“You surprised me. You gassed us.”
“That’s what separates the men from the boys and the bullies in a fight, Kharballah. Being able to adjust, take a few on the chin, but dig in and charge back, swinging. That’s the way of the warrior, Kharballah. He fights, even when the odds are stacked against him. He goes all the way, even if he’s looking at Goliath.” Braden smothered the scowl with a smoke cloud.
“That’s right, honey, I’m calling you a coward. You scumbags run around, trying to make everybody think you’re mean as the day is long, that you’re willing to die for your twisted holy war. But the first sign somebody’s ready to fight back and wax your ass you cut and run. A few car bombs, killing unarmed women and children, sweetheart, hardly proves you have the biggest pair on the block.” Braden paused to let al-Tikriti eat his shame.
“I want to know about Khirbul, and don’t tell me it’s a Kurd stronghold the Iranians run heroin through. Well, sweetheart, I’m waiting.”
“And so you shall keep waiting. You can leave me here for a week, a month like this, I will tell you nothing.”
Braden’s gut told him that was the only truth he would get out of al-Tikriti. He tossed the pliers, dropped the cigarette and ground it out on the plastic, then unzipped his jacket, displaying the shouldered Beretta. There were still other warm bodies to work with. “That your final answer?”
The Iraqi chuckled. “What? You beat me, now you’re going to shoot me?”
“You don’t believe I will?”
“You’re an American. I am a prisoner of war. There’s such a thing, I believe, called the rights of prisoners as established by the Geneva Convention,” al-Tikriti stated.
Braden unleathered the Beretta, drew a bead between al-Tikriti’s widening eyes and showed him just what he thought about the Geneva Convention.
2
John Brolinsky was worried about his job and reputation, wondering if he was being set up for public scandal and ridicule. Stranger—and worse—duplicity had happened over the years at the NSA. Those sharks on the man-eating end of the food chain were always looking for fresh guilty meat. If a man wasn’t as clean as a newborn, the conventional wisdom held he was ripe for blackmail—a definite liability when it came to guarding secrets or protecting national security.
Without question, a gentleman’s club—the gentleman part the grossest of misnomers from where he sat—was the most unlikely and unprofessional of places to rendezvous with one of the most powerful men in the White House. But here he was, nursing a club soda that was dropped off without his ordering the drink. He claimed the deep back booth the man had told him would be empty. Just wait, the man had told him, relax, enjoy the ambience.
As if I could, even if I was so inclined, the NSA man thought.
Given what he’d learned and suspected was at stake, he decided he had no choice but to ride out this tawdry scenario, take his chances and hope the walls of his own world wouldn’t crash down.
There had been directions into Washington, then down into the underground parking garage, Brolinsky wondering the whole drive in from Fort Meade if he was being followed. Rush hour waning to bring on the dinner crowd, he’d noticed the garage bowels were nearly empty. The attendant presented him a pass, no money up front. The same deal transpired at the club, he recalled. The bartender indicated his booth on the way in, waitresses and dancers steering clear of the table, as if they were on standing orders not to disturb.
Simply put, it felt wrong.
No black op warring against the shadows of evil in the world, he was grateful nonetheless he’d brought the Beretta 92-F from his think tank, shouldered now beneath his suit jacket.
He glanced around, avoiding anything other than a passing scan at the collective object of desire onstage. It was a mixed pack of hyenas, blue and white collar, probably a few crack hoodlums on the prowl. No one made eye contact with him, and that was the only plus he could find. Problem was, if the bartender had a clue as to his identity…
He was a church-going family man with a wife and two teenaged daughters. He would be forced into retirement, disgraced, even divorce could be in the cards if the situation took a bad turn.
He spotted the man in glasses and a dark cashmere coat descending the short flight of steps, recognizable enough after two recent stints on the Sunday morning talking head circuit. Sizing him up, Brolinsky found it hard to believe the man had the President’s ear, one of three “invisibles” who had personally engineered the unofficial Special Countermeasure Task Force. An aide to two former officials so high up the chain at the NSA, and now part of the President’s inner circle—rumor had it their word on worldwide intelligence operations could have been carved in stone—and Michael Rubin struck him as nondescript. He had a bald shiny pate, thick eyewear and a face so scrubbed it glistened for a moment as he passed through the stage lights. Brolinsky suddenly thought of him as the Pink Man.
“You look distressed. You don’t like my choice of meeting places?” Rubin said in greeting.
Brolinsky watched as the Pink Man claimed a seat, slid closer to him in the booth. There was something in the small dark eyes he didn’t trust, but couldn’t decide what exactly. Arrogance? Deceit and treachery forged on the anvil of jealous guarding of national secrets? Or was he reaching to find a dark side, gather up his own ammo to use against the man’s character in the event his own might be assassinated?
“There’s a lot to be distressed about these days,” he told the Pink Man.
“So it seems.”
“You come here often?” he asked, thinking Rubin looked more the type to get his voyeur kicks off the Internet.
The Pink Man smiled. “Is this where I’m supposed to check you for a wire? Not that it would matter, since we both know our people can make a minimike or recorder look like a simple quarter or belt buckle.”
“You want to frisk me like some common criminal? Makes me wonder what’s to hide,” Brolinsky said.
“Your tone and look tell me you seem to think there is. The tipoff, however, was your three attempted calls to reach someone besides a flunky in the National Security Council the past few hours—as in an urgent message for the national security adviser. You should have contacted our people at the White House first, that would have been the prudent course of action in these ‘times of distress.’”
“By your people, you mean Durham or Griswald.”
“That would have been the more professional route.”
“I’m not one of you.”
Rubin ignored the remark, said, “The Man just ripped everyone within earshot a new one. Intelligence operatives are being burned by this country’s worst enemies, as I’m sure you know, the belief being these leaks are coming straight from key upper-echelon White House staff.”
“They are,” Brolinsky stated flatly.
“Do tell. Then my assumption about you was correct. Very well. Whatever it is you’re trying to tell me—and I think I know where you’re headed—I wouldn’t make too much noise about what’s happened overseas. I’m sure you can understand the delicate political nature such recent mishaps could create.”
“You want to keep it from the press.”
“The President wants to, no, he needs to keep it under the White House roof. There’s a larger situation at stake.”
“Really?” Brolinsky scanned the crowd, finding it hard to believe they were ready to launch full-bore into a chat about national security in such a public dump, then figured between the grinding rock and roll and the howling banshees anything short of a shouting match