The Trojan Horse

Chapter Twenty-Four

Washington DC

USA, Day 45

“It’s a beautiful day.”

Toby turned sharply as Jeannette McGreevy turned from the windows and peered towards him. She looked delighted to see him, which probably boded ill. And was it his imagination, or was there a glint of triumph in her eyes? The newly-confirmed Vice President had barely taken up the position when she had ordered a reshuffling of her staff, including dismissing several of the previous Vice President’s staff, even ones who’d been in Washington for most of their lives. She would soon be surrounded by her faithful. And then what would she do? She was one bad day away from the Presidency itself.

“Yes, it is,” he agreed. And it was; the sun was shining down on Washington from a clean blue sky. High overhead, he could see the contrail of a fighter jet patrolling the secure airspace surrounding the city. The defences had been surprised once on 9/11. It wasn’t going to be allowed to happen again. “The President ordered me to brief you on a number of government programs…”

McGreevy waved her hand, casually. “We can go over those later,” she said, as if they meant nothing to her. “Right now, I want to know how we’re proceeding with the drawdown. We need to satisfy the Galactic Federation if we are to become an advanced race.”

Toby kept his face expressionless. Washington was known for a high level of political corruption — with hypocrites and double standards everywhere — but McGreevy was just… the worst he’d ever encountered. She wanted power — the power of the Presidency itself — and she would do anything to get it. Even before the Galactic Federation had arrived, she’d been dangerous; the President had only included her in his Cabinet because it would prevent her from sniping at the Administration from outside. The last thing the party — and the country — needed was a power struggle in dangerous times. And now she had the support of the Galactic Federation. Knowingly or not, she was watched by the aliens at all times. Gillian’s improved detector had shown that there were no less than four bugs on her person and five more scattered through her office.

“The drawdown is proceeding,” he said. “We’re shipping soldiers back home and discharging them, but we’re still paying their wages for the next three months while they look to find civilian employment. The President has ordered the creation of a number of schemes to keep the former soldiers gainfully employed, but some of those schemes are meeting powerful opposition in Congress. I must add that military morale isn’t particularly high at the moment and that there is a great deal of bad feeling — which will only get worse as the effect of soldiers entering the workforce in large numbers make themselves felt…”

“That doesn’t matter,” McGreevy informed him. She waved him to a seat and sat down facing him. There was something uncannily intimate about her position. “The important thing is satisfying the Galactic Federation. The Welcome Foundation predicts that we will be in a position to take advantage of the Federation-sponsored economic boom and we will see full employment not long afterwards. And then we will go to the stars.”

Toby wasn’t so sure. All of the projections were based upon factors outside humanity’s control. The research programs had yet to find a way to duplicate alien drive fields — or however they lifted cargos from planetary surfaces to orbit — and without that technology, there were limits to how much could be lifted into space. And if the Galactic Federation refused to share, for whatever reason, the economic depression would become far worse very quickly. And all of that depended upon the Galactic Federation living up to its own words. If they had darker motives in visiting Earth, all of the projections would be useless.

“So we are told,” he said, neutrally.

“So we are told,” McGreevy agreed. She looked up at him, her bright eyes fixed on his face. “I’ve been studying your record, Mr Sanderson. You’re quite determined to stay out of the public eye.”

Toby felt a flicker of unease. Where was this leading? “I find that my work is easier without public recognition,” he said, finally. “I have never sought to be a political leader.”

“But you have had influence behind the scenes, as it were,” McGreevy pressed. It wasn’t really a question. “The President’s campaign was largely run — and won — by you. You were able to create a President who appealed to just enough of the voters to scrape into the White House. He was almost your tame monkey.”

“The President is his own man,” Toby said, tightly. Even if she’d been entirely accurate, he wouldn’t have said anything else. The Presidency was surrounded by a host of contradictions; Americans disliked strong leaders, and yet they wanted them. Toby suspected that it was because they both wanted someone in charge and yet feared the damage a bad President could do to the country. The President had little power to make things better — a point that was conveniently forgotten by his opponents — but he had a lot of power to make things worse. “I would not presume to advise him on anything.”

“And yet you do,” McGreevy said. She placed one hand on Toby’s knee, just for a second. “Let’s not mince words. You advise the President on matters political. You serve as his representative on matters that he finds uncomfortable — secret intelligence, for example. You may not be the power behind the throne, but he listens to you — and so do others, who know that you are close to the President.”

Toby said nothing, waiting to see where she would go. If he’d been as immoral as her, he realised, he would have accepted the unspoken offer immediately. But then, it wouldn’t have been a wise choice. There was no way that McGreevy would trust him so close to her, not completely. It wouldn’t be long before he was removed from his position. An assassination in Washington didn’t have to leave someone injured or dead to be effective. And character assassination was an old art in Washington.

“I would like you to come and work for me,” McGreevy continued. “Let’s face it; the President is not going to run again. You’ve seen how he’s having trouble coping with the brave new world; I doubt he’d want to remain in his post for another four years. And besides, the National Committee isn’t going to re-nominate him. They’re going to put me forward instead.”

Toby considered it, thinking hard. The National Committee had quite a few of her supporters sitting on it, but there were also members who hated her, or feared her ambition. And yet… she might be right. Her work with the aliens had won her a large base of support within the party itself, something she could probably parlay into a nomination to run for President. And if the President refused to even try to run again…

“You may be right,” he conceded. He was mentally running through a list of committee members who could have their arms twisted. Perhaps he could built a counterweight… but it would all depend on the President being willing to stand again. It would be the political catfight of nightmares. The contest between Hilary Clinton and Obama would be nothing in comparison. “What do you have to offer me if I abandon the President?”

“Oh, I don’t want you to abandon the President just yet,” McGreevy assured him. “I want you to report to me on his activities… to prove your loyalty, so to speak.”

And get thrown under a bus when my usefulness runs out, Toby thought, wryly. Knowing McGreevy, it might even be literal. And the aliens had killed the Vice President…

“I will certainly take it under consideration,” he said, finally. “And I will expect a token of your loyalty in return.”

McGreevy smiled and they got down to bargaining. Afterwards, Toby felt dirty, even though there was little choice. The resistance would need a spy in the enemy’s camp — and McGreevy was unquestionably the enemy. Toby’s position could make the difference between life and death for millions of people. The thought didn’t help. He still felt dirty.

He was still fighting the urge to shower when he returned to his office and discovered that one of his phones was blinking alarmingly. Picking it up, he heard a message from Jason Lucas, the Discoverer. He wanted an immediate meeting. Nodding to himself, Toby called back, made the arrangements and then left the office. Whatever it was, it had to be better than worrying about McGreevy’s vaunting ambition, or if he’d sold her his soul.

Blake’s Pizzeria was a small building just outside official Washington. The owner, who claimed descent from the great pizza cooks of Italy, didn’t advertise. Much of his clientele were federal employees working in the CIA or another intelligence agency who found the simple restaurant a convenient place to catch up with friends and — unofficially — share information from one agency to another. It worked about as well as could be expected, Toby knew; the FBI and the CIA still didn’t get along, even though their failure to coordinate had led to disaster on 9/11. The Pizzeria was secure, at least. It was regularly swept for bugs and its owner and his staff had been vetted by the CIA.

He saw Jason at once, waiting outside. The owner tended to be surly with visitors who didn’t come from Official Washington, particularly the media. Blake’s Pizzeria was an open secret to those in the know, but it had never slipped out into the public domain. Toby nodded to Jason, beckoned for him to follow Toby into the building and stopped in front of the counter. The waitress, a young woman with bright red hair and a wide smile, grinned up at them and then recognised the Discoverer. Toby had to smile at her expression. Compared to Jason, he was unnoticeable. But that was how he liked it.

“We’d like a private room,” he said, flatly. Blake’s Pizzeria had nine private rooms, all cleared by the CIA. There had been rumours that some of them were used for adultery and other matters that wouldn’t be approved of, if they came into the light. “And we’d like the menu.”

As soon as they had ordered, they went into the private room. It was the nicest secure room in Washington, at least outside the President’s bunker. The tables were neatly decorated, with enough condiments to suit any taste — and the staff had no access to the room, save through a dumb waiter. Toby knew better than to take that for granted, however, and he ran the improved model of Gillian’s detector around the room. There was one bug on Jason’s neck, which he removed neatly and dumped into a sealed compartment. Given the nature of the alien bugs, it seemed likely that any number of them were lost without any human interference at all. Or so they hoped. There was no way to know for sure.

“We’re as clean as we can be outside Fort Meade,” Toby said. He ran the detector over the pizza when it arrived too, just in case. “What have you discovered?”

Jason hesitated, and then plunged right into the story. “One of the aliens wants to defect,” he said. “He said that the world was in terrible danger.”

Toby blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected that — but then, why would anyone expect an alien race to be a united entity? The human race wasn’t united. There wasn’t even a union of democratic states that could be counted upon to put the best interests of their people first. Why should the aliens have a monoculture? Having the vast gulfs of space certainly suggested that different cultures could have some elbow room.

His second thought was that it was a trick. “What assurances did he offer?”

“He warned me that everyone in the Welcome Foundation is under surveillance at all times,” Jason admitted. “They watch us everywhere, no matter where we go. He said he couldn’t give us much more without revealing his intentions; he’ll give us what we need to know when he’s safe on Earth.”

Toby swore under his breath. Defectors on Earth were handled under a series of largely unwritten rules. A defector who made it to a safe country was legally safe — although that hadn’t stopped the KGB from sending assassins after various Russian defectors during and after the Cold War. The Russians couldn’t demand that a defector be returned or vice versa — but that might not apply to the aliens. They had overwhelming power; if they knew that one of their people had defected, they might demand his immediate return on pain of planetary bombardment. And there was nothing the human race could do to deter them.

And yet… did they dare pass up the opportunity?

He scowled as he took a bite of his pizza. If it was a trick, the aliens might intend to allow them to take the defector and accept a great deal of false information at face value… or they might intend to turn the defection into a crisis they could use as an excuse for war. But why would they provoke a crisis so soon? If they waited for a year or two before coming into the open, humanity would be in a far poorer position to resist them; hell, they’d have a puppet in the White House. Logic suggested that the defection was real — but that might be just what the aliens wanted them to think.

“We need to know what he knows,” Toby said, slowly. He was starting to feel an odd flash of sympathy for the CIA officers who’d found that they blamed for every disaster that had ever struck the intelligence service. It was easy to do nothing if one developed a risk-averse culture, where the risks threatened one’s employment. “I’ll have to give it some thought. Do we even know how to hide him from them?”

“He suggested that it would be possible to fake his death,” Jason said. He swallowed the final piece of a pizza slice and took a gulp of coke. Toby had ordered coffee. “He seemed pretty sure that they wouldn’t look for him very hard…”

“Scratch that,” Toby said, flatly. “They will search for him. A dead body would tell us all sorts of things about him. If someone — one of them — dies on Earth, they’ll want every drop of blood returned. I’ll have to give it a great deal of thought.”

Jason nodded, sourly. “What should I tell him?” He asked. “He seemed pretty eager to talk to us quickly.”

“Tell him that we are considering how best to extract him,” Toby said. He shook his head. Extracting a Russian officer from Russia would be easier than trying to trick the aliens into believing that one of their people had died — and his body had been completely destroyed. A thought occurred to him and he made a mental note to look into it. If something were to happen at sea, the remains of an alien body might not be found at all, at least for some time. “And ask him if he wishes to take up water sports.”

The plan slowly came into focus in his mind. He would have to talk to his father — and some of his father’s friends — about it, but it would allow him to kill two birds with one stone. There were a number of SEALS who had been planning to fake their deaths; with a little work, they could vanish alongside the alien defector and never be seen again — at least until the shit hit the fan. And it would. Toby hadn’t doubted it ever since he’d looked into an alien pair of eyes.

“I don’t understand,” Jason said. “Water sports?”

Toby grinned. “They’ve been to see art galleries and museums and exhibitions,” he said. The aliens — those who seemed willing to visit Earth — spent half of their time playing tourist. The remainder of the time was spent making ambiguous statements to human interviewers. Why shouldn’t one want to try out Earth’s water sports? Their distant ancestors had probably crawled out of the water, just like humanity’s distant forbearers. “Maybe one of them would like to go sailing.”

He pushed the thought aside and turned to other matters. “Did you see the internet spam message?”

Jason nodded. The message — warning of the dangers of alien pod people and human politicians who were in league with them — had gone viral on the internet. Every attempt someone had made to wipe it had only spread it further, with copies being distributed right around the world. A number of politicians were embarrassed — although McGreevy, he remembered, hadn’t mentioned it when she’d been trying to seduce him to her side. It wouldn’t be in character for her to pay any heed to the message.

“I don’t think I’m a pod person,” Jason said, clearly anticipating Toby’s suspicions. “But would I know if I was?”

“I don’t know,” Toby admitted. There were plans afoot to snatch Joe Buckley and learn what they could from a scan of his mind, but the shadows who’d been attempting to follow him everywhere had lost him. Buckley had been in the military. He probably knew how to spot and break a tail. “I just don’t know.”

He shook his head. “I’ll get back to you as quickly as possible with the plan,” he said, grimly. “If we can get this guy out, it’ll be worth it. Even if he is trying to lie to us, at least we’ll know what they want us to believe.”

“I think he was quite nervous,” Jason said. “Time is running out.”

“It always does,” Toby agreed. The aliens had put one of their people in a very high place and they probably had influence over the remaining military officers. It wouldn’t be long before they made their move. “It always does.”