Blink of an Eye Page 4

  Dake had been hounding Parker for nearly a year, ever since Parker had abruptly retired from the Army.

  “Much of his career had been in the Delta Force,” Dake wrote. “Although Delta once was the most publicized of all U.S. Special Forces, very little is publicly known about Parker’s black operations, either as a participant or a leader. But his missions were well known among those military officers and civilian officials privy to information about the U.S. Special Operations Command, which has overall authority over the special forces of the Army, Navy, Marine, and Air Force.

  “Parker had been given command of the USSOC and had moved from the Pentagon to Special Forces headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. He had been there less than a month when, in a letter to the Army Chief of Staff, he had resigned. Neither he nor Army spokespersons would reveal the reasons for the abrupt resignation. The letter of resignation is classified as Top Secret, apparently because of the allusions Parker made to ‘black ops’ that he had led.

  “Special Forces insiders compared Parker to such legendary generals as Douglas MacArthur and George Patton, both of whom were renowned for their courage and arrogance. Unlike them, however, Parker commanded not battlefields but the back alleys of the war on terror.

  “Parker’s resignation had been reportedly demanded by President Oxley because of Parker’s remarks during a CBS 60 Minutes profile. Parker had said that he and his Special Forces troops were ‘modern Crusaders, fighting and dying for Christ and country, just as the original Crusaders who marched against the Muslims in what is still the Holy Land, where Jesus Christ was born and murdered.’

  “Parker has moved from the headquarters of the U.S. Special Operations Command to the Washington headquarters of The Brethren of the Covenant of Jesus. Although his new post is legally a religious site, it remains as secret and mysterious as his previous command. He was a warrior there, and is a warrior here, but in another cause.”

  The day after Dake’s article was published, the two members of Congress moved out of the house and into a residential hotel. For days afterward, curious strangers appeared on East Capitol Street and cars slowed down as they passed the house.

  The story did not produce much of a reaction, but Parker knew that Dake was still sniffing around. And there were others who might be out there, spying, plotting. Parker assumed that among the pedestrians and motorists were intelligence agents. Perhaps Americans working for the CIA, perhaps Israelis working for the Mossad. And he included them among the fools who had been gawking on East Capitol Street.

  *

  PARKER entered the house, carrying the folded flag and placing it on a chiffonier near the front door. He rolled down his sleeves, buttoned his collar, added a tightly knotted red tie, and put on a summer-weight blue blazer that was hanging on a hook on the chiffonier. As he checked himself in the mirror, he heard the distinct ringtone of a cell phone used by only one caller. For a moment he had the feeling that he was being watched so closely that someone knew he had just entered the house.

  Parker pulled a smartphone from a holster on his belt. The phone did not have a keyboard or number pad and could not make outgoing calls. On a narrow screen appeared a six-digit number, which changed every twenty seconds.

  Parker spoke the numbers—“four, nine, six, two, eight, zero”—into the phone. He knew that the caller’s phone would show the same six numbers, satisfying him that he had reached the customized cell phone. Two minuscule screens on the phone showed green, signaling that the phone’s voice analyzer had confirmed the identities of both the caller and the person who had answered the phone. On that phone, Parker, who was called Amos, was under instructions to refer to the caller only as Isaiah.

  A scrambler made the caller’s voice sound as if a robot were forming each word: “You have seen the news. Iran. I know it is Iran. GNN knows it is Iran. Our spineless government knows it is Iran. But Oxley will not admit it. Did you hear him, talking to those whores in Dallas?”

  “He says there is no proof about Iran,” Parker said to the robotic voice. He always wondered how his voice and Isaiah’s voice sounded on the Isaiah phone. Parker also wondered what Isaiah looked like. They had never met.

  “And Oxley lies.” After a short pause and what sounded like a sharp intake of breath, the voice added, “No proof? Are you doubting my knowledge?”

  “No, no, Isaiah. I … I was only quoting Oxley.”

  Another pause. Then, “Never believe him. Never!”

  Parker desperately wanted to change the subject. “What shall we do?” he asked. “Is it time?”

  “Yes, it is time. Instruct your men to begin preparations.”

  “Good,” Parker said. “When will you and I meet?”

  “A meeting is not necessary. Particularly now, in the blaze of that Washington Post article by that imbecile Dake. He is ignorant. But he thinks he knows so much.”

  “Why now, I wondered? Why did the Post go after us right now?”

  “Perhaps, Amos, Oxley’s people suspect that we are moving toward an action phase. There has been some amateurish surveillance, some wiretaps easily found—the stuff of warnings, not threats. They are probing, using many tools. But I feel that it’s not the Oxley administration that has taken an interest in us. Whoever it is, Dake is one of their tools and does not know it.”

  “That would seem to add urgency to Operation Cyrus,” Parker said.

  “Not to worry, Amos, not to worry. You must follow the schedule we agreed on. The die has been cast.”

  “Very well,” Parker said, worry trickling into his voice.

  “Not to worry. Look at your numbers, Amos.”

  The call ended, as usual, without a goodbye.

  Parker looked at the numbers on the phone screen: 56 10 11. He did not need to go to a Bible. Long before, he had memorized chapter 56 of Isaiah. He mentally ran through the first nine verses until 10–11 came to his mind:

  His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter.

  7

  GETTING READY to head for Andrews and meet with President Oxley, Falcone picked up a red-and-white binder labeled EYES ONLY. As he did, he glanced at the appointment calendar on his desk. Months before, he had met with the heads of the major U.S. intelligence agencies at the National Counterterrorism Center in suburban Virginia. The center was in the same Tyson’s office building as the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center and the Pentagon’s Joint Intelligence Task Force on Counterterrorism. Falcone learned more about intel bureaucracy than Al Qaeda: The three centers obviously operated independently from each other.

  The National Counterterrorism Center was a hive of pulsating wall-size screens and people hunched over small-size screens. Each day about six thousand reports came into the Center from satellites, drones, phone taps, bugged buildings, monitored cellphones, surveillance cameras, and some human beings. A similar avalanche of data buried the other centers every day.

  We listen. We watch. But what do we hear? What do we see? Falcone had thought as he looked up at one of the giant plasma screens. In streaks of red it showed the ever-changing location of every plane approaching the United States.

  At the end of the meeting, he had been given a National Counterterrorism Center calendar. At first glance, it looked like a typical appointment calendar, with each day set off in a box big enough to jot down notes. But on this apocalyptic calendar, the boxes contained not only the date but also anniversaries—from January 1 (“Serial explosions in Guwahati kill five and injure 67”) to December 31 (“Right-wing extremist Binyamin Kahane and wife killed in ambush by Intifada Martyrs”).

  A few of the boxes contained only the date; there was no parenthesized horror to commemorate. To Falcone, those days seemed ominous because he could not believe that a day
went by without some act of terror somewhere by someone. We just didn’t know about them.

  Falcone kept the calendar on his desk to read the reminders. Today had begun with an attack on a U.S. warship. The long day would end with a meeting of people who had many questions and no answers. Today, he saw, was an anniversary: a suicide car bomber in Algeria killed forty-three people. Al Qaeda was blamed.

  Terrorism. It was a world that Falcone lived in, a world that Oxley knew about only through Falcone. But what world did Oxley live in?

  Falcone thought Oxley had the potential to be a great president, but there was something … something indefinable that was missing. He had a beautiful wife and twin teenage girls whom the American people adored. He was smart as hell and possessed a self-confidence that, on more than one occasion, slipped into a chin-elevated display of arrogance. He didn’t suffer fools gladly—an admirable trait—but the problem was that he thought just about everyone else was a fool. He was the smartest kid in the world’s biggest classroom and he couldn’t resist letting everyone know it. What was missing was the ability to touch people’s hearts. Say something and not only make them believe it, but feel that it was real.…

  Maybe that’s what accounted for his slip in the polls. Yes, unemployment was bad, but there were signs that things were turning around. No doubt it happens to all presidents once they get into office and have to govern, make decisions. But the magic that Oxley was able to weave when he first took office was gone. The soaring oratory that he was able to sprinkle like angel dust had fallen from the eyes of all but his most ardent supporters.

  It was odd. Falcone knew that Oxley liked being president, but he really didn’t like the game of politics. Not like Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton. Oh sure, he liked the power but not the process of making the wheels of government turn.

  Oxley was a big-picture man and disdained having to meet with members of Congress. Well, Falcone could hardly fault him for that, given some of those who had recently been elected. Didn’t matter whether they liberals or conservatives; they all liked to shout at the top of their lungs that they held the keys to the kingdom of wisdom and prosperity.

  Most of the people around Oxley were solid and principled; maybe a little on the unimaginative side. Oxley did his best to give them the impression that he cared about their opinions, and during meetings he would solicit the views even of those who had no real decision-making responsibilities. It was a charade, of course. Oxley made up his own mind, and once he made a decision, he was not open to changing it.

  Then there was Ray Quinlan. Falcone couldn’t figure out why Oxley let Quinlan get anywhere near him. Ray was a foul-mouthed hothead who liked to bully people. He snapped off provocative one-liners, believing members of the press would think they reflected a quick and agile mind, one worthy of getting greater exposure on the Sunday talk shows. It worked. He had become a regular on Meet the Press. But it was just a matter of time before Quinlan would do something thoroughly stupid. And Oxley would pay the price for it.…

  Well, only a few months to go until the election. Then, whatever happened, Falcone was going to walk away. This job was his last act of public service.

  *

  AT 8:22 P.M., Air Force One touched down at Joint Base Andrews, as the place was now officially called in deference to Navy–Air Force comity. One of the black SUVs pulled out of the motorcade lined up nearby and stopped alongside just as the stairway rolled up to an opening door and President Oxley appeared. At the bottom of the stairs he gave a jaunty salute to the duty commander at Andrews and, followed by Quinlan, headed for the SUV. Other passengers filed out and scattered, reporters to a shuttle bus, a few White House staffers to the motorcade vehicles.

  “No limo?” he asked Falcone, who was seated on the left side of the wide rear seat.

  “Secret Service rules,” Falcone said “I think the agents believe we’re still at DEFCON Three.” He looked squarely at Quinlan, who waited for the President to enter and then slid in. He leaned forward to nod to Falcone across Oxley but did not speak. Falcone had been informed about three new death threats the Secret Service took seriously. But Falcone did not mention them.

  “Thanks for that brief on the Elkton and the advice on the DEFCON business,” Oxley said as the car started to move. “I saw a tape of Stanfield on GNN. NBC picked up a squib of that, topping with me using the DEFCON explanation you gave me. I think it all went off okay. Right, Ray?”

  “You looked presidential. Stanfield looked like an asshole getting his GNN minutes,” Quinlan said.

  Quinlan was right. Oxley had started looking presidential in the last year or so. He was tall and slim, still looking young but starting to gray prematurely. He loped across a room like the athlete he had been. His deep voice had a lyrical quality. His rhetoric could still madden his foes, who claimed that his words were mere fluff. His election campaign in various ways had revolved around that issue: Was Oxley, as they said in Texas, all hat and no cattle? Or, was he the leader who finally got the combat troops out of Iraq? The wizard who started moving the nation out of an economic crisis?

  Oxley’s projected cool that inspired critics in the media and in Stanfield’s camp to claim that the cool was a mask that concealed a cold-blooded ruthlessness. “He could throw his mother under a moving truck if it served his interest,” an anonymous congressman said in a Washington Post profile by Philip Dake.

  “What’s on the agenda?” Oxley asked, looking at his watch. “Ten o’clock, right?”

  “Right. I think the best thing is to just lay out what we know—which isn’t much. And there are the inevitable call-ins and Middle East videos with people claiming responsibility. The CIA hasn’t come up with any information about who did it.”

  “That’s sure no surprise,” Oxley said. “I’m thinking about announcing the formation of a commission to investigate the attack.”

  “I don’t think a commission is a good idea,” Falcone said.

  “Why not?” Quinlan asked, swiftly changing the conversation between Oxley and Falcone to an exchange between himself and Falcone.

  Falcone ignored Quinlan and leaned toward the President. “You’ll get all the pundits and bloggers on you for taking the standard nonaction Washington move. A commission, I think, sounds old and lame.”

  “You have a better idea?” Oxley asked sharply, ignoring Quinlan, who looked as if he was about to speak.

  “Not better, Mr. President. Just different,” Falcone diplomatically replied. “I’m suggesting that you get Vice President Cunningham to use his considerable persuasive powers as a former Speaker of the House to shift the spotlight from the White House to Congress.

  “Well, that sounds promising,” Oxley said. “How do you propose to do that?”

  Falcone tried never to start off an idea with the preface During my time in the Senate. He consistently used his experience as a senator as the basis for his political counsel. But he knew that no one, especially someone as cocky and self-assured as Oxley, wanted to listen to advice based on another politician’s experience. Advice was supposed to come as if from an oracle.

  “The Vice President goes to his successor as Speaker and convinces him to appoint an investigative committee; then he goes to the Senate Majority Leader and asks her to do the same thing. And then—”

  “Two committees?” Oxley interrupted. “Sounds like double trouble.”

  “No. Congress doesn’t like playing doubles. What will happen in reality—and the Vice President will know how to push this—is that the two investigations will quickly merge, and what will result is a joint committee consisting of House and Senate members of both parties—with someone suggested by the Vice President as chairman. Our chairman.”

  “And it gets that nice label, bipartisan,” Oxley said. “I like it.” He turned toward Quinlan and asked, “What’s your feeling?”

  “It’s true that commissions are usually bullshit,” Quinlan replied. “We may have a better chance with a joint committee. An
d I do think that Cunningham can handle it. I can give him some good, useful names, and we can make sure that most of the Senate members of the committee will not be running for reelection in the fall. That would mean maybe some televised hearings—but no committee report until after the election.”

  “So much for the commission,” Oxley said. “I’ll talk to Cunningham. Set up a meeting tomorrow, Ray. But are we sure there’s nothing that’s going to make us look bad in congressional testimony?”

  “Well, there’s that report on GNN claiming that Iran did it,” Quinlan said. “What about it, Sean?”

  “Absolutely no proof and plenty of doubt,” Falcone said. “The CIA says it’s highly unlikely that Iran was in on it. All the doubts will be in the PDB, I’m sure,” Falcone said, referring to the President’s Daily Brief, the nation’s most secret document, which assembles the Intelligence Community’s most sensitive analysis involving key national security issues and concerns of the President. It is given only to the President, the Vice President, and a very select group of cabinet-level officials designated by the President.

  The PDB was prepared in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and was usually delivered in person by the director himself, Charles Huntington, better known as Chuck. He had joined the CIA out of college and served in the Clandestine Service, specializing as a core collector, the innocuous name for the CIA officers who gathered intelligence from agents in dangerous places. Some of his work became known to members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and when Oxley had nominated him, his confirmation was assured. As director of National Intelligence, Huntington oversaw the sixteen agencies that made up what was known as the Intelligence Community.