Sedition (A Political Conspiracy Book 1) (2 page)

“And if you recall,” he continued, “that same order 12333 directs all departments and agencies to share the responsibility of gathering intelligence.

“SIGINT,” he offered without averting his glare, “is what the Congress asks publicly of us. But there are cases in which it is better we ask forgiveness than permission. This, Harrold, is one of those cases. Are you up to this?”

Matti frowned. “Yes, sir.”

She wanted to remind her boss the NSA was an agency born from a single memorandum in 1951. CIA director Walter Bedell Smith wrote to then secretary of the National Security Council, James Lay, that ‘control over, and coordination of, the collection and processing of Communications Intelligence had proved ineffective’. The memo suggested a detailed study of communications intelligence, which was approved and completed by mid-1952.

But here she was now with all of that history shoved into a box marked “irrelevant”. Tradition did not matter; this was about the future.

“Since 9/11,” her supervisor instructed, “we have found ourselves stepping on the toes of every acronym you can name.” He was leaning back in his chair, his hand still on the closed folder. “It is a painful dance amongst competing agencies that keeps us safe. To that end, our ‘responsibility’ is not limited to SIGINT. If anything, you should know that the Paris bombings, the Brussels attacks, all of them are giving us the ammunition we need to more effectively counteract the damage Snowden did.”

Matti wished she’d never challenged her boss. It was unlike her to question authority. There was an order to things that she always accepted. But this assignment puzzled Matti. It was out of order. It didn’t follow the prescribed rules.
Maybe
, she thought,
that was why I questioned the validity of the charge
. She rubbed her elbows with her fingers.

Her boss nodded. “We have an asset who has alerted us to a scenario that may require drastic action on our part. You’ll be the primary contact, will handle all levels and types of intelligence from this asset, and keep me informed of what you learn. We are on a tight time frame here. I need real, actionable information.” He pushed the file folder across the desk to Matti and waved his hand to shoo her from his office.

She picked up the folder and stood to leave. As she reached for the handle of the door, she stopped and turned.

“Sir?” She wanted crystal clarity.

He’d turned his back to her and was beginning to punch numbers into his gray phone. “Yes?”

“I report to you alone? I await contact from the asset? I do not initiate, correct?”

“Yes to each of your questions. Gray line only. Nothing emailed. Period. And nothing written unless it is sent to me alone.”

“Why me, sir?” Matti ran her fingers through her hair and tilted her head slightly. She was unclear why a mid-level SIGINT analyst had been chosen for such an unusual, high-level assignment. It didn’t fit the pattern.

He stopped dialing and turned to look her in the eye. “The asset requested a woman handler,” he said. “We obliged. There is additional ongoing surveillance. You will have access to what I determine you need. And as it states in the guidebook, which I am sure you’ve memorized, everything is ‘need to know’ only.”

“Understood.” She assumed that was why, until that moment, dealing with human intelligence as an NSA analyst had never entered her mind.

Until now she’d never needed to know.

Chapter 2

Sir Spencer Thomas stirred the Chivas Regal Royal Salute with his left pinkie then sucked the rare liquid from his finger.

He’d saved the fifty-year-old scotch since 2003 when it was gifted to him at the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Now was as good a time as any to self-medicate with a ten-thousand-dollar bottle of Strathisla malted scotch.

From his high-back, brown leather chair in his suite at the Hay-Adams Hotel, he could see the White House, the Washington Monument, and the fifty-two-inch LCD television alit with coverage of President Foreman’s sudden death. The news was minutes old and already the spin doctors were talking succession.

The body isn’t even cold yet
, he thought and crossed his legs.

He took a sip from the leaded glass and listened to the commentary on television.

“What complicates matters so much,”
opined the pundit on the screen,
“is that the president’s death comes so soon after the prolonged illness and death of the former vice president. It leaves us with a bit of a constitutional crisis. The replacement nominee is confirmed but hasn’t taken the oath. Does this mean the Speaker of the House becomes president? Does she take the reins only until VP nominee Blackmon is sworn in? Who is in control right now?”

At the bottom of the screen flashed a crawl of announcements. Sir Spencer muted the television as he read the information moving from right to left across the screen.

Wall Street trading suspended after sharp 900-point drop. Mourners gather outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Cabinet meets in emergency session in White House. Leadership vacuum not a concern, says Speaker Jackson. Doctors say Foreman’s last checkup revealed no health issues. Aneurysm suspected in President Foreman’s sudden death. Autopsy is scheduled for late tonight with results tomorrow
.

Sir Spencer took another sip. The scotch was smooth and it finished with a creamy taste. He stood from the chair, using his left hand to balance his six-foot-five-inch frame as he rose. It was a simple task that had become increasingly difficult with age and indulgence. Sighing, he stepped to the window overlooking the People’s House and thought about the incredible opportunity fate had chosen to bestow upon him.

The possibilities!

He believed deeply in a broad, one-world government in which all people were protected and managed with equanimity. That government would need a strong America to lead the way.

The death of a president and the ensuing uncertainty might be exactly what was needed for America to regain her authority and rightful place in the hierarchy of nations as the transformation of global power began its needed shift.

This is what we’ve waited for. This is our opportunity.

Sir Spencer reached into the inside breast pocket of his cashmere jacket. He pulled out his encrypted cell phone and punched a series of numbers with his thumb, pressed send, and slipped the phone back into the pocket.

“
A Deo et Rege,”
he murmured as he again lifted the glass to his lips.
From God and the King
. He could smell the strength of the scotch.

*

For American university undergraduates not prone to rising early, the news of President Foreman’s death was as much an excuse as it was a reason to miss class.

Professor Arthur Thistlewood knew this, but he did not excuse from class the few who showed up for his American Government survey. Instead he found it to be the perfect teaching tool.

“The order of succession for the presidency,” he started, “who knows what it is?”

“Vice president,” offered a pimply boy in the fourth row, “then Speaker of the House.”

“After that?” asked Thistlewood with his back to the auditorium. He wrote on an overhead projector. Most teachers employed computerized versions of the display. They used PowerPoint and other software to share their chalkboard musings. Thistlewood was bourgeois.

“The cabinet?” said a young woman in the back of the room.

It always amazed Thistlewood that students would actually pay to sit in the back. If he were a rock star or a stand-up comic, they’d shell out big money to sit in the front. But in college, they paid their sixty thousand dollars a year to sit in the back.

“Not yet,” responded the handsome professor, rubbing the white scruff on his chin, eyeing the robust blonde in the third row. He paused and then counted with his fingers. “The president pro tempore of the Senate is next. He or she is followed by the cabinet: the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, and the Attorney General. Then it’s the Secretaries of Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, HUD, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security.”

“What happens if they all die at the same time?” the boy in the fourth row asked with all seriousness. It drew some snickers.

“Good question.” Thistlewood pointed at the boy as he turned toward the class. “And that is virtually impossible.”

“Why?”

“One of those in line must always be separated. For example, when Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was the ‘designated successor’. They sent him to an undisclosed location. Had something catastrophic happened, he would have survived to provide what’s called a ‘continuity of government’.”

“Why are the cabinet members after the Speaker and the president of the Senate?” A third student was now engaged. Thistlewood could hear the rusty gears turning slowly in his students’ heads. He eyed the third-row blonde again and imagined her wearing far less than a sweatshirt and jeans.
Maybe next semester.

“Favoritism,” Thistlewood responded. “By having elected officials at the top of the succession list, it prevents the president from essentially handpicking all potential successors. It was a key point of the 1947 Act of Presidential Succession.

“Some constitutional scholars would argue the placement of the Speaker of the House and the Senate president pro tempore ahead of any cabinet ‘officer’ is unconstitutional,” continued Thistlewood. “But that’s how the law is written.”

Thistlewood scanned the classroom, trying to catch the expressions of the few dozen students seated in front of him. He saw mixed interest and then felt a vibration against his hip.

“Tell you what,” he reasoned aloud while checking his iPhone. “I’m going to leave a notebook up here for each of you to sign. Everyone who attended today gets ten points added to the next quiz.”

After looking up from the series of numbers displayed on the screen, he again surveyed his students. A few sat up straighter. Some nodded and smiled at the student closest to them. Thistlewood knew how to enthuse.

*

The Hanover-Crown Institute was in a nondescript limestone, iron and glass building on South Street in Georgetown, halfway between Wisconsin Avenue and Thirty-First Street NW, just a block from The Shops at Georgetown Park.

It stood three stories tall, not including a below-grade basement garage for employees and special guests. On the flat roof of the brownstone-style structure, hidden by the façade, was a pair of small satellite dishes. One of them received television signals and the other uplinked them.

The Institute was a nonpartisan think tank that had neither the prestige nor financial prowess of the Brookings Institution. It resembled a European institute in that its research was heavy on opinion while being somewhat light on number crunching and measurable analysis.

Hanover’s gem was a small production studio it used to showcase its higher-profile opinion-shapers. One of them was former attorney general Bill Davidson. He was a legacy politician whose father had served two presidents in varying capacities. While not much of a success as AG, Davidson knew Washington politics. He knew where the deals were made and where the bodies were buried. In that capacity, he was valuable to Hanover-Crown.

The cable networks loved Davidson. He was always good for a sound bite or an unfiltered opinion of whatever was happening inside the beltway. Because the networks loved Davidson, Hanover-Crown loved him.

There were deep furrows across his lengthening brow. His eyes were sunken and puffy; the skin beneath his brow was melting onto the lids. He lamented the sky blue surrounding his pupils had long ago faded to a soft gray, as though the life was slowly leaving them.

Davidson’s strong jaw and chin were diffused by the skin and fat surrounding them. His ill-fitting bridge made his gums smack when he talked. Given his high profile, he knew it was ridiculous to live with bad dental work, but there was something comforting in the familiarity of the old bridge.

Almost everyone saw him as a famous statesman and pundit, but Bill Davidson couldn’t get past the aging, sad man staring back at him in the reflective glass above the sink. He was a good actor.

He would call on that skill for the next three hours as he prepared to sit in the studio as a guest on various cable news programs. They all wanted his take on the constitutional questions surrounding the president’s death.

As he applied a light powder to his forehead to reduce shine from the studio lights, there was a knock at the bathroom door.

“Attorney General Davidson?” It was the studio coordinator. “We have about five minutes, and I need to get you wired up, sir.”

“Okay,” replied Davidson through a face stretched to apply makeup in the right places. “I’m on my way.”

Davidson shook the makeup brush free of light chocolate powder and placed it in its plastic sleeve. He was slipping it into his pants pocket when his Blackberry vibrated against his hip. He pulled it from the clip attached to his belt and saw he had a new text message. Davidson pulled open the bathroom door with his right hand as he pressed the text icon with his left thumb. He saw a series of coded numbers on the screen.

He looked at his watch and sighed, knowing it would be a late night. He then pulled from his coat pocket a small blue journal. It was a diary of notes he kept with him everywhere he went. It was useful for thoughts and appointments.

A habit he first acquired in law school, it had stuck with him. At home in a file cabinet, he had stacks of small journals, each of them filled with almost indecipherable numbers and notes. He pulled a ballpoint pen from the same pocket and yanked off the cap with his teeth. He quickly jotted the series of numbers onto an empty page, recapped the pen, and put both items back in the pocket.

Davidson slid into the studio and sat in a low-back leather chair, rubbing his palms along the brass nail heads on its arms.