The Nominee

by Alan P Woodruff

  That afternoon the jury had returned a verdict of not guilty in a multi-million-dollar securities fraud case. The government had tried every tactic in its arsenal — from offering arguably fabricated documents to using disputably perjured testimony — and he had beaten them. It was time to celebrate.

  White still felt the glow of his victory as he stood by the cooking island in the middle of his restaurant-grade kitchen chopping the shallots for his celebrated Chicken Excelsior. He had a vast repertoire of gourmet recipes, but this was his favorite form of celebrating.

  #

  At the far end of the converted loft of the colonial-era warehouse that housed White’s apartment and law office, Horse McGee, White’s investigator and right arm, pressed a cell phone against his ear. Slowly, he paced the length of the apartment, oblivious to everything but the caller’s words. Occasionally, he paused to concentrate on a particularly significant scrap of the conversation. As he passed the glass door leading to the deck, he saw in his reflection an uncharacteristically gloomy look and narrowed eyes showing every sign that the news was not good. It didn’t matter, but he knew that he was being watched and was going to have to explain his reaction.

  White put down his knife and strained to hear Horse’s conversation. It wasn’t any of his business, but Horse was his friend, and it was apparent that something was very wrong.

  Leslie Halloran, White’s live-in lover, sat opposite him at the breakfast bar sipping a glass of merlot and tossing an occasional cube of imported Swiss cheese to Sherlock, their mixed-breed retriever. She started to say something, but White cut her short with a raised hand. She turned and followed his gaze to Horse, now leaning against one of the barrel chairs clustered in front of the fieldstone fireplace.

  “Did he tell anyone he’d be going somewhere?” Horse asked. A short silence was followed with, “Are you sure?”

  White and Leslie exchanged questioning looks.

  “Is that all you know?” Horse said. He listened to the answer and nodded once. “I’ll let you know what I come up with.” With that, he pocketed his cell phone and for the ensuing few seconds stood as motionless as the abstract brass sculpture that dominated the center of the room. Absently, as if some force outside himself controlled his movements, he crossed the room and, without speaking, slid onto a stool beside Leslie and reached for his beer. His face was taut and slightly ashen.

  White’s long friendship with Horse had taught him to read the signs. Something was seriously wrong, but White knew that Horse couldn’t be hurried.

  Leslie looked toward White and shrugged in a way that indicated she wanted to say something but didn’t know if she should. White shook his head. It was an almost imperceptible movement, but her frustrated sigh made it clear that she understood.

  White returned to the task of preparing their dinner — absently going through the motions a while waiting for Horse to speak.

  Horse leaned forward, crossing his arms on the bar and hanging his head. Finally, he spoke — softly, more to himself than to the others, as though giving voice to the facts he just learned would somehow change them. “David Parker has disappeared.”

  White knew there was more and waited attentively.

  “Isn’t he the guy you worked with at the National Security Agency?”

  “Uh… yeah… that’s him.” Horse seemed to be only vaguely conscious of what White was saying. “But I knew him a long time ago. He’s been working at Oak Ridge for the last couple of years.”

  White strained to suppress the sense of foreboding he felt. “That’s still a top-secret facility, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Mostly.”

  As he waited for Horse to continue, White removed his cleaver from the knife holder and began slicing portobello mushrooms. Another minute passed before he said, “Are they still in the nuclear weapons business?”

  “They still build bombs, but they do all kinds of other classified work too.”

  “And David?”

  “He works in cybersecurity. Some office that analyzes foreign intelligence data.”

  The words struck White with the force of divine revelation. Cybersecurity. Foreign intelligence. There were few more significant terms in the lexicon of national defense. The disappearance of someone from one of the nation’s most secretive installations was enough to chill even White. Already he knew what Horse’s mysterious call was going to lead to.

  “Do you have any idea about what’s happened?” White said, still struggling to sound as if he were merely curious.

  Horse took a swallow of beer and returned the mug to the veined green marble top of the breakfast bar. “I don’t know. Last I heard from him was a few months ago. He’d just been called up for duty in Syria.”

  White waited for more, but Horse remained silent, concentrating on the bubbles rising in his glass. Anything to divert his thoughts, however briefly, from the news he couldn’t ignore.

  White turned up the flame under the iron skillet on the stove and added a stick of butter. “Is there anything I can do to help?” Leslie asked him.

  White knew she was trying to help take his mind off Horse. “Not right now.” His tone said he was thinking about something other than her question.

  Leslie took the last sip of her merlot. As she reached for the bottle to refill her glass, the shiny brick-red hair that cascaded in ringlets halfway down her back swung around her shoulder and covered her breasts. After filling her glass, she reached across the breakfast bar for another tidbit for Sherlock.

  As she always did when meals were in the making, Sherlock manned her post, at the end of the bar, from which she could watch both White and Leslie. Snacks could come from anywhere. It paid to be prepared.

  White retrieved a bulb of garlic from the wire basket hanging over the bar. He tore loose a couple of cloves and began shaving them into razor-thin slices. “Why would they send someone who worked in cybersecurity to Syria?”

  Horse shrugged in a way that suggested he was only vaguely aware of the question. When he responded, his voice was flat and emotionless. “He spoke fluent Arabic, and we worked on intelligence analysis in the region when we were at the NSA.”

  The melted butter spattered and crackled as White added the garlic. “And you say he went to Syria a couple of months ago?”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah.” Horse seemed to be struggling to pay attention to White. “Four, maybe five.”

  “He didn’t stay long.”

  “I thought about that. Normal rotation’s at least six months, usually longer.”

  The mushrooms and shallots joined the garlic in the skillet, and the kitchen soon filled with a rich bouquet of their aromas. “What was he doing back here so soon?”

  “I don’t know. We only talked once since he got back. That was a couple of weeks ago. He was pretty secretive about what went on over there, but he said he’d pulled some political strings and gotten released before his tour was over.” Horse took another swallow of beer before continuing. “Also said he’d come across something that could shake up the peace negotiations.”

  “What kind of political strings would someone like him have?” Leslie asked.

  Horse responded with an abbreviated snort. “I thought he was pulling my legs on that one. David’s about as politically connected as Sherlock.”

  White chuckled at the idea of Sherlock being politically active — unless peeing on campaign lawn signs constituted a political activity. “What could he have found in Syria that would affect the peace negotiations?”

  “I can’t think of a thing. Politics bored David. Only something that he thought was earthshaking would get his attention.”

  “Then why didn’t he tell you more about what he’d found?”

  “Don’t think he understood what he had found.” Slowly, Horse’s expression changed from one of concern to one that said he was thinking about what Parker had revealed. “But he did say something that seemed odd.”

  Leslie put down her wine. White put his hands, still
holding a spatula, on the breakfast bar, extended his arms and leaned forward.

  “He said someone in Syria didn’t want to let him do a complete analysis of some documents he’d found, but he was going to research them now that he was home.”

  “Why did that seem odd?” Leslie asked.

  Horse’s forehead wrinkled as he thought about the question and all that it implied. “Document analysis isn’t part of his job. He only manages the computers that search digital records and find documents that need to be examined.”

  White stirred the garlic and shallots briefly before reducing the flame. He knew that Horse was thinking about something else and needed prompting. “And?”

  “He was going to analyze the documents he’d found in Syria.”

  “How’d he get an intelligence document out of Syria?”

  “Don’t know. And I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time. But now I think he was giving me a hint about what to look into if something like this happened.”

  “And what did happen?” White said.

  “Don’t know that either. He and Terry Hardwick, that’s the guy who just called, had an arrangement. They sent e-mails to each other every day. If David didn’t send an e-mail for two days, Terry was supposed to call me.”

  “It sounds like he was expecting something to happen to him.”

  Horse cocked his head. “Sounds like!”

  Leslie slid her glass to the side and put a gentle hand on Horse’s forearm. “Was he afraid of something specific… something that made him think that anything might happen to him?”

  Horse paused, his face was once again taut and troubled as he stared intently at his mug of beer. “Wish I knew. David wouldn’t have just disappeared without making any effort to contact me himself.”

  White laid his cleaver down and spread his hands on the bar. “And since he wanted you notified, it must have been something he didn’t think the authorities would act on.”

  Leslie glanced at White over the rim of her glass. White knew she could see the fluttering of the tic over his left eye that betraying the tension he was feeling. At the same time, White watched Leslie’s expression transition from one of cautious concern to a look of grim apprehension. He knew what she had seen, just as he sensed what she was probably thinking.

  White returned his attention to Horse. “If he wanted you told about his disappearance, why didn’t he just tell you what was going on? Why did he rely on this Hardwick guy to call you?”

  Horse poured the last of his beer into his glass before crumpling the can in his massive paw. “Don’t know. Whatever it was, it must have happened so suddenly that he didn’t have time to avoid it — or that prevented him from contacting me.”

  “But why would David want you notified?” Leslie said.

  Horse pursed his lips. “Because he knew he could count on me.”

  Leslie’s eyebrows rose. “Count on you for what?” she asked in a voice that was filled with apprehension.

  “To help him,” Horse said, as if going to the aid of an old friend was an everyday occurrence.

  “That’s it?” Leslie said, her tone somewhere between surprise and exasperation. “He expected you to drop everything and come running just because you’re friends?”

  As Horse and Leslie spoke, White struggled to control the sense of foreboding that he was feeling. Without thinking about what he was doing, he measured a mixture of spices — garlic powder, black pepper, oregano, and crushed bay leaves — into a bag of flour and added six chicken breast filets.

  “It’s more than that.” A reflexive smile replaced the strain on Horse’s face. “It’s part of a pact we made.”

  “A pact! What kind of a pact?”

  The question seemed to take Horse’s mind off the phone call he had just received, and he began to relax. “We were more than just friends. We were like brothers in our days at the Agency. We were enlistees in a place where everyone else was an officer — or a civilian with at least a couple of degrees. We were the outsiders, so, naturally, we got together. I don’t remember what got us onto the topic, but it had something to do with the fact that neither of us had any family we could go to when we were in trouble. We each promised we’d be there if the other one ever needed help.”

  Leslie shook her head and frowned. “You guys and your macho promises.”

  “It’s important in the security business. When you have a top-secret clearance, and a job like David had, you’re always a potential target for enemy action.”

  “Isn’t that why we have police and other agencies to protect you guys?”

  “They don’t have the resources to give every case the attention it needs. Besides, government agencies can’t always do some of the things I can do.”

  “But it’s really just a chromosome thing,” White whispered to Leslie, as he removed the shallots and mushrooms from the skillet and replaced them with the coated chicken filets.

  Horse gave White a sour look. He obviously wasn’t in the mood for their customary exchange of irreverent banter. “Leslie, you have to understand that it’s something the Army beats into you. You have to be able to count on your buddies, and they have to be able to count on you.”

  Leslie made a face that said she pitied the male of the species. Finally, she just rolled her eyes. “Men!”

  “Yeah. It’s a guy thing, all right. But a promise doesn’t mean much if it isn’t honored. I know I could count on David if our places were reversed.”

  Leslie swiveled her bar stool and looked into Horse’s eyes. “So, Mister ‘Guy Thing,’ what are you going to do now?”

  “Only one thing I can do. Find him — or find out what happened to him.”

  “When do we leave?” White said.

  After more than a decade together, they were more than just attorney and investigator. White understood the bond that still existed between Horse and Parker. He also understood what Horse had to do and why he had to do it. Asking him if he wanted help was unnecessary. Horse would have refused, and White would have insisted. In the end, White would have prevailed. If their roles had been reversed, the discussion would have gone the same way. That’s the way it had always been. Now it was easier to ignore the polite dance and move on.

  Horse nodded only the slightest hint of acceptance of White’s offer. “We should go to Knoxville the first thing in the morning.”

  “Then you’d better start packing,” Leslie said.

  “Don’t you mean “we’d’ better start packing?” White said.

  “What? You want me to come with you? This doesn’t sound like something I could be any help with.”

  “And I don’t have any idea what we might be getting into,” White said. “But I have an idea that we’ll need all the brainpower we can muster.”

  “What am I supposed to do about my cases? I do have my own life you know.”

  “I know. But you’ve said you wanted to be more involved in what Horse and I do?”

  “I’d like to be more involved in your cases. Running around the country looking for missing people isn’t what I had in mind.”

  “Look on the bright side. You’ll be able to spend a week at the cabin at when the leaves are changing colors.”

  “Well… I could use a little time off.”

  “Good. Then let’s start packing.”

  “What about Sherlock?”

  “What about her? She needs a vacation, too.”

  Leslie smiled. “Did you hear that, Sherlock?” she said, reaching down and scratching the dog’s ear. “We’re going to Tennessee.”

  At the sound of Leslie’s voice, Sherlock looked up and wagged her tail. He knew that something was happening, but was unwilling to abandon her post at the end of the breakfast bar. It could be a trick to distract her from a tasty morsel.

  #

  White stood motionless by the bedroom window, looking out at the faint light of the coming dawn. Outside, the wind began to pick up. The silk curtains billowed as drops of rain, th
e outer edges of the storm moving over the Florida Keys, assaulted the windows with the same intensity that White’s emotions were being bombarded by his sleep-depriving thoughts.

  Leslie rolled over, yawned and propped herself up on her elbow. “You’re up early.” Leslie allowed the sheet to fall from her shoulder, revealing her uninhibited nakedness. At five-feet six-inches and one hundred twenty pounds, she still had the body of the tennis star she’d been at Radcliff and a look that was both seductively erotic and compassionate.

  White glanced toward their bed and ran his fingers through his hair. “My mind seems to have woken up before the rest of me was ready.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  When White responded his voice was low and pensive. “Talk about what?”

  “Whatever you were thinking about.”

  “What makes you so sure I was thinking about anything important?”

  Leslie shook her head. “Come on, Lucius. You know you have a ‘tell.’ You run your fingers through your hair like you just did whenever you’re deep in thought. So, tell me, what were you thinking about?”

  “I was just thinking about Horse’s friend.”

  “Do you know him?” Leslie asked in a concerned voice. “The way you talked to Horse tonight, I thought maybe…” She let her voice trail off. She was clearly hoping that White would fill the silence with an explanation.

  “We’ve never met.” His emotionless voice said that his thoughts were somewhere else. “I just know that he and Horse have a history.”

  White turned from the window and moved toward the bed. “Horse mentioned him a couple of times over the years.” He spoke as if he was trying to recall something from past conversations that might shed light on their coming quest. “But I always thought there was something he couldn’t share… or didn’t want to share.”

  “Horse isn’t the only one who’s like that,” Leslie said as she sat up in bed and pulled the blanket around her. “And I don’t think that’s all there is to your concern.”