One Rough Man (28 page)

Standish realized he was done. The STE secure phone was only certified by the NSA to pass information up to the secret level. He couldn’t order the man to break classification rules, since he would be on record violating the safeguard of national secrets. He also knew that he was being stiff-armed on purpose by the duty officer, but couldn’t fight it.
At least not right now. You mess with the bull, you get the horns.

“Listen to me Mr.
Duty Officer
. Pick up a fucking pen. Write this down. I want Kurt Hale and George Wolffe in my office within twenty-four hours or I will go to the president and have all unit operations canceled pending an investigation of improper actions. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir. I have it.”

“Don’t test me on this. If you value your mission, you won’t push me. I
will
see Hale and Wolffe or you’ll cease operations.”

Standish slammed the phone down.
When I get control of that unit, he’ll be out greeting people at Walmart
.

Done with the Taskforce, he turned his attention to the next problem: dealing with the CIA station in Belize. He couldn’t call the station directly because they weren’t in his chain of command and wouldn’t have a clue who he was. He would have to do it through the Latin America Division in the headquarters at Langley. Luckily, he knew the chief of LA and could use him to clamp down on Belize. All he had to do was control the conversation correctly. Satisfied with his strategy, he picked up the phone and dialed the chief of LA on his gray line, a direct secure connection into the CIA.

“H
oly shit! What’re you doing down here?” I said.

After giving me a handshake and an embrace, Kurt verbally poked me, saying, “Well, I’ve got nothing better to do than chase phantom Prometheus cables. It’s what I do on my off-time.”

I got out, “Sir—” before he cut me off with a hand.

“Just kidding. How’re you doing?”

I figured the question held more than it seemed, and that he wasn’t asking how I was doing
this
morning. I answered truthfully, “Well, honestly, sir, I’m doing better now than I was a week ago.”

“Still blocking punches with your face, huh?”

I smiled and touched the cut above my eye. “Long story, sir.” Turning to Jennifer, I continued. “This is Jennifer Cahill. She’s the reason I’m down here, and also the one who figured out what’s going on.”

He greeted Jennifer politely, then said, “Okay, how about letting me in on the secret.”

I laid out the whole story, with the exception of the discovery of the e-mail addresses. After the bullshit shenanigans, I didn’t trust Eric as far as I could throw him. There was no telling what the station here would do with that information.

After about an hour of give and take, Kurt got to the bottom line. “Given your lack of ability to do anything, I get the Prometheus alert, but, really, is there any proof that such a weapon exists? What do you want me to do now?”

I had known that was coming and, in reality, agreed with his skepticism. “Sir, I’m with you. I’ve been struggling with the whole Mayan WMD thing since this started. Whether that weapon is real or not is an open question. In my mind, what’s not a question is that two intelligent terrorists with multiple passports
believe
it’s there, and are trying to get it to kill as many people as possible.”

“Okay. I can see that. Sounds like something that’s happening all over the world every five seconds. Why bring us in? You know this isn’t what we do.”

“I didn’t intend for you guys to fly down here to see me. I just wanted to talk to the chief of station. Sorry, but I played the only card I had. I think someone needs to check this out, to see if something strange happened on an expedition in the Petén region. If not, no harm. If so, investigate further.”

Kurt looked at Eric, who said, “That makes sense to me. It’s very little work to run this to ground. I’ll give the station in Guatemala a call and have them check it out.”

Kurt thanked him for the support, then asked George if there was anything else they were missing.

George said, “No, Pike’s right. Let the station get some assets on the ground. We’ll figure this out pretty quickly.”

Satisfied, Kurt wrapped up the meeting. He told us to come on back at nine the next morning to see where we stood. I walked with him out the door, stopping to allow him to retrieve his cell phone from the cubicles outside the station spaces. Since the cell phones could be used as eavesdropping devices, they weren’t allowed inside any secure government facility.

Turning on his phone, Kurt said, “Well, I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass. I don’t think there’s much chance of some secret Mayan weapon being out there, but since we’re here, might as well play the hand. No harm done by poking around a little bit.”

He stopped when his phone chirped. “Jesus. I got six calls while I was inside there.”

He closed the phone. “Let’s get some dinner tonight. I’m sure you’ve got some things you want to tell me that you didn’t want to say in there.”

Smart man
. “You read my mind. I held some cards back. There’s a great little fish stand near our hotel. Give me a call at the hotel when you’re ready to go.”

I watched him walk off, dialing his phone.

INSIDE THE STATION, Eric finished his coordination with his compatriots in Guatemala to check out Pike’s story. Talking to the deputy, he was disappointed to hear that it would be a couple of days before they could get on the ground at Flores, but was satisfied when he said they could make some calls to contacts up there for an initial snapshot. Eric thanked him, asking him to call back tomorrow at eight A.M. with any results, and hung up.

The phone rang with his hand still on it, startling him. Picking it back up, he was startled again when he found out that the chief of the Latin America division was giving him a personal call from Langley. Listening intently, he began to take notes.

 

 

WHEN JENNIFER AND I GOT BACK TO OUR ROOM, I noticed the red light blinking on our old-fashioned phone. Jennifer went to the bathroom, leaving me to get the message.

Coming back out, she asked, “Who was that? Kurt? Is he going to take us out to a nice dinner instead of the taco stand?”

“I wish. Kurt’s been called back to D.C. Something important came up, and he’s got to get back immediately. He said to send him a message through Eric, and he’d take it from there.”

“Well, he seemed like a pretty busy guy. I’m surprised he even flew down.”

She could see that I was disappointed, and tried to make a joke. “He clearly knew better than to mess with you. I’m sure if you send another cable, he’ll do something with it. Maybe you should tell him to meet us in the Caribbean, and that he needs to give us some tickets to get there.”

“He’ll do something with it, but cables are never as good as face-to-face. Whatever called him back will take front seat. It’ll be hard to pry him away from that now.”

I was surprised at the level of my disappointment, and wondered if I was more upset at our theories taking a backseat to something else, or that this adventure was drawing to a close. I hadn’t realized how much I had wanted to go to that meeting tomorrow, and to continue on with this excursion. I think in my heart I was hoping Kurt would take me with him to figure out what was going on.
What a fantasy
.

I said, “Let’s go get a flight out of here for tomorrow. No sense hanging around here now. Whatever we find out at the meeting tomorrow morning, the rest of this will be in someone else’s hands.”

“That sounds good to me. I’m ready to get back to my simple college life.”

Her words gave me another kick in the gut.
I hear you. Boy, am I ever ready to get back to being a worthless fucking bum.
Once we left the embassy tomorrow, she would go back to her life and I’d go back to mine. All I had to look forward to was waking up in a rage every morning. I could already feel my self-worth eroding. The thought was depressing and must have showed on my face.

“What’s wrong? Are you really that worried about the cable doing nothing? I thought Kurt was the Wizard of Oz.”

I lied, “Yeah, I’m worried about the cable. You’re probably right, though. No sense in crying over it now. Let’s see what happens tomorrow. Come on. I’d like to get a plane that doesn’t allow goats in the aisle.”

 

 

“PALMER,” President Warren said, “can you hang on a second?”

Alexander Palmer stopped at the door to the Oval Office, letting the other members of the president’s national security team leave.

“Sure, sir. What’s up?”

Warren stood up and leaned against his desk. “The Taskforce got a Prometheus alert, but I never saw it.”

“Oh, yeah. Standish told me about it. He’s run it to ground already. Some sort of misfire. It wasn’t Prometheus material. Sorry if I didn’t bring it to your attention, but it was nothing.”

“What do you think about him?”

“Standish? Ahh . . . I think if he wasn’t around you wouldn’t be president, but he’s not really giving us much in the administration. He’s just taking up space on the NSC. Is that what you mean?”

Warren had been thinking about what Kurt had said months ago. About some unknown terrorist with the skill and patience to really do some damage. The thought scared him. As president, he’d created the Project Prometheus at significant risk and let them run at full throttle. He had thought they were winning, that the risk had been worth every penny. But the commander didn’t. Kurt thought they had just been lucky—as if the Taskforce was no match for a smart terrorist, and that that man was out there right now, planning. The revelation had caused him to lose sleep.

President Warrant was a political infighter. A winner. He took no quarter and wasn’t above dirty tricks to win—just like every other politician at this level. He had a lot on his plate—the economy, global trade issues, the constant bickering between parties—but only one issue really scared him: the loss of American lives because of something he had failed to do. And not in a political way either. It scared him in a personal way. He couldn’t imagine being president on 9/11, watching the bodies fall from the burning towers. It was the one issue where politics had no business. And probably the one thing that allowed him to relate to Kurt Hale. Everything else he did in the name of democracy would make Hale’s stomach turn.

He had reviewed his national security team and begun to wonder if he’d ceded too much control. Everyone had become complacent when it came to terrorism, himself included. He’d allowed Palmer to run the NSC as he saw fit, but after hearing about Standish’s questions at the last Taskforce Oversight Council meeting, he was beginning to believe the man was dangerous.

He said, “No, I don’t mean what he’s contributing to the administration. You put him on the Taskforce Oversight Council, and I’m wondering if that was wise. You work with him. I’m asking if he can be trusted. NSC business is one thing, but the Taskforce is something else. There’s no room for error.”

“Well, he has managed to work his way on the inside a hell of a lot quicker than I would have thought possible, but he’s doing a good job. He keeps me abreast of all the secret things going on. He’s pretty good at collating information.”

“That doesn’t answer the question. Is he a threat? Standish’s answer for anything is brute force. He doesn’t understand the complexity. Doesn’t have the experience or background.”

Palmer reflected for a moment. “No, I think he’s okay. We both know he loves the feeling of being on the inside. He’s like a political groupie, but that’s about it.”

President Warren locked eyes with him. “Palmer, don’t let him become a threat. This isn’t about payback or politics. I won’t tolerate American deaths. That’s got nothing to do with politics.”

Palmer smiled. “Sir, don’t worry about that. He’s a coward at heart. He likes playacting. He doesn’t have the balls to do anything for real.”

L
ucas Kane fiddled with his PDA, waiting on Standish to finish with a phone call. He played the keys with manicured fingers, looking like any other successful power broker in Washington, D.C. Actually, he looked like an actor in a beer commercial portraying a successful power broker in Washington, D.C. He had sandy-blond hair, an athletic build, and a face that belonged in a weekly Hollywood tabloid. From across the street, women were automatically drawn to him. Up close, when they could look into his eyes, the attraction would usually wilt. His eyes were dead. Not unintelligent, just lacking in any warmth. His last date, after saying she would rather not see him again, commented that they reminded her of a three-day-old bruise. Purple and rotting.

Lucas didn’t give a shit, as long as the date paid him back for the dinner and a movie once they returned to his apartment, which this one had, even if a bit reluctantly.
If the eyes are a window into the soul, I guess a bruise is pretty damn close
.