Carnal Curiosity (13 page)

“Just some wine,” she said.

“A bottle of the Cakebread Chardonnay,” he told the man.

He turned back to Holly. “Now.”

The waiter returned with the wine before she could speak. “Does he keep it in his pocket?” she asked.

“Nearby. It’s a popular wine.” He tasted, nodded, and the waiter poured them both a generous glass. “Now,” he said again.

“I have received,” she said, “in an alarmingly official manner, information that the words”—she looked around to see if anyone could overhear, then whispered—“‘Teddy Fay’ have recently passed your lips.”

Stone tried to remember. “Possibly,” he said at last, “they passed the lips of someone I was listening to at the time. Tell me, has your Agency, in fear and desperation, begun stooping to the level of recording the privileged conversations between attorney and client?”

“No,” she said, “the National Security Agency has been charged with the task of stooping to that level. From time to time, they like to remind us that they know how to do it.”

Menus came, and Stone waved them away. “Dover sole, new potatoes, and haricots verts for two.” The waiter dematerialized. “It saves time,” Stone said to Holly, “and I know how you love Dover sole.”

“Quite,” she said. “Now to the business at hand.”

“This is business we’re discussing?”

“Not yet, but if this conversation doesn’t go well, then we will descend rapidly into that ring of hell called business.”

“You know how anxious I always am to make the lives of those who protect our country and the world easier and more pleasant. How can I help?”

“You can relate your conversation of yesterday, the one that included the mention of the forbidden words.”

“Ah, yes.” Stone took a sip of his wine. “No.”

“Stone…” And there was threat in her voice.

“Attorney-client privilege, sweetheart. You’re familiar, aren’t you?”

“Stone, I don’t give a fuck about your legal business or your privileged conversations with clients. I’d just like to know the context in which the name occurred.”

“All right,” Stone said, “in passing.”

“What?”

“It occurred in passing. It was not the subject of our conversation, it just came up.”

“Does either of you know where… what’s-his-name is?”

“The geography of our conversation covered parts of Kansas and New York City. To the best of my knowledge, what’s-his-name is not in either place. And if you put a pistol to my head, I couldn’t put my finger on him. Now, Holly, why don’t you just relax, have some wine, and tell me what the fuck is going on here.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“And you know I can’t do it, either. But perhaps with a little wine and a little goodwill we can discuss this and then forget about it, to the extent that our conversation never took place.”

Holly took a large swig of her wine, which was instantly replaced by the waiter. “It’s like this: what’s-his-name’s name appears on a CIA watch list. Do you understand now?”

“Ah, yes. An NSA computer caught someone mentioning his name.”

“Exactly. Now I’ve shown you mine, you show me yours.”

“Love to. Oh, I’m sorry, not that.”

“No. Not right now.”

“Later, then. All right, a friend of mine, in a privileged conversation, mentioned that he might, in the course of his wide travels, bump into what’s-his-name somewhere or other. I suggested that if such a bumping-into occurred, he might convey my warm good wishes to what’s-his-name.”

“And why are you so warmly disposed toward what’s-his-name?”

“Well, to begin with, unlike the Agency, I have never thought of what’s-his-name as a villain, a threat to national security, a mortal enemy, or even a bad person.”

“Come on, there’s more.”

“Beyond that you and I will have to rise to that level of confidentiality that surpasses even Agency security or attorney-client privilege. Agreed?”

“All right, agreed.”

Their Dover sole arrived, was presented, boned, and served.

Stone took a bite and savored it. “I owe what’s-his-name a great debt of gratitude for saving the lives of my son, his best friend, his girlfriend… and his father,” he said finally.

Holly stared at him, mute.

“I kid you not.”

“And how did this heroic benevolence occur?”

“Ah, now we’re straying into the realm of ‘need to know.’ And you do not
need
to know.”

Holly chewed a chunk of sole thoughtfully. “But I
want
to know,” she said.

“Tell you what,” Stone said, “when we’re old and gray—all right, older and grayer—and when your Agency and my
privilege are no longer chips in the game, and when we are far from recording devices and vulture computers, I will tell you all. After, of course, extracting your promise of eternal silence.”

“I have to wait that long, do I?”

“You do. I will, however, offer you some very genuine and very serious advice, based on solid fact and sound truth. Are you interested?”

“Always.”

“If I were you, serving in your post, I would contact the official at the NSA who sent you this message, and I would tell him to remove what’s-his-name’s name from the CIA watch list, and from any other watch list with which he is acquainted.”

“That would be really, really sticking my neck out,” she said.

“No, it would not. I can tell you that, to the contrary, you would be shielding yourself from further tsuris connected with what’s-his-name.”

“How do you know this?”

“I can’t tell you, but I’ll give you a tip: when you return to your warren on the Upper East Side, sit down at your computer and search every law enforcement database at your disposal and use key words corresponding to what’s-his-name’s name. But, since I know how busy you are, I’ll save you the time and tell you what results you may expect: a big fat zero.”

“That is absolutely impossible,” she said. Then she screwed up her forehead. “Unless…”

“Well, yes,” Stone said. “Let’s leave it at ‘unless.’”

“But how did you… ?”

Stone held up a warning finger. “Ah, ah.”

“Oh, all right!”

And they parted the best of friends.

Holly went back to her office and sent the following e-mail:

To: Scott Hipp
Deputy Director
National Security Agency

1. Your transmission of this date is acknowledged.
   
2. Please permanently delete the subject name from any and all watch lists, including the one in question.
   
3. Please acknowledge having done so.
   

Holly Barker

Assistant Director of Central Intelligence

She clicked on the
SEND
button and hoped that was the end of it.

27

K
ate Lee’s helicopter, on loan from a wealthy supporter, landed on the White House pad, and a Marine helped her down the stairs and escorted her to the nearest entrance. Three minutes later, she was in the family quarters and stripping down for a shower. She was fully soaped when the shower door opened and the president of the United States, appropriately dressed for a shower, entered and pressed her against the tile wall, holding her head by the hair and kissing her ravenously.

When they had had their way with each other and were sufficiently unsoaped, they repaired to the living room, both dressed in terry robes, and Will poured them both a stiff bourbon on the rocks.

“What’s this horseshit I hear about you fucking Stone Barrington?” he asked with a straight face.

“It’s horseshit,” she replied, clinking her glass against his. “What’s this I hear about you fucking the deputy press secretary?”

“What?”
he demanded, then his face softened. “All right, I deserved that.”

“You certainly did, Bubba. I hope the Stone thing has faded from the bubble memory of the media by this time. Some blogger, no doubt spurred on by Marty Stanton, circulated it. Probably Marty thought it was a shot across my bows. What are you going to do about him?”

“Do? What can I do? He’s already been caught in flagrante delicto.”

“Well, not quite.”

“As near as, dammit—nothing I can do about it now, except haul him in and treat him like a schoolboy.”

“That would make a nice story, as soon as we could get it leaked.”

“I’m not going to do it, though. I’m going to ignore the event and ignore Marty, too. He won’t be invited to any more intelligence briefings, and I’ve already ignored two of his phone calls.”

“Ah, the freeze.”

“The deep freeze. He hates that.”

“And that man is a heartbeat from the presidency.”

“So are you, come to that. Closer.”

“But it ain’t in the Constitution.”

“I don’t think we have time to get an amendment ratified before the convention.”

“Pity.”

“How’s it going, baby?”

“I think it’s going about as well as can be expected.”

“Any signs in your polling of support for Marty cracking?”

“In Nebraska, maybe, not in sunny California.”

“Pity about all those delegates.”

“Damn straight. I had thought we might peel off enough of them to get us to a second ballot at the convention.”

“I can see how you might have thought that, but I can see how it might not happen, too. Californians are accustomed to, if not inured to, Marty’s sexual escapades. It’s what they’ve come to expect of him.”

“Whatever happened to the Bible Belt?” Kate asked. “Why don’t they rise up against him?”

“Because they’re voting at the Republican convention, instead of ours. Well, all right, they’re voting at ours, too, but they’re not as easily shocked as they once were. I think it’s Hollywood movies,
People
magazine, and the supermarket tabloids.”

“No doubt,” Kate agreed.

“Now, if Marty would be kind enough to make a couple of other great big mistakes, you might be able to rub them all together and start a fire.”

“I wish I could count on him to do that, but he’s not as stupid about other things as he is about sex.”

The house phone rang, and Kate picked it up. “Yes?” She covered the phone and looked at Will. “The kitchen wants to know what we’d like for dinner.”

“Something plain—meat loaf?”

“Can you rustle up some meat loaf?” Kate asked. “Good.”

She hung up. “Be here at half past seven.”

“I’m going to miss being able to order anything I want,” Will said.

“Well,” Kate pointed out, “with a little luck, we may not have to move out of here.”

They clinked glasses again.

“From your lips to God’s ear,” Will said.

“Oh,” she said, “I’ve got gossip.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Ann Keaton is fucking Stone Barrington.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, she’s seeing him—can sex be far behind?”

“Lucky guy.”

Kate laughed. “Lucky girl!”

They had another drink.

28

S
cott Hipp gazed at Holly Barker’s e-mail, then, with his finger on the
DELETE
button, he paused. Why not have some fun with this? He pressed the
FORWARD
button and typed in Lance Cabot’s private e-mail address, then he added a bit of text to the message:
The name in question is that of Teddy Fay
. He pressed
SEND
and chuckled to himself.

Holly got on her computer and began visiting law enforcement websites, beginning with the FBI’s. She typed in “Fay, Teddy” and got an immediate response. “No match found.” She moved on to other databases and got the same response from each one. Then she went to the CIA mainframe and tried again. “No match found.” She was stunned.

Her hotline to Langley went off, and she picked up the phone. “Holly Barker.”

“It’s Lance.”

“Good afternoon, Lance. How are you?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I’ve had an e-mail from you, forwarded from Scott Hipp at NSA.”

“Ah,” she said.

“Ah, what?”

“Ah, Scott is trying to make trouble.”

“May I ask on what authority have you made this request to him?”

“My own authority. Or does the director have to approve every such action?”

“Not necessarily. Why don’t you tell me the background to all this.”

“Lance, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that on the phone or in an e-mail.”

“Not even on
this
phone?”

“Especially not on this phone. You’re coming to New York tomorrow, why don’t we discuss this off-campus at that time?”

“I’m coming to New York this afternoon,” Lance said. “Meet me at the East Side Teleport at four o’clock.”

“Certainly. See you then.”

But Lance had already hung up.

—

H
olly stood next to her car and watched the chopper from Langley descend through the overcast, make its approach, then set softly down on the pad, shiny with drizzle. Holly’s driver removed a bag from the helicopter’s luggage compartment, then opened the rear door. Lance got out and, ducking unnecessarily under the spinning rotors, went over to where Holly stood waiting. Holly shook his hand and waited until her
driver had put the bag into her car and gotten back behind the wheel.

“Let’s walk,” Holly said.

“You don’t even want to talk in your own car?”

“No, and not even with my own driver.”

They watched Lance’s chopper lift off, head downriver, and climb into the overcast, then they walked around the edge of the pad and stood overlooking the East River.

“All right,” Lance said. “Why do you want Teddy Fay’s name removed from the Agency watch list?”

“Because it’s already been removed from every law enforcement database and, although I haven’t checked, probably from every other government and media database, as well. Google him, and you’ll get nothing.”

“On your authority again?” He looked hard at her. “Think before you answer.”

“Not mine. On what authority do you think such an action could be effected?”