Shall We Tell the President? (Kane and Abel Book 3) by Jeffrey Archer

Author:Jeffrey Archer [Archer, Jeffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group
Published: 2008-12-29T23:00:00+00:00

Monday morning

7 March

7:00 A.M.

The Director listened to the results of Mark’s research in attentive silence and then added his own unexpected piece of information.

“Andrews, we may be able to narrow your list of fifteen senators even further. Last Thursday morning a couple of agents picked up an unauthorized transmission on one of our KGB channels. Either temporary interference from some commercial station caused us to tune in a different frequency momentarily or else some guy is in possession of an illegal transmitter for our frequency. The only thing our boys heard was: ‘Come in, Tony. I just dropped the Senator back for his committee meeting and I’m …’ The voice stopped transmitting abruptly and we couldn’t find it again. Perhaps the conspirators had been listening in on our conversations, and this time one of them without thinking started to transmit on our frequency as well; it’s easy enough to do. The agents who heard it filed a report concerning the illegal use of our frequency without realizing its particular significance.”

Mark was leaning forward in his chair.

“Yes, Andrews,” said the Director. “I know what’s going through your mind: 10:30 A.M. The message was sent at 10:30 A.M.”

“10:30 A.M., 3 March,” said Mark urgently. “Let me just check … which committees were already in progress …” He opened his file. “Dirksen Building … that hour … I have the details at hand somewhere, I know,” he continued as he flicked through his papers. “Three possibilities, sir. The Foreign Relations and Government Operations committees were in session that morning. On the floor of the Senate they were debating the Gun Control bill: that seems to be taking up a lot of their time right now.”

“Now we may be getting somewhere,” said the Director. “Can you tell from your records how many of your fifteen were in the Capitol on 3 March and what they were up to?”

Mark leafed through the fifteen sheets of paper and slowly divided them into two piles. “Well, it isn’t conclusive, sir, but I have no record of these eight”—he placed his hand on one of the piles—“being in the Senate that morning. The remaining seven were definitely there. None on the Government Operations Committee. Two on Foreign Relations—Pearson and Nunn, sir. The other five are Brooks, Byrd, Dexter, Harrison and Thornton. They were all on the floor. And they were all on the Judiciary Committee, Gun Control bill, as well.”

The Director grimaced. “Well, as you say, Andrews, it’s hardly conclusive. But it’s all we have, so you concentrate on those seven. With only four days, it’s a chance we will have to take. Don’t get too excited just because we had one lucky break, and double-check that those eight could not have been in Dirksen that morning. Now, I am not going to risk putting seven senators under surveillance. Those folks on the Hill are suspicious enough of the FBI as it is. We’ll have to use different tactics. Politically, we can’t take a chance on a full-scale investigation.

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