me with some meaningful information.”
Daniels came back into the camera’s view as he marched toward the door.
The people around the table rose for his exit.
“Mr. President.”
NSA director.
Daniels stopped at the door.
“Your assessment of our effectiveness is wrong,” NSA said. “For my agency, we intercept nearly two billion emails, phone calls, and other international communications each day. Someone must listen to those. It’s how threats directed toward us are communicated. It’s how we became suspicious of Ms. Carbonell and her ties to the Commonwealth. We provide a vital service.”
“And who sorts though those two billion communications you intercept each day?” Daniels asked.
NSA started to speak, but Daniels held up a hand. “Don’t bother. I know the answer. No one. You sort a mere fraction. And every once in a while you luck onto something, like with NIA, then spout off about your importance. Interesting how, despite all of your money, people, and equipment a group of goat-herding terrorists from the wilds of Afghanistan managed to plow two planes into the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon. If not for the bravery of some ordinary Americans another plane would have destroyed the White House. You didn’t know a damn thing about any of that coming.”
“With all due respect, sir, I resent your insults.”
“With all due respect, I resent tossing $75 billion dollars a year-that we know of-away on your foolishness. I resent the fact that those planes made it as far as they did. I resent your arrogance. We deserve an intelligence community that works together as a team in every sense of the word. Hell, if World War II had been run this way we would have lost. I wasn’t planning on doing this but, before I leave office, I’m going to shake this rotting tree down to its roots. So get ready, people. Anybody else having something to say?”
No one spoke.
“Find Stephanie Nelle,” Daniels said.
“Before the assassins?” one of them asked.
“Find one and I believe you’ll find the other.”
The president left.
The others lingered a few seconds, then they, too, began to leave.
“Okay,” Davis said. “Our turn.”
FIFTY-FIVE
KNOX READIED HIMSELF TO BE SHOT. THE WEAPON WAS OF modest caliber, and the bullet would surely pass straight through him.
But it was still going to hurt.
Apparently, the traitor had sold him out.
Hale lowered the gun. “Don’t you give me any more trouble, either. You should not have interfered in that challenge.”
He exhaled. “Killing Captain Bolton was not the answer to the problem.”
Hale laid the gun on the table and grabbed his empty glass, refilling it with whiskey. “The answer to our problem came a little while ago. The director of NIA called me.”
He told himself to listen carefully. Carbonell was maneuvering again. But so was Hale.
“NIA has solved the cipher. They know where that no-good scoundrel Andrew Jackson hid the two missing pages. She told me the location.”
“And you believe her?”
“Why not?”
“They stopped our assassination attempt and cultivated a spy within this company.”
Hale nodded. “I know. But at the moment, the NIA director wants something from me. Something only I can provide.”
“Our guest in the lodge.”
Hale sipped his drink and nodded. “Providing this information is NIA’s way of demonstrating good faith. They hired a contract person who is going after the missing pages. But the man has no intention of turning over what he finds. The director made that clear. She wants him killed. It’s a remote location, which offers a good opportunity to do that. Of course, in return, she says we can have whatever there is to find.”
He listened as Hale explained about Nova Scotia and a man named Jonathan Wyatt. “Carbonell provided me everything she has on Paw Island and Fort Dominion.”
“What’s to stop us from simply going after the two pages and ignoring Wyatt?”
“Nothing, provided Wyatt doesn’t get in your way. From what she said, you’ll have to kill him in order to get him out of the way. He’s not the type to simply step aside.”
Everything about this sounded bad.
Hale pointed toward his desk. “There’s a photo and dossier on Wyatt. He was also the man who stopped the assassination attempt. I’d say you owe him.”
Perhaps he did, but he wasn’t quite sure what.
“Take the file. Use the jet. NIA tells me Wyatt is flying commercially out of Boston, but weather is delaying him. Get there before he does and be ready.”
Apparently things had changed one more time and Carbonell had decided to provide the Commonwealth what it wanted.
Or had she?
“This could be a trap.”
“I am willing to take the chance.”
No, he was willing for someone else to take the chance. But Knox had no choice. He had to go to Canada. If he could be ready before this Wyatt arrived, it should be an easy kill. One more demonstration of his loyalty to the captains, which should buy him more time.
At least the traitor had not compromised him.
“Look, Clifford,” Hale said, conciliation in his voice. “Why provide us this information if she’s lying?”
“Apparently, so we can do her dirty work. The man she sent can’t be trusted, so she wants us to eliminate him.”
Just like with Scott Parrott.
“If that makes her happy, so what? If she’s lying, we still have Stephanie Nelle to do with as we please.”
He caught the message. What do we have to lose? So he knew the right response. “I’ll head north immediately.”
“Before you leave, there is another matter. Bolton was right about one thing. The equipment that we have secreted at Shirley Kaiser’s residence. It’s time to remove it before someone notices. It’s not needed any longer. Do you have men who can accomplish that?”
He nodded. “Two I’ve been training. They assist me often. They can handle it.”
“I spoke with Kaiser a day or so ago and she told me she would be out this evening at a fund-raiser in Richmond. That should give you an opportunity.”
Hale sipped more whiskey.
“Clifford, the others know nothing of my association with NIA, beyond the little bit I told them earlier. And I don’t want to share any more until we have success. I’m asking you to keep this between us, for now. Contrary to what they think, I will not abandon them, though God knows I should. They are an ungrateful, stupid lot. But I take my oath to the Articles seriously. If we succeed, we succeed for all.”
He could not care less, but feigned interest. “I’m curious about one thing. How did you know which glass to
