Chapter 527

Marty sent the other agents to the other SUVs with the prisoner. He and I were in one.

“I am not happy with you taking Mike away from the task force,” I said.

“I can imagine so, but I need a leader who looks past the trees to see the forest and the snow capped mountains in the distance. You have taught him how to do that along with being hard nosed dedicated and to not let the bull distract him from the mission goals. He was lacking in those areas before, not now. The only thing he may be lacking now is compassion. That’s not one of your stronger suits if there is a job to do,” Marty said.

“I have another candidate who I will send you that needs your guidance. I think he will be a good one when you finish with him,” he said.

“He better come around in five weeks! That is all the time I have left at the White House,” I replied.

“What are you going to do with Balthazar’s computer?” Marty asked.

“Get Robert to look at it, but I doubt there is anything on it. Ormond has probably already bleached the hard drive. I can’t think there would be any reason for him not to have done it by now,” I replied.

We were back at the White House; it was not that long of a drive if the traffic was not bad. A Secret Service agent carried the box and placed it in my office.

In Section Twelve - with the exception Troy and the President - the powers were all still there. In fact, we had gained some. The Army and Air Force Chief of Staff were there and in a heated discussion on how to handle their high level traitors and the aftermath.

It would be a media bloodbath, let alone what Congress would do to the services with three Generals arrested for treason.

I reminded the Chiefs that Congress was going to fare no better with two Senators and five Representatives charged with the same thing. I suggested that we hold off a day to allow the agencies to investigate more and arrest more of the individuals. The task force would make the announcement of all traitors at one time.

I would have a major press conference about all the corporate, media and financial big wigs who were on the Prince’s list to help deflect some of the attention away from the military.

There were many in the military industrial complex who would sell their soul to the highest bidder to get some new big toy, and a few had.

My thought was to simply overload the media all at one time. The news would be so big and widespread they would not be able to focus on one individual piece for too long.

The military names were divided and were given to different agencies to speed up the process. The NCIS, CGIS were assigned the Generals; a different agency running the investigation would help stifle the rumors of cover-up by the DOD. Plus both of those agencies had impeccable reputations that Congress would respect.

The House and Senate leaders were summoned to the White House at six. I was to chair that meeting and give a brief overview of what we knew. The NSA and FBI were scrambling to gather enough data to make a case before the leaders arrived.

The Prince had documented his payments and the locations where they were made at well enough that the agents would be done before six. There were so many cameras in Washington, we felt sure that the cash transfers to the Senators and Representatives were on video somewhere, or at least the meetings or drops.

The locations, dates and times sped up the video search by thousands of man hours. GPS on the Congressional cell phones would tie everything together. All it was going to take was time.

Tracking the cash was going to be the worst problem; I was damn sure they did not accept checks from the Prince. The ledger always noted if the payments were US dollars, francs, yen or marcs.