Viking Bay (3 page)

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The following Wednesday, Kay entered a twelve-story office building on K Street and proceeded to room 711. On the wall outside the door was a small brass plaque that read
The Callahan Group
. Higher up on the wall was a security camera looking down at her. She tried to open the door, but it was locked. Then she heard a click, and the door opened the next time she turned the knob.

She found herself standing inside a small reception area, and sitting behind the only desk in the room was a large black man—extremely large.

“I'm Kay Hamilton,” she said. “I have an appointment with Ms. Mercer.”

The man nodded, as if he'd been expecting her, and said, “I need to wand you before you go in.”

“Wand me?”

“For weapons and eavesdropping devices.”

“Okay,” Kay said, wondering what in the hell these people did that required such precautions.

The receptionist stood up—although it was hard to think of a guy who was six-foot-six and built like the Incredible Hulk as a receptionist. Holstered on his belt was a Dirty Harry .44 Magnum with a seven-inch barrel and a walnut grip.
Whoa
. He passed a standard metal detector over Kay, then some other device the size of a pack of cigarettes with an antenna sticking out of it. Apparently satisfied that she was neither packing heat nor wired for sound, he picked up the phone and said, “Anna, Kay Hamilton is here.”

A moment later, Anna Mercer opened the door behind the receptionist's desk and waved Kay toward her. As she passed through the door, Kay noticed a keypad next to it for entering a cybercode.

Mercer's office was beautifully decorated, but windowless and not very large. She had a glass-topped table she used for a desk, and Kay thought it might be an antique because the legs were gilded and elaborately carved. On the floor was a thick Oriental carpet that looked expensive and on the table was a Tiffany-style lamp, a laptop, a normal phone, and a second phone that Kay recognized as a Stu III encrypted phone. In one corner was a Gardall safe with a large combination lock. Above the safe was an oil painting depicting a canal in Venice that looked as if it had been painted by some famous old-time artist; Kay didn't know anything about art.

Next to Mercer's desk, resting regally in a wicker basket, was a large, snow-white Persian cat with aquamarine eyes. Mercer noticed Kay looking at the animal and said, “That's Scarlett. She's not in a good mood this morning.”

Kay didn't know what to say in response to that. She was also surprised that a seemingly no-nonsense person like Mercer would bring a pet to work.

Like the last time Kay had seen Mercer, the woman was dressed in a gorgeous suit—this one hunter green with matching high heels, which Kay loved. If she ever got to know Mercer better, she was going to ask where she shopped. Mercer pointed Kay to one of the two chairs in front of her desk and pushed a manila folder toward her.

“That's your nondisclosure agreement. Read it if you want, but if you don't like something in it, too bad. We're not going to change a word. Sign it on the last page.”

“I haven't agreed that I'm going to work for you yet,” Kay said.

“The nondisclosure agreement covers everything you've done in connection with the Callahan Group since the day we met in San Diego. You need to sign it before we proceed any further.”

Kay opened the folder and saw a twelve-page document written in incomprehensible legal gibberish. She flipped through the pages—she didn't bother to read every word—and signed it. She figured: What the hell. If she ever felt like disclosing something, a piece of paper wasn't going to stop her.

“Okay,” Mercer said. “It's time for you to meet Callahan.”

—

KAY FOLLOWED MERCER
down a long, narrow corridor. She noticed another surveillance camera as they were walking. They passed several closed doors—Kay didn't hear anyone behind the doors—until they came to an office at the end of the hall. There was another camera above this door. Mercer rapped, the door lock clicked, and Mercer pushed open the door.

The man behind the desk was gray-haired and overweight, and the first word that came to mind when Kay saw him was
rumpled
. He was wearing a blue shirt that had never been introduced to an iron and a baggy gray suit that Kay suspected came from some outfit like the Men's Wearhouse—and not from the part of the store where they kept the high-end clothes. He had bright blue eyes and a heavy, pale face. Unlike Mercer, he smiled at her and seemed friendly. He reminded Kay of a well-known actor who had died the year before of a drug overdose, but Kay couldn't recall the actor's name.

There was a conventional wooden desk in the office instead of an elegant table like Mercer had, and the desk bore marks of repeated abuse. Kay could see what looked like cigarette burns on one edge of the desk and rings where hot drinks had been placed without using a coaster. Like Mercer, he had a laptop and an encrypted phone, but his desk, instead of being neat and organized like Mercer's, was covered by small mountains of paper. A greasy McDonald's bag sat on the keyboard of the laptop, and Kay could smell not only French fries but also cigarette smoke. But that couldn't be, she thought; no one smoked inside office buildings anymore.

Instead of individual visitor's chairs, there was a brown leather couch in front of Callahan's desk. (Kay later learned that Callahan often ended up sleeping on the couch—and sometimes passed out on the couch.) Today's editions of the
Washington Post,
the
Wall Street Journal,
and the
New York Times
were spread out all over the couch.

“Hey, sit down,” Callahan said. “Push that shit onto the floor.”

Kay gathered up the papers, made an attempt to fold them neatly, and then, when she couldn't figure out where to put them, dropped them on the floor near one end of the couch. She and Mercer sat down.

Callahan didn't say anything for a moment as his blue eyes took her in. “Wow,” he said. “You're a knockout.”

Mercer turned to Kay and said, “Fortunately—for Callahan, that is—the nondisclosure agreement you just signed prevents you from suing him for sexual harassment.”

The name of the actor suddenly popped into Kay's head. Philip Seymour Hoffman—that's who Callahan reminded her of.

Ignoring Mercer's jab, Callahan said, “Okay. I'm Thomas Callahan and I have the controlling interest in a limited partnership known as the Callahan Group. All my partners are silent; in fact, I don't really have any partners. If you were to go online, you'd find our website, www.Callahan.Group.com, and it would tell you we specialize in helping U.S. companies do business abroad. The website says we know how to deal with such things as taxes on income earned overseas—meaning we tell companies how to avoid paying Uncle Sugar his fair share. It says we have special relationships with the right people in foreign governments—which means we know who to bribe if you want to operate in Dubai. If you want to set up a factory in Thailand and spew god-awful shit into the river that flows through downtown Bangkok, we know how to bend the environmental rules. And there actually are a few people who work for me who do that sort of stuff, and we always have about a dozen legitimate clients. If you were able to get
your hands on the Callahan Group's tax returns, you'd see that we are an enormously successful company for a business our size.”

“So what do you really do?” Kay asked. “I'm pretty sure you're not hiring me to be a tax consultant.”

Callahan smiled. “When George W. Bush was president, I worked for his national security advisor and I'm sitting in my office late one night, this shitty little shoe box over in the EOB. I remember I was eating a pizza that was left over from the day before and a guy whose name I can't tell you comes in, closes the door, and explains to me that the president wants me to set up a special type of organization.

“You see, Bush decided after he invaded Iraq that he wanted an option. He wanted an organization he could turn to for things that needed to be done but that he didn't necessarily want the federal government doing. And what he really wanted was an organization that, if it fucked up, he could say:
Hey, I got nothing to do with those guys.
He could have turned to the private sector, but he realized, being a good capitalist himself, that the private sector is profit motivated and what we do is not about making a profit. Plus, W wanted to be able to control this group, and no matter what kind of contract you write, the private sector will do whatever its little black heart desires when it comes to money.

“The president also had other concerns, which I think were totally justified. Government organizations, even ones like the CIA, are run by bureaucrats who are always worried that they'll end up taking the fall if they get caught doing something illegal on the president's behalf. So lots of times these bureaucrats balk when the boss gives 'em an order that's just a little bit in the gray zone. And after Powell stood up in the UN and swore on a stack of Bibles that Saddam had weapons he didn't actually have, the intelligence community became
really
risk averse. It was like they became afraid to do anything unless they were a hundred percent positive something couldn't go wrong, which rarely happens in intelligence work.”

“They were willing to take some risks when they went after bin Laden,” Kay said.

Callahan had the kind of eyes that seemed to literally twinkle, the kind of eyes Santa Claus was supposed to have. They twinkled when Callahan said, “It might surprise you to learn that the night Obama gave the order to invade Pakistan, he had some information other folks in the Situation Room didn't have. “

Kay had enough sense not to ask:
What information?

“Anyway,” Callahan said, “Congress is also a problem when it comes to covert ops. The various oversight committees want to know what's going on, they want to be involved in decisions even though they're not qualified to decide anything, and the bastards control the purse strings. I mean, Congress is just a gigantic pain in the ass.”

But Kay was thinking
: Covert ops
. Now, this was starting to get interesting.

“So that night,” Callahan said, “the president's guy said the boss wanted me to set up an organization that he could call upon from time to time when he needed something done. In other words, like I already said, he wanted an
option
, and that's what the Callahan Group is. It's not a federal agency and it's not really a private-sector company; it just looks like one.” Callahan smiled. “You know what I said when he finished talking?”

Kay shook her head.

“I said I want to hear this directly from the president. Well, the president's pal said there wasn't any way in hell that was going to happen. So I refused. A couple days pass, and I get called to the Oval Office. That was the first time I was ever in the room by myself, and the president's not wearing any shoes, putting into one of those office putting cups. He smacks a ball, misses the cup by about ten inches, then he turns to me and says: ‘You had a discussion with a close friend of mine the other night, and my friend tells me that you wanted some assurance that I approved of what he said. Let me just say that I don't disapprove.'”

Kay said, “What?”

“Exactly,” Callahan said. “Complete gobbledygook. And you know what a lousy speaker Bush was, and I could tell that he'd memorized what he'd just said, but if push ever came to shove, he could testify that he'd never ordered me to do anything. But I was okay with that. I was satisfied that he was personally giving me the go-ahead and that's the best I was going to get.”

“Why did the president pick you?” Kay asked.

“Because of my background. I'm ex-CIA and I spent time over at the Pentagon and on the National Security Council. Also, I was never in the limelight; nobody in the media knew who I was. So if I quit my White House job and set up a company that looks like a typical K Street operation, there wouldn't even be a ripple in the news. Anyway, that was the last time I talked to the president, and I've never received a direct order from the president, not the last one or the current one.”

“You're saying Obama's aware of your existence?”

“Of course. He has to be. I'm guessing that when he moved into the White House, Bush briefed him on the Callahan Group and he decided not to upset the apple cart. All I know is that Bush's guy was replaced by Obama's guy. Like I said: I don't talk to the president and the president can testify to that without committing perjury.

“What happens instead is I'll bump into the president's guy in a bar or while he's taking a stroll around the Mall, and he'll update me on things that are bothering his boss. Then a
suggestion
might be made, but an order is never, ever given. Then I'm left to my own devices.

“There is only one link between me and the United States government, that link being money. I have a young guy, you may meet him sometime in the future, and he's my money guy. He's ex–Goldman Sachs, ex–Treasury Department, ex-OMB, and he's bright as a shiny new button.”

Kay didn't know what the OMB was; she'd look it up later.

“His job is to move money from the U.S. Treasury to the Callahan
Group without leaving a trail, and for the last decade or so that hasn't really been too hard because we've spent about four trillion dollars on two wars and
nobody
knows where all the money ended up. I mean, when we left Iraq we were literally shipping home crates filled with cash, millions of dollars that we
didn't
spend on bribes and rewards. Nobody has any idea how much cash was there in the first place and where it all went.”

Callahan winked. “But if my money guy is ever caught, I imagine he and I—and maybe Anna—would find ourselves in a little hot water.”