Straits of Power

and his desires, were also top secret. TOUCHSTONE Alfa was the CIA’s code name for material someone in Istanbul sent the U.S…. If Peapod had sent TOUCHSTONE Alfa, and a whiff of this leaked to the Axis, America could lose a golden opportunity to shorten the war.

And if Peapod could do all the technical things involved in obtaining and transmitting the TOUCHSTONE Alfa documents, then was Peapod the same as this mysterious Zeno person?

Jeffrey’s head was spinning. “If Peapod is for real, why won’t he give us more of what he knows?”

“To make us come and get him.”

Jeffrey frowned. “I don’t like where this is leading.”

“Nobody does.”

The CNO’s aide came out and asked Hodgkiss’s group to go into the conference room; they entered. The head of the table held two empty chairs. One long side was occupied by the army people and the dour FBI director. The other side was taken by the navy and the CIA director. Parker sat next to his boss. Hodgkiss, Wilson, and Jeffrey took seats farther down the same side. Aides and staffers sat on less opulent chairs against the walls, behind the top brass they supported. Since the foot of the table was also empty, the whole thing looked to Jeffrey like a face-off between two adversarial parties. The atmosphere in the room reinforced this impression.

Everyone rose when the president of the United States walked in, followed by the national security advisor. Jeffrey had had a back-channel private talk with the president before his most recent undersea mission, the one for which he’d gotten the Defense Distinguished Service Medal; the commander in chief was a retired army general who’d presented Jeffrey’s Medal of Honor at a ceremony in the Rose Garden of the White House — for the mission previous to that. The national security advisor, Jeffrey knew, was a retired U.S. Air Force four-star general. She’d been the most senior woman in the armed forces, and had a severe and no-nonsense manner. The president was more laid back, most of the time, and his smile was warm when he did smile. But now he looked tired.

An aide checked names on a personal-data assistant, then turned to the director of the CIA. “Everyone present is cleared for Peapod and TOUCHSTONE Alfa, sir.”

The meeting resumed. Hodgkiss gave a summary of Jeffrey’s assessment of the two documents. The president peered at Jeffrey from far across the table. “Are you absolutely positive, Captain?”

“Yes, sir. Those have to be Beck’s own reports.”

“No doubts in your mind whatsoever?”

“None, Mr. President. They were definitely written by someone who was there.”

The FBI director butted in at once. “I take strong exception to that.”

The president furrowed his eyebrows, but gestured to go on.

“Is it not true, Captain Fuller, that that ‘someone,’ as you put it, might have ‘been there’ by being on your ship repeatedly, knowing you extremely well?”

Jeffrey was staggered, and speechless.

“Well?” The FBI head was very hostile.

“You mean someone who was in battles on Challenger, as some sort of spy, and helped the Germans reverse-engineer reports that were the mirror image of what I saw and did? So that the reports would be believable to me?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean.”

“My crew are loyal. We’ve been in nuclear combat together. They all passed thorough security checks.”

“Answer my question. Is it not possible those reports were prepared as counterfeits of Beck’s real ideas and tactical style and the lessons he learned, with help from a well-informed plant on the Allied side?”

“I suppose in theory it’s possible…. But only in theory.”

The FBI man was visibly exasperated. “I’ll take a tack you’re more familiar with…. What do you think of mutineers, Captain?”

“Not counting refusal to obey an illegal order?” Illegal orders included being told to violate important safety procedures unnecessarily, or to massacre civilians. “Real mutineers are traitors.”

“And are not defectors traitors too?”

“I—”

“Forget your sympathy because they come from the other side over to us. Are they not traitors to their country?”

“Yes. But—”

“And are you not aware that many defectors turn out to be double agents, really working for our enemies all along? Or change their minds and want to go home? Or are actually working both sides against each other for their own selfish interests?”

“Counterespionage is outside my expertise, sir.”

“Well, it’s not outside the FBI’s expertise. So, now that I have opened your eyes to the reality that lies beyond your expertise, Captain Fuller, is there not a traitor among your people?”

Jeffrey shook his head. “It’s impossible.”

“You forgot something. I’m not surprised, considering.”

“Sir?”

“I’m glad to see you’ve distanced yourself from her lately. The situation was becoming outrageous enough as it was.”

Hodgkiss jumped in. “That’s unfair, Director, and frankly, I think it’s in bad taste.”

“There’s nothing fair about spy hunting, Admiral. Every angle must be examined with a complete lack of emotion. Ilse Reebeck is a defector to the Allies. Therefore, to the Axis she is a traitor. Traitors are traitors, period. She had a close personal relationship with you, an intimate one, which you ended, did you not, Captain?”

“Yes.” Jeffrey was getting angry.

“Can you prove that Ilse Reebeck has not changed loyalties again, or that she was not a double agent all along?”

“But she helped the Allies in ways that no one else could. She risked her life for us.”

“Spies risk their lives every day. That proves nothing. Those previous missions of yours could have gone ahead had she never existed. They would probably have been successful too, by reaching deeper into American personnel resources to assist you and your SEALs.”

“I can’t deny that possibility.”

“I consider Reebeck hopelessly compromised. We’ve had mounting suspicions about her the past few weeks. Odd messages being left for her on the phone. Brush bys from strangers who then evade our best trackers.”

“You’ve had Ilse under surveillance?”

“As I said, she’s a turncoat. We’re narrowing in now on solid evidence that she works for the enemy.”

“I can’t believe it. It must be some sort of Axis scheme to discredit her, ruin her usefulness to us.”

“That’s what they’d want us to think, isn’t it? So they can work her hard as a source for them while we dismiss it as a ruse?”

“Er—”

“This ridiculous transmission from Istanbul only reemphasizes our doubts. It gives us a concrete thing she’s done to help the other side.” The FBI director turned to the president. “It is my categorical recommendation that Reebeck’s security clearance be pulled, and that these patrol reports from Beck be dismissed as frauds sent by the Axis as part of some monumental deception gambit.”

“But you weren’t there,” Jeffrey said. “You don’t know what she did for us. And with all due respect, you’re not a submariner, sir. Those reports read like the real thing. I was there.”

“No, Captain. I was given clearance to read your most recent reports. I do know what went on. The Germans have plenty of cause to feed you phony information, to fool you about a particular adversary’s thought processes.”

“You mean give me the wrong impression of Ernst Beck? But he’s in South Africa now. His ship is undergoing repairs in the hardened underground dry dock in Durban.”

“Just so. His superiors thus have a paramount motive for misleading you.”

Yeah, it makes it easier for Beck to break out past the Allied naval cordon there. That would