“That is how I see it,” Maria replied.
“It’s possible,” he muttered after a long, long moment. “Dammit, it really is. Brava, my love.”
She smiled at him.
“Paul, did you hear any of that?”
“I did, Darrell, and I’m still processing it,” Hood told him. “But tell Maria ‘well done.’ ”
“Thank you!” she said from under her husband’s arm.
“It sounds like we’re going to have to stay involved with this, then,” Hood said.
“Maybe even deeper than we were before,” McCaskey said.
If Maria had nailed this, they were not looking at a vengeful escort or industrial espionage. They were looking at something strongly reminiscent of what the FBI called an IOS, an improvised operational scenario. One in which the carefully devised plans for a strike team, undercover personnel, or sometimes both had to be quickly and effectively reconfigured because something had gone wrong.
An operation that was traditionally handled by seasoned intelligence personnel.
TWENTY
Washington, D.C. Tuesday, 7:13 A.M.
Paul Hood had gone home for a long sleep, shower, then returned to Op-Center. He was wiped out from a day that was spent mostly with Ron Plummer, reviewing the restructuring of Op-Center. The investigation was also draining. It was not just a chess game but a chess game on multiple levels. Overinvolvement to help Scotland Yard might damage relations with the Metro Police. A concession to the police might weaken Hood’s credibility not just with the Yard but with other intelligence agencies. Spending money on a non-core operation might hurt Hood’s standing with the CIOC and with Op-Center employees who were going to be hard-pressed to do their existing jobs. In one sense, it was a hell of a challenge. In another, it was daunting and exhausting.
The previous afternoon had been so full that Hood did not have an opportunity to call his former wife. When he finally did have the time, it was nearly eleven P.M. Sharon would probably be asleep or with Jim Hunt. In any case, Hood preferred to talk with her when he was fresh. It helped him deal with whatever feelings of entitlement or bitterness she might spray his way.
Ironically, just before he phoned her, Matt Stoll called. He said that he understood the staff cuts and could do a lot of the maintenance work, paperwork, “the gruntwork” himself. But he said he needed at least another set of hands to help him. Cheap hands. “Monkey hands,” he said.
There was something about that image which amused Hood. He knew a chimp they could hire.
He was disappointed with the crankiness in his soul, but the hurt was there and it wasn’t going away. As long as he didn’t communicate that to Sharon, no harm was done.
Sharon was rushed, as usual, when he called. She was going to work out, and her trainer—another addition to her new life—did not like it when she was late. She was also polite but formal, as Hood had come to expect. He got the words out quickly. Otherwise, he would have changed his mind about telling her that he had found an internship for Frankie Hunt.
“It’s with Matt Stoll,” Hood told her. “He’ll be working on put-the-square-peg-in-the-square-hole stuff. Inventory and routing software and hardware upgrade notifications.”
“Great,” Sharon said. “Thanks.”
She really did sound grateful. That made him uncomfortable. Sharon was happy because he was helping his goddamn replacement. There was a point at which a good soldier became an idiot. He felt he had crossed that.
“E-mail me his contact information,” Hood told her, continuing because he had no choice. “I’ll order an expedited background check, and we can go from there.”
“Will do,” she said. “Frankie is a good kid.”
“I’m sure he is,” Hood said pleasantly. It was filler, but he could not think of anything else to say. Anything civil, that is.
Since the children had already left for school, the call ended with a pair of unsentimental good-byes. Hood sat there for a moment, looking at the phone. He wanted to slam his fist on it but did not. The phone was not his enemy. He was. Mr. Cooperative, the mediator, the nice guy.
The idiot.
As with Senator Debenport the day before, an early-morning phone conversation ended with Hood feeling as if he had been someone’s stooge. He hoped this did not become a pattern. It might make him insecure, and crises did not yield to men of caution. At the same time, Hood could not afford to become overly bold and push Op-Center deeper into areas where it had no legitimate business.
Both extremes were tested when Darrell McCaskey arrived. McCaskey came to see Hood with something that had been on his mind all morning: the name of the only individual who fit Maria’s quick-sketch profile.
“Admiral Kenneth Link,” McCaskey said. “He’s a former head of covert ops with the CIA, he’s got an anti-European agenda, and he knew where William Wilson was staying.”
“Okay, so Link did not like the man’s policies,” Hood said. “What does he gain by removing Wilson?”
“I’m not sure,” McCaskey admitted. “But I can’t dismiss the possibility.”
“Fair enough. Talk it out.”
“A prominent Brit dies abroad after a sexual encounter,” McCaskey said. “The Fleet Street tabloids are all over that. Wilson’s death not only cripples and probably terminates the new banking venture, it affects the stock price of his company. The tawdriness of what happened hurts the value even more. In short, Wilson’s death shuts down a potential threat to the American economy.”
“Right,” Hood replied. “But doesn’t that help the current administration and not Senator Orr?”
“Just the opposite, I would think,” McCaskey said. “If the rumors about Orr are true, he is going to come out and effectively promote a strong policy of isolationism. Wilson’s death gives the senator a salacious, Eurocentric target, someone the president’s endorsed successor can’t hit.”
“Because, like us, the president has overseas alliances to protect.”
McCaskey nodded. “Orr wouldn’t care about that. His only concern is the American electorate.”
“That might also be a rival’s concern,” Hood said. “Someone could be looking to frame Link and stop a credible threat to the two-party system.”
“It’s possible,” McCaskey admitted.
Hood shook his head. “One problem I have with your theory, Darrell, is that Wilson was as viable a target for Orr alive as he was dead. In fact, if Wilson were alive, his European banking operation might have won Don Orr even more support.”
“But we’re not talking about the senator,” McCaskey reminded him. “We’re talking about Admiral Link.”
“I understand that. But I’m still not clear what he could possibly gain. Why would he want to hurt Orr’s rhetoric by eliminating William Wilson?”
“That is the big question,” McCaskey said.
“It’s also one I’m not sure Op-Center needs to answer,” Hood said. “We agreed to stick a finger in this for Scotland Yard. The more I look at it, the more it does not seem like a crisis.”
“That depends on your definition of crisis,” McCaskey said. “I see a person or persons who were able to move quickly when their killing was exposed. That suggests a conspiracy, one that may involve the office of a United States senator. Give me a little more time to research this, Paul. Let me take a closer look at Kenneth Link and Orr’s staff.”
“What about Mike?” Hood asked. “Would you involve him?”
“I’m not sure,” McCaskey said.
Neither man said what was obviously on both of their minds. Would Mike give his loyalty to the old team or the new? Was it even fair to put him in that position?
A chess game with multiple levels, Hood thought.
Hood called Liz Gordon’s office. She was not in yet, and he left a message for her to see him when she arrived. He wanted her to whip up a quick-sketch profile of Link. Then he turned to his computer and brought up the Senate’s secure home page. The staff directory was a
ccessible only to government officials. Hood looked up Orr’s office staff. Admiral Link was not there, of course, since he was only involved in the United States First Party.
“Do we know anything about Katherine Lockley and Kendra Peterson?” Hood asked.
“A little,” McCaskey said. He leaned over Hood, typed his password on the keyboard, and opened the file he had collected on Senator Orr’s staff.
“Lockley was a journalist before joining Orr,” McCaskey said, looking at his notes. “I checked her bylines, her college records. She checks out. Peterson was a Vietnam war baby, Marine dad, came to live here when she was a kid. She’s a gymnast, a national champion in her early teens who missed out on the Olympics because of tendonitis in her fingers. She joined the Marines and managed to pass the physical, though the tendonitis returned, and she ended up working in Camp Pendleton on the DANTES program.”
“Which is?”
“Not as ominous at it sounds,” McCaskey told him. “It’s the Defense Activity for Non-Traditional Education Support certification program. She pushed paper to make sure qualified Marines got a good shot at civilian jobs.”
“Is that all she did?”
“It’s the only job on record,” McCaskey said. “When her enlistment was up, Ms. Peterson used her DANTES connections to get herself a job as a clerk in the U.S. embassy in Japan. That often means a spook.”
“Did she pick Japan?”
“That was what the Military Outplacement Specialty Office came up with,” McCaskey said.
“No obvious red flags there,” Hood said. “Who else is on the senator’s staff?”
McCaskey went through the remainder of the list and what he had gathered about each individual. No one stood out.
Hood sighed as McCaskey walked back around the desk. “I don’t know, Darrell. You’ve shown me how Link is qualified to mastermind this but not a single reason why he would.”
“Why was Wilson at that party?”
“According to the news reports, so that Orr’s friends could make a connection, try to temper his plans,” Hood said.
“Is that easier to believe than the fact that Wilson was being set up?” McCaskey asked.
“Frankly, yes. I don’t see the trail of bread crumbs that leads from Wilson to Link. Senator Orr is wealthy, and he has extremely wealthy friends. They could have set up a program to challenge Wilson. In fact, that would have made a very strong campaign plank. Even if Link wanted to sabotage Orr’s campaign for some reason, make it appear that he was behind the murder, why kill a second businessman? No,” Hood said, “I don’t see how they connect.”
“Okay. Here’s a reason Link might have wanted Wilson dead,” McCaskey said. “Publicity for Orr. Guilty by innuendo, then exonerated by the second murder.”
“Possibly.”
“Or maybe Link is a sociopath who misses the thrill of undercover operations,” McCaskey said. “I know I do.”
“You were stopping transgressions, not instigating them,” Hood pointed out.
“Whether you snort, smoke, or inject, danger is a tonic,” McCaskey said. “Look, Paul. I don’t know why he would do this. I only have a feeling that there’s something here.”
“How much time will you need to explore this feeling?”
“Forty-eight hours?”
Hood frowned. “Take a day and see where it leads. I can’t promise you more than that.”
“All right.”
“You also have to decide about Mike,” Hood went on. “Until I have his resignation, he’s still working with us.”
“What do you think?”
“Tough call. If he finds out, he’ll think we couldn’t trust him. But he’d also feel obligated to tell Link. Best to give him plausible deniability for now.”
“Good call. Speaking of calls, I’m going to let Maria know what’s up. She might have some ideas.”
“Good idea,” Hood said. He thought for a moment. “Mike is an honorable man. He may not like what we’re doing, but if he smells something wrong, he’ll act.”
McCaskey smiled.
“Did I miss something?” Hood asked.
“The smile, you mean? Yeah. You never leave us out to dry.”
“You lost me,” Hood said.
“You said that Mike may not like what we’re doing,” McCaskey told him as he turned to go. “You don’t pass the buck, Paul.”
Hood did not realize he had done that.
When McCaskey had gone, Hood went to his E-mail. He just stared at the monitor. He had just received another pat on the shoulder for being a good and responsible man. If Paul Hood was so good and responsible, how did he get to this place in life? Rationing McCaskey’s hours like they were water in the desert, working as cabin boy on the Good Ship Sharon and Jim, playing defense instead of offense with the CIOC and the William Wilson investigation. When Hood was the mayor of Los Angeles, he used to feel that fighting the city council or one of his commissioners to a draw was unsatisfactory. Right now, a stalemate sounded sweet.
“Knock, knock.”
Hood looked up. Liz Gordon was standing in the doorway. Her dark eyes were large and owl wise, framed on three sides by short brown hair. They were set in a wide, open face that invited trust.
“Come in,” Hood said.
Liz entered.
“Have you ever heard of Admiral Kenneth Link, former head of covert ops for the CIA?” Hood asked.
“No,” Liz said. “Former head? So what is he doing now?”
“Helping Senator Donald Orr launch the new USF Party.”
“That’s the one Mike is going to work for, correct?”
Hood snickered. “I’m glad to see the Op-Center grapevine hasn’t been affected by cutbacks.”
“There are cheap, unlimited minutes on that network,” Liz joked.
“I saw an online news flash that Orr should be holding a press conference now,” Hood said, looking at his watch. “The word is that Link will serve as Orr’s vice presidential candidate. Darrell believes Link may be connected to the deaths of William Wilson and this other gentleman, Robert Lawless. I need a quick, rough profile.”
“Sure, but I can tell you what it will probably look like,” Liz said. “How long did he run covert ops?”
Hood looked up his file. “Twelve years.”
“That’s a long time,” she said. “Did he go right from that job to this one?”
“Within a few months.”
“Classic. How often do you hear about former presidents, generals, quarterbacks, and CEOs retiring and playing golf?”
“I don’t know—though right now that sounds like a damn fine idea,” Hood admitted.
“Precisely. People who run high-performance teams in pressure cooker situations get fried over time,” Liz told him. “They rarely go back to that kind of operation. Chances are good that if Admiral Link got out, he did not jump back in. Would the killings have had an elective quality for him?”
“You mean, did it have to be Wilson and did it have to be now?”
Liz nodded.
“We’re not sure. What about Link leaving intelligence work and missing the risk factor? Darrell seems to think that might be significant.”
“Moving from behind a curtain at the CIA to center stage in a national political campaign is a pretty big risk,” Liz said. “Which brings us to the X factor.”
“Which is?”
“A political ticket would be subjected to scrutiny by the press and public,” Liz said. “Orr and Link have no control over where those eyes and fingers go probing. A man used to being in charge of things might want to set up a few sidelines that he could control, just to enjoy some familiar ground.”
“Including something this bold?”
“Well—that’s the unknown quantity,” Liz explained. “I’ll have a look at Link’s file, but I’m not optimistic. A dual murder seems a little extreme for someone who just moved from an organization where that kind of activity was at least acceptable, if not encouraged.
”
Hood said he would E-mail the file to Liz. Before leaving, she asked if he was all right.
“Sure, why?” he asked, though he knew the answer.
“The situation with Mike,” she replied.
“That wasn’t easy,” Hood admitted. “But hiring and firing are part of the job description.”
“Does he know you’re investigating his new colleague?”
“No. At least, no one told him. I don’t know what he might surmise or suspect.”
“So everything’s under control here,” she said.
Hood picked up a paperweight Alexander had made in the first grade. It was a blue and white glazed lump of clay that was supposed to be Earth. He held it in his fist. “I’ve got the whole world in my hand, Liz,” he said.
“Like Atlas,” she said.
“He had it on his shoulders,” Hood pointed out.
“Like Atlas,” she repeated.
Hood thought about that, then smiled. She got him. He put the paperweight down. “What do you do when you feel like your life and career are on a parallel course in the wrong direction?”
“That depends,” Liz replied. She shut the door. “If you’re patient, it’s like moving around that globe. Learn what you can on the journey, enjoy the scenery, and eventually, you come back around.”
“What if you feel like you’re running out of fuel?”
“Ride the winds.”
“I have been,” Hood told her.
“And?” The psychologist moved toward the desk. “Talk to me, Paul.”
Hood hesitated. He was not good at this. He did not like to complain or to seek help. But Liz must have sensed that something was wrong. The woman was responsible for keeping psychological files of the staff, and her antennae were always extended. Decisions made in these offices could affect millions of people. If Liz felt that someone were under too much stress, either personal or professional, she could order them to take time off. She had done that with Mike Rodgers after his Striker military unit was decimated in India.
“Truthfully, Liz?” Hood said. “I feel like those winds have been blowing me all over the damn place, mostly away from where I need to be.”
“Do you know where you need to be?”
Call to Treason (2004) Page 14
