GERALD BUCHANAN AND THE secretary of state had a private meeting with the President following the NSC session, but as soon as he returned to his office, he called for Sam Shafer. “What the HELL was that all about with Towne? The world is coming apart and one of my staff members interrupts an important meeting by dropping her schoolbooks? In front of the President of the United States? For God’s sake!”
“Commander Towne has been under a lot of pressure, sir. She was the one we brought back from leave to work on the crisis.”
“The woman is supposed to be a professional!” He spun his chair around to stare out the window. “Her action today reflected directly on me. Everybody will think I hire morons who can’t take the pressure.”
Shafer ran a hand through the hair, a finger comb. “I don’t think that’s what happened.”
Buchanan turned back around, his anger replaced by curiosity. “Talk to me, Sam.”
“I’ve worked with Shari Towne for a long time, sir, and nobody has a cooler head in a crisis. That damned brain of hers goes so fast it throws off sparks, and I have never seen her rattled. If a situation is really going to hell, she might squint an eye in thought. Nothing more.”
“So why was she dropping Top Secret files all over the President’s expensive rug?”
“She saw something in that folder of the dead Marines, sir. I gave it to her to review while I took notes on the meeting. She was going through the meat shots when it happened. I thought at first that it might be because the pictures are pretty gruesome.”
“So what? Pictures of dead people usually are.”
“I agree. She had not yet reached the pages of text, so all she had seen were the photographs. Right before she dropped the file, she was looking at the picture of one of those poor faceless bastards. More than looking at it, she was studying it hard, almost breaking it down into pixels. When everything else hit the floor, she held that picture so tightly her knuckles were turning white.”
Buchanan shook his head. So what? “ Several people, including me, have looked at the file and none of us had that kind of reaction.”
“That’s just my point, sir. But how many of us who examined it were trained intelligence eyes? Shari Towne is one of the best analysts in the building, and she doesn’t work here because she misses things. No one else apparently picked up on whatever it was she spotted. It’s not the first time she’s done that. Remember how she pegged the Libyan missiles that Gadhafi claimed he had destroyed?”
“So she saw something.” Buchanan had found the file to be exactly what he had expected. Bunch of dead guys. It was supposed to be nothing more than an impressive visual prop to demonstrate the abilities of the Gates Global operators. He did not like the idea that Towne had picked up a detail he had missed, something that might be important.
Shafer crossed his arms. “Whatever was in there made the stone-cold lieutenant commander lose her cool, for maybe the first time in her life, outside of an orgasm.”
“Wait a minute, Sam. She didn’t tell you what it was after the meeting?” Buchanan leaned forward, elbows on the desk blotter. “Get her ass in here. Right now!”
“Can’t do it, sir. She grabbed her purse and left the building. Told a secretary she was going for a walk and hasn’t come back.” Shafer glanced at his watch. Seven o’clock. “She left about thirty minutes ago. I called her cell phone. No answer.”
“The bitch is keeping a secret from me?” Buchanan’s anger flared so hard that he broke his pencil.
“It gets worse, sir. I had the White House operator call Towne’s secure beeper ten minutes ago. All White House staff must answer such a page immediately, without exception. Nothing. For whatever reason, the commander is choosing not to communicate.”
“Damn! We have to find her, Sam.” Buchanan’s mind churned. “Meanwhile, put some of our other intel people on the file and see what they can get. And I want to know more about Miz Towne. Put the bitch under a microscope.”
“Just here in the office?”
“No. I don’t think she’s coming back,” said Buchanan, making a guess, then a decision. “Do the full package. FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, and the National Intelligence Center. Pull her Secret Service background check. Yank the computer hard drive from her office and have the NSA crack it. Wiretaps, computer scans, the full audio-video surveillance package, pictures, financial information, the whole nine yards, including interviews with people who know her. I want to know everything she does, everybody she knows, where she buys her damned groceries, who she is screwing, and the name of her third-grade teacher’s pet canary. Everything!”
“Warrants?”
The National Security Advisor leaned back and dodged the question. It had been proven too many times that White House walls have ears. “Sam, as I recall, isn’t Lieutenant Commander Towne of Middle Eastern extraction?”
“Her mother is Jordanian, father was an American diplomat. He died in a plane crash when she was a child.”
“An Arab, then. So considering the seriousness of her withholding vital security information during an international crisis, I must direct that Lieutenant Commander Towne be considered a terrorist mole who somehow infiltrated the White House. She may be aiding our enemies.”
Shafer broke into a big grin. Buchanan amazed him. Nothing was beyond the man. “Yes, sir. A possible al Qaeda connection would be a very serious matter. I’ll get the file.”
‘And Sam?”
“Sir?”
“Have Towne in custody before dawn.”