Beloved Enemy (3 page)

He touched her back to gain her attention, gestured her forward. The tunnel ran for perhaps three hundred yards, before making a dogleg to the right. This section sloped upward. At its terminus was a short vertical metal ladder.

Squeezing past Nona, Jack led the way up, pausing long enough to unscrew a heavy metal grate. When it was free, he pushed it aside. The sounds of speeding traffic came to them as they emerged in a section of filthy trees and underbrush on the far side of an expressway.

Nona looked around for a moment, getting her bearings. Then she nodded. “This way.”

Risking a glance behind him, Jack saw light from his house streaming through the trees. People were inside. A siren wailed, approaching.

“Come on,” Nona urged, pulling him along.

He saw her on her mobile, speaking tersely, before pocketing it. Her service pistol was in her right hand, and this alarmed him all the more. More sirens, more lights—some red now—behind them, until they turned down a side street.

An enormous black SUV without any ID idled, waiting for them. Nona bundled him into the passenger’s seat, climbed in behind the wheel, and took off.

“Nona,” Jack said, “what the hell is going on?”

She turned to him, her beautiful chocolate-brown face shining with the sweat of effort of their narrow escape. “Secretary Paull is dead,” she said. “And the feds are convinced you killed him.”

T
WO

“T
HIS IS
a tragedy of the highest order.” President Arlen Crawford looked at each of the five grim-faced men seated around the table in his bunker-like situation room. He was a big, rangy, sun-scarred Texan, a veteran of political wars on both the state and national levels. He had been vice president during the previous short-lived administration, had survived a Senate debate, and had now been elected president in his own right. “The secretary of homeland security is shot in the middle of the nation’s capital.”

“In his own home, no less,” said Kinkaid Marshall, the director of the newly minted DCS, as he stared directly at Henry Dickinson, the acting director of homeland security. The Defense Clandestine Services was formed from the old DIA. Its mission was to beef up the U.S. intelligence presence in Africa, parts of Asia, and other Al Qaeda hotspots.

“Maybe I misheard you; I certainly hope I misheard you,” Dickinson said. “Are you insinuating this is my fault?” He was quite naturally on edge; though Paull had named him to director, the president had yet to sign off on the promotion.

“I’m saying Dennis Paull was your boss. I’m saying that it was your duty to protect him. I’m saying you failed.”

The antipathy between the two men was well known, stemming from Marshall’s objection to Dennis Paull promoting Dickinson when Paull was bumped up to HS secretary by President Crawford. Marshall was a battle-hardened Army general of no little merit, the kind of ex-military officer who saw life as a constant battle between the public and the private sectors, in other words, between those who “knew how things worked,” as he was wont to say, and those who didn’t. To him, those outside the military command structure were basically dumb and uninformed. Overlords, such as he, were needed to save the private sector from its own stupidity. He was blind to the irony of his mission—how the very act of keeping secrets kept civilians uninformed.

“Dennis had adequate protection,” Dickinson protested. “No one could have known, let alone guessed, that he and his security detail would be shot to death by his own man, Jack McClure.”

“You should have known, Dicky.” The nasty edge to Marshall’s voice became razor-sharp. “It was your job to know these things.”

Tim Malone, director of the FBI, stirred uneasily as he turned to address G. Robert Krofft, director of the CIA. “Speaking of ‘should have known,’ I can’t for the life of me fathom what your boys were doing at Dennis Paull’s house,” he said.

“When the director of DHS gets shot by one of his own men,” Krofft said frostily, “it’s bound to be a matter of national security. And if the killer was directed by forces outside the United States—”

“That’s a mighty big ‘if,’” the president said.

“And in the meantime, you’re getting your shit all over my jurisdiction,” Malone said, his tone frosty. “Back off. If and when you’re needed—”

“By that time, every trail is bound to be cold.”

“Well, it’s a good thing my men got there first because they found
this
.”

He spun a dossier across the table. Everyone stared at it as if he had loosed a viper into their midst. Krofft shot him a venomous look.

William Rogers, the national security advisor, spoke up. “What the hell is that, Tim?”

Leaning forward, Malone flipped open the dossier. “It’s one of Paull’s personal files. We found it hidden under one of the locked drawers.” Malone paused to take a breath, but also, one supposed, to underscore the importance of his find. “Gentlemen, there’s a mole high up inside our government. Paull believed—and here we have his documented proof—that vital intel is being leaked to the Syrian.”

A terrible silence reigned in the room for some time. Faces pinched and ashen looked from one to the other.

Krofft cleared his throat. “Does the dossier point a finger at the mole?”

“Not in so many words,” Malone said. “But Jack McClure’s prints are all over Paull’s office. He was there; surely the last one to see him alive.”

“McClure’s gun was found in a Dumpster,” Dickinson said. “Five blocks west of Dennis’s house.”

“Fingerprints?” Rogers asked.

“His,” Dickinson said. “His alone.”

“And there we have it,” Krofft said. “McClure was the one who murdered him. His boss was getting too close to the truth.”

“It would seem that way.” Rogers nodded. “McClure tried to find the incriminating dossier, but an alarm was sounded when Paull’s detail didn’t check in. He was forced to flee without it.”

“We now have our man,” Krofft said, “and our mission, which is urgent. Mr. President, if we don’t get our act together pronto, we’re all going to have egg on our faces.” He was acutely aware of Crawford’s obsessive desire to keep his name unsullied by even the most inconsequential controversy. If the murder of the secretary of homeland security by his own subordinate’s hand became common knowledge, a firestorm of disastrous proportions would erupt, engulfing them all.

But the president said nothing. His gaze seemed to be fixed at a point just above and to the right of Krofft’s head. The antipathy between the two men was well known. Krofft vehemently objected to the administration bringing troops home from hot spots overseas, arguing that the United States would be perceived as going soft, as ceding control to rising military stars like China.

Dickinson, uncomfortable with yet another silence, looked around the surprisingly small room, which lay three levels below the West Wing of the White House. “Have you a suggestion, Bill?” Rogers was a former diplomat and Rhodes scholar. Everyone listened to his suggestions, even the notoriously feisty Marshall.

“I agree with Krofft.” Rogers spread his hands on the brushed steel tabletop. “The very first thing we need is containment. Not a word of the cause of Dennis’s death is to be leaked to the press.”

“We can hardly hide his sudden death,” Crawford said truculently. “This isn’t Moscow or Havana, for God’s sake.”

“Of course not, Mr. President. Nothing could be further from my mind,” Rogers replied in his calm, even-toned voice. “However, I do think we would be best served by promoting the story that the secretary of homeland security died in his home of a massive myocardial infarction.”

“Excellent suggestion.” Malone nodded. “
Containment
is priority one; Bill is correct about that,” Malone said. “But
job one
is finding McClure, interrogating him, and then dispensing with him as quickly and quietly as we can.” He was a man who looked like a field hockey player—big and meaty, with quick eyes and quicker hands. Judging solely from his appearance, it was difficult to imagine him sitting behind a desk all day. Those quick eyes swept the room, gauging each man’s willingness to listen and to agree.

“The sea must swallow McClure up without so much as a ripple,” Krofft said, continuing the thought. “The matter of Secretary Paull’s death must be put to rest as swiftly and efficaciously as possible. Any attempt at an investigation beyond what has already been conducted is sure to leak to the press, and that we cannot afford.”

“A valid point,” Rogers said, already turned to the president. “What’s your take, sir?”

Rogers knew Crawford liked to have the last word in his briefings and did not take kindly to anyone trying to add to the agenda, or, as he thought of it, upstaging him.

“Makes sense to me, absolutely,” the president said, addressing Rogers. “The sooner we get the shit on our doorstep cleaned, the better.” He looked around the room. “If there aren’t any more points anyone would like to make.”

Yet another significant silence filled the room to overflowing, making it difficult to breathe. The president nodded in the most decisive manner, and picked up an internal phone. “Get Alix in here ASAP,” he barked. Alix Ross was his press secretary. He listened for a moment to the voice on the other end of the line, then interrupted peremptorily, “I don’t care how high a fever she has, get her the hell over here now!”

*   *   *

“Dennis is dead?” Jack looked lost and bewildered. “But I was in his house with him just hours ago.”

“I know,” Nona said. “Your fingerprints are all over a glass of whiskey in the living room.” She hadn’t taken her eyes off him since they had scrambled into the SUV, which was now speeding along the highway to Dulles International Airport. “They’re also all over the Glock 9mm used to shoot Paull and the members of his security detail.”

Jack opened his mouth to say something, but his mind was too jammed up.

“I have to know,” Nona said. “Is your gun in your possession?”

Jack shook his head.

“Do you know where it is?”

Jack could feel the itch of sweat at his hairline. “It should have been in the night table drawer at my bedside.”

“But it wasn’t there.”

“I went to get it when I heard you downstairs.”

“Jack!”

He shook his head. “It’s missing.”

“Not anymore,” Nona said. “Nine will get you ten it’s the murder weapon.”

“Now I know why…” He ducked his head briefly. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

“I owe you, Jack. Plus my gut tells me you didn’t kill Paull—you couldn’t have. It’s not in you. Sadly, what I think doesn’t matter. At the moment, you’re screwed six ways from Sunday. And with Dennis dead, you’re out of powerful friends.”

“Yeah, I was never very good at that.”

“Whoever set you up has done a bang-up job of it. He’s a real professional. Any idea who it might be?”

In fact, Jack had a strong suspicion it was the Syrian’s mole. Being high up in the U.S. government would give him both the juice and the means to steal Jack’s Glock and to get into Dennis’s house. Maybe he had even presented himself to the security detail, which would account for them being killed, as well as Paull.

“Jack?”

He let out a long-held breath. “Nona, there’s a mole inside the government.”

“How high up?”

“Very high. Dennis asked me to the late-night meeting outside the office to tell me about his suspicions. He wanted me to find the mole.”

“Well, that’s going to be impossible now.”

“Good for the mole; bad for me.” The thought of other people—most notably the mole—being privy to Pyotr Legere, Dennis’s contact, sent a chill through him. Legere might be the only person on earth who could save him. If Jack could obtain evidence of his treachery, he had a shot at clearing himself.

“By the time I got there,” Nona said, “the place was crawling with feds.”

“Homeland security?”

“They showed up later. FBI suits were the first on the scene, but there was also a CIA presence. I didn’t see much more than I told you. They elbowed me out of the way, like feds always do with Metro. I wouldn’t have been there at all but the commish has given me full leeway. He’s part of the mayor’s weekly poker game, so even the feds have to tread lightly with him.”

“Did you get a look at Dennis’s desk?”

“Sure. The whole crime scene.”

“Wait a minute. Dennis was found in his study?”

“Shot there, yeah. Why?”

“When I left he wasn’t there. I assumed he’d gone up to bed.”

She frowned. “Well, he sure as hell was shot and died in the study. I saw the body. No way had he been killed elsewhere and dragged there.”

“The desk?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I saw it—there was nothing on it—nothing at all.”

Someone has the dossier,
Jack thought,
and if he finds Legere first, I’m a dead man.

At this moment, Nona drew up in front of a small detached house. “The first thing I have to do is find you a way out of here.” She put the SUV in park and got out. “Hang tight. I’ll be right back.”

Ten minutes later, she had returned with a large square leather bag. She fished out a packet and she handed it to him. Upon opening it, he found a sizable amount of money in dollars and Euros, as short list of names, a passport in the name of Edward Griffiths, and an official photo ID.

“That money should hold you for a while,” Nona said. “The names on that list are all reliable, all specialists. Call them if you need their expertise.”

Jack flipped open the ID, then looked up at her, stunned. “Edward Griffiths is an Interpol agent? How did a Metro police officer get all this?”

She laughed. “You’d be surprised at who I know. Lots of people here and there, and they all owe me. This guy—let’s call him Willie—got your photo off the Web and adapted it for the passport.”

“He must be some kind of genius,” Jack said, “what with all the antiforgery additions governments have layered on passport pages.”

“He can do anything,” Nona said. “Trust me, that document will hold up even under FBI scrutiny.”

“The Interpol ID, as well?”

“You’ll have to be careful with that.”