The Third Option

3

Senator Clark picked up the gavel, almost as an afterthought, and let it fall to the wooden block. Members of his committee were already out of their chairs and headed for the door. It was very unusual for senators to be working at all on a Friday, let alone into the late afternoon. But Washington was in the midst of a fall budget battle, and everybody was putting in the extra hours to try to find a way around the impending impasse. As was often the case, the Republicans wanted a tax break and the Democrats wanted to increase spending. The president, for a change, was actually trying to broker a compromise rather than exploit the situation, but neither party was willing to budge. The town was more partisan than ever. The polarization of special interests had left little room in the middle. You were either part of the solution or part of the problem. It was no longer okay to hold certain beliefs, no matter how well thought out. If you disagreed, you were the enemy. It had become a town of absolutes, and Senator Clark didn't like it. He had got into politics because it was the next mountain to climb, not because he enjoyed stubborn, senseless partisan agendas. It was beneath him, and it wasn't worth his time.

Hank Clark had been in the United States Senate for twenty-two years. He had thrown his hat into the ring after the Nixon resignation. Trust in politicians was at an all-time low; and the people of Arizona wanted an outsider. Someone who had made a name for himself. Hank Clark was their man. The new businessman of the West. A true self-made millionaire.

Henry Thomas Clark was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1941. His father failed at almost every business he tried, and with each failure his mother seemed to crawl a little further into the bottle. Vodka was her preference at first, poured liberally into screwdrivers and bloody marys. When times were really rough, she would drink bad whiskey and even a little Mad Dog 20/20. While Mom drank, Dad tried his hand at every nickel-and-dime job he could get. He sold ranching equipment, vacuum cleaners, used cars, aluminum siding, even windmills at one point. He failed miserably at each and every one of them, just as he had failed as a husband and a father. When Hank was eleven, his father quit for good. He went out back, behind their rented mobile home, and blew his brains out.

In a way; young Hank was relieved. With his father gone, he went after life with a determination to succeed. Hank took every spare job he could find and spent the next seven years trying to sober up his mother and find a way out of poverty. Fortunately for Hank, he had been blessed with many of the fine qualities his father lacked. He was good with people, was a tireless worker, and had an arm that could throw a wicked curve ball. That was Hank's ticket out. After high school he accepted a full ride to play baseball for the ASU Sundevils. Hank was a three-time all-Pac 10 pitcher and would have had a shot at the big leagues if it wasn't for a car accident his senior year. After college he took a job working for a resort in Scottsdale. It was at that resort, in the booming Phoenix suburb, where Hank Clark started to meet the right people. People who had vision. People who knew how to speculate on real estate.

At twenty-four Hank left the resort and went to work as a runner for a developer he had met. He loved helping to bring the deals together. He loved watching people with focus do something with their money. And most importantly, he loved the commissions. By the age of thirty Hank had made his first million, and by thirty-five he was worth more than twenty million dollars. Big, tall Hank Clark was the toast of Phoenix. The developer with the Midas touch. He had climbed one mountain, and now it was time for another.

That next mountain was politics, and after almost a quarter of a century Clark had decided it was insurmountable by any ethical means. The way to win in politics was to gain an edge over one's opponent and to do it by any means necessary, without letting him know what you were up to. Hank Clark wanted to be president, and he had been working toward that goal since the day he arrived in Washington in 1976.

As the senator rose from his chair, one of the committee's staffers approached and whispered, «Chairman Rudin is waiting for you in the bubble.»

Clark nodded and handed the man his briefing book and materials. «Please take that back to my office for me.» He then worked his way toward the door, wishing his fellow senators and their staffers a good weekend as he went. Hank Clark was the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Most of the senators wanted to serve on the Armed Services, Appropriations, or Judiciary committees that got a lot of attention from the press. The intelligence committee wasn't one that they fought to get on, as it did much of its work behind closed doors.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence were charged with the oversight of the entire U.S. intelligence community, most notably the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Office. Clark was the man who kept an eye on the keepers of the secrets, and he had been methodically and quietly storing those secrets away.

Senator Clark left the committee room and started down the hall of the Hart Office Building. He smiled and nodded to the people he passed. Clark was a good politician. He made everyone feel special, even his enemies. He turned the comer, opened a door, and stepped into a small reception area. A Capitol Hill police officer was sitting on a stool next to a second door on the other side of the room. The man looked up and said, «Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman.»

Clark offered an affable smile. «How are you holding up, Roy?»

«The old back is sore, sir, but I think I can make it another hour.»

«Good.» Clark patted him on the shoulder and punched in his code to the cipher lock beside the door. At the sound of the lock being released, he opened the door and stepped into room SH 219. Room 219 was one of the most secure rooms on the Hill. It was entirely encased in steel, making it impossible for electromagnetic waves to enter or leave. The room itself was divided into smaller rooms, each elevated off the floor so technicians could sweep beneath for bugs.

Senator Clark continued down the hall, passing several of the glass-enclosed briefing rooms, where the senators and a few select staffers received briefings from the various intelligence agencies. Near the end of the hall he approached another door with a touch pad. Clark punched in his personal five-digit code, and the door hissed as its airtight seal relaxed. He entered the elevated room and closed the door, the gasket expanding once again to its airtight position. Black blinds covered the room's four glass walls, and a sleek black oval conference table occupied the center of the fifteen-by-twenty- five-foot space. There was a place at the table for each of the committee's fifteen members. The glass-covered table had individual reading lamps for each senator and a computer monitor mounted at an angle under the glass. The room was dark except for one lone light at the far end.

From where he was standing, Senator Clark could see the thin, bony fingers of his counterpart in the House. Congressman Albert Rudin's hands were placed on the table under the soft light of one of the fifteen modern black lamps. Clark could barely make out Rudin's profile in the shadows, but it didn't matter. He had it memorized, and that profile could belong to one of only two people: either Congressman Albert Rudin, the chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, or Ichabod Crane.

Clark continued to the far end of the room. «Good afternoon, Al.»

Rudin didn't respond, and Clark didn't expect him to. Al Rudin Was probably the most socially retarded politician in Washington. Clark grabbed a glass from the credenza behind the congressman and filled it with a couple of shots of Johnnie Walker scotch. The senator waved the drink in front of Rudin and asked if he'd like some. Rudin gruffly shook his head.

Albert Rudin was in his seventeenth term as a United States congressman. He was a Democrat to the bone and hated absolutely every single Republican in town with the possible exception of Senator Hank Clark. Rudin was a tireless party hack. He did whatever it took to perpetuate the party. If the party was embarrassed by a scandal where they were clearly in the wrong, it was AI Rudin they paraded out in front of the cameras. It was pretty much the same rhetoric every time. The Republicans want to starve your children, they want to give a tax break to their wealthy mends, they want to kick your parents out of their nursing home – it made no difference that the reporters were asking questions about possible felonies committed by a fellow Democrat; to Rudin, it was good versus evil. He represented good, and the Republicans represented evil, and the truth mattered not. This was a marathon, not a simple jog around the block. It was about beating the Republicans.

Hank Clark sank into the leather chair two over from Rudin and turned on the small reading lamp. After taking a long sip from his drink, he put his feet up on the chair between them and let out a long sigh. Clark weighed two-hundred-sixty pounds, and at six foot five he needed to take a load off his tired bones.

Rudin leaned over and said, «I'm worried about Langley.»

Clark looked at him passively and thought, No shit. When aren't you worried about Langley? Rudin was obsessed with the CIA. If he had it his way, the Agency would be mothballed like an old battleship and placed in the Smithsonian. Despite! d1inking it, and wanting to say it just once, Clark was far too smart to let a sarcastic impulse get the best of him. It had taken him years to gain Rudin's confidence, and he wasn't going to piss it all away for one small moment of personal satisfaction.

Instead, Clark nodded thoughtfully and said, «Tell me what's on your mind.»

Rudin shifted uncomfortably in his chair. «I don't want another insider to take over when Stansfield dies. Your committee should never have confirmed him in the first place.» Rudin's face twisted in disgust as he talked about Thomas Stansfield. «We need to bring someone in who can clean that place up.»

Clark nodded and said, «I agree,» even though he didn't. He thought of reminding Rudin that Stansfield had been confirmed by a Democratic-controlled committee but thought it was best to keep him as calm as possible.

«The president is in love with that damn Irene Kennedy, and I know that bastard Stansfield is going to recommend her as his successor.» Rudin shook his head. His deeply lined leathery skin turned red with anger. «And once she's nominated, it's over. The press and everybody in my party» – Rudin pointed a bony finger at Clark – «and yours is going to want to jump all over the idea of having a woman as the director of Central Intelligence.» Rudin didn't want his position to be construed as politically incorrect, so he added, «Not that I would mind a woman, but not Stansfield's protИgИ. We have to do something to stop that from happening, and we have to take care of it before the president gets the ball rolling. Once that happens, we're screwed.»

Clark studied Rudin for a moment and nodded slowly as if the crass old man had just imparted a rare pearl of wisdom. It was so easy to play him. «I've been keeping an eye on Kennedy, and I think she just might self-destruct before the process gets that far.»

Rudin eyed the big man sitting next to him. «What information do you have that I don't?»

Clark let a big old grin crease his face and raised his drink. «If you're good to me, Albert, I just might let you see someday.»

Rudin was mad at himself for asking the question. He knew firsthand that Hank Clark liked to keep tabs on people, friend and foe alike.

The old congressman from Connecticut scratched his nose and asked, «What type of information are we talking about? Is it personal or professional?»

Clark smiled. «I think it would be considered professional.»

Rudin scowled. He hated begging for details. Besides, he had learned a long time ago that Clark would tell him only when he was ready and not a moment before. Sniveling for info would do no good.

«I assume you will let me know when the time is right.»

Clark nodded as he took a drink. «I'll keep you in the loop, Albert.»