The Profession (28 page)

I remember Spence from East Africa. He was the three-star commander of the carrier battle group sent to back up Salter’s Task Force 68. Spence was the one who presided over Salter’s dismissal and termination of command; it was aboard the admiral’s G-5 that Salter flew home to face his congressional tarring and feathering.

Meeting the admiral now in person, I must say I like the guy. He’s in civilian clothes, accompanied by his son, a midshipman at Annapolis. Spence opens his HoloTab and fans through a sequence of video news sites—
Wiki Washington Post, NYGT
, MurdochNet and Trump/CNN, along with
Politico
, ITV HuffPost, and
The Situation Room
—which he displays for Maggie to see. The featured sections are solid with stories about Salter in Saudi Arabia and the imminent collapse of the global financial, security, and energy structures. The collective U.S. psyche, the admiral declares, can’t take much more of this chaos. Something’s gotta give.

“What I know you understand, Mrs. Cole,” says Adm. Spence, “is that Washington is in bed with the Saudi royal family on every level. Petrocash pays the salaries of half the think tanks and three-quarters of the lobbying firms. Wives are on the payroll; every DoD guy
above GS-15 has his snout in the trough, including me the second I retire. But it’s way more than that. It’s the economy. It’s society. It’s Western Civ! What falls next, Maggie? Manufacturing is overseas, housing has tanked, finance is history. The country’s been hanging by a thread since ’08, based on Chinese paper, cheap Saudi oil, and smoke and mirrors. Now Salter’s in Iraq and the kingdom, with his fist around America’s lifeline.

“What does the U.S. military do? Drop JDAMs on American boys? Do we let Iran push the button? Then what? Anarchy? Global collapse? World War III?

“Do we wait till Salter sells us out to Gazprom and Sinopec? What happens when the Russians or Chinese take our oil? Will some crazed actor nuke the fields? Or just blow Ghawar and Shayba with a few truck bombs? And Salter knows all this. The sonofabitch is brilliant. He’s run rings around Europe and the Iranians and Iraqis; he’s totally screwed the Saudis; and now he’s got us by the short hairs too. I’ll step down if I have to. If Salter wants me to fall on my sword, I’ll do it.”

Mrs. Cole asks the next question. “For whom are you speaking, Harley?”

“I can’t answer that.”

Maggie assures Adm. Spence that Salter bears no personal grudges. He is not that kind of man. She asks Spence if she can count on him. “A moment will come soon,” Maggie says, “when all the chips will have to be put on the table.”

The admiral expels a weary breath.

“I’m speaking for the president of course. But I’m also looking out for the chiefs and for the military as a whole. Jim has put us in a helluva spot and he knows it. What does he want? Money? Redemption? He can’t sit on those fields forever.”

“Why not?”

The admiral glances to his son, then back to Mrs. Cole.

“Godammit, Maggie, I surrender! I know Salter’s got more cards up his sleeve and I know he’s smart enough and jacked up enough to play ’em.”

I glance to Maggie Cole as she watches the admiral squirm. I can’t help but flash on the code name that her Secret Service detail gave her when she was first lady: Livia, after the Roman empress in
I, Claudius
, who poisoned every pretender to the throne including, in the end, her own husband, Augustus.

“I have a question for you, Admiral,” says Mrs. Cole. “What do
you
want?”

“Me?” Clearly the chairman thinks of himself as just another handcuffed bureaucrat.

“How do you want to come out of this? And what are you willing to do to make it happen?”

Before Spence can answer, Maggie turns to the midshipman, the chairman’s son. “You’re a football player, aren’t you, Edward? A defensive back, I hear, and a good one.” She observes that the young man has been silent all evening. “Tell me, what is your impression of the events of the past two weeks?”

The midshipman blushes and glances to his elder.

“Don’t defer to your father, Edward. You’re in my house now. Tell me, please. What is your impression of General Salter?”

The young man sits up. You can see he has brains and guts. “I can only speak for myself, Mrs. Cole. But I think it’s about time we had an American commander who wasn’t afraid to kick the world in the ass.”

This answer seems to please the former first lady. “Even,” she asks, “if he’s not doing it under the American flag?”

“I don’t care what flag he’s doing it under. He’s one of us and he’s through taking shit.”

Later, when father and son are taking their leave, the chairman
speaks aside to Mrs. Cole. This is in the foyer, as he’s pulling on his overcoat.

“Dammit, Maggie, what the hell does Jim want?”

Mrs. Cole hands the admiral his muffler and gloves. “That’s easy, Harley. He wants to come home.”

19 SEPTEMBER 2032. I’M
meeting a rep from Petrobras, the Brazilian oil company, at a fund-raiser at a restaurant in Georgetown called Melisse. The event is upstairs, in a private room; our group is chatting before dinner at the service bar, when I feel an iron fist seize my shoulder from behind. “Gent, is that your sorry ass?” I turn to discover a stranger of about forty—six foot, 190, clean shaven, business suit.

“It’s Hayward, bro!”

The Team Alpha leader.

“Sonofabitch!” Hayward and I clasp hands and clap each other’s backs. “Sorry, man, I didn’t recognize you without the beard.”

“Yeah, they made me shave the fucker. You too, I see.”

We laugh and make our way to a quiet corner, exchanging stories of how each of us has wound up in this candy-ass capital and what’s up with various friends still fighting the real fight back in the sand. I ask Hayward how long he’s been here.

“Since right after,” he says. “They flew me back in the same stinking rags I was wearing in Tajikistan.”

“And you’ve been here in D.C. the whole time?”

“D.C. and other places.”

I eyeball my fellow warrior. His sandy hair is cropped in a straight-up buzz cut. His Popeye forearms bulge beneath the sleeves of his suit jacket, which are so short his full shirt cuffs are showing. Hayward’s blue, Oklahoma-panhandle eyes scan the room like an assassin’s.

“How do you like doing all this deal making?” I ask, indicating the guests, who are networked around the chamber in twos and threes, churning out predinner business.

Hayward gives me a look. “Yeah,” he says, “I’m doing some really cool deals.” And he draws a thumb across his throat.

I catch his arm and pull him closer. I can’t imagine Hayward, even in a suit and tie, making social chitchat with Beltway politicos. The dude is a man-killer; it sticks out all over him.

I want to know what he means by “really cool deals.” But from the head of the room comes the peal of a butter knife against a crystal goblet. A blond staffer materializes at Hayward’s shoulder, tugging him back toward their table. I flash him the call-me sign and add emphasis to make it urgent. He grins and shoots a lascivious eyeroll in the direction of the blonde.

The conversation over dinner is of nothing but the Emergency Powers Act. When coffee arrives, the host rises and introduces a series of prominent guests—a senator, a lobbyist, and former secretary of state Echevarria (whom I hadn’t noticed till then)—who stand and briefly address the room. Each speaks passionately of his fears for liberty, for the very survival of the republic if this amendment passes and Salter is brought home under its unconstitutional provisions. As the dessert plates are being carried away, I catch Hayward shooting me a second look. I want to get him alone, but, just as I stand, I see him receive an incoming text. In seconds he’s on his feet and out the rear exit.

Outside, guests pile up at the valet stand, retrieving their cars. I wait for Echevarria. I want to ask him about his “Catalog of the Elect.” Is it for real, as he declared that night at Hantush? And did he succeed in getting his name on it?

But I can’t find him. Has he left by another exit? My own car is just being brought curbside when a voice booms from the restaurant doorway.

“Colonel! Are you avoiding me?”

The secretary works through the crush. I’m surprised at the affection I feel, seeing him again. But when he comes up, his expression is stern. With him is a fiftyish gentleman whom he introduces as William Agocopian, deputy director of intelligence for the FBI. Their wives wait with a couple of other matrons.

“I saw you inside, chatting it up with your friend, Colonel Hayward,” the secretary says. He glances to the FBI guy. “I’d like to have recorded that conversation.”

I tell him Hayward and I were talking about beards.

“I didn’t think,” Echevarria says, “that Salter would play so rough so fast.”

I ask him what he means by that.

“Please, Colonel. You and I are friends. We both understand how the game is played.”

I tell him I’m serious.

“They’re calling it a ‘unity government,’ ” says Echevarria. “A felicitous turn of phrase, don’t you think? I didn’t make the cut. But apparently you did, Colonel, along with your brother-in-arms Hayward.”

I repeat that I don’t know what he’s talking about.

The FBI deputy snorts. “Cut the crap, partner. We know what business your pal is in—and we know what you’ve done too.”

“And what exactly is that, partner?”

“We know about the Pakistani village that disappeared into a
river, and we know about Mbana’s Brown Bombers who disappeared altogether.”

I feel the blood surging in my temples. “If you’re accusing me of something, motherfucker, spit it out.”

Echevarria slides his bulk between me and the deputy. Two security men glide in. I dish out a dose of profanity to this son of J. Edgar Hoover. But already I’m getting the sick feeling that he’s right and I’m wrong.

The secretary’s car comes. Echevarria apologizes for the unpleasantness as he and his party move off. At the curb, he turns back.

“If you really don’t know, Colonel, ask your wife. Or better yet, speak to Maggie Cole.”

I’m driving home, trying to reach A.D. when my earbud pings. The numeral “1” appears in the text window on my handheld:

A.D. IS WITH ARIEL
Caplan at a bar in Alexandria. When I find the two of them in a back booth, they’re arguing.

“We’ll call the guy,” Ariel is saying. “We’ll get him on the phone right now.”

I sit. “What’s going on?”

“Tell him,” says Ariel.

“It’s bullshit,” says my wife.

I order a Johnnie Black and tell the girls I’m off for Dubai in the morning. Ariel wants me to report everything that happens. Then she tells me the news.

Two men have turned up dead in the past week, and a third is missing. Lavalle Courtemanche. Do I remember the name? The blogger, who outed Rob Salter for the Brown Bombers massacre. The cops dragged his body out of a ditch seven days ago—and not one mainstream outlet is covering it.

The second corpse, Ariel says, belongs to DeMartin White of CyberLeaks, who published the Marine Corps report that
confirmed Rob’s complicity. White dropped dead of a heart attack seventy-two hours ago—at forty-one, a marathoner in the prime of health.

“Ariel,” A.D. says, “thinks they’ve been murdered.”

“The Third Amigo is Jake Fallon, the congressman from Montana who put Courtemanche’s and White’s material in front of every camera in the country. He’s supposedly hiking now in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Except the place has been shut down for two weeks.”

“And you think he’s been murdered too?”

“Someone’s sending a message. To let Salter’s enemies know he’s playing for keeps.”

I ask Ariel where the first two men died.

“Here. Courtemanche in D.C., White in Anacostia.”

Ariel hears something in my voice.

“What do you know, Gent?”

“Nothing.”

I can’t believe Salter’s behind this. I won’t.

“You know who did it,” says Ariel. “Who? Some mercenary? Someone who knows how to kill people—”

A.D. laughs. “They
all
know how to kill people.” She dismisses the whole narrative as coincidence.

“Two bodies?” says Ariel. “Both linked to the biggest story in the last fifty years? And a third missing?”

“People die, Ariel. It happens.”

“What kind of horseshit answer is that, A.D.? You’re a journalist. Don’t tell me why it’s
not
a story; tell me why it is!”

Ariel insists we go back to her apartment. It’s two in the morning. A.D. refuses. She’s got work to do—for her meeting tomorrow at
Apple imPress
.

“What work?” Ariel asks.

A.D. confesses that she has contracted to do a second cover story, this one on the “adaptability” of the Constitution.

“Adaptability?” Ariel scoffs. “What, have you gone over to the fucking dark side?”

“Look,” says A.D. “I’m working.”

Ariel tells me what apparently she and A.D. have been arguing about. There’s a young reporter for a McClatchy Webpaper who’s been working the Blogger and Leaker story. He’s the only one. He’s in Sacramento. He works for the
Bee
.

“I’ve been tracking his pieces,” says A.D. “They’re all speculation.”

We’re outside the bar now. It’s raining. Ariel says she’s going to dial the reporter right now. She puts her phone on speaker.

While the ring sounds, Ariel gives A.D. a hard look. “A second cover story? Your little pussy’s getting wet, isn’t it?”

“Fuck you.”

“She smells a Pulitzer.”

The phone picks up. “Tumulty.”

“Andrew Tumulty?”

“Who is this?”

“Sorry to disturb you so late, Mr. Tumulty. This is Ariel Caplan of Agence France-Presse. I’m phoning from Washington with A.D. Economides of
Apple imPress
. Do you have a moment to answer a question or two?”

The reporter sounds like he just woke up. “What time is it?”