Takedown

“It’s from upstairs,” he said as he pointed toward the ceiling and reached for the receiver. “I need to take this in private.”

Once Schreiber had left the room and closed the door behind him, Stanton said, “Why the hell are you contacting me on this line?”

“Because you haven’t exactly been answering your cell phone,” said the caller.

“If you turned on your television set once in a while, you’d see we’ve got our hands pretty full today.”

“Fuller than you think.”

“What are you talking about?” replied Stanton.

“Not over the phone. We need to meet.”

“That’s impossible. Not today.”

“Yes, today,” said the caller. “And I want you there in a half hour.”

“That’s insane,” said Stanton. “Do you know what the traffic is like between here and there?”

“Use one of the company helos.”

“We’ve got a major national crisis going on. Helicopters are for emergency use only at this point.”

“This is an emergency. Somebody knows about Athena.”

Fifty-Five

NORTHERN VIRGINIA

The Bell JetRanger helicopter touched down in the parking lot of a large warehouse, and out stepped Joseph Stanton. With his heavy-rimmed glasses, seersucker suit, and suede bucks, he looked nothing like Gary Lawlor had pictured. Superspooks came in all shapes and sizes, but this was the first time he’d ever seen one who was a dead ringer for a sloppy Warren Buffett.

Once they were sure Stanton had come alone, Gary and Bill Forrester got out of the car and met him halfway across the parking lot. The Marine captain made the introductions and as Lawlor began to speak Stanton said, “Not here. Wait till we’re inside.”

Inside turned out to be a well-appointed office suite at the back of the structure that Stanton and Forrester used for their meetings. Sitting down on a leather couch, Stanton smoothed out his trouser legs, picked a few pieces of lint from inside one of the cuffs, and then said, “Okay, what the fuck is going on?”

Ever the marine, nobody bullied Bill Forrester, especially not some Ivy Leaguer in a seersucker suit. “Why don’t you tell us, Joe? It’s your op.”

“What do you mean, tell us? As far as I’m concerned captain, the only us that should be in this room is you and me.”

“Well, suck it up,” said Forrester, “because Agent Lawlor here might just be the only one able to save your bacon.”

“Who says my bacon needs saving to begin with?”

“Listen, Joe, I didn’t come out here to get jerked around.”

“Neither did I.”

“Good. So let’s save the ‘my dick’s bigger than your dick, but I can’t show it to you because we don’t work for the same agency’ crap for the time being.”

“If you’re suggesting, captain, that we bring Agent Lawlor into the know regarding Athena, that’s not going to happen.”

Forrester had a very short fuse and burned real quick. “Three of my marines are dead, so yeah, it is going to happen.”

“Wait a second,” said Stanton. “I haven’t heard anything about any marines being killed.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. They never were a priority, in your opinion. Now, I want some goddamn answers.”

“Had you given me a little more insight into why you called this impromptu meeting, maybe I would have been able to prepare some for you.”

It was pretty apparent these two were not going to get very far if left to verbally slug it out, so Lawlor decided to step in. “Mr. Stanton, what is the Athena Program?”

“I’m sorry, Agent Lawlor, but I am not allowed to discuss NSA business without proper authorization.”

Forrester was disgusted with his arrogance. “I wanted you to hear it from him, but if he won’t tell you, I will.”

“No, you won’t.”

“If it means preventing any more of my marines from dying, then just watch me.” Turning to Gary, the captain said, “The program is named after the Greek goddess of wisdom, as apparently the Greeks didn’t have a goddess of blackmail. It’s a deep-black-data-mining operation. Using both the Echelon and Carnivore systems, the NSA has been gathering otherwise overlooked intelligence that can be used as leverage against various foreign concerns.”

“Like al-Qaeda?” asked Lawlor, not completely understanding what Forrester was getting at.

“No. More like governments, heads of state, and influential foreign businesspeople. Basically, the Athena Program collects and sorts extremely dirty laundry. Once they have their teeth into something particularly juicy, like the Princess Diana crash, TWA 800, or Yasir Arafat’s death, they assign teams of operatives to flush out the big picture and uncover as much supporting evidence as possible. That way, when it comes time to use it, they have the victim pinned against the wall so tightly, there’s absolutely no room for him or her to wiggle free.

“And if they uncover a conspiracy involving several powerful foreign figures, it’s like hitting the jackpot.”

“You’re going to jail for a very, very long time, Forrester,” said Stanton as he solemnly shook his head.

Lawlor ignored him and asked the captain, “Tell me about the locations in Manhattan.”