“And what are you going to do when they ask for the details about this plot? The whole damn reason we haven’t told them so far is because they always want to know the details. Are you going to tell them the Brits farmed it out to the Thais – and they tortured the shit out of them?”

“You’ll see when we go back in there.”

“What are you waiting for? You’ve already gone through two thirds of them.”

Rapp smiled. “I’m waiting for Lonsdale.”

“Why her?” Nash asked.

“Because she chairs Judiciary, and that’s where this whole thing is headed.”

One of the committee staffers poked their head in the door and told them it was time. Rapp said they’d be right along, and then as soon as the door was closed, he looked each man in the eye and said, “You guys all have deniability, so stop looking so damn defeated when you’re in there. You’re warriors… be proud of what we do.”

CHAPTER 44

SENATOR Lonsdale hurried down the hallway as quickly as her black leather Marc Jacobs pumps could carry her near perfectly proportioned frame. Her rail-thin chief of staff was galloping beside her, his long, lanky stride doubling his boss’s. They crossed over from the Hart Senate Office Building to Dirksen. Technically they were two buildings, but they existed as one, with every floor of the two buildings connecting. Lonsdale and Wassen went through the senator’s private door. Wassen stopped to have a word with the two executive assistants, but the senator kept moving.

She went straight into her large office and closed the door. This one was drastically different from her office in the Capitol. It was almost as big, but where the other one was ornately decorated, this one was utilitarian. There were no marble or plaster reliefs, just Sheetrock and carpeting. The furniture reflected the space. Everything was very linear and slightly modern.

Lonsdale kicked off her pumps and grabbed her pack of cigarettes and lighter from her top-left desk drawer. She flicked the switch on the special ventilation unit she’d had installed and fired up her first cigarette. The smooth, warm smoke filled her lungs and she felt herself begin to relax. It took every bit of her reserve to sit there silently for two hours while her colleagues maneuvered. There was Joe Valdez, whom she had never been impressed with, serving up one retarded question after another. She could see that, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he was going to try and get a piece of the action, but the way she had it figured he was fifth on the list, and she wasn’t going to give him jack shit.

A couple puffs later she looked down and scanned her call sheet. Most of the names weren’t important enough to call back today, but there were a few she would have to get to tonight when they wrapped things up. For now she wanted to get herself in the right frame of mind for her shot at the den of liars. Pretty much everyone had gone over their allotted fifteen minutes, and Lonsdale planned on doing the same. She figured as chairman of the Judiciary they would all expect her to go after them, and fifteen minutes wasn’t nearly enough to question the five of them.

An unmarked manila folder lay on the desk. She opened it and began reading the list of potential questions her staff had put together for her based on the first round of questions. By the time she’d finished reading them, she was finished with the cigarette. She stabbed it out in the crystal ashtray, where it sat there crooked and tattooed with red lipstick. Lonsdale hesitated and then decided to grab another one. She’d just finished lighting it when Wassen entered the room. As always, he closed the door behind him.

“Five minutes.”

She nodded and exhaled a cloud over her shoulder toward the ventilation machine.

“Second one?” Wassen asked with a curious eye.

“I didn’t know you were counting.”

“I’ve noticed an uptick lately,” he said in a disapproving voice.

Lonsdale’s pretty little nose scrunched up, and it looked for a moment like she might stick her tongue out at him. Wassen unnerved her at times, probably because no one knew her better. Since the death of her husband thirteen years ago, he had been her constant companion. He was like a father, husband, and girlfriend all rolled into one.

“Big deal,” she said as she took another drag. “I’m still only smoking a pack a week.”

Wassen knew it was closer to two, but there wasn’t time to argue about it right now. “Did you review the questions?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“They’re fine.”

“Any idea who you’re going to start with?”

“Kennedy,” she said as she turned and looked at herself in a full-length mirror on the wall. “I’m going to light her up and then go after Rapp, and if I have time I’ll take Nash apart.”

“Sound strategy.”

Lonsdale ran a hand along the front of her black Theory ‘Rory-Tailor’ jacket and matching pants. She spotted a few wrinkles and frowned.

Wassen read her mind and said, “Don’t worry about it. No cameras.”

He was right. She set the half-finished cigarette in the ashtray and grabbed a small makeup bag from the credenza behind her desk. She took a brush with powder and began dabbing her face. “Can you believe Joe Valdez is a United States senator?”

“Not the sharpest tack in the drawer.”

“And then that bitch Patty Lamb. She’s going to try and wrestle this thing away from me and get it in front of Homeland Security.”

“Let her try,” Wassen said as he checked his watch, “it’ll never happen.”

Lonsdale put the makeup brush away and plucked at the neck of her white spandex T-shirt to get some of the skin-colored powder off. She began lining her lips and said, “It’s going to come down to Ted Darby and I.”

“Yes it will, and you’ll both end up holding hearings. There’s no way you’re going to wrestle it away from him, and there’s no way he’s going to wrestle it away from you.”

She thought about the chairman of the Armed Services Committee while she finished lining her lips. “I suppose you’re right.”

“We need to get back. You don’t want them to start without you and let someone else go after them as hard as you will.”

Lonsdale put out her cigarette and said, “Right you are, Ralphy.”

She gave herself a quick spray of perfume and put on her pumps, and they left. Her personal assistants were standing when she walked through the small lobby. Both wished her luck and told her to go get them. Lonsdale kept a pleasant yet determined look on her face and shook her fist in the air as she walked past them and into the wide hallway. As they strolled back to the committee room, more people wished her luck. This was the big show on Capitol Hill today and everyone knew she would be the one to go for the throat.

Lonsdale was in fact one of the last people to make it back to the committee room. She took her seat and peered down at the CIA employees. Her face slowly transformed into a disapproving frown and then she began to sadly shake her head. Senator Safford called the meeting back to order and before turning things over to Lonsdale reminded the witnesses that they were still under oath.

“Senator Lonsdale,” Safford said as he slid his reading glasses up onto his shiny forehead, “you may begin.”

Lonsdale thanked the chairman and took a moment to look down at her notes even though what she was about to say was not written down. She deliberately removed her stylish black reading glasses and said, “Director Kennedy, I think that your performance as director of the Central Intelligence Agency has been an embarrassment to this country from the day you took over. Your tenure has been one disaster after another, and for the life of me, I can’t understand why you won’t simply resign.”

The objections erupted from the other side of the table. Even Lonsdale’s fellow party members were shaking their heads and mumbling to each other. Safford banged his gavel until silence was restored and then admonished Lonsdale. “We are here today to gather information, not to indict and convict on incomplete evidence.”