are these secret operations lads like the late and unlamented Michael Dolan really working for? The Lazarus Movement, as they seem to be on the surface? Or some other organization, sub rosa? Perhaps even your very own CIA? All very confusing, wouldn't you say?”
“One thing's certain,” Smith told him. “Kit Pierson must be in this mess up to her neck. She probably has the authority to take over the Plaza crime scene. But there's no way she can justify cremating Dolan's body, not under standard FBI practice and procedure.”
“Could she be doubling for Lazarus?” Peter asked quietly. “Working to sabotage the FBI's investigation from within?”
“Kit Pierson as a Lazarus mole?” Jon shook his head firmly. “I can't see it. If anything, she's been pushing far too hard to blame everything that happened at the Institute on the Movement.”
Peter nodded. “True. So if she's not working for Lazarus, she must be working against them — which suggests she's covering for an off-the-books anti-Movement operation run by the FBI, or the CIA, or both.”
Smith looked at him. “You think they're really running an operation that sensitive without the president's approval?”
Peter shrugged. “It happens, Jon, as you well know.” He smiled drilv. “Remember poor old Henry the Second? He gets a bit pissed one night and roars out, 'Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?' Then, practically before he can sober up, there's blood spilled all over the floor of Canterbury Cathedral. Thomas Becket's suddenly a sainted martyr. And the sad, sorry, hung-over king is down for a round of scourging, hair shirts, and public penitence.”
Smith nodded slowly. “Yeah, I know. Intelligence outfits sometimes exceed their authority. But it's a damned dangerous game to be playing.”
“Of course it is,” Peter said. “Careers can be wrecked. And even high-ranking officials can be sent to prison. That's precisely why they might have decided to kill you.”
Jon frowned. 'I can understand a CIA/FBI covert operation designed to wreck the Lazarus Movement from within. It would be stupid and completely illegal, but I can understand it. And I can see a Movement attempt to sabotage the Institute labs. But what I can't make fit into either scenario is the nanophage release that slaughtered all those protesters.'
“Yes,” Peter said slowly, with his eyes full of remembered horror. “That is the one piece which remains stubbornly outside the puzzle. And a bloody awful piece it is, too.”
Nodding, Smith sat back from the steering wheel and pulled out his phone. “Maybe it's time we stopped pissing around on the outside.” He punched in a number. It was answered on the first ring. “This is Colonel Jonathan Smith, Agent Latimer,” he said sharply. “I want to speak to Deputy Assistant Director Pierson. Right now.”
“Bearding the lioness in her den?” Peter murmured. “Not very subtle even for you, is it, Jon?”
Smith grinned at him over the phone. “I'll leave subtlety to you Brits, Peter. Sometimes you've just got to fix bayonets and launch a good old-fashioned frontal assault.” Then, as he listened to the voice on the other end, his grin slowly faded. “I see,” he said quietly. “And when was that?”
He hung up.
“Trouble?” Peter asked.
“Maybe.” Smith frowned. “Kit Pierson is already on her way back to Washington for certain urgent and unspecified consultations. She's catching an executive jet out of Albuquerque a little later this afternoon.”
“So the bird is on the wing, eh? Interesting timing, isn't it?” Peter said with a sudden gleam in his eye. “I begin to suspect that Ms. Pierson just received a rather disturbing call from the local police.”
“You're probably right,” Smith agreed, remembering the nervous looks he had gotten from the policeman who had passed him up the chain to Zarate. The desk sergeant must have tipped off the FBI that an Army lieutenant colonel named Jonathan Smith was digging into an incident the Bureau was trying to bury. He glanced at the Englishman. 'Are you up for a quick trip to D.C.? I know it's outside your current area of operations, but I could sure use some help. Kit Pierson is the one solid lead I've got and I don't plan to just watch her walk away.'
“Count me in,” Peter replied with a slow, predatory grin. “I wouldn't miss this for the world.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I understand you very well, Mr. Speaker,” President Samuel Adam Castilla growled into the phone. He looked up and saw Charles Ouray, his chief of staff, poke his head into the Oval Office. Castilla motioned him inside with a wave and then turned back to the phone. “Now it's time for you to understand me. I will not be stampeded into any executive action I think unwise. Not by the CIA or the FBI. Not by the Senate. And not by you. Is that clear? Very well, then. Good day to you, sir.”
Castilla hung up, resisting the urge to slam the phone down in its cradle. He rubbed a big hand over his weary face. “They say Andrew Jackson once threatened to horsewhip a fellow off the White House grounds. I used to think that was just Old Hickory on a wild-eyed tear, letting his famous temper get the better of him. But now I'm mighty tempted to follow his example.”
“Are you receiving more helpful advice from Congress?” Ouray asked drily, nodding toward the phone.
The president grimaced. “That was the Speaker of the House,” he said. “Graciously suggesting that I immediately sign an executive order naming the Lazarus Movement a terrorist organization.”
“Or?”
“Or the House and Senate will enact legislation on their own initiative,” Castilla finished.
Ouray raised an eyebrow. “By a veto-proof majority?”
The president shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, we lose. Politically. Diplomatically. You name it.”
His chief of staff nodded soberly. “I guess it doesn't matter much whether an anti-Lazarus bill ever really becomes law. If it passes the Congress, our increasingly shaky international alliances will take another serious hit.”
“Too true, Charlie,” Castilla said, sighing. “Most people around the world will see a law like that as more proof that we're overreacting, turning paranoid and panicked. Oh, I suppose a few of our friends, the ones worried by those bombs in Chicago and Tokyo, might cheer quietly, but most folks will only think we're making matters worse. That we're pushing an otherwise peaceful group toward violence — or that we're covering up our own crimes.”
“It's a terrible situation,” Ouray agreed.
“Yes, it is.” Castilla sighed. “And it's about to get much worse.” Feeling trapped behind his desk, he stood up and crossed over to the windows. For a short time he stared out across the South Lawn, noting the squads of heavily armed guards in helmets and body armor now patrolling openly around the grounds. After the Lazarus Movement attack in Tokyo, the Secret Service had insisted on tightening security around the White House.
He looked back over his shoulder at Ouray. “Before the Speaker dropped his little legislative ultimatum on me, I had another call — this one from Ambassador Nichols at the UN.”
The White House chief of staff frowned. “Is something up inside the Security Council?”
Castilla nodded. “Nichols just got wind of a resolution some of the nonaligned countries on the Council are going to propose. Basically, they're going to demand that we open all of our nanotech research facilities — both public and private — to full international inspection, including an examination of all their proprietary processes. They say it's the only way they can be sure that we're not running a secret nanotech weapons program. And Nichols says he thinks the nonaligned bloc has enough Council votes lined up for passage.”
Ouray grimaced. “We can't allow that to go through.”
“No, we can't,” Castilla agreed heavily. “It's basically a license to steal every nanotech development we've made. Our companies and universities have spent billions on this research. I can't let all of that work go down the drain.”
“Can we persuade one of the other permanent members to veto this resolution for us?” Ouray asked.
Castilla shrugged. “Nichols says Russia and China are ready to stick it to us. They want to know how far
