The Camel Club (13 page)

CHAPTER
21

W
HEN
A
LEX AND
S
IMPSON
arrived at Patrick Johnson’s Bethesda residence, they were surprised, for two reasons. One, there was no visible police presence, not even a marked vehicle or yellow police tape. A couple of Suburbans in the driveway were the only evidence of someone being on-site.

The second surprise was the house itself.

Alex stopped on the front sidewalk, put his hands on his hips and surveyed the single-family home. It wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t attached to another house either, and the upscale neighborhood was within walking distance of the thriving Bethesda downtown area. Alex said, “At Johnson’s pay grade I thought we’d be looking at a one-bedroom apartment like his fiancée. Hell, this thing’s got a
yard.
With
grass
.”

Simpson shook her head. “When I got assigned to WFO and didn’t know squat about the D.C. housing sticker shock, I priced some places around here just for the hell of it. This is over a million dollars, easy.”

Inside, Agent Lloyd was waiting for them. Alex said, “Where’d he get the money for this place?”

Lloyd nodded. “And it’s not just the house. There’s a new Infiniti QX56 in the garage. Runs over fifty grand. And we found his other car. He left it on the Virginia side of the river before he took his last swim. Lexus sedan, another forty grand.”

“Selling secrets?” Simpson asked.

“No. We think it’s a more reliable source of illegal cash.”

“Drugs,” Alex said quickly.

“Come up and see for yourself.”

As they were being led upstairs, Alex mentioned to Lloyd, “Bureau securing crime scenes differently these days?”

“Special marching orders on this one.”

“Let me guess. Since it involves NIC, discretion is valued over all other things.”

Lloyd didn’t answer but he did smile.

In the master bedroom closet there was a set of drop-down stairs leading to an attic access panel. On the floor of the closet they saw bundles of something stacked in clear plastic.

“Coke?” Simpson asked.

Lloyd shook his head. “Heroin. That brings ten times the return coke does.”

“And his fiancée knew nothing? Where’d she think he got all this money?”

“I haven’t asked her that yet because we interviewed her before we found this. But I will,” Lloyd added.

“How’d you get onto the drug angle so fast?” Alex asked.

“When we saw where he lived, we ran Johnson’s name through SEISINT and pulled up the property records on his purchase of this place. He bought it last year for one point four million and put a half million in cash down from a financial source we haven’t been able to trace. He financed the cars and then paid them off soon after, again using a bank account we can’t track. I knew it had to be an inheritance, drugs or selling secrets. The point of least resistance was the drugs. So I pulled in a dog from DEA. It started barking its head off when it went into the closet. We didn’t find anything until we saw the panel to the attic. We lifted the dog up there and bingo! He had it stacked between the rafters with insulation over it. ”

“Well, I guess other things being equal, it’s better he was selling drugs than selling his
country
down the river,” Simpson commented wryly.

“I’m not even sure he had access to secrets worth selling,” Lloyd replied. “And now we don’t have to go down that road. But this is going to be a big enough mess as it is. Hell, I could write the
Post
headline myself: ‘Carter Gray, Intelligence or Drug Czar?’”

It seemed to Alex his FBI counterpart was looking forward to every last bit of dirt thrown up on the only federal law enforcement agency that rivaled his in terms of budget and bite. He said, “Now the question is, did he kill himself because he was a drug dealer getting married to a respectable woman and suddenly couldn’t handle it, or did his druggie associates kill him and try to make it look like a suicide?”

Lloyd said, “I’d vote for him taking his own life. He died on the spot where he and his fiancée had their first date. Drug dealers would’ve just popped a new hole in his head while he was sitting in his car or sleeping in his bed. The whole murder-suicide subterfuge is way too sophisticated for those types.”

Alex considered this, then said, “Did you find anything else connected to the drugs? Transaction journal, list of drop-off spots, computer files, anything like that?”

“We’re still looking. But I doubt he would’ve been careless enough to leave stuff like that around. We’ll let you know what we do find so you can close your file out.”

As Alex and Simpson walked back to the car, Simpson glanced at her partner. “Well, there goes the pain in your ass that you didn’t really need. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” Alex said curtly.

“But a drug dealer at NIC, they’re still going to take heat over that.”

“That’s how the cards fall sometimes.”

“So back to WFO?”

He nodded. “I’ll shoot off my e-mail upstairs, follow with a more detailed one when friend Lloyd fills in the rest of the spaces, and we go back to busting counterfeiters and standing in doorways looking to catch a bullet.”

“Sounds like a thrill.”

“I hope you believe that, because you’re going to be doing it for a long time.”

“I’m not complaining. I joined the ranks, nobody pushed me here.” She didn’t sound very convincing, though.

“Look, Jackie, I usually mind my own business, but here’s a piece of real honest advice for a healthy career with the Service from someone who’s seen it all.”

“I’m listening.”

“Do your share of the crap work, no matter who’s looking out for you upstairs. One, it’ll make you a better agent. Two, you’ll leave the Service with at least one friend.”

“Oh, really, who’s that?” Simpson said irritably.

“Me.”

CHAPTER
22

A
T THE
NIC
HELIPAD
G
RAY
boarded a Sikorsky VH-60N chopper. It was the same model the president used as Marine One, although in the coming years it would be replaced by a Lockheed Martin-built version. Gray usually rode the Sikorsky to the White House for his meetings with Brennan, causing some understandably anonymous souls to snidely dub it “Marine One and a Half.” However, there was one distinct difference between how Gray and Brennan were ferried on choppers. When the president rode in from Andrews Air Force Base, Camp David or elsewhere, there were three identical VH-60Ns in the convoy. Two served as decoys, giving any would-be assassin with a surface-to-air missile only a one-in-three shot of hitting his intended target. Carter Gray was on his own in that regard. After all, there were numerous cabinet secretaries, but just one president.

Traditionally, it was only Marine One that was allowed to land on the White House grounds. It was Brennan who’d authorized Gray to travel this way, over the very heated protests of the Secret Service. It saved Gray what could have been a tortuous daily commute from Loudoun County, and the intelligence czar’s time was very valuable. However, there were still grumblings at the Secret Service. Understandably, they didn’t care to see anything flying at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue unless it had the president on board.

At a speed of 150 knots the ride was quick and uneventful, though Gray was too busy to have noticed. He strode across the White House grounds knowing full well that the countersnipers arrayed on the surrounding rooftops were drawing practice beads on his wide head. Inside the West Wing Gray nodded at people he knew. Until 1902 greenhouses stood on this plot of ground. That’s when Teddy Roosevelt finally decided he needed a private place, away from his numerous children and their large coterie of pets, in order to competently conduct his business as the nation’s leader. His successor, the rotund William Taft, made the West Wing even bigger and the Oval Office a permanent fixture in the lives of all future presidents.

Gray’s daily visit had already been scheduled and approved. No one went into the Oval Office unannounced, not even the First Lady. Brennan always received Gray in the Oval Office and not the adjacent Roosevelt Room, as he often did visitors and other underlings.

Brennan looked up from his thirteen-hundred-pound desk built from the wood of the British ship HMS
Resolute,
which American whalers discovered after it had been caught in the ice and abandoned by its crew. The ship had been repaired by the U.S. government and sent back to England as a gesture of goodwill. Queen Victoria reciprocated by presenting the desk as a gift to President Rutherford B. Hayes. Thereafter, the Resolute Desk, as it became known, had been used by every president since, except for a period of time when it was at the Smithsonian Institution.

Gray had had his antennae on high since he stepped inside the West Wing. He had seen the Web casts on Patrick Johnson’s death. More of them had trickled out that afternoon. He got the last of them on the chopper ride over. Gray had also received a briefing by the FBI that included the discovery of the drug cache at Johnson’s home. He also knew of Secret Service agents Ford and Simpson’s involvement in the investigation. When he heard Simpson’s name, it allowed him a rare smile. That could be his ace in the hole down the road, should he need one.

As befitted any respectable spymaster, Gray had eyes and ears in the White House and had already been warned that Brennan was concerned about the Johnson matter and its possible negative effects on his reelection campaign. Therefore, he did not let his boss initiate the discussion.

As soon as the two men sat down across from each other, Gray said, “Mr. President, before we go into the daily briefing, I’d like to take up the unfortunate issue of Patrick Johnson’s death on Roosevelt Island.”

“I’m surprised you hadn’t called about it, Carter.” There was an edge to the man’s voice that Gray understood but didn’t particularly like.

“I wanted to have a firm grasp of the facts before I did, sir. The last thing I wanted to do was waste your time.”

“You certainly wouldn’t be the first one to waste it today,” Brennan snapped.

This is the President, and I serve at his pleasure,
Gray reminded himself.

Gray gave the president a brief background on the matter, information that doubtless the man already knew. When Gray got to the drug discovery, Brennan put up his hand.

“Are there any others involved?” he asked sharply.

“Good question, Mr. President, and not one that’s been answered to my satisfaction. I will personally conduct an internal investigation of this matter, aided, at my request, by the FBI.” Getting the Bureau involved was loathsome to Gray, but better he suggest it than allow someone else to do it.

“Carter, if the FBI is coming in, you have to give them a free hand. Nothing swept under the rug.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. However, at this point it does not appear that the case goes any further. That is to say, if Johnson was selling drugs, it was separate from his work at NIC.”

The president was shaking his head. “That’s not an assumption we can make yet. What exactly did he do for you?”

“He oversaw our electronic intelligence files containing background information on terror suspects and other targeted individuals and organizations, both outstanding and those that had been apprehended or killed. Johnson actually helped to design the system.”

“Worth selling?”

“It’s hard to see how. It was basic info. A lot of it is contained on our public Web site. Then there’s the confidential information such as fingerprints, DNA info, if applicable, that sort of thing. However, the files Johnson managed did not contain, for example, any specific intelligence that we’d uncovered to aid us in capturing the targets.”

The president nodded, sat back and rubbed a kink out of his neck. At his desk since seven a.m., he had already crammed fourteen hours’ worth of work into eight, and he had a full afternoon ahead of him with a state dinner to follow. And then it was off the next day to the Midwest to campaign for an election that he had in the bag but was far too paranoid to let his guard down about. “To put it bluntly, Carter, I’m not happy about this at all. The last thing I need right now is some damn scandal.”

“I will do everything in my power to prevent that from happening, sir.”

“Well, vetting your employees a little better would’ve been good,” the president admonished.

“I absolutely agree with that.” Gray paused and then added, “Sir, obviously, we cannot allow this development to interfere with our main work.”

Brennan looked puzzled. “Come again?”

“As you know, the media has a way of creating something out of nothing. It’s a terrific way to sell newspapers, but not necessarily good for national security.”

Brennan shrugged. “That’s First Amendment territory, Carter. That’s sacrosanct.”

Gray leaned forward. “I’m not saying otherwise. But we
can
do something about leaks, and also the content and timing of the information flow. Right now the media knows about as much as we do. They’ll report it, and NIC will be giving an official statement regarding the matter. I think at this stage all that is fine, but it’s certainly not in our best interests to see NIC’s mission derailed for something like this.”

He paused again and then delivered the lines he had practiced on the chopper ride over. “There are only a few ways you are politically vulnerable, sir. And your opponents are so desperate now they’ll seize on anything to hit you with. In that desperation they may see this as such an opportunity. Historically, such a strategy has a certain precedent of success. To put it
bluntly,
we cannot let them use this to defeat you in November. Whatever the truth is, it’s not important enough to prevent you from winning a second term.”

Brennan thought about this for some time. Finally, he said, “Okay, together we’ll keep a tight leash on the media. I mean this is national security, after all. And if you run into any flack from the Bureau or others, you let me know about it.” He paused and then said, in his best politician’s baritone, “You’re right, this nation’s security will not be sidetracked by some guy selling drugs on the side.”

Gray smiled. “Absolutely.”
Thank God it’s an election year.

Brennan went to his desk and pressed the intercom button. “Tell Secretary Decker to come in.”

Gray looked surprised at this. “Decker?”

Brennan nodded. “We need to talk about Iraq.”

Decker walked in a minute later. He was in his fifties with close-cropped gray hair, handsome features and lean body from running five miles every day wherever he happened to be in the world. A widower, Decker was deemed one of the city’s most eligible bachelors. Although he’d never served in the military, he’d begun in the defense industry, working his way up and earning a sizable fortune before jumping to the public arena. His rise there had been equally swift and included stints as secretary of the navy and deputy defense secretary. He was the total D.C. package—smart, articulate, ruthless, ambitious and well respected—and Gray loathed him. As defense secretary, Decker headed up the Pentagon, the sector that used the vast bulk of all intelligence dollars, a purse that Gray technically controlled. Thus, while Decker was cooperative with Gray and said all the right things in public, Gray was well aware that behind the scenes Decker tried to circumvent and backstab him at every opportunity. He was also Gray’s major rival for the president’s ear.

Decker opened the conversation in his usual brisk manner. “The Iraqi leadership has made it clear that they want us gone very soon. However, there are enormous problems there, even more than the Kurds forming their own republic. The Iraqi army and the security forces are simply not ready. In some critical ways they may never be ready. But the country is growing weary of our presence. And now the Iraqis have publicly taken the position that Israel must be exterminated, following the hard line of their new ally, Syria. It’s an untenable situation but hard for us to reject since it’s a democratically-elected government saying it.”

“We know all this, Joe,” Gray said impatiently. “And the Baathists are negotiating with the leadership to come back to power in exchange for stopping the violence,” he added, looking directly at the president.

Brennan nodded. “But how can we leave Iraq in that way? The last thing we want is Syria and Iraq teaming up, with Hussein’s cronies in control again. With the Sharia Group and Hezbollah headquartered in Syria, we could soon have their presence in Iraq and beyond,” Brennan added, referring to the two anti-Israeli terrorist organizations. “And France sliced off the coastline of Syria and formed Lebanon in the 1920s. Syria has always wanted it back and may unite with Iraq to do so. And then they might go after the Golan Heights, sparking a war with Israel. That could destabilize the entire region more than it already is.”

Gray said, “Well, if another country came here and lopped off New England and unilaterally formed another country with it, we’d be upset too, wouldn’t we, Mr. President?”

Decker cut in. “Besides the Baathists, there are extremist Islamic factions in the Iraqi legislature that are growing in power. If they take over, they’ll be far more dangerous to the U.S. than Saddam Hussein ever was. But we also promised the Iraqi people that we would leave when they had adequate security forces in place and officially asked us to withdraw. That moment is almost upon us.”

“So get to your point, Joe!” Gray snapped.

Decker glanced at Brennan. “I haven’t discussed this fully with the president yet.” He cleared his throat. “By taking out some of these extremist factions in the legislature, we can tip the power in favor of the government in Iraq that’s best for the
U.S.
and keep the Baathists from coming back to power. And there is all that oil to consider, sir. Gas is approaching three dollars a gallon now. We need the leverage of the Iraqi reserves.”

“Take out? As in, what, assassination!” Brennan said, scowling. “We don’t do that anymore. It’s illegal.”

“It’s illegal to assassinate a head of state or government, Mr. President,” Gray corrected.

“Exactly,” Decker agreed. “These people are not in that category. To me it’s no different than putting a price on bin Laden’s head.”

“But the targets you’re talking about are duly appointed members of the Iraqi legislature,” Brennan protested.

“The insurgents are murdering
moderate
legislators with impunity over there right now. This is simply evening the playing field, sir,” Decker rejoined. “If we don’t do something, there won’t be any moderates
left
.”

“But, Joe,” Gray said, “if we go in and do that, it’ll ignite a civil war.”

“We’ll make it look like the Iraqi moderates did it in retaliation so there’s no heat on us. I’ve been promised full cooperation from them.”

“But the resulting civil war . . . ,” Brennan said.

“Will give us a perfectly legitimate reason to keep our military presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future,” Decker responded quickly, obviously pleased with himself. “However, if we allow the Baathists back in, they’ll crush all opposition, and Iraq will return to a Hussein-style dictatorship. We can’t let that happen. All the money spent and lives lost will have meant nothing. And if that happens in Iraq there’s no reason to think the Taliban can’t reemerge in Afghanistan.”

Brennan looked at Gray. “What do you think?”

Actually, Gray was chagrined he hadn’t thought of it first. Decker had clearly outflanked him on this.
The little son of a bitch.
“You wouldn’t be the first U.S. president to authorize something like that, sir,” he grudgingly admitted.

Brennan didn’t look convinced. “I need to think it over.”

“Absolutely, Mr. President,” Decker replied. “But it is on a tight time frame. And as you well know should Iraq and Afghanistan fall back under the control of governments hostile to us, the American public will raise holy hell.” He paused and added, “That is not a legacy you want or deserve, sir.”