The President's Henchman (3 page)

Galia flipped a page in her notebook. “There were sixty-six cases in the Air Force last year that included adultery charges. Sixty-five of them also included other serious charges.”

The president sat back in her chair. “The exception was another woman?

“A man.”

“Even so. It looks like this is a handy charge to trot out when you want to ruin someone’s career.”

“Including yours,” Galia said, closing her notebook.

“Hence the mention of Roger Michaelson.”

“Exactly. The junior senator from Oregon has an abiding hatred for you.”

Patti Grant wasn’t about to argue that point.

Galia continued, “There is absolutely no reason why the Air Force couldn’t resolve the Colonel Linberg matter administratively; that would be the most common way to dispose of it. If it wasn’t dropped entirely as an unprovable he-said, she-said case.”

The president’s mind leaped ahead. “If I side with Colonel Linberg, the Pentagon will think I’m a meddling woman who never wore a uniform. Someone not fit to be commander in chief.”

“And your loose Hollywood morals will finally be revealed.”

“But if I side with the military, I’ll be fair game for millions of women, and not just movement feminists. I’ll be destroying the career of a talented woman for an offense that’s based on one man’s word. An offense that would never even be prosecuted in a civilian court.”

“Yes, but if a court-martial finds Colonel Linberg guilty of adultery, she could end up serving prison time at Fort Leavenworth.”

“Either way, my administration could be crippled at the outset.” The president nodded to herself. “You’re right, Galia. This is worthy of Roger Michaelson. Is there any proof he’s actually involved?”

“Other than his seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee? Not yet.”

“And who do you have waiting outside to see me?” The president wasn’t just making a good guess; she knew Galia Mindel.

“The Air Force chief of staff, General Altman.”

“Fine, I’ll have a cup of coffee with him. But who will do the actual investigation on this case?”

Galia bit her lip. “That would be someone from the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations.”

“Find out who that someone is,” the president instructed. “Have his service record on my desk in an hour; have him ready to see me in ninety minutes.”

Lieutenant Welborn Yates was twenty-four years old. He had blonde hair, blue eyes, and pink cheeks. A trim five-ten with good shoulders, he could have been a poster boy for the Air Force, not one of its criminal investigators. His arrival at the Oval Office was punctual to the second. Saluting and standing at attention, he looked so young to the president she felt she must already be wizened and white-haired. It took Galia’s clearing her throat to bring Patti out of her reverie.

“At ease, Lieutenant,” the president said. “Please take a seat.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a soft South Carolina drawl.

Lieutenant Yates took the chair next to Galia. Once he was released from his rigid posture, Patti could see how nervous he was. A muscle twitched in a pink cheek. Looking at her only made him more tense. His eyes darted around the room. Then they fastened on McGill’s picture, Patti saw. Something about it seemed to tell him everything was okay.

Jim’s shit-eating grin, she thought.

Or maybe that she would have such a photo in the Oval Office.

Patti read from Lieutenant Yates’s personnel folder. “You trained to be a fighter pilot.”

Turning back to her, he said, “Yes, ma’am.”

She closed the folder and looked at the young man not as his ultimate superior but as one human being to another. “I’m very sorry for the losses you suffered, Lieutenant. Your friends’ deaths and your chance to fly.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Are you still receiving psychological counseling?”

Welborn blinked, but didn’t look away. “Only at such times as I feel the need, ma’am … Not so often anymore.” He looked as if that was all he had to say, but then he added, “Mostly, these days, I find comfort in talking with my mother.”

“She’s a good woman, your mother?”

“The best, ma’am.” Welborn then lightened the moment with a grin. “Why, I believe she even voted for you.”

The president smiled, too. “Please give her my thanks and tell her I’ll do my best to live up to her trust.”

“I will, ma’am.”

“Lieutenant, in reading your record, I see that you’ve completed your Criminal Investigator Training Program and your OSI agency-specific coursework. You’re now a federally credentialed special agent. But you are in your first-year probationary period. Do I have all that right?”

“Yes, ma’am, you do.”

Galia stood up. Welborn started to get to his feet, too, unsure if he was suddenly being dismissed. The chief of staff waved him back into his seat.

“Please excuse me, Madam President, but there’s another matter that requires my attention. If that’s all right with you.”

The president nodded; sure that Galia had scripted her departure, even though she hadn’t shared that knowledge with her boss. Before leaving, Galia handed the president a sheet of paper.

“Perhaps this will add to your conversation with the lieutenant,” she said, and departed.

Patti took in the contents of the page at a glance. She slipped it into Yates’s personnel folder and turned her attention back to him.

“You have an office at Andrews, Lieutenant?” Andrews Air Force Base, in nearby suburban Maryland, was the headquarters of the Office of Special Investigations.

“A desk, ma’am.”

“The Colonel Linberg matter is your first investigation?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Have you done any work on it yet?”

“No, ma’am. The file landed on my desk only an hour before I was ordered to report here. I was reading it and contemplating my first interview with the colonel when I got your call.”

She looked at the young man in front of her for a long moment, thinking this was what being president was all about. The power to change people’s lives profoundly. Though not necessarily for the better.

“Lieutenant, you’ll soon have an office. Here at the White House.”

Welborn’s eyes went wide.

“And I’ll be the one who decides how your probationary period works out,” the president added. “Get everything you need from your desk at Andrews. Your new digs will be waiting for you when you get back.”

The president stopped into a briefing in the pressroom, unannounced. The newsies all had the manners to get to their feet without being told, and Patti sat them back down again.

“I just stopped by to make sure you’re not abusing my press secretary too badly.”

“Just badly enough, ma’am,” a voice in the back called out, drawing a laugh.

“Fair enough. Let Aggie know if you have any suggestions how we might all work better together. Feel free to offer constructive self-criticism, too.”

The president was about to leave when David Gregory snagged her with a question, “Madam President, have you seen that some media outlets have started to refer to you by your initials, PDG?”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that, David.”

A mischievous smile lit the reporter’s face. “But have you heard that some people say that your initials stand for Pretty Damn Good?”

Keeping a perfectly straight face, she answered, “That’s close to what I’ve heard, but I believe you left out the comma. It should be: Pretty, damn good.”

The president dazzled the reporters with her best smile and left with a wave. Knowing the sound bite would be all over the news that night.

McGill was already home when the president returned to the residence for the night. He hadn’t seen his wife the night before; the press of business had kept her away until he was already asleep. Now, he had two bottles, each in a silver ice bucket, waiting for her. Poland Springs Sparkling Mineral Water. Leapfrog California Chardonnay. Patti sat next to her husband on the drawing room sofa and opted for the water.

“I’m gainfully employed again,” McGill told her. “My first client.”

“I know,” Patti said.

“You know?”

“I’m the president. I know everything.”

McGill wasn’t omniscient, but he was pretty quick. “Galia told you. And no way Sweetie, Deke, or Leo told her. So she’s either got my office bugged or somebody on the client’s side ratted her out.”

“Chana Lochlan. I stopped by the pressroom today to take a good look at her.”

Patti wasn’t the jealous type, McGill knew, but her curiosity was relentless.

“If Galia has my office bugged, are you going to fire her?”

“I’ll slap her wrist. Tell her not to do it again.”

“Good to know where I stand in the pecking order.”

Patti kissed McGill. As always, he could imagine a thousand violins starting to play as the closing credits of a movie rolled. “You know where you stand,” she said. “But I do need Galia.”

“Your pacification effort is working, don’t stop now.”

“Jim, I need a favor.”

The nice thing about being married to a trained communicator, it was easy to pick right up on her tone. McGill stopped joking and sat back. He opened his hands wide.

“Whatever I can do.”

She told him about Colonel Carina Linberg and Lieutenant Welborn Yates.

“Welborn?” McGill asked.

“A lovely young man. Dedicated to the service of his country.”

“Working his first case. Likely susceptible to pressure from above, if I’m reading between the lines right.”

Patti nodded. “That’s why I moved him to the White House. To shelter him. I’ve taken quite a liking to him.”

McGill only nodded. He wasn’t the jealous type either.

“Lieutenant Yates and three friends, all Air Force, were on their way back to California after another buddy got married in Las Vegas. It was the wee small hours of the morning, they were a block away from the freeway entrance when a car ran a red light and broadsided them.”

“Welborn was the sole survivor,” McGill said, knowing immediately.

“Four fighter jocks. Only one thought himself mortal enough to need a seat belt, and Welborn, despite his seat belt, sustained damage to his right inner ear. Doesn’t keep him from doing most things, but he can’t take the multi-G forces of flying fighter jets.”

McGill poured a glass of wine for each of them.

“Gets worse, doesn’t it?” he asked.

“The driver of the other car walked away, was never found, and the car had been stolen the night before. No identification has ever been made.”

McGill sipped his wine. “So Welborn stays in the military and learns the skills he figures he’ll need to track the SOB down someday.”

“I’m told an OSI posting is the second-most-popular career choice in the Air Force, but, yes, that’s my assumption, too. Which tells me he has a strong sense of justice.”

“Or vengeance.”

“You haven’t met him.”

McGill shrugged and drank some more wine.

“So you think the kid will play it straight on the Linberg case,” he asked, “with you giving him political cover?”

“Yes.”

“And you’d like me to do what, tutor him? Let him know the kinds of things that don’t get covered in the textbooks and the lectures.”

“Exactly. Only he’ll never see you. I’ll be your go-between.”

“Our little secret?”

Patti nodded.

“Unless Galia has the residence bugged, too,” McGill said.

“That would be cause for termination.”

McGill smiled. “Like I said, whatever I can do.” He kissed his wife and excused himself to take a shower.

Patti took her wineglass and went to a window looking out on Lafayette Square. Using her free hand, she pulled back a curtain that McGill had closed. A dozen or so protestors walked a tight, relentless circle, as they’d done every day since she’d moved into the White House. The Peace Vigil people who’d camped out opposite the White House continuously since 1981 had ceded some of their space to the new group. Each of the protestors carried the same sign: FREE ERNA.

Erna Godfrey. Current resident of the Federal Death Penalty Facility in Terre Haute, Indiana. Wife of Reverend Burke Godfrey, pastor of the Salvation’s Path Church.

The woman who’d killed Patti’s beloved first husband, Andy Grant.

Andy Grant was the kind of billionaire who opened his own front door when someone rang the bell. Of course, Andy’s doorbell was located outside a gate three hundred feet from his house, and hidden TV cameras revealed just who had come calling. The Grant estate was protected on the north, west, and south by twelve-foot-high ivy-covered walls. Motion detectors and other electronic devices warned against climbers and vaulters. On the east lay a private beach and Lake Michigan.

In the depths of some of the colder winters, it would have been possible to ice-skate onto the grounds, but no one had tried that yet. Nor had any other form of seaborne attack been launched.

But the first thing Chief McGill said after Andy had introduced himself that warm morning in late May was, “You’ve got to do something about your waterfront exposure.”

“What would you suggest, mining the beach?” The question came not from Grant, but from his wife, the congresswoman, who’d heard McGill’s comment as she descended the main stairway.

“I don’t think you’re zoned for that,” McGill said evenly, “and it might upset the neighbors if one of their dogs wandered over and got blown up.”

Like her husband, Patricia Darden Grant was dressed casually; she wore shorts and a sleeveless top. Unlike her husband, she was barefoot. Unlike her husband, she was hostile.

Something Andy Grant was far too sharp to miss, far too genial to let go unameliorated.

“The chief’s done his homework, Patti,” he said. “He not only knows the neighbors have dogs but where they like to drop their loads.” He turned to McGill with a grin. “Maybe we can get a zoning exception.”

“My profession is giving money away wisely,” Andy Grant said. He had curly ginger hair and smart green eyes. Average in height, he looked as if he enjoyed one too many cupcake per day. But he seemed comfortable with his appearance and moved with physical grace.

The discussion had moved to the terrace above the beach at the back of the house. Andy and McGill sipped lemonade from tall tumblers at a round glass-topped table. A third glass awaited the congresswoman’s thirst. She worked nearby fussing with potted plants that looked perfectly tended to McGill. But then, gardening wasn’t the point. She was close enough to overhear every word without having to look at the bothersome cop.

“Wisely must be the hard part,” McGill answered. “Like being a genie and not having the wishes you grant backfire.”

Andy laughed. “Very good. I hope you won’t mind if I use that line.”

McGill nodded his approval. Maybe Andy Grant was stroking him, maybe he wasn’t. Either way, for a rich guy, he was very easy to like. Except to the people who had threatened to kill him. Reason enough to overlook his wife’s continuing grump, McGill supposed.

As alert to moods as ever, Andy asked, “Chief, just how serious do you think this threat against my life is?”

McGill saw Patti Grant turn to look at him. Intently. She wanted to watch his face as he answered the question. He took out a duplicate of the threat message. The original had been left that morning inside a subscription copy of the
Wall Street Journal
delivered to Andy Grant’s mailbox outside his gate. When Andy had unfolded the newspaper to read it, the note had fallen into his lap.

Get your wife to vote the right way. Do it, or she’ll know what it’s like to see the taking of an innocent life.

“The note doesn’t specify the vote in question,” McGill told the philanthropist. “Nor does it say which way is the right way to vote, but when you read it to your wife, she understood perfectly, or so you told me.”

Andy nodded, and said quietly, “Yes, she did.”

The congresswoman’s rebuttal was a good deal louder. “It could all be a bluff!”

She marched over to the table, stood before McGill, daring him to contradict her. This time Andy Grant didn’t intervene. Candor was more important than comity now.

“Congresswoman,” McGill said, meeting her eyes, “I won’t ask you if you’ve ever made a death threat because I’d bet you haven’t. Never in any serious manner. But this note is serious. It communicates a threat that’s real. A threat that resonates. That’s why you’re so scared.”

McGill was sure she wanted to pick up her drink and throw it in his face. But if she did that, she’d let Andy know just how terrified she was. Then how could she cast the vote that would endanger his life?

McGill had no choice but to continue. No way to spare Mrs. Grant’s feelings.

“If you vote against these people —”

“You think there’s more than one?” Andy asked.

“One is possible. But a group is more likely.” He turned back to the congresswoman. “If you vote against them after you’ve been warned, what do they say to themselves? ‘Well, it was worth a try.’ If they don’t at least
attempt
to kill Mr. Grant and give it their all, they won’t be able to believe in themselves anymore. Add in the inevitable religious element, and what they will believe is they’re all going to hell. I’m sorry, Congresswoman, but this is real. Defy these people, and they
will
come for your husband.”

Patti Grant loathed McGill at that moment.

But Andy agreed to install an underwater barrier to protect his beach.

The next day, McGill got a courtesy call from the FBI office in Chicago. They’d been advised of the threat on Mr. Grant’s life by Congresswoman Grant. The congresswoman wanted the Bureau to take over the case. Only as far as they could tell, Mr. Grant’s being a private citizen and Congresswoman Grant’s saying her husband never tried to influence her congressional votes, the threat was a matter for the local police.

Still, the case was being studied by DOJ lawyers in Washington to see if there was any reason federal authorities should take over. Sweetie was in McGill’s office when he took the call, and he gave her the gist of the conversation.

“The lady wants some control back in her life,” Sweetie said. “She figures she has a better chance of getting it with the feebs than with you.”

McGill nodded absently.

“There is a way in for them,” he said. “They’ll spot it before too long.”

Sweetie gave him a look.

McGill told her, “Andy Grant said his copy of the
Journal
wasn’t in the newspaper box outside his gate, it was in his mailbox.”

“Federal turf,” Sweetie said. “Maybe Mr. Grant didn’t share that with his wife.”

“Maybe.” McGill got to his feet. “I’m going to talk with him again. You start asking around. Did anyone see a passerby who didn’t look North Shore near the Grant house yesterday morning? Someone who took Andy Grant’s newspaper out of its receptacle and put it in the mailbox? Start with the
Journal’s
delivery person.”

“We should’ve thought of that right away.”

“I know,” McGill said.

“Well, aside from getting shot occasionally, we don’t get to do much real police work out here in the leafy ’burbs. A cop can get mentally lazy.”

“Let’s watch out for that.”

There were two armed guards at Andy Grant’s gate — a first for Winnetka — and his mailbox had been removed. The
Journal’s
plastic bin, too. McGill wondered if the FBI had them. Some sharpie had learned how the threat was transmitted and had carted off the containers to check them for fingerprints and DNA. There had been neither on the threat message itself.

The guys at the gate called for a colleague to meet McGill at Andy’s front door.

Andy waited just inside and shook McGill’s hand when he entered. The congresswoman, he told McGill, had departed for Washington to tend to the people’s business. Just as well. She hadn’t been happy about his hiring the new security people, but Andy had thought there was no reason to do things halfway.

“Feds have your mailbox and paper bin?” McGill asked.

Andy shook his head. “The new security guys. When they heard I go out to pick up the paper and the mail myself, they took them away. Said they represented unacceptable risks.”

McGill nodded. “Meaning the people who’ve threatened you could make good by booby-trapping one or both. That was one of the things I was going to talk to you about. That and things like varying your routine.”

“Yeah. They’ve talked to me about that.”

McGill was starting to feel like the slow kid in class.

Ever sensitive to other people, Andy clapped him on the shoulder, and said, “The security guys said you were right on the money about protecting the lakeside of the house.”

“Your tax dollars at work,” McGill said.

Andy laughed. Then he looked a good deal more sober.

“I told Patti, of course, that she couldn’t let any of this affect the way she votes. We start down that path, and it’s the end of democracy in this country.”

“You’re absolutely right.”

“But I
am
scared. The new water barrier’s going in right now.”

Which explained the sounds of heavy machinery McGill heard.

“I’d be scared, too,” he said, “and I get to carry a gun.”

“Just so you know, Patti’s anger at you was nothing personal; she’s more frightened than I am.”

McGill nodded. He knew all too well what fearing for a husband’s safety could do to a woman. His ex had left him when she couldn’t take being a cop’s wife any longer — after he’d been shot on the job.

“We’re looking for whoever left the threat,” McGill told Andy. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

One thing McGill could do occurred to him that evening. He called Andy and got the phone number of the supervisor of the work crew that was putting in the barrier off the Grants’ beach. The man’s name was Costello, and he had a suspicious nature. He insisted on talking to Andy Grant himself before he said anything. Then he said he’d call McGill at the number listed for the village police in the phone book.

McGill told Costello he appreciated his precautions and would wait for the return call. He wondered if the man was naturally careful or if he’d been briefed by Grant’s security team.

In either case, the wait was short. Costello called back in five minutes.

“Mr. Grant says to talk to you, Chief. So whattya want to know?”

“How soon before you finish the job?” McGill asked.

“It’s done. Rush job, premium pay.”

Money did have its advantages, McGill thought.

“What kind of a barrier did you put in?”

“Structural steel beams. Anchored in the lakebed eighteen inches apart, pointing out and up at forty-five-degree angles. Rip the bottom right outta any boat that tries to land on that beach.”

Effective but damn ugly, as McGill envisioned it. He was sure it would offend the community’s sensibilities. Too bad if the Grants were in danger. Winnetka had its
aesthetics
to consider.

Costello interpreted the chief’s silence perfectly. “The beams don’t break the surface. They stop a few inches under the water. But not enough for a boat to get over. Of course, we get a dry year, and the lake level drops …”

“We’ll worry about that later,” McGill said.

“Hey, rich people don’t have worries. They chase ’em away with Franklins.”

Andy Grant wasn’t going to solve his problems with money, but McGill didn’t want to get into a debate. He asked Costello, “Did you notice anyone taking an interest in the job you were doing? Anyone who didn’t look North Shore?”

Costello laughed harshly. “You mean rich, white, and to the manner born?”

“Yeah.”

“No. A few boaters eyed us for a while. You could tell they were interested in what we were doing. Like maybe this was some new status symbol they had to have, too. But every last one of ’em looked real North Shore.”

An hour later, just before sunset, McGill took his boat out onto the lake. It was a small aluminum skiff with a ten-horse outboard. His dad had given it to him so the two of them could go fishing on the Chain O’ Lakes. He’d never had it out on Lake Michigan. As he chugged along, he made a conscious effort not to venture out any farther from the shore than he thought he could swim — and he scolded himself for not bringing a life jacket. He came to a point just east of where he estimated the Grants’ new barrier to be, turned toward the beach, cut the engine and raised the motor out of the water. Momentum eased the little craft forward.

The skiff didn’t draw much water, and with only one man in it, McGill wanted to know if it might skim over the newly installed —

A steel beam hit the aluminum hull far sooner than McGill expected. The jolt almost knocked him into the water. He had to grab the sides of the skiff to regain his balance. When he did, he thought he could see Andy Grant in a second-floor window at the left corner of the house. Then a high-intensity spotlight illuminated his boat. McGill squinted and shielded his eyes. He could make out a man on the beach holding a scoped rifle. The guy brought the weapon to his shoulder.