"Inside Out" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eisler Barry)

2. Falling

Ulrich looked through the floor-to-ceiling windows and watched the K Street traffic twelve stories below, his feet perched on his mahogany desk, a wireless headset snug against his ear. “Thanks, Jim,” he said. “Really appreciated your time last week. And my client is just delighted the senator understands how counterproductive any additional regulation would be on top of what the industry is already burdened with. If you have any other questions, I know it would be their pleasure to arrange another golf outing. And of course you can count on their complete support. You bet. Thanks again.”

He clicked off and thought, Done and done. Lobbying wasn’t so different from governing, really. He was making ten times his public-sector salary, which was nice, and his office furniture was a hell of a lot better than what he’d had in room 268 of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, too, but other than that? Well, his work was no longer stamped secret, true, but nor would it have done for the public to have too close a peek at the way lobbyists made laws. The main thing was, the priorities were the same, and so were the methods. It was all about who you knew, and how you could get who you knew what they wanted.

His other phone buzzed-the secure line that went straight to his desk and not through his secretary. He put his feet down and picked up the corded handset. “Ulrich.”

“It’s Clements. Are you alone?”

Clements was still the number two guy at CIA, having been passed over for the number one slot by the new administration in favor of an outsider. He was a good contact-one of many Ulrich used to maintain his influence among the city’s elite.

“Yeah, I’m alone. What is it?”

“We have a problem.”

Ulrich’s chest tightened and he immediately thought, the tapes.

“Go on.”

“You know how in the end we all assumed the tapes had been destroyed by a patriot?”

God, he hated being right all the time. “Yes.”

“The director got a call this morning telling him to go to a website. He did. The tapes are all online.”

“What the-”

“Wait. They’re not public. The website is encrypted. The caller wants a hundred million dollars in uncut diamonds, or he decrypts the files and uploads them to YouTube and every media outlet in the United States and abroad.”

Ulrich felt clammy sweat spring out under his arms and along his back. He was momentarily at a loss. If this had happened when he had the full authority of the vice president’s office behind him, he would have instantly taken control, and taking control would have calmed him. As it was, he felt trapped, in sudden thrall to this dimwit to whom he ought to be issuing orders. He felt horribly, uncharacteristically helpless.

Which raised a question. “Why are you calling me?” he said.

There was a pause. “The director just contacted the Justice Department. They’re bringing in the FBI.”

“The FBI… no. Impossible. No one could be that stupid.”

“It’s not stupid. He’s new. No previous connection to the Agency. He’s covering his ass by following procedure.”

The room was suddenly stifling and Ulrich felt like he was falling. So much time had gone by. He hadn’t even thought about the tapes in… he couldn’t remember. He really had come to believe they were gone-launch all the investigations you want, it doesn’t matter because the tapes no longer exist.

He’d never been so wrong.

“You used to work with Bilton, right?” he heard Clements say. “The president’s counterterrorism adviser?”

“I know him. Why?”

“Call him. He’s got the ear of the national security adviser. We’re going to stonewall the Bureau, and the Bureau will go to the national security adviser to mediate. When they do, we want a sympathetic ear. All we need to do is keep the Bureau on a leash for a few days while we go after whoever is behind this.”

“This is what we did last time. We didn’t find anything, remember?”

“That was last time. This time, something new-something major-is in play. This guy, or this organization, whoever it is, they’re calling us. Creating websites. Issuing instructions. At some point, they’ll have to tell us how to deliver the diamonds. All that adds up to a whole series of opportunities we didn’t have before. The director’s made me point man on this and I’ve already assembled a team-same kind of discreet team we used last time. So we can handle it quietly-but not if the Bureau gets involved and starts treating it as a criminal case.”

Ulrich exhaled a deep breath. Clements was right, he had to admit. Embarrassing to have him point out something Ulrich had missed, but he was right.

“Yeah, I can get in touch with Bilton. He’ll understand. What’s our window?”

“The caller agreed to give us five days to put together the diamonds.”

“What? You’ve only got five days to find this guy and air him out?”

“It’s more complicated than just airing him out. He says he’s got the video rigged to an electronic dead-man switch. If he fails to disarm the switch at a preset interval, the video gets uploaded.”

Hot bile surged into Ulrich’s throat. He pulled a bottle of Maalox Maximum Strength from a desk drawer, unscrewed the cap, and took a huge mouthful. He grimaced, his eyes watering, and swallowed.

“Anything else?” he managed to ask.

“Yeah. If this thing goes south, we’ll want to have our stories straight.”

“If this thing goes south,” Ulrich said, his mouth pasty with the taste of the Maalox, “it won’t matter what our stories are.”

He realized when Clements didn’t respond that he’d been hoping he would. Nothing could have confirmed Ulrich’s point more emphatically than the silence on the other end of the phone.

“I’ll get in touch with Bilton right away,” Ulrich said. “Let’s keep each other posted.”

He hung up, put his glasses on the table, and sat for a moment with his face in his hands.

There was nothing he could do. The Agency was in charge, Ulrich’s involvement was reduced to that of a messenger boy… They were done, they were all done. Ever since the tapes were first discovered missing, he’d been living on borrowed time. No, since before then, even. Since he’d first figured out what to do with the Caspers. That’s what had killed him. He just hadn’t realized it until now.

It wasn’t fair. For so many years, he’d tried so hard to protect the nation, and he just… he just couldn’t anymore. And without him, who would?

And then some deep part of himself cut through the thickening mists of despair. He wasn’t helpless. He didn’t need to defer to the idiots at the CIA who had caused this catastrophe in the first place. He didn’t have the power he’d once wielded, true, but he still had the contacts. In the end, the contacts might matter more. All he had to do was use them. Use them well.

He put his glasses back on, took another swallow of Maalox, and picked up the secure phone.