Call to Treason - Tom Clancy [108]
Link confided in Stone that he did not. The admiral stayed close to Donald Orr because he wanted to know what the senator was planning. He believed Orr to be a dangerous man: a man with bad ideas and the charm to sell them.
It was a typically brisk morning on San Diego Bay. Stone's curly blond hair danced against his forehead. The salty sea wind was ribboned with the faint smell of diesel fuel. The unique gas-and-steel tang, the odor of latent warfare, was coming from the naval station just southeast of the convention center. The sounds of traffic moving along Harbor Drive mingled with the cries of sea birds and the roar of jets that landed every few minutes at the airport a few miles to the north.
It was sensory chaos, but none of it bothered Stone. He was a source of calm in the midst of political and environmental anarchy. He had to be. What they did here would alter the course of world history.
An ironic destiny for someone who did not care to be a part of that stream, Stone thought. All the young man cared about was securing the goals Kenneth Link had set for them both. They were unusual ends, and it would take extraordinary means to get there. But they would succeed.
They had to.
Stone showed the security guard his pass and entered the convention center. A huge American flag hung on the south side of the room; the banner of the USF was suspended from the north side. Both were being steam-ironed to remove the wrinkles. Then they would be rolled and dropped when the convention got under way. Below them, rows of chairs were still being set up, their backs draped with gold and blue covers.
Those were the colors of the convention. They signified a new dawn in a clear sky. The slogan of the convention was, "A New Day for America."
That it would be. But not in the way that Don Orr imagined.
Stone went to the podium to see how work on the sound system was progressing. Texas Congresswoman Nicolet Murat was there, waiting to run a sound check. Nicolet would be giving the keynote address the next day. She came from oil money and was in line to become Treasury secretary in an Orr administration. Stone smiled a crooked smile as he greeted Congresswoman Murat and her executive assistant. It was exciting to be part of a big machine with its parts and pieces nearly ready to engage. And not in the way its designer imagined.
The lopsided smile broadened.
How could dead history compare to rich, explosive lifel
* * *
THIRTY-EIGHT
Washington, D.C. Wednesday, 11:33 a.m.
The McCaskeys did not work very much when they got home.
They sat on the bed, pulled the laptop between them, and reviewed the list of possible suspects: Kendra Peterson, Kat Lockley, Dr. Hennepin.
Mike Rodgers had mentioned a reporter, Lucy O'Connor, who covered Congress and arrived very soon after both murders. The McCaskeys had looked up her background. The resume of everyone who had security clearance to the Capitol was filed online in the eyes-only section of the congressional web site. She wrote for the American Spectator and had a moderately successful syndicated radio talk show. She was a Pittsburgh native who had majored in communication at Carnegie-Mellon University.
"She also took their Interstellar Communication course and grabbed several credits from the Robotics Institute at the university's School of Computer Science," McCaskey remarked.
"What does that tell you?" Maria asked.
"She likes to think outside the coconut," he replied.
The couple went back to the police station. Howell's people had been doing some of the legwork they needed now. The Metro Police had obtained the addresses, license numbers, and make of car driven by each individual on their list of potential suspects. They also charted the location of security cameras closest to these people: parking garages, apartment lobbies, convenience stores, gas stations, banks, and traffic intersections. The latter were monitored for speeders and potential terrorists moving through the capital. Once the McCaskeys had these sites, they intended to go back out and visit