Hendley nodded. 'You're right. He handled the other part right, too. The guy in the boat he drilled in the head, he had to do it to survive, and when you have that choice, there's only one way to go.'
'So, Hendley Associates does what, exactly?'
'We gather and act upon intelligence information.'
'But you're not part of the government,' Jack objected.
'Technically, no, we're not. We do things that have to be done, when the agencies of the government are unable to handle them.'
'How often does that happen?'
'Not very,' Hendley replied offhandedly. 'But that may change — or it might not. Hard to tell right now.'
'How many times—'
'You do not need to know,' Hendley replied, with raised eyebrows.
'Okay. What does Dad know about this place?'
'He's the guy who persuaded me to set it up.'
'Oh…' And just that fast it was all clear. Hendley had kissed off his political career in order to serve his country in a way that would never be recognized, never be rewarded. Damn. Did his own father have the stones to try this one? 'And if you get into trouble somehow…?'
'In a safety-deposit box belonging to my personal attorney are a hundred presidential pardons, covering any and all illegal acts that might have been committed between the dates that my secretary will fill in when she types up the blanks, and signed by your father, a week before he left office.'
'Is that legal?'
'It's legal enough,' Hendley replied. 'Your dad's Attorney General, Pat Martin, said it would pass muster, though it would be pure dynamite if it ever became public.'
'Dynamite, hell, it would be a nuke on Capitol Hill,' Jack thought aloud. It was, in fact, something of an understatement.
'That's why we're careful here. I cannot encourage my people to do things that might end them up in prison.'
'Just lose their credit rating forever.'
'You have your father's sense of humor, I see.'
'Well, sir, he
The academic records said that he had the brains. Hendley could see that he had the same inquisitive nature, and the ability to sort the wheat from the chaff. Did he have his father's guts…? Better never to have to find out. But even his best people couldn't predict the future, except in currency fluctuations — and on that they cheated. That was the one illegal thing he could get prosecuted for, but, no, that would never happen, would it?
'Okay, time for you to meet Rick Bell. He and Jerry Rounds do the analysis here.'
'Have I met them before?'
'Nope. Neither has your father. That's one of the problems with the intelligence community. It's gotten too damned big. Too many people — the organizations are always tripping over themselves. If you have the best hundred people in pro football on the same team, the team will self-destruct from internal dissension. Every man was born with an ego, and they're like the proverbial long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Nobody objects too much because the government isn't supposed to function too efficiently. It would scare people if it did. That's why we're here. Come on. Jerry's office is right down the hall.'
'Charlottesville?' Dominic asked. 'I thought—'
'Since the time of Director Hoover, the Bureau has had a safe house facility down there. Technically, it doesn't belong to the FBI. It's where we keep the Gray Files.'
'Oh.' He'd heard about that from a senior instructor at the Academy. The Gray Files — outsiders never even knew the term — were supposed to be Hoover's files on political figures, all manner of personal irregularities, which politicians collected as other men collected stamps and coins. Supposedly destroyed at Hoover's death in 1972, in fact they'd been sequestered in Charlottesville, Virginia, in a large safe house on a hilltop across the gentle valley from Tom Jefferson's Monticello and overlooking the University of Virginia. The old plantation house had been built with a capacious wine cellar, which for more than fifty years had held rather more precious contents. It was the blackest of Bureau secrets, known only to a handful of people, which did not necessarily include the sitting FBI Director, but rather controlled by only the most trusted of career agents. The files were never opened, at least not the political ones. That junior senator during the Truman administration, for example, did not need to have his penchant for underage females revealed to the public. He was long dead in any case, as was the abortionist. But the fear of these records, whose continuation was widely believed to be carried on, explained why Congress rarely attacked the FBI on matters of appropriations. A really good archivist with a computerized memory might have inferred their existence from subtle holes in the Bureau's voluminous records, but that would have been a task worthy of Heracles. Besides, there were much juicier secrets than that to be found in the White Files squirreled off in a former West Virginia coal mine — or so an historian might think.
'We're going to detach you from the Bureau,' Werner said next.
'What?' Dominic Caruso asked. 'Why?' The shock of that pronouncement nearly ejected him from his chair.
'Dominic, there's a special unit that wants to talk to you. Your employment will continue there. They will fill you in. I said 'detach,' not 'terminate,' remember. Your pay will continue. You'll be kept on the books as a Special Agent on special assignment to counterterrorism investigations directly under my office. You'll continue to get normal promotions and pay raises. This information is secret, Agent Caruso,' Werner went on. 'You cannot discuss it with anyone but me. Is that clear?'
'Yes, sir, but I cannot say I understand.'
'You will in due course. You will continue to investigate criminal activity, and probably to act upon it. If your new assignment turns out to be not to your liking, you can tell me, and we'll reassign you to a new field division for more conventional duties. But, I repeat, you cannot discuss your new assignment with anyone but me. If anyone asks, you're still a Special Agent of the FBI, but you are unable to discuss your work with anyone. You will not be vulnerable to any adverse action of any kind as long as you do your job properly. You will find that the oversight is looser than you're used to. But you will be accountable to someone at all times.'
'Sir, this is still not very clear,' Special Agent Caruso observed.
'You will be doing work of the highest national importance, mainly counterterrorism. There will be danger attached to it. The terrorist community is not a civilized one.'
'This is an undercover assignment, then?'
Werner nodded. 'Correct.'
'And it's run out of this office?'
'More or less,' Werner dodged with a nod.
'And I can bail out whenever I want?'
'Correct.'
'Okay, sir, I'll give it a look. What do I do now?'
Werner wrote on a small pad of paper and handed it across. 'Go to that address. Tell them you want to see Gerry.'
'Right now, sir?'
'Unless you have something else to do.'
'Yes, sir.' Caruso stood, shook hands, and took his leave. At least it would be a pleasant drive into the Virginia horse country.
CHAPTER 4
BOOT CAMP
The drive back across the river to the Marriott allowed Dominic to collect his bags — with a twenty-dollar bill
