Executive Power

"He will not be happy."

"I know he won't, and you can blame it all on me." David could see Devon was on the fence.

"If you would like, I will go wake him up, but I absolutely can't afford to waste the day away waiting for him." He watched as Devon 's eyes quickly sca

As he turned to go, the ever efficient assistant said, "I will see what I can do. In the meantime, are you hungry?"

"Yes."

Pointing up he said, "I will have breakfast prepared for you on the aft sundeck. "With a curt nod the assistant turned and disappeared into the ship leaving David and Chung alone with one of their uncomfortable moments of silence; the assassin and the bodyguard.

FOUR.

A small table lamp was the only illumination in the large corner office of the building. It was past ten in the evening and all but a few of the thousands of bureaucrats who toiled there had gone home. The black-clad security staff patrolled the hallways and the woods outside, as they did twenty-four hours a day every day of the year. There were no holidays in the business of protecting secrets.

For the woman charged with protecting those secrets, and stealing those of her adversaries, it was a never-ending circle of suspicion. On this particular night an unshakable sense of foreboding enveloped her as she looked out over the dark landscape that surrounded the massive office complex. Nightfall had crept across the countryside, bringing to a close another day and with it more worries. She sat in her office on the top floor of one of the world's most notorious organizations, and pondered a multitude of potential threats.

They were not imaginary, exaggerated or petty. Dr. Irene Ke

The people she answered to were infinitely more concerned with the issues that dominate the political discourse of a peacetime democracy.

No one wanted to deal with, or even hear about, an apocalyptic threat. They were more concerned with triangulating issues and with weakening their opponents through real or imagined scandals. She was even called an alarmist by some, but through it all she stayed the course.

It was an irony that didn't sit well with her, that many of the same Senators and Congressmen who labeled her an alarmist were the same ones who were now calling for her resignation. Some had even suggested that the CIA should be put out to pasture like some old plow horse that had served its purpose, but was no longer capable of doing its job.

The storm that she had predicted, however, was upon them, and the professional politicians who had ignored her warnings, and frustrated her actions at every turn, were not about to take an ounce of the blame. This unique breed of human was utterly incapable of accepting responsibility for any past mistakes, unless they wrapped it first in a well-timed act of contrition that would gain them sympathy.

Fortunately for Ke

These were men and women who had been with her every step of the way as she attempted to change policies and operational procedures in order to prepare for the coming threat. They and the President had come to her defense and stymied a plan to have her removed as the director of the CIA.

Now it was time to play catch-up. In the glow of the desk lamp Dr. Irene Ke

Even worse, they couldn't even keep a simple secret for just twenty-four hours.

Even after September 11 they lacked the commitment to protect their country. People simply didn't understand how serious the task before them was. Intelligent, educated people put the politics of their various agencies before operational security and because of it two men were dead, an entire operation involving hundreds of soldiers, marines, aviators, airmen and sailors was called off and a family of i

The entire episode was a monumental security failure and Ke

Thomas Stansfield, the now deceased director of the CIA, was fond of saying that a master spy should be a closed book unless it wished to be opened. A day did not pass that his advice went unheeded.

Before her were two red folders. The one on her left consisted of e-mail intercepts between a high-ranking State Department official and an overseas Ambassador. It also contained some transcripts of phone conversations and other intelligence data. The folder on the right was much thicker. It contained bank records from the last several years for a variety of accounts spread around the Pacific, an in-depth biography of the person in question, and satellite images and intercepts.

Both folders held clear and convincing evidence that certain individuals, at home and abroad, were guilty of compromising the hostage rescue in the Philippines.

In years past, this was the type of information the CIA would have quietly disseminated to a few select individuals around Washington.

Since no administration liked scandal, that's where it would have ended. A few wrists would have been slapped. Some people might have been reassigned to less desirable posts or asked to retire early or find a job in the private sector, but rarely was anyone really made an example of.

This time it would be different. Ke

As Ke