by Clancy, Tom
“How did you know that is my drink, Angel?” the general asked.
“I sent the question up the ladder until someone knew the answer,” the young man replied.
“And that person was?” she asked.
“Actually, General, no one knew. They called your military driver.”
“I see.” She smiled. “Well done.”
“Thank you, General,” Angel replied.
General Carrie slid into the unfamiliar car.
“There is a folder on the seat for you,” the driver said.
“I see it. Thank you.”
The general picked it up. She tore the red paper seal with an index finger. After years of riding in a Cutlass, the Saturn seemed small. Certainly the leather seat needed breaking in. But she did recognize the heavy-bottomed ride as the result of armor plating and the thick windows as bulletproof. She did not know if she were more or less a target than before, but she understood that the precaution was necessary.
General Carrie looked at the folder. The outside said Eyes Only. Inside were sealed manila envelopes. Each contained a concise dossier on the personnel of her new command. She flipped through them, looking for familiar names. As expected, there were only two: Bob Herbert and Stephen Viens. She knew Bob and his late wife Yvonne from the Middle East, and Viens from his years with the National Reconnaissance Office. Both were solid professionals, though she had heard that Herbert was more of a loose cannon than ever.
No matter. President Debenport wanted her to reconfigure Op-Center, to run a tighter command. Either Herbert would fall in, or he would be replaced.
Carrie started scanning the files to familiarize herself with the personnel she would be meeting today. Former political liaison, now deputy director Ron Plummer. FBI liaison Darrell McCaskey. Director of Tech Operations Matt Stoll. Psychologist Liz Gordon. The evaluations written by Paul Hood and his former number two Mike Rodgers suggested that they were all rather individualistic, what the army called rogues.
Hood seemed to like and encourage that. Rodgers did not. Carrie sided with Rodgers.
It would be a challenge to bring them around, but that was what Carrie had been waiting for her entire career. She did not intend to blow it. Besides, the general was representing more than just women in her new position. She was also a standard-bearer for the military. It was flattering, it was terrifying, and it was invigorating, all at once. And the only way she would get through this was to remember something her dad, a newspaper editor in Pittsburgh, had told her when she went off to enlist. He knew her better than anyone when he said, “The job is not about you or having something to prove, honeypot. It’s about serving your nation.”
She began reading the dossiers in greater detail as the car merged smoothly onto the Capital Beltway.
FIVE
Washington, D.C. Monday, 8:29 A.M.
There was an unusual calm in the West Wing as Hood arrived.
The offices and corridors were never as busy as they were fictionalized on TV, people dashing here and there with purpose bordering on panic. But there seemed to be a bubble around Hood as he made his way through the security checkpoint and was greeted by the president’s assistant executive secretary. Eyes would come near him and then slide away, like sand off a beach ball.
Maybe it was his imagination. Or paranoia. In D.C., those were not hindrances; they were tools.
Hood was taken directly to the Oval Office, where Chief of Staff Lorraine Sanders was leaning over the desk, talking with the president. Debenport waved Hood in, and Sanders disappeared into an adjoining office. When she returned, she was followed by a man in a white jacket. He was wheeling a two-tiered brass cart into the room. The wheels squeaked loudly.
The president rose and offered Hood his hand. Debenport was a slope-shouldered man of average build. He had thinning straw-colored hair and a quick smile. He looked like a country pastor. His centrist views and unflappable nature made him a dramatic contrast to his predecessor, who was tall and dynamic—and had come close to a psychological breakdown from which Op-Center had rescued him. Hood and the NCMC had also been instrumental in helping Debenport get elected, fighting off a threat from corrupt third-party candidate Donald Orr. That battle had earned Op-Center the deadly EMP attack.
“It belonged to FDR,” the president said, nodding his chin at the cart. “I’m told the president wouldn’t let his staff oil the wheels. They made his own wheelchair seem quieter, more presidential.”
Hood believed it. On such details were image and power built.
“Sit,” the president said, gesturing toward a red leather armchair.
Hood did so. The president waited until Sanders sat before he did. With any other president that would have been a power move. The equation was, “The taller the figure, the greater his authority.” With the former South Carolina senator, it was simply good manners.
The president asked Hood about his children as coffee was poured and the tray of pastries was uncovered. More politeness, Hood suspected. Until the server was gone, they could not discuss national security matters. Hood told him that Harleigh and her younger brother Alexander were doing well.
“I can’t believe it’s been over two years since the United Nations siege,” Sanders remarked. She was a lean five-footer with a frowning and intense look. “I was deputy director of the State Department’s New York office at the time. We were working with the FBI to put a SWAT scuba team into the East River when you and General Rodgers ended the siege.”
“Mike was really the one who ended it,” Hood said. “I was just trying to get my daughter out.”
Hood’s voice choked as he spoke. He and Rodgers had been through a lot. He owed the general a lot. The men had not spoken for six months, ever since the general had become the head of the military-industrial firm Unexus, an international cooperative formed by Australian, British, Russian, and American interests.
The server left, and the door to the other room was shut. The president took a sip of tea and leaned forward.
“Paul, I asked you here because I need a favor,” Debenport said. “I need you to take on a project for me.”
The president had a talent for personalizing things. That made it difficult to refuse a task without insulting him.
“Mr. President, do you need Paul Hood or Op-Center?” Hood asked.
“I need you, Paul!” Debenport replied. His exuberant tone was the equivalent of a slap on the back. “I would like you to become special envoy to the president. The position entails international intelligence troubleshooting, unaffiliated with any group but with access to the resources of all of them. Your office would be down the hall from this one, and you would report directly to me through Ms. Sanders, not through the executive secretary.”
Hood thought the last six months had been a lot to process. This was complete information overload. Hood found himself with a lemon pastry in his hand. He did not remember reaching for it.
“Mr. President, I’m flattered,” was all Hood could think to say.
“Then you’re on board?” the president pressed.
“I’d like to think a bit, sir. This would be a big change.”
“I need someone now, Paul,” the president told him. “Someone I can rely on. I want it to be you.”
“What about Op-Center, sir?”
“No longer your concern,” the president replied bluntly.
“Excuse me, sir?”
“I have given the post to General Morgan Carrie, formerly of G2,” the president said, leaning forward. “Her commission is effective immediately.” Debenport spoke now with some of the steel Hood remembered from his days as chairman of the CIOC. The pastor was gone, replaced by a higher authority.
“You’re saying, Mr. President, that either I accept reassignment, or I’m fired,” Hood said.
“Not at all, Paul,” the president told him. “You can resign, effective as of eight-thirty A.M. this morning. You can say it was always part of your plan to get Op-Center on its f
eet and move on.”
“At the risk of belaboring something you want to see over and done, sir, are you saying you need me here, or are you saying you need me out of Op-Center?” Hood asked.
“Both. Paul, the military is not happy with some of the budget initiatives this administration is taking. I have to equal the ledger.”
“By giving them Op-Center?”
“In a word, yes.” The president leaned back. “You’re not a neophyte, Paul. You know that this is how things work. As for the new position, that’s my way of maintaining balance. I need someone who will continue to interact with Op-Center on a personal level and who will form close relationships with personnel at other intelligence agencies here and abroad.”
“You are saying, sir, that you want a personal intelligence officer.”
“Cabinet level without the title,” the president said. “And don’t look so glum, Paul. That’s a promotion.”
“I understand, sir. Doesn’t that interfere with the NSA and their mission?” Hood asked.
“You’ve met General Carew,” the president said. He looked at Sanders. “How did the vice president describe him?”
“He said the general has brass ballistics,” she replied.
“That’s right,” the president said. “And Vice President Perry ought to know. They served together in Vietnam. The point is, whatever Carew knows, the DoD will know.”
“That doesn’t answer my question, sir,” Hood said. “How will General Carew take my being here?”
“He will like it about as much as General Rodgers liked serving under a civilian,” the president replied. “But he will have to live with that. Your only contact with the general will be when you require information from the NSA. You will not be at their disposal.”
“I see. What about staff, sir?”
“We have budgeted two assistants, both off premises,” Lorraine Sanders replied. “We felt it best to have your telephones and computers located in a less trafficked area. We have assigned them space in the renovated basement of the Winder Building at 600 Seventeenth Street.”
“The U.S. trade rep has offices there,” Hood said.
“Correct.”
“But the basement,” Hood said. “Isn’t that also where they held prisoners during the Civil War?”
“As I said, it’s been renovated,” Sanders replied.
“Right.” Hood had gone from one basement to another. “Have you already hired the staff?”
“No,” Sanders replied. She smiled. “We want you to be comfortable with your associates.”
“This office will not be looking over your shoulder,” President Debenport assured him. “What do you say? I need my own intelligence resource, my own confidant. I need Paul Hood.”
Damn him, Hood thought. Damn the president for making something expedient sound desirable. And damn him for leaving Hood unemployed if he declined the offer. He had alimony and child support. Hood would not let indignation over the process affect his responsibilities.
“I accept the post,” Hood told him.
“Thank you,” the president replied, rising.
Debenport sounded sincere, which was something. It made Hood feel marginally better about having been shanghaied. Besides, the president was right. This was Washington, and Hood would have been lucky to make a lateral move, let alone enjoy an upkick in a new administration.
It still had not really hit him that he would not be returning to Op-Center, that the responsibility of running it—and the privilege—had been taken from his shoulders. Unlike the ending of his marriage, there was no sense of relief to counterbalance the sudden, encroaching emptiness.
Hood forced himself not to dwell on that. He had just accepted a new job. That was where his attention must go.
Hood and the chief of staff rose. Sanders told the new special envoy that she would show him to his office and come back around three, after she had arranged for help to organize and equip the Winder Building space. He thanked her while the president was still within earshot. Hood may have come from Los Angeles, but he had good manners as well.
As they walked down the corridor, the sense of avoidance Hood had felt earlier was gone. It had been replaced by a sense of courteous attention. Maybe it was all in his imagination, or maybe it was something palpable in his walk or his carriage, a stalwart if unconscious evidence of his new access to power.
Whatever it was, Hood resolved to ignore it. Yesterday he was the director of Op-Center. Today he was a special envoy to the president.
Tomorrow he could be indicted over a cheese Danish.
As they neared the area where the vice president had his small office, Hood felt one of his two cell phones vibrate. It was the one on his right hip, the secure STU-III unit he carried for Op-Center business. He slipped it from the loop on his belt and checked the number.
Hood replaced the phone without taking the call. He felt guilty about that, but it was the right thing to do.
Whatever Bob Herbert had to say would probably be better spoken—and heard—when it had cooled.
SIX
Durban, South Africa Monday, 3:10 P.M.
The Gold Coast of Africa is no longer the gold coast of Africa.
The honor of being one of the richest, most profitable, and fastest-growing regions on the continent has passed from western Africa along the Gulf of Guinea to the eastern coast of South Africa, with the city of Durban as the anchor. Because of the subtropical climate, with high temperatures and significant amounts of rainfall, the area has always been a perfect environment for growing. Beginning in the middle 1850s, thirty years after the British first established a major port there, significant sections of arable land were earmarked for sugarcane. The crop was easy to cultivate and export, much in demand, and produced significant profits.
Over a century and a half later, sugar continues to play a prominent part in South Africa’s agriculture, with Durban as the biggest sugar port in the world. Tourism has grown as well, with miles of beachfront having been developed into one of the most popular and celebrated vacation spots in the world. Along the Golden Mile, where summer lasts all year, the beautiful beaches are protected by shark nets, there are swimming pools with water slides, and there is an array of markets and merry-go-rounds, shopping centers, and world-class restaurants, nightclubs, and five-star hotels, all a few steps from the ocean.
Ever since the late nineteenth century, when a railroad was built to give inland regions access to the port, workers from the rest of the continent and from as far as India have come to work in the fields. Investors from other nations have come as well, creating an international mix unparalleled in most of Africa. Some of those individuals used the port and its resources to smuggle goods and receive cash. Men like the infamous drug lord Yakuba Balwon moved heroin through Durban, then laundered the money through the London-based Windsor Global Securities Bank. Others sold Rophy tablets, which was short for Rohypnol, an addictive relaxant that was most popularly used as a date rape drug.
Because of Durban’s multinational nature, and because it has been an economic lifeline to blacks and whites alike, the city has been spared much of the violent racial tension that devastated other regions. None of the local workers, black or white, lived as comfortably as the plantation owners, investors, or tourists, but there is always money in everyone’s pocket, and the end of apartheid, when it came, was peaceable. The only noticeable difference is the number of British and Afrikaner businessmen who are selling their interests in the port and portside concerns to financiers from India, Germany, France, and China.
Something that has not changed over the years are the sugar silos. Stuffed with raw brown sugar, they stand side by side in clusters across the landscape. Once made of brick and stone, the fifty-meter-tall towers are now constructed of aluminum and steel with a ceramic veneer to help control the temperature. They are connected at the top by enclosed bridges, which allow workers to move from one to the other with stampers, jackhammer-like devices w
ith round bottoms that are used to compress the contents. The silos are rated by tonnage, not volume. Even if they are full, there is usually room for more sugar.
The air smells sweet around the structures, like cotton candy. Despite the presence of inner and outer doors, large, rough granules spill from hatches and cover the ground and the raised walkways. Like ants, the sugar is nothing by itself. En masse, however, the power of these twenty-five-ton mountains is immense. The silos are akin to the revered seven pillars of wisdom of many local faiths. South Africans regard the towers as the sentries of prosperity. They ensure economic security for this area, its investors, and its workers.
The largest of the sugarcane repositories are located along the Maydon Wharf. The workers here, mostly from Kenya and Nigeria, have unusually strong legs, the result of having to forcibly lift their feet hard when they move along the sticky walkways. They work in ten-hour shifts, with a half hour for a brown-bag lunch and two other fifteen-minute breaks. Their job is to see that the raw sugar stems move from truck or train to processing plant to silo to freighter in a timely and efficient manner with as little spillage as possible.
Twenty-two-year-old native of Durban Moshood Azwe was not concerned about losing a little “sweet gold” here and there. The silos attracted flies, and the loose grains kept the insects low to the ground, away from his face. That made him a more efficient worker as he directed trucks to the elevators that carried the sugar to the tops of the silos. These dump trucks backed up to funnels, which had filters to catch cane or other debris the processing plant had missed.
There were few deliveries at this hour. Most were made in the morning, before the heat and dampness could affect the unsiloed sugar. Azwe was beginning to think about going to the João Tavern with his buddies when a dump truck arrived. It did not have a familiar logo from the de Gama Company or KwaZulu-Natal Shipping Associates, the firms that usually transported sugar to the silos. There was a loosely fitted tarpaulin stretched across the top of the truck to keep the sun off the cane. It would not be necessary to remove it. The flap in back would simply ride up on the sugar as it was dumped into the bin below.
