But none of them knew why it had happened. Same for every news outlet that rushed to the scene. Karcher's death was the stuff of headlines and lead stories, but the whole truth hadn't gone public yet.
The question now was whether it ever would.
"I feel like a kid waiting outside the principal's office," I said.
Valerie leaned forward, glancing at the closed door to our right. "Yeah, and your parents are already in there having the adults-only talk, right?"
"Exactly."
She nodded. "Par for the course, I'm afraid. The only way to know your worth in this town is the level of classified info you're allowed to hear. The whole loaf or just a slice."
"Or in my case, only a few crumbs," I said.
"Hey, I'm not in there, either. That makes us both a couple of muzjiks," she said.
"Muz-whats?"
"Peasants. The word for Russian peasants, actually."
"Of course."
"Also, one of the highest-scoring words in Scrabble."
"Now you're just showing off," I said.
"Scrabble was big in our house growing up. My father played it every Sunday with my sister and me to build our vocabularies," she said. "That's one reason why I know the word."
"Muzjiks, huh?"
"Yep. Use it on your first turn and it's worth a hundred and twenty-eight points."
I waited for her to continue. She didn't.
"And a second reason?" I asked. She'd said that was one reason why she knew the word.
With the look she gave me, I suddenly realized this wasn't mere idle chitchat. Valerie was finally answering the question I'd asked when we first met. Who are you?
There was no one around us in the hallway. Still, she looked both ways as if crossing the street. "I was stationed in Moscow," she said.
But the way she said it, I knew. "CIA?"
She nodded.
"How long ago?" I asked.
"It feels like forever."
"What happened?"
"Someone decided to tell the world our deepest, darkest secrets because he didn't like the way we got them. Consequences be damned."
So that was who she was. Valerie Jensen had been an undercover CIA agent. "And you were exposed … ."
"Hundreds were, all over the world," she said. "More than a few were killed, too. Not that it ever made the news. I was lucky. It wasn't like a woman could ever be in Tehran or Kabul."
"Still," I said. "Moscow." Putin had never struck me as the forgiving type.
"Thankfully, money will pretty much get you anything you need there, including a way out through Finland in the middle of the night," she said. "Funny, though. After all that, where does our whistle-blower first gain asylum?"
Russia.
"So how did you end up with the NSA?"
"It was a bit like the Island of Misfit Toys. No one else had any use for us. All the covert training and nowhere to use it," she said. "Except here at home, of course."
"Another thing that will never make the news," I said.
"That depends, I suppose."
"On what?"
"On how well you can keep a secret."
I had to laugh. "Imagine that," I said. "You're not even the best secret I've got going right now."
"All the more reason why we're sitting here."
"Yep. A couple of muzjiks."
Valerie laughed back, and for a minute, it was as if we were able to forget where we were and why.
Actually, it was only like ten seconds. Right up until the door opened next to us and an older woman with gray hair stepped out and peered over her horn-rimmed glasses with a perfunctory smile. She was Clay Dobson's assistant.
"You two can come in now," she announced.
CHAPTER 105
THE ONLY way I ever thought I'd set foot in the White House was on a guided tour with a bunch of people wearing fanny packs. Shuffling along the velvet ropes, I'd stare into all the capital R rooms. The East Room. The State Dining Room. The Blue, Red, and Green Rooms decorated by Jackie Kennedy.</ol>
Still, when the tour was over, the closest I'd ever get to the Oval Office was a postcard in the gift shop.
Now I was literally a few feet away from it in the West Wing-the office right next door. The office of the president's chief of staff.
And if Owen was right, the man ultimately responsible for the deaths of Claire and our unborn child, as well as countless others.
But that was a big if. As in, if only there were some actual evidence.
"Ian, do me a favor and scoot over on the couch there for Mr. Mann," said Dobson, orchestrating from behind his huge desk. Make no mistake. This was his office, his meeting, his seating chart. He'd already motioned for Valerie to take the other armchair next to Crespin.
Ian-as in Ian Landry, the president's press secretary-promptly scooted over on the couch to make room for me.
"There you go," he said. "Best seat in the house."
It was a little strange to see Landry out from behind the podium of the Brady Room. To watch him take questions from the press was to know there wasn't anything he couldn't spin. It was a talent all the more remarkable given that, unlike previous press secretaries, Landry didn't hide behind the façade of plausible deniability. Rather, he'd claimed from day one that he knew everything that happened in the White House.
After all, President Bretton Morris had won election by promising to level with America at all times. "Hard truths, and no easy fixes," he was fond of saying in his campaign commercials. And with nearly a billion dollars spent on advertising, he'd said it an awful lot.
"Would either of you like any coffee?" asked Dobson.
"No thanks," Valerie and I answered in unison.
"All right, then. Let me start by telling you what I told Jeffrey," Dobson said, pointing to Crespin in his charcoal-gray suit. "The president has no knowledge of this meeting. If he did, it would never be happening. Instead, Ian would be in the press room telling the world everything about Operation Truthseeker, or whatever stupid name this damn thing probably had."
Seamlessly, Ian Landry chimed in. "The president would sooner sacrifice a second term than try to sweep something like this under the rug."
"And trust me, that's not hyperbole," said Dobson. "Unfortunately, though, this is about more than just favorability ratings and politics. This is about national security. And Frank Karcher has seriously threatened it."
I listened very carefully to what came next.
Dobson explained the protocol of what happens after the death of active CIA personnel, especially someone on Karcher's level as the National Clandestine Service chief. Basically, anything and everything having to do with his life gets searched, reviewed, raked over, and then raked over again.
"The problem in this case," said Dobson, "is that it's like having the fox guard the henhouse. We don't know how deep this runs at the CIA-who was involved and how many-but if the guy shooting at you from that rooftop yesterday is any indication, it doesn't bode well."
"He's an agent with the Special Activities Division, Karcher's former unit within the CIA," explained Crespin.
"Then, of course, there's the young man at the center of all this." Dobson looked down at an open file as if searching his notes for Owen's name. "Yes, Owen Lewis," he said. "Who, as of right now, is nowhere to be found."
Damn, Skippy, nowhere to be found. Where the hell are you, Owen, and what's with the secret fishing expedition? You're up to something, but what?
I waited for Dobson to look at me in light of his mentioning Owen, but he didn't. Instead, he reached for another file on his desk, this one featuring a bright red stripe across it.
"But back to Karcher and the issue of national security," he continued. "I'm pretty sure I could lose my job, if not worse, for what I'm about to share with you, but since that's the least of my problems this morning, we'll be making an exception." He paused to take a sip of coffee, staring at us over the lip of the mug. First at Valerie. Then at me. "Besides, according to Crespin here, if it weren't for the two of you, things could've been a lot worse."
And with that, Dobson opened the file.
CHAPTER 106
THE FIRST thing he held up was a color photograph, measuring roughly eight by ten. It could've been a head shot for a leading man, albeit one more suited for Bollywood than Hollywood.
"This is Dr. Prajeet Sengupta," said Dobson, his exaggerated diction suggesting just a trace of xenophobia. He then read from the file in bullet-point fashion. "Born in India, educated here in the States. Stanford undergrad, Harvard Medical School. Currently a staff neuroscientist with the New Frontier Medical Institute in Bethesda, specializing in ionotropic and metabotropic receptor manipulation in the human brain." Dobson paused, looked up. "If anyone knows what that actually means, be my guest."</ol>
I didn't. Not exactly. Still, it wasn't hard to see where this was heading.
Sure enough, according to Dobson, Prajeet Sengupta was the missing link to the serum, the guy Karcher had used to turn Owen's research into an injectable polygraph machine. One question, though, and I didn't hesitate with it.
"How do you know this?" I interrupted.
Dobson nodded slightly as if he'd expected me to ask that. "Again, this isn't for broadcast, but before the CIA could do its reconnaissance on Karcher's apartment, including his hard drive, I got in there first." He corrected himself with a raised palm. "Not me personally, but a special investigator with the FBI. Working unofficially, of course."