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Dejiang licks his dry lips. “Because Benjamin Lucas is your son.”
CHAPTER 99
CIA DIRECTOR HANNAH Abrams says, “Excuse me, say that again? Benjamin Lucas is the son of President Barrett?”
“Yes, ma’am,” says Jean Swantish.
She leans back in her chair, just staring in disbelief at her deputy director.
“Jean,” she says, “tell me what you got, and it better be good, to have been hidden all these years.”
Jean has a thick manila folder in her lap but doesn’t refer to it as she begins.
“You asked us to go deep, and deep is where we went,” she starts. “Roberta Tyler was Benjamin’s mother. At the time of his birth, she was employed as a civilian contractor for the Department of Defense, working at Fort Ord in California before it was closed. The birth certificate said father was unknown.”
“Did we talk to her?”
A sad shake of the head. “She’s been dead for a number of years. Car accident. But we did talk to her neighbors from that time, and one said she was sure Roberta’s father was stationed at Fort Ord. We did a check of personnel records, to see who was stationed at Fort Ord at the time, and to see if there was any connection that ledto Roberta. Nothing … but one of our analysts found that Barrett Keegan, then a lieutenant, was stationed there. That just raised questions, especially considering Benjamin’s golden career here at the Agency, with someone clearing the way for him.”
Hannah shakes her head. “Not nearly good enough.”
“That’s what I said, and knowing how fast you wanted confirmation, we skipped a few steps. Actually, a lot of steps.”
“Where did you end up?”
“DNA analysis,” Jean says. “We have Benjamin Lucas’s DNA on file, of course, and we ran a match against the president’s DNA and—”
“Hold on, where did you get the president’s DNA?” Hannah asks. “Did you access the Secret Service’s cold storage? They keep some of the president’s blood for emergency use, but that supply is well guarded. That would be an incredibly dangerous move, Jean.”
“Er, no, we didn’t get his blood from the Secret Service. Or Homeland Security. We got it from our own medical office.”
Hannah feels her eyes widen. “We have blood samples from President Barrett?”
Jean nods. “Not just him. We have blood samples going all the way back to Kennedy.”
“Kennedy …?”
“Yes, ma’am. Er, a little-known program called the Manchurian Project. Named after that—”
“Book and movie,” Hannah recalls.
“Correct,” Jean says. “It seems at the time there were concerns about, well, a body double assuming the presidency during a moment of crisis, and having samples of the real president’s blood on hand would be key in—”
“Enough,” Hannah says, resting her head in her hands for a moment. “Holy shit on a cracker, if we spent more money on real programs and technology, instead of this James Bond nonsense like exploding cigars for Castro, the Cold War would have ended a decade earlier.”
“Is it possible the Chinese know?” Jean asks. “And that’s why they’ve captured him? And won’t talk to us about his release?”
“Possible,” Hannah says. “They’re good at sucking up petabytes of information from Social Security numbers to payroll records for every damn company in the country. Why not?”
Hannah pauses for a moment, then sits up. “All right. A good piece of intelligence we didn’t know before, about Benjamin’s parentage. Good job to you and your operatives. Barrett has based his entire political career on being the lone wolf, utterly dedicated to the nation, with no family and no distractions. Doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t chase women. But now, you and yours have given me something I didn’t have before.”
“What’s that?” her deputy asks.
Hannah says, “A weapon to use against Barrett, at the right time and place.”
CHAPTER 100
THE FIRST THING Noa Himel notices when her eyes flutter open is the sharp acrid smell of firecrackers being shot off, and then there’s white dust everywhere. She coughs, comes to full awareness.