That got a laugh out of the other three.
“What’re you working on today?” Vernon asked.
Sam updated him on the case Amara had brought them.
“Wow,” Vernon said. “What a courageous young woman.”
“We all agree. First stop is to arrest her mother while Gonzo and Green grab the stepfather. And then we’ll make sure they never see the light of day again.”
Arresting murdering scumbags was always exciting, but this one felt particularly so, as these two were confident at this point that they’d gotten away with killing a child. Not so fast, assholes.
“Imagine them, going about their days with no idea that the long arm of justice is about to grab them by the throats,” Freddie said.
“I was just thinking the same thing. I’m looking forward to the moment when they realize what’s happening. And I can’t wait for them to find out that Amara witnessed the whole thing and reported it.”
“This is shaping up to be a rare good day on this job.”
“Sure is,” Sam said. “Let’s put Crime Scene on notice that we’ll need them to process the house.”
“Even after all this time?”
“We won’t know what’s there if we don’t look.”
“True. I’ll text Haggerty and ask Malone to get a warrant.”
While he did that, Sam used her secure BlackBerry to text Nick. How’s your day going so far? After a rough start, mine has taken a very interesting turn (in a good way). Will tell you more when I see you.
When he didn’t reply right away, she figured he was in a meeting and put the BlackBerry back in her pocket as they got closer to the M Street Southeast insurance agency, where Thelma Robinson-Bingham was the office manager.
She hoped that Nick’s day was going as well as hers would be after she arrested Thelma.
* * *
Nick sat across from his national security advisor, Teresa Howard, one of the few remaining holdovers from the Nelson administration after he and Terry had cleaned house on the others. Teresa was a straight shooter, and Nick trusted her to have his back and that of the country. So when she’d told him she needed to discuss some irregularities with him privately, he’d cleared his schedule to accommodate her.
Since she’d never before made such a request, his stomach was in knots as he waited to hear what she had to say.
“Mr. President, we were first alerted in late April by Vice President Henderson’s Secret Service detail that she was receiving regular late-night visits at the Naval Observatory from a man who identified himself as Lionel Prentess from Slovakia. His passport was scanned and deemed legitimate, as was his other identification. Vice President Henderson said he was an old friend from when she studied at Oxford and he’d be visiting from time to time for a few weeks while he was in the States. She mentioned then that she’d be reporting the foreign contact as required for her security clearance.”
Nick saw nothing to be concerned about with any of this but still braced himself for the rest of the story. Of course Gretchen was allowed to have friends visit her at her official residence, even friends from other countries, as long as she properly disclosed it.
“He might’ve gotten away with the ruse if one of the Secret Service agents hadn’t come back from vacation, recognized him and sounded the alarm that Prentess was actually Sergei Ivanov, the Russian opposition leader. We investigated Mr. Ivanov and learned he was a classmate of the vice president’s at Oxford and that no one by the name of Lionel Prentess ever attended the university. Vice President Henderson and Ivanov were close friends during their postgraduate work in international relations. We believe they also dated for some time.”
Nick was now actively queasy and more than a little furious. “Her relationship with a Russian national wasn’t disclosed during the vetting process?”
“No, sir, it wasn’t and she didn’t disclose that she was currently in touch with him or his alias, which is a violation of Security Executive Agent Directive 3, issued by the Director of National Intelligence. I’m looking into how his presence in the country was missed, because once the agent recognized him, it didn’t take much digging for us to find the connection. However, without the agent identifying him, we might never have known who he really was.”
Even better. Now they would look like clowns for missing it during vetting as well as at the point of entry and relying on a stroke of luck to catch the current deception.
“At a bare minimum,” Teresa continued, “I recommend that her security clearance be immediately suspended along with all access to classified systems and information.”
“Do it. What do we know about Ivanov?”
“As the head of the Russian opposition, his stated goal is to overthrow the Petrov regime through any means necessary.”
Oh my God. Of course Nick knew Ivanov’s name and was familiar with his movement, but to hear his goals expressed in such stark terms was sobering.
“What in the world could Gretchen have been thinking, seeing him at all, let alone at her official residence?”
