The FBI director says, “Absolutely right, Mr. President.”
President Barnes says, “Explain what that phrase means, please,” and her husband and chief of staff adds in deference, “Just to ensure we’re all on the same page.”
Director Blair says, “Walking back the cat means that now that we know who’s behind Mel Keating’s kidnapping and he’s supplied us with a photo, we can reexamine message traffic, photos, border crossings. Pick up his trail. Find out who his associates are and where they’re located. Start running down leads. Mr. President, Madam President, this is very good news.”
There’s a murmur of voices and Director Blair says, “Mr. President, I need to ask you and your wife some questions.”
Samantha nods and I say, “Go.”
“Have either of you received threatening notes or phone calls recently?”
“No,” I say.
“No,” my wife says.
“Any unexpected visitors or strangers at your lakefront home?”
“No,” I say.
Director Blair is about to resume speaking when I say, “Ask the same question of my wife.”
“Sir?”
In a bleak voice, Samantha says, “For the past few months, I’ve been in Hitchcock, Maine, conducting an archaeological dig. No one’s bothered me, there’ve been no threatening notes or emails, and no unexpected visitors.”
I can feel her trembling.
Director Blair says, “If I may, Madam President, I need to get back to my offices. We’re setting up a task force there and at our field office in Manchester.”
“Director, whatever you need, whenever you need it, you call me and you’ll get it,” Barnes says.
The FBI director starts moving away from the couches, joined by a quiet Secretary Charles, and I say, “What about your daily brief, Madam President?”
She stares right at me, her gaze hard and cold, just like it was the day in this very office when she told me she was going to challenge me in our party’s primaries.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Matt.”
I try to be cautious, stepping through this minefield. I’ve just embarrassed the leader of the free world in front of others, and that’s just not acceptable.
“I received word this morning that the daily brief was going to contain information about an increase in terrorist chatter, indicating an attack was in the planning stages,” I say. “An attack against me.”
Barnes’s husband and chief of staff doesn’t hesitate for a moment. “Who told you that?”
I say, “At this point, Richard, that doesn’t matter, does it? What matters is that the intelligence agencies received indications of an attack upon me. That should be something that Director Blair is made aware of.”
The president says, “Agreed. I’ll make sure it happens.”
Director Blair says, “Thank you, ma’am,” and heads to the door, followed by Secretary Charles, Lydia Wang, and Felicia Taft, holding the laptop. Then a voice surprises me, and I think it surprises everyone in the room.
“You fools,” my wife, Samantha, says. “It’s staring you right in your collective faces, and you can’t see it. Every one of you is wrong, including you, Matt.”
I’m struck by her sharp words and know enough from experience to keep my mouth shut.
But Chief of Staff Richard Barnes never learned the lesson.
“What the hell do you mean, wrong?” he demands, hands on the back of the couch where his wife is sitting. “What can you possibly see that no one else can?”
A few times I’ve sat in on Samantha’s classes, and I observed that there’s a color to her face and a set to her jaw when she’s about to cut someone off at the knees.
Like now.
“Everything, you damn fool,” she says, strong voice not wavering. “You’re all looking at this like it’s some goddamn standard terrorist kidnapping with a standard terrorist demand.” She takes a breath. “Idiots. Asim isn’t making demands of the United States government. Replay the message. Asim is making demands of Mel Keating’s dad. He’s putting incredible pressure on my husband because he wants to make Matt suffer, he wants Matt to overthink, and most of all he wants Matt to be fearful. He wants to give Matt a taste of what it’s like, knowing you’re powerless to defend your family.”
The Oval Office is silent, and even Director Blair and Secretary Charles have halted mid-stride across the light yellow carpet with the president’s seal in the center; they’re paying attention to my wife.
Samantha looks around at each and every one and says, “He wants Matt to be afraid. Not just afraid of what Asim might do to”—Samantha’s voice breaks for a moment—“our daughter. No, he wants Matt to also be afraid of his government, the people he now has to trust explicitly to fulfill these demands to get Mel released. Matt is no longer the president. He has no power, no authority. So my question to all of you fine people in this room…Should Matt be afraid of you as well?”
Chapter
41
Monmouth, New Hampshire
Less than a half hour after the hostage tape for Mel Keating was released, Officer Corinne Bradford finds her boss sitting in a booth at his second office, Karl’s Diner. His long legs extend to the middle of the tiled floor, and as Corinne approaches him, she sees that he’s holding court with two older women and an older man. The three booth mates are Monmouth old-timers and are, respectively, a selectman, a planning board member, and a stringer who writes copy for the statewide Union Leader and a couple of local weeklies.
They smirk and smile as Corinne gets closer, and she briefly wonders what kind of stories about her Chief Grambler passes along to the townies, because folks from away are always good fun for those who can trace their families back to the first settlers who reached this valley in 1785.
One of the women stands up, taking one big messy slurp from her coffee, and says, “Chief, looks like Corinne’s pretty hair is on fire. Guess we’ll leave her be with you.”
There are murmurs of “Thanks” and “See you later,” and Corinne sits down across from the chief. “Hungry?” he says.
“No, not really, Chief,” she says. “I found out—”
“Coffee?” he asks. “There’s always room for some caffeine. Mary! A fresh mug over here, okay?”
Corinne grimaces, again hating those Massachusetts State Police officers who screwed the pooch so hard that it propelled her here to a job with a third more hours and half of her pay and working for a chief who thinks progress in policing ended in 1932.
“Chief, did you hear the news about the ransom message for Mel Keating?”
“Damn,” he says, glancing back at the television hanging from the stained ceiling over the lunch counter, always turned to Fox News. “All I’ve heard about the last hour is about that bug-eyed little brat. A day from now, you’ll see that it’s all been a setup. A hoax.” A fresh cup of coffee is placed before him by a teen waitress, her pregnant belly nearly bursting the buttons on her pink uniform.
Chief Grambler takes a sip, nods in pleased satisfaction, and says, “In other words, fake news.”
Any other time, Corinne would shoot back at the chief’s ignorance, but this isn’t any other time. She pulls out her iPhone, flips through a couple of screens, and rotates it in front of his red fleshy face. “See?” Corinne asks. “That’s the photo of Mel Keating that her kidnapper released today, her holding the current USA Today. And before that was announced, I was over at Yvonne Clarkson’s house, just like you wanted. And she told me that early this morning, her USA Today was taken from her newspaper delivery tube by a guy driving an Escalade.”
The chief takes another sip of coffee, looking bored. “Dear me.”
“Chief, don’t you see it? There’s a nationwide BOLO out for a black Escalade, and the guy who steals Yvonne’s newspaper, he was driving an Escalade!”
“Gosh, Corinne, that sure sounds like what we in law enforcement circles call a clue,” he says cheerfully, an
d then his mood changes. “So what? You start working this, going down this rabbit hole, putting in for OT while ignoring your real duties, how would that look to the selectmen? And you think anybody from the Feds is gonna step up to compensate the town?”
“But Chief, at least we could—”
A firm shake of the head, another sip from his coffee. “And no, you’re not going over my head to call the FBI or the Secret Service. They always ignore us or call us rubes when we look for their help. Screw ’em.”
Corinne’s face feels as though it’s burning, and she’s hoping no one in the near booths can see or sense her humiliation.
“But this is what you can do, and what you’re gonna do,” he says. “Get in your cruiser and go park at the old Esso station lot just off Exit 16. Lots of flatlander reporters and Feds are screaming up I-89 to get to this part of the world. Run radar. Nice chance to grab some ticket revenue and make me, the selectmen, and the taxpayers happy. Got it?”
Corinne doesn’t bother to argue, knowing that this thick piece of granite sitting across from her won’t change his mind.
“Yes, Chief,” she says.
“Good,” he says. “About time you got some more real police work under that wide belt of yours.”
Later that day, after driving past Yvonne Clarkson’s house and the Huntsmen trailhead a few times, Corinne Bradford is driving along the Upper Valley Road, keeping an eye on things, knowing she’s about fifteen miles away from Exit 16 and not really giving a shit.
Here the Upper Valley Road merges onto Route 113, and up ahead is what locally is considered urban sprawl: a McDonald’s, a Burger King, an Irving gas station, and a Citizens Bank branch, with a drive-up window parallel to the road.
Corinne makes a sudden decision and pulls into the bank parking lot.
Nine minutes later she’s in the office of Jackie Lynch, the branch manager, who’s sitting at her desk while the two of them watch CCTV footage from the bank’s drive-up window.
Jackie is slim and hard-faced, with closely cropped blond hair. Each of her ears bears about a half dozen small earrings, and she’s wearing a charcoal-gray suit. She rubs on the surface of her shiny desk with one hand and says, “You know, I’m really putting my job on the line here by not going through the proper channels and having you come back with a warrant.”
Corinne says, “I know, Jackie, and it’s all on me. The department appreciates your cooperation. But I’m running down a tip concerning the kidnapping of Mel Keating. Time is of the essence.”
“Well…I guess that makes it all right.”
Corinne is staring at the black-and-white images of the drive-up window, seeing a Volkswagen Beetle pull up, the drawer slide out, an English springer spaniel crawling over the male driver’s lap, seeking a treat and—
She’s ignoring all that.
Looking at the road.
Not much traffic.
A white van speeds by.
A yellow school bus.
Quiet.
Pickup truck, followed by another pickup truck, and—
Corinne nearly shouts, “Stop the recording, right there. Now!”
Jackie’s fingers hit the keyboard.
Freezing in place a black Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows passing by.
She checks the time.
Assuming the newspaper was stolen by the men in the Escalade, they headed north to Huntsmen Trail, kidnapped Mel Keating, and now—newspaper and Mel in their SUV—they continued north.
The timing makes sense.
Corinne’s heart seems to seize up with excitement.
“Jackie,” she says, “can you print this screenshot out for me?”
Jackie’s fingers move again on the keyboard. “Is this something, Officer Bradford?”
Corinne says, “I think so. I certainly think so.”
Chapter
42
Chinatown
New York, New York
Jiang Lijun of the Ministry of State Security, who has been officially accredited with his government’s mission to the United Nations, is sitting on a bench in Columbus Park off Mulberry Street. Next to him is a heavyset and sweating associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Jiang is in the process of destroying this pathetic man’s life and enjoying every minute of it.
Jiang’s wife, Zhen, has a distant cousin who is a performer with the Chinese Acrobatic Theater, and Jiang has always been fascinated with the man’s expertise on a tightrope. Although he would never say it aloud to Zhen, Jiang has always thought the two of them—Jiang and her cousin—were similar in their professions: walking carefully high in the air, balancing themselves against abrupt changes or gusts of wind.
And that’s what Jiang is doing at this moment: walking high in the air, with no safety net. His meet with this large man is supposed to be a negotiation about him passing along information about his classmates during his future attendance at the FBI’s National Academy.
But Jiang is taking a gamble, squeezing this man, going further than his precise instructions. Maneuvering and working one’s way at the ministry takes an iron will and the resolve to gamble at the right time, and in the sunlight in this small New York park, Jiang knows it’s time.
The associate professor of law, police science, and criminal justice administration used to be a deputy police commissioner in New York, and he wrings his large hands together again, his thin brown hair damp with sweat and pasted to his large forehead, his oversize tan suit ill-fitting.
“It was an accident, that’s all,” he says for the fifth time. “After I broke my ankle, I just couldn’t stand the pain…and with the opioid crackdown…I didn’t mean for it to get out of hand.”
Jiang gingerly pats the man’s strong shoulder, feeling as though he’s petting a dumb ox, and says, “Of course you didn’t want it to get this far. But you paid big money for other sources, illegal sources. To the point of nearly one hundred thousand dollars. One hundred thousand dollars you embezzled from those Department of Justice grants you received.”
The associate professor groans and says, “Please, please stop reminding me.”
That’s my job, you fool, Jiang thinks. He says, “But you’ve agreed to my proposition, right? We arrange for you to confidentially receive funds so you can make amends, and you can blame the temporary funding gap on an accounting error. In exchange, when you attend the FBI academy in Quantico, Virginia, this fall and get briefed on that new software program called MOGUL, you’ll pass on all of that information to me or an associate. And my superiors in Taipei will be very grateful.”
The former NYPD cop looks up at him, tears in his eyes. “But why can’t you get that information through regular channels?”
Jiang smiles. The stupid fool next to him thinks Jiang is an intelligence operative with that damn breakaway province, Taiwan. Which is why he always meets his contacts in Chinatown: even though all deny it, to the officials of the CIA and FBI and the NYPD counterterrorism division, all Chinese look the same.
Even to this former NYPD cop.
Jiang says, “Beijing has a hold on this nation and the UN and so many of its states. We’re small, only miles away from millions of Communists, and we must do what we can to protect ourselves. You do understand, right?”
A slow nod. “Yeah. I do. My granddad, he lost a foot at the Chosin Reservoir, fighting off those damn Chicoms. I understand real well.”
Such understanding. Jiang’s uncle Bohai is a commander with the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing and a student of Daosim, and when Jiang was younger, Bohai taught him the teachings from Sage Emperor Guan’s Book of Enlightenment. For one, “It is through filial piety, sibling harmony, dedication, trustworthiness, propriety, sacrifice, honor, and sense of shame that we become fully human.”
This blubbering man next to him, once a prominent police official for this city of more than eight million, definitely never learned the subjects of propriety, honor, or even trustworthiness.
&
nbsp; Which is why Jiang has found it so easy to control him.
For he is not fully human.
Another pat to this ox’s shoulder as Jiang’s iPhone vibrates in his jacket pocket. Jiang stands up and says, “I’ll be in contact with you at the right time. In the meantime…you’re a smart man. I don’t need to explain to you what will happen if you back out of our agreement. Right?”
He starts to say, “But it was all a mistake, I didn’t mean to…”
But Jiang is strolling away from the pathetic man, checking the text on his iPhone, seeing the simple message.
PLEASE DON’T BE LATE FOR LUNCH
He quickens his steps.
To get from Columbus Park to the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations, located on East 35th Street, is normally only a fifteen-minute taxi ride, but it takes Jiang nearly an hour to get there due to the various bits of tradecraft he uses known as the SDR (surveillance detection route). During those nearly sixty minutes spent traveling to East 35th Street, he has shed his jacket, put on a baseball cap with a long bill, and wiped off some makeup that darkened his face.
Now he is in the basement office of his superior, Li Baodong, in a concrete cube with no windows and no outlets that would allow any sort of entry from any intelligence agency or corporate security service looking to gain information. The room is warm and carpeted, with fake plants, locked filing cabinets, and Li, who is well over 250 pounds and seems to thrive in this environment.
He wears a white shirt—sweated through at the armpits—a red necktie, and black trousers, and his chubby face is plump and full, highlighted by slicked-back black hair and gold-rimmed glasses.
Among the other intelligence personnel at the mission, Li is known as Pàng mógū—fat mushroom—because of how much he thrives in the basement, but his fat and happy face conceals a razor-sharp mind and attitude that has sent several underperforming intelligence officers to exile in Chad or upper Canada.
The President's Daughter Page 14
