Act of Treason

34

WASHINGTON, DC

The Justice Department sat directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from FBI headquarters. Ross’s motorcade pulled up to the building unannounced at 9:30 on Tuesday morning. Stu Garret, Jonathon Gordon, and Ross emerged from the back of the armored limousine and proceeded across the wide sidewalk surrounded by a phalanx of Secret Service agents. A single agent ran into the building ahead of everyone so he could alert security that the vice president–elect was coming in to see the attorney general. Much of the hassle could have been avoided if they’d called ahead, but Ross liked to make surprise visits. The vice president to be told the agent in charge of his detail that it was a way of getting a better sense of how things actually ran. The agent suspected it had more to do with Ross liking to keep people off balance.

Ross, his chief of staff, and his campaign manager skirted the security lines and crowded into an elevator with four tall agents. They went to the top floor and down the hall to the attorney general’s suite. During Ross’s short stint as the director of National Intelligence he spent many mornings attending security briefings at the Department of Justice. They passed several administrative assistants in the hallway. Ross, always the politician, smiled and greeted them.
The attorney general had a good-sized outer office where three secretaries sat behind large desks. Ross was about to say good morning when the door to Stokes’s conference room flew open. A six-foot-tall blond appeared in the doorway with her back to the reception area. She was wearing a brown, long-sleeved, formfitting dress, belted at the waist, and a pair of leather boots.
“You guys are out of your minds,” she yelled. “You can find someone else. I’m not going anywhere near this thing.”
“Peggy, please come back in here and sit down.”
Ross and his entourage stood motionless and silent on the threshold between the hallway and the reception area. Ross knew this woman, and although he couldn’t see Attorney General Stokes, he knew his voice well enough to know it was he who had asked her to come back in and sit down.
“Marty,” the tall blond said, “you more than any other person in this building should know he is the wrong guy to mess with.”
“Just close the door, and sit down. I’m in no mood for the theatrics this morning.”
“Theatrics,” she yelled. “You want to see some real theatrics, keep doing what you’re doing. He gets wind of this and he’ll eat you for lunch.”
Ross grinned. It appeared they had stepped in to the middle of a disagreement. The three secretaries were looking back and forth between the next vice president of the United States of America and the leggy blond deputy attorney general in the doorway. The leggy blond was Peggy Stealey. Ross knew her by reputation more than anything else. She was an intense lawyer who did not suffer fools lightly.
“Peggy, I’m serious,” Stokes said raising his voice. “Get back in here. We need to finish discussing this.”
“Marty, did I somehow give you the impression that I wasn’t taking this seriously? Because if I did, I would like to set the record straight. Where Mitch Rapp is concerned, I take things very seriously.” She folded her arms across her chest. “If you want to continue down this path, which I am advising against, that’s your prerogative. Just go find someone else, because I’m telling you I want nothing to do with it.”
“You’re the deputy assistant attorney general in charge of counterterrorism. This case is yours whether you like it or not.”
“I never said I wouldn’t handle the case. I’m just not going to investigate Mitch Rapp, and that’s final.”
Stealey turned to leave but after a step she noticed the group of men standing in the doorway and she stopped dead in her tracks. Before she could speak the attorney general yelled from the conference room, “Times are changing, Peggy. Rapp and his boss have made a lot of enemies in this town, and this mess he created isn’t going to win him any friends.”
Ross looked at the blue-eyed woman standing before him. With her high cheekbones and strong jaw, she looked decidedly Scandinavian. Ross extended his hand. “Ms. Stealey.”
Stealey hesitated for a second, unsure of which title to use. “Mr. Vice President.”
Ross clasped her right hand firmly, took a step closer and then placed his left hand on her shoulder. Smiling warmly he whispered, “He’s right, you know.”
“Excuse me?” Stealey was taken slightly aback.
“Times, they are a-changing.”
“That tends to happen around here every four years or so.”
Ross studied her. She was nearing forty and her skin was still flawless. Ross leaned forward placing his mouth within inches of Stealey’s right ear. “Don’t worry about Mitch Rapp. You won’t recognize the CIA a year from now.”
Stealey’s blue eyes narrowed into an analytical stare. “I don’t make mistakes very often, but when I do, I learn from them.”
Ross nodded and smiled. He thought of something Stokes had once told him about Peggy Stealey. He had compared her to a thunderstorm. The anticipation of her arrival was made up of equal amounts of fear and excitement over the awesome spectacle that was about to commence. If she blew through quickly it made for a rather enjoyable watching. But if she hovered or stalled, she could cause serious damage.
“And what am I supposed to glean from that comment?” Ross asked.
Stealey pulled Ross closer and in a soft voice said, “Don’t f*ck with Mitch Rapp.” And with that she was gone.
Ross stood motionless for a few seconds, his perma-smile plastered across his face. Slowly he turned and watched his entourage move out of the way for Stealey. Ross kept smiling even though, inside, his temper was raging. Stokes may have found the woman’s outspokenness refreshing, but Ross found it downright disrespectful.
Garret came forward and in a quiet voice asked, “What did she say?”
Ross, smiling like a ventriloquist’s dummy, said, “I’ll tell you later.” He turned and walked into the conference room, finding the attorney general and two of his deputies sitting at the far end of a massive conference table. Stokes and the other two men quickly got to their feet when they saw Ross.
“No…no,” said Ross after they were well out of their chairs. “Don’t bother getting up.” He gestured in a downward motion with his hands. “I just wanted to drop in and congratulate you on your victory. President–elect Alexander asked me to personally thank you for catching the man responsible for his wife’s death.”
Attorney General Stokes looked awkwardly to his left and then his right. The three men all shared an uncomfortable look.
“The case might not be as strong as we were originally led to believe.”
Ross swore rumors spread quicker in Washington, DC, than any other city in the world. There were so many reporters, so many political hacks on both sides of the aisle and far too many people who strived to prove their self-worth by acting like they were in the know. The news of the arrest sent shock waves through DC. The story was simply too big to keep a lid on. President Hayes made it clear that he wanted Langley to finally get some credit. The DOJ and FBI could ride the CIA’s coattails, but Langley deserved the lion’s share. People at the three agencies began leaking almost immediately. By the time the press conference took place on Monday morning half the town knew what was going on. It all sounded like a major victory for the CIA.
By mid-afternoon, though, the rumor mill began churning out a different story. It started as a whisper. There were some problems with the case. By evening the whisper had grown into a murmur. Suddenly, the three agencies were tight-lipped again, which was always a sign that something was wrong. Now this morning, the press was on the offensive, burning up the phones trying to get sources to confirm the worst-case scenario, which was that the CIA had grabbed the wrong guy. Garret, never one to miss an opportunity, went into full spin mode. He quickly drafted a battle plan, but cautioned Ross that they needed to go over to Justice and find out what was fact and what was fiction before they took a hard position.
So Ross found himself playing dumb and looking to an old colleague from the Senate for confirmation. “What’s wrong?”
“Ah…” Stokes sighed, “I’m not even sure I know where to begin.”
“I’m a little miffed here, Martin. Last I heard, this thing was a slam dunk.”
“That’s what I was told as well, but now some problems have popped up. Some potentially embarrassing problems.”
“Such as?”
“Such as…the man we have in custody might not be the right guy.”
“Excuse me?” Ross’s eyes got wide and he thrust his chin out.
“The man in question is a Greek citizen. He has proclaimed his innocence since the moment he was handed over to the FBI on Sunday afternoon.”
“This wouldn’t be the first time a criminal claimed he was innocent.”
“Tell me about it. If it was just that I wouldn’t give it a second thought, but there’s more, or should I say less.” Stokes shared an uncomfortable look with his two deputies. “For starters the Greek ambassador is filing an official letter of protest that I’m told will be delivered to the State Department this afternoon.”
“Why?”
“They are claiming that the CIA kidnapped this man.”
“Who really cares?” Ross had thought this one through. “If this is the man who attacked the motorcade, the Greeks can file all the damn letters of protest they want.”
“The problem is, we’re not sure this is the right guy.”
“What do you mean, you’re not sure?”
“We were told this is the guy. We were told there was hard evidence against him.”
“And?”
“We’ve seen nothing.”
“What do you mean, you’ve seen nothing?”
Stokes let out a frustrated sigh. “On Sunday afternoon we received a prisoner. The prisoner was wounded. He’d been shot four times. Once in each knee and once in each hand.”
“Tortured?” Ross asked.
“I’d say so.” Stokes looked to his deputies for a consensus and both men nodded.
“Has the man admitted to anything?”
“Not to us, but the CIA claims he confessed during transit from Cyprus back to the States.”
“While he was being tortured,” Ross said with his best, you’ve got to be kidding me look.
“That is what he’s claiming.”
“The suspect?”
“Yes.”
“Shit. Do you have a tape of the confession?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“We’ve been asking the CIA for over a day, and have gotten nowhere.”
Ross cocked his head to the side. “Excuse me?”
“I assume you’ve heard it was Rapp who found this guy.”
“I have heard that rumor.”
“Well, it’s true. The problem is no one knows where he is. This was his op. He was the one who found him.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“We don’t have a single shred of evidence in our possession that can connect this guy to the crime. The prisoner has submitted to and passed a lie detector test, and the Greek government has no record of him leaving Cyprus during the time of the attack. The suspect claims to have witnesses that will swear to the fact he was at home, on Cyprus the day of the attack.”
Ross turned to look at Garret who in his typical unvarnished manner blurted out, “It sounds like Rapp grabbed the wrong guy.”
The three men from the Justice Department all shared uncomfortable looks and then Stokes said, “No one is willing to say it yet, but that’s our worst fear.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Ross swore. “Have you told the president any of this?”
“I’m heading over to the White House for lunch. I’ll break it to him then.”
“What about Josh?”
Stokes shook his head. “Maybe you could break the news to him.”
Ross acted like he didn’t want to, but he did. It was an opportunity to prove to his running mate how well connected he was. “I’m having lunch with him today. I’ll tell him then. In the meantime, you’d better find Rapp. We don’t want our new administration to start out under the cloud of scandal.”
Ross had intentionally used the first person plural possessive our. Stokes was a useful man in that he was both politically hungry and well liked. For months they’d been dangling the possibility of carrying him over into the next administration. They’d even hinted that there might be something bigger on his horizon.