Carlton paused for an instant. But before the stunned Oxley could speak, Carlton took a sheaf of papers from his suit coat pocket and lowered his voice. “I was just at NSA. Read the riot act to them. Got the Lebed intercepts absolutely stopped. But I think you need to see what they picked up this morning.” He handed the papers to Oxley.
Scanning the papers quickly, Oxley saw that it was a translation of a conversation, carried on hours ago, between Boris Lebed, president of the Russian Federation, and a Russian intelligence officer named Nikita Komov. They were talking about Robert Wentworth Hamilton and the SpaceMine asteroid. Oxley’s eyes locked for a moment on Ivan’s Hammer.
“How sure of this are you?” Oxley asked. “How do you know…”
“We have multiple assets in Russia, and we’ve known about Komov for a long time. He’s a throwback to the days of the Cold War. He’s been a key adviser to Soviet presidents going back to the seventies.”
Oxley looked up from the transcript and said, “It looks as if the Russians don’t want him to go home.” Nodding and still looking at the transcript, he went on: “So, you’re convinced that Hamilton is about to become a permanent guest in Russia. Do you know or believe that he wants to stay there?”
“No, sir. But I don’t think it really matters. He may want to come home and face the charges that will be leveled against him or just stay in Russia until we agree to drop everything and welcome him home as a hero. Point is, as long as he’s the only one who knows where that asteroid is, the Russians will never let him go. And you saw that reference to Ivan’s Hammer.”
Oxley nodded and asked, “So what options do we have?”
“We’re going to have to go and bring him back, Mr. President. And quickly.”
“You want me to authorize a covert rendition operation?”
“No, sir. I don’t think you should authorize any such operation. You can’t do it. But it must be done.”
“What about Ray?” Oxley asked, referring to Ray Quinlan, his chief of staff. Oxley knew the answer, but he felt compelled to make the decision come from Carlton.
“No, sir. He hasn’t been read into what Hamilton and his Chechen friend had been up to and I don’t think he needs to know anything more … at this point.”
“And that transcript is for my eyes only.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I think I know what you’re actually not saying,” Oxley said, nodding wearily. Deniabilty. He’s giving me deniability. “You can forget about that resignation.” With a slight smile, he added, “And don’t you dare do anything illegal.”
“Understood, Mr. President. Absolutely understood,” Carlton said as the others began entering and the meeting was about to begin.
5
Back in his office, down the hall from the Oval Office, Carlton sat at his desk and swiveled around for a moment to look out at the autumnal peace outside his window, and paused before calling Sean Falcone. He did not call him often, mostly because he knew it was bad form for a West Wing appointee to call his or her predecessor. Falcone always responded as a friend, and Carlton knew that there would never be any boast from Falcone about needing to help out his successor.
There was another reason for hesitating to call Falcone. Ray Quinlan had an enemies list, and Carlton knew that Sean Falcone had been at the top of it for most of his time as national security adviser. Quinlan had enormous power. Men and women in the West Wing may have served at the pleasure of the President. But they might not serve very long at the displeasure of Ray Quinlan.
When Carlton decided that he had to turn to Falcone, he knew that the decision could put him on Quinlan’s enemies list. But he had faith in Falcone. He picked up the phone and punched the button alongside Falcone’s cell phone number.
Before Falcone spoke, Carlton said, “Four o’clock in the grand old bar. See you then.”
*
A summons to service. Falcone smiled to himself. He pocketed his phone and told Ursula, his executive assistant, he would shortly be leaving for the day. He welcomed the chance to close the thick yellow folder on his large mahogany desk, embellished with lions’ heads and knightly emblems. A few minutes later, he was emerging from the tall glass structure known as the Sullivan & Ford Building, which contained one of the world’s largest law firms. Its managing partner was Sean Falcone.
A black town car emerged from the building’s underground parking garage and Falcone slipped into the car’s rear seat. He knew that China was trying to cause trouble again over the Senkaku Islands, the Japanese name that President Oxley preferred. He knew little more about that issue than what he read in the New York Times and Washington Post. But he didn’t think this was a crisis beyond what Carlton and Oxley could handle. Carlton was a solid man, as Falcone’s Irish mother used to sing: As I walk the street, each friend I meet says,“There goes Muldoon—he’s a solid man.”
When, as a kid, he had asked her who she was singing about, she said, “A man like your father. His folks may come from Italy. But he’s a solid man.” And that became Falcone’s standard for whom to trust, for whom to help, for whom to be. A solid man.
So what can this be about?
Carlton had picked the usual place, a bar beneath the elegant lobby of the Hay-Adams Hotel, a close neighbor to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. From the hotel’s rooftop terrace and through the windows of many of its rooms, you had a clear view of the White House, a fact well known to the window-watching Secret Service marksmen on the White House roof.
The bar tried to live up to its name, Off the Record—a recognition of Washington geography: From the plush, low-lit bar to the White House was a brisk nine-minute walk across Lafayette Square. Although some journalists went there to hear politicians and agenda pushers hold forth on the record, there was a tradition of discretion, symbolized by its underground location.
Falcone, who arrived first, ordered a Grey Goose vodka at the bar, and remembered how he had met his predecessor here on his first day as national security adviser. And now he was having another drink with his successor. Washington. Only the names change.
Carlton came in and sat with his back to the red-velvet wall at the two-person table farthest from the door. Falcone picked up his glass, walked over, and took the seat opposite Carlton. A red-vested waiter promptly appeared and Carlton ordered a Yuengling draft.
As the waiter walked away, Carlton said, “Thank you for meeting on short notice.”
“You are more than welcome, Frank,” Falcone said. Because he knew there would be no small talk, he added, “What’s up?”
Carlton splayed his hands on the table, looked down at them, then raised his eyes to Falcone, and said, “You’ve got to do something for me.”
“For you, sure,” Falcone said, surprised at the harsh urgency in Carlton’s voice.
“I’m going to tell you what I want, and once I tell you, you can’t back out. Agreed?”
“We both know that volunteers can’t be choosy,” Falcone said, smiling. “Tell me.”
“I need to get somebody out of Moscow.”
“Hamilton?” Falcone asked.
Carlton nodded and said, “I guess you know the background.”
Over Falcone’s shoulder Carlton saw the waiter coming back and said “Thank you” when the waiter placed the glass of beer on a coaster. It had a cartoon of a donkey and an elephant trying to wrest a gavel from each other.
Carlton took a sip of beer and leaned back and waited for Falcone to speak.
“He has to be taken? As in exfiltration?”
“Yeah. That’s the big word for it.”
“Off the books, I assume.”
“Oh, yeah,” Carlton said. “Very much off the books. And if it’s fucked up, the President might get impeached and you and I go to jail.”
“How long will I have?”
“Until yesterday, Sean. Maybe a week or two at best. The guy’s a ticking bomb.”
“I’ll have to discuss this with Oxley.”
�
��Can’t, Sean. He can’t be involved with this. No fingerprints.”
“Shades of Iran-Contra,” Falcone said. He had served on the investigation of that scandal when he was in the Senate.
“World of difference,” Carlton said. “You know that better than anybody. We’re not saying one thing and doing another. And we’re not diverting funds for any covert operation to destabilize another government. We’re simply trying to extract an American citizen out of the claws of the Russian Bear.”
“And if this goes south?”
“You know the drill. ‘We had no knowledge.…’”
“Sure,” Falcone said. He paused to drain his vodka. “President totally blindsided by a rogue operation conducted by an adviser he had to let go because he started getting wacky. A long-delayed PTSD case.”
“Not bad, Sean. You carry your own alibi. Sure, you might get hung out to dry. But the President needs you. You know what’s at stake if we don’t get the damn asteroid coordinates that Hamilton has tucked away. Or if he gives them up to the Russians.”
“So just how do you expect me to put this operation together?”
“You were involved with some of the DOD rendition operations in Yemen and Somalia. Guys with X Ops experience are pretty much out of work since we pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan. But some of them are working for private security outfits.”
Carlton took out a pen from his shirt pocket and wrote 800-555-7820 on the back of the coaster. “Call this number.”
“Funds? I hate to bring up money. But…”
“This outfit will know who you are. No questions. No records. No funds. Sometimes they’re philanthropists.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
If accepting a loan of the time and psychic affirmation of others were contractually enforceable, I would stand in chains before a debtors’ court magistrate.
First, I am grateful to Tor/Forge’s publisher, Tom Doherty. From the very first day Tom approached me about publishing my novel Dragon Fire, I could sense the depth of his concern about the sustainability of life on our planet. In every discussion about possible themes, narratives, and story lines, Tom displayed a sincere and profound concern for man-made threats to the continuation of human and animal existence on Earth and urged me to ring alarm bells to arouse a citizenry that seems to have overdosed on lotus leaves.
Bob Gleason, Tor/Forge’s editor extraordinaire, is a man on fire, obsessed with our lack of obsession about the existentially destructive nuclear weaponry that remains on hair-trigger alert in too many countries. Bob is an intellectually armed and dangerous man—a jazzologist and a Tarot-card mystic to boot—whose imagination knows no limits and whose editorial pen, no mercy. He has been uncommonly patient and forgiving of my travel excursions and diversions even as he gently reminded me that deadlines are not made to be broken.
I am unquantifiably grateful to my friend Tom Allen, an accomplished author of fiction and nonfiction works. I first met Tom in 1983 when he was asked to edit The Double Man, a novel that I had coauthored with Senator Gary Hart and that became a Featured Alternate Selection of the Book of the Month Club. Ten years later, Tom and I decided that we should collaborate to write a mystery novel called Murder in the Senate, a story that we fervently hoped would always remain in the realm of fiction. Since that time, I have turned to Tom on multiple occasions to make sure that my hand remained steady as I tried to weave imaginary tales that both inform and entertain.
A special word of thanks to copy editor Terry McGarry, who has the eye of a jeweler. Terry caught every mistake and miscue in the many manuscripts she scrutinized, and her mastery of the story line was remarkable.
At my writing desk (iMac) I have a model of Yoda of Star Wars fame, whose buttons, when pushed, offer wise and ethical counsel. Tom is my Yoda, and he remains for me a repository of information about life on Earth and in the galaxies of the mind.
Enormous thanks go to Army Colonel John Urias (Ret.), who first alerted me to a research report that he helped write for the Air Force in 1996: “Planetary Defense: Catastrophic Health Insurance for Planet Earth.” The report is stunning and stark in the analysis of asteroid threats that most people have chosen to ignore.
I am indebted to one of America’s best and brightest, NASA director Charles Bolden, a Marine Corps major general (Ret.) and former astronaut, who directed my script to Dr. Donald K. Yeomans, manager, Near-Earth Object Program, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and to Dr. Bill Barry, NASA chief historian. Both Dr. Yeomans and Dr. Barry provided me with very precise and insightful comments that contributed to the accuracy of the calculations and suppositions contained in the story.
I am also grateful to many of the extraordinarily talented colleagues with whom I am privileged to work, namely: Bob Tyrer, Jim Bodner, General Joseph Ralston (Ret.), Lieutenant General Harry Radugue (Ret.), General Paul Kern (Ret.), Admiral Jim Loy (Ret.), former ambassador Marc Grossman, and attorney Tommy Goodman, who offered so many constructive suggestions on both the substantive and legal issues involved in the story.
Finally, I must reserve the greatest share of my gratitude to my wife, Janet, an accomplished author and playwright. Patience is said to be a virtue, provided it is not eternal. Contrary to my every promise to seek moderation and balance in my life, there have been times when I simply disappeared for days into my man cave and lingered there with my Muse, a jealous and demanding mistress. To err is said to be human, but for Janet to forgive, well, that’s divine.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William S. Cohen served as secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001, making him the twentieth U.S. defense minister. Born in 1940 in Bangor, Maine, Cohen was a member of the U.S. Senate and Congress for twenty-four years. He has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and is the author of the New York Times bestselling Dragon Fire. Cohen lives with his wife in the Washington, D.C., area. You can sign up for email updates here.
FORGE BOOKS BY
WILLIAM S. COHEN
Dragon Fire
Blink of an Eye
Collision
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Excerpt from the Sequel to Collision
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Forge Books by William S. Cohen
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
COLLISION
Copyright © 2015 by William S. Cohen
All rights reserved.
Cover art from Getty Images
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-2765-9 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-42994943-9 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781429949439
First Edition: June 2015
Collision Page 33
