War of Eagles

EIGHTEEN

Paul Hood felt mortified after talking with Mike Rodgers, though he was not sure why.

Horseshit, he scolded himself in a flash of candor. You know damn well what the reason is. He was humiliated because Mike Rodgers had come out on top. The guy who had been dismissed had not only landed upright but next to a ladder that let him scurry right back to the top. And beyond. Hood had landed on his ass and had to be picked up by the president and dusted off by the chief of staff. As Hood discovered, and as Rodgers had intimated, that was not a pleasant experience.

Lorraine Sanders came to Hood’s office as scheduled. She entered after knocking but before he told her to come in. He did not have time to put on his blazer, which was hanging from the back of his chair. Sanders’s mind was obviously somewhere else as she informed Hood that two temporary assistants were getting an on-site briefing at the new office. They would be prepared to take Hood around in the morning. She said that he was free to spend as much time in either office as he wished. A car would be at his disposal, though Hood told Sanders he preferred to drive himself.

“Are you trying to make the rest of us look bad?” the woman asked with a critical grin.

“Just a preference,” he replied.

“You’d be the only senior staff member without a driver,” she pointed out. “There are also security issues. We’d feel better if you used him.”

“ ‘We’ as in the president? Are you speaking for him?”

“I know that is what he would want,” she replied.

“I’ll think about it,” Hood replied with a smile only slightly less insincere than her own.

What she had said to him was close to the truth. If he did not use a driver, someone in the press or the General Accounting Office might notice. They might wonder why anyone but the president and vice president needed a chauffeur. Perks might have to be sacrificed to keep the peace. Hood had always used that drive time to think. When he was mayor of L.A., he took public transportation to encourage its use. And Hood did not like the fact that Sanders was speaking for the president without even having discussed this with him.

Sanders’s smile evaporated as she gave Hood a CD containing intelligence matters that concerned the president. Hood promised to review them.

“I would also like to talk to him about a matter involving the PRC,” Hood told Sanders.

“Talk to me,” she said.

“Prime Minister Le Kwan Po has requested information about an upcoming satellite launch at the Xichang space center. The satellite was built by Unexus, the firm run by my former deputy Mike Rodgers. He’s concerned that there may be an attempt to sabotage the booster.”

“Unexus is a firm with a minor American component, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know the exact proportion—”

“Why should this administration be concerned about what is basically foreign-built hardware for a potentially hostile government?”

“The trajectory will carry the rocket over the Pacific,” Hood said. “If it blows up after launch, radiation from the plutonium power source is going to hit the atmosphere like Mardi Gras confetti. Some of that could come down in Hawaii or along the West Coast.”

“I see,” Sanders said. “And do you really think the prime minister will tell us what he knows?”

“The Chinese obviously have some kind of spitting contest going on,” Hood said. “He may be ready for a hand.”

Sanders nodded and looked at her watch. “The president will be finishing his meeting with the Joint Chiefs in about five minutes. I’ll pass this along.”

“Fine. But before you go, tell me why I had to stand here and justify my request,” Hood said. “It was my understanding that ‘I’d like a minute with the president’ was all I needed to tell you.”

She smiled more sincerely now. “You think too much,” she said. “I’ll let you know what the president says.”

The phone beeped as Sanders was leaving the office. The room was small enough so that Hood could grab the call and tap the door shut with his foot at the same time. He was aware of a sharpness in the little kick, a little Stuff it gesture to the retreating chief of staff.

“Paul Hood,” he said. He began rolling up his shirtsleeves like he used to do when he got to work at Op-Center or on a construction site in Los Angeles. Only now there was nothing to do.

“Paul, it’s Bob. The Taiwanese screwed up.”

“How?”

“The bombers got away,” Herbert said. “They killed two cops and blew up the cell phone when they did. We aren’t going to be hearing from them again.”

“Aren’t the police still looking?”

“No one saw them,” Herbert said. “No one who survived. And the descriptions from the hotel workers are not giving them enough to go on.”

“What are the implications?” Hood asked, adding, “I don’t just mean for Mike’s launch.”

“That’s tough to say, Chief,” Herbert said. Was the use of the title a lapse or a sign of respect? Hood did not know, but it was nice to hear. “It’s not likely that these were the same people working in Charleston or Durban. They’d be two very tired men, and you don’t want tired men handling explosives. If there’s a network of bombers, and they were already positioned only in soft targets — for whatever reason — I would say the rocket launch is safe. But these three blasts could be the warm-ups for one or more big attacks. Perhaps the prime minister has insight we lack. We need to find out.”

“I agree,” Hood said.

“Did you make progress on your end?”

“I’m about to,” Hood replied. He was still standing beside his desk. He glanced at the closed door as if it were an enemy.

“I don’t follow.”

“I’ll call you when I get back from Olympus,” Hood promised.

The new special envoy to the president hung up the phone and left his office. He did not bother rolling his shirtsleeves back down. He had something to do, and it was in the Oval Office.

The Joint Chiefs were making their way down the corridor like a green glacier. They were talking quietly among themselves, ignoring the nonmilitary staff that moved past them. If the president were Zeus, then these were the Titans, anchored by Army General Raleigh Carew. The Minnesotan stood six foot five and carried himself even taller. Hood sidled by. At the end of the hallway he entered the office of the president’s executive secretary, Julie Kubert. They had not been introduced earlier, but she knew who he was and greeted him by name. The door to the Oval Office was open to her left. Debenport was on the phone.

“I’d like to see the president,” Hood said.

The white-haired woman looked at her computer. “How is tomorrow morning at ten fifteen—”

“Today,” Hood said. “Now would be good.”

The former executive secretary to the publisher of the Chicago Tribune—which supported Debenport — looked over. “The president of Laos is waiting in the Red Room, Mr. Hood.”

“Appropriate,” Hood remarked. He cocked his head toward the Oval Office. “Is he speaking with Ms. Sanders?”

“Mr. Hood—”

“Has she been to see him?”

“Mr. Hood, they are scheduled to review the day at sixfifteen, as always. Now, do you want an appointment for tomorrow or not?”

“Ms. Kubert, there’s something going on that I must discuss with the president, and soon.”

“If it will shut you up, Paul, come in,” Debenport said.

“Thank you,” Hood said to Kubert. Then he turned and entered the Oval Office. “I’m sorry, Mr. President, but I need to speak with Prime Minister Le Kwan Po.”

“The Chinese fence-sitter,” the president said. “Why?”

“He may be sitting on intel we need,” Hood replied.

Lorraine Sanders rushed in. She obviously had been alerted by Ms. Kubert. The chief of staff said nothing as she took up a position beside the president’s desk. Arms folded, she glared at Hood.

Hood ignored her. When the president was still Senator Debenport, and head of the Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committee, he would often pit factions one against the other, then step aside as they slugged it out. The survivor was someone he wanted on his side. Hood did not know if that was the case here. It would not be a bad tactic to put sinew into a new administration. If this were a gladiatorial showdown, Hood did not intend for it to end with Sanders’s foot on his neck. Either he would win or leave the arena.

Hood told the president what he had already explained to Sanders, adding the new information from Bob Herbert. He made the presentation as concise as possible. The president listened, then rose and walked from behind the desk. He came around the side opposite from where Sanders was standing.

“Ms. Sanders, have Ambassador Hasen look into a meeting,” the president said. “Paul, get yourself over to our embassy in Beijing.”

“Sir?”

The president stopped beside Hood. “If there’s infighting in Beijing, we need to know. It might help to have General Rodgers with you. He can go to observe the launch, I presume.”

“I don’t see why not.”

“As for Op-Center, I want you to talk to General Carrie before you leave. The Joint Chiefs were just in here. They mentioned something in passing that obviously dovetails with this.”

“What’s that, sir?” Sanders asked. It was an obvious effort to become part of a project she had not felt was terribly important. Until right now.

“General Carrie has requested that a small group of marines be seconded to Op-Center for a possible security mission in Beijing,” the president told Hood. “One that will be defined as information becomes available.”

“Did she say what kind of security mission it would be?” Hood asked.

“The president said it would be defined later,” Sanders said.

“What I mean, sir, would it be at the launch site, at the embassy, or a black ops action somewhere else?” Hood asked the president, ignoring Sanders.

“The Joint Chiefs did not tell me, and I did not ask. There was no point. As I told you before, Paul, General Carrie was pushed on me as the head of Op-Center. If the military is planning some kind of new and covert direction for Op-Center, I want to know what it is — not what they tell me it is.”

“Understood,” Hood said.

“It’s good you have someone you trust on the inside,” the president told him. “Tell Herbert to keep one eye on the NCMC… and one on his ass.” He winked, then did not look back as he headed toward the door.

Hood looked over at Lorraine Sanders. Her arms were still crossed, and her expression was still sour. Debenport’s inner circle had a reputation for resenting outsiders. If Hood let that bother him, he would never be able to do his job.

“I’ll have the travel office arrange for a ticket to Beijing,” she said to him.

“Thanks.”

She walked toward the door, stopping beside Hood. “If you do that again, I’ll feed you to General Carew. I swear it.”

“Are you working for him? Should the president be concerned?”

“No,” she replied thickly. “I just happen to know the general likes chewing up starchy little bureaucrats.”

She crossed the blue carpet with its gold symbol of the presidency, leaving Hood alone for a moment in the Oval Office. He had always understood why presidents became paranoid, why they installed recording devices in the West Wing. He just hated being a part of that intrigue. The people at Op-Center had always pulled together toward a single goal: protecting the United States and its interests from chaos. Here, they helped to create it.

As he left the Oval Office and the pointedly averted eyes of Ms. Kubert, Hood was suddenly more afraid of his own team than he was of the Chinese.