Die Trying by Lee Child

them all by shouting. Then the big car came up to the Pentagon River

Entrance and the Marine sentry stepped over. Webster clicked off his

phone and buzzed his window down for the identification ritual.

The director of the FBI,” he said. To see the chairman of the joint

chiefs of staff.”

The sentry snapped a salute and waved the limousine through. Webster

buzzed the window back up and waited for the driver to stop. Then he

got out and ducked in through the personnel door. Walked through to

the chairman’s suite. The chairman’s secretary was waiting for him.

“Go right through, sir,” she said. The general will be along in a

moment.”

Webster walked into the chairman’s office and stood waiting. He looked

out through the window. The view was magnificent, but it had a strange

metallic tint. The window was made of one-way, bulletproof Mylar. It

was a great view, but the window was on the outside of the building,

right next to the River Entrance, so it had to be protected. Webster

could see his car, with his driver waiting beside it. Beyond the car

was a view of the Capitol, across the Potomac. Webster could see

sailboats in the Tidal Basin, with the last of the evening sun glinting

low on the water. Not a bad office, Webster thought. Better than

mine, he thought.

Meeting with the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff was a problem

for the director of the FBI. It was one of those Beltway oddities, a

meeting where there was no cast-iron ranking. Who was superior? Both

were presidential appointees. Both reported to the president through

just one intermediary, the defense secretary or the attorney general.

The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff was the highest-ranking

military post that the nation had to offer. The director of the FBI

was the highest-ranking law-enforcement post. Both men were at the

absolute top of their respective greasy poles. But which greasy pole

was taller? It was a problem for Webster. In the end, it was a

problem for him because the truth was his pole’ was shorter. He

controlled a budget of two billion dollars and about twenty-five

thousand people. The chairman oversaw a budget of two hundred billion

and about a million people. Two million if you added in the National

Guard and the Reserves. The chairman was in the Oval Office about once

a week. Webster got there twice a year, if he was lucky. No wonder

this guy’s office was better.

The chairman himself was impressive too. He was a four-star general

whose rise had been spectacular. He had come from nowhere and blitzed

upward through the army just about faster than his tailor could sew the

ribbons on his uniform. The guy had ended up lopsided with medals.

Then he had been hijacked by Washington and moved in and made the place

his own, like it was some military objective. Webster heard his

arrival in the anteroom and turned to greet him as he came into the

office.

“Hello, General,” he said.

The chairman sketched a busy wave and grinned.

“You want to buy some missiles?” he said.

Webster was surprised.

“You’re selling them?” he said. “What missiles?”

The chairman shook his head and smiled.

“Just kidding,” he said. “Arms limitation. Russians have gotten rid

of a bomber base in Siberia, so now we’ve got to get rid of the

missiles we assigned against it. Treaty compliance, right? Got to

play fair. The big stuff, we’re selling to Israel. But we’ve still

got about a couple hundred little ones, you know, Stingers,

shoulder-launch surface-to-air things. All surplus. Sometimes I think

we should sell them to the dope dealers. God knows they’ve got

everything else they want. Better weapons than we’ve got, most of

them.”

The chairman talked his way around to his chair and sat down. Webster

nodded. He’d seen presidents do a similar thing, tell a joke, tell a

light-hearted story, man-to-man, get the ice broken, make the meeting

work. The chairman leaned back and smiled.

“So what can I do for you, Director?” he asked.

“We got a report in from Chicago,” Webster said. “Your daughter is