Executive Privilege (2 page)

Dana Cutler’s cell phone rang moments after Jake Teeny’s pickup disappeared around the corner and seconds after she closed the door of Jake’s house, where she was house-sitting while he was away on an assignment.

“Cutler?” a raspy voice asked as soon as Dana flipped open the phone.

“What’s up, Andy?” she asked.

Andy Zipay was an ex-cop who’d left the D.C. police force under a cloud a year before Dana had resigned for far different reasons. Dana had been one of the few cops who hadn’t shunned Zipay, and she’d sent business his way when he’d set up shop as a private investigator. Six months after her release from the hospital, Dana had told him that she wouldn’t mind working private if he had some overflow and the jobs were quiet. Zipay gave her assignments when he could, and she appreciated the fact that he had never asked her what had happened at the farm.

“You up for another job for Dale Perry?”

“Perry’s a pig.”

“True, but he liked the last job you did for him and he pays well.”

“What’s the deal?”

“A tail. It sounds like easy money. He needs someone right away and I have a full plate. You in or out?”

Dana’s bank account needed an infusion of cash. She sighed.

“Does he want me to come to his office?”

“No.” Zipay told her where to go.

“You’re kidding?”

It was two in the morning when Dana eased Jake Teeny’s Harley into a parking space in front of a twenty-four-hour pancake joint in suburban Maryland. She was wearing a black leather jacket, a black T-shirt, and tight jeans, an outfit that made her look tough. Even without the Harley and the outfit as props, people would back off instinctively in Dana’s presence. She was a hard twenty-nine, five ten, lean and muscular, and she always seemed on edge. The intensity in her emerald green eyes was intimidating.

Before entering the Pancake House, Dana removed her helmet and shook out her shoulder-length auburn hair. As soon as she stepped through the door, she spotted Dale Perry in the rear of the restaurant. She ignored the hostess and headed to his booth. The lawyer was in his late forties, short, overweight, balding, and working on his third divorce. His fat face reminded Dana of a bulldog, but she was certain that Perry didn’t see what others saw when he looked in the mirror, because he came on to every halfway attractive woman he met. Perry had made a pass at her the last time she’d done a job for him. She’d deflected it deftly and had even dropped hints that she was a lesbian to dissuade him, but that only seemed to create a challenge for the lascivious lawyer.

Dana rarely smiled, but her lips momentarily curled upward in amusement when she considered the spot that Dale Perry had selected for their meeting and the way he was dressed. Perry, a senior partner in a big D.C. firm, was a close friend of the president and very influential behind the scenes in national politics. He was the type who dressed in three-thousand-dollar power suits and conducted business in the bar at the Hay-Adams hotel, where Washington’s power brokers decided the fate of the world while sipping twenty-five-year-old, single malt scotch. Tonight, the lawyer was cradling a chipped mug filled with bad Pancake House coffee and wearing jeans, a Washington Redskins jacket, dark glasses, and a Washington Nationals baseball cap with the brim pulled low.

“
Qué pasa
?” Dana asked as she slipped into the booth across from Perry and deposited her motorcycle helmet on the cracked vinyl.

“It’s about time,” Perry growled. Dana didn’t react. She was used to Perry pulling rank. He was a macho pig who loved dumping on underlings. Dana didn’t consider herself an underling, but there was no profit in letting Perry know how she felt. She never let her ego get in the way of making a buck.

“So, Mr. Perry, what’s the problem?” Dana asked as she took off her jacket.

A waitress appeared and Dana ordered coffee. When the waitress was out of earshot, the lawyer resumed their conversation. Even though there were no other customers in their vicinity, he lowered his voice and leaned forward.

“Remember that job you did for me last year?”

“Tailing the guy who worked for the senator?”

Perry nodded.

“How’d that work out?” Dana asked.

Perry smiled. “Very nicely. I played him the tape. He threatened to sue, have me arrested, blah, blah, blah. But, in the end, he caved.”

“Glad to hear it worked out.”

“You do good work.”

Now it was Dana’s turn to nod. She did do excellent work. Private investigation suited her. She could stay in the shadows a good part of the time when she was working at jobs that Perry’s firm would never assign to their in-house investigators, and the pay for assignments that weren’t completely kosher was higher than most hourly wages. They were also tax free because she was always paid off the books and in cash.

The waitress returned with Dana’s coffee. When she left, Perry dug into a manila envelope that was lying on the seat next to him. He pushed a color photograph of a young woman across the table.

“Her name is Charlotte Walsh. She’s nineteen, a student at American University. I’ll give you her address and some other information before you leave.”

Dana studied the photograph. The girl was pretty. No, more than pretty. She had a sweet, fresh-faced look, like the good girl in movies about teens in high school, blue eyes, soft blond hair. Dana bet she’d been a cheerleader.

“My client wants her followed everywhere she goes.” Perry handed Dana a cell phone. “The client also wants a running account of everything Walsh does.” Perry slid a piece of notepaper with a phone number across the table. “Leave voice mail messages anytime she makes a move with details about what she’s doing. Pictures, too. You’ll give me everything you’ve got. Don’t keep any copies.”

Dana frowned. “This kid’s just a student?”

“Sophomore studying poli-sci.”

Dana’s brow furrowed. “Who’s the client, her parents, worried about their little girl?”

“You don’t need to know that. Just do your job.”

“Sure, Mr. Perry.”

The lawyer took a thick envelope stuffed with bills off the seat and handed it to Dana.

“Will that do?”

Dana lowered the envelope beneath the tabletop and counted the cash. When she was done, she nodded. Perry handed her the manila envelope from which he’d taken Walsh’s photograph.

“There’s more information about the subject in here. Get rid of everything after you’ve read it.”

“Do you want any reports?” she asked.

“No, just the photographs. I don’t want anything on paper. Keep me out of it unless there’s a problem.”

“Sure thing.” Dana stood up, leaving three-quarters of the coffee in her mug. She put on her jacket, stuffed the money in a pocket, and zipped the pocket shut. Perry didn’t say good-bye.

Dana reviewed the meeting on the ride back to Jake Teeny’s house. The job seemed easy enough, but she knew there was more to this assignment than figuring out how a cute coed spent her days. The money Perry had given her was more than a simple tail merited, and there was no way Perry would want to meet at two in the morning in a bad pancake restaurant in the suburbs if this was an ordinary assignment. If she needed more proof that something was up, Perry hadn’t hit on her. Still, the money was good, and tailing a college kid should be easy. Dana forgot about the job, goosed the Harley, and gave herself over to the ride.

Charlotte Walsh looked up from the economic report she had been pretending to read and glanced around the campaign headquarters of the Senator Gaylord for President Committee. It was five-thirty and most of the volunteers and employees were either at dinner or headed home, leaving only a skeleton staff. When she was certain that no one was near the office of Reggie Styles, Senator Maureen Gaylord’s campaign coordinator, Walsh took a deep breath and crossed the room. Styles was out of the office at a meeting and the desks near his office were deserted for the moment, but that could change in a heartbeat. The suite was usually filled with noisy volunteers.

The only reason Walsh had the economic report was because it was a thick stack of loose pages. She carried the report into Styles’s office. If she was caught, she would say she was leaving it for him. She felt light-headed and a little nauseated. She also felt guilty. She had never meant to be a spy when she volunteered for President Farrington’s reelection campaign, but Chuck Hawkins, the president’s top aide, had asked her to infiltrate Gaylord’s headquarters as a personal favor to the president. There had been a promise of a job at the White House as a reward. And then there had been the private meeting with President Farrington in Chicago.

Walsh swallowed hard as she remembered that midnight meeting in the president’s hotel suite. Then she forced herself to concentrate. She had seen Styles put the spreadsheets for the secret slush fund into the lower right drawer of his desk. Walsh looked over her shoulder. When she was certain no one was looking, she used the key she’d copied and took the five sheets out of the desk. When she’d slipped them randomly between the pages of the economic report she hurried to the copying machine and started feeding the sheaf of papers into it. When the copy was finished she would take it with her after returning the originals of the purloined material to Styles’s desk.

“Working late?”

Charlotte jumped. She’d been so focused she had not heard Tim Moultrie slip up behind her. Moultrie was a junior at Georgetown who was an avid supporter of Senator Gaylord. He also had the hots for Charlotte and had hit on her as soon as she started working as a volunteer. Moultrie wasn’t bad-looking, and he was awfully smart, but he was just a college boy, and boys her age didn’t interest Charlotte anymore.

“Hi, Tim,” she answered, unable to keep a tremor out of her voice.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, laughing. “I guess I just have that effect on women.”

Charlotte managed a weak smile. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the pages collating in the plastic tray attached to the copier.

“What are you up to?” Tim asked.

“Just copying a report on the Asian trade deficit. Senator Gaylord wants to hammer Farrington on his trade policy.”

“That should be easy. Farrington’s trade policies have been a disaster. If he gets elected we’ll be a Chinese territory before his term is through.”

“I agree completely,” Charlotte said, egging Tim on in the hopes that he’d be so busy expounding his theories that he wouldn’t pay any attention to the papers she was copying.

The ploy worked, and the last page shot out of the machine halfway through Tim’s tirade against the evils of the subsidy Japan was giving to one of its industries.

“I’m glad you’re around to explain this economic stuff to me,” said Charlotte, who’d aced her course in international economic theory.

“Not a problem,” Tim answered as Charlotte stacked the original and the copy in two neat piles.

“Say, it’s almost dinnertime. Want to grab a bite?” he asked.

Charlotte glanced at the wall clock. It was only a little after six and she had a few hours to kill before her meeting.

“Gee, I’d love to. Where do you want to go?”

Tim named a Thai restaurant a few blocks from campaign headquarters.

“Thai sounds great. Give me a few minutes to straighten my desk and do a few odds and ends. Can I meet you in the lobby?”

“Sure thing.” Tim beamed.

Charlotte stalled for time in the copy room by leafing through one of the paper piles. As soon as Tim was out of sight, she extracted the five stolen pages from the stack of originals and returned to Reggie Styles’s office. She had just finished putting them back in the lower drawer when Tim walked up.

“What are you doing?” he asked, sounding suspicious this time.

“God, Tim! You’ve got to stop sneaking up on me. You’ll give me a heart attack. Instead of having dinner with you, I’ll be in the hospital.”

Tim’s face cleared and he smiled. “Wouldn’t want that to happen,” he said.

Charlotte placed the economic report in a stack of papers in Styles’s in-box and carried the copy with the list of slush fund contributors to her desk.

“I’ll see you in a minute,” she said as she slipped the documents into her backpack and began straightening papers in a way that made her look as if she were actually doing something.

“See you in the lobby.”

The door closed behind Tim. Charlotte sagged with relief. She’d done it. Of course, she’d have to fake enjoying dinner with Tim. She couldn’t think of a way to get out of it without raising his suspicions, but that was a small sacrifice. Her adventure in political espionage had made her ravenously hungry anyway, and she was sure Tim would insist on paying for the meal. A narrow escape and a free meal; not a bad evening so far, she reckoned, and it would only get better in a few hours.

Early in his presidency, Christopher Farrington had felt like a fraud, and he’d wondered how many other presidents had felt this way. Farrington was certain that every person who went into politics harbored a secret dream of one day being the president of the United States, but once the chosen few achieved their dream, he wondered if holding the office felt as surreal to them as his ascension to the presidency felt to him.

In his case the dreamlike quality of his presidency had been heightened by the fact that there had been no election, only an early morning visit from a Secret Service agent telling him that President Nolan had suffered a fatal heart attack and he was now the commander in chief. One minute he was serving in the relative anonymity of the vice presidency and the next minute he was the Leader of the Free World.

No one watching Christopher Farrington walk down the hall to his son’s room would have guessed that he harbored doubts about his ability to lead the nation. Farrington looked presidential. He was tall and broad shouldered, his full head of glossy black hair had enough gray to give a simultaneous impression of vigor and maturity, and his welcoming smile told you that he might have risen to the heights, but he was still a guy with whom you could share a cup of coffee at your kitchen table. Tonight, as he stood in the doorway watching his wife tuck in the covers around Patrick, their six-year-old son, he also looked like any proud parent. His chest swelled with pride when Claire leaned over and kissed Patrick’s forehead.

President Farrington’s son would have none of the childhood memories the president had. Chris had grown up poor in rural Oregon with only a dim recollection of the father who’d deserted him, his mother, and his brothers and sisters. Most evenings, his mother had been too tired from working two jobs to tuck in Chris or his siblings. On the occasions when she’d bothered, her breath had been a mixture of mint and cheap liquor.

Sports had saved Farrington’s life. He was six five and had a good enough jump shot to corral a scholarship at Oregon State, where he’d guided OSU to two appearances in the NCAA tournament. He was no slouch in the classroom either and his grades and financial need had earned him a full ride to law school in Oregon. There was a good chance that he could have gotten into one of the nation’s elite law schools, but political office had been Christopher Farrington’s goal since being elected class president in high school. A degree from Harvard or Yale didn’t appeal to him as much as the possibility of making influential contacts during his three years in law school, and at this he succeeded. Powerful backers and his notoriety as a sports hero helped him win a spot in the state senate on his first try. He’d risen to the position of majority leader when he decided to take on an incumbent governor, who was brought low by a financial scandal uncovered by an intrepid reporter two months before the election. Farrington’s closest friend and top aide, Charles Hawkins, had learned about the governor’s peccadilloes before advising his boss to make the run and had fed the information about them to the reporter when the time was right.

Claire lowered the shade in Patrick’s room, and the spotlighted Washington Monument disappeared from view. She turned toward the doorway and smiled.

“How long have you been standing there?” she asked when they were in the hall.

“A few seconds,” Farrington answered as he closed the door quietly behind them.

The hall outside the family bedrooms reminded the Farringtons of a floor in a colonial inn. A plush blue carpet went well with the old-fashioned, off-white wallpaper that President Nolan’s wife had selected. A few oil paintings from the 1800s depicting rural America in all its glory were interspersed with portraits of some of the lesser-known presidents. Freestanding lamps and a few small chandeliers lit their way. The Farringtons didn’t care much about interior decorating so there had been no change in the décor since Christopher had ascended to the presidency.

The president was dressed in a dark blue, pinstripe business suit. The first lady was dressed in a powder blue pants suit and a cream-colored silk blouse. As they strolled down the hall Farrington wrapped his arm around Claire’s shoulder. It was easy to do, since Claire was only a few inches shorter than her husband.

The first lady was a powerfully built woman who had gone to Oregon State on a volleyball scholarship and ended up as a third team all-American in her senior year. Her shoulder-length brown hair was curly, her nose was a little too large, and her blue eyes were a tad small for her face. She had a high forehead and flat cheekbones. Though not plain, she was certainly not girlishly pretty, but she was charismatic, and her size and intellect dominated any gathering. She had been the captain of her high school and college volleyball teams, captain of her high school basketball team, valedictorian of her high school, and an honors student in college and medical school.

Chris and Claire had married while Claire was in medical school in Portland and Christopher was on the verge of his first run for office. Claire had cut back on her practice when Patrick was born and had given it up when the family moved to Washington, D.C., after Christopher was elected vice president.

“You could have come in and kissed Patrick good night,” Claire said.

“You two seemed so at peace that I didn’t want to spoil the moment.”

The president kissed his wife on the forehead. “Have I ever told you what a great mother you are?”

“From time to time,” Claire responded with a sly smile, “and you’re going to get many more chances.”

Farrington looked confused, and Claire laughed. “I’m pregnant.”

Farrington stopped short. He looked stunned.

“You’re serious?”

Claire stopped smiling. “You’re not sorry, are you?”

“No, no, it’s just…I thought you were on the pill.”

“I decided to stop taking it two months ago.” She put her hands on Chris’s shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Are you mad?”

A mix of emotions swept across the president’s face but the words he spoke were the right ones.

“We always wanted more kids. I just thought another pregnancy would be tough with everything you have to do as first lady.”

“Don’t worry about me. Being pregnant didn’t slow me down during the gubernatorial campaign.”

“True. It was actually a plus, if I recall.”

“And it will be a plus this time. The women will applaud your family values and the men will be in awe of your virility.”

Farrington laughed. Then he hugged Claire.

“You’re a treasure.” He stepped back until they were at arm’s length. “Are you going to be okay tonight?”

“I’ll be fine. My speech is short and it will be nice going out in public before I start looking like a whale.”

“You don’t feel sick?”

“I’ve had a little morning sickness, but I’m okay now. Chuck called ahead to the hotel and booked a suite in case I need to rest.”

“I love you,” Farrington said, hugging her again. “You know I wouldn’t have dumped this on you at the last minute if this meeting wasn’t important, but Gaylord’s pulling out all the stops. Chuck says she’s raising a lot of money.”

Farrington sounded worried. Claire laid her palm against his cheek. It was warm, and the touch calmed him.

“Maureen is going to shit bullets when we announce I’m pregnant. Let’s see her claim the family values high ground now.”

“I’m going to send Chuck with you.”

“Won’t he be needed at the meeting?”

“I want him by your side, Claire. I want to know you’re protected.”

Claire kissed her husband’s cheek. “Don’t worry about me, and definitely don’t worry about Maureen Gaylord.”