Dan Brown - Deception Point

“The contact from whom you’ve been getting all your inside NASA information these past few months? I assume you still have access?”

Marjorie Tench. Gabrielle cringed knowing she could never tell the senator that the informant had been manipulating her all along. “Um... I think so,” Gabrielle lied.

“Good. There’s some information I need from you. Right away.”

As she listened, Gabrielle realized just how badly she had been underestimating Senator Sedgewick Sexton lately. Some of the man’s luster had worn off since she’d first begun following his career. But tonight, it was back. In the face of what appeared to be the ultimate death blow to his campaign, Sexton was plotting a counterattack. And although it had been Gabrielle who led him down this inauspicious path, he was not punishing her. Instead, he was giving her a chance to redeem herself.

And redeem herself she would.

Whatever it took.

William Pickering gazed out his office window at the distant line of headlights on Leesburg Highway. He often thought about her when he stood up here alone at the top of the world.

All this power... and I couldn’t save her.

Pickering’s daughter, Diana, had died in the Red Sea while stationed aboard a small navy escort ship, training to become a navigator. Her ship had been anchored in safe harbor on a sunny afternoon when a handmade dory loaded with explosives and powered by two suicide terrorists motored slowly across the harbor and exploded on contact with the hull. Diana Pickering and thirteen other young American soldiers had been killed that day.

William Pickering had been devastated. The anguish overwhelmed him for weeks. When the terrorist attack was traced to a known cell whom the CIA had been tracking unsuccessfully for years, Pickering’s sadness turned into rage. He had marched into CIA headquarters and demanded answers.

The answers he got were hard to swallow.

Apparently the CIA had been prepared to move on this cell months before and was simply waiting for the high-res satellite photos so that they could plan a pinpoint attack on the terrorists’ mountain hideout in Afghanistan. Those photos were scheduled to be taken by the $1.2 billion NRO satellite code-named Vortex 2, the same satellite that had been blown up on the launchpad by its NASA launch vehicle. Because of the NASA accident, the CIA strike had been postponed, and now Diana Pickering had died.

Pickering’s mind told him that NASA had not been directly responsible, but his heart found it hard to forgive. The investigation of the rocket explosion revealed that the NASA engineers responsible for the fuel injections system had been forced to use second-rate materials in an effort to stay on budget.

“For nonmanned flights,” Lawrence Ekstrom explained in a press conference, “NASA strives for cost-effectiveness above all. In this case, the results were admittedly not optimal. We will be looking into it.”

Not optimal. Diana Pickering was dead.

Furthermore, because the spy satellite was classified, the public never learned that NASA had disintegrated a $1.2 billion NRO project, and along with it, indirectly, numerous American lives.

“Sir?” Pickering’s secretary’s voice came over his intercom, startling him. “Line one. It’s Marjorie Tench.”

Pickering shook himself out of his daze and looked at his telephone. Again? The blinking light on line one seemed to pulse with an irate urgency. Pickering frowned and took the call.

“Pickering here.”

Tench’s voice was seething mad. “What did she tell you?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Rachel Sexton contacted you. What did she tell you? She was on a submarine, for God’s sake! Explain that!”

Pickering could tell immediately that denying the fact was not an option; Tench had been doing her homework. Pickering was surprised she’d found out about the Charlotte, but she’d apparently thrown her weight around until she got some answers. “Ms. Sexton contacted me, yes.”

“You arranged a pickup. And you didn’t contact me?”

“I arranged transport. That is correct.” Two hours remained until Rachel Sexton, Michael Tolland, and Corky Marlinson were scheduled to arrive at the nearby Bollings Air Force Base.

“And yet you chose not to inform me?”

“Rachel Sexton has made some very disturbing accusations.”

“Regarding the authenticity of the meteorite... and some kind of attack on her life?”

“Among other things.”

“Obviously, she is lying.”

“You are aware she is with two others who corroborate her story?”

Tench paused. “Yes. Most disturbing. The White House is very concerned by their claims.”

“The White House? Or you personally?”

Her tone turned razor sharp. “As far as you are concerned, director, there is no difference tonight.”

Pickering was unimpressed. He was no stranger to blustering politicians and support staff trying to establish footholds over the intel community. Few put up as strong a front as Marjorie Tench. “Does the President know you’re calling me?”

“Frankly, director, I’m shocked that you would even entertain these lunatic ravings.”

You didn’t answer my question. “I see no logical reason for these people to lie. I have to assume they are either telling the truth, or they have made an honest mistake.”

“Mistake? Claims of attacks? Flaws in the meteorite data that NASA never saw? Please! This is an obvious political ploy.”

“If so, the motives escape me.”

Tench sighed heavily and lowered her voice. “Director, there are forces at work here of which you might not be aware. We can speak about that at length later, but at the moment I need to know where Ms. Sexton and the others are. I need to get to the bottom of this before they do any lasting damage. Where are they?”

“That is not information I am comfortable sharing. I will contact you after they arrive.”

“Wrong. I will be there to greet them when they arrive.”

You and how many Secret Service agents? Pickering wondered. “If I inform you of their arrival time and location, will we all have a chance to chat like friends, or do you intend to have a private army take them into custody?”

“These people pose a direct threat to the President. The White House has every right to detain and question them.”

Pickering knew she was right. Under Title 18, Section 3056 of the United States Code, agents of the U.S. Secret Service can carry firearms, use deadly force, and make “un-warranted” arrests simply on suspicion that a person has committed or is intending to commit a felony or any act of aggression against the president. The service possessed carte blanche. Regular detainees included unsavory loiterers outside the White House and school kids who sent threatening e-mail pranks.

Pickering had no doubt the service could justify dragging Rachel Sexton and the others into the basement of the White House and keeping them there indefinitely. It would be a dangerous play, but Tench clearly realized the stakes were huge. The question was what would happen next if Pickering allowed Tench to take control. He had no intention of finding out.

“I will do whatever is necessary,” Tench declared, “to protect the President from false accusations. The mere implication of foul play will cast a heavy shadow on the White House and NASA. Rachel Sexton has abused the trust the President gave her, and I have no intention of seeing the President pay the price.”

“And if I request that Ms. Sexton be permitted to present her case to an official panel of inquiry?”

“Then you would be disregarding a direct presidential order and giving her a platform from which to make a goddamn political mess! I will ask you one more time, director. Where are you flying them?”