night, but it would have been a shortsighted solution,” Thompson countered. “We were looking at the big picture.”
“There are protocols, damn it!” Carruthers said. “Not to mention common sense. No backup security on the plane? One marshal and that was it? Hell, I’m surprised you didn’t offer the guy caviar and throw him a prostitute so he could join the Mile High Club!”
“I know you’re upset, Roland—”
“I’m at the top of that nut job’s hit list!” Carruthers said. “Upset doesn’t even come close!”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, we’ve already reassigned Cook,” Thompson said, referring to the FBI’s Regional Director for West Coast Operations. “If you want, I’ll take under consideration anyone you’d want as his replacement.”
“That’s it? Throw me a crumb and I’m all happy?”
“What else would you suggest?”
“How about Ahmet’s head on a platter?” Carruthers suggested. “That would work for me.”
“A silver platter, I suppose.”
“It can be a paper plate for all I care! Just drop-kick that bastard from here to kingdom come and be quick about it!”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Thompson offered. “Anything else?”
“What about that al Qaeda cell supposedly looking to raise hell in L.A.?” Carruthers said. “Anything new on that?”
“It looks like they got their hands on some explosives over the past couple days,” Thompson said. “We’re not sure of the quantity or what they plan to do with them, but we’re running a full court press. The president says he’s got some other input factored in, as well.”
“What kind of input?”
“He wouldn’t volunteer that,” Thompson said. “I didn’t press. You know how he likes to keep his tricks up his sleeve.”
“Don’t remind me,” Carruthers said, glancing up as one of his aides brought in the next round of paperwork requiring his attention. The secretary stared sourly at the piled documents, then waved the aide away and resumed tongue-lashing his longtime friend.
“Ahmet’s had dealings with al Qaeda,” Carruthers said. “Anybody put two and two together?”
“Yes, we’re considering that he’ll try to make contact with them,” said Thompson. “The Bureau’s part of the search effort, and if we’re finished here, maybe I can actually do my job and look into it a little further.”
“Good idea,” Carruthers said, easing back in his chair. His bluster spent, the secretary cracked his knuckles and detoured the conversation. “Just make sure you don’t miss our tee time at the club.”
Thompson laughed on the other end of the line. “I knew you had your priorities straight, Roland. I’ll see you then.”
Carruthers hung up and stroked his chin as he stared out the window of his top-floor office at the State Department. The Washington Monument was visible in the distance, pointing upward at the pewter sky blanketing the nation’s capital. There was rain in the forecast and Carruthers knew there was a good chance he and Thompson might not make it out to the links. He figured it was just as well. Carruthers was already having second thoughts about having vented on the FBI director. Maybe it hadn’t been wise to draw so much attention to his concern over Ahmet and the state of security in Los Angeles. The last thing he needed was to arouse any suspicion that he planned to be heading there at the end of the week.
The secretary was replaying the conversation with Thompson in his head when one of his cell phones rang. He had two cells; the one ringing was a prepaid disposable with no link to him or the State Department. There were only two people who had the number. Even before he flipped the phone open, he knew which one of them was calling.
“Yes, I already heard about Ahmet,” he barked, not bothering with salutations.
“I was just wondering how this would impact on your plans to attend the conference,” the caller responded.
“No change,” Carruthers asserted. “I’ll be there.”
Paris, France
M ICHELLE R ENAIS SIGHED with bemusement as Carruthers hung up on her, leaving the dial tone to bleat in her ear. The secretary of state’s terse bluster hadn’t taken her by surprise; she’d been expecting it. The man was so predictable.
Once she’d checked Carruthers’s name off her list, Renais rose from her desk overlooking the River Seine and went to the kitchen, breaking off a piece of a half-eaten baguette and slathering it with raspberry jam. She wasn’t really hungry, but her stomach had begun to rumble and she didn’t want to be distracted by the noise as she made the rest of her calls.
Renais was an alabaster-skinned, doe-eyed brunette in her late forties, thin to the point of appearing frail, though in fact she was known by colleagues and competitors as someone filled with vitality to go with her strong will and fierce determination. Her penthouse flat on Avenue George Cinq was one of the more coveted—and expensive—pieces of real estate in all of Paris, and she owned the place outright, having bought it three years ago with her share of the profits from the hostile financial takeover of Ars Gratia Communications, France’s second-largest media conglomerate. She figured by year’s end she would have the necessary pieces in place to make a run at forcing her rival into a merger, making her easily one of the most powerful and influential women in all of Europe, if not the world.
Given her stature, it seemed incongruent for Renais to saddle herself with a chore as mundane and secretarial as going down a phone list to confirm attendance at a forthcoming conference. But the import of the gathering she would be presiding over was such that the woman felt it was better to handle the calls herself than to entrust them to some hireling. And, too, there was the need for absolute discretion. The Frazier Group’s very existence was a zealously guarded secret, and the organization’s success and effectiveness over the years was as much a tribute to its clandestine nature as the collective sway its membership exerted over world events.
Renais slowly nibbled the baguette as she returned to her desk. There was a portable wet bar next to the desk, and she used tongs to place cubes from an ice bucket into a small cocktail glass before half filling it with anisette from a hand-blown glass decanter. The milky liqueur would further help to settle her stomach.
Sitting back down, the Frenchwoman glanced over her list to determine who she would call next. There were five more individuals left to contact: World Bank President Anthony Robin; Scotland Yard’s Inspector Bip Hartson; NATO Armed Forces Commander Helmut Marschan; Australian real-estate baroness Veronica Court-Lyle; and Jude Cartier, France’s minister of finance. It was a disparate group, to be sure, representative of the Frazier Group’s diverse overall membership. The diversity was by design. Kotch Wellmeyer, the outspoken major league baseball owner who was among the organization’s founders, had perhaps best summed up the organization’s philosophy—and recruitment philosophy—when he’d declared, “If we want to keep Western Civilization from being taken down by the upstarts of the world, we better damn well make sure we cover all the bases.”
After some reflection, Renais decided it didn’t much matter which order she made the calls in, as long as she saved Cartier for last. The finance minister
