Executive Privilege (12 page)

The chambers of the United States Senate were impressive but they were also small because only one hundred citizens of the United States were entitled to hold the office. Maureen Gaylord was one of them. Everyone who watched her stride across the Senate floor toward the podium was impressed by her poise and air of command. This impression had not been left to chance. Gaylord’s hairdresser had worked on her at home early this morning and a makeup artist had come to her office. The outrageously expensive suit she was wearing made her look businesslike but approachable. She knew this because this suit and several others had been paraded in front of a focus group earlier in the week, as had several versions of the speech she was about to deliver.

Senator Gaylord, a former Miss Ohio, was a wholesome-looking brunette who had used the scholarship money from several beauty pageants to finance a degree in business at Ohio State and a law degree from Penn. She’d grown up as trailer trash, which gave her credibility with the common folk, her years as an attorney for a major corporation worked for conservatives, and her Ivy League credentials played well with intellectuals. Gaylord was a political everywoman who was wily enough to avoid committing to the right or the left but duplicitous enough to make those who approached her believe she was on their side.

The president pro tempore of the Senate gaveled the chamber to order, and Maureen stared into the television cameras. There weren’t many people in the gallery that hung over the Senate floor but there were plenty of media representatives in attendance, and that was all that counted.

“I am standing today in the most august deliberative chamber in the world thanks to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Six months ago, a homegrown group of radical Islamists calling themselves the Army of the Holy Jihad conceived a despicable plan to attack the office buildings of the United States Senate with enough explosives to inflict massive casualties. One of the offices that would have been destroyed was mine. If it had not been for the brilliant work on the part of the Bureau these evil men might have succeeded. The fact that these deluded maniacs were willing to attempt such a brazen act highlights the absolute necessity of giving as much support as possible to the gallant men and women who risk their lives daily so that we may live our lives in freedom.

“I am proud to be a cosponsor of the American Protection Act, which will greatly add to the weapons the Bureau, Homeland Security, the CIA, and other groups on the frontlines of the war on terror presently possess. Some people have carped about various provisions of this act. One complaint I find especially galling is that which has to do with the profiling, investigation, and possible internment of Arabs living in or visiting the United States, including citizens of Arab descent. Those who complain about these important provisions of the act have let political correctness blind them to reality. With few exceptions the perpetrators worldwide of acts of atrocity have been Arabs, and some of these Arabs, like the Army of the Holy Jihad, have been the homegrown variety. They have reaped the benefits of democracy and capitalism while spitting in the face of those who educated and protected them and gave them opportunities few other countries give to their citizens.

“Yes, a few may suffer unjustly if this act is passed, but if we are going to protect our citizens, sacrifices must be made in this age of suicide bombers and terrorists unfettered by the laws of common decency. Our wonderful justice system can be counted on to correct most of these injustices, but our great American political and judicial systems must be protected so they may continue to help the United States remain the greatest country on Earth.”

Senator Gaylord spoke about various sections of the bill for forty more minutes then held a press conference before walking back to the Russell Senate Office Building through one of the underground passages that connected the Capitol to her office. She could have taken the subway, whose small, open-top cars reminded her of a Disneyland ride, but Gaylord preferred to walk so she could have some quiet time. Some supplicant for some special interest took up almost every minute of her day, and her greatest gift to herself was her rare moments of solitude.

Gaylord knew that the American Protection Act had no chance of passing, but her defense of the act had solidified her support among the conservatives in her party. She was also certain that Christopher Farrington was going to condemn the bill, which would give her a chance to paint him as soft on terrorism. The president was so wishy-washy on so many issues that the label had a chance of sticking. Incumbent presidents were usually hard to defeat, but Farrington hadn’t won his position. She didn’t even think of him as a president. He was a political hack who was merely saving her place in the line of succession. Without the mantle of the presidency, Maureen knew that Farrington wouldn’t stand a chance against her, and she was convinced that she could strip away the cloak that was concealing his true worth from his shoulders and expose his inadequacy to the world. By the time Senator Gaylord walked through the door of her office she was feeling righteous and self-confident and ready to do whatever was necessary to pound Christopher Farrington into dog meat.

“Good speech,” Jack Bedford said from his seat on the couch. Her chief of staff was a former political science professor with degrees from Boise State and the Kennedy School at Harvard.

“I knew it would be. Any reaction yet from the press?”

“Fox loved it, and MSNBC vilified you. They brought up all that World War II stuff about interning the Japanese.”

“That’s to be expected.”

“But I’m not here to talk about your speech.”

“Oh?”

“Something happened that I thought you should know about.”

“And that is?” Gaylord asked disinterestedly as she took a brief look through the stack of documents on her desk that her AA had put in the priority pile.

“A girl named Charlotte Walsh, who worked at campaign headquarters, was murdered by the D.C. Ripper.”

Gaylord stopped what she was doing and looked up. “That’s horrible,” she said with genuine emotion. “We’ll send condolences to the parents and order flowers for the funeral. Nothing cheap.”

“Already done.”

Gaylord looked upset. “I hope the Ripper isn’t one of our staff or volunteers.”

“The FBI was questioning everyone at campaign headquarters but Reggie Styles has everything under control. If the Ripper is involved in your campaign there’s no evidence to show it. He’s probably some deranged, Caucasian loner who lives with his mother. That’s what the profilers always say.”

Gaylord grunted then she grew uncommonly quiet. Bedford sat patiently. His boss always got like this when she had an idea.

“Do you think we can use the presence of a successful serial killer in the D.C. area to paint Farrington as weak on the crime issue?”

“I’ve already written a line for you to use when you meet the press about Walsh’s death. ‘If Farrington can’t protect the people who live in his city how can he protect an entire nation?’ What do you think?”

Gaylord smiled. “I like it.”

Bedford grew serious. “There’s something else. Walsh may have been a spy for Farrington.”

“What!”

“As soon as we found out Walsh worked for you I sent someone to offer condolences and support to her roommate. It turns out that Walsh was a big Farrington supporter up until a week before she volunteered to work at our campaign headquarters. I mentioned this to Reggie. There’s a kid from Georgetown who’s volunteering. Seems he had dinner with Walsh the evening she died. He told Reggie she was pretty much alone in the office when she wasn’t scheduled to be there and she jumped when he found her making copies of an economic report. Then, a few minutes later, he caught her in Reggie’s office, and she jumped again. Reggie checked his office and nothing’s missing, but he had a list of our secret contributors in a locked drawer in his desk.”

“If Farrington planted a spy in our office we may be able to use that to our advantage.”

“My thinking exactly, but we have to tread carefully, especially now that she’s dead. We don’t want to be seen as throwing mud on the victim of a terrible crime.”

“Of course not. Why don’t you look around a little more and see if you can come up with some solid evidence that implicates Farrington’s people. Meanwhile, schedule a press conference for me. Maybe we can fly the parents in. That would be nice, don’t you think?”

“Where the hell have you been?” Perry demanded angrily when his secretary put Dana’s call through.

“I’ve been busy.”

“You’d better have a damn good explanation for your behavior. My client says you quit in the middle of your assignment after leaving some insane message about attacking someone in the woods.”

“It wasn’t my message that was crazy, Dale. It was the assignment. And, quite frankly, I don’t think your briefing was complete. You left out the part about the armed Secret Service agents and a few other tiny details.”

“What Secret Service agents?” Perry blurted out. Cutler thought he sounded genuinely confused, but lawyers were trained to lie.

“We’re going to meet tonight and have a long talk,” Cutler said.

“The fuck we are. What you’re going to do is bring the pictures you took and the cell phone I gave you to this office immediately.”

“And if I don’t, what are you going to do, sue me? I think Court TV will have a field day airing a trial that features a discussion of the goings-on at the president’s fuck pad.”

“What are you talking about?”

“President Christopher Farrington sent two men to kill me last night because I have pictures showing him in a bedroom with Charlotte Walsh shortly before she was supposedly killed by the D.C. Ripper. Guess what Mr. Family Values was doing in that bedroom with a girl who’s young enough to be his daughter?”

“Jesus Christ, Cutler, not on the phone.”

“It looks like I finally have your attention.”

“How soon can you get to my office?”

“Do you think I’m a total idiot? I’m not going anywhere near your office. Tonight, after the sun sets, you’re going to take a drive. Bring your cell phone. I’ll tell you where to meet me as soon as I’m certain you haven’t been followed. And don’t think I’m alone. I’ll have people watching you,” she lied, “and you’ll never know they’re there. If they spot a tail, the pictures go to the press. Understand?”

“Do not even think about making those pictures public.”

“That’s completely in your control, Dale. I want money for them. Either the president pays or CNN pays. I don’t care. I wasn’t planning on voting for Farrington anyway.”

For the meeting, Dana chose The 911, a bar in South-West D.C. that had two exits in addition to the front door. One was near the restroom and opened onto a side street, and the other was in the kitchen and opened onto a back alley. They would come in handy if she had to run. The bar was owned by Charlie Foster, a retired police sergeant she knew from the force. He’d put his life savings into it, and Dana had the impression he wasn’t making much of a return. The 911 was dark and smelled of stale beer and sweat and the noise level was high and threatening. Best of all, for Dana’s purposes, the customers were poor and black, and so was the neighborhood. If Farrington sent a Caucasian anywhere near The 911 he would stand out.

Meeting in a predominantly African-American neighborhood worked in Dana’s favor for another reason. In the legal community, Dale Perry’s reputation for viciousness rivaled that of Vlad the Impaler. Tales of Perry’s hardball tactics were tossed around at bar conventions the way baseball fans traded tales of no-hitters. Dana had heard the stories and knew she needed an edge. Meeting at The 911 gave it to her. Dale Perry didn’t like poor people and he feared blacks, whom he assumed all wanted to rob and kill him. Fear would keep Perry off balance during their negotiations.

Dana surveilled the area around The 911 for two hours before entering the tavern through the kitchen and mysteriously appearing on the seat across from the frazzled lawyer. She hadn’t told Perry the type of establishment she’d chosen for the meet and he was still wearing a dark blue business suit, a silk shirt, and a Herme`s tie, which made him as conspicuous in The 911 as someone dressed like Santa Claus.

“Enjoying the ambience, Dale?” she asked with a smirk.

“You’re lucky I’m still here,” Perry answered, trying to sound tough. It might have worked if it weren’t for the sheen of sweat on his forehead and the way his eyes shifted nervously as he spoke.

“Here’s the deal, Dale,” Dana said. “What you paid me to follow Charlotte Walsh was more than fair for a simple surveillance assignment, but it didn’t come close to compensating me for being hunted by armed Secret Service agents or being attacked by two men in my apartment who told me that they were going to rape me if I didn’t give them the pictures I took of Farrington and Charlotte Walsh. You know my history, so you know how that kind of threat would affect me.”

“I had nothing to do with any of that.”

“As far as I’m concerned you’re responsible for totally fucking up my life. I had to knock out a Secret Service agent when I was escaping from Farrington’s love nest. Then I had to shoot a man claiming to be a federal agent to keep from being raped. So, not only am I running for my life, I’m facing serious federal charges. If I get arrested I’m not going to protect my employer, Dale. I’m going to cut any deal I can and I’ll implicate anyone I have to in order to protect myself. Believe me, it’s in your best interests and the best interests of your buddy, Christopher Farrington, to buy me off and shut this thing down.”

“What do you want?”

“I want assurances that I am not being hunted and that I will never be charged or arrested for any possible crime growing out of this fiasco. Then I want a million dollars.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I lowballed the price, Dale. I could have asked for a lot more. But I figured a million is an amount your cronies can come up with quickly, and while it’s a lot of money to me it’s chump change for people in your circle. It’s also fair pay for what I’ve gone through and a hell of a lot less than Farrington will have to pay a PR firm for spin control if I sell these pictures.”

“Assuming I can come up with the money, how do you propose I call off a federal investigation?”

Dana shook her head in disgust. “Don’t yank my chain if you want the pictures. You’re on a first-name basis with every powerful politician in the administration, including the attorney general, and the president is his boss.”

“What assurance do I have that you won’t take the money and sell the pictures anyway?”

“Dale, my primary goal is not to get a million dollars; it’s to live to spend it. The president can have me killed anytime the spirit moves him. I want Farrington to have a reason to forget about me. I’m keeping an insurance set of photos that will go to the media if I die under mysterious circumstances, but I have every reason to keep them a deep, dark secret if everyone plays fair.”

Perry shook his head. “You are one crazy bitch, Cutler. I can’t believe you have the balls to blackmail the president.”

“It’s not a question of courage, Dale. I’m scared to death. Those photographs are the only thing keeping me alive, and I’m going to use them any way I can so I can keep breathing.”

Perry looked down at the table. When he raised his eyes he looked contrite.

“I’m sorry you’re in this mess, and I’m very sorry about what happened in your apartment, especially because of what you went through when you were a cop. I really had no idea you’d get in so much trouble when I asked you to take the job. I thought the assignment would be easy money for you.”

“Well it wasn’t.”

“I feel responsible for getting you into this fix and I’ll do my best to get you out of it. Let’s get out of here and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you, Dale.”

“Hey, I like you, Cutler. You’re tough, and you’ve always done good work. You’ll come out of this okay, trust me.”

It was the “trust me” that did it. Dana had almost bought Perry’s sudden change of heart until he said that. Something was going on, and Dana knew it wasn’t going to be good. While she smiled “trustingly” at Perry her eyes worked the room. No one seemed out of place so the people working with Perry had to be outside.

“Why don’t you give me a number where I can get in touch when I have news for you?” Perry said.

“It would be best if I called you.”

“That’s fine. Give me a day to work on the problem. I should know something soon.”

“Great, and thanks, Dale.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Perry said.

“I have to hit the powder room first. You don’t have to wait.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Dana watched Perry leave. She kicked herself for not frisking the lawyer. She bet he was wired and broadcasting their conversation. If so, there were probably men waiting for her to walk out of the door near the restroom, so Dana headed in that direction before ducking into the kitchen. The kitchen staff was comprised of two short order cooks, who gaped at her as she stripped off her jeans and T-shirt and pulled the change of clothes Charlie Foster had left her out of a plastic garbage bag. She slipped a hairnet over her hair and pulled on a pair of baggy pants and several sweatshirts that made her look dumpy and heavier than she’d ever been. An apron, glasses with plain glass for the lenses, and a .45 completed the ensemble. When she was dressed, Dana filled one garbage bag with refuse and another with her clothes before opening the back door wide enough to peek into the alley. No one was waiting in front of the door, but she saw a shadow at one end near the street. There was probably someone at the other end, too.

She yelled as loud as she could in Spanish that they were bastards for making her haul this shit out all the time. “I’m a chef, I ain’t no garbage man.”

Dana slammed open the lid of the Dumpster and tossed in one bag. Then she stomped down the alley, muttering to herself. When the man stepped out of the shadows to check her out she tightened her grip on her sidearm and looked at him.

“What cho want,
pendajo
?” she asked belligerently.

“Sorry,” the man said as he stepped back into the shadows.

Dana sucked in air and walked quickly along the escape route she had paced off hours before. As she walked she imagined eyes boring into her back and she waited for the sound of a shot, but the disguise had worked. In a few moments, she was astride the Harley and racing away from The 911.