Removal (25 page)

Mary looked up. ‘About what?’

‘About the President appearing on the Conrad Beckers show this evening.’

‘Really?’ Mary mused. ‘I wonder what the occasion is. My source said they were keeping a very tight lid on it at the station.’

‘I couldn’t get anything out of Martha Graylor either,’ Philby said. ‘All she would say was that it’s not unusual for the President to appear on Beckers.’

‘It’s unusual for them to bump a show just for the pleasure of his company. I can’t recall them ever doing that except for a national crisis of some kind,’ Mary pointed out.

‘I put that to Martha. She insisted it was a normal courtesy to the President, or some baloney to that effect. Obviously, the intention is that we all find out at the same time. I’ve set up a viewing, of course. Are you free?’

‘I’ll be there. But can we get the pizza from our usual place this time? The stuff we had last time, during the budget fight, was terrible.’

‘I’ll make a special note to arrange it personally, Mary,’ Philby replied. ‘I’m just the Editor, after all. I have almost nothing else to do.’

Irene bit her lip in an unsuccessful attempt not to giggle.

‘Now,’ Philby continued, ‘you said something about needing a decision. What have you got here?’

Mary Sullivan folded her arms in front of her on the table.

‘Some time ago, I asked Irene to put together materials on the major players making contributions to both political parties. It’s something I do every year.’

Philby nodded.

‘This year, Irene came across an outfit which was new to me, calling itself the Western States Geophysical Research Institute. Does that mean anything to you?’

‘Not a thing. What do they do?’

‘Ah, well, that’s a good question,’ Mary replied. ‘According to their website, they research and write position papers for groups interested in supporting the environment against special interests like logging, mining, oil exploration.’

‘But…?’

‘But they don’t. Or at least, they haven’t yet.’

She looked at Irene.

‘I did a complete check, Mr. Philby,’ Irene said hesitantly. ‘All the web sources, the journals that would run pieces on something like this. I even called the clients they list. Nothing.’

‘Well, maybe they’re just getting started,’ Philby ventured.

‘No, Sir, the company’s been around for several years,’ Irene replied.

‘And, what’s more to the point,’ Mary added, ‘is that they’ve been extremely well funded during those several years.’

She slid several documents, clipped together, across the table.

‘Feast your eyes on this.’

Philby removed his reading glasses from their case, put them on, and scanned the documents carefully.

‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ he said, replacing the documents on the table. ‘If I were funding them on that kind of scale, I might want to see some return for my money.’

‘My feelings exactly,’ Mary continued. ‘Now, you’ll notice a contributor mentioned in there called Middle and Near East Holdings, Incorporated. That’s a company incorporated in Delaware. It’s essentially a shell, formed by a group of Lebanese nationals. Other than contributing to Western States, they don’t appear to do anything, and they seem to be shy about divulging information about themselves, especially in the form of filings.’

‘Assets?’ Philby asked.

‘Nothing we can find,’ Mary answered.

‘They must have some money,’ Philby pointed out. ‘They gave quite a chunk to Western States.’

‘We don’t know it was their own money they gave,’ Mary rejoined. ‘In fact, it probably wasn’t.’

‘You mean, they were laundering it?’

‘Possibly. Or at least providing cover for the real donor.’

Philby nodded. ‘Interesting.’

‘It gets better,’ Mary smiled. ‘It turns out, Middle and Near East also have the lease on that apartment in North West, where the President’s friend, Lucia Benoni, was found murdered.’

‘Well, for God’s sake,’ Philby muttered, moving across to pour himself a cup of coffee.

‘Not in their own name, naturally, but their idea of cover isn’t very subtle. The original named lessee was one of their own people, a guy called Hamid Marfrela.’

‘That rings a distant bell,’ the Editor said wryly.

‘I thought it might.’

Philby paused, coffee pot in hand.

‘Is there a paper trail to the money?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Mary replied. ‘Middle and Near East is a generous underwriter of Western States, which in turn is a generous contributor to the President’s party, even though the President’s policy on environmental issues is generally bad news for the type of causes Western States is supposed to represent.’

Philby walked back to resume his seat.

‘So, you think there’s something else going on?’

‘There has to be,’ Mary said. ‘It’s too much money to be just a sop to keep the local congressmen and senators happy. In any case, they could do that by making contributions to their individual campaigns, which they haven’t done.’

‘And the local incumbents aren’t much more interested in the environment than the President,’ Irene added tentatively. ‘There’s no obvious reason for Western States to support them.’

‘Right,’ Mary agreed. ‘So I asked Irene to dig deeper into Hamid Marfrela and see what she could come up with. Go ahead, Irene.’

Irene opened her file.

‘Nothing very unusual in his past on the face of it, Mr. Philby. School in Beirut, followed by a spell in the Lebanese army, mandatory for two years under their law. Then he works for a family business, exporting rugs to Europe and the States for a while, does a fair amount of traveling. He seems to have made some money. He disappears from sight for a year or two. Finally, he shows up in Washington as a diplomat. He speaks fluent English and French, and he seems to be a favorite on the cocktail circuit. But he also makes some strange friends, some of whom later become contributors to Western States. He makes several extended trips out to Oregon.’

‘To visit his strange friends at Western States?’

‘Presumably, Sir. Well, let’s put it this way, he had no legitimate diplomatic reason for being in Oregon.’

‘How did you find that out, for God’s sake?’

‘I have a classmate who’s interning at the State Department,’ Irene grinned sheepishly.

‘Good work,’ Philby nodded encouragingly. ‘What else?’

‘Well, Sir, the people associated with Western States also have close ties to other individuals, who are involved with some of the white supremacist groups they have out there. I checked with Archives. Quite a few of them show up in articles we’ve run on those groups in the past. And…, Miss Sullivan…?’

‘And,’ Mary added, ‘my source says the police are pretty much convinced Marfrela was murdered by a hit man working for one such group, a bunch of nasty specimens calling themselves The Sons of the Flag, who run a military-style compound near Portland.’

Philby drank his coffee thoughtfully.

‘I think I see where you’re going with this,’ he said quietly. ‘No wonder the House wants to hold hearings. I’m sure the Intelligence Committee has been down the same road you have.’

‘The way it looks to us, Harold,’ Mary said, ‘is that we have a money trail leading from Lebanon to the President, or at least to his party, filtered through some rather nasty people, by way of two companies which have no apparent activities except as part of the laundering process, if you want to call it that.’

‘Motive?’ Philby asked.

‘That’s what Irene and I kept asking ourselves. There are only three conclusions that make sense. One is the Lebanese Government or some Lebanese interests are providing financial support to white supremacist groups, presumably with the intention of destabilizing the United States Government, and the President’s involvement with Lucia Benoni is coincidental.’

‘Let me hear two and three.’

‘Two is the President is playing footsie with the Lebanese Government or some Lebanese interests, and is getting paid off by means of illegal foreign contributions in return for favor or favors unknown in the foreign policy field. An unpleasant thought.’

‘Very,’ Philby agreed. ‘Three?’

‘Three is the Government of Lebanon or some Lebanese interests are interested in compromising the President by creating an appearance of motive two.’

Philby nodded grimly.

‘Conclusions two and three also being supported by the presumed fact that Marfrela set the President up with Lucia Benoni as a sweetener.’

‘And as a possible source of information. But for some reason, Lucia became too dangerous, and couldn’t be trusted any more. Perhaps she got too fond of the President and they were afraid she might blow the whistle.’

‘So they told Marfrela to get rid of her, which he did, but then they decided they couldn’t trust Marfrela to keep his mouth shut, either, so he had to go, too.’

‘Looks that way. But the other thing, Harold, is that everything they’ve done seems calculated to be discovered. They reported the Benoni murder to the police. The Marfrela killing was bound to be discovered as soon as he didn’t show up for work at the Embassy. They left his body in his apartment for the police to find. And the money trail is so amateurish it’s almost comical. All you had to do to find it was fall over it. I can’t think of any reason why they would play it that way, except to set the President up.’

‘That points to three,’ Philby said.

‘I agree.’

‘Well, then, I suppose the question is,’ the Editor said ponderously, ‘whether they are setting him up for something he did or something he didn’t do.’

There was a long silence.

‘So, can I write the story?’ Mary asked.

Philby looked at her across the table.

‘That depends,’ he answered quietly. ‘Which story are you going to write?’

‘I’m not sure. Why not put them all out there? Let the chips fall where they may.’

Philby shook his head decisively.

‘No, not on something like this. Write me a draft with alternative endings, like one of those wretched audience-participation dinner theater who-done-its my wife is always dragging me to. We’ll publish once we see which way the wind is blowing.’

‘Harold…’

‘You know it’s the only way, Mary. Let’s see what the President says on the Beckers Show, and let’s listen to the opening statements in the Committee hearings. After that…’

‘After that it won’t be a story.’

‘Yes it will,’ Philby said definitively. ‘It’s going to be a story for quite a while. And we’re way out in front. Nice job, both of you. Write the draft. I’ll organize the pizza. From our usual place.’

* * *

In Philby’s office they had watched the President’s appearance on the Conrad Beckers News show in silence.

‘So, why exactly was it so important for him to get on the show tonight?’ Mary Sullivan asked. ‘Irene, wind the tape back to where Beckers asked him about Chicago.’

The intern leapt to her feet and started to cue the tape to the desired point, using notes of digital numbers from the tape counter she had carefully compiled during the recording. Harold Philby thoughtfully brushed a few morsels of pizza from his lips on to a paper napkin.

‘Beats me,’ Philby said. ‘It sounded like the same old tune to me. I bet Conrad is royally pissed off.’

‘Here we go,’ Irene said.

The camera was trained on Conrad Beckers who, as was his custom, was sitting in his film director’s chair, an expensive pen in his hand and a pad full of notes on his lap.

‘Mr. President,’ he was saying, ‘I’m sure you know that there have been allegations that you entertained Lucia Benoni in your hotel room in Chicago during a recent visit. Yet, you have maintained that your contact with her was minimal and quite innocent. What do you say to those charges?’

The camera shifted to Steve Wade, who was seated opposite Beckers in an armchair.

‘Look at that,’ Philby said in a low voice. ‘I’ve never seen the man look so uncomfortable.’

‘He’d rather be having a root canal,’ Mary agreed.

The President had taken several seconds to reply.

‘Conrad, I will tell you that I did see Ms.Benoni one evening during my Chicago trip,’ Wade said. ‘Let me say first that it was entirely innocent. She happened to be in town, and wanted to discuss some matters of mutual interest. It also happened that I was free for the evening, and I invited her to come by for a drink. She did. She stayed for a while. I have no recollection of exactly how long. It was entirely innocent. You must remember that the President of the United States is never left completely alone, especially when he’s away from the White House. I had a Secret Service Agent right outside the door. Even if I were tempted to stray, Conrad, please don’t underestimate how difficult it would be.’

Beckers twirled the pen between his well-manicured fingers for a few moments.

‘So, Mr. President, are we to understand that there was never any kind of sexual relationship between Ms. Benoni and yourself?’

‘That’s correct. I’ve made that clear from the beginning, and I’m glad to have the chance to make it clear again on your show.’

‘Then, Mr. President, why didn’t you tell the American people this, about your meeting with Ms. Benoni, when the matter first arose?’

‘Because I didn’t think it would be of any interest to anyone. I still don’t.’

‘But you are aware that it seems to be of great interest to certain members of Congress?’

Steve Wade pulled himself up forcefully in his chair, his eyes looked piercingly at his interviewer.

‘That’s more like it,’ Philby muttered.

‘Conrad, that’s why I was so anxious to be on your show this evening, and make my views known to the American people. What’s going on here has nothing to do with my acquaintanceship with Lucia Benoni. What’s going on here is an attempt at political assassination by those who oppose the work the American people elected me to do, and who resent the success my Administration has had in doing that work. I want to tell the misguided people who are responsible that this attack will not deflect me from my work. I will defend myself with every resource at my disposal and, after I have repulsed the attack, let there be no mistake, I will be coming after those people. Let them heed my words and beware.’