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He ended the call, hopped onto shore, and walked toward Luke, saying, “You got yourself a partner for the night.”
“Do you have a pad and pen I could borrow so I can take notes on what I learn?”
“You always such a smart-ass?”
“You always so warm and friendly?”
“Somebody’s got to see to it the kids don’t get hurt.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, Pappy. I can take care of myself.”
“Thought I told you not to call me that.”
Luke’s back straightened. “Yeah. I heard you. And I gave you, per my orders, one free punch. There won’t be any more freebies.”
His green eyes threw the kid a challenge.
Which seemed to be accepted.
But not now. Maybe later.
He pointed at Kirk. “Let’s hear what this snitch has to say.”
FIVE
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
2:45 P.M.
STEPHANIE NELLE GLANCED AT HER WATCH. HER DAY HAD started at 6:00 A.M.—noon in Denmark—and it was far from over. Of her twelve agents, nine were currently on assignment. The other three were cycled off on downtime. Contrary to spy novels and action movies, agents did not work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Most had spouses and children, lives outside of work. Which was good. The job was stressful enough without compounding it with maniacal obsession.
She’d founded the Magellan Billet sixteen years ago. This was her baby, and she’d nursed it through both adolescence and puberty. Now it was a fully grown intelligence team, credited with some of America’s most recent successes.
Right now, though, only one thought filled her mind.
The agent missing in Denmark.
She glanced at the clock on the corner of her desk and realized she’d skipped both breakfast and lunch. Her stomach was growling so she decided to grab a bite in the building’s cafeteria, three floors below.
She left her office.
Everything was quiet.
By design, the Magellan Billet was sparsely staffed. Besides her twelve operatives, the division employed five office staff and three aides. She’d insisted it be kept small. Fewer eyes and ears meant fewer leaks. Never had the Billet’s security been compromised. None of the original twelve agents remained on the payroll—Malone was the last to leave four years ago. On average she replaced a person a year. But she’d been lucky. All of her recruits had been excellent, her administrative problems few and far between.
She exited through the main door and walked toward the elevators.
The building was located in a quiet north Atlanta office park, home also to divisions of the Departments of the Interior and Health and Human Services. At her insistence the Magellan Billet had been intentionally tucked away, nondescript letters on its door announcing JUSTICE DEPARTMENT TASK FORCE.
She pressed the button and waited for the elevator to arrive.
The doors opened and a thin man, with a long sharp face and bushy silver hair, strolled out.
Edwin Davis.
Like her, he was career civil service, starting two decades ago at the State Department where three secretaries had used him to whip their ailing departments into line. He possessed a doctorate in international relations and was blessed with an uncanny political sense. A folksy, courteous man people tended to underestimate, he’d been working as a deputy national security adviser when President Danny Daniels elevated him to White House chief of staff.
She instantly wondered what was important enough for Davis to fly five hundred miles from Washington, D.C., unannounced. Her boss was the U.S. attorney general, and protocol mandated that he be included in any chain of communication from the White House.
Yet that had not happened.
Was this business? Or a social call? Davis was a close friend. They’d endured a lot together.
“Were you going somewhere?” he asked.
“To the cafeteria.”
“We’ll both go.”
“Am I going to regret this?”
“Possibly. But it has to be done.”
“You realize the last time you and I stood right here, at this same spot, and had a conversation just like this, we both were almost killed.”
“But we won that fight.”
She smiled. “That we did.”
They descended to the cafeteria and found an empty table. She munched on carrot sticks and sipped cranberry juice while Davis downed a bottled water. Her appetite had vanished.
“How is the president?” she asked.
She and Danny Daniels had not spoken in three months.
“He’s looking forward to retirement.”
Daniels’ second term ended soon. His political career was over. But he’d had quite a ride from a small-town Tennessee councilman to two terms as president of the United States. Along the way, though, he lost both a daughter and a wife.
“He’d like to hear from you,” Davis said.
And she’d like to call. But it was better this way. At least until his term was over. “I will. When the time is right.”
She and Daniels had discovered that feelings existed between them, an attachment perhaps born from the many battles they’d endured. Neither of them was sure of anything. But he was still the president of the United States. Her boss. And it was better they keep some distance. “You didn’t come here just to pass that message along. So get to the point, Edwin.”
A crease of amusement touched her friend’s face. She knew he was nearly old enough for Social Security, but his youthful physique cast the pose of a much younger man.
“I understand you’ve drawn some interest from Capitol Hill.”
That she had.
Six written requests for classified data from the Senate Committee on Appropriations had arrived last week. Which wasn’t uncommon. Congress routinely sought information from the intelligence community. If the particular department or agency was uncooperative, the “requests” were followed by subpoenas, which could not be ignored without a court fight. Public brawls over classified information were rare. Congress had to be placated. After all, they held the purse strings. So usually disputes were privately compromised. These six, though, had not left room for negotiation.
“They want anything and everything to do with my agency,” she said. “Top-to-bottom. Financial, field reports, internal analysis, you name it. That’s unprecedented, Edwin. Nearly all of that stuff is classified. I passed it on to the attorney general.”
“Who passed it to me. I’ve come to tell you that those requests relate to that favor I asked of you on Josepe Salazar.”
Six months ago a call from Davis had started a Billet inquiry into Salazar. The White House wanted a complete dossier, including all financial, business, and political associations. From the cradle to the present. Salazar held both a Danish and a Spanish passport, thanks to his parents who’d hailed from different countries. He lived half of the year in Spain, the other in Denmark. He was an international businessman who’d turned over everyday control of his multibillion-euro ventures to others so he could devote himself solely to his duties as an elder in the Mormon church. By all accounts he was devout, possessed no criminal record, and had lived an exemplary life. That he’d earned the attention of the White House had raised a multitude of questions in her mind. But being the loyal public servant she was, she hadn’t asked a single one.
A mistake.
Which she’d finally realized three days ago, when her man sent to Europe to compile the Salazar dossier disappeared.
And even more so after just talking with Malone.
“My agent working on Salazar has disappeared,” she said. “I’ve got people on the ground, right now, tracking him down. What have you gotten me into, Edwin?”
“I had no idea. What happened?”
“The situation escalated. One of Salazar’s associates, a guy named Barry Kirk, made contact with my man. He had inside information and even claimed that his boss might have kille
d someone. We couldn’t ignore that. We now have Kirk in custody, though two of Salazar’s men were killed in the process. Cotton shot them.”
“How’d you manage to get him involved?”
Davis and Malone had worked together before, too.
“He was nearby and doesn’t like our men going missing, either.”
“There’s a connection between Josepe Salazar and Senator Thaddeus Rowan.”
“And you’re just now telling me this?”
Rowan was chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations. All six of the requests for information bore his signature.
“It wasn’t my idea to withhold it.”
She knew what that meant. Only one person could overrule the White House chief of staff.
