The Trident Deception - Страница 6

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Christine stared at the TV in disbelief. Russell … murdered?

The TV went black, and Hardison tossed the remote control back onto Christine’s desk. “Leave,” he said to the secretary, who was still clutching the files.

Christine stood to accept the files. She numbly thanked the older woman, who avoided the chief of staff’s stare as she hurried out of the office.

“When was the last time you talked with Evans?” Hardison asked.

She placed the files on her desk, then focused on Hardison’s question. “Friday night. I stopped by his desk on my way out and he said he’d be working late.”

“What was he working on?”

“I had him reviewing nuclear weapon policy initiatives we have under development. Why do you ask?”

Hardison’s eyebrows furrowed. “Call me paranoid, but someone just murdered your intern, and I’d like to convince myself his death was unrelated to his work. That he didn’t piss off a powerful constituent or lobbyist group.”

“You think his murder was politically motivated?”

“No, it was probably just a mugging gone wrong. But we’re meeting stiff resistance to some of the legislation we’re pushing forward, and I’d like to know if he was working on anything sensitive.”

“I don’t think so, Kevin.” Christine glanced at the dark TV. “Do you want me to look into it?”

“No, I’ll take care of it. Get back to work. Did you approve the intelligence agency restructuring?”

“No,” Christine replied coolly.

Hardison approached Christine behind her desk, stopping a foot away, a scowl on his face. The strong scent of his aftershave assailed her. “Why are you here? Why did you take this job?”

Standing her ground, Christine refused to be intimidated by Hardison’s physical presence. “Because the president asked me to. Because he, unlike you, values dissent, wants to hear the other side of the story and not just the stilted one-sided crap you feed him.”

The muscles in Hardison’s jaw twitched. “The president has the vision, and I do the heavy lifting. I’ve melded this White House staff into a formidable team, and you refuse to join that team, bucking my policies at every turn.”

Christine glared up at him. “You mean the president’s policies. Or do you?”

“Don’t mince words with me, Christine. Either get on board, or get out of the way.”

Christine pressed her lips together as several inflammatory responses flashed through her mind. Instead, she took a more personal approach. “What happened to you, Kevin? We used to be friends, working together to achieve the same goals.”

“That was twenty years ago, Christine. I’ve become a realist, while you cling to your idealistic dreams. I achieve results, while you do nothing more than make my job difficult.”

It was pointless to continue the discussion. She settled into her chair. “Is there anything else you’d like to discuss?”

“I want your concurrence on the restructuring proposal.”

Christine smiled. “Don’t hold your breath.”

Hardison gritted his teeth, then turned and left.

* * *

Leaning back in her chair, Christine rubbed her temples again with both hands. Maybe Hardison was right. She felt like a salmon swimming upstream, making no headway against the current of well-intentioned, but ultimately damaging, policies being pushed forward. Then again, she had taken the job not because she thought she’d be able to implement policies she believed in, but because she believed in damage control. If she could derail just a few of the administration’s disastrous initiatives, her suffering would be worth it.

As Christine dwelt on her misery, her thoughts turned to Russell Evans. The young man’s mysterious death weighed heavily on her, and her heart went out to his parents. She couldn’t imagine their grief upon opening their front door to a police officer delivering the unwelcome news.

Pushing her thoughts about Evans aside, Christine checked her e-mail, picking up where she’d left off Friday evening. After she’d replied to a few e-mails, her hand froze as the mouse cursor passed over a message with no subject.

It was from Evans. Sent last night, just after midnight.

Christine clicked to open the e-mail and was greeted with a white screen containing a single phrase: E DRIVE.

e drive?

Checking the TO: and CC: fields, Christine noted the e-mail had been sent only to her. Turning her attention back to the solitary phrase, she contemplated why Evans would send her this cryptic e-mail. Perhaps the message was incomplete.

Or maybe it was everything she needed to know.

Opening the My Computer icon on her desktop, she searched through the drive directory. The C and D drives were folders on the computer’s hard drive. The E drive was her CD drive. Christine pressed Eject, waiting as the drive tray slid out.

There was nothing in it.

She tapped her index finger on her desk, wondering if Evans meant his E drive. Stepping outside her office, Christine scanned the desks in the adjacent West Wing alcove where several interns and office staff worked, her eyes coming to rest on the computer beside Evans’s desk. Her intuition gnawed at her, warning her to consider carefully to whom she revealed Evans’s e-mail, as well as the results of her search. After verifying no one else was within view, she stopped by Evans’s desk, pressing Eject on his computer.

A disk slid out.

Christine placed the CD into a plastic case resting on Evans’s desk, and a moment later she was back in her office. When she slid the disk into her computer, a windowpane opened on her monitor, displaying the contents of the CD. There were several dozen files, their names consisting of random letters and numbers. Christine double-clicked on the first file, but nothing happened. She tried to open it with various applications, each failing to respond or returning a pane of gibberish.

As she searched, a Recall notice from Evans appeared in her Outlook in-box, and a second later, the notice and Evans’s original e-mail were gone. Christine blinked at the screen in stunned silence, until two things became clear.

The first was that whoever had killed Evans had his BlackBerry.

The second was that there was something very important about his CD.

Christine picked up the phone and dialed the familiar number to the office in Langley. A few rings later, the call was answered.

“Director Ronan, this is Christine. I have a favor to ask of you.”

5

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

Greg Vandiver’s eyes cracked open against their will, fluttering shut again in response to the bright shaft of sunlight streaming through the second-story bedroom window overlooking Rabin Square. Rolling to his side, Vandiver forced his eyelids back open again, the color of his bloodshot eyes matching the numbers on the digital clock next to his bed. A painful pounding reverberated through his head, and it took a moment for him to realize someone was banging on the bedroom door — Joyce, no doubt. Vandiver sat up quickly, immediately regretting it as his head began throbbing in sync with the vigorous knocks.

Suddenly remembering he was not in bed alone, Vandiver turned and studied the young woman sleeping peacefully next to him, a thin sheet covering her naked body. Her straight, glossy black hair was spread across the white pillow as if it had been neatly arranged for a photo shoot. Almond-shaped eyes and caramel-colored skin rounded out her sensual beauty, a sharp contrast to the man admiring her. At five foot six and 180 pounds, U.S. Ambassador Greg Vandiver was not a particularly attractive man. Constantly on a diet that included too much wine and dessert, he had steadily added weight to his frame. Yet, at fifty-five, his smile retained its youthful exuberance and his thick black hair had yet to be invaded by the first strand of gray. His wealth and political influence compensated for his bland physical features — it never failed to amaze him how young women found money and power almost impossible to resist.

The pounding on the door resumed, this time accompanied by a rattling of its hinges. Vandiver stooped down, pulling on a white cotton robe he had deposited on the floor the previous evening. “Enter!” he shouted, immediately regretting his loud response as his head pulsed. The woman next to him stirred in her sleep, licking her full, luscious lips.

The door swung open, and Vandiver’s executive assistant entered the bedroom. It took only a second for Joyce Eddings’s eyes to take in the all-too-familiar scene. “You need to get moving, Ambassador. You have an unscheduled meeting with the prime minister in an hour and a half at his office in Jerusalem.”

Vandiver studied Joyce’s face; as usual, she expressed neither approval nor disapproval. Glancing at the clock again, he verified he had thirty minutes before departing for his meeting. But first, he had to make arrangements for a token of appreciation for his female guest. “Can you send—”

“Roses or carnations?” Joyce asked, pad and pen already in her hands.

Vandiver pondered for a moment, recalling his late-night escapade. “Roses. And get her phone number.”

“Her name?” Joyce asked, the corners of her mouth turning slightly upward as she prepared to wait patiently while the ambassador struggled to answer the simple, yet always difficult, question.

Vandiver’s eyes fell to the young woman still asleep in bed, trying to pull her name from last evening’s fog. While he never forgot a face or a body, names were another matter altogether. Finally, he located the first memory of last night’s encounter — her warm, firm handshake, the movement of her eyes as she quickly surveyed his body, her glistening lips parting as she introduced herself. Aah, yes.

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