The Prime Minister appeared to be in shock as he stared at Jackson. Finally, in a voice much different from the adamant one he’d used before, he said, “You have no proof of any of this.”
“That’s absolutely true. And in any case, what the conspiracy wanted is not going to happen because we didn’t lose the document. The only thing we need to do now is figure out what comes next. What we’ve discovered—possibly discovered if you want to think of it that way—is a massive conspiracy. How many people are involved, we don’t know. We also don’t know if the Russians are involved or the only objective is to put a new Prime Minister in power.
“We’ve recently seen what lengths someone will go to illegally maintain their presidency of the U.S., and how many sycophants will join in just to ride on the coattails of that power. They sold their souls and were treasonous just to breathe that rarified air. It’s probably not puerile to think that people in this country could have the same ambitions and the same lack of patriotism or morality. Who said power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely? I think it was an Englishman!”
“It was. Lord Acton. And no, the U.S. doesn’t have a monopoly on greed and moral turpitude.” Mr. Commoder stood up. Then he sat down again. “We do have one of the conspirators in custody. We’ll get something out of him, though of course he might just be hired muscle and not know who hired him.”
Jan spoke up. “Another thing is to find out who’s tapping your phones. That’s more likely to lead you to people in the conspiracy.”
Jackson nodded. “And I need to talk to our President. If I can manage to do that. I think you, sir, were easier to talk to than he’ll be, but we may have problems, too, in the State Department and the CIA. I can’t go through them to talk to him because whoever I approach might be dirty. It occurs to me my best chance of meeting him one-on-one would be through you. You may be able to get me an audience with him. I assume you have a very secure way to communicate with him. But maybe you don’t. How did they learn that the document was still here?”
“We have encrypted phones. They should be secure, but we can change the encryption coding, and we will before we speak again. Only phones that have that new and specific encryption will be able to receive the calls.”
“Then can you do that? Set up a way I can clandestinely see the President?”
“Yes, I’ll do that today.”
“Great. The next thing is, I need a ride back to the U.S. that isn’t the one Asher set up for me. I doubt I’d survive that one. I want Jan to go with me, so we need to fly into an airport that will avoid customs. In other words, a private jet that has U.S. approval to enter their airspace and land, and all this done in secret. Can such a thing be arranged?”
The Prime Minister smiled. “Certainly. I’ll get it set up for you and Jan to fly into the U.S. and get to see the President, all, as you say, clandestinely.” He smiled. “You’d make a good undercover agent.”
Jackson actually smiled back, though he felt much less confidence than he was displaying. He was quite proud of how he was handling himself and disappointed it had taken him so long to get to this point.
> ( <
The plane was a six-seat Bombardier jet. Jackson was surprised to see he and Jan were the only passengers. There were two pilots and a stewardess. Jackson wasn’t sure who was picking up the tab for this, but it wasn’t him.
“Why am I going along?” Jan asked. They were boarding at a private airfield just outside London. There was someone in a tower and a ground person outside, but that was it. Their driver had dropped them off and already left. Jackson had asked for as few people as possible to know of their departure, and that had been arranged.
They’d spent a second night at Knowles House, which delighted Jan. He hadn’t put up a fuss, though, when he heard Jackson wanted him to come to Washington. He’d spent the night and much of the next day with Tyler. But when the PM called and gave the itinerary to Jackson, Jan was ready to go when the time came.
The PM had sent a car for them. They’d stopped and bought some things on the way to the airfield. Clothing and toiletries, mostly. A few other items and small kitbags to carry their purchases. Jackson still had most of the cash Asher had given him. He also had a fake UK passport; Jan had one, too. They didn’t know if they’d need them, but better to be prepared than not, Jackson thought.
“You didn’t mind leaving Tyler?” Jackson asked when they were, preparing to take off before taxiing out.
“He is wonderful. But hey, he was my first, and I don’t mean to be exclusive at my age. And I’m the wandering sort, and he’s stuck at school. We weren’t meant to be life partners. Ships passing in the night, but man, what a voyage that was.” He watched out the window as the plane left the ground. “Anyway, why am I going with you?”
“I like the way you think and react. You’re perceptive, and I’m not. You see things others don’t, and you can think ahead to possibilities I miss. We make a good team.”
Jan snickered. “I do notice things you don’t, that’s for sure. You probably haven’t noticed the stowaway on this flight.”
Jackson jerked up straight, twisting his head around. The plane only had four rows of double seats, then a small galley and the cockpit plus a toilet cubicle at the back. He didn’t see anyone else other than glimpses of the stewardess working in the galley.
He’d asked one of the security people, the group now tighter than ever around the PM, if he and Jan should be armed heading back to Washington and been advised against it. If they met with trouble, they were told, having guns and trying to use them would make them more likely to be shot than if they didn’t put up armed resistance. Right now, though, he wished he had one.
“Where?” he asked, unfastening his seatbelt so he could move if he had to.
“Up there,” Jan said, and pointed toward the galley.
Jackson looked again up front, and this time as he glanced that way, he noticed a head being quickly jerked back out of sight. It was a small head, and it was much lower than a head should have been.
He was still watching when Jan yelled, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
Jackson heard a giggle. Then a small boy came out and walked down the aisle to where they were sitting.
“Hi,” the boy said, not bashful at all, which Jackson found surprising. The kid wouldn’t be older than six; he probably was five. Jackson expected kids that age to be shy. He’d been shy. It was natural, wasn’t it?
The boy said, “I’m Bwody. Who’re you?”
He was looking at Jackson, who had the aisle seat, so Jackson answered. “I’m Jackson. You’re Bwody? Oh, wait. Brody, right? But I’ll call you Bwody if you’d like.”
The kid scowled. “I know I can’t say it wight, but you don’t have to give me any cwap about it. I’m woking on it. Lots of kids have pwoblems with ahs. I’m twying.”
“I’m sorry! I wasn’t making fun of you. But I do have a question for you: why are you on my plane?”
“You’a silly. It’s my mom’s plane, not yous.”
“Aha! So that’s your mom up front.”
“Yeah. I fly with hea all the time. It’s my plane moah than yous.”
Just then the woman came from the galley with a tray of drinks. She smiled when she saw her son with them. She spoke to Jackson. “I see you’ve met Brody.”
“He’s great,” Jackson said. “Not bashful at all.”
“No, that’s one thing he isn’t. It’s also time for him to go to bed.” She opened a tray table on the seat across the aisle from them and placed the tray of drinks on it, then said, “Come on, Brody. Way past your bedtime. Let’s get you settled.”
“Okay,” Brody said, then turned to Jackson. “Nice meeting you.”
When they were gone, Jan laughed at Jackson. “Getting told what’s what by a five-year-old. Yeah, I guess it is a good thing you brought me along.”
Jackson ignored the teasing. “I love seeing a kid that age with all the self-confidence in the world. You know, you’re just like that, Jan. All confidence. I never had any. Just now starting to get some.”
“I’ve been depending on myself for a long time now,” Jan said. “When you have to do that and you get by, you start to see you can make it by yourself, especially if you keep your eyes and ears open and trust your instincts. I’ve learned to trust myself.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here with me. I’m not sure what we’ll be facing, but I’ve got an audience with the President, and you’ll be with me for that, and then, what comes next, I don’t know.”
“We’ll see. So far, so good.” Jan grinned at him, then reclined his seat, and within minutes, was sleeping.
> ( <
They landed at an airfield that was as deserted as the one they’d taken off from. They’d left England late at night, and it was now early morning in the U.S. As in England, there was a man out of sight in the tower and a man on the ground to put chocks under the wheels.
The stewardess opened the cabin door, and the ground man rolled some steps up to the door. Jackson and Jan stretched, picked up their kitbags and left the plane.
There was a car and a driver waiting for them. The driver stepped out to meet them.
“Hi, guys. I’m Ryan McKendrick. FBI and sort of a handyman slash bodyguard, I guess. Hopefully, the latter won’t be necessary, but the President told me to make sure you were protected. Just so you know, he and I were in college together, roommates one year, and are good friends. I’d do anything for him. So, do you need to find a room somewhere and rest, or do you want to go directly to the White House?”
Jackson glanced at Jan who simply shrugged, leaving what they did up to Jackson.
“I’d like to meet with the President as soon as we can.”
“Great. He’d prefer that, too. So, let’s ride.”
The car was unmarked and had tinted windows. Jan got in back; Jackson took the front passenger seat.
Ryan gave him a quick look and said, “I won’t talk at all about what you’ve been doing the past few days, though President Campbell has clued me in. I’ll be there when he debriefs you, but he said you’d probably be wary of anyone you met, and he wants you comfortable. So, we can talk about anything else or simply ride silently; I’ll leave it up to you.”
Ryan had a very congenial aspect. He was of an indeterminable age, late middle or older, and he didn’t set off any alarms with Jackson. Jackson asked him how long it would take to get to the White House and the procedures they’d follow when they were there, and Ryan spoke at length.
It was a forty-five minute trip from the time they’d landed till they were walking into the West Wing. Being with Ryan had made entry relatively easy. His credentials and the fact people knew him had cleared the way.
The President was waiting for them in the Oval Office. Jackson was duly impressed. Jan seemed to take everything in stride.
“So, let’s cut to the chase,” President Campbell said when they were seated and Jan’s presence explained. “First, do you have the document that’s caused all this fuss? I’ve been waiting to read it. The Prime Minister thought it best not to email it and the diplomatic pouch won’t reach me till later.”
Jackson took the document he’d been carrying out of his jacket pocket and handed it to the man. The President put on a pair of reading glasses and read the papers through. Then he looked up at Jackson.
“You’ve read this?”
“Well, not this copy. The original was checked for fingerprints. Then it was burned. The Prime Minister decided not to take a chance on it falling into the wrong hands with his prints on it. So we Xeroxed it, made copies, and that’s what you’re holding. I read the original and not this.”
The President grinned. “I see you’re very literal. Good. I like things factual and explicit. But what you’ve been told by the Prime Minister is true. I have no knowledge of this. It wasn’t created by our State Department, either. The man you knew as Asher was a rogue agent, probably a Russian plant here. We’ll find him eventually.
“The thing is, we now suspect this is a rather large conspiracy, and we’re going to get Justice involved in the investigation. We need to find out who’s behind this and how many people he has with him; we need to do it quickly. It’ll be a major undertaking. The same is occurring in England. Everyone in government will have to be vetted again. I want to personally thank you for what you’ve done and congratulate you for staying alive.
“You were hired by the CIA, and you can return to that job if you want. But I’m wondering if, after this, you might have a taste for more exciting work. You’ve earned some credit for being a quick thinker, and you performed under fire. Until this is over, we want you to stand down and remain safe. We have several safe houses in the area. Ryan knows one that is way off the grid that only a handful of people know of. I’ve considered Camp David, but I think a safe house is better.
“I’m afraid it’s going to be quite a task, learning how many people are in the conspiracy you’ve ferreted out. So, I can’t tell you how long you’re to be kept under wraps. We don’t have any lever to shorten the investigation. Our hope is, we can find someone soon and squeeze them. That may crack this open.”
The President stood, so Jackson, Jan and Ryan did, too.
“Thanks again, and Ryan will take charge of you now. Any questions you have, he can answer.”
“May I say something, sir?”
Everyone turned to look at Jan.
“Certainly.” The President nodded to him. “What is it?”
“I’ve been thinking about the conspiracy stuff. Seems to me that you’re right, there are several people involved, and they’re on both sides of the Atlantic. That being the case, they’d have to have a way of identifying each other or knowing the person they were talking to was one of their own. Doesn’t that make sense?”
Both the President and Ryan nodded.
“Okay, then. Maybe it seems a little amateurish—or cloak-and-daggerish—but if these people have to communicate with people they’ve never met and need to know the guy they’re talking to is inside the group, wouldn’t they have a code word or something like that that only those in the conspiracy would know? They set it up that way with a driver in Denmark, so they were using that trick already.”
Again, both men nodded. The President looked at Ryan, and Ryan asked Jan, “What are you suggesting?”
Jan said, “Well, I heard something. Jackson says I’m perceptive and notice things others don’t. Well, maybe that’s so. See, when the house we were in was attacked, the first casualty was the guard at the gate. He was shot by a guy named Conroy who had been hired to be there to open the gate for the attackers. Conroy shot the gatekeeper, then opened the gate for those guys to get in.
“We were in the room setting up to protect ourselves when we heard the shot. Everyone in the room heard it because Mrs. Tyreman, one of us, was talking to the gatekeeper over their intercom. She was intending to warn him that hostiles were coming aiming to take the house, and he’d better either retreat to a safe position or be prepared for battle. That was when Conroy came up and shot him.
“But when Conroy entered the gatehouse, he didn’t just shoot him. He said something, then shot him.”
Jan turned to Jackson and asked, “Do you remember that?”
Jackson shook his head. “I remember Mrs. Tyreman saying his name, Lloyd, and then hearing the shot. I don’t remember anything else.”
“Well, Conroy said a word. That word was, well, what it sounded like was ‘you-datcha’. The gatekeeper didn’t respond, and was shot. I think Conroy was checking if the guy was in on the conspiracy, he used his code word to find that out, Lloyd didn’t supply the answering word, and so he was fair game. Conroy shot him.”
The President was listening with a furrowed brow. Jackson was worried Jan was taking too long. Jan wasn’t affected at all.
“I speak a few languages,” he continued. “Most kids growing up in Northern Europe do. Russian isn’t one of them, but I do know a few words. The word something like ‘you-datcha’ in Russian means ‘luck’. I don’t know how to spell it, and anyway, the Russians have a funny alphabet, and all I can say is that the word Conroy used sounds like ‘you-datcha’.
“I’ve never heard the reply word. But I’ve read that you guys have a whole lot of computers monitoring phone calls all over the world. Maybe that’s just romantic or thriller fiction, but my thought is, if they’re real, they could look for conversations in England and the U.S. that include that word. As it isn’t a word in English, there wouldn’t be a lot of finds. When they did find it, there’s a good chance you could then learn the reply word. Knowing those two words and who used them, you’d have a way to again use the computers to learn who’s in the conspiracy.”
The President looked at Ryan, who gave him a short nod, agreeing that what Jan was saying was possible.
Jan wasn’t finished. “Then it gets better, because once you have a few conspirators in custody, there’ll be a race between them to be the first to rat out everyone else as the one who’s first to name names will get the most lenient jail sentence.”
The President looked from Jan to Ryan, and then shook his head and asked, “Who is this guy?”
Ryan laughed. “I think he’ll end up in a few years doing great things working for the CIA,” he said.
And Jackson said to Jan, “That’s why I brought you along.”
Jan smiled and said to Ryan. “I don’t think the CIA would want me. I’m gay.”
Ryan winked at him and said, “So are a lot of us. Welcome to the club.”