It had been his idea to come down to Miami early this year. Washington was hell, what with everyone staring at them like circus freaks, and Roosevelt was playing both ends against the middle. Hoover hardly knew where he stood nowadays. Under those circumstances, and with a gloomy winter in the offing, a week or two at the Gulfstream had proved irresistible.
They would normally have traveled across the country to vacation in Southern California, for the racing at Del Mar, but he simply couldn't stand the idea of setting foot on the West Coast again, as long as that power-mad German Jew was running wild out there.
It's a pity, he thought as he snugged the silk kimono around his sturdy frame. They always made him feel so welcome in La Jolla. He and Clyde had first refusal on Bungalow A at the Del Charro, where the management ensured that everything was perfect. He always had direct phone lines to Washington; three ceiling fans, because he hated what the air-conditioning did to his sensitive skin; new bulbs in every lamp and light socket; two rolls of scotch tape; a basket of fresh fruit; and a bottle of Jack Daniel's for himself and Haig amp; Haig for Clyde-gift-wrapped, of course.
The Gulfstream, down in Miami, was fine, too. Staying there meant being able to use his complimentary box at Hileah whenever there was a race. But it wasn't his first choice, and J. Edgar Hoover was used to getting his way.
"Oh, Clyde," he said irritably, "go put on the gown I bought for you. You look a terrible sight in your socks and boxers."
Tolson was barely speaking to him after the argument they'd had at the track, earlier that day. Hoover was certain that Clyde had been flirting with one of the models who was hanging out with Lewis Rosenstiel, calling her "dearie" and "darling" and patting her on the knee and thigh, which were both scandalously exposed, in the new fashion.
Somebody knocked at the door.
He heard Clyde curse under his breath. The man had a stinking temper when he was cross. And to make it worse, much worse, he was also quite drunk tonight. He stomped over to the door, jerked it open, and stood there in his underwear. "What the hell do you want?" he barked.
Hoover couldn't hear what was said in reply, but Tolson exploded.
"Well, I don't see that that's any of our goddamned business!" he yelled. "Probably some thug from California. I understand that's how they do things in their day. So why don't you just get back in your little car, and get the hell out of here. I'm sure you can find your way out to the Valley. Just follow the army of perverts."
That would normally have been the end of if, but Hoover could still hear the low, insistent murmur coming from the front porch. Clyde started screeching again, unintelligibly this time. He sounded positively unhinged, and Hoover grew concerned that he might lash out. He was a big, powerful man, Clyde.
And it might well be someone important at the door. With all their troubles back home, it wouldn't be very smart to invite even more trouble.
So Hoover grunted with exasperation and the effort of forcing himself up off the chaise after six whiskies and a double helping of dinner at Joe's Stone Crabs.
He grumbled all the way over to the door. "This had better be good," he growled when he caught sight of the pale, trembling figure who was standing there. It was an agent, but not one he recognized. He dealt only with the senior staff when he was here in Florida.
"I'm sorry, sir," the young man stammered, "but we had to contact you immediately, and you left instructions never to call on the phone. The president wants you back in Washington right now. Something terrible has happened."
Hoover could feel a fine head of steam building inside his head. "We are on holiday-"
"Sir, please," the agent interrupted, staggering the FBI director with his impertinence. "It's Pearl Harbor again, sir. And bombs, too, sir. Bombs going off all over the country."
"… Just follow the army of perverts…"
Rogas couldn't help grinning at that. They had something like 140 hours of audio-video taken from inside Hoover's love shack now.
"Fucking army of perverts," he chuckled. "Madre de fucking Dios."
The chief petty officer was nearing the end of his observation shift when the FBI agent interrupted Hoover and Tolson. The others were sleeping, and he sent a soft ping to their earbuds to alert them.
The team was located in adjoining suites at the Gulfstream, in a separate wing of the pink U-shaped hotel to the director and his "longtime companion." Rogas was bunking with marine Corporal Harriet "the Chariot" Klausner, while in the next room a fellow SEAL, Chief Petty Officer Bryan Cockerill, had teamed up with a marine Corporal Shelley Horton, who'd done three years undercover in a previous life on the Baltimore PD. They were posing as servicemen on leave with their wives.
It hadn't been possible to get a room near Hoover. They were all kept vacant. But the fucking moron stayed in the same luxury suite every time. So Horton and Cockerill had rented it a few days earlier and installed all the microcams before checking out for a short, fictitious scuba-diving trip down in the Keys.
Rogas had no idea where Kolhammer got his intelligence from, but it was good.
Hoover took the exact room the admiral had said he would on the day he was supposed to.
"Admirals"-the Navy SEAL smiled to himself-"is there anything they can't do?"
"S'up bitch?" asked Klausner, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she appeared at his shoulder in the darkened room.
"Dunno," he said. "Some Bureau dude just fronted Tolson with a story about bombs going off somewhere. You might want to check out Fleetnet if you can get a link."
The other two roomies, Horton and Cockerill, appeared from next door. There was a door between the suites, which Rogas assumed was normally locked, until some rich mom and dad needed to rent separate space for their kids.
It was late, and the only light in the room came from the screen Rogas was watching. The hotel room was rank with the smell of four human beings who hadn't been outside for a long time. Room service trays and discarded junk food artifacts lay everywhere, threatening to pile up into a couple of serious garbage drifts. The technical specs for the gig had been minimal. The surveillance rigs and just two data slates to display the take. They needed to be able to break the observation post down for a quick exit.
Rogas waved Horton and Cockerill over to the table where he had one slate running live vision from the targets' room.
"What's going on?" asked Horton.
"Bombings or some shit," said Klausner, who was powering up the other slate to send a query to Fleetnet.
"Anything else?"
"Well," said Rogas. "Edgar and Clyde have been having a tiff, and Clyde's been hitting the bottle a little too hard. Edgar thinks he should wear that spanky little kimono he bought for him-"
"The blue one?" asked Horton. "I like that one. I reckon Clyde looks really edible in that."
"Well, he's just sitting around in his fuckin' crusties for now," said Rogas. "I thought they were going to have a real catfight over it."
"Talk about your fuckin' funniest home videos," grunted Cockerill.
The mission boss was playing with touch-screen controls while Cocky spoke, trying to isolate the audio take from the agent at the door.
"Got it!" Klausner called out. "Early reports of half a dozen soft target bombings in New York. No details yet."
"Shit," said Horton.
They watched as the two men on screen argued with each other. They dismissed the agent who brought the bad news.
"We have to get back there now," said Tolson after the man had left. "We'll get the blame for this."
Rogas waited for Hoover to reply, but an unusual stillness had come over the FBI director.
"We'll see," he said at last.
Rogas looked at his watch. They were due to send another data burst in ninety minutes. He took less than a heartbeat to make his decision.
"Cocky, start compressing the last six hours' feed for a flash traffic burst. Kolhammer needs to see this now. Shelly, let's get this fucking pigsty policed up. I think we're going to be on the move soon."
If they were going back to Washington, Rogas would need to send an alert ahead to his advance team.
They needed to finish wiring up Hoover's house and to try to get a surveillance roach into his office.
Again Rogas had no idea how Kolhammer hoped to achieve that.
"Admirals…" He smiled.