Term Limits (8 page)

The coolly detached Mike Nance was observing McMahon. Nance, a graduate of West Point and a former director of the National Security Agency, usually stayed quiet in meetings. He preferred to sit back and take everything in. Unlike Garret, he believed a person could learn more by watching and listening than by asking questions.

With his eyes still focused on his notepad, Garret shouted out another question. “Has anyone reported hearing shots?”

“No, the distance of the shot was only about one hundred feet. Short enough that a silencer could be
used without affecting the accuracy of the shot.” McMahon continued to speak without giving Garret a chance to ask more questions. “As I'm sure everyone has heard by now, Robert Downs was killed in a park by his house, over in McLean. Two nine-millimeter rounds were fired into the back of his head at point-blank range. We have a description of a possible suspect from a woman who walks in the park every morning. She says that she passed Downs on the walking path this morning at approximately the spot where his body was found. She, along with several other people, have reported seeing a black man dressed in sweats, standing by a tree about twenty yards from where Downs was killed. None of these people say they've seen the person in the park before. Their guess is that he was around thirty years old. Our agents are still interviewing these people, trying to get as much information as possible. I apologize, gentlemen, for the lack of details, but, as I said earlier, this investigation is only a few hours old.”

“Thank you, Mr. McMahon,” said the president. “I fully understand that we are still in the early stages of this investigation, but nonetheless, I would like to hear some opinions. Does anyone have any idea why these three men were killed, and by whom?”

As usual, Garret was the first, and in this situation the least qualified, to respond. “Until we know more, I think it's a pretty safe bet that it's a terrorist group. One that's probably not so happy about the peace that's spreading in the Middle East, or one of those wacky militia groups from out West.”

The president turned to the director of the FBI. “Brian, what are your thoughts?”

“Sir, it's too early to give an informed answer. There just isn't enough data to make an intelligent assumption. Almost anything could be possible. It could be anyone.”

The president looked to McMahon and asked, “Mr. McMahon, I know we don't have all the facts, but please speak your mind.” The president stared at McMahon and waited for a response.

“Well, sir, we have three important politicians murdered at three different locations within a five-hour period. Whoever pulled off this operation had to have been planning it for a long time. They took the time to study their targets and carefully picked when and how to kill each one. They were probably well financed and had access to some very talented killers. Those killers could be terrorists, ex-military commandos, or hired assassins. Given the information we have right now, your guess is as good as mine.”

The president nodded and looked at his chief of staff.

Garret took the cue and said, “Gentlemen, the president needs to address the nation and try to explain what's going on. Now is not the time to be shy with your opinions.” There was a long silence, and then Garret looked to the head of the CIA. “Director Stansfield, what's your take on what happened?”

“I would caution against drawing any conclusions until Special Agent McMahon and his people have had time to investigate.” Stansfield's response was again followed by an uncomfortable silence. Both Director Stansfield and Director Roach had
seen how Garret and President Stevens liked to operate, and neither felt the need to commit to anything with so many questions still unanswered. Roach and Stansfield had both started at the very bottom of their respective agencies, and over the years, they'd seen presidents come and go, and with them, their political appointees who ran the CIA and FBI. Some of these directors were more loyal to the man who had appointed them than to the agency they were supposed to be running. Not Roach and Stansfield: to them the FBI and CIA came first. Political expediency and posturing were things they liked to avoid at all costs. Political solutions were often good for the short term, and for the people making them, but they were more often than not disastrous in the long run.

The president sat back in his chair and quietly cursed himself for not replacing Roach and Stansfield when he had taken over the White House. Garret had wanted both men replaced, and Stevens was sure he would be reminded of this as soon as the meeting was over. If we hadn't had such a hard time getting cabinet members confirmed, Stevens thought to himself, none of this would be a problem.

During the first six months of the Stevens administration, four consecutive cabinet nominees had been shot down. Three had had to bow out after intense scrutiny by the press revealed some minor misdoings in their past, and the fourth made it to an actual committee vote but was embarrassingly rejected. By the time the cabinet was filled, the administration had expended so much political
clout and had received such a grilling from the press that they decided rather than risking another potentially embarrassing confirmation hearing, they would be better off leaving Stansfield in charge of the CIA until a more opportune time arose. The president was coming to the realization that he had waited too long.

Stevens looked at Kennedy, the CIA's terrorism expert. “Dr. Kennedy, what is your opinion?”

Kennedy had the highest IQ in the room by a significant margin. The thirty-eight-year-old mother of one had a Ph.D. in Arabic studies and a master's degree in military history. The doctor leaned forward and took her glasses off. Her sandy brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was wearing one of her trademark pantsuits. She placed her arms on the table and started to speak in a confident tone. “I would have to concur with Special Agent McMahon. The men who conducted this operation are either terrorists, hired assassins, or military commandos. My assumption is that it was the latter of the three.”

Garret blurted out, “What makes you so sure about that?”

“I think they were military commandos because Mr. Burmiester is still alive.”

Garret's face squeezed into an irritated frown. “Mr. Who?”

“Mr. Burmiester, the man who lives across the street from Congressman Koslowski. If the people who ran this operation were terrorists, Mr. Burmiester would be dead. Terrorists do not go to the effort to anesthetize people who are in their
way. They kill them. If terrorists did this, Mr. Burmiester would be dead as well as the woman who was walking in the park. These murders were committed by military-trained commandos.

“Terrorist and military commandos go through very complex training, and on the surface most of it is similar, such as hand-to-hand combat, demolition training, firearms training, et cetera. However, they are trained very differently in objective and operational planning. Terrorists do not care about human life. They operate by a different set of rules. Terrorists are trained to take out their target in a way that is usually very violent. The more violent the better. When they kill, they try to strike terror into the minds of the public. Hence the label
terrorist.
They use car bombs or they machine-gun people down with absolutely no concern for innocent lives.

“Commandos and assassins, who are almost always ex-commandos, are trained to kill only whom they need to, and to do it as quietly and quickly as possible. Commandos operate within certain moral parameters. There have been occasions, during times of war or national emergency, when those parameters were bent, and military commandos have killed an innocent bystander. This, however, is the exception to the rule, whereas with terrorists, killing innocent bystanders is the operational norm.

“When we look at conducting an operation like this, we choose our targets and then decide what is the best way to kill the least amount of people and get our assets out safely.”

Garret was irritated by Kennedy's confident tone. “You seem awfully sure of yourself, Dr. Kennedy. Are you ruling out the possibility that these murders were committed by a terrorist group?”

“I do not think they were committed by a fundamentalist terrorist group. A group that, as you said earlier, would be unhappy with the peace that is being made in the Middle East. As far as the murders being committed by a group of domestic terrorists, such as one of your antigovernment, Aryan Nation types … I highly doubt they would have the trained personnel it would take to pull something like this off. Besides, why would they kill someone like Senator Downs? He's pro-NRA and pro-military. He's one of the few politicians those militia members like.”

Garret gestured toward Kennedy. “Well, I'm glad to know that after hearing a ten-minute briefing, you've solved the case for us.” Garret chuckled mockingly at Kennedy. “How can you say that so emphatically, with such little information?”

McMahon stared at Garret and thought to himself, God, this guy's an ass. Director Roach saw the look on McMahon's face and placed his hand on his friend's arm. McMahon pulled away and leaned back in his chair, continuing to stare at Garret.

Kennedy was used to men challenging her intellect and continued to defend her opinion in a professional tone. “It is my job to know how these groups kill, Mr. Garret. If a group, such as Abu Nidal, had committed these murders, they would have simply gone down to one of the more popular dining spots in town, planted a bomb, and exploded
it during lunch yesterday. They would have easily killed a dozen senators and congressmen, and probably a few cabinet members.”

“Why couldn't it have been a domestic right-wing paramilitary group?”

“It's possible, but as I said earlier, I don't think those groups have the resources to conduct an operation like this.”

In a loud voice Garret half shouted, “If you're so sure that it wasn't terrorists, then who did it?”

McMahon leaned forward in his chair and placed both forearms on the table. At six foot three, 240 pounds, he looked like a bear ready to attack. Before Roach could react, McMahon was speaking. “Mr. Garret, we are all professionals here. There is no reason to get emotional and raise our voices. You asked for our opinions and Dr. Kennedy has respectfully done so. She has given us some very intelligent insight into a case where it is greatly needed. She is not trying to tell us exactly who did it, she is merely helping us narrow our search.” McMahon continued to stare at Garret as the chief of staff flushed angrily.

Mike Nance could not believe what he was witnessing. He had seen Stu Garret act like this in countless meetings during the last three years. It was a rarity to see anyone put him in his place, let alone an underling from the FBI. The tension in the room continued to build as McMahon refused to back down. Director Roach was sitting back in his chair, hand over brow, dreading what might happen next.

The president ended the confrontation. “Everybody calm down.… We are all under a lot of pressure,
and I'm sure it's only going to get worse. Let's relax and discuss Dr. Kennedy's theory.”

While the meeting continued, Bridgett Ryan sat in her cubicle across town at NBC's Washington bureau and tried to look busy. Bridgett was a senior journalism major at Catholic University and was in the middle of a one-year internship with NBC. Her boss was Mark Stein, the network's D.C. bureau chief.

Bridgett's work schedule varied depending on her daily class load. This morning she had rolled out of bed at 9 A.M., found out about the murders, and instead of going to class, went straight to the studio. She'd been there for over an hour and a half and had done little more than pour coffee and scribble notes for Stein. She was sitting at her little desk outside of Stein's office when the mailman came by and dropped a bundle of letters on her desk.

One of her daily tasks was to open and sort her boss's mail. She pulled the rubber band off the stack and grabbed a large manila envelope from the bottom. It was addressed to Stein but contained no return address. She grabbed her letter opener, sliced through the top of the envelope, and pulled out the sheets of paper. After reading the first paragraph, her heart began to race. She started to read again from the top, and this time her hands began to tremble. She took a deep breath and read on. After finishing, she jumped up and threw open the door to Stein's office. Ryan yelled his name and held the sheets of paper up in the air. “Mark!”

Stein, who was on the phone, looked up and
waved her away. He swiveled in his chair and turned his back to her. He was talking to his boss in New York. “Carol, I need more video crews, damn it! I need more reporters. How in the hell do you expect me to get all this footage for you? It's a goddamned zoo down here. We're falling all over each other trying to get the story. It's too big, we need more people!” Bridgett walked around his desk and waved the envelope in his face. Stein pulled the phone away from his head and placed his free hand over the receiver. “Bridgett, I'm busy! Not now!” Stein started to bring the phone back to his head, but Ryan was not to be deterred.

“Mark, this is really important!” She thrust the papers and envelope forward. “We just got this in the mail. It's addressed to you and I think it's from the terrorists!”

Stein grabbed the sheets of paper and started reading quickly. His boss could be heard in the background asking what in the hell was going on. When Stein was finished, he yelled into the receiver, “Carol, go to your fax, this is big!”

Garret had calmed down and was noticeably quieter. McMahon and Kennedy were discussing the latter's theory when the door to the Cabinet Room opened and Jack Warch entered. He was the special agent in charge of the president's Secret Service detail. “Excuse me, gentlemen, NBC is announcing that they have a letter from a group claiming responsibility for the murders.”