“Liz doesn’t think Hood realized the damage he was doing to General Rodgers or to the rest of the staff,” Carrie continued. “If he thought about it at all, he would blame it on being understaffed.”
“Where was the CIOC in all this?”
“The Congressional Intelligence Oversight Committee didn’t seem to care how Hood ran the organization as long as he got results,” Carrie said. “And he did. Hood was one reason the CIOC felt they could cut his budget. Debenport knew that Hood would make it work. What I don’t understand, though, is if he was so important to the mix, why did President Debenport pull him away?”
“So Hood could do the same thing for the West Wing that he was doing at the NCMC, pulling together an intelligence community under the direct control of the president,” Carew said. “Debenport knows we want to create a greater structure allied with G2. Hood is his countermove.”
“And his spy.”
“What do you mean?” Carew asked.
“Hood is using personnel from Op-Center on the situation in China.”
“Of course. The president had to realize Hood would do that,” Carew said. “He would use long-standing relationships to tap Op-Center’s resources and confuse their loyalty.”
“Liz feels the danger to Op-Center goes deeper than that,” Carrie said. “She says that Hood’s command style not only connected people professionally but emotionally — in a common, often open dislike of Hood. Rodgers, Bob Herbert, attorney Lowell Coffey, and FBI liaison Darrell McCaskey all manifested extreme resentment from time to time. But she thinks that instead of being relieved by his absence they’re feeling lost. These people don’t have a familiar commander — or a place to put their frustration. In the absence of that, Hood can cherrypick the personnel he needs in his new position. Whether intentionally or not, that will divide their loyalty.”
“Keep us from solidifying the unit.”
“Right.”
“Whether or not that’s true, and whether or not this was all Hood’s fault, how long will it take to fix?” Carew asked.
“I’m going to work on that with Liz today,” Carrie said. “We’re going to see who we can retain and retrain.”
“Are you sure Liz Gordon was not affected by all this?” Carew asked.
“Very sure,” Carrie replied. “Hood did not trust profiling or psychology very much. He says as much in his own reports. Liz stayed aloof and apart from much of what went on at Op-Center.”
“Sounds promising,” Carew said. “Don’t hesitate too long to do whatever is necessary to get the NCMC healthy.”
“Of course not. China should be a good shakedown cruise for us.”
“Speaking of which, what’s the latest? G2 has nothing new on the Taiwan front.”
“I’ll be following up on that when I get to the office,” Carrie said. “If something had happened, the night staff would have let me know.”
General Carew said he would speak with her later. Carrie hung up and looked out the tinted window. She believed what she was doing was right for Op-Center, for the intelligence community, and for the nation. When Carrie first took over G2, it was an efficient collection of groups that tended to act unilaterally. The overall mission was to collect and disseminate military intelligence and counterintelligence, and to oversee military security and military intelligence training. After the Iraq War, Carrie had been charged with improving the organization on the tactical level. She planned and supervised a restructuring from battalion through division to allow G2 to effectively execute its mission in war and peace. During peacetime, she arranged it so that operations were centrally consolidated with outflow controlled by her office under the daily control of her number two, Lieutenant Colonel Scott Denny, the assistant chief of staff. In support of war, the intelligence assets were jumped directly to the tactical command post, the main command post, and the rear command post. This dissemination was executed by units Carrie had hand-picked: the 640th Military Intelligence Battalion, the 210th Weather Flight, Air National Guard, the 1004th/1302nd Engineer Detachment, which specialized in terrain analysis, and the Quickfix Platoon C/1- 140AV.
Of course, at G2 Carrie had the entire United States military at her disposal to accomplish that goal. The challenge of Op-Center was to do the same thing with a mostly civilian group and a relatively small budget.
It was a challenge she was looking forward to. There would probably be some casualties, though she hoped to minimize those with Liz’s help. Burned out was not the same as passed away. This team had done some remarkable work, and she wanted to try to keep them intact.
The big challenge was not Bob Herbert or Darrell McCaskey or any of their teammates. The big challenge was the goal.
General Patton had once decried the short-sighted decisions of those “temporary residents of the White House.” International policy and national security were too important to be left to upgraded senators and former governors. The objective of General Carrie was to help strengthen the United States by making military intelligence a bigger and more integral part of America’s defense structure.
On the way to that goal, however, another challenge suddenly presented itself. One that was smaller but tactically and morally important. According to Liz Gordon, Paul Hood was not burned out. Why would he be? Whatever his flaws, Hood had built and used a strong, hardworking support structure.
It would be quite an asset, Carrie thought, to have the president’s personal intelligence officer work with the military to achieve their goal. Fortunately, by relying on his old Op-Center personnel, Hood had given her a head start in that direction.
THIRTY-FIVE
Paul Hood stepped into the warm, damp night. There was a clinging mist in the air, and it caused his cell phone to crackle. He could only imagine what kind of pollutants were in the air.
He stepped away from the canopy to call Rodgers. Hood stood with his back to the reception hall, a finger in his ear to block out the sounds of traffic. The general was in his hotel room having dinner.
“Chinese food isn’t Chinese food,” Rodgers said. “I’m sitting here eating chicken kidneys and shark fins. What are you doing?”
“I’m standing outside a reception where I’ve already missed the hors d’oeuvres,” Hood said.
“That’s probably a good thing,” Rodgers said.
The repartee was strained. Neither man was very good at this with one another. Hood got to the point. “I spoke with the prime minister. He said that one of us could attend the launch.”
“You should be the one to go,” Rodgers said.
“Why?” He had not expected Rodgers to come all this way and surrender that privilege.
“I’m looking into other aspects of the situation,” Rodgers told him.
“Is it anything you can talk about?” Hood asked. “Not over this line, I realize, but maybe later—”
“Maybe later,” Rodgers said with finality.
That was also unexpected. Rodgers had delivered a clean, unapologetic kick in the teeth.
“All right then,” Hood said. “I’ll make the arrangements for my visit. I’ll let you know how things progress.”
“Thanks.”
“Will you give me a call when you can talk?”
“Sure,” Rodgers promised.
Hood flipped the cell phone shut. He stood looking ahead at the oncoming traffic. He could not see the faces of the drivers, but he felt as though every eye was looking at him, laughing at him. He knew they were not, yet he had never felt as exposed and vulnerable as he did at that moment. He had never felt so adrift.
Since the night that his fiancee Nancy Jo Bosworth had left him standing alone on a street corner, waiting for a movie date that never materialized, he had never felt so alone.
“The man without a country,” he muttered.
