thought of anything happening to them, particularly such an inconceivable horror, was simply beyond contemplation. And it had happened because of something his people did — no, he couldn’t face it. Not right this second.
Eventually he would. He had not survived the last four years, nor would he survive the coming term, by succumbing to raw emotion, no matter how painful. The simple fact was that when he made decisions, people died. Sometimes the enemy, sometimes his own troops.
And now his own civilian citizens.
Terrorism had to be stopped. With all the resources this nation had, there was no excuse for not being able to execute a mission without such tragic results. Something had gone badly wrong, and he intended to find out what it was. He pulled open the upper-right drawer and looked at the slip of paper again. The letters TX stared back at him, and for some reason that led him to think of a certain retired Naval officer — an admiral at that — who had a reputation for being able to get things done: Tombstone Magruder, on the pointy end of the spear in so many conflicts overseas. Now that he was a civilian, how would he feel about operating inside his own country?
Four minutes had elapsed since he had sent his Chief of Staff out of the office, and he was beginning to calm himself, dividing the problem into the compartments inside his mind that he could examine at will. He stretched, stood, and walked to the door. He opened it and called out, “Jim?”
The Chief of Staff was standing nearby, and immediately came over. The President felt an entirely inappropriate flash of amusement.
“Sir, Mr. Bratton is on his way back from Idaho right now. It will be a few more hours until he lands.”
The President said, “Track down the two Magruders, wherever they are. Work it out so that the Magruders are here before Bratton. Any questions?”
“No, Mr. President.”
“Sir, Senator Hamlin is calling,” one of the secretaries said, directing her announcement at the Chief of Staff. In addition to screening the staff from his boss’s raw emotions, the Chief of Staff also served to screen the President from those who felt they had a claim on his time.
The President groaned. “The last thing I need.” Ben Hamlin, the Senior Senator from Idaho, had been one of the President’s most vocal opponents during the election.
“I’ll take it,” the Chief of Staff said, heading for his own office.
“No,” the President said wearily. “I’ll have to talk to him sooner or later. Better sooner, so he doesn’t have a chance to go spouting off that I’m stonewalling him.”
The Chief of Staff hesitated. “Are you sure, Mr. President? Perhaps we should take a few minutes to work out a statement.”
The President shook his head. “No. I know what I’m going to say to him. It’s his state, Jim. He’s got a right to talk to me right now.”
The President went back into his office and stared at the phone for a moment before touching the flashing number-one button and picking up the receiver. “Hello, Senator. What can I do for you?”
The flat mountain tones were clearly audible, and sometimes the President suspected that the Senator intentionally deepened his accent. “I’m calling about this outrage, Mr. President. I just heard the most horrendous story from my staff, and I—”
“Come over and see me, Senator,” the President said quietly. “Off the record — no announcements. No photo opportunities, no noise. Just get over here so we can figure out what happened. I’ll give you full access to everything we know.”
There was a moment of silence on the line; then the Senator said, “All right. I’ll be there, sir. And I hope you have better answers than the ones I’m getting right now.”
The phone went dead. The president felt a flash of rage.
His Chief of Staff came back and said, “Sir, I found the Magruders at their office. They’re on their way over right now.”
“Stall them,” the President said. He smiled a brief, wintry smile, aware of the incongruity of demanding that they dance attendance on him and then putting them in a holding pattern. But this was the White House — what was considered common courtesy in other parts of Washington was not an issue. They would understand. “Apologize to the Magruders for me and stash them somewhere that Hamlin won’t see them. Once I pour some oil on the water, I’ll let them ignite it.”
Pamela Drake was suffering from a severe case of jet lag. As a result, when the call came in, she was still at home, staring bleakly at her second cup of coffee and seriously contemplating calling in sick. It was an option, sure. Most of the reporters did it routinely the day after they returned from an assignment halfway around the world. But Pamela had built a reputation around being the toughest of them all, and had never taken advantage of that. Maybe it was time to start.
The call came in on her cell phone, on the number she gave out only to certain people. It was the one she answered before all others, the ring at which she broke off whatever she was doing in order to take the call.
Adrenaline surged through her as she grabbed the phone and touched the top button. Drake,” she announced.
“Idaho,” said the voice. “It’s going to make Ruby Ridge looked like a picnic. Bull Run, way up on the Canadian border. You better get there.”
“What happened?” she asked, grabbing a pencil and a piece of paper.
“The FBI had the bright idea that they were taking down a master criminal. Only it turns out he was a nobody. In the process, the guy gets shot and his wife and kids trapped in a burning house. There’s some speculation that the fire was set to cover up the lack of evidence. A. J. Bratton was there.”
There was a long silence. She tried again. “Come on, now — that’s not a tough question.”
Still no answer.
“We’re off the record, you know. As far off as we can go,” she reassured her caller.
“We’re talking about Idaho,” the voice said finally. “That’s inside the United States.”
“I know that,” she said. “And I also know—”
“No,” the voice said, cutting her off. “Not on this line.”
“OK, then. What else?”
“Nothing. You’ll have to get the rest of it somewhere else. I’m just paying back a favor.” The line went dead.
Drake swore quietly as she touched the top button and slipped the phone back in its battery charger. Sure, she understood his reluctance to say anything on an open line. Cell phone frequencies were easy to monitor, and there were too many new government programs that searched for key words and phrases in every conversation that floated across the atmosphere.
Without her informant admitting that he was there, the report was suspect. But if there were anything to it, it would be breaking soon. Drake had no illusions about how much of a head start she had.
She stared at the phone for a moment, her gut telling her that this was something big. Regardless of how intra-agency cooperation was touted as a good thing, there was no way that any Congressional oversight committee would ever countenance the CIA conducting operations inside the continental U.S.
So it had to be an FBI operation. Mentally, she ran through her list of contacts there, selected one, and dialed the number from memory.
Five minutes later, Drake had all the confirmation she needed. Her two best sources at the FBI weren’t talking. Indeed, they weren’t even taking her calls. Even the prearranged code name she’d used, the one that signaled that it really was in their best interest to get on the telephone and talk to her to prevent the release of certain sordid details she knew about their past, even that had not worked.
