War of Eagles

FIFTEEN

Since his days as a military commander in Vietnam, Mike Rodgers maintained that there were two phases to any operation. This belief was borne out during his tour of duty at Op-Center, where the general was both deputy director under Paul Hood and commander of the elite rapid deployment military unit Striker. It was also proving to be true at Unexus.

The first stage of a project was the booster phase. Whether it was a military incursion, a research program, or even a business deal, it always started with heavy lifting. Someone had to have and then sell an idea. Once it was successfully off the ground, it entered the pitch-and-yaw phase. That was a time of fine-tuning. The project had a life of its own. All the creator could do at that point was make sure it did not crash or self-destruct.

In science, the pitch-and-yaw rockets were on different sides. That was how the projectile kept its balance. In every other venture, opposing forces were not always beneficial.

The Chinese operation, as Rodgers called it, was in the pitch-and-yaw stage. The scientists had specific requirements, the investors in Europe and the United States had needs, and now the Chinese had concerns. Some of them conflicted, such as the propulsion engineers needing access to the booster and the Chinese not wanting them entering the gantry area without Chinese scientists, who had their own ideas about how things should be done.

Rodgers was kept from addressing the launch security matter as he worked to settle these problems. He was aided by fifty-one-year-old Yoo-Jin Yun, his translator, who had the most singular background of anyone he had ever met. She was the daughter of a suspected North Korean spy who was repeatedly raped by her South Korean interrogators. Her mother was fifteen years old at the time. Yoo-Jin was born nine months later. She was raised to believe that communication was the key to world peace — and to survival. Mandarin and Cantonese were two of the twenty-seven Pacific languages and dialects she spoke. The short, trim woman sat in the office next to Rodgers’s on the top floor of the six-story Unexus tower. Just being around her gave Rodgers a sense of world access he had never before experienced. And meeting her mother, Ji-Woo, had also enriched him. The older woman lived with her daughter and often drove her to work. She had relocated to Seoul in 1955 and raised her daughter on her own, cleaning office buildings at night and the Sangbong bus terminal by day to put her through school. Ji-Woo had nursed the beauty that had come of tragedy. Bob Herbert could take lessons from her about living with adversity.

So could I, Rodgers had to admit. Testosterone had a way of overpowering intellectual equanimity and good intentions.

Rodgers rose from behind his opaque glass-topped desk. He went to a small stainless steel refrigerator hidden in a dark corner of the office and got himself a ginger ale. He was dressed in shirtsleeves, a tightly knotted black silk tie, and Bill Blass slacks. His sharply pressed suit jacket hung on a wooden hanger behind the door. Rodgers always wore it when the door was open or whenever he was videoconferencing. He felt strangely powerless without a uniform of some kind. The retired general had come to this job after serving on the abortive presidential campaign of Senator Donald Orr of Texas. It was the murder of a British computer magnate, William Wilson, that precipitated the senator’s downfall. The founder of Unexus, industrialist Brent Appleby, knew Wilson well. Appleby attended the trial and was impressed with Rodgers’s frankness and composure. He asked the retiring general to become president of the new operation. Rodgers accepted with a handshake on the steps of the District of Columbia Federal Circuit Courthouse on Madison Place NW.

Rodgers returned to his desk with the can of soda and a cork coaster. In addition to the usual distractions, Mike Rodgers was not sure how he felt about calling Paul Hood. Rodgers had been allowed to resign from Op-Center after it was downsized. Though the cutbacks were not Hood’s fault, Rodgers felt the director had not fought hard to keep him. He understood why. Paul Hood had the larger picture in mind, the continuation of Op-Center in the wake of severe budget cuts. Striker had been decommissioned after a successful but costly intervention in Kashmir. At that time there was not a great deal for an army general to do.

But understanding and forgiving were not the same.

Now Paul Hood had been replaced. Maybe the White House position was better for Hood in some ways. But it was still a very sudden take-it-or-leave-it offer, not the kind of move that fattened a man’s ego. Rodgers did not need to gloat. That was in Bob Herbert’s nature, not his own. However, he also did not want to be a friend to Hood. That was a status Hood had never earned.

As soon as there were no other emergencies to handle, Rodgers was finally able to call the White House switchboard. They put him right through. That was how Rodgers knew that Hood was reporting to the Oval Office. He had been given cabinet-level treatment. Someone had literally walked his extension information to the switchboard rather than E-mailed it, where it might go unattended for hours. The name Paul Hood had been placed before the bank of operators so they knew who he was, where he was, and what his title was.

It also puts the president’s fingerprints all over Hood, Rodgers reflected. Unlike Op-Center, where a man was measured by his abilities, Hood’s fate was tied to that of the new chief executive. Whatever Hood himself did, he could be elevated or scapegoated at the whim of Dan Debenport.

“This is Paul Hood.”

“Christ, Paul. Didn’t they even give you an assistant?”

It took a moment for Hood to place the voice. “Mike?”

“It is,” Rodgers replied. “Bob told me where to find you.”

“Jeez, I’m glad he did! How the hell are you?”

“I’m doing terrific,” Rodgers assured him. “The change has been good for me.”

“I can imagine,” Hood said. “Unexus ain’t small potatoes.”

“No. Lots of starch here,” Rodgers joked, glancing at his jacket.

“How does it feel being in the private sector for the first time?”

“I’m happy, and my bank account is happy,” Rodgers admitted. “Speaking of changes—”

“Yeah. This is a big one. A sudden one,” Hood said.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m tucked in the corridors of power without an assistant,” Hood said. “I’m told there will be a couple of them waiting in my other office down the road. An office that has a window, I hope.”

“That would be nice,” Rodgers said. He had a fleeting screw you moment as he looked out his own large floor-toceiling window. The Washington Monument rose in the distance, stone white against a cloudless blue sky.

“Bob tells me you’re enjoying what you’re doing,” Hood went on.

“I’m still fighting with powers from across the sea but usually with less bloodshed,” Rodgers said. The banality of this conversation was painful. Still, after six months of silence the quasi-hail-fellow-well-met dialogue was necessary. “So what can you tell me about this new position of yours?”

“Not a hell of a lot, yet,” Hood said. “New is the operative word. The job is just some five or six hours old.”

“Has it got a title?”

“A lofty-sounding one. I’m special envoy to the president.”

“Which is what, exactly?” Rodgers asked.

“Well, I’m still a bit unclear about that,” Hood admitted. “The position was described as ‘an international intelligence troubleshooter, unaffiliated with any group but with access to the resources of all of them.’ ”

“What about political access through the president?”

“You mean working heads of state?” Hood asked.

“Exactly. In particular, I wonder if that includes getting the ear of the Chinese prime minister?”

“I don’t know. Does it pertain to intelligence troubleshooting?”

“It does,” Rodgers said.

“Impacting the private or public sector?”

“Public there, private here.”

“ ‘Here’ meaning Unexus.”

“Right,” Rodgers said.

“Maybe you had better give this to me from the top,” Hood suggested.

Paul Hood had never been an evasive, cover-your-ass bureaucrat, and that was not what was happening here. He sounded like a man who really did not know the mechanics, let alone the parameters of his job. Since it had only been in existence for one morning, that was understandable.

Rodgers told him what had happened with Le Kwan Po and the Xichang space center and the exclusion of the Guoanbu from the equation. Hood seemed surprised to hear that. Unlike Washington, Chinese intelligence agencies shared information with each other and with the impacted ministries.

“What you really need to know is whether the prime minister has specific information or concerns that your satellite may be a target,” Hood said.

“Their satellite, our subcontract,” Rodgers said.

“Right. Sorry. I thought we could shorthand it.”

“I’m a little sensitive about that,” Rodgers said. “When I was a general, they were the enemy.”

“Aren’t they still?” Hood asked. “Or is North Korea funding its own nuclear program?”

“I’ve got a new office, Paul, one with a window,” Rodgers replied. “Things look different. They have to.”

The comment came out more explosive than illuminating. Rodgers might still be looking at things from a general’s perspective if Hood had not forced him to change offices. He decided to ignore his own minioutburst.

“It’s three days until launch,” Rodgers continued. “I’m hoping the prime minister is just being cautious. But I would like to know.”

“What does Bob say about all this?” Hood asked.

“He’s going to sniff around from downwind,” Rodgers said. “But you know what our HUMINT resources are like.”

Like most intelligence agencies, Op-Center had cut back on expensive human intelligence and relied primarily on ELINT, electronic intelligence. That was fine, as long as adversaries used cell phones and E-mails, or spoke in public places where the agencies had VARDs — videographic or acoustic reconnaissance devices. If not, the analog fish slipped through the digital net.

“Lorraine Sanders will be here in a few minutes,” Hood said. “Let me talk to her about this, see what she thinks.”

“She’s a smart lady,” Rodgers said. “I assume she’s helping you to integrate into the system.”

“That, plus I’ll be reporting to the president through her,” Hood said.

Rodgers was surprised. “Does she have veto power over your operations?”

“No. Only the president, to whom I report.”

“But if the chief of staff controls the flow of information—”

“Conveying information in a timely fashion is part of her job description,” Hood replied sharply. “Mike, is there something we need to talk about? Apart from this, I mean?”

“No,” Rodgers said. “Why?”

“Because that’s the second kick in the ass you’ve given me in as many minutes,” Hood replied.

“That was not my intention,” Rodgers assured him. “I’m sorry if it came out that way.”

“This isn’t easy, Mike. Being here, talking to you, none of it. The six months of silence — that wasn’t something I wanted.”

“Okay,” Rodgers said. “But out of curiosity, Paul, if you didn’t want the silence, why the hell didn’t you pick up the phone?”

“Embarrassment? Discomfort? Maybe a little envy because I left the high road and you still had it?”

“You could have talked to me about that,” Rodgers said.

“We talked when you left. It didn’t change anything,” Hood said. “I wasn’t happy about the way things went down. Who could be? Then it became awkward because so much time did pass.”

“And now?” Rodgers asked.

“Has this been easy for you?”

“No,” Rodgers admitted.

“There’s your answer,” Hood said. “Look, I’ve got Sanders coming, and I want to get into this situation of yours. I’ll be in touch after the meeting.”

Rodgers thanked him and hung up.

Conflicted did not begin to describe how Rodgers felt at the moment. It began to look as if Hood had been demoted upward. Part of Rodgers felt bad for him. A smaller, more insistent part of him did not. Yet what had been the oddest part of the conversation had nothing to do with that. It happened when they were talking about Herbert and his limited HUMINT capabilities.

Rodgers had called them “our” resources.

Even six months later, it was difficult not to think of them all as a team. Hood, Herbert, and Rodgers had gone through a lot together, more than most men got to experience in a lifetime. The deaths of coworkers, family crises, fighting the clock to prevent civil wars and nuclear attacks. Maybe Op-Center was an idea as well as a place. Maybe it was hardwired, like Rodgers’s need to wear a uniform of some kind even if it was a suit. Perhaps they always would be a team, despite working from different places toward different ends.

And perhaps what the sage once said of divorce was also true of Mike Rodgers and Paul Hood. That going separate ways wasn’t a sign two people didn’t understand one another but just the opposite.

An indication that they had begun to.