REILLY'S REVENGE: 37) A POST-AMES SECURITY PROCEDURE

Concorde from London and a shuttle to DC puts me in Langley by 4:30.

The seventh floor is a morgue.

Skeeter Leland looks up from his desk, surprised. “Back already?” He rises. “Let’s go see Pikestaff.”

Pikestaff is jabbering into a phone. As soon as he sees me he puts it down and starts talking in tongues—either that or an incoherent splutter. Something about me seeing what I started.

“They’ve kidnapped Darconti!” he finally spits out something intelligible.

“Who kidnapped Darconti?”

“The KGB.”

“How do you know this?”

“She called.”

“Darconti called here?”

“She managed a call in the wee hours this morning. The duty officer took it. She identified herself and said she was being held against her will, then she got cut off.”

“Where?”

“She didn’t have a chance to say. The Russians must be holding her.”

“Did she say Russians are holding her?”

“No. I’ve already told you everything she said. But it’s obvious.”

“Not to me it isn’t, Pikestaff. The KGB wouldn’t kidnap a CIA executive. You know it’s against the code. Sure, they’ll kidnap a Russian defector if he pisses them off enough. But not an American.” I shake my head. “They know we’d retaliate—and KGB executives wouldn’t want that.”

“Who else would kidnap her?” Pikestaff narrows his eyebrows.

“Hezbollah?” This is Skeeter’s offering.

“Not Hezbollah,” I say. “I’ll tell you who’s got her.”

Pikestaff and Skeeter look at me like an expectant couple.

“The feebs,” I say.

Pikestaff looks at Skeeter, then back at me. “Have you gone completely nuts?”

Pikestaff knew I was already halfway there; the downside of genius.

“I smell Al Stanko behind this,” I say. “That bastard is retaliating.”

“But, but,” Pikestaff splutters, “Stanko can’t kidnap one of our top people!”

“He won’t call it kidnapping, Pikestaff. He’ll call it a routine security check. They pick up a senior Agency officer, scare the hell out of her, see if she cracks. They’ll call it a new policy. Post-Ames. That’s the facade. In reality, Stanko’s trying to figure out what we’re up to. We wouldn’t tell him, so he has a few goons pick up Darconti.”

Skeeter watches, wide-eyed, neutral.

Pikestaff reaches for a phone. “Get me Al Stanko.” He turns to me. “Let’s put your overactive imagination to rest, shall we?” He returns to his phone. “Al? I have a question for you: Is your Bureau detaining one of our senior employees?”

Pikestaff listens.

His eyes visibly bulge from their sockets. His face reddens.

“WHAT?” he hollers. “WITHOUT EVEN TELLING ME...?”

He listens some more.

“POST-AMES SECURITY PROCEDURES?” He listens. “DON’T GIVE ME THAT CRAP, GODAMMIT!”

He listens.

“She said WHAT? I’ve heard just about enough.”

Pikestaff thumps the phone down and faces Skeeter and me. “The Bureau is holding Darconti—part of a post-Ames security procedure designed to ferret out moles. How did you...?”

“Just a hunch, Pikestaff.”

“He says Kate Darconti has requested immunity from prosecution.”

“Immunity from what?”

“Stanko’s calling it a rogue operation. And he had the gall to complain that it took us too long to inform the Bureau that Darconti was missing. He says he wants to give me the opportunity to come clean.”

“Bullshit,” I say. “He’s bluffing.”

“About what?”

“This immunity nonsense. Darconti hasn’t told them squat. If she had, Stanko wouldn’t be offering any opportunities. He’d be on the Hill this second, trying to make a trophy out of your head.”

“Where do you suppose they’re holding her?” says Skeeter.

“Quantico,” I say. “That’s where they pull all this shit. We could retrieve Darconti by force, but if one thumb got broken, there’d be investigations, hearings… hell, just call the President, Pikestaff. Aside from anything else, it wasn’t a rogue operation, the President approved it. But that’s none of Stanko’s business.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ll do, by God.” Pikestaff is seething. “I’ll call the President.”

“Don’t tell him what’s eating us, just say we need to see him to deliver a progress report.”

Pikestaff pushes a few buttons and organizes a pre-dinner drink at the White House.

⁂

President Prescott is effusive in his welcome of Pikestaff and me. Hands everywhere. Big smile. It gets me thinking he has another three hundred million stashed away somewhere.

“Everything okay?” he asks with just a hint of angst.

“Everything will be better after you pour me a scotch,” I say.

This is probably the first and last president I’ll own, so I might as well make the most of the rare moments I spend on his turf.

We stand inside the President’s private den, adjacent to the Oval Office. He uncaps a fresh bottle of 1977 Macallan single malt scotch whiskey and pours three shots.

“Gentlemen.”

The President toasts nothing, not even my health.

I throw mine back in gulp and offer my glass for a refill.

President Prescott eyeballs me, pours another, recaps the bottle.

We sit in comfortable leather chairs.

The President lights a cigar.

“We have a problem,” says Pikestaff.

An intestinal gas pain crosses the President’s face, like, these spooks have returned for more and maybe they’ll never stop spooking me. He grits his teeth in anticipation.

Says Pikestaff, “The Director of the FBI is trying to find out what’s going on.”

“Al? Wh-what does he know?”

“That’s part of the problem,” says Pikestaff. “We’re not sure.”

The President raises both eyebrows.

“Under the guise of a security check,” says Pikestaff, “the Bureau is holding one of our senior officials, against her will, and subjecting her to interrogation.”

“A she?”

“Katherine Darconti. Central Asia Division Chief.”

“Does Ms. Darconti know about our, uh, little business?”

I shake my head. “No one knows except present company.”

President Prescott relaxes his shoulders.

“But,” adds Pikestaff, ominously, “Kate is intimately familiar with our Podex operation.”

“And,” I add, “she knows about our executive-ordered assassination of Kobo.”

The President’s shoulders re-tense. He drains his scotch and picks up a phone.

“Get me FBI Director Stanko.” He slams the phone into its cradle and puffs his cigar.

The phone rings less than a minute later—a testament to White House operators and the also the obedience of those running large federal agencies.

President Prescott picks up. “Al? Can you come over to the White House? Now.”

Prescott disconnects Stanko and returns to us for a more general update.

Pikestaff defers to me and I take President Prescott through Almaaty and Kobo (he grimaces), Vienna and Ligichansky (he grins)—and I tell him we believe our CoS Geneva had defected to Moscow.

Prescott closes his eyes. “Can we keep it from the media?”

“As long as the Russians do,” I say.

“What does that mean?”

“During the Cold War, they’d throw a huge party for the media if someone from our side joined them, because they’d get maybe one defector for every hundred who came to us. But it’s no longer in their best interests to do that.”

Prescott nods, picks up a ringing phone.

“Okay,” he says, “give me two minutes and send him in.” He cradles the phone, faces Pikestaff and me. “Stanko’s here. Let’s take this into the other room.”

Pikestaff and I re-rump our rears on comfortable armchairs in the Oval Office.

Prescott remains on his feet, buttons his suit-coat, greets the FBI Director.

Al Stanko flicks his eyes our way and stiffens. He’s been around DC long enough to know an ambush when he sees one.

“Sit down, Al,” says the President. “We have a small problem to resolve.”

A sheepish Stanko nods at us, and rumps his fat ass.

“The Bureau has some kind of new security procedure, eh, Al?”

“That’s correct, Mister President. You see, after the CIA’s Ames debacle...”

“Cut the crap, Al,” Prescott growls as he commences tearing Stanko a new asshole. “I don’t recall signing any new directives giving you special powers to arbitrarily pick a U.S. government employee off the street and hold them against their will. It’s a violation of their rights as Americans. And probably illegal. Are you prepared to be sued for false imprisonment, Al? Are you? Because I’m not.”

“Mr. President, the only way we can prevent another Ames...”

Prescott raises his right hand—and his voice. “You’re not hearing me, Al.”

Stanko recoils, his face tomato-red.

“This is what we’re going to do,” says President Prescott. “We’re going to consider this a temporary lapse of your good judgment.” Prescott pauses. “Right, Al?”

“Uh, right, Mr. President.”

“Where is Kathryn Darconti at this moment?”

Stanko gulps. “Quantico, Virginia.”

“Okay, Al, here’s what you’re going to do, and you’re going to do it the moment you leave my office. You are going to board a helicopter and fly directly to Quantico. When you arrive there you are going to apologize to Ms. Darconti—profusely— for the inconvenience you’ve caused her. And then you are personally going to escort her back to Washington, D.C. You are also going to seal all notes pertaining to your questioning of Ms. Darconti, without reading them, and deliver everything to the CIA for shredding. And you are going to discipline the official responsible for executing this new unauthorized policy. You got all that?”

Stanko gulps again. “Yes, Mister President.” His mind seems to be spinning as he rummages it for a scapegoat. “We at the Bureau,” he says, “are concerned about the disappearance of a CIA employee...”

“Don’t press your luck with me,” Prescott growls, rising. “Get moving. Now.”

Stanko rises on wobbly knees and slinks out, tail tucked between his fat cheeks.

We are next to leave.

Pikestaff pisses off to a social engagement at the Kennedy Center.

I aim for Archibald’s.

A Beefeater martini, three olives, an assortment of tits and ass.