“I don’t know,” Claire said. “Anything he thought was important enough to hide really well, and in particular anything associated with an army general named Martin Breed.”
“Breed?” Alice said.
“Yeah,” Claire said, but she didn’t tell Alice anything more and Alice didn’t ask.
“How many guys can I take with me?” Alice said.
“One. Russo’s place can’t be that big.”
“Okay,” Alice said.
“And one other thing,” Claire said. “Russo lived in a duplex and his landlord is the old lady who lives next door. I don’t want the old woman hurt. I don’t want her to have a stroke or something. So you need to figure out a way to deal with her if she wakes up and hears you while you’re searching.”
“Sure,” Alice said, with an indifferent shrug.
22
“Admiral,” the Attorney General said, “this is Aaron Drexler. Aaron works for me now, but before coming to Justice he was on the legal staff at the Pentagon. He has a top secret security clearance.”
Robert Scranton was a large, hearty, gregarious fellow. Add a fake white beard and he’d make a good Santa. He hailed from the president’s home state and, before being made the country’s top lawyer, had been a mediocre district attorney in a fair-sized city. The fact that it had taken him three tries to pass the bar exam apparently bothered no one-or at least it didn’t bother the fifty-eight senators who had voted to confirm him. Scranton had more important qualifications than intelligence and experience; he was rich, had contributed hugely to the president’s campaign, and was arguably more loyal than a golden retriever.
Admiral Fenton Wilcox brusquely shook Drexler’s hand. He had no idea why he’d been summoned to the Attorney General’s Office-but he had been summoned. Nor did he know why he was being introduced to Drexler, a whip-thin six-footer dressed in a dark suit. Drexler had short black hair and hooded eyes and he just sat there staring at Wilcox, seeming not at all impressed by a man who wore three stars and directed the largest, most secretive intelligence organization in the country.
There was a palpable arrogance about Drexler that instantly annoyed Wilcox.
“Aaron,” the Attorney General was saying, “graduated from MIT with a degree in computer science and then obtained his doctorate of law from Harvard.”
Maybe that explained Drexler’s arrogance: his education. MIT and Harvard weren’t the easiest schools in the country to get into. But just to put the guy in his place, Wilcox said, “I know a lot of bright guys, Mr. Scranton. They work for me. Why are you introducing me to Mr. Drexler?”
“Admiral, Aaron specializes in Internet fraud here at Justice because he knows his way around a computer. In other words, with his Pentagon background, his work experience, and his education, he’s capable of understanding a lot of what you folks do in the dark over there at Fort Meade.”
Scranton smiled after he said that. His “do in the dark” comment was intended to be humorous, but Fenton Wilcox, a man with a small sense of humor to begin with, didn’t smile back. He looked at his watch. “Mr. Scranton,” he said, “what does this-”
“The president has asked me to audit your operation for compliance to FISA and I’ve assigned Aaron.”
“Audit! What the hell is this all about?”
“Aziz,” Scranton said.
“Goddammit,” Wilcox muttered. Then, more loudly: “Aren’t we ever going to get beyond that? The damn guy was guilty, and my people didn’t do anything illegal.”
“Well, the president wants to make sure of that, sir. There were rumors that you knew more about Dr. Aziz than you could have learned from the authorized wire taps.”
“Rumors! What rumors?” the admiral said.
Ignoring the question, Scranton said, “Because of these rumors, the president is concerned you folks might be illegally spying on our citizens again, and he won’t stand for a repeat of what happened in 2005. So he’s asked for a small, independent look to make sure you’re doing things by the book.”
The admiral’s eyes bulged and his complexion turned an unhealthy shade of crimson. “My agency is doing no such thing! I’ve testified to Congress about that. Under oath.” Testifying under oath may not have meant much to crooks and politicians but it meant something to the admiral. “The kind of crap that happened back in 2005 is not happening on my watch.”
The Attorney General nodded his large head, as if concurring, but then said, “I’m sure you believe that, Admiral, but there’s always the possibility that some of your people are not as honest as you.”
“I run a tight ship,” Wilcox responded, through clenched teeth. “My people are not monitoring American citizens unless we have a FISA warrant.”
Wilcox personally believed that FISA was making him work with one hand tied behind his back, but the law was the law and he followed it-and he was damn certain his people did too.
“Admiral,” Scranton said, “I don’t doubt your integrity. Nor does the president. The fact remains, however, that he’s authorized this audit. I imagine he just wants some peace of mind. I’m sure you understand. And even though we don’t expect Aaron’s review to uncover anything improper, Congress will also be pleased we’re doing this little-ah-spot check, if you will.”
“The only thing that’s going to come out of this so-called audit is that this guy-” the admiral jerked a thumb toward Drexler-“will be given access to programs where he has no need to know. And that could jeopardize-”
Need to know in this context was not an idle phrase but a fundamental principle applicable to the protection of classified information. One of the best ways to keep from spilling the beans-loose lips, sinking ships, et cetera- was to limit the number of people allowed access to classified data, and only those with a valid job-related need were permitted access.
“The president’s giving him the need to know, Admiral,” the attorney general said, flexing some of Santa’s muscle. “And, by the way, I’ve already discussed this with your boss.”
Meaning the Secretary of Defense, Wilcox assumed.
“Now I know you’re not happy about this, but…”
“You’re goddamn right I’m not,” the admiral muttered, but he knew he’d already lost this battle.
The goddamn Aziz case. Would it never end?
Dillon entered the director’s office and noticed immediately that Admiral Wilcox’s perpetual frown was even more pronounced than normal. His face looked like a fist with eyes. He assumed the cause of the admiral’s displeasure was the other man already in the room.
“Dillon, this is Aaron Drexler,” Wilcox said. “He’s from the Justice Department. The president has asked Justice to review our operation to ensure that… that we’re doing everything by the book. More fallout from Aziz.”
Dillon nodded pleasantly at Drexler, noting the man’s shoes as he did. Penny loafers-hardly appropriate with a suit.
“Drexler, this is Dillon Crane, one of my senior people. He reports to the deputy director. He’ll give you everything you need. Now you’ll have to excuse me. I’m late for a briefing.”
Dillon smiled at Drexler.
Drexler didn’t smile back.
Aziz. What a debacle that had been. That is, it had been a debacle as far as Admiral Wilcox and the administration were concerned. For Dillon Crane it had been a roaring success, justifying everything he did.
It began with the NSA’s machines intercepting a phone call, and what the machines captured were certain words spoken in Farsi. Had the words been spoken in English it’s quite likely nothing would have happened, as the words were innocuous words, boring words, words like alloy, heat treatment, and thermal expansion. But when the machines heard those particular words in Farsi, it was like a marble falling in a Rube Goldberg device: the marble rolled down a chute, dropped onto a cog, turned a gear, and a little mechanical man spun around, arm outstretched-and one of Claire’s technicians was electronically smacked on the back of the head.
Claire’s techs rapidly discovered that one of the people talking was an Iranian but now a U.S. citizen. This
