Cost of Honor

by Radclyffe

“As you know,” Sloan said, “we didn’t get a whole lot out of the Corvette ID other than Ford’s name.”

  Sandy’d been psyched when Rebecca had run the plates on the Corvette and come up with the name Matthew Ford. He hadn’t bothered to change the registration on his vehicle. Sounded like Basic Criminal Skills 101, but sometimes even the most experienced criminals made careless mistakes. Zealots like Ford and his crowd were often naïve and inexperienced, thinking themselves far more invisible than they actually were.

  Disappointingly, ID’ing Matthew Ford had been a dead end. He was like a couple million other twentysomething white men: college-educated at a third-tier conservative Christian school in Georgia, no criminal record, and no history of subversive activity or associations beyond the alt-right rally he’d attended. At least, none they’d been able to dig up.

  Sandy tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for Sloan to give her a thread to pull, a weak spot to poke at—something, anything—until she could shake something loose. Because she just knew there was something there, boiling under the surface, but she hadn’t seen a hint of the usual operations—no drugs, no large amounts of cash changing hands, no underage girls—or boys of dubious origin—suddenly making an appearance.

  Sloan must have sensed her nerves fraying, because she sent her a big grin. “But last night we finally found Ford’s real story on YouTube.”

  “YouTube?” Sandy blurted. “He’s got a YouTube channel? I can’t believe that. He’s too paranoid.”

  “You’re right, he is,” Sloan said, “but what he isn’t is internet savvy. He’s using an alias, but if you feed in enough keywords and cross-references, hit all the major platforms, and crawl through about a billion bytes of archived videos with a really vigorous search function, you can find him. He’s using the name Matthew Frank.”

  “Original,” Watts muttered.

  “Matthew Frank,” Sloan went on, “is into some serious white supremacist ideology. Hard-core. We’ve been able to track his viewing history back over eighteen months when the escalation of his posts and the extremism of what he was viewing really started to pick up.”

  “Associations?” Frye asked.

  “Plenty of them,” Jason put in, “and here’s what gets interesting. Sandy’s right about him being paranoid. In the last six months, he’s abandoned at least ten forums where he was previously a major player. He’s entirely eliminated his YouTube presence in the last three months. When he surfaced in New Jersey.”

  “Going undercover?” Rebecca asked.

  “That’s what it looks like,” Sloan said. “The pattern resembles what we see in geographic analysis when members of disparate cells converge. How organized or what their agenda might be, still unknown.”

  “Include everything we have and send it off to the national center,” Rebecca said to Sloan.

  “Already done.”

  “Of course.” Rebecca turned to Sandy. “Nothing?”

  “No,” Sandy said, frustration making her voice hard-edged. “I think the only way I’m gonna get anything is through Trish. I’m gonna have to push her harder.”

  “Cautiously,” Rebecca said pointedly. “You’re our only avenue in.”

  “Absolutely, always.” Sandy’s stomach tightened. Frye hadn’t pointed out they couldn’t give her close backup either. She didn’t have to. That didn’t matter anyhow. Her job was to find out if Matthew Ford and the people slowly assembling around him were dangerous, or if, like so many angry pseudomilitants, they burned hot with rhetoric and eventually flamed out. Most of the individuals and groups on the myriad domestic and international terrorism watch lists ended up that way, but they all had to be treated with serious respect because, as the Oklahoma City bombing, the torching of Southern Black churches, and the assaults on mosques and temples proved all too frequently, sometimes the rhetoric transformed into violent action.

  She’d be careful, as long as caution didn’t prevent her from getting the job done.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “Morning.” Blair slipped into the seat between her father and Lucinda at a table for six in the corner of the private dining room and kissed her father’s cheek. The adjacent tables were empty in a ring four tables deep around them, a subtle barrier providing as much privacy as they ever managed in public. Which was not much, but at least their conversation would be private. Like the president’s quarters on the tenth floor and any other area he was likely to visit, the room was sequestered from any kind of civilian traffic before, during, and immediately after his stay. The Secret Service agents stationed at each door checked the room at frequent intervals throughout the day and night, whether the room was in use or not, for listening devices, cameras, and explosives.

  A few tables at the far end of the room were occupied by members of the White House press corps, the elite group who actually traveled with the president to all his major appearances. These were the senior network and news agency reporters, most of whom had worked the White House beat for decades. They’d seen presidents come and go, witnessed parties in power change practically overnight, and been privy to all the internal power struggles, squabbles, and coups that were the lifeblood of politics. They stayed close to the president in the event of some breaking developments, but otherwise gave him and his family a respectful berth.

  Andrew was dressed in his meet-the-people garb of navy polo and khakis. With him, it wasn’t a publicity thing—he just liked to dress that way. Lucinda looked effortlessly stylish as usual in a mint green silk shirt, tailored taupe pants, and low heels a shade darker than the pants. Blair fell somewhere in between the two on the style spectrum in low-rise slim black pants, a red silk shirt, and—since she’d be accompanying her father most of the day, which meant half running to keep pace with him—black flats.

  “Hi, honey,” Andrew said. “Cam coming?”

  “No—she left at daybreak, I think. It might have been midnight. She texted me to say she was held up at a meeting.”

  Lucinda laughed. “I wish I could sleep the way you do.”

  “I need to conserve my strength,” Blair said, only half kidding.

  “How are you holding up?” Lucinda smiled and passed the coffee carafe to Blair.

  “Considering how close we are to the end of this particular road trip,” Blair said, “not bad at all. But I am more than ready to sleep in my own bed and not talk to a reporter as soon as we get this nomination sewn up.”

  “If we win,” her father said, “you’ll only have a little more than four more years of this.”

  Blair gave him a look. “I’m on board as long as you want, although once you two—you know—make it official, that could change.”

  Lucinda did something Blair had never seen her do before. She blushed. That was a side of her Blair rarely saw when they were in private, and that was a rare occurrence these days.

  “If…when…that happens,” Lucinda said, “I may have moved on from politics. Carnegie Mellon has offered me a place in their policy development department.”

  “That’s code for think tank, isn’t it?” Blair glanced at her father, who seemed happy with the possibility of Lucinda no longer serving as his most important advisor. “Wow, that would be great. And weird.”

  “Yes,” Lucinda said, “it would.”

  “We’ve got a lot of votes to count before we need to worry about any of that,” Andrew said. He tilted his chin toward the far door. “Looks like Cam made it after all.”

  “Oh?” Blair looked over her shoulder, pleased but surprised. Maybe Cam just wanted to grab breakfast, but Blair didn’t think so. Cam was not a spontaneous person. None of them were, really. Their days were too regimented, too scheduled, and the only disruptions to the schedules unfortunately consisted of earth-shattering emergencies, for real.

  Cam never revealed anything in her facial expression, and she didn’t now. Blair could usually read her body language, but all she sensed was intensity and purpose. And that was just Cam.

  “I�
��m sorry to interrupt breakfast, Mr. President”—Cam pulled out a chair at the table and sat down—“but I wanted to brief you personally, and I know you’re heading straight from here to tour the mill.”

  “You haven’t interrupted anything yet,” Andrew said. “They’re just about to serve. You can let them know what you want.”

  “Thanks, I’m good.”

  Blair reached over and squeezed Cam’s hand. “I didn’t hear you get up this morning.”

  “You were sleeping…soundly.” Cam briefly entwined their fingers before turning to the president. “I got a call from a contact at the CIA a little after six this morning. He wanted to brief me personally on some emerging intelligence.”

  “An early-morning call from the CIA is never good news,” Lucinda said, pouring herself a little more coffee.

  While she didn’t appear perturbed, Blair detected the ice in her tone. Lucinda did not like being out of the loop.

  “At this point,” Cam said, “he didn’t have enough to put in an official report, and I don’t think he wanted to. He has his own sources to protect.”

  Lucinda grimaced. “The Agency always does. But he obviously thought he had something, or he wouldn’t have reached out to you.”

  Blair read that as Lucinda’s way of saying she wouldn’t hunt out the source of Cam’s intel, at least not so anyone would notice. Lucinda would be an asset to any think tank in the nation, but she’d be better off just waiting to run for president when Andrew’s second term was up. The idea was exhilarating, and a tad terrifying.

  Cam fell silent as the White House servers brought in breakfast on a rolling cart, served the plates, and inquired of Cam if she wanted anything.

  “No, thanks,” Cam said, and the servers withdrew, leaving them in their circle of silence again.

  “All right,” Andrew said, calmly slicing into his avocado and eggs on toast, “let’s hear it.”

  “You’ll remember we received some soft intelligence several weeks ago, nothing very specific, that suggested one of your political rivals might be receiving assistance from outside sources.”

  “Foreign sources,” Lucinda said with a bite of distaste.

  Cam nodded.

  No one said anything else. No one had to. Cam had briefed them after Ari’s father had met with Cam and told her his sources, unnamed, had uncovered a trail leading from Eastern Europe into the inner circles of one of her father’s challengers. The trail was murky at best, but Cam had carefully tapped the lines of her own covert contacts. One had obviously borne fruit.

  “Does the name Farris Palmer ring any bells?” Cam said.

  “Yes, wait a minute,” Lucinda said, getting the distant look in her eyes she often got as she called up information from her voluminous encyclopedic memory. “He’s a journalist, of sorts, writes op-ed columns for the Post, conservative, not a friend of Andrew’s.”

  Blair added, “He’s gotten very popular in the last year or so. I don’t remember hearing much from him before that.”

  “That’s because Palmer is an alias,” Cam said.

  “Well, a lot of writers write under pseudonyms,” Blair pointed out. “Although I’ve never read anything about his original identity.”

  “His real name is Frank Plummer. He used to work on Anthony Russo’s campaign and was a big supporter of Graves’s freedom patriot party.”

  A crease formed between Lucinda’s brows. “He’s been on a watch list for years because of his white nationalist ties. How has he established this new profile?”

  Blair said, “You’re kidding. How could we not know this?”

  Cam shrugged. “Two different managing editors said almost the same thing—they took his bio at face value since the facts were verifiable. He’d been building the alias for some time—talk shows, articles, even a book.”

  “And now there’s evidence he’s attempting to influence the election with help from outside the country?”

  “That’s what Rostof suspected, and my contact agrees.”

  Andrew carefully folded his napkin and set it aside. “We already knew our friends in Moscow have an interest in our elections, and plenty of avenues to apply influence. That’s not the reason the CIA contacted you at six in the morning.”

  “No,” Cam said. “The real worry is Plummer’s previous connection to violent alt-right groups suspected of being behind hate crimes and other terrorist incidents.”

  “So what does that mean for us?” Blair asked. “Is there a potential threat?”

  “We don’t know. This could be a coincidence, or it could be part of a larger, more organized initiative. On my way down here, I got another report from a group in Philadelphia. They’ve been investigating some soft findings suggestive of an active alt-right group in the Philadelphia area.”

  “That’s pretty common in most major cities,” Lucinda said, “and unfortunately, more and more, campuses everywhere.”

  “Absolutely, but this one appears to be active and escalating. They only picked it up because they’ve got a couple of extremely sharp cyberinvestigators with some algorithmic programs that I would very much like to get a look at.”

  Blair laughed. “You mean unregistered programs?”

  “Something of their own development, yes,” Cam said.

  “What’s the bottom line here?” Andrew said.

  “There are too many threads, all leading to the same place,” Cam said, “and that’s Philadelphia. I’m heading up there ahead of your arrival to get a look at this operation and assess the information they have, but Tom needs to be alerted to an enhanced threat level. We have to expect some kind of action that may affect your agenda.”

  “What about your contact?” Lucinda said. “Are they going to move on Plummer? If he’s culpable of facilitating foreign interests in our electoral process, he’s vulnerable.”

  “Yes,” Cam said. “It’s a multijurisdictional nightmare, but I’ve suggested they move quickly. He may have information vital to the security of the president.” Cam rose. “Sorry. I need to go. I set up a briefing with Tom and his people and Ari Rostof to discuss potential changes to your itinerary.”

  “Oh, boy,” Blair said as she watched Cam thread her way between the tables, nod to the agent on the door, and disappear. “That’s a meeting I’m happy to miss.”

  “We can’t make substantial changes now,” Ari said. “The president is scheduled for major television network appearances as well as public appearances at fund-raisers and donor receptions. We have to be seen going in strong and coming out even stronger when he has the nomination.”

  Oakes glanced at Commander Roberts, who had just confirmed the increased threat level they’d be facing in Philadelphia. Ari wasn’t happy, and she was right from her point of view, considering her priorities. But her priorities were not essential or really even relevant. The president’s candidacy would be moot if they couldn’t protect him. As lead on the Philadelphia advance, the final call on all security matters, including where and when the president would ultimately engage with the public, would be hers. The president could override her, but no one else.

  Roberts and Tom Turner had tossed the ball into her court, and she’d just have to hit it back.

  “Your concerns are noted,” Oakes said, “and it’s possible we won’t have to adjust any of the president’s itinerary. However, the enhanced threat level means we’ll be reevaluating the agenda item by item and reconfiguring as needed.”

  “Reconfiguring,” Ari repeated. “That would be code for canceling?”

  The sarcasm was subtle, but Oakes was intimately familiar with Ari’s tone. Oh yeah. Not happy at all. She said, “In some instances that might be necessary, but we always try to work with the staffers.”

  Ari sighed. “Can I expect any immediate changes? We’ve finalized the network schedules already, and those will be the hardest to alter.”

  “Those would be the least likely to be affected.”

  “Donor receptions?”

 
Oakes sent what she hoped was a sympathetic grimace. “All instances in which he will be exposed to large groups of people will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.”

  “All right,” Ari said. “I’ll review our agenda with my staff and the president with that in mind. I’d rather reschedule some of those things now than cancel at the last moment.” She regarded Oakes steadily. “Any disruption at this point can shake the confidence of the voters—and the donors. I hope you’ll keep that in mind.”

  Oakes nodded. She couldn’t agree to something she might not be able to do, and Ari would know that.

  Commander Roberts stood. “Let’s keep ahead of this situation.”

  Tom and the others followed Roberts out of the conference room, until only Oakes and Ari remained.

  “And that,” Ari said dryly, “is what you and I had hoped wouldn’t happen.”

  Oakes shook her head. “Nah. I knew it would happen—it always does, sometimes in a big way, sometimes not so much.”

  “You could have warned me,” Ari said grumpily.

  Having the good sense not to laugh, Oakes just shook her head. “I don’t see how, since I’m just hearing the details now.”

  Ari sighed. “That makes it hard for me to be angry. I need a bad guy to focus my frustration on.”

  “I’d rather you be mad at me,” Oakes said, “because if there’s a real bad guy in this picture, we’ve got more than just a potential threat.”

  “I know you’re right.” Ari took Oakes’s hand. “And I don’t want you in any kind of danger. But damn—I don’t want you messing with my campaign plans.”

  Oakes lifted Ari’s hand and rubbed her cheek against it. “I’ll do what I can. Trust me.”

  Ari linked their fingers. “I do.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The Oasis

  Philadelphia

  Game Day minus 33 hours

  11:10 p.m.

  “Hey,” Sandy said, plopping into the chair next to Trish at their usual table in the corner. Funny how that had gotten to be their place. She’d been meeting her there several times a week, sometimes ending up at the apartment where Matt and the weird group of people would be gathered, talking among themselves in twos and threes, with Matt passing between them, saying a few words, and then everyone would disperse. No one gave Sandy much of a look after the first few times. A friend of Trish’s seemed to be enough of a credential.