Free Liberty by Stephen Coonts Page A

through long halls and into elevators. Eventually he ended up in the director’s office.

    The director was Myron A. Emerick, who had spent his career in the FBI. He was, as Jake knew, the insider’s insider, a man who had ruthlessly worked the system to get to the top.
    Emerick was waiting at the door to shake Jake’s hand when he came in, then seated his guest in a black leather chair. “Good to meet you, Admiral. I’ve heard your name many times through the years.” He took a seat on a leather couch to Jake’s left. It was an intimate setting, yet Jake had to turn his head about forty-five degrees to talk to the director. Jake got out of his chair and turned it so that it faced Emerick, then sat down in it again.
    Emerick’s executive assistant sat to the director’s left with a legal pad on his knee and a pen in his hand. Two other men were there, Emerick’s top two deputies. Jake was introduced and shook hands, then promptly forgot their names.
    â€œI got the president’s letter this morning,” Emerick said earnestly. He was a slim, athletic man of no more than 150 pounds, balding on top, with the rest of his hair cut very short. The top of his head was as tan as his face and hands. Today he was wearing an expensive dark suit and a yellow silk tie. Jake suspected that Emerick worked out—racquetball, probably—every day of his life. A photo of his wife and college-age children was displayed prominently on his desk.
    â€œ … The FBI will do everything in its power to cooperate, Admiral,” Emerick was saying, “rest assured of that. Still, as an attorney and official of this government, I think it important to warn you of the minefield you are apparently about to enter.”
    â€œAt the order of the president,” Jake said carefully.
    â€œBen Franklin was the man who pointed out that those who trade liberty for security end up with neither.”
    â€œI appreciate that truth, sir. I am not a fascist.”
    â€œI am not implying anything of the kind. As I understand it, reading between the lines, you are going to ride roughshod over the privacy safeguards carefully erected
in American society over the centuries for the admirable purpose of catching wild-eyed terrorists. Is that a fair characterization?”
    â€œSomething like that,” Jake acknowledged.
    â€œRegardless of what the judges say, the right against self-incrimination is designed to protect the guilty, not the innocent. Nor is the right of privacy intended to protect people with nothing to hide—it, too, protects the guilty, all those people who break the law or violate social mores by lying on resumes, loan applications, or financial documents, having secret or homosexual affairs, enjoying pornography, cheating on their income tax, using illegal drugs, doing all manner of little things they don’t want their spouses or neighbors or the church or the police to find out about. The world is full of guilty people, Admiral, and they’ll burn you and the president at the stake if you misuse what you learn.”
    â€œThat’s terrific, sir. I’ll wear my asbestos longhandles, the ones with the flap in back. Obviously I wanted to meet you, let you know who I am, but the one concrete thing I hoped to accomplish this morning is find out what the intelligence committee and the FBI plan to do about Richard Doyle. As you will recall, he was the CIA officer named by Janos Ilin as the Russian spy.”
    A strange look crossed Emerick’s face. “Haven’t you heard? We’re investigating his disappearance.”
    Jake was stunned. “Disappearance?”
    â€œDisappeared last Friday night. Drove off in the family minivan while the wife was showing a house—she’s in real estate—and the kids were at a high school football game, and he hasn’t been heard from since. His wife called us about five the next morning. She was pretty