A Better World

CHAPTER 5

“Big-girl pants? He really said that?”

“And smiled like he was being cute.” Marla Keevers sipped her coffee.

“It’s quick, at least.” Owen Leahy shook his head. As the secretary of defense, there weren’t many people around whom he dared show his hand. But Marla was a friend, or as close to one as politics at this level allowed. They’d worked together under President Walker, and he’d quickly learned that she was one of those rare people who got the job done, whatever it took. He liked those people. He was one of them. “The president seems smitten.”

“Cooper won him over right away. You know how? When Clay offered him the job, he refused.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. You believe that? Sitting in the limo, after a show-of-force pickup with twenty Secret Service agents, and the guy says no.”

They were in her office, the doors closed, and Leahy had his foot up on his knee, the chair rocked back on two legs. These informal conferences had started as a way to keep the train on the rails during the transition from Walker to Clay, but they’d become chatty. “Was it a performance?”

“No. That’s the weird thing. He honestly didn’t want the job.”

That was unnerving. This was Washington, DC. Everyone wanted the job. “So Cooper is the new fair-haired boy.”

Marla nodded. They stared at each other, then broke into laughter. It felt good, absurd as the situation was.

“What a world, huh? Throw your boss off a roof, end up serving the president,” Leahy said. “I guess we could always use that as leverage to control him.”

“Cooper won’t be a puppet. Plus, do we really want to open that particular can of worms?” Marla shook her head. “If the truth about that night came out, people would start asking who else was involved.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with the Monocle.”

“Neither did I. But there are plenty of other things we have been . . . aware of.” She left it at that, a gesture he appreciated. Deft.

“I don’t know, Marla. Is it just me, or is the world going crazy? We’re facing maybe the greatest crisis in American history, and the president is getting his advice from a Boy Scout.”

“You know how many people Nick Cooper has killed?”

“Okay,” Leahy said, “a dangerous Boy Scout.”

She shrugged. A message pinged in on her system, and she glanced at it, typed a quick response. Leahy laced his fingers behind his head, stared at the ceiling.

“In 1986, when Bryce published his study on the gifted, I was just starting at the CIA. Done my four years in army intel, transferred over. I was the FNG on the Middle East desk, a junior analyst getting all the junk assignments. But when I read that study, I got up from my cubicle, walked straight to the deputy’s office, and asked for five minutes.”

“You didn’t.”

“I was young.”

“Did he see you?”

“Yeah.” Leahy smiled, remembering that day. January, and cold; his shoes had salt stains on them, and while he’d waited outside Mitchum’s office, he’d licked his fingers to wipe the leather clean. He could still taste the tang of salt and dirt. “The deputy looked at me like I might be mentally challenged.” He shrugged. “No way out at that point, so I figured, screw it, today you either make your name or lose your job.”

“What did you say?”

“I dropped the study on his desk, and I said, ‘Sir, you can forget about the sheiks, and Berlin, and the Soviets. This is going to be the conflict that defines the next fifty years of American intelligence.’ ”

“No.” Marla was smiling broadly. “No.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He laughed me out of his office, and I spent an extra year as a junior analyst. But I was right. I knew it then, and I know it now.” And Mitchum does too. It had taken five years before the deputy saw the truth, but when he had, he’d remembered who told him first. Deputy Mitchum had taken a personal interest from then on, and Leahy’s climb up the ladder had accelerated dramatically. “Nothing in our history presents the same threat that the gifted do.”

“Easy. The New York Times would pay a fortune to quote you saying that.”

“The Times can bite me. I’ve got three children and five grandchildren, and none of them are gifted. How do you like their odds? Think in twenty years they’re going to be running the world? Or serving fries?”

Marla didn’t respond, just typed another message on her system. Leahy said, “What do you think of him?”

“Cooper?”

“Clay. He’s been president for two months. The grace period is over. What do you think?”

She took her hands from the keyboard. Picked up her coffee and took a thoughtful sip. Finally, she said, “I think he would make an exceptional history professor.”

Their eyes locked.

There really wasn’t any point in saying more.