One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [28]
We have real work to do now. The words had hit Standish as hard as a physical slap. He had seen some of the advisors fighting to suppress a smirk. He left feeling a burning shame. He realized at that moment that money wasn’t the Holy Grail. Power was.
Standish began putting his talents to use getting a key to the doors of power. He had worked hand in hand with the same people who had smirked at him in that suite and he knew he was just as intelligent as they were. Someday he’d jam that smirk straight up their ass. He didn’t have the experience or backing to join the political fray, but there were other ways to get on the inside. When Payton Warren began his first run for president, Standish had eagerly signed on. Simultaneously, he began his research, looking for a position to which the president could appoint him, should he win. He found it in the National Security Council.
Created by the National Security Act of 1947, the same act that had created the Air Force, Central Intelligence Agency, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the NSC was designed to help the executive branch synchronize political and military affairs. What Standish found attractive was that the statute dictated who would be on the council by law, but, unlike other organizations such as the CIA and the DOD, it didn’t specify any congressional oversight. It was one of the most powerful entities in the U.S. government, but the legislative branch had no control over its activities. In effect, it served one man: the president. Outside of the members mandated by law, the president could appoint anyone to the council for anything. Perfect. Since its creation in 1947, Standish saw that the NSC had evolved into a byzantine organization that fluctuated every time administrations changed, making it hard to ascertain who was doing what—exactly what he needed.
He had read about the NSC under President Reagan, and had become fascinated at how a mere lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps named Oliver North, working as a junior staffer at the NSC, had managed to create a complete clandestine infrastructure and manipulate foreign policy on a grand scale. The fact that it had eventually unraveled, splashing into the history books as the Iran-Contra affair, did little to temper him. Clearly, the people involved weren’t his caliber.
He had worked hard on the president’s campaign, proving to be more indispensable than ever before, with his information critical in the political fight. After the election, he asked for and received an appointment as a do-nothing member of an inconsequential subcouncil on the NSC’s statutory Committee on Foreign Intelligence. He went to work, using his skills to build what he wanted. In three short years he had managed to create the Deputy Committee for Special Activities, and had slowly but surely been included in the mission planning for all covert operations. If it was a secret operation on foreign soil, he knew about it. And knowledge was something he knew how to use.
He had come a long way since that late-night meeting. The memory still made his face flush, but that would fade. Soon, it would be him asking people to leave the room.
Standish was startled out of his thoughts by a knock on his door, followed by the president’s national security advisor, Alexander Palmer, entering the room.
“Hey, Harold, you got a minute?”
Standish stood up and put on his kiss-ass face, wondering why his boss was here unannounced.
“Sure, sir. All the time you need. How can I help you?”
Palmer took a seat without being asked. “It’s about the Taskforce meeting we just left. Kurt has some concerns about your line of questioning, and frankly, so do I.”
That fucking crybaby, Standish thought, what did he say?
“Okay,” he said, waiting on Palmer to continue.
“I let you on the Oversight Council because it seemed to fit the office here, but your primary purpose is simply to absorb what’s said so you can see how it affects other activities