Inside Outt

And now he’s the national security adviser’s best friend.”
    “For all we know, Horton’s people took out the snatch teams. So Horton could go back to the national security adviser, say I told you so, and take over the op.”
    “It doesn’t matter. It’s done.”
    “Fine. What does he propose?”
    “That we give Larison the diamonds.”
    Ulrich laughed. “That’s his plan? That’s what he proposed? That we just capitulate to this psycho’s demands and call it a day? That’s ingenious. I can’t believe no one else thought of it.”
    “Yeah, well, the national security adviser seems to like it. We’ve got an interagency meeting in his office first thing to thrash out the details.”
    Ulrich tried to think of anything he’d seen that had spiraled this far out of control and still been righted in the end. Nothing came to mind.
    “Well,” he said, “I guess we just have to hope that Horton knows what the hell he’s doing. And maybe he does. It’s not like he’s squeaky clean on all this. After all, he’s the one who took care of the Caspers.”

PART 3
    There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.
                                —Irving Kristol
    No, there will be no review. The President has determined that they are all enemy combatants. We are not going to revisit it.
                                —David Addington, chief of staff to Vice President Cheney
    Sometimes in life you want to just keep walking… Don’t always be issuing papers and reports. Some of life has to be mysterious.
                                —Peggy Noonan, ABC News

CHAPTER 32
Maneuvering
    B en’s phone buzzed. He opened his eyes and saw faint light coming from through the window. He picked up. “Yeah.”
    “You get any sleep?” Hort said.
    Ben looked at the clock readout. Shit, he’d been unconscious for over six hours. He’d needed it. “Yeah, believe it or not.” Paula opened her eyes and Ben raised a finger to his lips.
    “Good. We have a task group meeting with the national security adviser in thirty minutes. We just got an email from Larison, and he says he’ll be calling. I want you to listen in.”
    “Listen in? How am I going to do that?”
    “I’m going to leave my mobile phone on. Set to speakerphone. A little oversight on my part.”
    “You can do something like that in the White House?”
    “The meeting’s not in the White House. The national security adviser wants to keep this thing as far from the president as he can. The meeting is at his house in Potomac.”
    Once again, Ben was intrigued that Hort was including him in management stuff, if only on a listen-and-learn basis. “Okay…” he said.
    “It’s just him, me, and the deputy director of central intelligence, Stephen Clements. Clements is the genius who convinced the national security adviser that it made sense to try to snatch Larison. And, by the way, the snatch teams weren’t Ground Branch. They were Blackwater.”
    “Are you kidding? The Agency contracted out
this
snatch?”
    “They did. The good news is, the national security adviser is very unhappy about it. With a little luck, that means he’ll listen to reason.”
    “You mean listen to you.”
    “Son, believe me, on this one there’s no difference.”
    “So those two guys who tried to drop Paula and me… they were Blackwater?”
    “That’s a little unclear right now. Clements says they were Ground Branch, there to supervise. He thinks Larison killed them along with the snatch teams. Or he’s pretending to think that.”
    “What do you think?”
    There was a pause. “I don’t know what to think. There’s always a lot of maneuvering between the various agencies. I’d hate to think it’s gotten to the point where we’re trying to bump off each other’s players.”
    “I told you, it was supposed to be a hit.”
    “I don’t doubt you. Believe me, there’s more behind-the-scenes bullshit on this op than I’ve ever seen.”
    “Yeah, I’ve been getting that feeling.”
    “Well, for that reason as much as any other, I want you to be