Hostile Intent

Chapter Fifty-seven

They met at the Willard Hotel, where Tyler kept a private suite of rooms, for moments just like this. There was a TV camera there, ready to start videotaping.

Tyler took his place behind a desk that looked just like the desk in the Oval Office. In close-up, nobody would be able to tell he wasn’t at the White House. Tyler nodded at his small audience and began speaking.

“My fellow Americans: the tragic events of the past week were organized and set into motion by a plot that reached from California to Washington and across the seas. The late Senator Hartley, at my personal request, bravely drew the plotters out of the shadows. We were able to prevent a major terrorist attack on the homeland, something that would have made September 11 look like a walk in the park. But he paid for it with his life. And we will honor his sacrifice.”

“That’s good,” whispered Secretary Rubin to General Seelye. “Very good.”

“Decades ago,” continued Tyler, “your government used to deny the very existence of the National Security Agency, or at least refuse to confirm its existence. The old joke was that the letters NSA stood for No Such Agency. Today, we proudly admit that the National Security Agency and its sister agency, the Central Security Service, are among our country’s most stalwart defenders in the wars we fight.

“But I can assure you on my honor as president of the United States that there is no other agency, rogue or otherwise. I am sorry if I gave you the impression there was, but for reasons of state, I had to. This is the reality of the shadow war we fight. A war of exaggeration and disinformation. A war in which it’s hard to tell friends from enemies, victories from defeats. But we try.

“And so, as we mourn the dead in Edwardsville and Los Angeles and London, let us keep them always in our thoughts and prayers. And let us resolve to fight this war in the best traditions of America, with as much openness and transparency as we can, but always with the best interests of our nation and our world in our hearts. Thank you, and may God bless America.”

The camera shut down. The sound went off. Tyler looked away from his Teleprompter and at the people in the room. “Well?” he said.

“Excellent, Mr. President,” said Rubin.

“Well done, sir,” said Seelye.

“What about you?” said the president, turning to the third man in the room with him, lurking in near-invisibility by the door. “What do you think?”

“I think my job’s not over,” the shadow warrior said. “I think Branch 4 is still in business. I ended the siege, and I got Milverton. By rights, I ought to be able to retire.”

The president peered into the darkness, the video lights still in his eyes. “That’s true. That was our agreement.”

The man stepped forward, not enough to be fully visible, but enough for Tyler to make out a shape, a form. “But the job isn’t finished. Skorzeny is still out there. And so, with your permission, sir, I’d like to finish the job.”

“He’s still a very powerful man. We can’t risk a total collapse of the international financial system.”

“Which is why you’ve let him skate. That was smart. But he’ll resurface once he thinks he’s in the clear.”

“Why?” asked Tyler. “He has enough money. He can just disappear.”

“But he won’t. He has unfinished business. With the world, and with me. End-times craziness. An atheist’s apocalypse. This isn’t over.”

“Permission granted,” said Tyler.

“With one condition.”

“Name it,” said the president.

“That Branch 4 expands by at least one member. Someone I can trust, someone who…”

“Someone who doesn’t have to kill you just because they know you,” supplied Seelye.

Devlin shot him a killer look. “And only I know this person’s identity.”

Tyler looked at Seelye, who looked at Rubin. No sense telling the truth now, either to Devlin or the president. What had once been a fiction — Branch 4—was now becoming a reality, whether they liked it or not. The monster was becoming a man.

“Agreed,” said President Tyler.

“Thank you, sir.”

The meeting was over. The decision had been made. The President started to gather up some things on his desk, then turned back.

“Who are you, really?” he asked, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Just a voice out of the shadows.

“Call me Devlin,” he said.