“Let’s track them down and see what they know,” Ryan said. “And bring Cyber Com in on this.”
“Happening as we speak,” Foley said. “Human Resources at Parnassus did confirm to the responding agents that Geoff Noonan was an employee.”
“Is he in Australia, too?” Ryan asked.
“Apparently not,” Foley said. “No one has heard from him since he missed his flight out of Jakarta almost a month ago.”
“But Calliope is one of their products?” Ryan asked.
“No,” Foley said. “If Noonan was working on something called Calliope, the rest of the company wasn’t aware of it.” Foley flipped through the earlier pages of her notebook. “He had a partner, though, another engineer… a guy named… here it is. Ackerman. He’s also gone off the grid. According to HR, Ackerman broke both legs in a bicycle accident a little over a month ago. He’s been on sick leave so he wasn’t on the Jakarta junket.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” van Damm said. “Let me guess. Ackerman’s been off the grid for over three weeks.”
“You got it,” Foley said.
Ryan bounced his fist on the desk. “Let’s get up on his phone, dig into this Ackerman guy’s background.”
Van Damm cleared his throat. “Mr. President, we may want to take a breath here. You have people to lead the investigation. Having this office throw its weight around at this point might look like we’re using a sledgehammer to swat a fly. PFC to PRC is not too much of a leap, but it might not be enough to get us a fishing expedition into the life of an American citizen, who, for all we know, is holed up at a beach house on Cape Cod watching Netflix and eating Cherry Garcia ice cream. I suggest we locate the Parnassus executives in Australia before we move forward with anything else. Scott’s people at State can look into where Father West is being held — as they would do for any U.S. citizen who is arrested abroad. Don’t forget that we have invited Senator Chadwick into our tent. She has already accused us ad nauseam of taking the law into our own hands. Let’s not play into hers.”
Ryan waved away the thought. “I’m not worried about Chadwick. You heard her. She wants to play nice.”
“And you believe her?” Van Damm paused for a beat, then said, “Mr. President, mark my words. It’s not going to be long before you remember that she is a viper. I just hope she’s not in your pocket when you do.”
“Give me twenty minutes,” Ryan said. “Run down what you can and then convene back here.” He found himself breathing hard, through his nose, like he was about to step into a fight.
The others stood up to leave as he swiveled his chair to look out the windows at the South Lawn.
Mary Pat stayed back, pulling the door shut so she was alone with Ryan.
He turned his chair to face her.
“I knew him in high school — at Loyola, and then later at Boston College. He was always so kind, so forthright, so…”
“Un-spylike?” Foley offered.
“I guess that about sums it up,” Ryan said. “I was surprised to see him when he showed up at Camp Peary one day when I was teaching — almost as surprised as he was to see me. He’d actually gone active with the Agency early on, right after college. I had no idea. I was still in finance then, so he never told me what he was doing.”
“Of course he didn’t,” Foley said. “That sort of thing happens all the time — old friends drawn toward the same goal but unable to talk about it with each other until they meet down the road on some assignment or retread training.”
“He was very good at it,” Ryan said.
“I know,” Foley said. “We worked together a couple of times in East Germany. We were both stationed in Bonn, but that guy practically lived in East Berlin.” She chuckled, remembering some event. “We used to make jokes about West living in the East. Fearless. But there was always something…”
“Eating at him?” Ryan finished her sentence.
“Yeah,” Foley said. “Ed liked to say Pat acted like his collars were too tight, even when he wore a T-shirt. We chuckled about that later when we found out he’d left the Agency to take his vows with the priesthood. Talk about tight collars…”
“That’s the thing,” Ryan said. “He’s not merely my friend. He’s one of us. Reluctant, conflicted, sure, but still one of us. And he obviously veered out of his clerical swim lane to find out more about this Calliope thing, whatever it is.”
Foley let him go on without interruption.
Ryan looked directly into her eyes. “What if it were you over there, Mary Pat? What would I not do to save you?”
“I have no doubt,” Foley said.
“President Gumelar won’t want to be a puppet of China,” Ryan said. “I can leverage that.”
“Maybe,” Foley said. “But a cryptic text isn’t much proof that China is involved.”
“I know.” Ryan leaned back, drumming his fingers on the desk. “I have a feeling something is unrolling faster than we can react. Father Pat’s been in custody for almost a month, if our information is correct. That’s a hell of a lot of catching up to do. Hang on a minute.” He punched the intercom button on his phone.
His lead secretary answered immediately.
