“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Thomas Stansfield.”
Arthur grew more concerned. “Are you sure?”
“Completely.”
“How much did he see?”
“Everything. You know how he is, Arthur. The man is a professional. He takes everything in.”
“What exactly did he see?”
“He saw Garret fidget in his chair, his brow break out in a sweat, and his eyes darting back and forth between me and the transcript of the phone conversation. I was watching Stansfield stare at Stu, and then, just like you or I would have done, he followed Stu’s eyes across the table to me. He took the whole thing in.”
Arthur sighed. “Well, I would have preferred for that not to have happened, but I don’t think it will affect us. As I said earlier, there is no way they can trace this back to us.”
“As long as Mr. Garret keeps his mouth shut.”
“He will stay quiet. He has strong survival instincts.”
“I know he does. That’s what worries me. What if Stansfield puts two and two together and makes a wild guess that you were the one who ordered the hit on Olson? Stansfield knows you hated him.” Nance paused to let Arthur think about the scenario and then continued, “Mr. Garret’s survival instincts are so strong that he would turn on us in a second if it meant saving himself.”
Arthur looked at Nance and then into the fire. He watched the flames flicker while he contemplated his options, looking at every angle, trying to determine if Garret was more of a threat or an asset. He imagined Stansfield pulling Garret aside and catching him off guard, telling him that he knew all about his connection with Arthur and that they were behind the assassinations of Olson and Turnquist. Stansfield could easily speculate and connect the dots, but that meant nothing as long as Garret kept his mouth shut. The motives for killing a career politician were abundant. They could prove nothing without one of them talking, and as he and Nance had discussed earlier, the odds of that happening were zero. Arthur concluded that they would have to head this one off before Stansfield had the chance to act.
“I think that we need to be proactive on this and let Mr. Garret know what the consequences would be if he talked.” Arthur ran one of his thin fingers over his bottom lip. “Tell Mr. Garret that I have made arrangements to have him dealt with if he ever whispers a word of this to anyone. . . . Tell him that even in the event of my death, the order will be carried out.”
“I think that is a wise decision. I know just how to handle it.”
“Good. I’ll leave the details up to you.” Arthur walked over to the coffee table and grabbed two cigars. “Let’s step outside. I have some other things I would like to discuss with you.”
Nance followed his mentor across the room and out into the cool night air.
* * *
O’Rourke and Coleman were concentrating on the guard who was standing watch at the edge of the cliff when Hackett came crackling over their earpieces. “Zeus, this is Cyclops. I just spotted two men in suits that walked out of the house and are standing on the patio. Do you copy, over?”
O’Rourke had his night-vision goggles flipped up and Coleman had his down. Both of them looked toward the house. Coleman saw them right away, the goggles illuminating them in a clear green-andblack picture. O’Rourke could see the bright red tips of the cigars, but nothing else. It was hard to make out their silhouettes in the dark. Coleman whispered into his mike, “I copy, Cyclops. I see two men. . . . I think one of them is our boy. I can’t tell who the other guy is, over.” Coleman flipped his mike up and said to Michael, “It’s nice to know Augie was right about this cigar thing.”
O’Rourke quietly pulled his goggles down and peered toward the house. He adjusted his goggles and brought the two men into focus. Being careful to keep his voice down, he said, “The guy on the right is Arthur, but I can’t see who the guy on the left is.”
“I can’t either,” responded Coleman. “Cyclops, we can’t see who the other guy is, can you, over?”
“Yes, he looks familiar, but I haven’t got a real good look at him, over.”
O’Rourke was watching Arthur talk, and then the other man turned his face toward them, exhaling a puff of smoke. O’Rourke squinted and tapped Coleman on the shoulder. “I think that’s Mike Nance.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m almost positive.” Michael pulled his mike down. “Cyclops, this is Apollo. Is the other man the president’s national security adviser, Mike Nance, over?”
Cyclops moved his rifle sight from Arthur to the other man. Nance removed the cigar from his mouth and Cyclops got a full shot of his face. “That’s a roger, the other man is Mike Nance, over.”
“What in the hell is Mike Nance doing here?” asked O’Rourke.
“I have no idea,” said Coleman as he peered back toward the cliff to see what the guard and dog were doing. “Are you sure it’s him?”
“Yes.”
O’Rourke continued to stare at the two men standing on the veranda. “Augie told me that Stansfield ordered Arthur to cease all dealings with his contacts from the intelligence community.”
“Well, he’s obviously ignoring the order.” Coleman pulled his mike back down in front of his mouth. “All right, everybody, this is Zeus, listen up. We are going to wait until these two finish their cigars, and then, hopefully, they’ll go back inside and the guard by the cliff will head back up to the main house. Then we will finish our recon and head back to the boat. Until then, we sit tight. I don’t want them to have any idea we were here, over.”
Irene Kennedy was having a difficult time staying awake. The human body needs more than two hours of sleep in a day. Kennedy had only slept two hours in the last three days, and her body was about to shut down. She was sitting in the midst of stacks of green personnel dossiers. Ninety-four to be exact. Kennedy was methodically picking through each file, reading every boring line of black print. Military personnel dossiers were not intriguing reading. Kennedy had already read fifty-two of the files and was coming to the realization that she would not finish tonight. It was almost 11 P.M., and her ability to analyze the tedious information was diminishing. She decided to read two more files and call it a night, leaving herself an even forty to finish in the morning. She was impressed with the job that Naval Intelligence had done in keeping tabs on their former SEALs.
Even the CIA was interested. Kennedy had found five SEALs who were now on the CIA payroll. The files didn’t say they worked for the CIA. Kennedy recognized their employers as companies that were either fronts for the Agency or companies that did a lot of work for the Agency.
Kennedy opened the next file and looked down at a picture of Scott Coleman. Beneath the photo was his date of discharge. A little over a year ago. She continued reading the file, noticing nothing unusual. Any one of the ninety-four files alone would be impressive, but after reading fifty of them they all kind of blended together, and the superhuman feats these men performed started to seem normal. Kennedy noticed that Coleman’s IQ was near the genius level. Flipping to the last several pages, Kennedy read a list of covert missions that Coleman had participated in. It was long and impressive, starting in the early eighties and finishing about a year and a half ago. The missions were all listed by code names. Because of Kennedy’s security clearance and her background in terrorism, she recognized almost half of the missions. She got to the last mission Coleman had participated in, and an empty feeling crept into her stomach. The code name for the mission was Operation Snatch Back. Snatch Back was something few people knew about, and something that no one wanted to talk about.
The only thing listed after Operation Snatch Back was Coleman’s date of discharge. Next to the date, in parenthesis, was the comment “Early discharge granted.”
“I haven’t seen one of those yet,” Kennedy commented to herself. As her curiosity grew, Kennedy felt less tired. She flipped to the last page and found that Coleman was living in Adams Morgan and had
started a company called SEAL Demolition and Salvage Corporation. Kennedy immediately wondered who the other employees of the SEAL Demolition and Salvage Corporation might be. Grabbing the file, Kennedy stood and walked briskly down the hall toward General Heaney’s office. A young ensign was the only person left in the main office area.
“Is the general still in?” asked Kennedy.
“Dr. Kennedy, he said good-bye to you almost three hours ago. . . . Remember, he said he’d be back at zero six hundred.”
Kennedy frowned. “Damn it.”
“Ma’am, if you don’t mind me saying, you look like you could use some sleep.”
Kennedy shook her head and looked down at the file. She stood there for a moment trying to figure out what to do next.
“Is there anything I could help you with, ma’am?”
Kennedy looked at the young officer and was about to ask him what his security clearance was and then thought better. At his age and rank there was no way he was cleared to discuss this information. “No . . . thank you for offering though.” The paper-thin Kennedy turned to walk away and then stopped. “Ensign, how unusual is it to get an early discharge when you’re in the Special Forces?”
“It’s not that unusual. We have guys blowing out knees every other week. We get at least one broken back a year, and a whole lot of other injuries. A lot of these knee injuries take a year to rehab, so if a guy is due to get out in a year and he blows his knee, we let him go early.”
Kennedy accepted the explanation and said, “Thank you.” Again, she turned to walk away and again stopped. Turning back to the ensign, she said, “If that was the case, wouldn’t their file say medical discharge?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
Kennedy opened Coleman’s file and found the page where it said early discharge granted. She pointed at the last line and showed it to the ensign. “This is different than a medical discharge, is it not?”
“Yes, it is. I’ve never seen one of those before. Well, I shouldn’t say that. With the budget cuts it’s fairly common in the regular Navy, but not in the Special Forces.”
Kennedy wavered for a moment, wondering if she should have the ensign call General Heaney at home, but knew the general needed sleep as much or more than she did. She decided it could wait until morning. Kennedy asked the ensign for a piece of paper and wrote a note for the general. She paper-clipped it to the top of the folder and handed it to the ensign. “Would you please put this on the general’s desk for me?” Kennedy gathered her things and decided to let the rest of the files wait until morning. She had to be in Skip McMahon’s office at 8 A.M. for a meeting.
Arthur and Nance stood outside talking and smoking their cigars for about forty minutes. During that time, O’Rourke and Coleman speculated as to why the national security adviser would be talking to Arthur. From their spot atop the gazebo they became more and more curious. Finally, Arthur and Nance went back inside. Several minutes after that, they heard a car drive away. Shortly after that, the guard standing watch by the cliff took his dog and headed back for the house. Coleman scanned the entire yard thoroughly and told everyone to sit tight for a couple more minutes to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. When he felt comfortable, he lowered his mike and said, “All right, let’s work our way back to the boat. Sound off if anything comes up, over.”
Coleman slid off the roof first and lowered himself down onto the chair. O’Rourke followed and put the chair back at the table where they’d found it. They both huddled next to the row of hedges and looked at each other. For at least the tenth time in the last forty-five minutes, O’Rourke said, “God, I’d like to know what in the hell those two were talking about.”
“So would I.” Coleman looked around the yard and grabbed his mike. “Cyclops and Hermes, this is Zeus. Do you read, over?”
“Yes, we read you, over.”
“Where are you, over?”
“We’re getting ready to go down to the water, over.”
Coleman looked across the yard. “I’ve got something I want to check out. It shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes. We’ll meet you back at the boat, over.”
“That’s a roger, over.”
“What’s up?” asked O’Rourke.
“When I was driving around today, I noticed that there was a big place for sale several doors down. It looked kind of run-down, like no one was living there. As long as we’re here, I want to look around. Let’s stay low and keep quiet.” They ran toward the other side of the yard crouching next to the hedges. No fence separated the two yards, only a tree line, but Coleman and O’Rourke stopped anyway. They scanned the yard with their goggles and looked for motion sensors. They found none, and all of the lights in the large house were off. Crossing the yard, they reached an old wrought-iron fence and stopped.
“This is it,” said Coleman. “Let’s walk the fence line and see if we can find a gate.” They walked away from the Bay and toward the house, their goggles lighting the way for them. They’d only walked about thirty feet when they found a hole. Two of the wrought-iron bars were missing and a gate had been created. They stepped through the opening and onto a thinly worn path that moved through the trees and weeds. After about thirty feet, it opened into a huge, wild yard the size of a football field. The grass was almost up to their waist. Looking up toward the house, they studied the dilapidated mansion. All of the windows on the main floor were boarded up, and the surrounding vegetation looked as if it was attempting to swallow the house. “This place has been empty for quite a while,” said Coleman.
“They can’t sell homes like this anymore. The taxes alone have to be a half a million dollars.”
“Follow me, I think there’s a service drive over here.” They trudged through the tall grass, staying by the trees. Adjacent to the main house, and behind a row of tall hedges, they came across a small shed and a dirt road. They followed the path to the main road and stopped at the service gate. Next to the gate was a good-size servants’ house. The windows were also boarded up. They heard a car approaching and ducked down behind some bushes. The car grew louder and louder, and then its headlights lit up the night air. The undergrowth and trees were thick, and with their dark clothing they were not in danger of being seen. A Mercedes passed and continued around the turn. Coleman rose from the bushes and inspected the gate. It was a smaller version of the large wrought-iron gate for the main drive to the mansion. It swung open from the middle and was chained and padlocked. Coleman inspected the lock briefly and then checked the hinges. Turning to O’Rourke, he said, “I’ve seen all I need, let’s go.”
“Would you mind telling me what you’re thinking?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’m just trying to get a feel for things. . . . Let’s go.” With Coleman in the lead they worked their way quietly down the service drive, through the tall grass, and back to Arthur’s neighbor’s yard. From there, they descended down the steps to the Bay, where they repacked their gear in the waterproof backpacks and swam back to the boat. Stroble and Hackett were waiting for them. As soon as Coleman and O’Rourke were on board, they raised the anchor and headed back out into the Bay. Once they reached the other side, they turned north for Baltimore.
All four of them were gathered on the fly deck. The windscreen shielded them from most of the breeze, but the night air was still frigid. Hackett was telling them that he didn’t think it would be difficult to take Arthur out. “I can’t believe that a guy who’s that paranoid about security is dumb enough to step out in the open like that just to smoke a cigar.”
“They’re all alike . . . all over the world,” scoffed Stroble. “They all have a weakness . . . some little habit that they won’t let go of.”
“How hard do you think it would be to kidnap him?” asked O’Rourke.
“A lot harder than shooting him in the head from one hundred and fifty feet,” responded Hackett. “You’re not really considering that as an option, are you?”
“I would like to get inside his head a
nd find out what in the hell he and Mike Nance were talking about.” O’Rourke looked at Coleman, who was concentrating on the water ahead of them. He knew Coleman was thinking the same thing.
Without taking his eyes off the water Coleman said, “It can be done, but we’ll have to take the guards out.”
“Why?”
“Those guys are not your average security guards. If they’re guarding Arthur, that means they’re good.”
“How good?”
“Good enough that if we try to sneak up on them, one of us will end up dead.”
“What about shooting them with a tranquilizer gun?”
Coleman thought about it for a second and asked Hackett, “Any chance we could take them out with tranquilizers?”
Hackett shook his head. “Too much wind coming off the Bay, and the distances are too far. It looked like the guards were wearing body armor, so we’d have to hit them in the neck. From the distances we’d have to shoot, I wouldn’t give us better than a fifty-fifty chance of hitting the mark.”