Part 30 (1/2)

CHAPTER 90.

”HOW DID you get these?” Crespin asked calmly after the last recording was finished.

It was tempting to joke about the irony. Here was the NSA asking me how I'd gotten information I wasn't supposed to have. Yeah, that's rich.

How did I get these? ”The how isn't important,” I said. ”It's the who.”

And not just who was responsible, but also who had been killed along the way. Crespin needed to understand the stakes, the price others had paid.

I explained everything Owen and I knew for sure, as well as what we suspected. We'd been following the money, but we still didn't know whose it was. Brennan, through his law firm, had been moving that money but not supplying it. It had to come from somewhere, though.

As for the serum itself, Dr. Wittmer had implicated Frank Karcher, the National Clandestine Service chief of the CIA, as the man who'd first approached him about transporting-and administering-it overseas.

Finally, there was the photo in Wittmer's house suggesting that Clay Dobson could be involved.

”Could be,” I stressed.

I wasn't about to try to sell Crespin on the idea of the White House being involved, as I was hardly sold on the idea myself. For starters, we had nothing that linked Karcher to Dobson.

Funny, though, how the world works sometimes.

When I was done, Crespin flipped open a manila folder in front of him and removed a large, folded-up piece of paper. He slid it in front of me.

”What's this?” I asked.

Go ahead, said his nod, open it.

I unfolded the paper. It was a copy of the front page of the New York Times. Not today's, though. Not even tomorrow's, which would've been the Sunday edition.

No, this was Monday's paper-an editor's mock-up, complete with margin notes and dummy text for a couple of articles still to be inserted.

Instinctively, I looked at my watch. I knew from Claire that weekday editions of the Times went to print around ten o'clock the night before, with the ”first edition A book,” aka the front section, always closing last. We were a full twenty-four hours before that.

It felt a bit like a Twilight Zone episode. Crespin was showing me the future.

I stared down at the paper again. I didn't ask, but all I could think was How did he get this?

If he wasn't reading my face, he was definitely reading my mind.

”The how isn't important,” he said. He then pointed to the first-column story above the fold, the tip of his index finger landing directly next to the name in the headline. ”It's the who.”

CHAPTER 91.

THERE IT was in boldface type.

President Set to Nominate Karcher

As Next CIA Director

Quickly, I scanned the first paragraph. My gut told me there'd be no need to read the second.

Frank Karcher was being dubbed the ”unexpected choice,” but an ”unnamed source within the White House” was certainly bending over backward to describe him as an impeccable candidate.

”It had always been a coin flip between Frank Karcher and Lawrence Ba.s.s. Heads or tails, though, it's our national security that wins.”

Those unnamed sources sure can spin.

Crespin stood up from the table and walked over to the window. He stared outside, saying nothing. Meanwhile, Valerie had grabbed the laptop, her fingers furiously tapping away on the keypad.

I didn't know what she was doing, but I figured Crespin must be deep in thought, trying to figure out this huge minefield he was suddenly standing in. On a pogo stick, no less.

There was no scenario that didn't entail collateral damage, from the presidency on down. And that was if the White House wasn't involved.

And if it was? If the link to Clay Dobson via Frank Karcher proved real?

Then Crespin wouldn't need the front page of the New York Times in advance to know what the headlines would be. Independent counsels, congressional hearings, the entire administration upended, if not toppled. The Fourth Estate would have the ultimate field day. A feast for the ages.

Now kick in the foreign policy and national security ramifications.

This wasn't drones or waterboarding or even some extremely ill-advised photos taken by a few guards at Guantanamo Bay. No, this was the coup de grace, the mother lode.

The single greatest terrorist recruiting tool of all time. Or at least, until the next one came along.

If I'd been Crespin, I would've been staring out the window, too. He had to be wondering what his next move was. He was the NSA, not the FBI. At some point, this was a job for law enforcement, and I was a.s.suming that point was now. On second thought ...

He was the NSA, not the FBI.

Crespin turned away from the window. ”How much do you know about this building, Mr. Mann?”

”You mean, the actual building?” I asked.

”Yes.”

I looked over at Valerie for some help. Is this a trick question? But her head was still buried in the laptop.