Rodgers snickered. 'Politicians play with words, too.' He held up his right palm. 'I mean this hand just took down a photograph of a man who gave his life for this place. It can't, and won't, clasp the hand of a guy who was afraid to lose his job. And by the way, Paul'. A battlefield littered with war dead is not the same as a job market having to absorb some bureaucrats. Don't ever compare them.'
'I wasn't,' Hood said. 'I was only trying to connect with you somehow.'
'Well, you failed.'
'I can see that.' Hood lowered his arm. 'If you change your mind, the hand is still extended.'
'I appreciate that.'
'And I do wish you well,' Hood added.
'I appreciate that, too,' Rodgers said with a little more formality.
Hood left, shutting the door behind him. Rodgers looked around. The office seemed both bigger and smaller because of the naked walls. Men are small, but their deeds are large.
Rodgers did not regret what he had just done. Unlike Hood, he did not even feel sad. All he felt was a sense of pride that he had lifted himself from the battlefield and soldiered on. He finished packing the second bag, then went to his desk and removed the few personal items that were still there. A leather bookmark with the NATO logo, a letter opener from the king of Spain in gratitude for the way Striker had helped prevent a new civil war.
A memorial card from the service of Bass Moore, the first Striker killed in action.
Rodgers was convinced that he had done the right thing by rejecting Hood's hand. As he left his former office, the general was convinced of something else. That there was probably nothing on God's sweet earth that would ever make him rescind that decision.
THIRTY
Washington, D.C. Thesday, 2:18 p.m.
Though the military police would never acknowledge it, security was rooted in the two Ps: preparedness and profiling. It had to be done that way. The kids manning the gates and checkpoints at bases around the world lacked street smarts and experience. They required checklists.
Jacquie Colmer did not fit any of the terrorist profiles. She was fair-skinned, and she was a woman. That eliminated religious extremists and white supremacists. She was also disarming. She smiled a great deal, which terrorists tended not to do. Most were anxious young amateurs, fearful of being captured and disappointing their sponsors. Jacquie was not a novice. The key to successful penetration of an enemy target was what Jacquie had always called the seduction factor. Her job was not to muscle people into submission but to coerce them. She used femininity, compliments, small talk, and invigorating observations to make herself welcome. 'Look at that sky!' she would say, or 'Smell that rain!' She drew attention to the moment to hide what lay beyond.
While the Herndon Road Services Company was not the usual Country-Fresh Water Corporation vehicle, she had the proper documentation. The Andrews Air Force Base guard went through the anti espionage checklist, which he knew by heart. There were only containers of water in the back, and the front-to-back mirror view of the underside revealed nothing. The young, expressionless guard looked under the hood with a flashlight. He saw only the engine.
Jacquie was allowed to drive on.
The woman parked her van away from the sight line of the base sentry.
She withdrew a hefty five-gallon container and hoisted it onto her right shoulder. She saw through the tinted glass that the guard booth inside the lobby was on the left side. She had made it this far. The guard by the elevator at the National Crisis Management Center would not give her much trouble. Especially a woman holding a large plastic bottle of water. A bottle that was tinted deep blue to make the water appealing.
And to hide what was in the neck of the bottle. What the tint did not conceal, Jacquie's glove and the bottle's neck did.
The sentry was a husky woman who held the rank of corporal. Her name tag said Vosa.
'Corporal Vosa, did you know that water coolers consume four billion kilowatt hours a year, which produces an annual level of pollution equivalent to the emissions of three-quarters of a million cars?' she asked the guard.
'I did not, ma'am,' said the NCO.
Playing the nerd was also a useful tactic when one wished to get in and out of a place quickly. No one liked to
