Arctic Fire (18 page)

Jesus Christ.
This was worse than he could have imagined. Maddux had been
right
on target. So on target Carlson felt physically ill. President Dorn meant to shut down Red Cell Seven, and he meant to do it
immediately
. That was the reason he wanted a list of all those things Beckham had just reeled off. Dorn wasn’t just trying to get a better handle on what RCS was doing. He had no intention of letting it continue to exist in
any
form. He was going to destroy it. That was the only way Carlson could interpret Beckham’s request for all of that highly classified information.

Carlson shook his head in disbelief. Dorn had to understand what he was doing. He had to understand that this action would send shock waves down the corridors in Langley, at the Pentagon, and in the Capitol.

If Dorn didn’t understand that, Stein certainly would. Stein would understand that there were many senior people within the CIA, the NSA, and the FBI who would be diametrically opposed to destroying the cell because over the past five years it had morphed into the glue that held the entire national defense
structure together. It was the glue that had allowed domestic and foreign-based US intelligence assets to communicate seamlessly without turf wars breaking out all over the place like they had in the wake of 9/11. Those senior people in the respective agencies would view shuttering RCS as an action equal to Jack Kennedy’s attempt to destroy the CIA in the early sixties. They’d view it as treason. For them, Red Cell Seven was indispensible, mostly because no one in RCS ever cared about getting credit for anything. RCS agents didn’t care about credit because RCS wasn’t even supposed to exist—and because they cared more about the country than themselves. Absolute demonstration of that loyalty was a requirement for initiation into the cell.

“By the way,” Beckham said, “my name is Daniel, not Danny. Don’t make that mistake again. You got it, Roger?”

“Yeah.” Carlson had barely heard Beckham. “Sure.”

“I’m your boss now, and one way or the other you will give me respect.” Beckham’s eyes danced. “This is about doing the right thing, Roger. This is about getting control of an intelligence cell that’s been operating basically unchecked for forty years. It’s about getting control of a cell that’s become too powerful in the past five years, a cell that believes it’s bulletproof and doesn’t have to play by the rules. People must be held accountable from now on if the world is truly going to get along.” Beckham sneered. “The hell with people;
you
need to be held accountable. You’re the only one that matters. You’re the Red Cell Seven dictator.”

Beckham’s image blurred in front of Carlson as he stared. He wasn’t worried about criminal charges being filed against him or Dorn’s people watching them. They were idle threats from naïve people who were already into the quicksand up to their necks, even though they didn’t realize it yet. What terrified Carlson so completely was that he suddenly realized the country had an administration in power that believed it could protect the United States of America without Red Cell Seven. An administration
that believed the country could survive without those agents who were willing to do all those terrible things in the shadows that no one wanted to talk about on the Sunday morning talk shows. An administration that seemed to think it could keep the United States safe playing by the rules, within some sort of ethically acceptable global framework.

Which was ludicrous, Carlson knew,
absolutely ludicrous
.

If Dorn was successful in destroying RCS, it could lead to a disaster for the United States on a scale of unimaginable proportions—abroad and at home. Terrorists would be
so much
freer to operate because the ability of law enforcement and the armed forces to short-circuit hijackings, bombings, and assassinations before they happened would be severely constrained. Advance information on terrorist activity would be cut to a minimum so that domestic assets would be operating basically in the dark—unable to anticipate, only react.

Carlson actually shuddered as the enormity of all that hit him right between the eyes.

“Do you understand me, Roger?” Beckham demanded harshly.

“I understand,” Carlson replied softly. “I understand perfectly.”

“Why are we going north, Uncle Sage?”

Speed Trap glanced at the compass on the bridge’s control panel as the
Arctic Fire
’s bow cut a sharp wake through the day’s relatively calm ocean. They’d finished unloading for a second time, and the king crab season was over. They’d reached their quota well before any other ship had, so they should have been headed west for a cod run or south to Seattle before coming back to Dutch for the opilio season, which would start in a week. But they were following a north-northeasterly heading.

“Why are we going this way?”

“Why are you such a question-head, kid?”

The less than friendly answer didn’t surprise or anger Speed Trap. He was accustomed to Sage’s demeanor after so long. “Just naturally curious, I guess.”

“Don’t be,” Sage snapped. “It’s irritating. You remember all those teachers in school who told you that the only bad question is the one you don’t ask?”

“Yeah. So?”

“They were assholes. They didn’t know what they were talking about.”

The ship covered a few miles of rolling ocean before Speed Trap spoke up again. He’d thought about going below to get some sleep in the bunk room like Duke and Grant were doing. But he wanted to make sure Grant hadn’t been bullshitting about the DUI and resisting arrest charges over in Seward. It still seemed too good to be true.

“Is there something you want to tell me, Uncle Sage?”

“What do you mean?”

“About my charges over in Seward.”

“Jesus Christ,” Sage hissed under his breath. “You and your brother are just like your father. Neither of you can keep your mouths shut. It’s like I’m dealing with a couple of old ladies at a quilting convention.”

Speed Trap rolled his eyes. “Well, is it true? Has everything been dropped?”

“When’s your birthday?”

That seemed like an odd question. “Huh?”

“When’s your damn birthday, Speed Trap?”

“Um, the day after tomorrow.”

“OK, well, I was saving it for a surprise, but now Grant’s ruined it. Yeah, everything’s been dropped. You’re free to get more tickets. But do me a favor this time, will you? Do it sober
and don’t start swinging at the cop when he pulls you over. Learn to say ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ to those guys. OK?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Happy birthday early.”

“Thanks. That’s amazing.”

“No problem. Don’t mention it again, kid.”

Speed Trap’s ears perked up. “Why not?”

“Damn it, Speed Trap!”

“OK, OK. Sorry.”

They went quiet again, and the only sound on the bridge was the constant hum of the two huge engines far below powering the
Arctic Fire
across the water.

Speed Trap glanced to port and out onto a desolate ocean. He was trying hard to follow Sage’s order, but in the end it was impossible for him not to ask.

“I was just wondering how you got those charges—”

“
Goddamn it, kid!
” Sage roared. “What’s your problem?”

It had been an incredible king crab season, the best ever, and Speed Trap didn’t want to jeopardize getting paid the huge amount of money he was owed. But he couldn’t control his curiosity.

“It’s just that me and Grant were talking, and it seems like weird things happen on this ship. Like the time we picked up that guy in the raft last year in that place where we’ve never dropped traps before, and how he stayed in your room until we got to Dutch Harbor. Then there’s this deal with us getting all that new equipment so fast after we—”

“Yeah, let’s talk about equipment,” Sage broke in. “Let’s talk about rafts specifically.”

Speed Trap swallowed hard. “What about them?”

“Why do we have a new one?”

“Huh?”

“There’s a new raft in the equipment room downstairs. And an old one’s missing. Why’s that?”

Speed Trap shrugged. “Um, I don’t know. I’m not in charge of that stuff. Grant is.”

Sage lit up a Marlboro and inhaled two lungs full of the cancer stick. “Is there something you want to tell me, Speed Trap?”

Speed Trap tried to calm his pounding heart. As he was about to answer, he spotted something floating on the ocean several hundred yards ahead of the boat. “Hey, there’s a raft out there—”

“I see it,” Sage interrupted, taking another drag from the cigarette. “Time for you to get below.”

“What? Why don’t I help you—”

“Get below!” Sage shouted. “Right now, Speed Trap.”

Carlson climbed out of the Town Car and trudged to the back of it. “Good night,” he mumbled as he and Beckham came together at the trunk. The cold Washington night was making his bones ache. Suddenly he felt
ninety
-three, not seventy-three. “I’ll be in touch.”

“I want that list of agents and assets, old man, and I want it by Friday at noon.”

Carlson covered his mouth to cough. “You’ll get it.”

“Well, I’m glad to see this spirit of cooperation from you, Roger. Frankly, I was worried that I wouldn’t get it.”

“I’m too old to fight,” Carlson said as they shook hands. “And I do what my president tells me to do because this is the greatest country in the world and he’s the leader of it. OK,
Daniel
?”

“OK,” Beckham agreed, his tone softening. He hesitated for a few moments, then handed Carlson a thin envelope. “In that envelope is a piece of paper that details the president’s specific information requests with respect to Red Cell Seven. Call me when you’ve answered everything. We’ll exchange the info in person. No e-mails.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Carlson shoved the envelope into his pocket and climbed back into the Town Car. For all his education, Beckham was an idiot, at least when it came to the commonsense aspects of intelligence work. It was amazing that he even thought he had to mention not using e-mail to transmit that kind of sensitive information.

The ride back to Carlson’s Georgetown house took just ten minutes, and Nancy, his wife of forty-six years, was sitting at the kitchen table doing a crossword puzzle when he came through the door. He smiled sadly as he sat down beside her and took her warm hand in his cold one. She was such a wonderful woman, still so beautiful to him even at sixty-nine. She’d always been so devoted, so loyal to the cause. They’d moved eleven times in those forty-six years, and she’d never complained once. She’d simply nodded and gotten to work every time he’d explained what had to happen.

She’d only asked him once what he did. That was forty-seven years ago, on their first date. He’d told her he was just a boring Washington bureaucrat, but he’d asked her never to ask him again. And she hadn’t. She was old-fashioned that way.

Nancy put the crossword down on the kitchen table and took both of his hands in hers when she caught the look in his eyes. “What is it, Roger? Oh, God, what is it?”

After so many years together, they could read each other’s moods and minds so easily. “I love you very much, sweetheart.” He hadn’t said that enough over the years, and he was going to make up for it with the time he had left. “I have bone marrow cancer,” he explained softly. “I have six months to live.”