“Working tonight?” said her husband. “I thought you had the evening off?”
She made a face at him.
“Tomorrow?” he asked.
Todd sighed.
“I was thinking we could sneak over to the stadium tomorrow night,” said her husband. “We haven’t used the box all year.”
“Daniel, we were at a game two weeks ago.”
“Oh. But that doesn’t count — you brought the House Speaker with you. And you know what I think of him.”
“Your opinion is undoubtedly higher than mine,” said the President.
Her husband smiled. It was true.
“I don’t know,” she told him. “This thing with Ernst.”
“Oh, don’t let it bother you.” He reached out and touched her hand. “Take a little time off. We’ll have fun.”
“The Nats always lose when I’m there.”
“Because you don’t cheer enough.”
“Well, I don’t know. We’ll see.”
“No, you’ll
“That’s the same thing.”
“No, it’s not.”
“All right.” She patted his shoulder. “I will
“Video in bed?” he told her. “
“I don’t know if you should wait up.”
“If I don’t fall asleep.”
“We’ve watched that video three times in the last two months.”
“Good movie.”
“Yes, but—”
“Oh, all right,” he said, overstating his concession. “We’ll watch
She had been wanting to see that one for weeks. Obviously, he’d gotten the video already; he was just teasing her. She gave him a kiss.
“Thank you, Daniel. You know I love you.”
“And I love you,” he said, reaching up to kiss her back.
Her husband’s gentle teasing put her in a good mood, but it didn’t last as far as the West Wing, where she was holding an emergency meeting on the Raven situation. The CIA director’s refusal to hop immediately over to the Hill and sing for his supper had predictable results — there were all sorts of rumors now about what he might be hiding.
All of them wrong, fortunately.
The one thing everyone got right was the supposition that Edmund’s stonewalling was coming at the President’s behest. Which naturally directed all of the vitriol in her direction.
Todd spotted her chief of staff David Greenwich rocking back and forth on his feet as she approached the cabinet room. On good days he hummed a little song to himself while he waited. On bad days he hummed louder.
The walls were practically vibrating with his off-key rendition of “Dancing in the Streets.” She assumed the selection was purposely ironic.
“All present and accounted for,” said Greenwich, spotting her. Besides everyone who had been at the meeting the day before, Todd had added Secretary of State Alistair Newhaven. He had brought along the Undersecretary of State for Counter-Terrorism, Kevin McCloud, and a staff member who was an expert on the Sudan.
“Edmund looks like he’s wearing a bulletproof vest,” added Greenwich.
“I hope you’re joking.”
“I am. But he does look quite a bit worse for wear. The others, so-so.”
Todd let him open the door for her. She glanced at her Secret Service shadow, so unobtrusive she almost forgot he was there, then went in.
“Very good, I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “No gentlemen, don’t stand. Thank you for the thought.”
She pulled out her own seat and sat.
“All right. Where are we?”
Breanna Stockard gave a summary of the search so far. There was nothing new on the Raven, but there was one ominous development.
“A Russian operative arrived at the Sudan Brotherhood camp in southeastern Sudan a few hours ago,” said Breanna. “We believe he may be there to obtain the flight control portion of the aircraft. In fact, we have pretty good evidence that that is the case. Circumstantial.”
“Are you sure?” said Edmund. He apparently hadn’t been briefed.
“I literally heard about this in the car as I pulled up,” said Breanna. “We’re still checking everything out. The operative was headed for Duka, made some sort of contact the NSA picked up, and then drove to the Brotherhood instead. He’s an expert in UAVs. But we don’t know for certain that the aircraft is actually at the camp.”
“We have to act on this,” said Edmund.
“Assuming it’s real,” said Harker. His tone was odd — somewhere between genuine concern and sarcasm. Todd couldn’t tell which he intended.
“What do you propose?” she asked.
“That we go into the camp,” said Breanna. “We send Whiplash in. We get the computer. If it’s there.”
“Do we have a plan?”
“It’s being developed. They’ll be ready to move at nightfall.”
“You’re proposing an attack on the Sudan Brotherhood?” asked Secretary of State Newhaven.
“Yes,” said Breanna.
“It’s a completely domestic organization,” said Newhaven. “They don’t even have connections with al Qaeda.”
“That’s not entirely correct,” said Edmund. “They have gotten support from them. Arms and money. Even with bin Laden dead, the group is strong in Africa.”
Newhaven turned to his expert, who, while admitting that the two groups were sympathetic to each other, said there was no hard evidence of anything more than that. The CIA and State Department experts then proceeded to bat around definitions and nuances.
Todd glanced over at Jonathon Reid. Her old friend was silent, his eyes nearly closed. She knew the whole Raven affair disturbed him greatly; it was certainly costing him friends inside the Agency.
“Jonathon, what are you thinking?” she asked finally.
“I think whether there’s a connection there or not, there’s simply no choice,” Reid said. “This weapon is too dangerous to chance it falling into other hands. We need it back.”
“I agree.” She turned back to the others. “I think the evidence is clear. They have contact and support from al Qaeda. If they’ve gotten support from al Qaeda, then they’re allies of al Qaeda. If they are allies with our enemies, they are our enemies. The fact that our action will inadvertently assist the Sudanese government is unfortunate, but in the end, coincidental. And acceptable. We will strike them and retrieve whatever we find at the camp.”
Nuri’s call from Ethiopia with the new information had caught Breanna off-guard; she hadn’t had enough time to properly process it, barely discussing it even with Reid before the meeting. Striking the camp seemed like a no- brainer, an obvious decision. But as she sat across from the President and listened to the objections from the State Department experts, she realized the implications were enormous. The U.S. would in effect be taking sides with the Sudanese government against its rebels — but the U.S. did not support the Sudanese government in the least. On
