Arctic Gold

minutes.

And today, finally, the signal he’d been listening for came through.

He’d been wondering if it would ever come. There wasn’t much to it, a man’s voice repeating the same word over and over: “Rodina… Rodina… Rodina…”

Quietly Benford turned off the receiver and slipped it under his mattress.

It was time for the sleeper to awake and carry out his mission.

Offices of the National Security Council The White House, Washington, D.C. 1638 hours EDT

“The President,” George Francis Wehrum said in a cautiously neutral tone, “is furious. I should tell you that Dr. Bing is recommending a complete restructuring of the intelligence hierarchy.”

Rubens kept his face impassive. It was, actually, no worse than he’d been expecting, especially after he’d been kept waiting for over an hour before being ushered into the Presence. “With respect, Mr. Wehrum,” Rubens said carefully, “this is scarcely the time for recriminations, for petty politics, or for… personal vendettas. The situation is serious.”

“We know that. That’s why Dr. Bing considers it necessary to take certain steps.”

“By refusing to let me do my job?”

“There is some question at this point if you are the best man for the job. It may be time to restructure your agency to some extent.” He shrugged and almost managed to look embarrassed. “You must know that this has been coming for some time.”

Rubens took a deep breath. “Mr. Wehrum, this is not about turf wars between the NSA and the CIA. One of my best field agents is dead. We believe the Russian mob had a hand in it, though we don’t yet know why. I intend to find out.”

Wehrum dismissively waved a hand. “I’m not talking about that. When you conduct covert operations of the sort your Desk Three so enjoys, you will suffer casualties. You know that. I am referring to the loss of a three-hundred-and-thirty-nine-million-dollar aircraft and its highly trained Air Force pilot. That F-22 was over Russian territorial waters, where you sent it. Dr. Bing intends to conduct a full investigation into the reasons you made that decision, and its consequences.”

Rubens sighed. This was getting him nowhere. “May I see Dr. Bing?”

“Dr. Bing is in a closed session with the President and with the DNI and the D/CIA.”

That stung. “I should be there.”

“You should not. The DNI will inform you when-if-it is necessary for your department to have administrative access to POTUS.”

DNI-the Director of National Intelligence. Nominally the head of all U.S. intelligence agencies, James Fenton was known to favor a sharp streamlining and redefining of American intelligence. “D/CIA” referred to the Director of Central Intelligence, the head of the CIA, Roger Smallbourn. Smallbourn was a political hack, but one with aspirations identical to Fenton’s; his Deputy Director of Operations, Debra Collins, had been trying to take Desk Three out of the NSA’s organizational chart and fold it into the CIA since its inception. Within the tangled world of the inside-the-Beltway jungle of D.C., wars were won or lost, careers saved or lost, over direct access to POTUS, government slang for the President of the United States.

Rubens grimaced. “If they’re discussing the future of the NSA or Desk Three-”

“Actually, they’re discussing the Russian ice-grab,” Wehrum said. He sounded smug, with a touch of amusement to his voice and the way he shrugged. “It has nothing to do with you. Nothing whatsoever.”

Rubens scowled at the other man for a moment. That last bit of information-about the Russian crisis-had been both purely gratuitous and utterly vicious. Wehrum had no business mentioning the President’s agenda, but he’d done so, it seemed clear, solely to let Rubens know that he was in the doghouse at the moment.

Wehrum was Bing’s senior aide within the National Security Council and, therefore, an extremely powerful man. The NSC, currently consisting of about one hundred staffers working out of one of the concrete-walled lower levels of the White House basement, was responsible for hashing out defense and foreign policy issues before they reached the President’s desk. The National Security Advisor-a title generally abbreviated as “ANSA,” for “Advisor on National Security Affairs,” in order to distinguish it from the acronym for the National Security Agency-briefed the President on all potential international problems and, during times of crisis, ran the White House Situation Room. Where the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was, by law, the President’s chief advisor on military matters, the ANSA was responsible for a whole range of diplomatic, economic, and intelligence issues as well as military ones.

By mentioning the DNI, Wehrum was not so subtly reminding Rubens that the Director of National Intelligence was the director of all U.S. intelligence agencies. And by mentioning the D/CIA, Wehrum was reminding him that the CIA felt that it had the right to manage the lion’s share of American intelligence and that the NSA should be restricted to its historic purview of SIGINT.

Put another way, Washington functioned on funding and on size. The NSA was the largest of America’s intelligence agencies and received the biggest chunk of the funding pie. The CIA had been looking for ways to cut into that pie slice for a long time.

Rubens was close to making a bitter retort, but he clamped down on the surge of anger. Damn it, he could feel his blood pressure rising, a red heat climbing behind his eyes.

Within Washington, the man who determined where the paper went and, even more, who decided who got to talk face-to-face with policy-makers such as the President or the ANSA was the man who ruled, who controlled the real power within the government. The former ANSA, George Haddad, had been a close personal friend of Rubens’, a mentor and a confidant. His death had been devastating personally for Rubens.

It had also profoundly affected Rubens’ career and possibly the future of Desk Three as well. He was used to having direct personal access to the President; now, though, Rubens could feel himself being shouldered aside, ignored, sidelined… and possibly even reduced to the role of official scapegoat.

But venting his anger here and now would get him nowhere. If Rubens had learned one thing in his years of public service, it was that patience was almost as valuable in this town as face time with the President.

So Rubens forced himself to relax. A longtime practitioner of Hatha Yoga, he let his mind momentarily settle into a place of calm, watching as he drew in a deep breath from the belly. Through breath control alone, Pranayama, it was possible to control the blood pressure… and the deep-seated fury within.

He released the breath and, with it, the rising knot of anger.

“Very well,” he said after a moment. He opened his eyes to find Wehrum staring at him curiously. “Please inform Dr. Bing that I do wish to see her at her earliest convenience. Shall I give you my report on Operation Magpie?”

Wehrum shrugged again. “You can send it as an e-mail attachment. I’ll see that it gets to the proper desks.”

Another slap, a means of telling him quite distinctly that his report wasn’t important enough to warrant discussion or close consideration.

“I also wish to discuss future operational plans.” That was something that did have to go through Bing, at the very least.

“Dr. Bing has instructed me to inform you,” Wehrum said, “that all Desk Three operations should be put on hold for the time being. It is possible that Operation Magpie will be detailed to another agency.” He hesitated. “Why ‘Magpie,’ anyway?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why’d you name the operation Magpie?”

“Our Russian ops currently share a bird theme,” Rubens said. “Magpie, Blue Jay. We’ve found a connection between those two, by the way, and we think it’s important.”

“Oh?”

“‘Augurs and understood relations have,’” Rubens quoted, “‘(by magotpies and choughs and rooks) brought forth the secret’st man of blood.’”

Wehrum smirked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Macbeth,” Rubens said. “Act three, scene four. Magotpies are what we call magpies today. The King was referring to things in nature revealing a man’s bloody secrets.”

“If you say so. In any case, I suggest you start making whatever arrangements you need to make to bring your