Authors: Stephen Coonts
“Maybe he’s circling around on foot to get a shot at you. Maybe he thinks you’ve outlived your usefulness.”
“Sweet isn’t stupid. I took him hunting. He knows he wouldn’t have a chance in a hundred to kill me at my game, on my own ground. Now you may have dropped off someone on your way up here, someone who’s a lot better than Sweet. So I’ve been looking. Those cattle out there on that hillside in front of the house are three-quarters wild, and they’re not edgy. Behind the house-that’s a possibility, but there’s a flock of pheasants up there. Saw “em fly in before you drove up.”
Tasson looked carefully around him, perhaps really seeing the setting for the first time. In a moment he said, “Cities aren’t like this. Ain’t no spooky cows or cowshit or pheasants. Think you can handle that?”
“The principles are the same.”
The visitor crossed his legs and settled back into his chair. He took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. “Got a little business proposition for you.” An hour later he walked down the road toward the car where Sweet was waiting.
That was the last time Charon saw Sweet, the savings-and loan man. Three years had passed since then, busy years.
This afternoon, when the plane landed, Henry Charon joined the throng in the aisle and eased his one soft bag from the overhead bin. As usual, the stewardess at the door of the plane gave him her mindless thank-you while her eyes automatically shifted to the person behind him. Anonymous as always, Henry Charon followed the striding lawyer into the National Airport concourse. Taking his time, his eyes in constant motion, Charon moved with the crowd, not too fast, not too slow. He avoided the cab stand in front of the terminal and started for the buses, only to change his mind when he glimpsed the train at the Metro station a hundred yards away.
He studied a posted map of the system, then bought one at a kiosk. Soon he was in a window seat on the yellow train.
The second hotel he tried had a vacant single room. Charon registered under a false name and paid cash for a four-day stay. He didn’t even have to show his false driver’s license or credit card.
With his bag in his room and the room key in his pocket, Henry Charon set forth upon the streets. He wandered along looking at everything, reading t sips and occasionally referring to a map. After an hour of strolling he found himself in Lafayette Park, the street from the White House.
Comfortable in spite of the sixty-degree temperature, he sat on a bench and watched the Squirrel. One paused a few feet away and stared at him. “Sorry,” he muttered with genuine regret. “Don’t have a thing for you today.” After a few moments he strolled toward the south edge of the block-sized park.
Four portable billboards stood on the wide sidewalk facing the White House. TW-O aging hippies in sandals, one male, one female, attended the billboards.
Across the eight-lane boulevard, surrounded by lush grass and a ten-foot-high, black wrought-iron fence, stood the White House, like something from a set for Gone With the Wind The incongruity was jarring amid the stone-and-steel office buildings that stretched away in all directions.
Along the sidewalk curb were bullet-shaped concrete barricades linked together at the top by a heavy chain, Henry Charon correctly assumed they had been erected to impede truck-bomb terrorists. Similar barricades were erected around the White House gates, to his left and right, down toward the corners.
Tourists crowded the sidewalk. They pointed cameras through the black fence and photographed each other with the White House in the background. Many of the tourists, at least half, appeared to be Japanese.
On the sidewalk, parked back-in against the fence, sat a security guard On his motorcycle, a Kawanki CSR 350, doing Paperwork-Charon walked closer and examined his uniform; black trousers with a blue stripe up each leg, white shirt, the ubiquitous portable radio transceiver, nightstick, and pistol. The shoulder patch on his shirt said PAM
Another man standing beside Charon spoke to the guard: “Whatever happened to the Harleys?”
“We got them too,” the guard responded, and didn’t raise his eyes from his report.
Charon walked on, proceeding east, then turned at the corner by the Treasury building and walked south along the fence. Looking in at the mansion grounds he could see the guards standing at their little kiosks, the trees and flowers, the driveway that curved up the entrance. A black limo stood in the shade under the roof overhang, waiting for someone.
He strolled westward toward the vast expanse of grass that formed the Ellipse. Tourists hurried by him without so much as a glance. Never a smile or a head nod. The little man who wasn’t there found a spot to sit and watch the people.
Inside the White House the attorney general was passing a few minutes with the President’s chief of staff, William C. Dorfman, whom he detested. Dorfman was a superb political operator, arrogant, condescending, sure of himself. An extraordinarily intelligent man, he had no patience for those with lesser gifts. The former governor of a Midwestern state, Dorfman had been a successful entrepreneur and college professor. He seemed to have a sixth sense about what argument would carry the most weight with his listeners. What Dorfman lacked, the attorney general firmly believed, was any sense of right and wrong. The political expedient of the moment always struck Dorfman as proper.
The real flaw in Dorfman’s psyche, the attorney general mused, was the way he regarded people as merely members of groups, groups to be manipulated for his own purposes. Over at Justice the attorney general referred to Dorfnan as “the Weathervane.” He had some other, less complimentary epithets for the chief of staff, but these he used only in the presence of his wife, for the attorney general was an old-fashioned gentleman.
Others in Washington were less kind. Dorfman had racked up an impressive list of enemies in his two years in the White House. One of the more memorable remarks currently going around the cocktail-party circuit was one made by a senator who felt he had been double-crossed by the chief of staff. “Dorfman is a genius by birth, a liar by inclination, and a politician by choice.”
Just now as he listened to Will Dorfman, the senator’s remark crossed the attorney general’s mind.
“What happens if this guy gets acquitted?” Dorfman asked, for the second time.
“He won’t,” the attorney general, Gideon Cohen, said curtly. He always found himself speaking curtly to Dorfman.
“There’ll be a dozen retired crocks and out-of-work cleaning women on that jury, people who are such little warts they’ve never heard of Chano Aldana or the Medellin cartel, people who don’t read the papers or watch TV. The defense lawyers won’t let anyone on that jury who even knows where Colombia is. When the jurors finally figure out what the hell is going on, they’re going to be soared pissiess.”
“The jury system has been around for centuries. They’ll do their duty.” Dorfman snorted and repositioned his calendar on the desk in front of him. He glanced at the vase of fresh-cut flowers that were placed on his desk every morning, one of the White House perks, and helped himself to a handful of MandMs in a vase within his reach. He didn’t offer any to his visitor. “You really believe that crap?”
Cohen did believe in the jury system. He knew that the quiet dignity of the courtroom, the bearing of the judge, the seriousness of the proceedings, the possible consequences to the defendant-all that had an effect on the members of the jury, most of whom, it was true, were from modest walks of life. Yet the honest citizen who felt the weight of his responsibilities was the backbone of the system. And ten cent sophisticates like Dorfman would never understand. Cohen looked pointedly at his watch.
Dorfman sneered and hid it behind his hand. Gideon Cohen was one of those born-to-money Harvard grads who had spent his adult life waltzing to the top of a big New York law firm, a guy who gave up eight or nine hundred thou a year to suffer nobly through a tour in the cabinet. He liked to stand around at parties and cluck about the financial sacrifices with his social equals. Cohen was a royal pain in a conservative’s ass. Even worse, he was a snob. His whole attitude made it crystal clear that Dorfman couldn’t have gotten a job polishing doorknobs at Cohen’s New York firm.
When Cohen looked at his watch the third time, Dorfman rose and stepped toward the door to check with the secretary. As he passed Cohen, he farted.
Alone in the chief of staff’s plush, spacious Office, Gideon Cohen let his eyes glide across the three original Winslow Homer paintings On the wall and come to rest on the Frederick Remington bronze of a bronc rider about to become airborne, also an original. More perks, Public ones, just in case you failed to appreciate the exalted station of the man who parked his padded rump in the padded leather chair. The art belonged to the U.s. government, Cohen knew, and the top dozen or so White House suffers were allowed to choose what they wanted to gaze upon during their tour at the master’s feet. Unfortunately the art had to go back to the museums when the voters or the President sent the apostles back to Private life. Ah, power, Cohen mused disgustedly, what a whore you are! Behind him, he heard Dorfman call his name.
Three minutes later in the Oval Office Dorfman settled into one of the leather chairs as Cohen shook hands with the president. George Bush had on his KennebunkPO-RT Outfit this afternoon. He was leaving for Maine just as soon as he finished this meeting, which Cohen had pleaded for.
“The dope king again?” the president muttered as he dropped into a chair beside Cohen.
“Yessir. The drug cartels in Colombia are issuing death threats, as usual, and the Florida senators are in a panic.” —I just got off the phone with the governor down there-He doesn’t want that trial in Florida, anywhere in Florida.”
“You seen this morning’s paper?”
George Bush winced. “Mergenthalees on his high horse against, Ottmar Mergenthalees column this morning argued that since the drug crisis was a national crisis, the trial of Chano Aidana should be moved to Washington. He also implied, snidely, that the Bush administration was secretly less than enthusiastic about the war on drugs. “I detect the golden lips of Bob Cherry,- Bush said. Cherry was the senior senator from Florida. No doubt he had been whispering his case to the columnist.
“I think we should bring Aidana here, to Washington,” Cohen said. “We can blanket the trial with FBI personnel convict this guy, and do it without anyone getting hurt.bush looked at his chief of staff. “Will?” “Politically, it’ll look good if we do it right here in Washington in front of God and everybody. It’ll send a message to Peoria that we’re really serious about this, mwdless of mergenthaiees columns. Stiffen some backbones in Colombia. If-and this is a damn big if-we get convictions.”
“What about that, Gid?” the President asked, his gaze shifting to the attorney general. “If this guy beats the rap, it sure as hell better happen down in Florida.”
“We can always fire the U.s. attorney down there if he blows it,” Dorfman said blandly and smiled at Cohen.
“Chano Aidana is going to be convicted,” Gideon Cohen stated forcefully. “A district jury convicted Rayftd Edmonds.” Young Rayful had led a crime syndicate that distributed up to two hundred kilos of crack, cocaine a week in the Washington area, an estimated thirty percent of the business. “A ittry’ll convict Aldana. If it doesn’t happen, YOU can fire Your attorney general.”
Dorfman kept his eyes on Cohen and nodded solemnly. “May have to,” he muttered. “But what will a conviction get us? When Rayful went to jail the price of crack in the District didn’t jump a dime. The stuff just kept coming in. People aren’t stupid-they see that!”
“This drug business is another tar baby,” the President said slowly, “like the damn abortion thing. It’s political dynamite. The further out front I get on this the more people expect to see tangible results. You and Bennett keep wanting to take big risks for tiny gains, yet everyone wanting them keeps telling me the drug problem is getting worse, not better. All we’re doing is pissing on a forest fire.” He sent his eyebrows up and down. “Failure is very expensive in politicseacomGid.”
“I understand, Mr. President. We’ve discussed-was
“What would we have to do to solve this drug mess, and I mean solve it?”
Gideon Cohen took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Repeal the Fourth Amendment or legalize dope. Those are the choices.”
Dorfman leaped from his chair, “For the love of-are you out of your mind?” he roared. “Jeez-us H. — his
Bush waved his chief of staff into silence. “Will convicting Chano Aldana have any effect on the problem?”
“A diplomatic effect, yes. A moral effect, I hope. But-was
“Will convicting him have any direct effect at all on the amount of drugs that comes into the United States?” Dorfman demanded.
“Hell, no,” Cohen shot back, relieved to have a target for his frustration. “Convicting a killer doesn’t prevent murder. But you have to try killers because a civilized society cannot condone murder. You have to punish it whenever and wherever you can.”
“This war on drugs has all the earmarks of a windmill crusade,” Dorfman explained, back in his seat and now the soul of reason. “Repealing the Fourth Amendment, legalizing tilde dope …” He shook his head slowly. “We have to take positive steps, that’s true enough, but the President cannot appear as an ineffectual bumbler, an incompetent. That’s a sin the voters won’t forgive. Remember Jimmy Carter?” His voice turned hard: “And he can’t advocate some crackpot solution. He’d be laughed out of office.”
“I’m not asking for political hara-kiri,” Cohen said wearily. “I just want to get this dope kingpin up here where we can try him with enough security so that we don’t have any incidents. We need to ensure no one gets to the jurors. The jurors have to feel safe. We will get convictions.”
“We’d better,” Dorftnan said caustically.
“Will, you’ve argued all along that what was needed here was more cops, more judges, and more prisons,” Cohen said, letting a little of his anger leak out. ““Leave the rehab Programs and drug-prevention seminars to the Democrats,” you said. Okay, now we have to put Aidana in prison. This is where that policy road has taken us. We have no other options.”