First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [98]
"Knock off the media-speak," Carson said testily. "This is my daughter we're talking about."
"Yessir." Paull rubbed his chin. "The ball is in your man's court. I've given McClure every ounce of freedom I possibly can without showing my hand to the POTUS."
Carson's frown deepened. "But is that going to be enough, Dennis?"
"I'd be lying if I said I knew for sure, sir. But you and McClure go back quite a ways, from what you tell me, and you've said he's the best man for the job."
"And I stand by that," the president-elect said stiffly.
"If it makes you feel any better," Paull went on, "my agent agrees with you."
"The only thing that's going to make me feel better is the safe return of my daughter."
There was a sudden noise outside, and both men went completely still. Paull held up a finger, crossed to the door, pulled it open quickly. One of the cleaning personnel was turning a corner. When he was out of sight, Paull ducked back into the men's room, shook his head in the negative.
"I had to deliver Yukin into the POTUS's hands," Paull said. "I had the evidence against Mikilin, and I gave it to the POTUS before he left for Moscow. I attended a celebration of sorts following the POTUS's return. He's got the Russian president in his back pocket now, so does he demand exports from RussOil, as I suggested? Does he forge a pact to create a joint strategic uranium reserve, as I also suggested? No, of course not. Instead, he's spent the ammunition I gave him obtaining Yukin's promise to back the POTUS when he makes his final national-policy address to the nation. In it, he's going to charge that the government has direct evidence that Beijing is funding E-Two, and that the First American Secular Revivalists are, in fact, a front for E-Two. And where d'you think that bogus evidence will come from? Moscow, of course. And no one will be able to say it's false." Paull crossed to the door once again, put his ear to it. Satisfied, he returned to where Carson waited for him. "The POTUS is going to declare war on the missionary secularists of any and every stripe."
"I want to help you, Dennis, but until Alli is returned to me safe and sound, my hands are tied. As long as there's a suspicion that either E-Two or the FASR is behind her abduction, I can't make a stand against the president."
"I understand your overriding concern here, sir, but we've had a complication."
Carson's blue eyes bored into the secretary's. "What kind of a complication?"
"The men I sent to keep McClure safe were compromised."
He'd caught the president-elect's full attention.
"Compromised in what way?"
"The POTUS's people gave them orders to terminate."
A deathly silence overtook them. "Jack's safe?"
"Yessir, he is."
"I don't want another incident like that," Carson said. "Am I being clear?"
Paull stiffened. He knew a rebuke when he heard one, and this one was well deserved. "Absolutely, sir." Somewhere along the line, his careful security net had been breached. He had to find out where with all possible haste.
Carson stepped away, regarded his pale, lined face in the mirror, then turned around. "Dennis, if the POTUS got on to your men, then he knows. Jack's not the only one in terrible danger. We are, too."
"Yessir." Paull nodded. "That's the goddamned truth of it."
THIRTY - THREE
IT HAD been a long time since Jack woke up with a splitting headache. He clambered out of bed with the unusual care of a mountain climber with vertigo. Crawling into the shower, he turned on the cold water full-blast so that no one would hear him screaming.
Ten minutes later, when Nina called, he had crawled out of the muck of the sea and had grown a spinal cord. He figured by the time she showed up, he had a chance of being halfway human.
Still, he insisted on driving them over to the All Around Town bakery. The day was cool but sunny, which made a welcome change of pace. But according to AccuWeather, there was another front coming in that wasn't afraid of dumping three inches of rain or something worse on them.
He