Executive orders - Tom Clancy [278]
Let 'em eat cake? the chief of staff said.
We can't say hot dogs, can we? Kealty asked. Then he smiled broadly. Finally.
Finally, another aide agreed.
THE RESULTS WERE all equivocal. The FBI polygrapher had been working all morning, and every single set of tracings on the fan-fold paper was iffy. It couldn't be helped. An all-night session, they'd all told him, looking into something important which he wasn't cleared for. That made it the Iran/Iraq situation, of course. He could watch CNN as well as anyone. The men he'd put on the box were all tired and irritable, and some had fluttered badly on telling him their proper names and job descriptions, and the whole exercise had been useless. Probably.
Did I pass? Rutledge asked, when he took off the pressurized armband in the manner of someone who'd done this all before.
Well, I'm sure you've been told before-
It's not a pass-or-fail examination process, the Under Secretary of State said tiredly. Yeah, tell that to somebody who lost his clearance because of a session on the box. I hate the damned things, always have.
It was right up-or down-there with being a dentist, the FBI agent thought, and though he was one of the best around at this particular black art, he'd learned nothing this day that would help the investigation. The session you had last night-
Rutledge cut him off cold. Can't discuss it, sorry.
No, I mean, this sort of thing normal here?
It will be for a while, probably. Look, you know what it's about, probably. The agent nodded, and the Under Secretary did the same.
Fine. Then you know it's a big deal, and we're going to be burning a lot of midnight oil over it, especially my people. So, lots of coffee and long hours and short tempers. He checked his watch. My working group gets together in ten minutes. Anything else?
No, sir.
Thanks for a fun ninety minutes, Rutledge said, heading for the door. It was so easy. You just had to know how the things worked. They wanted relaxed and peaceful subjects to get proper results-the polygraph essentially measured tension induced by awkward questions. So make everybody tense. That was simple enough. And really the Iranians were doing the work. All he had to do was stoke the fires a little. That was good for a smile as he entered the executive washroom.
THERE. MOVIE STAR checked his watch and made a further mental note. Two men walked out of the private dwelling. One of them turned to say something as he closed the door. They walked to the parking lot of Giant Steps, eyes scanning around in a way that identified them as positively as uniforms and rifles. The Chevy Suburban emerged from the private garage. A good hiding place, but a little too obvious to the skilled observer. Two children came out together, one led by a woman, the other by a man yes, the one who'd been in the shadowed doorway when they'd gone out for their afternoon playtime. Large man, formidable one. Two women, one in front, one behind. All the heads turning and scanning. They took the child to a plain car. The Suburban halted in front of the driveway, and the other cars followed it down the highway, with a police car, he saw, fifteen seconds behind.
It would be a difficult task, but not an impossible one,