32
Washington, DC
USA
FRED KLEIN FOLLOWED an unconcerned Secret Service man toward the president’s executive residence. The reason for the casual attitude was that this was a regular occurrence. Klein and the president had been roommates in college and the friendship they’d formed there transcended the world of politics and intelligence that they now lived in. Sam Adams Castilla surrounded himself with the same political creatures that every president was forced to, but he only really trusted the people he’d known before his rise to power. It’s how Klein had ended up heading Covert-One and why his virtually unlimited access to America’s leader would be the envy of everyone—if they knew about it.
While the two men occasionally met publicly in the Oval Office under the completely reasonable assumption that Castilla would periodically ask his old friend’s advice on matters of national security, it was better to keep those meetings to a minimum. Klein, to the degree that it was possible in the information age, felt most comfortable when working from the shadows.
Castilla was sitting on a threadbare sofa that had come with him from the governor’s mansion in Santa Fe when his old friend entered. He started to rise, but didn’t seem to have the strength. Instead, he grabbed a can of Coors off the coffee table and raised it in greeting.
“Even you wouldn’t believe the day I just had, Fred.”
Klein had always been suspicious that American presidents started slowly dyeing their hair gray the day they took office—a transition from the youth and energy expected of a candidate to the maturity and gravitas expected of a president. Now he knew. It wasn’t dye.
“For me?” Klein said, taking a seat across from him and pointing to a glass of scotch on the table.
“Ardbeg 1975. A gift from the Thai ambassador.”
“Is Cassie still out of the country?”
“Touring sugar plantations and eating too much island food. That’s the job you want, Fred. First Lady.”
Castilla was a brilliant man with an honest streak much wider than most and a reassuring aura of calm that tended to slip when his wife was gone for long periods of time. With so few people he trusted implicitly, he liked to keep them close.
“I’m not sure I’m qualified.”
Castilla grinned and drained his beer, pulling another from a dignified-looking oak chest that had been converted to hold ice. “These days it’s hard not to start looking forward to building my library, writing a self-serving autobiography, and hitting golf balls. What do you think, Fred? Will you be ready to join me in the pasture when my term’s up?”
“I don’t play golf,” he responded, evading the question.
Castilla let him get away with it. “I assume you aren’t here to make sure I’m eating right while my wife is gone. What do you have for me?”
Klein pulled a tablet computer from his portfolio and punched in a password, bringing up a photo of the severed head Randi Russell had found. Castilla looked at it, blanched visibly, and then went back to working on his beer.
“Someone I know?”
“An Afghan from a rural village called Sarabat. Did you see the places on the skull that were circled?”
Castilla nodded. “Dresner’s Merge is getting around. We originally thought that Islam’s prohibitions against body modification would pretty much shut down adoption in that part of the world, but the effect hasn’t been as strong as we thought. Hats off to Dresner’s marketing director.”
“There’s more.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“It appears that the studs in this man’s skull were installed more than four months ago.”
Castilla’s eyes narrowed as he made a few mental calculations. “That was before the Merge was released. Well before.”
“That’s right.”
“Where did you get this, Fred? Is the intel solid?”
“I had Randi Russell looking into a lead on the Pentagon issue. This just fell in her lap. And while I haven’t been working directly with her for long, I have a great deal of admiration for her. Also, Jon Smith has corroborated most of her story. I think you and I hold the same opinion of Jon.”
“This really isn’t what I needed today.”
“Sorry, Sam.”
“What else do we know?”
“Basically nothing. And that’s why I’m here. I need some direction from you as to whether this is something Covert-One should pursue.”
“Hell yes, it’s something you should pursue. Why wouldn’t—” He caught himself and fell silent for a moment. “You think I had something to do with this.”
“I’m not here to pass judgment, Sam. You know that. But if this is a government-run test I’m not aware of, it’d be better if we steer clear of it.”
“I found out about the Merge the same time the rest of the world did and I found out about the military version the same way you did—from Smith’s meeting with Craig Bailer. After I got his report, I met with the CIA and Joint Chiefs to discuss it. They didn’t know any more than I did.”
“Okay,” Klein said in a measured tone. “Then the question we need to answer is how this should be handled. It might make sense to hand it over to the CIA and military intelligence. Keep us out of it.”
Castilla settled back in the sofa and stared silently down at the beer in his hand. With Covert-One’s involvement always came the risk of exposure.
“I’m telling you straight that I didn’t know anything about this, Fred. But there’s no guarantee that someone in the military or intelligence community didn’t find out before me and decide to do a quiet trial.”
Klein nodded. It was a possibility that he himself had considered. Sometimes things had to be done that the country’s politicians didn’t want or need to know about.
“If that’s the case,” Castilla continued. “I have two problems. First, I can’t trust the CIA or military to look into this. And second, if it turns out that one of those organizations was involved, I don’t need a leak before I make a decision about what to do.”
“So what I’m hearing is that we should pursue this.”
The president nodded. “But we’re just gathering information at this point. No action is to be taken without my direct authorization.”