hire people who slander their political enemies, and no one has the guts to stand up and say they're wrong, they're killing hundreds of people every day, they've trampled all over due process, they've blurred the separation of church and state, because anyone who dares oppose them is immediately branded a traitor, a dangerous left-wing lunatic, or both.'

'They've done that to your father.'

'Yes.'

'But he's survived their slings and arrows to become the next president.'

'Yes.'

'Yet he hasn't spoken out, he hasn't denounced the alliance between the Christian fundamentalists and the Administration. Does that mean he agrees with the present Administration? Did the Administration's media attack dogs pull their punches in return for his lack of criticism?'

She could sense him preparing to leave, and she felt a sharp pang of imminent loss.

'What do you think he prays for when he and your mother attend church every Sunday?'

'I…' All at once confusion overwhelmed her again. 'I don't know.'

'Now you have surprised me,' Kray said.

She heard the sharp disapproval in his voice, and her blood ran cold.

'I-'

Kray put a forefinger across his lips. 'Mealtime's over.'

Retying her wrists, he rose, vanishing into the gloom.

TWENTY — ONE

NINA MILLER caught Jack's call while she was in the middle of the Potomac.

'Excuse me, sir,' she said.

'One moment,' Dennis Paull said. 'I need to see the Mermaid.'

Nina squinted into the wind. 'Are you sure that's wise?'

'Just set it up,' Paull said brusquely.

She gave him a curt nod as she walked aft, away from the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. They were on his 185-foot yacht, big enough to contain an aft upper deck that served as a pad on which the small private helicopter that had brought Nina sat, its rotors quivering and flexing in the wind gusts. The pilot inside the cockpit was ready to lift off at a moment's notice.

Paull watched Nina out of the corner of his eye as she lit a clove cigarette, her back to him, cell phone to her left ear. He worried about her. He worried whether he could trust her. But then, Dennis Paull worried about every person he spoke to or came in contact with during his grueling twenty-hour days. He was playing a dangerous game, and no one knew it better than he did. Over the years, how many people had he or his people uncovered who were playing their own dangerous games? Of course, he was at the eye of the storm, the calm center from which, like an Olympian god, he could look in all directions at once. But he didn't fool himself; he didn't allow his exalted position at the right hand of the president to dull his caution or dim his vigilance.

He'd been living on a knife-edge for almost two years now, the midpoint of the president's second term in office. His stomach always hurt; his nerves vibrated so badly that he couldn't recall the last time he had slept soundly. Instead, he'd taught himself the art of catnapping-five minutes here, fifteen there-during the day. In the dead of night, as one of his days bled into the next, he sipped strong black coffee and carried out the spinning of his web. For good or ill, he was in too deep now to have second thoughts, for if he were to succeed, he needed to commit to his plan absolutely. Any waver of intent would be lethal.

He put on the smile he used for intimates-if one could use that word for those in his inner circle, because Secretary Paull had no true intimates. This the job had taught him a long, painful time ago.

His thoughts threaded away on the spume purling from the sleek bow of his yacht as Nina walked back to where he stood just forward of the cabin. It was a blustery day, spitting intermittently. Not a fit day for a boat ride, which was why Paull was here on the water instead of in an office that might very well be bugged or an open space where whatever he said was at the mercy of a parabolic microphone on the top of some innocuous-looking van. His yacht was swept three times a day for bugs, and that included the entire hull. Plus there were sophisticated jamming devices fore and aft installed by a friend of his at DARPA, the Department of Defense's advanced weapons program.

To the uninitiated, Paull mused, these precautions might seem the product of paranoia, but as William S. Burroughs aptly said, Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts.

'That was McClure,' Nina said, folding away her phone. 'He wants me to meet him at the headquarters of the First American Secular Revivalists.'

Paull didn't like the sound of that. 'What's he doing there? FASR is supposed to be Hugh Garner's responsibility.'

'Garner's got it in for McClure.'

They were into the wind, no one who wasn't in spitting distance could hear them, not even the crew, who Paull had made certain were all inside. 'What the hell is McClure up to?'

'I don't know,' Nina confessed, 'but it seems clear he doesn't believe E-Two is behind the kidnapping.'

'Then who the hell is?'

'I don't know, sir, but I have a feeling McClure is closer to finding out than we are.'

The secretary looked thoughtful. 'From now on, I want you to stick close to him.'

Nina took a drag on her clove cigarette. 'How close?'

The secretary's eyes bored into hers. 'Do whatever it takes to keep him close. We're rapidly running out of time and space to maneuver.'

Nina's gaze was cool and steady. 'How does it feel, I wonder, to pimp someone else out?'

He waved a hand dismissively. 'You'd better get over there pronto.'

Nina turned, headed aft.

'And Nina,' he called after her.

She turned back, pulled her hair off her face.

'Make sure you start thinking of him as Jack.'

INSIDE THE polished mahogany cabin, the yacht's captain ignored the helicopter as its rotors started up. A moment later, it had lifted off with the woman passenger aboard. The captain didn't know her name, didn't care what it was. His job was simple and he was doing it now, transcribing onto the tiny keypad of his BlackBerry from scribbled notes he'd taken of the conversation Secretary Paull had just had with the visitor. Growing up with a deaf sister had made him proficient in lip-reading. Finished with the transcription, he pressed the SEND key, and the e- mail was instantaneously transmitted directly to wherever the president was at the moment, no doubt eagerly awaiting its arrival.

His job concluded for the time being, the captain set his Black-Berry down beside the pair of powerful binoculars through which he'd viewed the conversation in question. Then he got back to maneuvering the yacht through the wind-tossed afternoon. He'd never had an incident at sea aboard any of the yachts he'd captained, and he wasn't about to start now.

TWENTY — TWO

EVERY ACTION invites a reaction. No, no.' Kray rocked slightly from one foot to the other. 'Every action causes a reaction. The religious right's infiltration of the federal government finally has had its proper reaction: us, the enemy. The missionary secularists, the Army of Reason.' He laughed. 'It seems ironic, doesn't it, that without them there would be no us. They created us; every extreme gives rise to the opposite extreme.'

He bent down, untied Alli's wrists. 'Hold your arms over your head.'

Вы читаете First Daughter
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату