The Sentinel (32 page)

"That's my point exactly. Hightower was two-faced, but he wasn't dumb. He would have realized his role would eventually surface. But he took the chance because he thought he was backed up. I knew Hightower. He would never have gone along with something like this - with double-crossing any other agent or me - unless backstopped by someone in authority. I can see Flanagan selling Hightower some phony story about me being involved in something. He could have offered him a lot of confidential-fund money to go along with an internal investigation. And being in charge of SOT, Flanagan has access to all the informant files. He could gain access to them without going through the normal headquarters records process. He would have been looking for an informant who was reliable, had some connection with the Aryan Disciples, and who knew me."

Her thoughts were at the back of her mind where the big decisions are formed.

"Flanagan," she said softly. "Flanagan would never do anything without Wintergreen's approval. They're tied at the hip." Garrison met her eyes. She went on. "They certainly are. But it's a major leap to believe that they are involved in a conspiracy-"

"Martha, I'm not imagining all this."

"But what would be Wintergreen's motive?"

"He's not acting on his own. For all we know, a hostile foreign power could have bought Wintergreen. Or maybe the CIA. Both he and Flanagan were CIA case officers. Jordan is an unpopular President. Wintergreen took Marine One to Camp David. He could have planted the bomb-"

"If it's a plot to take over the government, why launch it at the end of a Presidential Administration? Why not just wait a few months when Jordan will be out of the White House?"

"I don't know. But the bottom line is that whoever is behind the assassination attempt owns someone in the Secret Service. If it is Wintergreen and Flanagan, it means that while every agent in the Service is out looking for me, they can be pulling strings to set up the next assassination attempt."

She realized that Garrison was winning her over. Not that anyone could ever tell for sure whether someone was lying. She knew it was always a judgment call, tempered by one's experience. She had teamed from investigating other conspiracies that the facts were often hazy. She would have to make a decision by what she felt in her gut. But there were other issues she needed to clear up.

"Pete, I'm the one who searched your apartment. What was C-4 doing there?"

"Someone planted it."

"How did they bypass your alarm system?"

An expression of surprise crossed Garrison's face. "I didn't even think of that ... my alarm."

"And the landlady came over immediately. If someone had broken in earlier to plant the evidence, it would have set off the alarm and she would have heard it too. Pete, this doesn't jibe. No one broke into your apartment."

"Who was there during the search?"

"Rachel Kallenstien and Wintergreen."

"I've never heard of Wintergreen going into the field. After the Cleveland assassination attempt, he stayed in his office and let PRD handle the whole investigation." Garrison was referring to an incident that had occurred months earlier. A man in a Cleveland tavern had shot out of a tavern window as the Presidential motorcade passed by. There had been a Presidential security uproar, with rumors of assassination plots and foreign agents, but in the end, the investigation had revealed nothing more than a drunk who thought taking a shot at the Presidential motorcade was a good idea.

"This is a major Presidential threat case involving an agent," she said. "Maybe Wintergreen wanted to make sure that the investigation was done right."

"Where did you find the C-4?" he asked.

"In the refrigerator."

"You walked into the apartment and went straight to the kitchen?"

"We walked in. The alarm went off. Kallenstien found the alarm wire and disabled it. We began searching."

"Right then?"

Breckinridge closed her eyes and concentrated. "Come to think of it, Wintergreen went into the other room to make a phone call. Rachel and I checked the bedroom and bathroom, then we decided how we were going to conduct the search."

"You and she were together?"

"Yes?"

"Where was Wintergreen?"

"I told you. On the phone."

"In which room?"

"The kitchen."

"Then you and Kallenstien began to search. You went in the kitchen and opened the refrigerator?" Garrison sounded far away to her.

"And there it was." The thought that flashed through her mind was of Cape Cod. She'd been yachting through a fog bank with Rachel Kallenstien and some other friends. Breckinridge had seen something through the grayness - a glimmer of metal in the distance - that had turned out to be a tugboat. She'd narrowly averted a collision. But at first there had been only a glimmer.

"There is something else," she said in a distracted monotone. "I didn't think anything of it at the time, but later."

"Yes..."

"It's about the C-4. I took it out of the
refrigerator. The
first thing that came to my mind was how could you be involved in something like that? I was overwhelmed and sad ... disgusted actually. But later, when I got home and went to bed, I was thinking about the search and something occurred to me. It was about when I took the C-4 out of the refrigerator. It wasn't cold. I thought that maybe I was so tired I had imagined it. But thinking back-"

"Wintergreen planted it. It had to be him. That's why he wanted to come along on the search. He wanted to salt me. And there is something else. Shortly before Charlie Meriweather was killed, Flanagan asked him to handle an off-the-record investigation. Delores Meriweather told me it bothered Charlie so much that he decided to retire.

"Martha, will you help me?"

"Count me in."

"If you get caught helping me, you could end up in the bag-"

"I know."

"Dig up everything you can on Hightower. There has to be something that ties him to Wintergreen and/or Flanagan, or someone else in the Secret Service. Hightower is known in Bakersfield as Eddie Richardson."

She took out a pen and pad and wrote the name.

"How will you and I stay in touch?"

"I'm staying at the Watergate, Suite 1303. Ask for Jonathan Hollingsworth."

"How did you that arrange those digs?"

"The, uh, First Lady took care of it for me."

"The First Lady is so convinced of your innocence that she helped you come up with a hideout?"

"I went to her and asked her to speak with the Man, to try to convince him to replace the detail with military agents until this is resolved. The problem is that the Man is convinced of my guilt."

"Understandable-"

"Martha, other than me, you're the only one who knows about this. If something happens to me, you'll have to carry the ball."

She nodded. "Be careful, Pete."

"You too." He reached for the door handle.

"Pete, you forgot something."

"Sorry," he said, and handed her the gun.

Breckinridge shoved it into her holster.

Garrison got out of the car, and she watched him as he hurried toward the stairwell. She felt a chill as she assimilated what he'd told her. She didn't know where the danger might come from, but it was there. It was someone in the Secret Service. She still found it difficult to imagine Wintergreen and Flanagan being involved, but if she'd learned anything as an investigator, it was to be guided by the facts. If she hadn't been the one to find the C-4 at Garrison's apartment, she would have never believed Garrison. Now it was only she and he and the First Lady against Flanagan, Wintergreen, and God only knows who else.

She got out of the car and walked back to Secret Service headquarters replaying the conversation. By the time she arrived, she'd accepted what it all meant. Her initial confusion and dismay at the jumble of facts and events had transformed itself into cold fear.

At her desk in Protective Research Division, Breckinridge found a pink envelope with a D.C. postmark. It was addressed to her and marked PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL. She opened it. It was a letter from Delores Meriweather. Her handwriting was clear - a nearly perfect cursive style - and written in blue ink with what Breckinridge guessed was probably a fountain pen. Delores apologized for having been rude to Breckinridge, and explained that her life had turned into a confusing mix of feelings and memories but she believed she would survive.

At the bottom of the letter, Delores mentioned that she had finally gone through Charlie's papers, a task that she'd been avoiding because she didn't think she had the inner strength to face reading them. She'd discovered that there might have been more to the White House "politics" that had been bothering him before his decision to retire from the Secret Service. She enclosed a copy of a letter Charlie had written two days before his death.

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

To Whom It May Concern:

When Gil Flanagan first recruited me to plant a transmitter and voice-activated recorder in Helen Pierpont's room at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, I believed the investigation to be legal and proper. Flanagan assured me that Director Wintergreen had given him the assignment and that it involved a defense contractor getting inside information on contract bids. Flanagan also told me that the President had been briefed on the matter. I planted the bug in Pierpont's room believing that I was acting legally, as part of a sensitive investigation.

After the President's New York visit was over and the Presidential party was on its way to the airport, Flanagan told me to retrieve the transmitter and tapes from Pierpont's room. Her suite was situated between the Presidential suite and a staff room. Adjoining doors interconnected all three rooms. I retrieved the tape and listened for a few minutes. It was of the President and Pierpont spending the night in Pierpont's room, having sex and discussing the President filing for divorce from the First Lady the moment he left office.

I confronted Flanagan and told him I didn't appreciate being lied to and drawn into what was obviously an illegal operation under false pretenses. He said it was all a mistake and he would set up an appointment for me to talk to Director Wintergreen, who would explain the other details of the case.

When I returned back to the White House, Wintergreen avoided me. I'm writing this because I may find myself in front of some Congressional committee asking questions about why I bugged the President. At any rate, yesterday I sent a memo to Wintergreen telling him that if he didn't want to meet with me, I was going to ask for an appointment with the White House Chief of Staff.

(Signed)

Charles Meriweather

Breckinridge read the letter a second time, then picked up a file folder and found Delores Meriweather's number in it. Breckinridge dialed the number. The phone rang twice.

"Hello."

"Delores, this is Martha Breckinridge. I received the letter."

"What does it mean?"

"I don't want to talk on the phone, Delores. But I am on top of it. Whatever you do, tell no one about the letter. No one. Will you promise me?"

"Does this mean that Charlie may have..."

"It's too early to make any assumptions. But I am going to get to the bottom of it. I'll call you the moment I come up with something. You have my word on that."