The second thing that was unusual was that when the United States government did deem it necessary to eliminate a foreign politician, we tried our best to get foreigners to do the killing. Castro was the best example Dillon could think of: three U.S. presidents were obsessed with the idea of removing Fidel from the planet: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. And while these presidents approved the expenditure of millions of dollars and countless schemes to do away with Fidel, they never sent in a U.S. Army sharpshooter to bump the man off. And the reason these presidents never authorized an official military operation to execute Castro had little to do with morality or legislation. It was instead that most presidents thought it might set a poor example to achieve regime change in this manner; other countries might be inclined to imitate the practice.
In 2006, Charles decided he had to do something to slow the pace at which the Iranians were developing nuclear weapons. He knew they’d eventually become a nuclear power, but he wanted to delay that as long as possible and he could see the U.N. sanctions and all the other diplomatic nonsense weren’t working. At the time, the Iranian weapons program was being steered by a brilliant Iranian physicist who’d been trained in the United States. We used a roadside bomb to take him out, and the killing was eventually traced back to a dissident in Iran. The dissident was later executed by the Iranian government.
That same year, we killed the deputy director of the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service, because he was selling information to the Taliban….
Breed went on to describe the assassinations of several other men, all foreigners, most with links to terrorist organizations, but some who were senior politicians or businessmen who were aggressively, dangerously, anti-American. The men who assisted Breed on these missions were selected from the sentinels who guard the Tomb of the Unknowns.
But Breed wasn’t finished with his revelations.
There’s another man like me. I’ve never met him and I don’t know his name, but I know he exists. For security reasons, Charles kept us apart. He used him for some foreign missions when I wasn’t available and to deal with American citizens that he considered to be traitors.
There was a long interruption when Breed started coughing, then choking. He sounded extremely weak when he resumed, as if he might not have the strength to finish the recording.
The U.S. operations were different from the ones overseas. Deaths were always made to appear to be accidents: car accidents, fires, illnesses actually caused by poison. Sometimes people simply disappeared. The only one I know about for sure involved a journalist named Moore who had obtained information about a covert operation in China. Charles considered Moore a traitor, and I agreed, because if Moore had published his story it would have endangered Chinese operatives the DIA had recruited.
As Dillon listened to Martin Breed talk about the things he had done for Charles Bradford, he wondered why Breed had turned against Bradford in the end. It sounded as if Breed always concurred with his superior’s decisions. As in the case of the American journalist: Breed clearly agreed the journalist was a traitor. Then Breed’s own voice gave Dillon the answer, or at least a partial one.
Six months ago, right before I was diagnosed with cancer, we killed a man named Piccard. Piccard worked for a French defense contractor and Charles learned he was meeting secretly with buyers from North Korea, Iran, and a couple of South American countries. The French government said they were aware of Piccard and would stop any sales he tried to make, but Charles didn’t believe the French. He never believed the French. I tried to convince Charles that killing Piccard was unnecessary and we should let either the U.S. State Department or the French deal with him, but Charles insisted that I proceed. But I screwed up, Thomas. I screwed up terribly. We killed Piccard with a car bomb—but we also killed his twelve-year-old daughter. She wasn’t supposed to have been with him that day. When I heard about the girl, I was absolutely sick. But that wasn’t the worst of it. After Piccard was dead, we found out that he had been acting in concert with French intelligence. He was only pretending to negotiate with these buyers because by doing so he was giving the intelligence guys a better idea of the enemy’s capabilities and the players involved. If Charles hadn’t acted on his own, we might have discovered this, and we never would have killed Piccard or his daughter.
That was the last thing I did for Charles Bradford. Thomas, I don’t have the strength to tell you about all the soul-searching I’ve been through. I don’t have the strength or the time. I don’t regret most of the things I did for Charles, but he’s becoming more aggressive, more impatient. He’s not giving the government sufficient time to deal with problems before he takes action, and I’m afraid he’s going to make more mistakes like he did with Piccard.
I met with Charles two days ago and told him he had to resign before I died. I felt I had to give him the opportunity. I still admire him and I don’t want to see him disgraced, but I told him if he didn’t resign he’d be exposed. The truth is, I don’t want to expose him, because I sincerely believe that doing so would be bad for the country. I also don’t want him exposed for frankly selfish reasons. I don’t want my wife and girls to know what I’ve done. Thomas, I know you have the courage to stop him and if you must go public with this information, so be it, but I’m hoping you won’t. And God forgive me for what I’ve done.
When the recording finished, Dillon just sat there, rubbing his chin, looking at the Picasso on the wall as if waiting for Pablo to comment.
“So what do we do with this?” Claire said.
Dillon looked away from the painting. “I don’t know, but I agree with General Breed. It’s not in the nation’s best interest to go public with this information. Even though Bradford may have acted on his own, the fact that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in collusion with another American general, took it upon himself to kill a number of prestigious foreigners is not something we want the world to know.”
“So what do we do?” Claire asked again.
“I’ve been in meetings with Charles Bradford a number of times. He’s arrogant, caustic, impatient, ruthless—and brilliant. After Saddam Hussein was overthrown, he wanted to do what MacArthur did in Japan after World War II and run Iraq as its de facto president until he was able to place the right Iraqi politicians in power and restructure their government. I think if the White House had listened to him, we wouldn’t be mired down in the country the way we are today.”
“Well, MacArthur may have been his role model, but even MacArthur didn’t do the kind of things Bradford’s done,” Claire said.
“I don’t know what General MacArthur did,” Dillon said. “All I know is that Charles Bradford is one of those soldiers—and I’m sure he’s not alone—who believes that civilians, including Congress and the president, should have no say in matters of national defense. He thinks the Pakistanis got it right, when Musharraf was both the president and the chief of the army over there.”
“We need to make a decision, Dillon.”
“And the way he uses the tomb guards. As I’m sure you know, before Bradford got his first star, he briefly commanded the Third Infantry Regiment. He must have realized at the time what an asset those soldiers could be. It was like you said, Claire, they’re the sort of zealots—or patriots—Bradford could use as assassins, and those young men would have no idea that what they were doing was illegal.”
Before Claire could ask him again what they should do, Dillon said, “How many incidents were mentioned on that recording?”
“Thirteen. It sounded like the first one happened in February 2002.”
“So nine/eleven was probably the catalyst, the same as it was for us, but Bradford took a more direct approach than we did. If an individual appeared to be a significant national security threat, and if he could penetrate that person’s security, he eliminated him. He wasn’t going to stand by and let the politicians fail to deal with the next Osama.”
“One of those people he killed was a Chinese politician!” Claire said. “He could have started a damn war. Is he insane?”
“The Chinese politician was a financial terrorist,” Dillon said. “He was bent on destroying our economy. But to answer your question, I believe Charles Bradford is completely sane. He did nothing for personal gain, and he doesn’t appear to have some mad delusion like overthrowing the president and becoming absolute ruler of the country. He obviously doesn’t want credit for what he’s doing, so he’s not doing this for glory or to go down in the history books as the country’s savior. As misguided as he may be, Bradford considers himself a patriot. Throughout his career, he’s seen soldiers’ lives wasted because politicians didn’t have the courage or the foresight to deal directly and quickly with obvious threats to the country, and he finally decided he
had
to act—just as we did.”
“Yeah, but still—” Claire started to say.
“And, unfortunately, that recording is not enough to remove Charles Bradford from his position, much less send him to jail.”
“You’ve gotta be—”
“There’s no
proof
that Bradford ever ordered Breed to do anything.” Pointing at the recorder on his desk, Dillon added, “What you have there are the ramblings of a dying man, a man with cancer eating away his brain, his blood full of morphine and God knows what else. Not exactly an iron-clad case.”
“So, for the third damn time, Dillon, what do you want to do?” Claire said.
Dillon walked over to the window and stared down at the street below. There was some sort of security drill in progress, or at least he thought it was a drill. A group of men in
SWAT
gear had surrounded a delivery van and were aiming their weapons at it. But maybe it wasn’t a drill. These were dangerous times.
“About Charles Bradford, I don’t know,” Dillon said. “I need some time to think about that. What I want to do right now is figure out who directed the hit against Russo. If we can identify that man we may be able to use him against Bradford.”
“That’s what I was planning to do with DeMarco,” Claire said.
“Yes. Mr. DeMarco,” Dillon said. He paused a moment, then added, “Here’s what I want you to do, Claire. Make a copy of that recording but then modify it, just a bit. I want …”
When he finished speaking, Claire said, “I’m not too sure how smart this is, Dillon.”
“Nor am I, my dear, nor am I.”
“Mr. DeMarco, this is Anthony McGuire. Uh, Paul’s friend.”
“Yeah?” DeMarco said. “What can I do for you?” The last thing he was in the mood for was dealing with McGuire.
“Well, I remembered something,” McGuire said. “Something that may—uh, tell you where Paul hid whatever he hid.”
Claire patted the impersonator on the shoulder. “Good job,” she said. “You got that perfect. I particularly liked the little catch in your voice when you said
Paul
.”
“Uh, thanks,” the impersonator said. Claire Whiting scared the hell out of him.
“Now go work on the DeMarco voice some more. I don’t think we’re gonna need it now, but I want you to be ready, which you’re not quite yet.”
DeMarco was seated in a pew near the stained-glass window depicting St. John of God. McGuire had called him while a guy from Home Depot was installing his new back door, but after the guy finished he decided to go to the church, because the contractor he’d called to give him an estimate on the cost to repair his kitchen couldn’t come until tomorrow. The reason he’d asked the contractor to give him an estimate was because the insurance company claims adjuster was offering to settle for about one half of what DeMarco figured it would take to make things right.
McGuire had said that Paul always made a big deal out of the St. John of God window because St. John was the patron saint of nurses and Paul, being a nurse, always mentioned it whenever he and McGuire attended mass together. McGuire wasn’t sure Paul had hidden anything near the window, but he said that might be a good place for DeMarco to look.
DeMarco had yet to approach the window, however, because there was an old woman at the front of the church, in a pew by herself, fingering rosary beads. She seemed absorbed in her prayers and probably wouldn’t notice if he searched near the window, but he thought he’d wait awhile, hoping she’d leave pretty soon.
While he waited, he closed his eyes, clasped his hands together, and prayed to God to bring down a plague upon his insurance company, like the plagues He’d brought down upon the pharaoh when the pharaoh refused to let Moses and his people go. DeMarco wanted locusts to eat his insurance agent. He wanted the agent’s office to be set upon by lice, frogs, and flies. Slaying the firstborn son of every executive in the company might be going too far, but maybe their dogs and cats could all get fleas.
In his opinion, insurance companies were like guys who welch on bets. In fact, that’s exactly what insurance was: a bet between a homeowner and the company. The homeowner was betting that one day his house might burn down, and the insurance company was betting it wouldn’t. The homeowner then put his money into the kitty by paying premiums for twenty years, and the insurance company used the money to invest in things that made them rich. Or richer. Then, if the house
does
burn down, the insurance company, in spite of all the money it’s made, refuses to honor the bet. And that’s what his insurance company was now doing by trying to get him to settle for half the money it was going to take to repair his kitchen. And when they finally did pay, they’d raise his rates.
Thank, God.
Finally,
the old woman was finished praying. He watched as she genuflected and crossed herself about a dozen times, then walked up the main aisle of the church. She gave DeMarco a little smile as she walked by him, which he returned, then he looked down at his lap, trying to look like a pious man saying his prayers, which, in a way, he had been doing.
As soon as he heard the church door close, he hustled over to the window. He could see a ledge below the window but was too short to reach it. Shit. He opened the door to one of the confessionals and got the chair the priest used. He took the chair over to the window, climbed up on it, and there it was: an envelope.