Beloved Enemy Read Free Page B

off.
    “Nona,” Jack said, “what the hell is going on?”
    She turned to him, her beautiful chocolate-brown face shining with the sweat of effort of their narrow escape. “Secretary Paull is dead,” she said. “And the feds are convinced you killed him.”

 
    T WO
    “T HIS IS a tragedy of the highest order.” President Arlen Crawford looked at each of the five grim-faced men seated around the table in his bunker-like situation room. He was a big, rangy, sun-scarred Texan, a veteran of political wars on both the state and national levels. He had been vice president during the previous short-lived administration, had survived a Senate debate, and had now been elected president in his own right. “The secretary of homeland security is shot in the middle of the nation’s capital.”
    “In his own home, no less,” said Kinkaid Marshall, the director of the newly minted DCS, as he stared directly at Henry Dickinson, the acting director of homeland security. The Defense Clandestine Services was formed from the old DIA. Its mission was to beef up the U.S. intelligence presence in Africa, parts of Asia, and other Al Qaeda hotspots.
    “Maybe I misheard you; I certainly hope I misheard you,” Dickinson said. “Are you insinuating this is my fault?” He was quite naturally on edge; though Paull had named him to director, the president had yet to sign off on the promotion.
    “I’m saying Dennis Paull was your boss. I’m saying that it was your duty to protect him. I’m saying you failed.”
    The antipathy between the two men was well known, stemming from Marshall’s objection to Dennis Paull promoting Dickinson when Paull was bumped up to HS secretary by President Crawford. Marshall was a battle-hardened Army general of no little merit, the kind of ex-military officer who saw life as a constant battle between the public and the private sectors, in other words, between those who “knew how things worked,” as he was wont to say, and those who didn’t. To him, those outside the military command structure were basically dumb and uninformed. Overlords, such as he, were needed to save the private sector from its own stupidity. He was blind to the irony of his mission—how the very act of keeping secrets kept civilians uninformed.
    “Dennis had adequate protection,” Dickinson protested. “No one could have known, let alone guessed, that he and his security detail would be shot to death by his own man, Jack McClure.”
    “You should have known, Dicky.” The nasty edge to Marshall’s voice became razor-sharp. “It was your job to know these things.”
    Tim Malone, director of the FBI, stirred uneasily as he turned to address G. Robert Krofft, director of the CIA. “Speaking of ‘should have known,’ I can’t for the life of me fathom what your boys were doing at Dennis Paull’s house,” he said.
    “When the director of DHS gets shot by one of his own men,” Krofft said frostily, “it’s bound to be a matter of national security. And if the killer was directed by forces outside the United States—”
    “That’s a mighty big ‘if,’” the president said.
    “And in the meantime, you’re getting your shit all over my jurisdiction,” Malone said, his tone frosty. “Back off. If and when you’re needed—”
    “By that time, every trail is bound to be cold.”
    “Well, it’s a good thing my men got there first because they found this .”
    He spun a dossier across the table. Everyone stared at it as if he had loosed a viper into their midst. Krofft shot him a venomous look.
    William Rogers, the national security advisor, spoke up. “What the hell is that, Tim?”
    Leaning forward, Malone flipped open the dossier. “It’s one of Paull’s personal files. We found it hidden under one of the locked drawers.” Malone paused to take a breath, but also, one supposed, to underscore the importance of his find. “Gentlemen, there’s a mole high up inside our government. Paull believed—and here