cigarette. With a sympathy known by smokers the world over, the guard pulled a half-empty pack from his pocket and tossed them on the floor with a book of matches.
“How about some booze, you bastard,” Harry said halfheartedly as he scooped up the rumpled pack. The splint made it difficult to light one of the cigarettes, and it took him several tries.
As the nicotine coursed through his system, he looked at the monkey that had appeared on the wall again, its teeth bared in an aggressive display.
“Screw you, too,” Harry said to the apparition, a filterless cigarette hanging from his lips. He knew from experience that the DTs would pass quickly and the monkeys wouldn’t bother him much longer.
He sat back on the bed, keeping one eye on the monkey just in case, and massaged his injured hand. He didn’t know where he was or who had grabbed him, or even why. He hadn’t seen the guard’s face, but the colorful headdress made him pretty sure they were Arabs and that his abduction involved Mercer and his search for the diamond vent.
Harry chuckled darkly. He’d seen what Mercer was capable of when he was riled and knew that his kidnappers were going to pay. Still, Harry wasn’t the type to sit back and wait to be rescued. He’d gotten himself out of a few tough scrapes before. Former Senator John Glenn was only three years younger when he went into space, he thought. If Glenn could pull that one off, surely he could escape this bunch. The guard had given him cigarettes, and it was only a matter of time before Harry figured a way to get the man to give him his freedom too.
Washington, D.C
Dick Henna was at his desk when his secretary buzzed his intercom and told him he had a call that should not be ignored.
“Who is it, Susan?” The investigation into the Dulles attack had more than eaten up the time he’d saved by not going to California. The day was just starting and already he felt behind.
“Admiral Morrison. I know you don’t want to be disturbed, but I thought you’d want to take this one.”
“I guess maybe I do.”
Henna knew C. Thomas Morrison, the charismatic chairman of the Joint Chiefs, both professionally and in Washington’s social scene and had always liked and respected him. Knowing that Morrison was going to be a strong presidential contender in the next elections, and possibly his boss if he won, Henna adopted a respectful tone. “Admiral, Dick Henna here. What can I do for you?”
“Hello, Dick, how you doing?”
If informality was what the African-American naval officer wanted, Henna was more than happy to comply. “Fine, Tom, fine. How are you?”
“I was doing great until a couple of hours ago,” Morrison replied somberly. “A problem’s come up that’s going to involve your office sooner or later, and I thought it best to bring you in on the ground floor.”
“Shoot,” Henna invited.
“I’m sitting here with Colonel John Baines from the Air Force’s Criminal Investigations Division and he’s much better suited to speak legalese with you than I am. I’d like to get the three of us together.”
Henna felt the beginnings of political strong-arming. Like the military, the FBI had chains of command, and Henna felt that Morrison was using his clout to go straight to the top. “Listen, Tom, I appreciate that you want to bring this to me directly, but is this something that should be going to Marge Doyle’s office or another assistant director’s?”
“I know what you’re thinking.” Morrison’s voice took on a brittle edge. “Let’s just say even this little chat falls into the ‘Ultra Top Secret’ category.” Henna whistled softly. The government had no higher classification. In fact, several presidents had been denied access to UTS documents, most recently former President Clinton’s 1993 request to read the real file on the Roswell, New Mexico, incident. “Dick, you don’t know me well enough to know that I don’t make idle calls and that I never go outside the military unless absolutely necessary.”
Henna looked up at the Seth Thomas clock against the far wall of his office. “All right, I can give you an hour at about eleven.”
“This can’t wait. I’m calling from my car phone. We’ll be at the Hoover building in ten minutes.” Morrison hung up before Henna could protest.
Eleven minutes later, Henna’s secretary showed the two officers into his office.
Admiral Morrison’s black uniform, only a shade darker than his skin, was covered with gold braid, decorations, and a chestful of combat medals. He cut the perfect image of a sailor, hard and straight, with an imperious bearing that cracked into a smile when he strode across the room to shake Henna’s hand. Colonel Baines, in his Air Force blues, looked lusterless next to the Admiral, his uniform nearly bereft of commendations. Where Morrison was tall and good-looking, Baines was shrunken, his voice barely above an apologetic whisper. Only his eyes betrayed the shrewd mind beneath the unassuming exterior.
“Won’t you both sit down?” Henna decided his irritation of this intrusion wasn’t important. “And tell me what’s so secret and urgent.”
“Colonel?” Morrison said, indicating that Baines should take point in this conversation.
“Mr. Henna, I, ah,” Baines stammered, then paused for a moment as if to collect his thoughts. “Well, it started nearly three years ago when my office was tasked with stemming the flow of classified material streaming out of the National Reconnaissance Office. The NRO is one of the most secret organizations in the government and was allowed to use their own internal security for the protection of sensitive material. They did an exemplary job for years. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, secrets began leaking. The Air Force has more personnel seconded to the NRO than any other branch, and we were instructed to put an end to the leaks.”
“Are we talking about another Aldrich Ames case here, like what happened at the CIA?” Henna interrupted.
“In a way, though there didn’t seem to be any political motivation behind the thefts. Our threat came from opportunistic employees using information for profit.”
“What kind of secrets are we talking about?”
“Let me give you an example of an arrest we made two years ago. A secretary for one of the NRO’s satellite photograph analysts had a husband who traded futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Using information from our Keyhole-11 spy bird, she was able to tell him that Argentina was about to suffer a severe loss of their winter wheat crop due to an insect infestation. Using that information, he made something like twenty-seven million dollars selling wheat futures short before the knowledge was made generally available.”
“So, we’re talking stock fraud?” Henna settled back in his seat. He’d been thinking that this had to do with Mercer and Harry White and was relieved that apparently it didn’t.
“In that case, yes. We brought in the Securities and Exchange Commission to handle the public side of the investigation. They made the arrest, keeping NRO’s involvement a secret. Both husband and wife will be out of prison sometime at the end of the next century.” Baines spoke more confidently now. “Anyway, that’s just one example. Other cases we found were perpetrated by military personnel, and arrests were handled through the Judge Advocate General’s office.”
Baines paused again and the FBI director knew that the colonel was getting to the heart of the matter. “Six weeks ago, a case came across our desk, one that took us until the day before yesterday to crack. We made an arrest and learned the case has much wider implications than any previous. I felt it prudent to include civilian authorities, notably your office, as soon as possible. My commanding officer agreed and subsequently briefed Admiral Morrison. It was the Admiral’s idea that you and I meet before I continue with my investigations.”
Morrison interrupted the younger man. “Some material was stolen from an archive at the NRO. The Air Force major who perpetrated the theft, Donald Rosen, was arrested last night and is looking at about five hundred years in prison for his crime. The materials were photographs that had been sent to his office by mistake. He recognized their ‘Ultra Top Secret’ classification and stole them. Heads have already rolled for the screw-up that put the pictures on his desk in the first place, but that’s an internal matter.”
Baines took up the story again. “He held on to the pictures for only a week before finding a buyer, selling them for a mere five hundred thousand dollars. You have to realize we’re talking about military secrets that could
