Early Warning by Michael Walsh Page A

join the force in lieu of a stretch at Auburn or Dannemora. By contrast, the FBI was making do with the un-networked equivalents of the old Trash 80s and Kaypros, and even the vaunted NSA was still behind the WYSIWYG curve on some of its older terminals. It was a wonder, Tyler reflected, that given the determination of America’s enemies to strike and strike again that there were any buildings standing in Washington and New York at all.
    “…and there’s a reason for that, which goes beyond their insularity,” Seelye was saying.
    “What’s that?” Talking to Seelye exasperated Tyler, but given their shared past, there wasn’t much he could do about it. Seelye stayed until he quit, or until Devlin asked for his resignation. That was part of the deal, too.
    “Byrne’s brother, Tom.”
    “Go on.”
    “As in Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Thomas A. Byrne.”
    “Oh, shit. Don’t tell me that asshole is our guy’s brother.”
    “That’s what they say the ‘A’ stands for, yes sir.”
    How and why Tom Byrne was still with the Bureau, not to mention how and why he had risen as far as he had, was one of Washington’s great mysteries. Not since Hoover himself had a SAC been as roundly and as cordially despised as Tom Byrne, and yet he had continued his unimpeded rise through the ranks. “Haven’t you got anything on him?”
    There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment as Seelye chose his words. “Plenty of stories, mostly about something that went down years ago. Something that seems to have involved both Byrne brothers. But if anybody knows anything, they’re either not talking or sleeping with the fishes. Which is weird, because…”
    “Because?” prompted Tyler.
    “Because the two brothers hate each other’s guts. They’re like two guys, each with a loaded gun at the other one’s head, knowing that no matter who pulls the trigger first, they both get their heads blown off.”
    Tyler saw the outlines of a possible play. As Seelye had told him in the middle of the Skorzeny business, he really was getting the hang of the intelligence game. “Sort of like you and me, in other words.”
    “You could put it that way, yes, sir,” Seelye said.
    “Not to mention Devlin.”
    “Let’s not, if you don’t mind, Mr. President.”
    “You don’t like him very much, do you?” asked Tyler. “Is it because he’s hard to like?” Tyler was still smarting from his confrontations with Devlin.
    “It’s not that he’s hard to like,” replied Seelye. “He’s impossible to like.” He wondered if the president would get the reference to the original Manchurian Candidate and immediately decided he would not.
    He did. “The first version really was much better,” said Tyler. “Did you know I was one of the Chinese workmen who laid the track on this stretch?” This president was always full of surprises.
    “Nonetheless, Maryland is a beautiful state.”
    “So is Ohio, for that matter—so level with me. Where’s Devlin?”
    The thought crossed Seelye’s mind that somehow Tyler had found out about his true relationship with the man known as Devlin—how he had in fact raised him after his parents’ death in 1985, trained him to be the perfect operative, kept him off the grid and in his pocket until…until the Skorzeny business came out into the open. The only other person who knew was Howard Rubin, the former Secretary of Defense, but he had retired to his farm in Maryland six months ago. Seelye and Rubin had never been particularly friendly, but he felt for the man when Rubin had called him up one afternoon to tell him of his impending resignation. “When a couple of guys with a suitcase nuke can take down a whole country,” Rubin had wondered, “what’s the point of a Defense Department?” Especially one that, for reasons of political cowardice, wouldn’t fight back.
    The new SecDef was Shalika Johnson, the former governor of Tyler’s home state,