Page 93 of The Atlas Maneuver

“Or shot,” she added.

“I’m going to give you one chance to tell me the truth,” Koger said. “If anything even hints at a lie, back in the water you go and, this time, we leave. Understand?”

Citrone said nothing.

Koger moved toward him and grabbed the man’s wet clothes, ready to drag him back to the gunwales.

“Okay. Okay,” Citrone said. “I understand.”

“Talk,” Koger said.

Cassiopeia kept the boat in neutral. The rain had eased to a mistand the wind had died down. The day remained gloomy with no other boats nearby. The one that had brought all the trouble had been released and drifted a hundred meters away.

Citrone moved himself closer to the vent pouring warm air out. “You two are in an ocean of trouble. The agency wants you dead. That effort includes not only your demise, but Catherine Gledhill and Kelly Austin too. They then intend to attack the bank and stop what it is planning.”

“Forcibly?” Koger asked.

Citrone nodded. “Whatever it takes.”

“The Atlas Maneuver?” Koger asked.

Citrone nodded.

“And what about the treasure from Golden Lily?” she asked.

“It’s real,” Citrone said. “What you two now find yourselves in the middle of dates back to the early days of the CIA, right after it was formed.”

“We know that,” Koger said. “Golden Lily and the Black Eagle Trust.”

Citrone shrugged. “You have no idea. What do you know about James Forrestal?”

She glanced over at Koger, who did not seem as clueless as she was.

“The first secretary of defense,” Koger said, “after the job was created in 1947. He worked for Truman, but they never got along. Eventually, Truman forced him out.”

“In 1949,” Citrone noted. “Then something odd happened. Two months after resigning, Forrestal suddenly died.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“That’s always been your problem, Derrick. No appreciation of history. You are indeed the proverbial bull in the china shop.”

“Insulting me is not the best strategy,” Koger said.

“In 1949 there was a war brewing within the intelligence community,” Citrone said. “Nothing new, huh? This one was between the military and the newly formed CIA. The military wanted no part of a civilian spy agency. But others had different ideas. One ofthose was Forrestal, along with Allen Dulles, who was emerging as a leader of the CIA. Dulles was part of a team that submitted a report to Truman. It recommended the CIA be the central organization of the national intelligence system. Run by civilians. All clandestine operations to be headed by the CIA. No FBI involvement. No military. And, most important, full secrecy of the CIA’s budget to provide what they calledadministrative flexibility and anonymity.”

“The Dulles-Jackson-Correa Report,” Koger said.

“Look at you,” Citrone mocked. “And here I thought you never cared about history.”

“The Cold War had begun,” Koger said. “Nobody wanted another Pearl Harbor, and everybody hated the Soviets, so anything and everything was on the table.”

“Including using stolen war loot to finance covert operations,” Cassiopeia added.

Citrone wrapped the towels tighter around him. “Precisely. The Black Eagle Trust. But that’s where Forrestal drew the line. He wanted a strong CIA, but not financed by what he calledblood lootstolen during the war. He and Dulles broke ranks on that one. Luckily for Dulles, Forrestal had some serious mental health problems. He’d been suffering from depression for years and was hospitalized at the Naval Medical Center in Maryland right after his resignation.”

They listened as Citrone explained that the navy surgeon general handpicked a psychiatrist to treat Forrestal, who was housed on the hospital’s sixteenth floor, supposedly to afford him more privacy. No one wanted the media to discover that the former secretary of defense was in a psych ward. At the time secrets like that could actually be kept. Forrestal himself prized anonymity, calling obscurity his hobby. And his relationship with the press was not amicable. Columnists Drew Pearson and Walter Winchell particularly disliked him.

“Forrestal was getting better,” Citrone said. “Gaining weight. Holding a better grip on reality. But the man knew way too much,and he was bitterly opposed to the Black Eagle Trust. Remember, Truman himself had okayed all that and Forrestal hated Truman for forcing him to resign.”