he was doing.
He had dressed in his tuxedo, driven to the White House, and presented
his calligraphic invitation at the East Appointment Gate. A junior
secret service agent met Hood there and escorted him to the Red Room,
which adjoined the State Dining Room. The president and First Lady were
still in the Blue Room, which was the next room over. Though no one
said so, the smaller Red Room--typically used for entertaining by the
first ladies--was for the B-level guests.
Hood recognized but did not really know many of the people who were
there. He knew some of them from conferences, some from briefings, and
many from other dinners he attended here. The White House had two
hundred fifty state dinners every year, and he was invited to at least
fifteen of those. His background in Los Angeles government--which
really meant knowing movie stars--finance, and espionage made him an
ideal dinner guest. He could talk to generals, world leaders,
diplomats, reporters, senators, and their spouses, informing and
entertaining them and also not offending them. That was important.
Sharon usually came with him to those dinners. Being in the health-food
business, she was generally unhappy with the fare, though she always
loved the settings, which were from different administrations, different
centuries.
When Sharon couldn't make it, Op-Center's press liaison Ann Farris went
with Hood. She liked any food that was put in front of her and, unlike
Sharon, enjoyed talking to whoever she was seated with.
This was the first time Hood had come stag. Regardless of how the White
House might try to position it, Hood did not consider Mala Chatterjee as
his date. The UN secretary-general was also coming alone and was
assigned a seat at Hood's table, directly to his left.
Hood opened the door and looked into the long, chandelier-lit dining
room. Fourteen round tables had been brought into the dining room. Each
one was set for ten people. Hood's invitation had said that he was
seated at table two, near the center of the room. That was good.
He was rarely seated so close to the president. If things got tense
between him and Chatterjee, Hood would be able to exchange knowing
glances with the First Lady.
Megan Lawrence had been raised in Santa Barbara, California.
She had spent time with Hood when he was mayor of Los Angeles, and they
got to know each other quite well. She was a smart, classy lady with a
dry sense of humor.
While senior staff members watched, liveried White House wait staff
hurried around, making last-minute adjustments to the rose centerpieces.
They were dressed in black jackets and were multiethnic, which was to be
expected at an affair of this kind.
The White House selected from a large pool of security-cleared hourly
employees. And though no one liked to admit it, the composition of the
staff was determined by the nature of the dinner. The young and
attractive personnel were filling crystal water glasses and making sure
the flatware was spaced exactly alike from setting to setting.
Straight ahead was the towering 1869 portrait of Abraham Lincoln that
hadn't impressed Alexander. It was the only painting in the dining
room. Directly across from him, inscribed on the mantel, was a passage
written by John Adams to his wife Abigail before they moved into the
newly completed executive mansion. Franklin Roosevelt had read the
lines and liked them so much that they became the official White House
prayer. The inscription read:
I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that
shall hereafter inhabit it.
May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof- Sorry, Mr.
Adams, Hood thought. We managed to blow that one.
One of the senior attendants walked over. Dressed in white trousers and
a white waistcoat with gold braid, he politely but insistently shut the
door. Hood stepped back into the Red Room. It had grown noisier and
more crowded as people began filing in from the Blue Room.
Hood happened to be facing the door to the Blue Room as Mala Chatterjee
entered. She was on the arm of the president, who was followed by the
First Lady and two delegates. The vice president and Mrs. Cotten came
in next followed by California Senator Barbara Fox. Hood knew Fox well.
She looked uncharacteristically confused. Hood didn't get to ask why.
At almost exactly that moment, the door to the State Dining Room opened.
There was no more rushing around inside the hall. The twenty members of
the wait staff were lined up along the northwest wall, while attendants
stood in a row by the door to show guests to their tables.
Hood made no effort to link up with Chatterjee. She was an intense
woman, and she seemed caught up in her conversation with the president.
He turned and went back into the dining hall.
Hood watched as the glitterati entered beneath the golden light of the
chandelier. There was something almost ghostly about the procession:
people moving slowly, stiffly dignified, and without much expression;
voices low and hollow in the echoing chamber, with only occasional
polite laughter; chairs soundlessly lifted and moved by attendants so
they didn't drag on the hardwood floor; and a sense that this scene had
been repeated over and over throughout the years, throughout the
centuries, with the same people: those who had power, those who wanted
it, and people like Hood who were the buffers between them.
Hood took a sip of water. He wondered if divorce turned all men into
cynics.
Chatterjee had left the president's side and was being shown to the
table. Hood rose as the New Delhi native neared. The attendant pulled
out her chair. The secretary-general thanked him and sat down. Without
obviously ignoring Hood, the forty-three-year-old woman managed not to
look at him. Hood had no patience for that.
"Good evening. Madam Secretary-General," Hood said.
"Good evening, Mr. Hood," she replied, still without looking at him.
Other people began arriving at the table. Chatterjee turned and smiled
at Agriculture Secretary Richard Ortiz and his wife. That left Hood
staring at the back of the secretary-general's head. He exited the
awkward moment by reaching for his napkin, putting it on his lap, and
looking the other way.
Hood tried to put himself in Chatterjee's position. The
attorney-turned-diplomat had only been on the job for a short while when
the terrorists struck. She had joined the United Nations as an avowed
peacekeeper, and here were terrorists executing diplomats and
threatening to shoot children. Chatterjee's negotiating tactics had
failed, and Hood had embarrassed her publicly by infiltrating the
Security Council and ending the crisis with quick, violent action.
Chatterjee was further humiliated by the way many member nations loudly
applauded Hood's attack.
But Hood and Secretary-General Chatterjee were supposed to be putting
th
at ill will behind them, not nurturing it. She was an avowed advocate
of first move detente, in which one party demonstrated trust by being
the first to lay down arms or surrender land.
Or maybe she only believes in that when she advocates others to make the
first move. Hood thought.
Suddenly, someone appeared behind Hood and spoke his name. He turned
and looked up. It was the First Lady.
"Good evening, Paul."
Hood rose.
"Mrs. Lawrence. It's good to see you."
"It's been too long," she said, taking his hand in hers and holding it
tight.
"I miss those Los Angeles fund raisers
"We had fun," Hood said.
"We made some history, and hopefully we did some good, too."
"I like to think so," the First Lady said.
"How is Harleigh?"
"She took a very hard hit, and is having a rough time," Hood admitted.
"I can't even imagine," the First Lady said.
"Who's working with her?"
"Right now, it's just Liz Gordon, our staff psych at Op-Center," Hood
said.
"Liz is getting a little trust going.
Hopefully, in a week or two, we can bring in some specialists."
Megan Lawrence smiled warmly.
"Paul, maybe there's something we can do to help each other. Are you
free for lunch tomorrow?"
"Sure," he said.
"Good. I'll see you at twelve-thirty." The First Lady smiled, turned,
and went back to her table.
That was strange. Hood thought.
"Maybe there's something we can do to help each other." What could she
possibly need his help for? Whatever it was, it must be important. A
First Lady's social calendar was usually well-booked months in advance.
She would have had to move her engagements around to make room for him.
Hood sat back down. The table had been joined by Deputy Secretary of
State Hal Jordan and his wife Barri Alien-Jordan as well as two
diplomats and their spouses who Hood did not know. Mala Chatterjee did
not introduce him, so he introduced himself. The secretary general
continued to ignore him, even after the president rose at his table to
offer a toast and say a few words about how he hoped this dinner and its
show of unity would send a message to terrorists that the civilized
nations of the world would never yield to them. As the White House
photographer took pictures and a C-SPAN camera unobtrusively recorded
the event from the southwest corner of the hall, the president
underscored his faith in the United Nations by announcing officially,
and to great applause, that the United States was about to retire its
nearly two billion dollar debt to the United Nations.
Hood knew that paying off the debt had very little to do with
terrorists. The United Nations didn't scare them, and the president
knew it, even if Mala Chatterjee didn't.
What the two billion dollars did was get the United States out of the
doghouse with poor countries like Nepal and Liberia. With thawed
economic relations in the Third World, we could then convince them to
take loans with the provision that they buy American goods, services,
and military intelligence. That would become a self-perpetuating source
of income for American companies, even when other nations started
putting money into those countries. That was the great thing about a
government budgetary surplus and a politically expedient moment. When
they came together, an administration could look benevolent and score
points on the stock exchange.
Hood was only half listening to the speech when the president said
something that drew him back in.
"Finally," the president said, "I am happy to inform you that American
intelligence leaders are presently earmarking personnel and resources
for a vital new initiative.
It is their intention to work closely with governments around the world
and guarantee that attacks against the United Nations cannot, do not,
and will not happen again."
There was mild applause from tables where there were delegates. But the
statement had caught Hood's attention because he knew something that the
president apparently did not.
It wasn't true.
Hellspot Station, the Caspian Sea Monday, 3:01 a.m.
The white Cessna U206F flew low over the dark Caspian Sea, its single
engine roaring loudly. Its only occupants were a Russian pilot and the
man seated beside him, an Englishman of average build and average
appearance.
This trip had started out off the coast of Baku. After taking off, the
seaplane had headed northeast and had traveled nearly two hundred miles
in the past ninety minutes. It had been a smooth, quiet ride. Neither
the pilot nor his passenger spoke a word the entire time.
Though forty-one-year-old Maurice Charles spoke Russian--along with nine
other languages--he did not know the pilot well and did not trust even
those people he did know well. That was one reason he'd managed to
survive as a mercenary for nearly twenty years.
When they finally arrived, all the pilot said was, "Below, four
o'clock."
Charles looked out his window. His pale blue eyes fixed on the target.
It was a beautiful thing. Tall, brightly lit, majestic.
And alone.
The semi submersible offshore oil drilling platform stood approximately
150 feet above the water and was surrounded by sea. There was a helipad
on the north side of the platform, a 200-foot-tall derrick beside it on
the northwest side, and a network of tanks, cranes, antennae, and other
equipment in the oil processing area.
The rig was like a lady standing on a deserted avenue under a streetlamp
late at night by the Mersey back home. Charles could do what he wanted
with it. And he would.
Charles picked up a camera that was sitting in his lap.
He popped the button on the tan leather carrying case and removed the
top. The camera was the same thirty five-millimeter reflex that he had
used in his first assignment, back in Beirut in April 1983. He began
snapping pictures. A second camera, the one he had taken from the CIA
operative on the beach, lay on the floor of the cabin between his feet
along with the man's backpack. There might be names or numbers in there
that would prove useful. Just like the operative himself would be
useful, which was why Charles had left him alive.
The airplane circled the oil platform twice, once at 600 feet and once
at 300 feet. Charles exposed three rolls of film, then indicated to the
pilot that it was all right to leave. The seaplane swung back to its
cruising altitude of 2000 feet and headed to Baku. There, Charles would
rejoin the crew of the Rachel, which by now would have removed the white
banner with the fake name. They had ferried him to the plane and would
be his partners in the next part of the undertaking.
But that would only be the start. His employers in America had very
specific goals, and the team Charles had put together were experts in
achieving those goals:
turning neighbor against neighbor, nation against nation, through acts
of terrorism and assassination. Before they were finished, the region
would be awash in fire and blood from around the world.
And though he had already made a lot of money in the terrorist game, he
had spent a lot of that wealth buying weapons, passports,
transportation, anonymity. With this job, he would be richer than he
had ever dared to imagine. And he had a fertile imagination.
When he was growing up in Liverpool, Charles had often dreamed about
wealth and how he might obtain it.
He thought about it when he swept the train station where his father
sold tickets. He thought about it when he slept with his two brothers
and grandfather in the living room of their one-bedroom flat, a flat
that always smelled of perspiration and trash from the adjoining alley.
He thought about it when he helped his father coach the local men's
football team. The elder Charles knew how to communicate, how to
strategize, how to win. He was a natural leader. But Maurice's father,
his family, his working-class people were held down by the upper class.
They were not permitted to go to the better schools, even if they could
have afforded them. They weren't allowed to work in the upper levels of
banking, of communications, of politics. They had funny, common accents
and brawny shoulders and weather-beaten faces and weren't taken
seriously.
Charles grew up feeling bad that the only outlet, the only joy his