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Noa asks, “In what way?”
Hannah says, “Two days ago, a city of nearly a million people in China lost power, and in that city was a cyberattack facility operated by China’s Ministry of State Security. A cruise missile did the job, dropping graphite fibers over parts of the electrical grid, shorting it out.”
Liam says, “Director, it couldn’t be one of ours.”
“Why not?” she says, now having entirely lost her appetite. “Hours before, an American destroyer in the East China Sea was conducting a test of a new generation of cruise missiles. One flew straight to the target coordinates. The other supposedly disappeared after launch. I think the second flew according to plan, right to China.”
Aghast, Liam says, “That’s an act of war.”
“Surely is,” Hannah says. “The president used you and yourteams to muddy up the waters while he goes after his real target. China.”
“Why not go see the president, Director?” Noa asks. “Tell him you know of his illegal actions involving the Agency and military and tell him it has to stop.”
Hannah says, “You left out the ‘or else,’ Noa. Or else what? Go to the press? Go to Congress? We’ve already discussed how that won’t work. I serve at President Barrett’s pleasure. If I do meet him, he’ll just pull out a blank piece of White House stationery and demand my resignation, then and there. I’ll be gone and he’ll still be there, unaccountable, stirring up trouble.”
Noa and Liam look on. She feels like the schoolteacher whose students can’t solve a complex math problem, and they’re looking for her to come up with something, anything.
Hannah says, “Richard Helms was director during the latter part of President Johnson’s term. Each time Helms briefed LBJ, he told him the same news. That CIA analysts and operatives on the ground in South Vietnam were unanimous that our intervention there was a losing cause. LBJ would just nod, say thanks, send him away, and not change a damn thing. Here, though, I’d be going to President Barrett and saying his personal actions and orders are illegal. He won’t stand for that. I’ll be forced to resign, and that’s all she wrote. Folks, we need more if we’re going to stop the president.”
Liam speaks up. “Madam Director, is Noa’s cell phone in your possession?”
“My security detail has it.”
“Get it,” he says. “Noa has something we both need to see.”
Hannah listens carefully as Noa once again goes over the mission concerning Donna Otterson, a relatively obscure finance resource officer in the Directorate of Support. Noa has her phone in hand as she goes on.
“We were scammed by the president,” Noa says. “We thought she was engaged in espionage with the Chinese, and we had thesesurveillance photos to prove it. It looks like she was passing along information to Chinese intelligence. I had my team dig deeper. It wasn’t the Chinese at all. It was this woman.”
Hannah peers closer at the photos of the woman with the dark clothes and baseball cap pulled down tight over her face. “Do we know who this woman is?”
Noa says, “No.”
Liam sighs. “Yes.”
She and Noa both stare at Liam. “Who is she?” Hannah asks.
“That’s aWashington Postreporter,” Liam says.
Noa says, “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” Liam says. “Her name is Kay Darcy, and she’s my ex-wife.”
CHAPTER 79
SPEAKER OF THE House Gwen Washington is sitting in her luxurious office, thinking, staring at the confident man sitting across from her, Congressman Fritz Deering of Ohio, the House majority leader and the traitorous son of a bitch who wants to be sitting on her side of the desk.
He’s wearing a cheap black suit, white shirt, and yellow tie. His thick toupee is gray and white, and with his black eyebrows, it makes him look like some sort of angry badger or possum.
Besides being the majority leader, he’s also the unofficial head of the Old Party Caucus, seeking to return the party to the roots of the working person, old-style manufacturing jobs, and dreams of the 1950s where the average man could support his wife and two kids on one salary, and have a comfortable life.
An average white man, of course, but Gwen doesn’t feel like explaining that sensitive point once more to Fritz.
Gwen says, “You asked for a meeting, so here it is. You have five minutes, Fritz. Go.”
He folds his arms across his plump belly. “I’ve been trying to keep our House members in line, and it’s not working. There’s a move afoot to combine the three different House committees looking intoyour financial dealings into one investigative committee, with full subpoena powers. It won’t be pretty.”
Gwen feels like her hands and feet are freezing from this news. “There’s no evidence that those documents are real. I assure you that they are not.”