The President's Henchman (18 page)

The colonel got up and told him she’d pick up the check on her way out.

Welborn ate his bran muffin, washed it down with the orange juice. He hadn’t found any incriminating evidence in the colonel’s room because he hadn’t looked. He’d had two reasons for that. He didn’t think he could pull off a search without her noticing, and he hoped she’d trust him more when she saw her stuff hadn’t been tossed.

But he had checked the view out the room’s window. It looked directly down on the parking space where Captain Cowan’s navy blue Viper had been parked last night. So maybe the colonel hadn’t
slept
with captain, but he’d probably been in the room. Ready to jump out the window in case anyone had messed with his precious car.

The waitress came by again. “Can I get you anything else, hon?”

“No, thanks. I have to go see the president.”

“Of the United States?”

“That’s the one.”

The waitress laughed. Asked if she could have a few minutes with her when he was done.

The president had no time for McGill. That was what her personal secretary, Edwina Byington, told him. The president was in the Situation Room and couldn’t be disturbed.

“For how long?” McGill asked.

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t know.”

“Foolish question,” McGill said.

“Yes, sir.”

Edwina’s eyes twinkled, and the corners of her mouth turned up. She was laughing with McGill not at him. During his first week in the White House, McGill had asked Patti how many people in her administration would end up writing books about their experiences. Patti’d said, “Everyone with a word processor and a grudge … and everyone who has too many good stories to keep secret.” McGill had come to think he’d enjoy reading Edwina’s book the most.

“At the next opportunity,” McGill said, “please inform the president that I’m flying home to see my children. I’ll be chartering the use of a government plane, so if she needs to see my smiling face for any reason, I can get back here in a hurry.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll do that.”

Edwina’s smile turned warm, and he felt maybe he’d earned a nice passage in her book.

“Oh, and if he’s available, would you please ask SAC Crogher to meet me in the residence ASAP?”

Edwina said she would and picked up the phone to call the Secret Service boss. On the way out of the West Wing, McGill saw a clean-cut young man on his way in; if he had Patti’s description right, this had to be the one and only Lieutenant Welborn Yates. His suspicion was confirmed when the young man snapped to attention, started to salute him, hesitated, and then followed through. Turning bright red as he did.

McGill returned the salute. “It’s okay, Welborn. Cops salute, too.”

Crogher beat McGill to the residence. They went to the drawing room. McGill gestured to the SAC to have a seat. Normally, this would have been considered common courtesy, and while Crogher complied, McGill could tell he was ill at ease. Sitting wasn’t one of his usual activities.

Taking his own chair, McGill asked, “Would you be happier standing?”

Crogher wasn’t about to admit any weakness. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

“We’re never going to get along, Celsus,” McGill said, “but we both want the same thing. For nobody to get hurt, especially the president.”

“And you. And your children.”

McGill didn’t think for a minute that Crogher was sucking up. He was just being thorough. Which was all you could ask for from someone doing his job.

He’d called for Crogher because he was being thorough, too.

“There’s someone who’s come to my attention. I think she might deserve your attention, too. Special attention, in fact.”

It would have been impossible for Crogher to sit any straighter, but his spine seemed to elongate. “Regarding Holly G?”

The president’s code name was Holly G, after the character Holly Golitely, played by Audrey Hepburn in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
The president considered the name a compliment.

“Yes.”

“A threat? Direct or indirect? Where did you hear or see it?”

“It’s not a threat of any kind yet. It’s a matter of someone who has regular access to the White House and periodic access to the president. This person has displayed behavior I consider erratic. I’m not saying this is a bad person, certainly not a hostile person. But she could be emotionally … uncertain right now.”

“Who is she?”

“Chana Lochlan.”

Crogher’s eyes widened a micron, as much surprise as he was capable of showing.

“But you’re working for her,” he said.

“I was. She fired me. And no, I’m not trying to get even with her. Just keep a special eye on her and try not to let her or anybody else know you’re doing it.”

Crogher wanted to know all the details.

McGill refused to tell him. He’d already compromised his confidentiality agreement with Chana as far as he intended to. He told Crogher that the Secret Service had its secrets and so did he. Crogher didn’t like that. Not at all.

They were back where they started. Working toward the same goals. Fighting each other all the way.

On the floor of the basketball court at the Political Muscle health club, Senator Roger Michaelson drained a shot from beyond the three-point line — the NBA three-point line, not that chip shot they used in college. Swish. After many years of grueling physical therapy and countless workouts, he felt … well, almost as good as he used to when he was young.

Problem was, he was middle-aged now. He couldn’t compete against elite athletes half his age, and unlike golf, pro hoops didn’t have a senior’s tour. He’d come a long way in life, but he’d never gotten the opportunity he’d wanted most.

More times than he’d care to admit, that still pissed him off.

So he played against guys half his age who were merely good recreational players. He played hard. Threw elbows. But hardly ever had to take any in return. Who was going to mix it up with a U.S. senator? Not the lobbyists, congressional staffers, and rising bureaucrats who played ball on the Political Muscle court.

He told everyone that when he stepped onto the court he was just another guy; he didn’t want any special consideration, and he certainly wouldn’t give any. But the other players couldn’t help themselves. Couldn’t trust that he’d keep his word. They had to err on the side of caution. They had their careers to consider.

Still, it was better competition than he’d ever find in the Senate gym. Most of his esteemed colleagues were
older
than him and none of them had the physical skills to play girls’ field hockey. Then, one day, Walter Deschay showed up at the Political Muscle court. Six-six and 210 pounds of shining ebony muscle. He was new to town and probably didn’t know any better. He thought anybody who stepped onto the court was fair game. You played ball, you better be ready to take your lumps.

He was out of the University of Arkansas. Played second string for the Razorbacks for three years. Had every move in the book but didn’t finish strong. Needed to work on his jumper, too. A booster in the Arkansas delegation of the House had brought him to Washington and gotten him a job in the Department of Agriculture.

Roger Michaelson was going up to tip in a shot that a teammate had missed when Walter slammed into him, grabbed the ball, and left the senator flat on his ass. From his seat on the floor, Michaelson watched Walter rifle a pass to a fast-breaking teammate, grab the rebound of the missed shot for a put-back, and knock another guy on his ass. Michaelson loved Walter as a player from that moment on.

He looked forward to his games against Walter more than he looked forward to tropical vacations with his wife. For nine months they went at it, and he knew Walter loved competing against him, too. They were always the first two to arrive for games.

Michaelson checked into Walter’s job performance and was happy to discover that he was a first-rate worker. Went beyond what was asked of him and always had a joke or a good word for everyone in his department. The senator was determined that Walter was going to have an exceptionally successful career in government service.

Then, one winter night, Walter took his dog out for his constitutional. Two street vermin held Walter up at gunpoint. He’d had to take a glove off to get at his wallet. One of the punks thought he wasn’t moving fast enough. So he shot Walter’s dog. Walter immediately jumped the shooter, actually wrested the gun away and broke the punk’s wrist doing it. But the accomplice shot Walter in the head, killing him instantly.

It was only because Walter’s killer insisted that he and his injured friend go back to retrieve the friend’s gun and Walter’s wallet — after they’d originally fled — that the cops caught them.

Roger Michaelson was among the several powerful people in Washington who saw to it that both criminals received life sentences without the possibility of parole, but he was the only political figure the Deschay family asked to be a pallbearer at Walter’s funeral.

After Walter died, Roger Michaelson gave up playing recreational games. Now he just came to the gym and shot baskets. Usually alone. Swishing one after another. Hoping that maybe someday a player with Walter’s love of the game would step onto the court again.

He hit his last shot as his chief of staff entered the gym.

“Am I interrupting, Senator?”

Michaelson shook his head. “Just finished.”

The two of them were the only ones present.

“Where are we with McGill?” the senator asked.

“Do you remember Lindell Ricker, Senator?”

“The witness against Erna Godfrey.”

“Currently doing ten years in Atlanta. Not liking it one bit.”

“Prison isn’t supposed to be fun,” said Michaelson, the former prosecutor.

“Apparently it’s not. Anyway, the word among the Evangelicals down I-95 in Virginia and points south is that either McGill, his female storm trooper, Sweeney, or the two of them, beat Ricker’s confession out of him.”

Michaelson grabbed the towel he’d left on the ball rack. He wiped the sweat off his face. When he lowered the towel, his eyes were gleaming. This might turn out to be so sweet. Galia Mindel had taken away three of his biggest convictions. Now, all these years later, he might have a chance to overturn the convictions of the lunatics who’d murdered Andy Grant.

And maybe send McGill to jail in the bargain.

“Where did you get this?” Michaelson asked.

“On the Internet.”

The senator shook his head. “Not good enough. Find real people. Get sworn statements that Ricker told them directly about the beating. We can take that to Justice. We’ll get that ball rolling, then open congressional investigations.”

“You think any Republican chairmen will allow investigations of the president’s husband?”

Michaelson laughed. “The conservatives loathe the president. I give them the means to get at Patti Grant, they’ll see to it I run unopposed the next time around.”

He grabbed a ball off the rack. Turned and fired. Drilled it from forty feet.

“What about the Linberg situation?” he asked.

His chief of staff brought him up to date.

Michaelson thought a moment, and said, “Somebody’s trying to fuck with us here.”

“Yes, sir.”

A cold smile appeared on the senator’s face.

“I love it when people try to fuck with me,” Michaelson said. “It’s like I have to beat the other team and a crooked ref, too. There’s nothing more satisfying than doing that.”

“Yes, sir,” said his chief of staff, Robert Merriman.

The president had two specially configured Boeing 747-200B aircraft available to her. But when she was aboard
any
Air Force aircraft, the radio call sign was “Air Force One.” Likewise, she had several helicopters available to her from Marine Helicopter Squadron One. Any chopper from the squadron that carried the president was known as “Marine One.”

The Air Force Gulfstream that McGill had chartered probably had some special designation, but he didn’t know what it was. Other than two presidential trips with Patti, and travel during the campaign, it was the first time he hadn’t flown commercial. But his guess was every air traffic controller from Andrews Air Force Base to O’Hare International Airport had been informed he was aboard. And he’d bet his bottom dollar the plane didn’t have to circle the field before it was allowed to land.

All this came at a cost. He’d have to reimburse the government over $24,000 to use the plane for the Washington–Chicago round-trip. Well, the money would come from one of Patti’s trust funds. McGill had two police pensions he was drawing and some investment income, but he didn’t have the means to hire private jets.

Patti had told him when they’d married that there were funds — millions of dollars — that were available to him at his request. Nobody would ever question why he wanted the money, especially not her. She’d said she trusted him. He’d kissed her, thanked her, and told her he doubted he’d need any of that money. Now, he did and …

He felt like he was taking it from the ghost of Andy Grant.

Thing was, he didn’t see that he had a choice. He felt as if he had to be in two places at once. Abbie needed him at home, and Patti might soon need him back in Washington. For a sympathetic ear if nothing else. Given his situation, he didn’t feel he could rely on civilian aviation. As the country had seen on 9/11, all commercial flights could be canceled for days at a time. He didn’t want to be stuck at Point A if he needed to get to Point B.

So he dipped into money that he felt wasn’t his and resolved to repay it.

The executive jet rose smoothly off the runway, began its climb and a long, gentle turn to the north, then west. There was an Air Force crew of three aboard: pilot, copilot, and steward. There were also three passengers: McGill, Deke, and Leo.

The steward, a first lieutenant who, McGill suspected, was also an emergency backup pilot, served drinks, then went forward. Leo was sipping a Cherry Coke and looking at a car magazine. Deke’s cup of water sat untasted as he pondered something without expression. McGill was having a White House ice tea, looking out the window, and speculating on the crisis Patti must be facing. Had to be Cuba, he thought.

He was trying to guess what his wife might do about it when Deke asked him, “Were you serious, back at the firing range? About that Dark Alley stuff. I’ve checked every martial art book I could lay my hands on, and I can’t find that name anywhere.”

Leo joined the conversation. “Can’t say I’ve heard of it, either. Though I do like the name.
Dark Alley.”
He gave the words an eerie warble.

McGill smiled, and said, “You won’t find any written reference to it because there isn’t any. Dark Alley was the creation of my uncle, Chief Petty Officer E. P. McGill, United States Navy.”

“Your uncle created his own martial art?” Deke asked.

McGill nodded. “And I’m the sole surviving practitioner. I haven’t decided whether I’ll pass it on to any of my kids yet.”

“You want to tell us about it?” Deke asked. “Just so we know not to kung when you fu.”

Leo nodded. “That would be good.”

McGill thought it over. “All right. First you have to understand who Uncle Ed was. He was a Chicago tough guy. Not a criminal. Just someone who expressed himself best with his fists. He got into one of those jail-or-army situations. Only the judge was willing to let him make it the Navy. He told me he spent a lot of time fighting Marines. When it wasn’t them, it was Filipino knife fighters. Or Hong Kong brothel bouncers. All sorts of Australians.”

“But how did he come to teach you?” Deke asked.

“Uncle Ed liked to play that game where you put your hands palms down on another guy’s palms-up hands.”

“Your hand gets slapped, you have to keep on taking it,” Leo said. “Until you get away without being hit. Then it’s the other guy’s turn.”

“Right. My uncle started playing that game with me when I was ten.”

“But you had quick hands even then,” Deke said. “He couldn’t slap your hand.”

“Not often.”

“How come you’re so quick?” Leo wanted to know.

McGill shrugged. “A lot of fast-twitch fiber, a doctor told me once. Pure luck.”

“Your uncle spotted your quickness,” Deke said.

“When I was twelve,” McGill said, “he asked if I wanted to try a variation on the game. Maybe he’d slap my hand; maybe he’d slap my face. Wouldn’t hit me hard if it was the face. I was cocky enough to tell him it could be as hard as he wanted because he wouldn’t get me.”

“Caught you a good one, didn’t he?” Leo asked.

McGill shook his head. “He didn’t land a blow. At least not to my face. But he did break my left wrist because at the end he was swinging pretty hard. He felt so bad he paid all my medical bills and I got gifts from every port he hit for the next year.”

“By the time he came back, he’d decided he wanted to teach you,” Deke said.

McGill nodded. “We started when I was thirteen. Uncle Ed taught me that Dark Alley is divided into two disciplines: Biological Weapons and The Lord Shall Provide.”

Deke understood immediately. “Body parts and found objects.”

“Exactly. Uncle Ed showed me how to use the back of my head, the top of my head, my forehead, and my chin. He showed me how to use shoulders, upper arms, elbows, forearms, wrists, backhands, heels of hands, cupped palms, stiffened fingers, hooked thumbs, and fists. He showed me how to use hips, thighs, knees, insteps, heels, and balls of feet.”

“No teeth?” Deke asked.

“Some things go without saying. There’s also a way you can make your tongue firm and poke someone in the eye with it, but that’s pretty rare. As for learning to use what comes to hand, that took a whole year in itself.”

Both Deke and Leo were nodding.

Then Leo asked, “How’s your uncle doing these days?”

“He passed away … struck by lightning.”

“No fighting that off,” Leo said.

“Stay out of the rain,” McGill replied.

The steward stepped up to him and offered him a phone.

“Sorry to interrupt, sir, but the president would like to speak with you.”

“Somebody set off a bomb at an open-air produce market in Havana,” the president told McGill. “Current death toll is eighteen, but it’s expected to go higher.”

“Anybody own up to the blast?” McGill asked.

“No, and that’s part of the problem. In Raul Castro’s name, the government is claiming it’s an act of terror by the Miami exiles. It’s even suggested that uniformed antirevolutionary forces may have infiltrated the island, and it says if any are found, it will result in the gravest of all consequences.”

“Is there a chance they’ve got any of it right?”

There was a pause at Patti’s end of the conversation.

“The U.S. Special Forces officer in charge of holding the reins on the exile army in Costa Gorda has reported that one squad, a demolition team, is unaccounted for. But the Cuban-American commandante has said the squad, which is comprised of four brothers named Obregon, had returned to Miami to be with their dying father.”

Didn’t pass the smell test for McGill, but he knew all sorts of feds would be swooping down on Miami to verify that explanation. So he tried another tack.

“Could be the Cubans sacrificed a handful of their own people. If they really intend to take the whole country down, to follow Fidel’s directive, they’re not going to sweat losing a few people buying bananas.”

“That’s exactly the argument my national security advisor has advanced. Havana is ratcheting up the pressure on us. Trying to get us to disband the exile army and giving us a taste of what horrors might lie ahead.”

“Any TV coverage from Cuba yet?” McGill asked.

“CNN started ten minutes ago. Bodies, body parts, and blood everywhere.”

“You have any ideas, or should I mind my own business?”

“I’m going to offer to send an FBI team to Havana to investigate. With it goes my promise that the United States will prosecute any U.S. citizens involved in the bombing, should that turn out to be the case.”

“Sounds reasonable to me, but how will it sound to the Cubans?”

“If they won’t trust us, why should we take their word that our guys did it?”

“Good point. It puts the ball back in their court.”

“I think you might be ready to join the National Security Council,” the president said.

“And I thought you loved me.”

“I do. But we’ll talk about that when you get back. I found a few minutes to spare for Lieutenant Yates. He says he thinks Colonel Linberg and Captain Cowan are conspiring.”

“Against whom or what?”

“He’s not sure.” Patti told McGill about the view from Colonel Linberg’s hotel room. “He’s asked me not to grant the colonel’s request to resign. Not until he gets a fuller understanding of the case.”

“Good cop,” McGill said. “But how’s that play politically?”

“Well, it would please the Air Force chief of staff. General Altman has urged me not to let the colonel ‘weasel out,’ as he so delicately put it.”

“Hmmm,” McGill responded.

“Hmmm, indeed,” Patti echoed. “Any further words of wisdom?”

“I do have one other notion. This Colonel Linberg has been a rising star, right?”

“So I’ve been told,” the president answered.

“Well, why don’t you have Welborn look for any great achievements in her service record? If he doesn’t find a fistful of them —”

“Then maybe the colonel’s been sleeping her way to the top?”

“Yeah … but there’s a problem with that line of thought. You see what it is?”

Patti did. “If you’re a colonel, you don’t sleep with a captain to get ahead.”

“Uh-huh.”

The president saw another possibility. “Maybe you do, if you’re sleeping with a captain for fun or romance
and
a general for career advancement.”

“Whew,” McGill said. “Do they teach Machiavelli at Colorado Springs? Of course, our general could be the one who doesn’t want to see his two-timing mistress do any weaseling.”

“The thought does occur, doesn’t it?” The president was silent for a moment, then said, “SAC Crogher also begged a moment of my time.”

“Good old Celsus. Came to rat me out, did he?”

“Jim, do you really think Chana Lochlan might —”

“Patti, did
you
ever repress the memory of buying underwear?”

“No … not that I’m aware of.”

“Ha-ha.”

“That’s what Ms. Lochlan said? She ‘repressed.’”

“That’s what she wrote. I’m not buying it. Something funny is going on.”

“Thank you for thinking of me.”

“What’s a henchman for?” McGill asked.

Galia Mindel browsed top-end dresses at Macy’s in New York City. She took one off the rack. Basic navy with subtle pearl piping. Long sleeves, of course. Midcalf hemline. Modestly cut neckline. She turned to look at a mirror and held the dress in front of her. The line between businesslike and dowdy was a fine one, but she thought this navy number passed muster. She set it aside and continued looking.

Adding to her wardrobe was a secondary purpose that Saturday morning. Galia had gone to New York to meet with one of her spies.
She
had read Niccolo Machiavelli. Lavrenti Beria, too. And like the founder of the former Soviet Union’s NKVD, she believed in maintaining several well-placed agents in enemy camps to keep her informed of what the opposition was planning.

On the reasonable assumption that she, too, might merit someone’s scrutiny, she never met any of her covert operators in Washington. She always set up her meetings well out of town. In keeping with the clandestine nature of her trip to New York, she’d given herself a legitimate cover: She was to lecture to a political science seminar at her alma mater, Columbia University.

As a further precaution, she picked the locations for her meetings with the character of the opposition in mind. That morning, for example, she would just happen to bump into Merilee Parker, the press secretary for Senator Howard Hurlbert (R-MS), cosponsor of the failed Support of Motherhood Act — the proposed law that had cost Andy Grant his life.

In the unlikely case that the senator suspected disloyalty from his public spokesperson, Galia felt certain that anybody trailing Merilee would be a male. Most likely a former federal agent. FBI or maybe DIA. Some big guy in a boxy suit sporting a crew cut In short, somebody who’d stand out like a corned beef sandwich at a vegan picnic should he show up at Macy’s better dresses.