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  Warfield knew of Cross even before then. He had been a business leader in the news often during a three-year battle to save Berington Pacific, a Fortune 100 company, from bankruptcy and his name had become a household word. The president had grown up on a farm, gone to Yale and then to Harvard Law where he graduated third in his class.

  Warfield cleared security at the White House compound’s Northwest Appointment Gate and inside was escorted to a waiting area where Paula Newnan soon appeared. “Knew you couldn’t wait any longer to see me,” she said. Warfield had learned he could rely on Paula. She’d cut through bureaucratic red tape for him more than once but always gave President Cross the credit. “The boss says I am to always accommodate you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t get the time of day from me, Cameo,” she said, laughing. Warfield had her birthday in a reminder file and always called her. They had lunch or a beer now and then and she had enough self-confidence to rag him any time she found an opportunity.

  She parked Warfield in a small office in the basement that she said was rarely used.

  Cross walked in a few minutes later carrying a thin leather folder and stuck out his hand. At six-foot-one he was about an inch taller than Warfield and maybe ten pounds heavier. Warfield hadn’t seen him for a few months except on TV. He still had an athletic build, a full head of hair that matched the silver-gray suit he wore and an easy smile.

  “Glad you could come, Cam.” The president’s handshake was rock solid.

  “Mr. President.”

  Cross gestured toward a pair of leather chairs separated by a corner table. An aide brought in coffee and pastries and closed the door when she left.

  Cross said, “You’re looking well, Cam. Fleming DeGrande must be taking good care of you.”

  Even though Cross and Fleming had met on a few occasions, Cross always referred to her by her first and last names.

  “As always. But she’s as busy as I am. We meet up on weekends.”

  “Marryin’ that girl, Cam?”

  “Not sure she’d have me. And how’s the first lady?”

  Cross smiled as he took a croissant off the tray. “I’ll tell her you asked. She’s fine. She never dreamed it would be like this, the public life. Handles it okay I guess, after two years.”

  “And her husband?”

  Cross laughed. “Ah, her husband. That’s another question. I can’t say I was ready either, but I asked for it. Truth is, I like the action. I think my blood pressure optimizes when things are hovering around the edges of chaos. Which brings me to the reason I invited you here, Cam.” Cross paused and locked onto Warfield’s eyes. “There’s a mole. He’s locked up—at least for now. CIA operator named Joplan, Harvey Joplan.

  Warfield nodded, wondering how he fit into this picture.

  “I need you back in, Cam. For awhile.”

  So that was it. It had been a long time since Warfield worked in the field. At Lone Elm, he taught others how to do it—at least the mechanics and theory of it. But the art of intelligence and counterintelligence was something like having a talent for the violin. Either the candidates who come to Lone Elm have something on the ball or they achieve mediocrity.

  Warfield loved action but Lone Elm was his life now. He was responsible to the people who came there for training, to the army and to his employees, but he owed the president the courtesy of listening. He waited for Cross to continue.

  Cross briefed Warfield on the FBI’s investigation of Joplan. They had been trying for months to get enough evidence to convict him before they arrested him but ten days ago he was boarding a flight to Paris and they had to pick him up before they wanted to. Joplan was not cooperating and the FBI director, Earl Fullwood, couldn’t give Cross any assurance that he ever would. Of course the most urgent problem was to find out who Joplan’s present contact was. Then they would determine the damage he’d done within the CIA and attempt to mitigate it.

  The FBI had filed an affidavit in federal court detailing what it had on Joplan so far, in order to persuade the judge to allow the Bureau to search his house, office, cars and computer hard drives. The judge was reluctant based on the slender evidence but agreed to the searches with the condition that Joplan would be released in seven days unless substantial new evidence was uncovered.

  With that said, Cross paused and looked at Warfield.

  Warfield still wasn’t clear on why Cross needed him. The Bureau understood the requirements and had the people to press the investigation. That was what the Bureau did, wasn’t it?

  “So what did you have in mind for me, Mr. President?”

  “Take Joplan over.”

  Warfield was stunned.

  He didn’t think highly of FBI chief Earl Fullwood but the Bureau had its resources. And unlike in the old days, the CIA cooperated with the FBI in the investigation when either agency had a security problem like Joplan.

  Warfield stood up and ambled around the room for a minute as he gathered his thoughts. “Don’t see how it would work, Mr. President. You’ve got the FBI, the CIA. They’re not bad at what they do. I can tell you they wouldn’t hang out any yellow ribbons for me to come in and claim the prey they just brought down. They opposed Lone Elm, as you remember. And I’m not too hot to work with them, either, to tell you the truth. All that rigmarole they have to go through. The bureaucracy, the press. Criminal rights to the point of absurdity. I’m more into the kind of work where we don’t have so many rules. Even made my own a time or two,” Warfield said.

  Cross nodded. “That’s why this case needs you, Cam. You’d take Joplan out of their hands for awhile. Work on your own, from this room we’re sitting in. Whatever staff you need is here.” He threw his hands out to indicate the vastness of the resources available.

  “With all respect, sir, I don’t see how it would be any different with me. Somebody here goes to the john and the newspapers write a front-page story about it. ACLU or some other group files a lawsuit. We fill up all the file cabinets with denials, rebuttals, explanations. Everything moves an inch per millennium. Pretty soon I’d be as bogged down as the FBI or any other outfit here in Washington.”

  Cross nodded. “That’s just it, Cam. Only a handful here will know what you’re doing. No reporters coming around. Your name won’t be on anybody’s list. You need red tape cut, some rules bent, that kind of thing, you call me. You already have all the security clearance anyone can get. No one will be checking to see where you are. You’ll report to me, maybe through Paula at times—she knows how to get around the roadblocks. Lot of autonomy to act on your own judgment, and a phone number that’ll reach me anywhere in a couple of minutes when you need me.”

  Warfield had to admit it made some sense. His existence wouldn’t be known outside of a small circle—Fullwood from FBI, CIA’s Quinn, the secretary of state, the national security advisor. And even they wouldn’t have to know much if Cross wanted it that way.

  Warfield sat down and finished the last of his coffee. “What’s the Joplan investigation turned up so far?”

  Cross pushed the Joplan file over to him. The FBI summary inside told what they had learned about Joplan’s bank accounts, spending habits, social contacts, family relationships, cars, clothes and house mortgage. Phone taps and the trash recovered from Joplan’s garbage cans revealed almost nothing. Cross said the FBI didn’t expect to find much more, even with the warrant. Joplan had covered his tracks.

  Warfield scanned the file. “It’s obvious why they can’t hold him with what they have here.”

  “And the clock’s ticking.”

  “What have you told Fullwood and Quinn?”

  “Nothing. If you take the job, I’ll get them in here for a little kickoff meeting. I’ll bring in Stern, too.” Otto Stern was the national security advisor.

  “Where is Joplan being held?”

  “The Bureau has him across the river in Virginia. Alexandria Detention Center.”

  Warfield thought about it for a moment, then said, “Here’s what's holding me back
, Mr. President. I would have to run the show—Joplan all to myself. No interference from CIA or FBI, any other agencies. You're not going to want to grant me that.”

  Cross stood and Warfield followed. Cross’s hands capped Warfield’s shoulders as the president seemed to weigh the moment with due gravity. “I’ll give you Joplan exclusively, Cam. But with that comes all of the responsibility that a president can transfer to you. A lot of our intel brains think something big is in the works now. You’re the one man I trust with this job and it’s not just national security. The very essence of American culture is at stake. You have seven days to find out who Joplan’s contact is. That will lead you to the nukes that walked out of Kremlyov, which if not stopped … well, only God can help us.”

  PART ONE

  Karly Amarson

  CHAPTER 1

  Karly Amarson winced at the tremor in her fingers as she punched the Washington Post telephone number into the phone next to her bed. When the line began to ring she replaced the receiver in its cradle and laid out the jewelry she’d chosen to complement the dress she was going to wear before jumping into the shower. Thoughts of the evening, now just an hour away, raised goose bumps on her soft skin even as the steaming water drenched her body. Never in the eight years she’d entertained Atlantic City’s high-end clientele had there been so much to gain as tonight. Or so much to lose. A smile crossed her lips as something reminded her of the times as a little girl when she lured Tommy Scott who lived next door into some scheme she’d dreamed up that never turned out well for him.

  Karly stepped out of the shower, pulled a body towel around her shoulders and bent closer to the mirror, focusing on the micro wrinkles around her eyes as she’d done with increasing frequency over the past few months. What do you want, confirmation you’re getting old? That you’re doing the right thing? She traced one of the threadlike lines with a fingernail until the water drops winding their way down her neck turned her attention to her body. Not so bad, she told herself, her breasts were still high, her buttocks firm, stomach hard and flat, and the attention shown her by her regulars had never waned. But twenty-nine in her line of work approached retirement age. The quality of life curve for high-end ladies of the evening nosedived after thirty. Maintaining her assets in spin classes, in the pool, on the strength machines…that all took more and more time, and inevitably at some point would quit producing the results she required. Surgery was the usual fix after botox, laser, Sculptra, and the like no longer did the trick, but even that was simply delaying the inevitable. Go in for a remake every couple of years? Pass! She’d invested some of her money but not nearly enough to provide the lifestyle she had become accustomed to—and intended to enjoy for the rest of her life.

  Frank Gallardi had offered her a job, any job she wanted, there in his Golden Touch Casino & Hotel if she decided to get out of the business, but Atlantic City no longer excited her as it once did. No. It was time to advance to a better life. For the last year, she had dreamed of a new place away from the hotel. Away from casinos, away from Atlantic City. Maybe New York. She loved the city the times she’d been there with Jag, and if her plan she called the 401-Karly went well tonight, her dream could come true.

  Karly had done okay in Atlantic City but it had not always been like that. Looking back at the beginning of her career now, she could only smile at her naivety at that time. That was, what, ten years ago? She’d dropped out of the Monahan Finishing College in Des Moines and headed straight to New Orleans. Her street-smarts were nil and the education she received there were painfully expensive. Karly landed a job her first day in the Crescent City and she grimaced now as she remembered the serpentine copper-top bar on which she danced and taunted Bourbon Street revelers with her charms. Dominick, who owned the place—the Cajun Palace, it was called, a misnomer if there ever was one—had followed through on his promise to give Karly’s poster top billing on the Bourbon Street marquee and the money was good, but soon Dominick was renting her out. She resisted at first but the other young dancers seemed okay with their lives and encouraged her. It’s only while you’re getting started, they’d said.

  Dominick had served himself as well to her wares when he felt like it and the greasy bastard’s scent still haunted Karly’s olfactory memory. Like those professional fragrance experts she’d read about who could identify a perfume he or she had last sniffed twenty years earlier. And then there was Richard, her next encounter, who put her in the hospital twice. She shivered now as she recalled how close she’d walked to the edge, how desperately homicidal she was after that, how she’d acted on her impulse. Except for the murder detective who hated slimebags like Richard she’d be in prison now, she knew, instead of a luxurious hotel suite where she’d worked out an arrangement with Frank Gallardi, a man who represented the other end of the decency spectrum.

  As Karly started her makeup now she thought of a couple of girls who’d made it big in Atlantic City, but most of them stayed with a pimp until they were too old and wound up with second-rate clients for awhile, then dancing for garter cash in one of the strip dives a block off the Boardwalk. Half of them ended up dying of violence or AIDS before they hit forty. It was an unthinkable end, but what was the next act if they had lived?

  Karly knew she still had what it takes. She’d learned she could make one of the politicians from Washington want her more than he wanted his political campaign fund. And she had lost count of the men who would pay her to undress and simply lie there while he looked at her. Somehow that, of all things, made her uncomfortable. They would talk about her milk-white skin and golden strands of hair and perfect legs and green eyes and never lay a hand on her. Some sobbed. She wasn’t about to believe all the things men said to her, but she knew she was different.

  Her favorite clients were the power brokers from the nation’s capitol who came to Atlantic City on weekends. Seeing them on TV, she’d laugh at the swaggering speeches they made about drugs or honor or children, and then she’d get one of them in her bed and let her blond mane fall over his face and whisper to him. “What’ll it be, now, cowboy? Those family values you talk about, or Karly’s values?” After she had satiated them they would go back to Washington to run the government. The world, to hear them tell it.

  She had experimented with some of them with a well-timed whisper. “When can you come back? I don’t wanna spend any more time than I have to with someone else,” she would say half-jokingly. “If I do, it’ll just be to pay the rent until you return.” Some actually fell for it: “How much d’you need to get by on until I can get back a couple of weeks from now?” and they’d add a few more crumpled bills to the wad in her hand. Never examine it in their presence, Karly had learned. But she’d count it the instant they were out the door and seldom was she disappointed as she showered and powdered and made herself ready for her next rendezvous.

  Tonight she would put to work all the street smarts and charm she could muster. Like a final exam, she thought. If it worked, hard days would be over. Several of her Washington regulars had wanted to see her tonight and that had provided her the opportunity to play the supply and demand game. “Oh, I wish you’d called sooner,” she’d said, but she had no one other than Jag on her mind and he’d called that morning. Just as she knew he would.

  “Oh, Jag, you’re my fave,” she’d breathed into the phone. “But you’ve called so late. I’ll have to see if I can get out of anoth—”

  “Work it out!”

  “I’ll try, Jag,” she’d said. He was powerful in Washington and according to her research, rich. That was the main thing. And he was hooked on her. He was the right man for her plan, and he’d taken the bait, right down to the last hour.

  * * *

  Frank Gallardi, the developer, owner and operator of the Golden Touch, widely considered the top casino and hotel on Atlantic City’s legendary Boardwalk, was going over the words he would deliver that evening downstairs in the Austin Quinn Ballroom, the largest and grandest of all those in the Golden
Touch. He’d agreed to emcee the Quinn celebration that was to take place in the room named after Austin Quinn himself. Gallardi saw politics as an evil to be tolerated, but Quinn was due a lot of credit for the reality of casino gambling in the state. Gallardi had managed the industry side of the legalization process and fed Quinn, then a state senator, the technical knowledge he needed in his political negotiations and the eventual crafting of the legislation in Trenton. It took eight years in all. Gallardi was awarded the first casino license issued in New Jersey and Quinn’s reward was election to the United States Senate. Gallardi named the walnut-paneled ballroom after Quinn as a tribute to him by the industry and an eighteen-karat gold plaque signed by all the original casino owners on the Boardwalk adorned the entrance to the Austin Quinn Ballroom.

  Gallardi expected to see a lot of his Washington regulars at the Quinn party. At least a dozen of them had called today to say hello. Some of them were rarely seen or heard, and others frequently made the Business & Finance pages of the Wall Street Journal, but all of them were powerful and wealthy. They liked being at his place, and Gallardi knew they wanted him to know they were there.

  Even President McNabb might make an appearance at Quinn’s roast. The Secret Service was busy putting their security in place but told Gallardi that McNabb’s appearance was iffy due to a developing incident with North Korea. It was great publicity to have the president visit the Golden Touch but the last time he was there his security network caused a ripple through the casino.

  The hotel was full tonight and the game rooms reserved for members of its private Trophy Club were jammed. The Precious Metal, the Tiger’s Tail and every other casino on the Boardwalk also had its own VIP club with private elevators and secluded gambling rooms for high-stakes gamblers who wanted separation from weekenders and honeymooners, even the usual run of professional gamblers, but none was as successful as Gallardi’s Trophy Club. Frank knew from the start it would take more than showgirls and glitz to attract the icons of politics and entertainment he wanted in his place. They would come for luxury-class treatment, plenty of action and the chance to leave their identity at the door for a change. No damning front-page photo in tomorrow’s paper after a night letting their hair down.