The Camel Club (Camel Club 1)

CHAPTER

22

AT THE NIC HELIPAD GRAY boarded a Sikorsky VH-60N chopper. It was the same model the president used as Marine One, although in the coming years it would be replaced by a Lockheed Martin-built version. Gray usually rode the Sikorsky to the White House for his meetings with Brennan, causing some understandably anonymous souls to snidely dub it “Marine One and a Half.” However, there was one distinct difference between how Gray and Brennan were ferried on choppers. When the president rode in from Andrews Air Force Base, Camp David or elsewhere, there were three identical VH-60Ns in the convoy. Two served as decoys, giving any would-be assassin with a surface-to-air missile only a one-in-three shot of hitting his intended target. Carter Gray was on his own in that regard. After all, there were numerous cabinet secretaries, but just one president.

Traditionally, it was only Marine One that was allowed to land on the White House grounds. It was Brennan who’d authorized Gray to travel this way, over the very heated protests of the Secret Service. It saved Gray what could have been a tortuous daily commute from Loudoun County, and the intelligence czar’s time was very valuable. However, there were still grumblings at the Secret Service. Understandably, they didn’t care to see anything flying at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue unless it had the president on board.

At a speed of 150 knots the ride was quick and uneventful, though Gray was too busy to have noticed. He strode across the White House grounds knowing full well that the countersnipers arrayed on the surrounding rooftops were drawing practice beads on his wide head. Inside the West Wing Gray nodded at people he knew. Until 1902 greenhouses stood on this plot of ground. That’s when Teddy Roosevelt finally decided he needed a private place, away from his numerous children and their large coterie of pets, in order to competently conduct his business as the nation’s leader. His successor, the rotund William Taft, made the West Wing even bigger and the Oval Office a permanent fixture in the lives of all future presidents.

Gray’s daily visit had already been scheduled and approved. No one went into the Oval Office unannounced, not even the First Lady. Brennan always received Gray in the Oval Office and not the adjacent Roosevelt Room, as he often did visitors and other underlings.

Brennan looked up from his thirteen-hundred-pound desk built from the wood of the British ship HMS Resolute, which American whalers discovered after it had been caught in the ice and abandoned by its crew. The ship had been repaired by the U.S. government and sent back to England as a gesture of goodwill. Queen Victoria reciprocated by presenting the desk as a gift to President Rutherford B. Hayes. Thereafter, the Resolute Desk, as it became known, had been used by every president since, except for a period of time when it was at the Smithsonian Institution.

Gray had had his antennae on high since he stepped inside the West Wing. He had seen the Web casts on Patrick Johnson’s death. More of them had trickled out that afternoon. He got the last of them on the chopper ride over. Gray had also received a briefing by the FBI that included the discovery of the drug cache at Johnson’s home. He also knew of Secret Service agents Ford and Simpson’s involvement in the investigation. When he heard Simpson’s name, it allowed him a rare smile. That could be his ace in the hole down the road, should he need one.

As befitted any respectable spymaster, Gray had eyes and ears in the White House and had already been warned that Brennan was concerned about the Johnson matter and its possible negative effects on his reelection campaign. Therefore, he did not let his boss initiate the discussion.

As soon as the two men sat down across from each other, Gray said, “Mr. President, before we go into the daily briefing, I’d like to take up the unfortunate issue of Patrick Johnson’s death on Roosevelt Island.”

“I’m surprised you hadn’t called about it, Carter.” There was an edge to the man’s voice that Gray understood but didn’t particularly like.

“I wanted to have a firm grasp of the facts before I did, sir. The last thing I wanted to do was waste your time.”

“You certainly wouldn’t be the first one to waste it today,” Brennan snapped.

This is the President, and I serve at his pleasure, Gray reminded himself.

Gray gave the president a brief background on the matter, information that doubtless the man already knew. When Gray got to the drug discovery, Brennan put up his hand.

“Are there any others involved?” he asked sharply.

“Good question, Mr. President, and not one that’s been answered to my satisfaction. I will personally conduct an internal investigation of this matter, aided, at my request, by the FBI.” Getting the Bureau involved was loathsome to Gray, but better he suggest it than allow someone else to do it.

“Carter, if the FBI is coming in, you have to give them a free hand. Nothing swept under the rug.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way. However, at this point it does not appear that the case goes any further. That is to say, if Johnson was selling drugs, it was separate from his work at NIC.”

The president was shaking his head. “That’s not an assumption we can make yet. What exactly did he do for you?”

“He oversaw our electronic intelligence files containing background information on terror suspects and other targeted individuals and organizations, both outstanding and those that had been apprehended or killed. Johnson actually helped to design the system.”

“Worth selling?”

“It’s hard to see how. It was basic info. A lot of it is contained on our public Web site. Then there’s the confidential information such as fingerprints, DNA info, if applicable, that sort of thing. However, the files Johnson managed did not contain, for example, any specific intelligence that we’d uncovered to aid us in capturing the targets.”

The president nodded, sat back and rubbed a kink out of his neck. At his desk since seven a.m., he had already crammed fourteen hours’ worth of work into eight, and he had a full afternoon ahead of him with a state dinner to follow. And then it was off the next day to the Midwest to campaign for an election that he had in the bag but was far too paranoid to let his guard down about. “To put it bluntly, Carter, I’m not happy about this at all. The last thing I need right now is some damn scandal.”

“I will do everything in my power to prevent that from happening, sir.”

“Well, vetting your employees a little better would’ve been good,” the president admonished.

“I absolutely agree with that.” Gray paused and then added, “Sir, obviously, we cannot allow this development to interfere with our main work.”

Brennan looked puzzled. “Come again?”

“As you know, the media has a way of creating something out of nothing. It’s a terrific way to sell newspapers, but not necessarily good for national security.”

Brennan shrugged. “That’s First Amendment territory, Carter. That’s sacrosanct.”

Gray leaned forward. “I’m not saying otherwise. But we can do something about leaks, and also the content and timing of the information flow. Right now the media knows about as much as we do. They’ll report it, and NIC will be giving an official statement regarding the matter. I think at this stage all that is fine, but it’s certainly not in our best interests to see NIC’s mission derailed for something like this.”

He paused again and then delivered the lines he had practiced on the chopper ride over. “There are only a few ways you are politically vulnerable, sir. And your opponents are so desperate now they’ll seize on anything to hit you with. In that desperation they may see this as such an opportunity. Historically, such a strategy has a certain precedent of success. To put it bluntly, we cannot let them use this to defeat you in November. Whatever the truth is, it’s not important enough to prevent you from winning a second term.”

Brennan thought about this for some time. Finally, he said, “Okay, together we’ll keep a tight leash on the media. I mean this is national security, after all. And if you run into any flack from the Bureau or others, you let me know about it.” He paused and then said, in his

best politician’s baritone, “You’re right, this nation’s security will not be sidetracked by some guy selling drugs on the side.”

Gray smiled. “Absolutely.” Thank God it’s an election year.

Brennan went to his desk and pressed the intercom button. “Tell Secretary Decker to come in.”

Gray looked surprised at this. “Decker?”

Brennan nodded. “We need to talk about Iraq.”

Decker walked in a minute later. He was in his fifties with close-cropped gray hair, handsome features and lean body from running five miles every day wherever he happened to be in the world. A widower, Decker was deemed one of the city’s most eligible bachelors. Although he’d never served in the military, he’d begun in the defense industry, working his way up and earning a sizable fortune before jumping to the public arena. His rise there had been equally swift and included stints as secretary of the navy and deputy defense secretary. He was the total D.C. package—smart, articulate, ruthless, ambitious and well respected—and Gray loathed him. As defense secretary, Decker headed up the Pentagon, the sector that used the vast bulk of all intelligence dollars, a purse that Gray technically controlled. Thus, while Decker was cooperative with Gray and said all the right things in public, Gray was well aware that behind the scenes Decker tried to circumvent and backstab him at every opportunity. He was also Gray’s major rival for the president’s ear.