'We'll have the information soon.' Code Red-One signified an imminent emergency to national interest. Despite the competitiveness between the agencies, CRIS were generally not denied.
'Thanks,' Hood said.
'Paul, do you know the story about the Man Who Never Was?' Rodgers asked.
'The World War Two story? I read the book in high school,' Hood said.
'He was part of the disinformation campaign during World War Two.'
'Correct,' Rodgers said.
'A British intelligence group took the body of a homeless man, created a false identity for it, and planted papers on the body that said the Allies would invade Greece, not Sicily. The body was left where the Germans would find it. This helped divert Axis forces from Sicily. I mention this because a key player in the operation was a British general named Howard Tower. He was key in the sense that he was also fed misinformation.'
'For what reason?' Hood asked.
'General Tower's communiques were intercepted by the Germans,' Rodgers said.
'British Intelligence saw to that.'
'I'm missing something here,' Herbert said.
'Why are we talking about World War Two?'
'When Tower learned what had happened, he put a gun barrel in his ear and pulled the trigger,' Rodgers said.
'Because he was used?' Hood asked.
'No,' Rodgers said, 'because he thought he'd screwed up.'
'I'm still not getting this,' Herbert admitted.
'Paul, you said the president was pretty upset when you spoke with him,' Rodgers went on.
'And when you met with the First Lady, she described a man who sounded like he was having a breakdown.'
'Right,' Hood said.
'That may not mean anything,' Herbert said.
'He's president of the United States. The job has a way of aging people.'
'Hold on. Bob. Mike may be onto something,' Hood said. There was something gnawing at Hood's stomach. Something that was getting worse the more he thought about it.
'The president did not look tired when I saw him. He looked disturbed.'
'I'm not surprised,' Herbert said.
'He was being kept out of the loop and made an apparent faux pas about the UN. He was embarrassed.'
'But there's another component to this,' Hood told him.
'There's the cumulative psychological impact of disinformation. What if plausible deniability and bureaucratic confusion aren't the reasons the president was misled? What if there's another reason?'
'Such as?' Herbert asked.
'What if disinformation isn't the end but the means?' Hood said.
'What if someone is trying to convince Lawrence that he's losing his grip?'
'You mean, what if someone is trying to gaslight the president of the United States?' Herbert declared.
'Yes,' Hood replied.
'Well, it's going to take a lot of convincing before I buy that,' Herbert said.
'For one thing, anyone who tried that would never get away with it. There are too many people around the president--'
'Bob, we already decided that this is something Jack Fenwick would not, probably could not, do on his own,' Hood said.
'Yes, but to make it work, he'd need a small army of people who were very close to the president,' Herbert said.
'Who?' Hood asked.
'The chief of staff?'
'For one,' Herbert said.
'He's privy to most of the same briefings the president receives.'
'Okay,' Hood said.
'Gable's already on my list of unreliables. Who else? Who would be absolutely necessary for a plan like this to work?' Before Herbert could answer, his phone beeped. He answered the call and was back in less than a minute.
'Don't tell me, 'I told you so,'
