paid him no attention.

“So this book of movie stories was a boon companion. But an even greater boon companion was this.” He opened the other book, bloodier, more worn, and flipped it opened. It was covered in symbols, which zigged and zagged their way across the pages — the same dancing men as the symbols on Devlin’s BlackBerry.

“Kids’ stuff,” blurted Seelye.

“Right,” said Devlin. “Childish markings, the kind of basic substitution cipher that a father might teach his son, especially a father in our business. Except you forgot something. You forgot where my father gave me this book.”

“Italy,” muttered Seelye.

“Correctamundo,” said Devlin, his voice mirthless. “Italy. The home of some of the greatest minds western civilization ever produced. Machiavelli — I bet he was one of your special favorites. Michelangelo. And Leonardo.”

There was a mirror on one wall. Devlin pointed to it. “Remember what Leonardo used to do? Mirror-writing. If he wanted to obscure something, he wrote it backward. You had to hold the text up to the mirror to decipher it. Later, it was common practice for some Europeans to start a letter normally and then, when they ran out of room, turn the parchment sideways and keep writing, right over what they had written before. And, of course, you could do both those things, backward. Sentence, retrograde, inversion, and retrograde inversion.

“Cryptography’s a complicated thing, as we all know. But, at root, it’s not. It’s simply a way of communicating with people you like while making the subject of that communication opaque to people you don’t. That way, if it falls into the wrong hands, they can’t read it. And the rest, as they say”—Devlin gestured around the room, embracing the entire Raven Rock complex in his unspoken metaphor—“is commentary. So let’s see what the dancing men have to say.” He pretended to consult the book, although ever since he had fully deciphered their message, he had memorized it in its entirety.

What he was about to do he wanted to do for a long time: he was about to face the past, and jerk it back into the present with a vengeance.

“It’s a hell of a thing to discover at my age that everything you’ve been told about who you are and where you came from is a lie, but life is full of little surprises. I won’t bore you with the details, but — and Army can confirm all this to you later, Mr. Secretary — for years I believed that the general here and my mother were having an affair, that my father found out, that they all met up in Rome to sort things out and it just so happened that it was our bad luck to be in Leonardo da Vinci Airport that Christmas in 1985 when Abu Nidal came calling, and both my parents were killed.”

“I saved your life,” growled Seelye.

“Don’t rush me,” snapped Devlin, totally in control, “especially since the next part stars you, yourself, and you.”

Neither of his superiors had anything to say. “But the reason for the meeting turns out to be quite something else. It wasn’t about my mother at all — oh, you may have been fucking her, but that wasn’t what brought you all together. It was…well, here, Army — why don’t you read it? It’s just a simple substitution cipher, and you’re the head of the freakin’ NSA.”

Devlin tossed the book to Seelye, who stared at the dancing men with dull but visible comprehension. He didn’t need to read much. He closed the book gently, quietly, and left it sitting in his lap, one hand resting on the dried blood of Devlin’s mother.

“I put her picture up on the wall for your sake,” said Seelye. “It was one of the ways I protected you. Even if…if anyone suspected that you’d survived, the last place they’d look for you was in an agency where your mother had been proclaimed a traitor.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Devlin, approvingly. “Protect me from whom?”

“From him,” Seelye exhaled.

“Say it out loud.”

He had him. Seelye knew that every conversation in this office, just like every conversation in his own office at Fort Meade, was recorded. There was no way out.

“From Emanuel Skorzeny. He wanted to kill you. He still does.”

Rubin was incredulous. “And that’s what this is all about?”

Seelye shrugged helplessly.

Devlin answered, “Don’t worry, Mr. Secretary, it gets better. A man like Skorzeny never does anything twice when he can do it once. He’s making a move — a big move, and I’m just a bonus at this point. The problem is — tell him, General.”

Seelye was beaten and he knew it. “The problem is, we don’t know what he’s planning. In less than a week, he’s ten times richer than he was before…” The professional in Seelye was starting to reassert itself. “But we feel, we all feel, that what’s past is just prologue to what is to come.”

“Which is?” said Rubin.

Devlin took a deep breath before answering. The book of dancing men lay on Seelye’s lap. He glanced down at it as he began to speak.

“When I was a kid, just before the Rome Airport massacre, I overheard a conversation in Munich.” He didn’t need to bother looking at Seelye. “You were there, Army, along with my parents. I couldn’t quite piece together everything you were saying, especially since I didn’t know some of the languages then, but it turns out, it’s all in here.”

Devlin picked up the book. “In late 1985, the world’s most dangerous terrorist was planning an attack on the Radio Free Europe office — that is to say, the CIA station — in Munich. This came after a series of bombings in Berlin and in France. He was the world’s most wanted man, and yet he operated with near-impunity from bases in Budapest, Baghdad, Aden. You know who I’m talking about?”

“Carlos the Jackal,” said Rubin.

“Right. Better known as Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez. The man you were supposedly after — right, Dad?”

Seelye blanched, but stayed silent.

“It’s okay. You were playing a double game against two men better at it than you were.” He looked at Seelye. “Was Skorzeny a CI, a confidential informant, or just redoubled?”

“Neither,” said Seelye. “He was playing me, just like he played everybody.”

Devlin nodded. “You knew that Skorzeny was working both sides of the street, operating as an honest if rapacious businessman aboveground, while doing his damnedest to destabilize European society by financing a loosely allied collection of bad guys: the IRA, the Red Brigades, the Basques, Abu Nidal, the PLO, you name it.”

“He was working with all of them,” admitted Seelye, “the whole ‘terror network,’ as Claire Sterling called it.”

“And everybody laughed at her when her book came out,” said Devlin. “But she knew the KGB tried to whack the Pope through a Bulgarian cutout and a Muslim Turk shooter and she was right. She knew that the terror groups may have been rivals, maybe even hated each other, but the enemy of my enemy is always my friend. And so they worked together, doing well by, as they saw it, doing good.”

Now it was Seelye’s turn to nod as Devlin continued. “And Carlos was his main man. It’s really brilliant when you think about, and so very postmodern. Capitalist, communist, patriot, internationalist — what’s the difference? If you’re smart enough, and brazen enough, and rich enough, you can get away with it. And that’s what Skorzeny’s been doing, ever since. He made a monkey out of you and the only way you could deal with it, the only way you could cover your professional shame, was to take my parents off the board and cast yourself as the hero.”

“Carlos is doing life in prison in France. Has been for years,” said Rubin.

Devlin ignored him. He rose and loomed over Seelye. “Did you know about Rome?” he shouted, his voice rising. “Well, did you — you son of a bitch?” The accusation was bitter, but it felt good; it was a long time coming. It felt cathartic.

“No!” shouted Seelye. “I might have told him your family was leaving. I didn’t know anything about Abu Nidal. I didn’t know what they were planning for Rome and Vienna.” He looked around the room for absolution, but found none.

Devlin was not satisfied. “I think you did, Army. I think you did. But it almost doesn’t matter. Maybe you just lucked into it, but either way, they were gone and your operation was off the hook. So same difference.”

“And I’ve had to live with it every day since then. I did what I could for you.”

“Yes, you did, said Devlin. “You made me into the man I am today. Ecce homo…And that’s why you dangled me in front of Tyler when Edwardsville came around. You were ready for it. You knew how to play Tyler’s emotions. And you knew that, if you got real lucky, you could kill three clichés with one stone: save the kids, flush out the bad guys, and get rid of me. I don’t blame you — that’s the play I would have made.” Devlin laughed bitterly. “It’s just that Tyler turned out to be smarter than all of us. I guess that’s why he’s the president and we’re sitting in a mountain, five hundred feet below the surface of the earth.”

Seelye jumped to his feet, his face a mask of rage. Thank God the room was soundproof. “I saved your fucking life. And I’m still saving it! Don’t you understand?”

If there had been a clock on the mantle, they could have heard it ticking in the silence that followed. But nobody had ticking clocks any more.

“What are you talking about?” said Devlin.

“He’s still trying to kill you. He knows you’re still alive. I tried to cover your tracks, but he’s too smart. He’s been researching you, spent a fortune following the trail. It’s taken him years but he’s patient. And he won’t rest until he eliminates you. Not just kills you but humiliates and destroys you. You’re an affront to him.”

“And now,” said Devlin quietly, “I’m an obstacle too.” He placed the PDA between his two superiors, punching some keys to strip away all the textural white noise to reveal the three dancing men beneath.

“Misdirection, just as I said from the start. Sure it would be great for him to get me, great to blow the cover off the entire Branch 4 operation, great to give our enemies even more fuel for their hate-America fires. But that’s just the means to an end.”

He hit two more keys and now the dancing men were upright. Devlin took charge. “This came from Milverton today.” Another key and they began dissolving…into letters of the alphabet. Letters than spelled:

EMP.

“Good God,” said Rubin, softly. “A good thing SDI is fully operational on both coasts.”

“Against weather balloons?”

“What?”

“That’s what we found in the hold of the Stella Maris, Skorzeny’s ‘humanitarian’ ship that sank at Long Beach. But there were no nukes on board, no explosives, nothing. Just weather balloons.”

“And he raised hell about it,” said Rubin. “Demanded that — oh, Jesus — that, in recompense, and in exchange for not making a run on our currency, his other ship, the Clara Vallis, be given every courtesy…”

“When does she make port?”

“Tomorrow, late in the day. Baltimore.” Seelye lunged for the secure phone. “We’ll blow her out of the water right—”

Devlin grabbed the phone and set it back in its cradle. “No. Leave her alone. Start circling her now and she’ll get that bird in the air. Not optimal — the balloon needs to be over land for max damage — but close enough for government work.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Rubin.

“We’re going to go for the feint once more. There’s a reason Skorzeny wants me to tango with Milverton in London.”

“It’s a trap,” said Seelye.

“Of course it is.”

“He wants Milverton to kill you.”

“Duh. And the feeling is most definitely mutual. So I want carte blanche, no questions asked. I want what I want and I want what I need and I want what I don’t know about yet and I want it all yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And one thing I most definitely want is access to French airspace — low-flying stuff, beneath radar, EZ-in, EZ-out if the frogs don’t get their panties in a bunch. There will be some damage, but we’ll try to keep it to a minimum — small arms fire, maybe a Sidewinder or two.

“That might be—” said Rubin.

“Who’s in charge here? POTUS or Foggy Bottom? Tell Tyler I get what he’s been up to. He’ll do it. Plus, I want the Branch 4 death sentence on me lifted. Deal?”

“Deal,” said Rubin. “I’ll personally guarantee it with the president.”

“One more thing. I want you to make it right with those FBI families and make sure they’re taken care of. For life.”

“Done.”

“Especially that girl I killed. And keep the lid on Hartley’s death for as long as you can. In the meantime, we have to let Milverton know that everything is still hunky-dory.”

Using Hartley’s Watergate phone number as the origination, Devlin punched in the number that Hartley had called and put the instrument on speakerphone, so they could all hear the cutout clicks as the call was rerouted. He let it ring once and then hung up.

“He’ll suspect something.” warned Seelye.

“Of course he will,” replied Devlin. “That’s his job. But he’ll do worse than suspect if he doesn’t hear from Hartley pretty soon. Right now, it’s just a dropped call. The next call he gets from me is going to come in person. One last thing—”

“Name it,” said Rubin.

“I want my mother’s picture down off the Wall of Shame. I want her files erased from the NSA/CSS system — don’t fuck with me on this, because if you don’t do it, I’ll know. I want my father rehabbed and given a star at Langley. And I want your resignation, General Seelye, whenever I ask for it.”

Devlin turned to Rubin. “Good-bye, Mr. Secretary,” he said. “You’ll never see me again.” And then he really was gone.

After he’d left, Rubin looked at Seelye with a mixture of contempt, disappointment, and disgust. “Why didn’t you tell him?” he asked.

“Tell him what?”

“That there is no death sentence. That there is no other member of Branch 4. That, in fact, he is Branch 4.”

“It’s on a need-to-know basis,” said Seelye. “And he doesn’t need to know. Not now, maybe not ever.”