The Jefferson Key (33 page)

“I didn’t think those rules applied to the Secret Service.”

“Unfortunately, there’s a nasty storm between here and Maine and even the Secret Service has to bow to that.”

“Keep in mind, we’re in a hurry.”

“It could be a little bit. They didn’t sound encouraging.”

He tapped the keyboard and found a map of Mahone Bay, deciding how best to arrive on Paw Island. They would be landing at a small airstrip to the south, specifically avoiding Halifax and its international hub, since Wyatt could be traveling through there. The Secret Service had run a check of all flights to Nova Scotia, but no seats had been booked in Wyatt’s name. No surprise. He was surely flying under an alias with a clean ID, or he may have chartered something.

It didn’t matter.

He wanted his adversary to have a clear run to the island.

There, they would get reacquainted.

WHITE
HOUSE

CASSIOPEIA
FOLLOWED
EDWIN
DAVIS
INTO
A
ROOM
NOT
MUCH
larger than a closet. Inside was a small table that supported a console with an
LCD
monitor. The screen displayed a room dotted with oil portraits dominated by a conference table, whose seats were rapidly filling with men and women. She’d returned with Davis to Washington. Later, she’d head back south to Fredericksburg to make use of Kaiser’s phone tap.

“He had me order them here,” Davis said, pointing to the screen. “Heads of the eighteen largest intelligence agencies.
CIA
,
NSA
,
NIA
, Defense Intelligence, National Counter-Terrorism, Homeland Security, Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking, National Geospatial, Underground Facility Analysis—you name it, we have somebody spending money on it.”

“Bet they’re wondering what’s going on.”

Davis smiled. “These people don’t like surprises, or one another for that matter.”

She watched on the screen as the president of the United States burst into the room and moved out of view to the head of the table. The camera had apparently been installed behind where he sat so only the participants would be recorded.

Everyone sat.

“It’s good to see you’re okay,” one of the participants said to Daniels
.

“It’s good to be okay.”

“Mr. President, we had little notice of this meeting so nothing has been prepared. We weren’t even told of the subject matter.”

“Head of Central Intelligence,” Davis told her. “The president owes me five dollars. I bet he’d be the first to probe. He said
NSA
.”

“You people love to tell me how good you are,” Daniels said. “That this country would be in dire jeopardy if we didn’t spend billions of dollars every year on what you do. You also like to hide behind that secrecy you so righteously demand. I don’t have the luxury of working in secret. I have to do what I do with a cadre of reporters camped out less than a hundred feet away from where I work. Hell, I don’t even know where half of your offices are located, much less what you do.”

“Do they know we’re watching?” she asked.

Davis shook his head. “Pinhole camera. The Secret Service installed it a few years ago. Nobody knows but senior staff.”

“This monstrosity of government called homeland security,” the president said, “is absurd. I have yet to find anyone who knows how much it costs, how many are employed, how many programs there are and, most important, how much duplication there is. Best I can tell there are nearly 1300 separate organizations working homeland security or foreign intelligence. That’s on top of nearly 2000 private contractors. Nearly 900,000 hold a top secret clearance. How could anything possibly be kept secret with that many eyes and ears?”

No one said a word.

“Everyone said they were going to streamline things after 9/11. You folks swore you were finally going to start working together. What you did was create 300 new intelligence organizations. You produce over 50,000 intelligence reports each year. Who reads them all?”

No answer.

“That’s right. No one does. So what good are they?”

“He’s going right for their throats,” she said to Davis.

“It’s all they understand.”

“I want to know who hired Jonathan Wyatt and had him in New York yesterday,” the president asked, breaking the room’s silence
.

“I did.”

“Is that her?” Cassiopeia asked.

Davis nodded. “Andrea Carbonell. Head of
NIA
.”

She’d noticed the woman’s entrance, her swarthy complexion, dark hair, and Latino influences similar to her own. “What’s her story?”

“Daughter of Cuban immigrants. Born here. She worked her way up through the ranks until finally snagging the head of
NIA
. Her service record is actually exemplary, except for her ties to the Commonwealth.”

Carbonell sat straight, hands folded on the table, eyes intent on the president. Her features remained expressionless, even in the face of an angry commander in chief.

“Why did you have Wyatt in New York?” Daniels asked her
.

“I required outside assistance to counter pressure I was receiving from
CIA
and
NSA
.”

“Explain yourself.”

“A few hours ago someone tried to kill me.”

The room fell into a hush
.

Carbonell cleared her throat. “I wasn’t planning on bringing it up in this meeting, but an automated weapon was waiting for me in my residence.”

Daniels hesitated only a moment. “And the importance of that? Besides the fact that you could be dead.”

“Wyatt was in New York to help me decipher the recent actions of some of my colleagues. We were meeting to discuss the situation. But a
CIA
deputy director and another deputy from
NSA
interrupted that meeting and took Wyatt. I would like to know the purpose of that action.”

She was good, Cassiopeia thought. Carbonell had yet to answer a question, but she’d managed to shift attention away from herself. Her inquiry clearly interested some of the others around the table, who stared at
CIA
, and another man whom Davis identified as the
NSA
director.

“Mr. President,”
CIA
said. “This woman has been conspiring with the Commonwealth. She may well have been involved in the attempt on your life.”

“Do you have proof of that?” Carbonell calmly asked
.

“I don’t need proof,” Daniels said to her. “I just need to be convinced. So tell me, did you have any involvement with the attempt on my life?”

“I did not.”

“Then how did Wyatt get himself right smack in the middle of things? He was there, in the Grand Hyatt. We know that. He directed agents straight to Cotton Malone. He involved Malone in the whole thing.”

“He has a personal vendetta against Malone,” Carbonell said. “He set Malone up, involving him in the attempt on your life, unbeknownst to me. I fired him just before
CIA
and
NSA
took him away.”

“Wyatt just shot up Monticello,” Daniels said. “He stole a rare artifact. A cipher wheel. Did you arrange for that to happen?”

“The shooting or the stealing?”

“You choose. And, by the way, I’ve never liked a smart-ass.”

“As I said, Mr. President, I fired Wyatt yesterday. He no longer works for me. I think the
CIA
or
NSA
is in a better position to answer the question of what happened after I terminated him.”

“So, do any of you have any knowledge of the plot to kill me?” the president asked
.

The table stirred at the pointed question
.

“We were unaware there was a plot,” one of them said
.

“You’re damn right there was,” Daniels said. “I asked a question. Ms. Carbonell, how about you answer first.”

“I knew nothing of any assassination plot.”

“Liar,”
CIA
said
.

Carbonell kept her composure. “I only know that Wyatt lured Cotton Malone to the Grand Hyatt, hoping Malone would stop the attempt. Then Wyatt directed agents toward Malone. He apparently was hoping one of them would shoot him. He reported this to me
after
it happened. I realized immediately that things were way out of control. So I severed all connection with him.”

“You should have arrested him,” one of the others around the table said
.

“As I’ve already said, he was in the custody of
CIA
and
NSA
after I did what I did. Seems they are the ones who need to explain why he was not arrested.”

“She’s good,” Cassiopeia said.

“And she’s holding back,” Davis said.

Cassiopeia’s eyes seemed to communicate exactly what she was thinking.

“I know,” Davis said. “I’m doing the same thing. But can we keep things close a little while longer.”

“To what end?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Where’s Wyatt now?” Daniels asked the room
.

“He attacked the two men we sent to interrogate him,”
CIA
said. “And escaped.”

“Were you planning on reporting any of this?” the president asked
.

No reply
.

“Who sent the police after Cotton Malone in Richmond, Virginia?”

“We did,”
CIA
said. “We ascertained that Malone emailed to himself a classified document. He then accessed it from a hotel in Richmond. We asked the locals to pick him up for questioning.”

“Don’t bother him again,” Daniels ordered. “Ms. Carbonell, are you in communication with the Commonwealth?”

She shook her head. “My contact to them was found dead last evening in Central Park, as was another of my agents in a nearby hotel. Two more were seriously injured. They were apparently shot by a Commonwealth operative they were attempting to apprehend.”

“You have four people down?”
CIA
asked her
.

“I agree. It’s tragic. We contained the situation quickly and kept a lid on it. We’re searching for that Commonwealth operative now. He will be found.”

“Why did
CIA
and
NSA
want to speak to Wyatt?” Daniels asked
.

“We, too,”
CIA
said, “were curious as to Wyatt’s involvement with what happened in New York.”

“Why?”

The president’s curt inquiry triggered more silence
.

“It’s simply a question,” Daniels said. “How did you know Wyatt was even in New York?”

More silence
.

Then, from
NSA
, “We’ve been watching
NIA
and Ms. Carbonell.”

“Why?”

“He’s screwing with them,” Davis said. “He does that to me all the time. Just one why after another, forcing you down a path that he’s already walked. He’s just waiting for you to catch up.”

“She’s interfering with our prosecution of the Commonwealth,”
NSA
said. “That group is well known to us all and is a danger to our national security. The decision was made to eliminate it.
NIA
and Ms. Carbonell disagree with that decision. We wondered why. Too much loyalty there under the circumstances. We knew she’d employed Wyatt, we just didn’t know all that was about to happen. If we had, we would taken preventive measures.”

“That’s comforting to know,” Daniels said, his sarcasm clear
.

“When we learned Malone was the man in the video,”
CIA
said, “we realized something strange was up.”

“Okay, let me see if I have this straight,” Daniels said. “Somebody, identity unknown, tries to blow me up. A contract player, Jonathan Wyatt, is involved. At least three intelligence agencies knew that Wyatt was in New York doing something. Two of you were already investigating
NIA
and its director. What Wyatt was doing in New York, none of you is willing to admit. But two of you are curious enough to take Wyatt into custody, yet he escapes. And most important, four agents are down.”

No one said a word
.

“You folks are about as useful as tits on a boar hog. How about this, which one of you sent men into the Garver Institute last night and murdered one of its employees?”

No reply
.

“No one going to claim that one? I wouldn’t think so.”

“Carbonell probably did it herself,” Cassiopeia said.

Davis nodded. “Makes the most sense.”

“I want each of you to know that we’re investigating this, independent of you. If Wyatt lured Malone to New York, that meant he knew what was about to happen. If he knew, others knew. Hence, a plot.”

“We need to find Wyatt,” one of the men said
.

“
FBI
director,” Davis noted. “The only one around that table we can actually trust. A straight shooter.”

“I’d say that should be tops on your list,” Daniels said. “What about those two automated weapons from the hotel rooms? What have you learned?”

“Sophisticated engineering,” the
FBI
director said. “Well made. Malone disabled the one with shots from the other that shorted out its electronics. They were both radio-controlled. No way, though, to ascertain from where, though a radius of about three miles was the receiver’s range.”

“That’s a lot of real estate in New York City,” Daniels said. “What, about 30,000 hotel rooms to choose from?”

“Something like that.”

“Since Wyatt seems the only one at the moment who knew anything in advance,” Daniels said, “he’s the best lead. At least he sent Malone in there. That’s better than the rest of you can claim.”