In many ways his wife was even worse. She was nowhere near as charismatic, but smarter and more calculating. Combined, they were a force to be reckoned with. If nothing else, Mike Nash had been right on that point.
When Kennedy spoke again, it became clear that she’d been thinking about something that hit a little closer to home.
“Did you kill him?”
“He killed himself.”
“Are you speaking figuratively?”
“You mean am I saying that he crossed me and that’s as good as suicide? No. He put a gun under his chin and pulled the trigger before I could stop him.”
She sagged a bit as some of the tension she was carrying released. He watched for a few seconds as she coiled a belt on top of a chest of drawers.
“What now, Irene?”
She didn’t answer immediately but when she did, it was with a phrase he rarely heard from her. “I don’t know.”
“That’s it? You got me into this, remember?”
“Do you mean the mole hunt? Or this life?”
“Both.”
“I guess I did. Maybe an apology is in order.”
“Nah. We had a pretty good run.”
“Have we?” she said, turning toward him. “Because it led here. To this place. To this moment. I recognize now that I’ve been turning away from the truth, Mitch. For a long time. Maybe for as long as we’ve known each other.”
“What truth?”
“That American democracy is much more delicate than I was willing to admit. I always knew there was a power-hungry ruling class, but I didn’t allow myself to see how many people would be willing to kneel in front of it. Maybe freedom just demands too much of the average citizen. Too much personal responsibility. Too many opportunities for failure.”
“Right before he died, Mike said we should make peace with the Cooks. That we can’t beat them. Or change what’s coming.”
“It’s probably good advice.”
“He said that, too.”
She carried a neatly folded stack of clothing from the closet and laid it on the bed before returning to her wineglass. Rapp couldn’t tell if it was his imagination or if her hand shook a little as she brought it to her lips.
“The role of the CIA is going to change under the Cooks, Mitch. It’s going to turn inward. They aren’t concerned with outside powers, because they aren’t a threat to them. They’re much more concerned with internal enemies—political opponents, critics, and eventually the American people. Homeland Security is going to become an organization dedicated entirely to maintaining their power.”
“That’s a big change that involves a lot of people. Are they going to be able to pull it off?”
“I’ve given that question a lot of thought and the answer is yes.”
“But you’re still standing. Sounds like the plan was to put Mike in your chair, but that didn’t work out.”
“No, it didn’t,” she said, staring into her wineglass.
“But either way you figure you’re done,” Rapp prompted.
“No question. I have a lot of public support and some powerful friends inside the Beltway, so the Cooks are moving cautiously. But with the lack of pushback they’ve gotten on their purge so far, there’s no reason for them to hold back.”
“And you think it’ll be effective,” Rapp said.
“Incredibly so. Consider how effective the Stasi was at controlling the citizens in East Germany using only handwritten notes, hardwired listening stations, and black-and-white film. Compare that to high-definition video, social media, and artificial intelligence. The technology to surveil every citizen in America exists today. And not just what they do and say. What they think and feel. It’s just a matter of scaling up and putting it in place.”
Rapp nodded and folded his arms across his chest. “This isn’t what I signed on for, Irene. I was happy to defend my country from outside enemies, but it’s not my job to defend it against itself. The fact that the American people vote for these pieces of shit isn’t my problem. But the fact that Cook sent one of my best friends to kill me is.”
“You’re not having any wine?” Kennedy said, obviously anxious to avoid the issue for just a little longer.
“It probably wouldn’t be a good idea.”
She smiled bitterly and tipped a little more into her glass. “No. I suppose not.”
CHAPTER 2
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
USA
THE experts had once again gotten it wrong.
A briefing from NOAA suggested that the storm would pass harmlessly, with only its edges making landfall. Instead, America’s eastern seaboard was being hammered by torrential rain and unseasonably high winds. To the south, a number of major cities were without power and flooding was overwhelming unprepared authorities. The DC area was faring better and, according to those same experts, would continue to do so as the storm weakened. Whether that prediction would prove to be any more accurate than the first one remained to be seen.
Catherine Cook stood silently at the window of her office, watching the trees struggle against the onslaught and listening to the rumble of it through the glass. Not as good a view as those afforded by the windows behind her husband’s desk in the Oval Office, but still an extremely interesting perspective. Far different than the one from the office she’d occupied as first lady of California. Or the one she’d had at the hedge fund she once ran.
She’d worked her entire life to get where she was now but had still arrived unprepared for the scale of it. The problems and opportunities of governing California seemed trivial by comparison. And the billions she’d handled during her time in high finance were nothing but rounding errors to the Federal Reserve.
Above it all, though, was the overwhelming sense of opportunity. While many of her colleagues in New York were blind to it, Wall Street’s dead end was easy to discern. Once one acquired everything money could buy, it all became a game. A petty competition between people with insecurities that they mistook for ambition and superiority.
Running California had been largely the same. With no access to the national security apparatus, no military, and a limited ability to engage foreign powers, the end of the road had been less obvious, but just as real.
This window was different, though. Despite the driving rain, she could see forever.
She and her husband were the right people in the right place at the right moment in history. They had an opportunity to remake not just America, but everything. The liberty that the free world had enjoyed over the last century was nothing more than an anomaly. A momentary pause between the priests and nobles of antiquity and the politicians and billionaires of the new age. A momentary pause that was coming to its end.
They were entering an era that could be dominated in a different, but much more profound, way than in the past. The acquisition of territory—so important at one time—had become irrelevant. Society’s next iteration would be one overseen by a network of loosely allied dictators spread across the globe. The challenge was making sure that it was the American president, and not the leaders of China or Europe, who ushered in that change. And for that to happen, Washington would have to be transformed into a central power that exceeded even Beijing or Moscow. Weakness and compromise could no longer be tolerated.