Separation of Power (43 page)

The president seemed satisfied with Kennedy’s explanation of the red zone in the middle of Baghdad,
but he still thought the corridor snaking out of the city to the south and west looked a bit unusual. “General, if one of these fly-boys saw a caravan of white cars screaming down the road in the middle of the air raid, what do you think their reaction would be?”

“They would radio the nearest AWACS and report the cars.” The AWACS was the Air Force’s Airborne Warning and Control System, used to coordinate attacks and vector fighter aircraft to intercept hostile targets.

“You don’t think they might take the initiative and strafe the cars?” he suggested.

The general thought about that and then said, “They might.”

“That’s not going to work,” announced the president.

“No, it isn’t,” agreed Flood as he tried to come up with a solution. After a moment of deliberation he looked at the president and said, “Sir, I think we’re going to have to let our people know that we will have troops on the ground.”

The president winced at the idea. “Right now?”

“No, we can wait until the last possible moment, and at no point do we have to mention a thing about the nukes.”

This sounded better to the president. “What about the white cars?” He looked to Kennedy for an opinion.

She kept her face expressionless while she thought about it. “I think we have to tell the pilots about the cars. They simply offer too much of a temptation. I respect their training, and I respect the command and
control that the military has in place, but the bottom line is, these fighter jocks are cowboys. They’re taught to push the envelope and take risks. Those white cars represent the same thing to our pilots that they represent to the Iraqi people. They are Saddam or at least the possibility of Saddam.” She paused to give the president a chance to absorb what she’d said. “I know if I were one of those guys, and I thought I had a chance to take out Saddam, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t wait around for some AWACS controller to give me the green light.”

The president leaned back in his chair and stubbornly folded his arms across his chest. Kennedy could see that he was struggling with the idea of letting too many people in on the secret. History was replete with stories of advantages that had been lost because someone had talked. Having worked in the CIA for more than fifteen years, she was acutely aware of the importance of guarding knowledge. Conversely, though, history also had many examples of knowledge that was too protected. The CIA’s own James Angleton had practically incapacitated the entire Agency with his paranoia. Thousands of U.S. sailors and airmen died at Pearl Harbor because the powers that be in Washington were too afraid to disseminate intercepted Japanese messages that made their intentions very clear. At some point you had to let go and trust your people.

“Sir, if we alert the aviators and AWACS controllers an hour prior to the start of the bombing, I’m confident we won’t compromise the mission. Even if, and it’s a big if, Iraqi intelligence can intercept and
decipher our communications, they can’t move that fast. An intercepted message like this has to get kicked up the chain of command, and right about the time it would get to anybody who may or may not do something about it . . . the bombs will start falling.”

The president finally relented. “All right. We tell the troops one hour before the bombing starts, but that’s it. No earlier.”

T
he nation’s capital was in a state of frenzy that could only be brought about by scandal. And this wasn’t just any scandal; this one involved the CIA, lying to Congress, diverted funds and the assassination of foreigners. Normally this would be more than enough to cause a media storm, but an early morning development had upgraded the story to a full-blown hurricane. At the crack of dawn, with search warrants in hand, special agents from the FBI had raided the home and office of Congressman Rudin.

The congressman had spent the entire morning ranting and raving in front of every camera and microphone he could find. Like all seasoned politicians he stayed on message, and his message was, “Constitutional Crisis.” On the
Today
show, Rudin had complained bitterly that the executive branch was trying to bully the legislative branch with jack-boot tactics that were reminiscent of 1930s Germany. He protested to anyone who would listen that the bedrock of the Constitution was being cracked asunder, that the separation of powers was being trampled on, and that the congressman from Connecticut wasn’t alone.

In the new age of twenty-four-hour cable news, scandal ruled the day. There wasn’t time to check facts or sources; there was barely time to think. Though there were a few wise politicians who stayed on the sidelines waiting to see what was what, by and large this was a group with a very healthy set of egos. It was almost impossible for them to turn down an opportunity to be seen and heard, so with 100 senators and 435 congressmen, the media had no shortage of opinions, almost all of them in the defense of Congressman Rudin. The thought of federal agents seizing files from their offices and homes was enough to rally most of his colleagues soundly behind the legislative branch. Despite his obnoxious personality Rudin was winning. Pundits and politicians alike agreed that President Hayes had miscalculated. Whatever he’d hoped to accomplish by raiding the congressman’s home and office had backfired. Public sentiment was firmly in Rudin’s corner.

This was the mood Kennedy faced as her motorcade approached the Hart Senate Office Building shortly before 1:00
P.M
. Her security detail was planning on bringing their charge around the back of the building and through the loading dock, but Kennedy had shot down the idea. Despite their vehement protests she informed them that they would be dropping her off in front of the building, where no less than ten news trucks with large satellite dishes were parked, and several hundred protestors were loudly exercising their First Amendment rights.

Kennedy understood media manipulation as well as anyone in Washington, and she was not going to
be seen slinking into the back of the Senate building between two Dumpsters, surrounded by a cordon of stocky armed men. She would walk right through the mass of screaming protestors and pushy cameramen, and she would look like she had nothing to hide.

There was too much going on, when the three cars pulled around the corner, for the protestors and media types to notice. The caravan came to a quick stop and the car doors flew open. Kennedy was on the curb surrounded by four of her bodyguards before the mob knew she was there. The Capitol Hill police had been kind enough to keep the walkway and entrance clear. They were halfway to the door before anyone noticed, and inside the building before the screaming started. They were waved through the security checkpoint and metal detectors and picked up an additional escort of four Capitol Hill police officers for the trip up to the committee room.

Set up in the broad hallway outside room 216 were correspondents from every network plus the cable news shows. One correspondent who worked for one of the more sensational cable news shows announced that Dr. Kennedy’s cortege had arrived. The not so subtle implication was that she was on the way to her own funeral.

They continued up the sloped ramp and into the hearing room. At the door Kennedy shed the wall of muscle and steel and continued down the center aisle by herself. All of the senators were already seated and looking down at her from on high, atop a U-shaped bench draped in front with crimson bunting.
Kennedy’s small witness table was covered with a simple green tablecloth, and her chair was blue molded plastic with metal legs. It was the same style that the members of the gallery were sitting in.

The wall of marble behind the senators looked like a Rorschach test gone bad. Kennedy took a moment to study the seal mounted in the middle of the marble monstrosity. She had an overwhelming sense of calm as the flashes erupted around her. Her strength came from knowledge. One of the tenets of the intelligence business was to deceive your enemy, to get them thinking one thing, while you’re planning something else. That’s what this was about. It was her last gambit.

The upper galleries were bristling with black camera lenses and microphones. The room was packed, and the entire event was being carried live on national television. The senators on the dais with their phalanx of staffers behind them were peering down at her as if she were a mass murderer. Today Kennedy was the wounded animal. The vultures were circling and the hyenas were closing in and they all had their eyes on the diminutive Irene Kennedy. With a national TV audience, the stakes were high. Political careers would be made today, and for them to do that they would have to destroy the career of a public servant who, for fifteen years, had worked tirelessly for the cause against terrorism.

Senator Clark smacked the wooden block with his gavel. He looked tan and handsome in his dark wool suit and deep claret colored tie. The room ignored him, so he tried again with much greater
force and better results. The talking trickled to a drip, and then there was silence. Clark looked down at Kennedy and was briefly reminded of his meeting with the president the night before. The odds were the president was bluffing, but there was a chance he might not be. Clark told himself to move cautiously. Like a king in a game of chess, he decided to let others move out into the field of battle before him.

“Dr. Kennedy,” Clark started in a deep somber tone, “I’d like to remind you that you are still under oath.”

“I’m aware of that, Mr. Chairman.” Kennedy made Clark look like a giant, sitting at the table all by herself.

“A lot has happened since we spoke on Friday.” Clark glanced down at a piece of paper before him. It was a predetermined gesture that he thought would look good on TV. “I was wondering if before we resumed with our questions, you would care to respond to the accusations that were made against you yesterday by Congressman Rudin?”

Kennedy opened her mouth, but she never got the words out. Despite outnumbering her significantly, the other senators on the dais were not about to let Kennedy go on the offensive and set the agenda. Five of them instantly began vying for Clark’s attention.

“Excuse me, Mr. Chairman!” bellowed Senator Jetland. He repeated himself four more times until he’d drowned out the others. Having silenced his colleagues, he didn’t bother to wait for the chair to recognize him. “I think our purposes would be better
served today if we were allowed to ask the nominee some very pointed questions.” The senator from New Mexico gave Kennedy a sidelong glance and continued saying, “Now, we were supposed to start at ten this morning but things were pushed back to one, and it’s now,” Jetland glanced at his watch, “ten minutes past. I would suggest that if Dr. Kennedy has a statement, it can either be entered into the record, or if there’s enough time left over at the end of the day, she can read it then.”

Despite the lust for blood, several of the senators wanted to hear what Kennedy had to say. They recognized what Jetland was up to and did not want to look like bullies. They began to intervene on Kennedy’s behalf, but were interrupted.

The surprise came from the witness table. “If that’s what Senator Jetland would prefer that’s fine with me.” Kennedy was calling him out. Jetland was a showboat who’d been an undependable ally of the CIA for some time. He also served on the judiciary committee, to which he devoted the bulk of his time. The only time he got involved in Intelligence issues was when it meant that he might get some headlines. He also happened to be one of President Hayes’s harshest critics.

Again, not waiting to be recognized by the chair, Senator Jetland grabbed the pedestal of his microphone and said, “That is very kind of you, Dr. Kennedy. I would like to start out by asking you what was the extent of your involvement in the raids that were conducted at the office and home of Congressman Rudin this morning?”

“Could you be a little more specific, please?”

A faint smile spread across Jetland’s face and he asked, “Did you advise the president or Director Roach of the FBI, or anyone at the FBI for that matter, that they should launch this raid against Congressman Rudin?”

All eyes turned to Kennedy. She leaned forward and said, “Yes, I did.”

Shocked whispers rustled through the gallery. Senator Clark banged the gavel twice before the room fell silent. Kennedy added, “I advised both the president and Director Roach that they should serve Congressman Rudin with a search warrant.”

Senator Jetland placed both elbows on the table and said, “I find it very disturbing that you would launch a vendetta against a member of the House of Representatives after he went public with certain allegations that might be damaging to your career.” He glared at Kennedy.

Unfazed, Kennedy sat silent for a moment and then asked, “Is that a question or a statement, Senator Jetland?”

Jetland was not amused. “You can treat it as either. Just please respond to it in a
truthful
manner.”

“The only thing I’d like to respond to is your choice of the word vendetta.” Kennedy spoke in her trademark clinical fashion. Her tone was even and respectful. “I have no vendetta against Congressman Rudin. I think the record would show that it is the congressman who has a vendetta against the CIA.”

“So that excuses you ordering the president to have Congressman Rudin treated like a criminal?”

“Senator, one does not order the president to do anything. Especially not this president. President Hayes is—”

Jetland cut her off. “Have any federal agents broken down your door lately, to rifle through your personal effects?”

“I wasn’t aware that they broke down the congressman’s door.” Kennedy knew they hadn’t, and wasn’t about to let Jetland get away with the implication.

“You didn’t answer my question, Dr. Kennedy. Let me rephrase it. Have any federal agents seized your files at the behest of Congressman Rudin?”