Whirlwind (46 page)

“Oh, yes, they are,” Charlie retorted, hugging her close. “There’s not a voter in this country who doesn’t recognize a professionally staged photo op when he sees one. And there’s not a voter who believes the story Washington has been feeding them. Our citizens may not always know what the truth is, but they’ll spot a lie every time.”

Lie, hell, Charlie thought, it was a whopper of positively epic proportions. The spin doctors had concocted a cock-and-bull story about the Dutch ambassador being gunned down on the Van Wyck Expressway by members of a terrorist conspiracy. A baloney sandwich to be sure, with extra baloney on top at the Agency’s behest, Deputy Operations Director Charles McKenzie, that patriotic paragon, heroically allowed himself to be unjustly accused and imprisoned, thus luring the forces of evil into a false sense of security. Nonetheless the intrepid McKenzie (ably assisted by Federal Officers Participating In A Multi-Agency Task Force ferchristsake), was on the case.

Said case culminating in the hijacking of the national security advisor’s plane, and we mourn the memory of a loyal public servant who sacrificed his life so that the nation’s enemies could be brought to justice.

There were enough loose bodies, a few of which looked credibly Mideastern, strewn around San Carlos to lend a minimum amount of believability to the fairy tale.

Said fairy tale being improvised under pressure, by the way, because Charlie had secreted the full contents of the Whirlwind disk out on the Internet. Extra added attraction: Sam’s wholly damning confessions, every word of them, including a sentence that the White House devoutly wished no voter to hear: If he does know, he doesn’t give a flying fuck. It won’t happen on his watch.

Charlie only wished he could have seen the president’s face when the downloaded recordings had arrived at the White House accompanied by an e-mail itemizing in excruciating detail the media companies that would receive memorable recordings of Sam spilling his guts.

Unless certain terms and conditions were met.

Immunity for Scott, political asylum and citizenship for Irina, a pardon and apology for Charlie himself stuff like that. Charlie asked for a lot.

In the end he got it all, every damned thing, and he’d expected no less.

A Secret Service agent popped his head through the door. “I just got a heads-up. Marine Corps One will be touching down on your lawn in three, that’s three, minutes.”

“Dad ” Carly was back, brandishing shirt, tie, and jacket like implements of mass destruction.

Good-naturedly, Charlie changed clothes. Irina tweaked his tie knot while Carly, bearing a tool kit that every mother carries, put a photogenic part in his hair.

Charlie grinned at his daughter. Even though she didn’t smile back, he knew she was happy in fact, downright ecstatic. A rural California village would be a good place to raise Jason and Molly. Her disgraced father was suddenly a national hero. And (ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies) she had a bank account that meant no more scrimping along on inadequate alimony checks. Moreover, she’d hit it off with Irina. That was a blessing. Living in the same house with two warring women was a bullet Charlie devoutly wished to duck. Besides, once the unnamed new McKenzie was born, Irina planned to pursue her doctorate at the University of California. Carly had volunteered that she wouldn’t mind having a Ph.D. after her name unstated footnote: promising matrimonial candidates were as likely to be found among the ranks of post-doctoral scholars as anywhere else.

Well, the ranch house Charlie had bought was big enough for all of them. Scott had set up shop at the San Carlos clinic, his brother was applying for a tenure-track professorship an hour’s drive south, and Charlie himself had more or less decided that breeding pedigreed Maine Coon cats would be a fine way to spend his retirement years.

It would be a good retirement, comfortably subsidized not only by the money he’d extorted out of Sam a year earlier, but also by his reinstated Agency pension and the check for three and a half years’ back pay the new director of Central Intelligence was obliged to present him in just a few minutes’ time.

They walked out onto the porch, all six of them. Jason whined that he needed to go to the bathroom. Carly clipped him behind the ear. Molly smiled, as a sister always will when a brother is punished.

Irina put her left arm around Charlie’s waist, her right around her husband’s. Marine Corps One hovered over the lawn, cameras rolling as it gently landed. Then the cameramen there must have been thirty out there panned slowly toward the house, focusing their lenses on a hero and his family waiting to greet the president of the United States.

Charlie turned around and unloosened his belt. By his side, a sharply indrawn breath and a murderous whisper: “Dad! Don’t you dare!”

Out of the corner of his mouth, Charlie answered sweetly, “Of course not, darling. My behavior shall be as though I am the veritable angel of the Lord.” To which he added silently, And smiting sinners is my job…. Thanks To:

The sturdy souls who read and mercilessly criticized my early drafts: Avner, Earl, Janice, Mary, Pete, and Terry.

Ellen, Robert, and Scott at Trident Media who offered especially insightful advice.

Editor Marjorie Braman and copy editor Bill Harris for their intelligence, patience, and peerless judgement.

And special gratitude to Jack Francis and Gib Hoxie who advised me on matter aeronautical and nautical. Any errors are my fault, not theirs.

A final word: neither San Carlos do Cabo nor Mitchell Canyon appear on any map. Both locations are composites. However, intrepid explorers can visit Three Turkeys; I recommend it, although there is no IHS clinic there.

-JRG

November 2003