Mirror Image

CHAPTER THREE

During the Cold War, the nondescript, two-story building located near the Naval Reserve flight line at Andrews Air Force Base was a ready room, a staging area for crack flight crews. In the event of a nuclear attack, it would have been their job to evacuate key officials from Washington, D.C.

But the ivory-colored building was not an obsolete monument to the Cold War. The lawns were a little neater now, and there were gardens in the dirt patches where soldiers used to drill. Concrete flower pots had been erected on all sides to prevent anyone from getting too close with a car bomb. And the people who worked here didn't arrive in jeeps and Hughes Defenders, but in station wagons, Volvos, and the occasional Saab and BMW.

The seventy-eight full-time employees who worked here now were employed by the National Crisis Management Center. They were handpicked tacticians, generals, diplomats, intelligence analysts, computer specialists, psychologists, reconnaissance experts, environmentalists, attorneys, and even media manipulators, or spin doctors. The NCMC shared another forty-two support personnel with the Department of Defense and the CIA, and commanded a twelve-person tactical strike team known as Striker, which was based at the nearby Quantico FBI Academy.

The charter of the NCMC was unlike any other in the history of the United States. Over a two year period, the group had spent more than $100 million on equipment and hi-tech modifications, turning the former ready room into an operations center designed to interface with the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, White House, State Department, Department of Defense, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, and Intelligence and Threat Analysis Center. But after a shakedown period of six months, in which they handled both domestic and international crises, "Op-Center," as it was familiarly called, now had parity with those agencies— and then some. Director Paul Hood reported to President Michael Lawrence himself, and what had started as an information clearinghouse with SWAT capabilities now had the singular capacity to monitor, initiate, and manage operations worldwide.

They were a unique mix of old professionals who took a methodical, hands-on, agents-in-the-field approach to intelligence, and fair-haired boys who reveled in hi-tech and bold strokes. And on top of the patchwork tapestry was Paul Hood. Though Hood was not quite a saint, his selflessness had caused his jaded coworkers to dub him "Pope" Paul. He was scrupulously honest, despite having been a hotshot banker during the Reagan terms. He was also exceedingly low-key even though he'd served as the Mayor of Los Angeles for two years. Hood was constantly schooling his team in the new art of crisis management. He saw this as an alternative to the traditional Washingtonian responses that leaned toward inactivity or all-out war. In Los Angeles he had pioneered the art of slicing problems into manageable segments and handing each to professionals who worked closely with one another. It had worked effectively in Los Angeles and it was also working here, though it went against the prevailing "I'm in charge here" mind-set of Washington. His number two man, Mike Rodgers, once told him that they'd probably find more adversaries in the nation's capital than anywhere else in the world, since bureau chiefs, agency directors, and elected officials would view Op-Center's management style as a threat to their fiefdoms. And many of them wouldn't stop at trying to undermine Op-Center's effectiveness.

"Washingtonians are like zombies," Rodgers had said, "able to rise from the politically dead as times and moods change— look at Nixon, at Jimmy Carter. As a result, rivals don't just try to destroy careers, they try to ruin lives. And if that's not enough, they turn on families and friends as well. "

But Hood didn't care. Their charter was to look after the security of the United States, not to advance the reputation of Op-Center or its employees, and he took that mission very seriously indeed. He also believed that if they did the job they were supposed to do, their "rivals" couldn't lay a glove on them.

At the moment, Ann Farris didn't see the hotshot or the politician or the "Pope" sitting in the Director's chair. Her dark rust eyes saw the awkward young boy in the man. Despite the strong jaw, wavy black hair, and steely dark hazel eyes, Hood looked like a kid who wished he could stay here in Washington and play with his friends and spy satellites and field operatives rather than go on vacation with his family. If the kids didn't miss their old friends, and the move east hadn't put such a strain on his marriage, Ann knew that Paul wouldn't be going.

The forty-three-year-old Director of Op-Center was sitting in his large office at the high-security facility. Deputy Director General Mike Rodgers was seated in an armchair to the left of the desk, and Press Officer Farris was sitting on the sofa to the right. Hood's itinerary for his trip to Southern California was on the computer.

"Sharon wrests a week off from her boss, Andy McDonnell, who says his cable show can't live without her cooking-healthy segment," Hood said, "and we end up at Bloopers, the antithesis of healthy eating. Anyway, that's where we'll be the first night. The kids saw it on MTV, and if you page me there I probably won't hear it."

Ann leaned forward and patted the back of his hand, her dazzling white smile even brighter than the yellow designer kerchief she wore in her long brown hair.

"I bet if you let your hair down you'll have a blast, she said. "I read about Bloopers in Spin. Order a pickle-dog and French-fried pie. You'll love them."

Hood snickered. "How about putting that on our agency seal? 'Op-Center— making the world safe for pickle-flavored hot dogs.' "

"I'll have to ask Lowell what that would be in Latin," Ann smiled. "We'd want it to at least sound lofty."

Rodgers sighed and both Hood and Ann glanced over. The two-star General was sitting with his leg across a knee, shaking it briskly.

"Sorry, Mike," Hood said. "I'm letting my hair down a little too early."

"It's not that," Rodgers said. "You're just not talking my language."

As a press director, Ann was accustomed to listening for the truth behind soft-pedaled words. She detected both criticism and envy in Rodgers's voice.

"It's not my language either," Hood admitted. "But one thing you learn with kids— and Ann will back me up— is that you've got to adapt. Hell, I find myself wanting to say the same things about rap music and heavy metal that my parents said about the Young Rascals. You've got to roll with these things."

Rodgers's expression was dubious. "Do you know what George Bernard Shaw said about adaptation?"

"Can't say that I do," Hood admitted.

"He said, 'The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.' I don't like rap and never will. More than that, I won't ever pretend to."

Hood said, "What do you do when Lieutenant Colonel Squires listens to it?"

Rodgers said, "I order him to shut it off. He tells me I'm being unreasonable—"

"And you quote Shaw," Ann said.

Rodgers looked at her and nodded.

Hood raised his eyebrows. "Interesting. Well, let's see if we can all agree on what has to be done over the next few days, anyway. First, my schedule."

Hood shucked his boyish smile and was all business as he looked back at the computer screen. Ann tried to wink a smile out of the Deputy Director, but didn't get it. The truth was he rarely smiled, and only seemed genuinely happy when he'd been out hunting boar, totalitarians, or anyone who put their careers before the safety of fighting men and women.

"I'll be doing the Magna Studio tour on Monday," Hood continued, "and Wallace World Amusement Park on Tuesday. The kids want to surf, so Wednesday's a beach day— and so on. If you need me, I'll have the cellular with me. It won't be a problem getting to the nearest police station or FBI office in case you need me on a secure line in a hurry."

"It should be a quiet week," Ann said. She had dumped Intelligence Officer Bob Herbert's morning update into her powerbook before coming to the meeting, and now she flipped up the lid. "The borders in Eastern Europe and the Middle East are relatively cool. The CIA was able to help Mexican authorities close down the rebel base in Jalapa without incident. Things are calm in Asia after the near war in Korea. And the Ukrainians and Russians are at least talking again about who owns what in the Crimea."

"Mike, will the outcome of the Russian elections affect that?" Hood asked.

"We don't think so," Rodgers said. "The new Russian President, Kiril Zhanin, has crossed swords with Ukrainian leader Vesnik in the past, but Zhanin's a pro. He'll extend an olive branch. In any case, our projection is for no Code Reds during the coming week."

Hood nodded. Ann knew he put little faith in what he called the three Ps— projections, polls, and psycho-babble— but at least he was pretending to listen to them now. When he first came to Op-Center, Paul and staff psychologist Liz Gordon got along like Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan.

"I hope you're right," Hood said, "but if Op-Center is called in on anything over a Code Blue, I want to be the one who signs off on our activities."

Rodgers's leg stopped moving. The light brown eyes that usually seemed golden appeared dark. "I can handle it, Paul."

"Never said you couldn't. You showed everyone what you could do when you stopped those missiles in North Korea."

"So what's the problem?"

"None," said Hood. "This isn't about ability, Mike. It's about accountability."

"I understand," Rodgers insisted in his courtly way. "But the regulations allow for this. The Deputy Director is allowed to okay operations when the Director is away."

"The word is 'indisposed,' not 'away,"' Hood pointed out. "I won't be indisposed, and you know how Congress gets about foreign adventures. If anything goes wrong, I'm the one who'll be hauled in front of a Senate committee and asked to explain why. I want to be able to tell them because I was there, not because I read about it in your report."

Rodgers's high-ridged nose, broken four times in college basketball, dropped slightly. "I understand."

"But you still don't agree," said Hood.

"No. Frankly, I'd welcome the chance to take on Congress. I'd give those seat-warmers a lesson in government by action, not consensus."

Hood said, "That's why I'd like to be the one to handle them, Mike. They still pay the bills around here."

"Which is the reason men like Ollie North do what they do," Rodgers said. "To get around all the Deputy Directors' Coordinating Committees. The milksops who take proposals under advisement and sit on them for months and finally give them back too diluted and too late to matter worth a damn."

Hood looked like he wanted to say something and Rodgers looked like he wanted to hear it and lob it right back. Instead, both men regarded each other in silence.

"Well," Ann said jauntily, "that gives us control over those tense, single-hostage Code Greens and multiple-domestic-hostage Blues, and puts the easy, overseas-hostage Yellows, and state-of-war Reds on your shoulders." She closed the lid of her powerbook, looked at her watch, and rose. "Paul, you'll send your schedule to our computers?"

Hood looked at the computer. He touched Alt/F6 on his keyboard, then hit PB/Enter and MR/Enter. "Done," he said.

"Great. Will you try to have a wonderful and relaxing trip?"

Hood nodded. Then he regarded Rodgers again. "Thanks for your help," he said, rising and shaking Rodgers's hand across the desk. "If I knew how to make this better for you, Mike, I would."

"See you in a week," Rodgers said, then turned and walked past Ann.

"I'll see you too," Ann said to Hood, giving him a little goodbye wave and an encouraging smile. "Don't forget to write… and relax."

"I'll send you a postcard from Bloopers," he said.

Ann shut the door and followed Rodgers down the hall. She elbowed around coworkers and hurried past the open office doors and the closed doors of Op-Center's intelligence-gathering departments.

"Are you all right?" she asked when she fell in beside him.

Rodgers nodded.

"You don't look all right."

"I still can't strike the right note with him."

"I know," Ann said. "Sometimes you think he's really got a handle on some kind of larger worldview. The rest of the time you feel like he's trying to keep you in line, like a smarty-pants school monitor."

Rodgers looked at her. "That's a fair assessment, Ann. You've obviously given this— him— a lot of thought."

She flushed. "I tend to reduce everybody to sound bites. It's a bad habit."

To change the course of the conversation, Ann made a point of emphasizing the "everybody." She knew at once that that had been a mistake.

"What's my sound bite?" Rodgers asked.

Ann looked at him squarely. "You're a frank, decisive man in a world that has grown too complex for those qualities."

They stopped beside his office. "And is that good or bad?" he asked.

"It's troublesome," Ann replied. "With a little bit of give, you could probably get a lot more."

Without taking his eyes off Ann, Rodgers entered his code in the keypad on the jamb. "But if something isn't what you want, is it worth having?" he asked.

"I've always felt that half is better than none," she replied.

"I see. I just don't agree." Rodgers smiled now. "And Ann? Next time, if you mean to say I'm stubborn, just come out and say it."

Rodgers flipped her a little salute, walked into his office, and shut the door behind him.

Ann stood there for a moment before turning and walking slowly toward her office. She felt bad for Mike. He was a good man, and a bright one. But he was fatally flawed by his desire for action over diplomacy, even when that action disregarded little things like national sovereignty and congressional approval. It was his reputation as a fire-eater that had caused him to be passed over as Assistant Secretary of Defense, landing him here as a consolation prize. He accepted the post because he was first and foremost a good soldier, but he was never happy about it… or about reporting to a nonmilitary superior.

But then, she thought, everyone's got problems of some kind. Like her, for example. The problem to which Rodgers had indiscreetly alluded.

She was going to miss Paul, her good and honorable cavalier, the knight who wouldn't leave his wife however much she took him for granted. Worse than that, Ann couldn't help but fantasize about how she would make Paul relax if it were she and her son going with him to Southern California instead of Sharon and the kids