The Second Shooter (22 page)

President Omar had given his opening remarks while the drinks and appetizers were being served and was now wrapping up the event with his post-dinner remarks. Richard Finch was seated five chairs down from the president and was now coming to his feet, as was everyone else in the room, to give the president another standing ovation. His second of the night.

Judging by the applause, Finch thought, one might get the impression that the president was very popular in Dallas. That wasn't true, of course. Texas was just about the reddest state in the entire country and had voted overwhelmingly for the Republican candidate in every presidential election since 1980, when it helped send Ronald Reagan to the White House. Finch had a list of all the guests in the room and knew that more than half of them were Republicans. They were contributing in the hopes that the president wouldn't slap a host of new EPA regulations on the oil industry the way he had the coal industry.

"Thank you," the president said over the applause. Then he gave a double thumbs up. "And God bless America."

Then they were off, the president, the first lady, the rest of the president's party, and a team of Secret Service agents, stepping off the podium and exiting the banquet hall through a back door screened by a curtain. The first lady walked on one side of the president, and Finch walked on the other side as they made their way down the corridor to the steel fire door at the far end and the presidential limousine waiting on the other side.

"Did you have the fish?" President Omar asked Finch.

"No, sir. I had the chicken."

"I wish I had picked the chicken," the president said. "The fish was awful."

"I hate fishy-tasting fish," Mona Omar said.

"We raised three million dollars," Finch said.

The president smiled. "In that case, the fish wasn't so bad."

The secure cellphone that Finch carried for the president rang in his suit coat pocket. The presidential party was ten feet from the fire door. Finch pulled the phone from his pocket and checked the number. It was from Langley. "CIA," he said.

"I'll take it in the car," the president said.

Finch answered the call. "Richard Finch," he said, hoping it wasn't who he thought it was.

"Mr. Finch, Allan Chessman here," the deputy director of operations said in his fine Southern drawl. "Is he available? I'm afraid it's rather urgent."

It was exactly who Finch had hoped it wasn't. But he played the part he was assigned. "Mr. Chessman, we're just getting to the car. Can you hold on a minute?"

"But of course," Chessman said. "I serve at the pleasure of the president."

A minute later Finch was in the limousine with the president and first lady. He held the muted cellphone out to the president.

"Who is it?" President Omar asked.

"Deputy Director Chessman," Finch said.

The president shook his head and waved the phone away.

Finch kept the phone extended. "He says it's urgent."

"To the CIA, everything is urgent."

The presidential motorcade pulled away from the hotel. President Omar shrugged and gave a little sigh. "Put him on speaker."

Finch glanced at the first lady. Technically, presidents' wives did not have security clearances. Neither did presidents, for that matter, but by the act of being sworn in as president and assuming the role of chief of the executive branch of the government and commander-in-chief of the entire US military, the president didn't need a security clearance. First ladies were another matter, a touchy matter and one that no one in the history of the country had ever wanted to address. Everyone assumed that, rightly or wrongly, first ladies were privy to a lot of highly classified material.

"It's all right," the president said. "She's my unofficial chief of staff." He was smiling when he said it, but Finch knew it was a warning not to undermine the first lady, especially not in her presence. Finch unmuted the call and pressed the speaker button. Leaning toward the phone, the president said, "Allan, what can I do for you?"

"I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. President, but—"

"By the way, Allan, just so you know, I have you on speaker with Richard." The president didn't bother mentioning his wife, who was busying herself on her iPhone.

"That's fine, Mr. President," the CIA man said.

"So what's so urgent?" the president asked.

As Chessman cleared his throat, the president rolled his eyes. Then Chessman spoke, slowly and clearly, the way he did when he did not want his drawl to obscure any of his words. "I'm calling to try to persuade you, Mr. President, to reconsider extending the timeline on the withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan."

"I'm afraid you're wasting your time, Allan." And mine, Finch heard in the president's voice. "I've spoken to the DCI at length, and my decision is final."

"But, sir, the government of President Karzai is still too unstable."

"Karzai has been president since 2001," Noah Omar said, letting the sarcasm seep into his voice. "How much more time do you think he needs?"

"I'm just afraid that when we pull out, we're going to leave a huge vacuum that the Taliban will simply step into. We'll be back to pre-9/11."

"Next year will be thirteen years we've been in Afghanistan, Allan. Longer than the British, the Russians. Hell, longer than Alexander the Great."

"We only need one more year," Chessman said. "Two at the most."

"That's your opinion, Allan."

"No, sir. Not just my opinion, but the learned opinion of our entire Southwest Asia Analysis Group."

"When I ran for re-election I promised to get our troops out of Afghanistan, just like I did in Iraq."

"But the facts on the ground have changed since the election, Mr. President."

"The facts on the ground haven't changed in more than a decade. We're getting out. That's final. Have I made myself clear?"

There was a pause.

"Allan?" the president asked.

"Yes, sir, I'm here," Chessman said.

"Was I clear enough?"

"Yes, Mr. President," Chessman said with the hint of an edge in his voice. "Perfectly clear."

The president signaled Finch to end the call. Finch pressed the end button and slipped the phone back in his pocket.

"I don't know if I can take another three years with him as DDO," the president said. "Can we send him overseas? Pakistan, maybe."

"I think he has a price on his head in Pakistan, sir."

"North Korea then."

They rode in silence for a moment, just the police sirens and the flashing lights.

"The speech is at noon, right?" the president asked.

"Yes, sir."

"What's my tee time?"

"Two o'clock," Finch said.

"When we get back to the hotel let's have a drink."

Finch nodded. "Sounds good, Mr. President."

***

Blackstone left the Gulfstream V cockpit and took a seat in the main cabin in a chair opposite Max Garcia. "Pilot says we'll be wheels down in thirty minutes."

Garcia glanced at his watch. It was 10 p.m., exactly twenty-four hours since a surprise telephone call from his former employer had interrupted his bedtime reading and turned his life upside down. He still hadn't slept. "Which airport?"

"Dallas Executive. Twenty minutes south of downtown. I have a team meeting us there at first light."

"Let's hope this team is better than the last one."

Blackstone's face tightened but he said nothing.

"Can you find us a place to crash for a few hours?"

"Already taken care of," Blackstone said. "We're booked at the business hotel on the airport grounds."

Garcia nodded.

"Can I ask you something?" Blackstone said.

"I may not answer, but go ahead."

"You said you were retired."

"That's not a question," Garcia said, "But yes, I am retired."

"Then shouldn't you be playing golf or fishing or doing whatever it is that retired spooks do?"

"Gardening," the Cuban said. "My wife and I are certified master gardeners."

"That's right," Blackstone said, nodding. "You mentioned that before. That you were supposed to be at some kind of garden show instead of here."

"I was."

"So why aren't you?"

"I didn't ask to be here."

"Then why are you?"

"Because they needed someone on the ground who knows how the Frenchman thinks."

"And you're the only one?"

"I trained him."

Blackstone was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Who exactly are they, and what did you mean by regime change?"

"Those are two questions you shouldn't ask," Garcia said. "Just remember what curiosity did for the cat."

Blackstone leaned forward. Garcia could almost see his hackles rising. "I'm a lot harder to put down than that FBI pogue."

Garcia smiled, thinking, you may be harder, but you'll still go down if I need you too. He didn't say that, though. Instead, he patted Blackstone's shoulder and said, "Relax. He was a liability. You're an asset."

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2013

A loud
POP
echoed through the motorhome and yanked Jake out of the fitful nap he had managed to fall into just past midnight. He sprang upright on the Winnebago's old sofa in time to see the headlamps illuminate a reflective green sign that read DALLAS 110. Then the sign disappeared as twin geysers of vapor and green fluid spewed up from under the hood and coated the windshield.

Stacy, who had been curled in the front passenger seat, woke up, startled. "What was that?"

Favreau, who had been asleep in a chair, was instantly alert and had a pistol in his hand.

"Is anybody hurt?" Jake said.

"I'm not hurt," Gordon said in an anxious voice as the motorhome started seesawing back and forth across the highway. "But I can't see."

"It's the radiator," Jake said. "Ease on the breaks and pull to the shoulder."

"I can't see the shoulder!"

Jake shuffled forward, bracing himself in the swaying cabin with anything he could grab hold of. "Keep straight, apply the brakes slowly, and turn on the windshield wipers."

Gordon did as Jake said and within a few seconds he had the motorhome back under control and was catching enough glimpses through the streaks of green goo between whacks of the windshield wipers to angle toward the shoulder. Everybody breathed a sigh of relief when the motorhome lurched to a stop.

When Gordon finally let go of the steering wheel his hands were shaking. He glanced over at Stacy. "Image the irony."

"What irony?" Stacy said, also a little shaken.

"Outside of the conspirators themselves, we're the only people in the world who know what's going to happen tomorrow in Dallas," Gordon said. "And outside of a handful of others, the only ones who know what really happened there fifty years ago. Imagine the irony if we had died tonight on an empty stretch of highway in a crash caused by a busted radiator hose."

"That's not irony, or karma, or any kind of cosmic juju," Jake said. "A bullet probably nicked the hose back at the trailer park. We're lucky we made it this far."

Gordon turned in the driver's seat to look back at Jake. "I think it's more than that." He smiled. "History is a jealous bitch. And she guards her secrets."

A few minutes later all four of them stood in front of the open hood as steam billowed into the air and radiator fluid poured onto the asphalt. After a cursory examination, Jake was able to determine that the radiator hose had not been shot, just worn through. Neglect, not bullets, had sprung the leak.

"Now what do we do?" Favreau said.

Jake looked at Gordon. "You got any duct tape?"

***

The call came at 2 a.m. and dragged Max Garcia out of his dream about sipping a Cuba libre on a beach. He picked up his cellphone. "Yes."

"Do you know who this is?"

Garcia recognized the smooth, bourbon drawl of Allan Chessman, the CIA's deputy director of operations. A man Garcia had known for thirty years. And sleep deprived or not, he also recognized the code phrase Do you know who this is? and knew it meant the line was not secure so no names were to be used. "Of course," was all Garcia said.

"Do you know why I'm calling?" Chessman asked.

Garcia sat up in bad. "Did you talk to him?"

"I did."

"And?"

"He was adamant," Chessman said. "Although, intransigent might be a better word to describe his position."

"Because of his campaign promise?"

"I think it goes deeper than that."

"To what?"

"This may sound like an oversimplification, but I think it's accurate," Chessman said. "The man does not take advice. No matter what the subject, whether it's strategy for a war or a Fed interest rate hike, he cannot accept that someone has a better understanding of the situation than he does."

"In this case, he might be right."

"He's a dilettante."

"Who happens to sit in the Oval Office."

"You've been out of the game a long time," Chessman said. "The rules have changed."

"Yet, you're using the same playbook we used fifty years ago."

"It worked then," Chessman said. "It'll work again."

"It ripped the country apart."

"That's not the way I remember it."

"How would you know?" Garcia said. "You were still in diapers."

"The VP is onboard."

"In exchange for what?"

"We promised to give him something he could walk back to the Taliban and AQ."

"Is that all he wanted?" Garcia asked, surprised the vice president's asking price for complicity in treason and murder hadn't been steeper. The man spent thirty-five years in the Senate, many of them on the Intelligence Committee. Garcia knew him well.

"We also promised to fund his campaign in 2016."

That sounded more like the man Garcia knew. "What are you giving him?"

"Not another 9/11," Chessman said. "But something on US soil. Enough to justify another troop surge."

"Jesus. For how long?"

"Well, if he wins in '16, it could be quite a while."

"This is going to be a disaster."

"Is that what you said last time?"