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“Glad you noticed.”
“But sir … this is one hell of a risky venture.”
“One that’s worth it,” he says, feeling reflective. “In my years at the Pentagon, at Langley, and in Congress, I had this … understanding of what threats our nation faces. But to get the right people to listen to you and act … it never could happen. Politics, inertia, bureaucracy. Now that I’m here, that’s going to change. I’m finally in a position to make it happen.”
“But …”
Barrett glances down at his schedule. If this keeps up, he’s going to be late for a coffee-and-Danish visit with the Senate majority leader and his staff downstairs in his private dining room. He needs to keep his relationship with that fool steady for as long as possible, before the hammer falls.
The president says, “I think you’re about to ask me, ‘But what if they don’t work out? Have a change of heart? Decide to go confess all to theWashington Post?’”
“That’s what I was thinking, yes, sir.”
One of the many attributes that Barrett likes about his special assistant is his blunt way of talking and getting things done, and all without any attendant publicity. He’s never had his photo in thePostor on the various news sites and blogs and prefers to work in the shadows.
Which is part of Pope’s unofficial job description.
Barrett says, “If that happens, they’ll be replaced. There are twenty-two thousand employees of the CIA. I’m sure we can find two other dedicated individuals.”
Pope gets up from his chair. “Replaced or disappeared?”
Barrett says, “Whichever works.”
CHAPTER 12
CARLTON POPE, SPECIAL assistant to the president, smiles with satisfaction as he walks downstairs back to his office, on the first floor and next to the Oval Office, its proximity marking his real power behind the throne here in the White House.
He’s come a long way from his nearly deserted hometown back in Oregon, where the forest industry had collapsed due to imports from China, and new rules and regulations issued by distant, faceless bureaucrats who cared more about some stupid owl than real people with real problems. The economy in that crappy town was empty for guys like him and his classmates, high school graduates who weren’t going to college.
Selling meth, OD’ing on opioids, and getting busted for petty crime was the most popular path.
Pope had picked another one.
The Army.
He almost deserted a few times but he found a home in the military police—what a joke!—and things had been going okay some years back until he got caught up in a mess in Kosovo. Other times and places it wouldn’t have been a big deal, just tuning up a prisoner who wouldn’t talk about the ratlines up in the mountains that were protecting Serb paramilitaries.
But his luck being his luck, the prisoner checked out, and Pope was facing serious prison time at Leavenworth, until a colonel he barely knew visited him in the brig.
The colonel didn’t waste time. “I’m going places, and I need a guy with a hard mind and hard heart at my side. Are you that guy, Sergeant Pope? No time for questions or debate. Say ‘yes’ and your charges get broomed.”
Of course he had said yes, the first time he had spoken to Keegan Barrett, and Barrett had kept his promise. Pope had followed him all the way to here, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, working with him and for him as a consultant during his time at the Pentagon, Langley, and Capitol Hill.
And here he is, number two guy in America—forget the veep, he has real power and authority in this White House, especially for the important weeks ahead—and only one thing troubles him as he nods in satisfaction at the administrative staff sitting outside of his office.
He goes in, shuts the door, sits in his comfortable chair, admires his fine office with all the power and authority contained within. Not bad for a near high-school dropout, most of whose class members are either serving time or lying in cold graves up in the Northwest.
But that’s not what bothers him.
It’s the president.
Lately, he’s been …
Stop,he tells himself.
He won’t allow himself to go down that path.
There’s a lot to be done between now and that day Barrett has planned for the world, and he will not—and cannot—be distracted.