Hood preferred to talk with her when he was fresh. It helped him deal with whatever feelings of entitlement or bitterness she might spray his way.
Ironically, just before he phoned her, Matt Stoll called. He said that he understood the staff cuts and could do a lot of the maintenance work, paperwork, 'the grunt work himself. But he said he needed at least another set of hands to help him. Cheap hands. 'Monkey hands,' he said.
There was something about that image which amused Hood. He knew a chimp they could hire.
He was disappointed with the crankiness in his soul, but the hurt was there and it wasn't going away. As long as he didn't communicate that to Sharon, no harm was done.
Sharon was rushed, as usual, when he called. She was going to work out, and her trainer another addition to her new life did not like it when she was late. She was also polite but formal, as Hood had come to expect. He got the words out quickly. Otherwise, he would have changed his mind about telling her that he had found an internship for Frankie Hunt.
'It's with Matt Stoll,' Hood told her. 'He'll be working on put-the-square-peg-in-the-square-hole stuff. Inventory and routing software and hardware upgrade notifications.'
'Great,' Sharon said. 'Thanks.'
She really did sound grateful. That made him uncomfortable. Sharon was happy because he was helping his goddamn replacement. There was a point at which a good soldier became an idiot. He felt he had crossed that.
'E-mail me his contact information,' Hood told her, continuing because he had no choice. 'I'll order an expedited background check, and we can go from there.'
'Will do,' she said. 'Frankie is a good kid.'
'I'm sure he is,' Hood said pleasantly. It was filler, but he could not think of anything else to say. Anything civil, that is.
Since the children had already left for school, the call ended with a pair of unsentimental good-byes. Hood sat there for a moment, looking at the phone. He wanted to slam his fist on it but did not. The phone was not his enemy. He was. Mr. Cooperative, the mediator, the nice guy.
The idiot.
As with Senator Debenport the day before, an early-morning phone conversation ended with Hood feeling as if he had been someone's stooge. He hoped this did not become a pattern. It might make him insecure, and crises did not yield to men of caution. At the same time, Hood could not afford to become overly bold and push Op-Center deeper into areas where it had no legitimate business.
Both extremes were tested when Darrell McCaskey arrived. McCaskey came to see Hood with something that had been on his mind all morning: the name of the only individual who fit Maria's quick-sketch profile.
'Admiral Kenneth Link,' McCaskey said. 'He's a former head of covert ops with the CIA, he's got an anti- European agenda, and he knew where William Wilson was staying.'
'Okay, so Link did not like the man's policies,' Hood said. 'What does he gain by removing Wilson?'
'I'm not sure,' McCaskey admitted. 'But I can't dismiss the possibility.'
'Fair enough. Talk it out.'
'A prominent Brit dies abroad after a sexual encounter,' McCaskey said.
'The Fleet Street tabloids are all over that. Wilson's death not only cripples and probably terminates the new banking venture, it affects the stock price of his company. The tawdriness of what happened hurts the value even more. In short, Wilson's death shuts down a potential threat to the American economy.'
'Right,' Hood replied. 'But doesn't that help the current administration and not Senator Orr?'
'Just the opposite, I would think,' McCaskey said. 'If the rumors about Orr are true, he is going to come out and effectively promote a strong policy of isolationism. Wilson's death gives the senator a salacious, Eurocentric target, someone the president's endorsed successor can't hit.'
'Because, like us, the president has overseas alliances to protect.'
McCaskey nodded. 'Orr wouldn't care about that. His only concern is the American electorate.'
'That might also be a rival's concern,' Hood said. 'Someone could be looking to frame Link and stop a credible
