Authors: David Poyer
The Threat
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Contents
The Afterimage Arlington National Cemetery
St. Martin's Paperbacks Titles by
David Poyer
Electrifying Praise for the Novels of
David Poyer
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For Vince Goodrich and the other heroes of the Greatest Generation
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
For this book I owe thanks to Morgan P. Ames Jr., Richard Andrews, John Ball, Eric and Bobbie Berryman, Rob Cole, Mark D. Culpepper, Vesna Dovis, Parker Dooley, John M. Fedida, Marie Estrada, Dan S. Hope, Bill Hunteman, Deborah James, Marty Janczak, Terry Lawrence, Deborah Loewer, Will Miller, Robert “Buzz” Patterson, Al Petersen, Laura Plattner, Naia Poyer, Daniela Rapp, Charle Redinger, Sally Richardson, Sandra Scoville, Matt Shear, Leighton W. Smith, Robert L. Starer, Jay Towne, Bill Valentine, Davor Zidovec, and many others who preferred anonymity. My most grateful thanks to George Witte, editor of long standing; and to Lenore Hart, best friend and reality check.
The specifics of personalities, locations, and procedures in the White House, National Security Council, Joint Inter-agency Task Force, other executive agencies, and the theaters of operations described are employed as the settings and materials of
fiction,
not as reportage of historical events. Some details have been altered to protect classified procedures.
As always, all errors and deficiencies are my own.
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To whom shall I hire myself? What beast must I adore? What holy icon shall I attack? What hearts shall I break? What lies shall I believe in? In whose blood shall I walk?
RIMBAUD,
Une Saison en Enfer
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231440Z AUG
AMICABLE:
//Anybody here?
231440Z AUG
SCHOLAST:
//Been logged on since 0900. Where you?
231440Z AUG
AMICABLE:
//Reporter in office. Gone now.
231441Z AUG
SCHOLAST:
//How's your day?
231441Z AUG
AMICABLE:
//Totally certain this wire secure?? Security monitoring? NSA?
231441Z AUG
SCHOLAST:
//They don't have access.
231442Z AUG
AMICABLE:
//They have access to everything!!
231442Z AUG
SCHOLAST:
//Not time-critical point-to-point strategic communications. The phone system goes first. Then the Internet. Then GCCS. But this stays up. That's why it's text only. Low baud rate. But it'll always be there.
231442Z AUG
AMICABLE:
//I don't feel comfortable discussing this issue.
231443Z AUG
SCHOLAST:
//It's only a contingency plan. In case P gets totally out of hand.
231443Z AUG
AMICABLE:
//So what's the intent?
231443Z AUG
SCHOLAST:
//As G described it when you saw him at the 30th.
231443Z AUG
AMICABLE:
//That's a pretty fucking vague concept of operations, cowboy.
231444Z AUG
SCHOLAST:
//Really want to know details?
231444Z AUG
AMICABLE:
//Point taken. Who's got the op end? Do you have a candidate?
231444Z AUG
SCHOLAST:
//Still in the search phase.
231445Z AUG
AMICABLE:
//Just for the record, let me add this. The only reason we're talking is to have it for, like you said, the contingency. Which I have a real problem envisioning ever being needed.
231446Z AUG
SCHOLAST:
//That's right.
231446Z AUG
AMICABLE:
//And you'd need the go-ahead from Two to implement it. It would all have to go according to theâ. All perfectly legal. Looking at it from outside. Anyone who knew otherwise??
231446Z AUG
SCHOLAST:
//Would not be available to testify.
231448Z AUG
AMICABLE:
//I want to say again I have no intention of agreeing that anything like this be carried out!!
231448Z AUG
SCHOLAST:
//What, you want that on the record? I keep telling you there's no record. There will never be a record.
231449Z AUG
AMICABLE:
//***Null response***
231449Z AUG
SCHOLAST:
//Remember to log out at end of chat. I power down my terminal too, just to make absolutely sure nothing left anywhere. Out.
***LOGOFF***
231450Z AUG
AMICABLE:
***LOGOFF***
I
WEST WING
1
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The corner of Seventeenth and Pennsylvania, early, but the Starbucks across the street was already walled in by secretaries, interns, lobbyists, and Hill rats. The air smelled of exhaust, perfume, latte, and fresh croissants. It was the end of summer, and the morning heat promised a scorching afternoon.
Dan Lenson glanced at his watch as he paced along the black wrought-iron fence. On the other side, camera crews were setting up satellite feeds on the putting-green smoothness of the North Lawn. His gray two-button suit felt loose, baggy, after so many years of wearing a uniform.
He straightened his back to ease what felt like high-voltage shocks shooting up his arms. The year before, he'd intercepted a nondescript trawler in the eastern Mediterranean. The nuclear weapon in its hold, intended for Israel, had instead detonated a mile away from his ship.
He'd hoped for another command after USS
Horn
. Instead, an office in the Pentagon had called with an offer he'd thought hard about before accepting.
He checked his Seiko again. Early, as he was for everything. A habit that didn't drive his wife as nuts as it might, since she was the same way. A woman holding a camera in one hand and a Doberman's leash in the other asked him to take her picture in front of the White House.
Finally it was time. He straightened his tie and went up to the gate house. Tapped his ID on the little shelf. “Yeah?” grunted the guard.
“National Security Council staff,” Dan said. “Reporting in for duty.”
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
“I'll take him from here,” Jonah Freed said. “Commander. Come on in.”
Freed, a CIA detailee, was the Defense Directorate security officer. He'd walked Dan through the nomination interviews, and taken care of the special clearance for White House duty, Yankee White, which was even more demanding than the top secret/compartmented clearance Dan already had from the Navy.
They checked in again at a second post in the lobby of the Old Executive Office Building. The gigantic pile of pillared granite was enclosed by the same wrought-iron fence as the White House. Part of the “Eighteen Acres”âthe White House complexâit held the agencies that made up the executive office of the president: the National Security Council staff, the office of the vice president, Management and Budget, and so forth. The lobby smelled faintly of fresh manure. He wondered why, but decided not to ask.
He followed his guide through cavernous corridors that receded to infinity. The building was much larger than it appeared from Pennsylvania Avenue. Grandly conceived nineteenth-century moldings arched overhead. The floor was a checkerboard of white marble and black limestone, all well worn. Here and there fossils lay frozen, remnants of an age long past. Over them scurried hundreds of men and women, each intent on his or her fragment of the national security policy of the sole remaining superpower.
Someone called from behind them, “Okay, hold it right there. Who's tracking the damn dog shit all over the floor?”
He turned to see a disgusted janitor pointing at the tiles. At footprints, traced in brown, that ended ⦠at his feet. He lifted his shoe to examine the sole. “Sorry,” he told the man. “Lady had a Doberman out front. Guess I wasn't looking. If you've got a mop, I'll take care of it.”
“Never mind, mister. Just pay attention where you step next time, okay?”
“Sorry,” Dan told Freed. “I wasn't looking where I was stepping, I guess.”
“Don't worry about it,” Freed said. “There's paper towels in the restroom.”
With his shoes cleaned, they climbed a bronze-railed staircase to a cubbyhole admin office. Dan got a check-in list. He signed in-briefing sheets. Signed for a safe combination, again for usernames and passwords for both “high-side” classified and “low-side” unclassified e-mail networks, and yet again for a pager.
Back to the first floor, and a photo booth in the Secret Service office. “That's a blue-gold pass,” Freed told him as Dan adjusted it. The stainless-steel chain felt heavier than it ought to around his neck. “In a couple weeks we'll get you one with two gold stars on it. That'll get you full access. Not to say you just stroll into the Oval Office. But if you're told to go, you're cleared in.” Freed looked at his watch. “Remember where your director's office is? Third floor?”
Dan said he thought so. Freed gave him the room number, just to be sure, then vanished down one of those labyrinthine corridors.
The first name on the check-in was General Garner Sebold.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
The senior director didn't have as large an office as Dan had expected. He supposed the 1600 Pennsylvania address made up for it. Sebold removed half-moon reading glasses as Dan came in. His eyes were pouchy. He had white bristly hair. He wore a regimental-style tie and polished cordovan wingtips with a gray suit. The only military note around was a print of an Abrams tank charging through a sand berm as shells burst around it. Dan got a quick handshake and an invitation to sit. Sebold said to the admin assistant, “Ask Bry Meilhamer to come up.” To Dan, “You said you were buying here, right?”
“We found a place in Arlington. Closed last week.” The price had taken his breath away. But with Blair's salary added to hisâand she made more than he didâthey'd manage the payments.
“You're coming off sea duty, right? Remind me.”
“Commanded a Spru-can.” Seeing the general's blank response, he went generic. “A destroyer, sir. Interdiction operations in the Middle East.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember now.” Sebold looked at Dan's lapel. “Don't wear your congressional?”
Dan had pondered that question before the mirror that morning. The Medal of Honor came with a small blue bar with white stars that you could wear with a civilian suit. He'd held it at his breast. Then left it on the dresser.
“It attracts too much attention. Plus, I don't feel right wearing it.”
“Or the Silver Star? The Navy Cross?” Sebold had a file folder out now, was turning pages.
Dan didn't answer. As far as he was concerned, the ones who deserved the decorations were the guys, and girls, he'd served with. Some of whom had never come home from Iraq, and the Gulf, and the Med.