BOUNDARY(174)

Jensen gave the innocent wall the benefit of his glare for another minute or so. "Very well. But whatever else—I want that woman fired. Fired, do you hear?"



The Jensens of the world were so predictable. Hughes grunted, a bit amused, and held up the paper in his hand.



"Don't need to fire her. This is her offer of resignation. She sent that as a coda to the main transmission."



Jensen stared at him. "She resigned?"



"I didn't say that. I said she offered to resign." He glanced down at the paper. "To quote her exact words: . . . in the event that would prove helpful to either you or the administration. I would, of course, respect the terms of my confidentiality agreement.'"



Jensen's narrow face looked almost like a blade. "She knew. How else explain that offer? This was no innocent girl fumbling a job too big for her."



"Of course, she knew. I told you she was one of my three top agents. I don't pick 'em—sure as hell don't promote 'em as fast as I promoted her—unless they're smart as a whip. And Fathom is something of a real genius at this work."



"'Genius.'" Jensen's lip curled. "You have a strange definition of the term, Andy."



He unfolded his body and rose to his feet. "Very well. Tell her the resignation is accepted—make sure you stress the penalties attached to violating the confidentiality agreement—and we'll let it go at that. I'll so recommend to the President. In the meantime, we'll want you—"



He broke off, seeing Hughes shaking his head.



"Not 'me,' George. Whatever it is you want, you'll need to discuss it with my successor."



The Director of the HIA leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands over his belly. "You can inform the President he'll have my resignation on his desk tomorrow as well."



Jensen stared at him. As the seconds passed, his eyes grew wider and wider. So did his mouth.



"I will, of course, respect my confidentiality agreement also. But I do remind you—sorry, George, but it's the law—that any such agreement is superceded in the event Congress launches an investigation. Which"—he smiled, very thinly—"I imagine they probably will."



Jensen shook his head abruptly, as if to clear it of fuzziness. "Andy . . . nobody is asking you—"



"Be quiet," Hughes said. All the simmering anger he'd felt at the current administration since it came into office finally surfaced, although his tone of voice remained soft-spoken. "I am sick and tired of people who think the phrase 'national security' is just another way of saying 'what suits us, because it's politically convenient at the moment.' I didn't survive more than twenty years in this office because I let whoever the current occupant of the White House was dictate to me my responsibilities. That's the reason Congress and the public have put up with me for so long. I'm the anti-J. Edgar Hoover, if you will, in that respect. Everybody makes jokes about the President's legal plumbers and the buck vanishing here, but nobody takes it all that seriously—because they trust me, enough at least, not to allow the HIA to get pulled into those games. I've proved it before, in a crunch, and I'm quite willing to prove it again."



He unfolded his hands and pointed a forefinger at the Security Advisor. It was a very short, stubby finger, to be sure. But it still bore an uncanny resemblance to a cannon.



"The real problem here isn't Fathom. It's that—as usual—you people insisted on having your cake and eating it too. If you wanted Fathom to clamp down full and tight security, you only had to instruct her to do so. Of course, that would have produced a political firestorm, once the word got out publicly. Even here at home, much less abroad. So, instead, you relied on her to interpret your inner desires properly. So that if something went wrong, you could—as usual—blame the flunky in the field for whatever mess you found in your lap."



He returned his hand to its comfortable clasp over his belly. "Clean up your own messes. I do not and have never allowed one of my agents to serve as a sacrificial lamb or a scapegoat for an administration's convenience. You fucked it up, you fix it."



Hughes used profanity even more rarely than Jensen did. And Jensen knew that, since he wasn't actually stupid.



"What . . ."



"I suggest you recommend to the President that he take Fathom's fait accompli as established and preexisting policy—the thought of doing otherwise never occurred to him once and you can practically see the butter not melting in his mouth—and we go from there. I'll send her a private message making clear that she stretched it as far as she could. Coming from me, she'll accept that. Thereafter—"