The Threat

9

OVER THE NORTH ATLANTIC

Weeks later Dan strolled down the aisle of another aircraft, holding the orange juice that was supposed to stave off jet lag. This plane was much larger, much more spacious than the one he’d taken to Key West. It was the best-known aircraft in the world.

Air Force One was more than a plane. It was a microcosm of the political universe. It cocooned politicians and press, network people, guests and major donors, the staff, and the aides and agents and aircrews that enabled them all, thirty thousand feet up. The sea, drawing his eye through a window, seemed to belong to another planet, which they were transiting far above, in some separate dimension.

He’d come to feel that way often in the past months. That he was leaving his old life behind. Rising above the Navy and even the military. Toward new prerogatives and new challenges. Like the one ahead: a seat at the first international threat reduction conference, in St. Petersburg. Sebold had assigned him as the Defense Directorate’s rep.

The Tejeiro incident seemed to have started something. Maybe something good. He felt like a fully engaged gear in an engine running at full power. His work days started at six, the only time he could read without the phone constantly interrupting. He didn’t get home until eight, nine, even ten.

After Key West, Sebold had called him in. The general had told his assistant to hold his calls. Then read Dan the riot act. He’d arrogated authority. Bypassed the chain of command. Ignored interagency coordination procedures.

Dan had tried to point out that without a hand on the helm, nothing would have come out of what had looked like a ham-handed shootdown except bitter publicity and probably the ruin of the whole Central American drug initiative. Sebold had waved this away. “Positive action? What I expect from my staff. But you can’t operate on your own, Dan. The last guy to try that here was Ollie North.”

“They gave him a mission. He tried to accomplish it.”

“And damn near brought down the government. I like Ollie. Who doesn’t? But like Bud McFarlane said, a can-do spirit but not a lot of brains.” The general paused. “See, the actual issue is, there really isn’t

any limit to what we can do from here. The black funding. The compartmentation. Just the fact we operate in the president’s name. So we’ve got to regulate ourselves, or there’ll be more Watergates, Irangates — and others I might mention, but we got the blanket over them in time. Am I getting through? Or am I wasting my breath? This isn’t the bridge of a ship. Or a cockpit, or a company of infantry.”

“No, sir. I’m getting the picture.”

“You’d be walking now if you hadn’t nailed Nuñez at the end of the day. That’s how serious I am.”

“Yes, sir. And I appreciate your taking the time to counsel me.”

“You’re on the fast track to flag, they tell me,” Sebold told him. “You wouldn’t want to screw that up.”

Dan nearly laughed in his face. The only reason he’d made commander was the congressional. And that hadn’t been the Navy’s idea at all. But he’d kept his mouth shut and his face straight, and eventually the director had warned him one last time and let him go.

* * *

But nothing ever happened the way you expected. Certainly no one he talked to on a daily basis had predicted Don Juan Alberto Mendieta Nuñez-Sebastiano had a Get Out of Jail Free card in his pocket.

The uproar after the raid had been immense, the signals out of Colombia contradictory. The foreign minister had excoriated the United States for interfering with innocent passage of Colombian nationals. The justice minister had taken credit for the intelligence leading to the raid, and insisted that his country’s most famous criminal be extradited for trial at home. Time and the Wall Street Journal praised Emiliano Tejeiro as a wunderkind who’d have driven the business renaissance of his country. De Bari was on the line with the elder Tejeiro for an hour, and left the teleconferencing room blowing his nose.

The press called Dan at the office, at home, waylaid him on the street. On Meilhamer’s advice he said nothing, not even “no comment.” Thank God the Air Guard tapes showed neither interceptor had armed its missiles, and that all the AIM-7s and AIM-9s checked out for the mission had been signed back in.

But as far as anyone knew, the Haitian operation had been legally flawless. Until Bloom stuck his head into Dan’s office and said, interrupting him while he was on the phone to Marty Harlowe in Burma: “They let him walk.”

“What? Nuñez? Who let him go?”

“Aristide. The Haitian government.”

He said into the phone, “Marty, gotta go. Keep pushing this Wa Army thing. And find out where the Red Arrows are coming from. Okay?… Yeah. Bye.”

Bloom said, “Get this: We didn’t dot all our T’s and cross our I’s going in to get him. Their judge said it’s a bad bust. The Don left this morning. Private jet to Honduras.”