The Nomination

by William G. Tapply

  His fingers hovered over the keyboard as he stared up at the ceiling. Then he wrote:

  Blackhole: Your professional services needed for deep backgrounding, utmost discretion, time of the essence, usual extravagant fee for OYO job well done. Meet Bellwether, regular place, Thursday 01:00 for details. Read and delete.

  He signed it: “Shadowland.”

  He read it over, clicked the “send” icon, deleted it from his “mail sent” file, then opened the “deleted mail” file and erased it from there, too.

  Brody knew that somewhere out there in cyberspace this e-mail would continue to exist even after it had been deleted at both ends, and that, in theory, it could be recovered and traced back to his and Blackhole’s computers. That was highly unlikely, but should it happen, and if it were then decrypted, which was unlikely bordering on impossible, it would still take a lot of other knowledge to make any sense out of the message. Minimal, acceptable risk. Nothing was absolutely without risk.

  He paused, stretched and yawned, then wrote another e-mail:

  Bellwether: Need for Patchman scrutiny confirmed. Meet Blackhole OYO, usual place, Thursday 01:00, specify assignment per previous instructions. Read and delete. Shadowland.

  Again he sent the mail then deleted it from his computer.

  Brody checked his own incoming mailbox, found no important messages, logged off, and shut down his computer.

  He leaned back in his chair, cradled his neck in his laced fingers, and smiled up at the dark ceiling.

  Pat Brody loved this shit. He loved the Byzantine complexity of it all. He loved pulling the strings, making things happen. He loved the fact that he was Shadowland.

  Somewhere out there two men—or, for all he knew, two women, or one of each, or whatever—were reading his words in virtually untraceable secrecy. “Blackhole,” whoever that was, did the important jobs that official government agents could not do. He—or she—got his or her assignments from another ghostly character, an intermediary known to Brody only as “Bellwether.”

  He communicated with them in the anonymity of cyberspace, safely insulated from the president and his immediate circle. Whatever services they rendered, they did OYO—“on your own.” Nothing could be traced back to the white mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue, never mind to the Oval Office within it. They were free to use any method that promised to work. The end justifies the means. Introductory Machiavelli. Raison d’état. Realpolitik.

  Their OYO activities were, in the delicious jargon of bureaucratic survival theory, “plausibly deniable.”

  Pat Brody didn’t want to know what they did or how they did it. If Brody didn’t know, there was no way the president could know. And if the president didn’t know, he couldn’t be blamed. He might be accused of naïvete, or of ignorance, or even of failing to maintain sufficient control of his staff. That was the worst-case scenario. But in the final analysis, with the proper degree of spin, what the president didn’t know could do him no harm.

  If Blackhole, or Bellwether, or Shadowland himself—if any one of them should get careless, all of them would be sacrificed, no questions asked. Brody would become the victim of the president’s self-righteous indignation. He would be “the man I thought I could trust,” the maverick, the loose cannon.

  Blackhole and Bellwether ... they would simply disappear.

  Everyone understood how it worked.

  The system had always been there. Nixon had exposed it to public attention. Reagan had refined it, perfected the illusion, mastered the art of plausible deniability. Their successors—hello, Dick Cheney—with the benefit of personal computers and cellular telephones and other technology, and with their cynical scruples, had made it into an art.

  Fuck up and your head rolls. That was part of Brody’s job description.

  The president needed to be sure that nominating this Larrigan—or even announcing his possible candidacy—created no problem. The one-eyed war-hero judge could be an attractive feather in the president’s political cap.

  Of course, he could also be a disaster.

  It was Pat Brody’s job to avert disasters. That’s why he had activated Blackhole.

  JESSIE CHURCH WAS sitting in her anonymous Honda Civic across the street from Anthony Moreno’s dingy little bungalow in Mill Valley on San Francisco Bay. Jessie’s camcorder was braced on the window ledge, and her Canon EOS with its 600-millimeter lens sat on the seat beside her. She was sipping bottled water and sweating under the unrelenting midday sun, waiting for the poor schmuck to do something stupid.

  Anthony Moreno had found an orthopedist willing to testify that Mr. Moreno’s work-related back injury, quote-unquote, would forever prevent him from performing his job, which was driving a bus around the streets of Oakland, and that Mr. Moreno should therefore, in accordance with the contract negotiated between the bus drivers’ union and the city, be entitled to full retirement benefits plus workman’s compensation.

  The city’s insurance company assumed that both the orthopedist and Anthony Moreno were lying—anybody could fake a back injury, and it was not exactly unheard of for a doctor to help out a friend, so they hired BSI—Bay Security and Investigations—to get the goods on Mr. Moreno.

  Today was Thursday. Jessie had been on the case since Monday, and so far the most back-breaking thing she’d seen Moreno do was squat down to retrieve his newspaper from his front stoop, which he did, carefully, every morning at 7:15. He opened the front door, stepped out onto the stoop, slowly bent his knees, keeping his back straight and one hand on the wrought-iron porch railing, picked up the paper, and slowly pushed himself upright.

  She’d recorded that performance each time. The man was either one hell of an actor—and playing, as far as he knew, for an imaginary audience—or a man with a bad back.

  Moreno stayed indoors most of the time. For all Jessie knew, he was moving furniture and doing jumping jacks in there, but he kept the curtains drawn all day long.

  Tuesday after supper, with the help of his cane, he’d hobbled out to the Dodge minivan under his carport. Jessie followed him to the Sons of Italy hall a few blocks from his house. She guessed he’d normally walk there, but now he drove. She couldn’t follow him inside, of course. It was a private club. But the square one-story building had four big floor-to-ceiling windows facing the street. So she found a place to park from which, through her 600-millimeter lens, she could see what was going on inside. There were a few pinball machines and a pool table and a little dance floor. But all Anthony Moreno did was sit at a table and drink a couple of beers. He used his cane whenever he stood up. He didn’t shoot any pool or dance with any of the women. He just sat there stiffly and sipped his beer. When somebody spoke to him, he turned his head slowly to look at them without twisting his body.

  Maybe Moreno was performing for her, although there was no way he could know he was being observed. Jessie was too good for that. But as far as she could tell, Anthony Moreno behaved as if he really did have a bad back.

  She’d stick with it through the weekend, then file her report. If they wanted her to keep at it, well, it was their money.

  She found herself shaking her head at the irony of it, though. Jessie Church, the heroic bodyguard who’d saved the abortion doctor’s life, and look at her now, a little over a week later, on a crummy insurance stakeout, and it wasn’t even going to pan out. The only assignment Jessie found more distasteful than insurance work was to follow husbands around so she could photograph them sneaking their blonde receptionists into motel rooms.

  But she’d asked for the Moreno job. That damn picture of her taking down that guy at the clinic had appeared in the newspaper, and even though they’d used her invented name, Carol Ann Chang—Chang being the most common Asian name in the Greater San Francisco phone book, the Smith or Johnson of Asians—she decided she better lay low for a while, if it wasn’t too late already.

  After she nailed the wacko at the abortion clinic, she’d taken a few days off to wait for the insane ring
ing in her right ear to subside. It could’ve been worse, of course. The .38 revolver had discharged barely a foot from her head. Luckily, it was aimed straight up.

  No luck involved, actually. Jessie had the guy’s wrist in her grip, and one second after he’d yanked on the trigger she’d snapped his finger.

  It was just a minute after that the damn photographer took her picture.

  When she went back to the office after her mini-vacation, Del, her boss, told her that Sharon Stone had called. Sharon had seen the story in the Chronicle and wanted Jessie to bodyguard her on a trip to Europe in June. Del was pretty excited.

  “Awesome opportunity, Jess,” Del had said. Del was the only person in her new life who knew her real name. Sometimes she wondered if that had been a mistake, but she trusted Del, and he made out her paychecks to Carol Ann Chang, and she deposited them in bank accounts in the name of Carol Ann Chang. Her credit cards, her driver’s license, the lease on her apartment, her fake Social Security card—her entire new life in San Francisco was Carol Ann Chang’s life, not Jesse Church’s.

  But now, with her picture circulating on the Internet and in national publications, she wasn’t at all confident that a fake name was enough.

  “I’m not working with Sharon Stone,” Jessie told Del.

  “Aw, jeez, Jess,” Del said. “It’d be great for you, great for the company. Sharon loves you. She wants to get together for lunch, go over a few things with you before we do a contract, but it looks good. I got it all set it all up, tomorrow, one-thirty—”

  “No,” Jessie said.

  “Aw, Jess. Do this for me.”

  “No bodyguarding.”

  “But Sharon—”

  “You gotta get somebody else, Del.”

  “You don’t get it,” he said. “She’s asking for you. You specifically. I mean, she wouldn’t’ve called in the first place if she hadn’t seen—”

  “No,” said Jessie. “You’re the one who doesn’t get it. Listen. I don’t care who it is. I don’t care what she pays. I don’t care what it will do for business. I’m sorry. I’m not doing it. Get somebody else.”

  Del blinked. “Hey, come on, babe. Sharon’s really a down-toearth person. Great sense of humor. Smart as hell. You’ll like her.”

  “Don’t call me babe,” said Jessie. “How many times’ve I got to tell you?”

  He’d leaned forward, folded his hands on top of the desk, and peered at her over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses. “I’m sorry, kid,” he said. “I didn’t realize that abortion clinic thing shook you up so bad. That nutcake came a whisker from killing you.”

  “I’m not shook up,” she said. “That’s not it. And don’t call me kid, either.”

  He rolled his eyes, then leaned back in his chair. “I need you to do the Sharon Stone thing, Jess. Whaddya say? Please?”

  Jessie laughed. “Did you actually say please?”

  Del grinned. “Don’t tell anybody, for God’s sake.”

  “The answer’s no anyway,” she said.

  “Listen,” he said. “I’m the boss, remember? I own this fucking business? You’re the employee? You’re supposed to take the jobs I assign to you?”

  “Fine,” she said. “I quit, then.”

  Del peered at her for a minute. Then he took his glasses off his face, pinched the bridge of his nose, and said, “Howie Cohen, huh?”

  Jessie nodded.

  “Something happen?”

  “No,” she said. “Not yet.”

  “But they didn’t use your real name in the paper. You were Carol Ann Chang, kick-ass hero, in that story.”

  “It’s the picture that worries me,” she said.

  He stared at her for a long moment. Then he nodded. “Okay. I hear you. I got an insurance thing in Mill Valley, if you want it.”

  “I’ll take it,” said Jessie.

  “Be careful, huh?”

  “I’m always careful.”

  He shook his head. “I know you are. That’s why you’re the best. That’s why you’d be great with Sharon. This is such a fucking waste, babe. Waste of an awesome client, waste of a great talent, waste of an unbelievable PR opportunity. But, hey, I don’t blame you for wanting to keep a low profile for a while, and if that’s what you’re thinking . . .”

  He let it dangle there like a question, hoping, of course, that his flattery plus the logic of it would change her mind.

  She looked at him, smiled, and shook her head.

  “I mean it,” he’d said. “Be careful.”

  Del was right, of course. Her talents were wasted on insurance and divorce stakeouts. You didn’t need brains or resourcefulness or strength or quickness for that work. You didn’t need to be able to scan a hostile crowd and spot the one guy with the handgun. You didn’t need to be able to move quickly enough to disarm him before anybody got hurt. All you needed for stakeout work was patience.

  Having Sharon Stone for a client would be huge for Del. Jessie felt bad, having to turn him down. It sounded like a lot of fun, actually, traveling around Europe with Sharon, staying in highclass hotels, eating in the best restaurants, hobnobbing with famous people. They’d make a striking pair, Sharon’s classic sexy blonde, Jessie’s exotic brunette.

  But there would be cameras everywhere they went. Jessie Church, no matter what name she used, couldn’t risk any more exposure, if it wasn’t too late already.

  So now she was slouched in her old Civic, waiting for Anthony Moreno to make his mistake, quite content to be invisible and anonymous.

  People magazine. The morning talk show at the local CBS affiliate. The newspapers and radio stations. Even some guy claiming to be a Hollywood agent. They all wanted to make Carol Ann Chang a star.

  They should see her now, in her green Oakland A’s cap with the visor pulled low and her wraparound sunglasses and grungy old Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt. Glamorous as hell.

  Before she’d stopped answering her phone, she told them all the same thing: Please, I’m no hero. I was only doing my job, what I’ve been trained for, what they pay me for. Millions of people go to work every day and do their job, and nobody hounds them for interviews or wants to take their pictures. Their phones don’t keep ringing so persistently that they have to stop answering. They don’t feel they must wear sunglasses and caps with the visors pulled low over their foreheads whenever they go to the supermarket.

  Go do a story about a schoolteacher or a social worker or a beat cop or an EMT. They’re heroes. They save lives every day. They deserve publicity. They’d probably welcome it.

  Don’t write about me. Please.

  They had, of course. They’d written about Carol Ann Chang, the reluctant hero, and they’d reprinted the Chronicle photo that showed her kneeling beside the guy she’d just defeated, barely in the nick of time, saving the doctor’s life. She had her arm raised up and she was looking straight at the camera, and her mouth was in the shape of the letter O, as if she was shouting, “Wow!” or “Yeow!”

  From the photo, you’d think Jessie was exulting at her conquest of the assassin.

  In fact she’d been yelling at the guy with the camera. “No! No! Please don’t!” Please don’t take my picture, she meant.

  Now Jessie Church was spooked.

  Four years earlier she’d quit the Baltimore cops. She drove across the country, about as far as you could get from Howie Cohen and his crew without crossing an international border, to make herself a new, anonymous life in San Francisco. She’d changed her name, bought the fake documents from her old friend Jimmy Nunziato in Chicago, got the job at BSI, and found a nice one-bedroom apartment on 24th Street in Noe Valley near the farmers’ market. She liked the neighborhood and had made some friends, though she didn’t let anybody get too close. She liked working for Del. She liked being Carol Ann Chang. Life was pretty good. Once in a while she even found herself relaxing.

  Howie Cohen was behind bars. “Safely behind bars” was the way the newspapers put it, whatever “safely” meant, and a
fter four years of doing investigations for Del Robbins, Jessie had almost managed to convince herself that the Howie Cohen thing really was in the past.

  But now, with her picture in the paper, it had started up all over again. Howie Cohen had loyal friends and relations and business associates with long memories everywhere. In her eighteen months of undercover back in Baltimore, Jessie had gotten to know them all way too well.

  Then she’d betrayed them.

  Cohen was locked away. So maybe it was stupid to wake up ten times a night imagining somebody was creeping around in her bedroom. Maybe it was neurotic to mistrust every guy she passed on the sidewalk or saw standing in a checkout line or heard on the other end of the telephone. Maybe she was paranoid. Probably she was. Nothing stupid about it, though. Paranoia kept you alive.

  Bodyguarding Sharon Stone was the last thing she needed.

  What she needed was witness protection, except they didn’t do that for undercover cops after they testified at the trials of men who kidnapped runaway children in American cities and sold them to rich Middle Eastern pedophiles.

  What they did for undercover cops after they testified was take them off the street and assign them to a desk.

  Jessie had lasted two months on the desk in Baltimore. She probably could’ve tolerated the dreary walls and the mindless paperwork and the lousy coffee and the sexist jokes for several more months. She was adaptable and patient. She had a high tolerance for boredom.

  What she couldn’t tolerate was the powerful apprehension that she was being watched, followed, stalked, and that sooner or later, at his whim, Howie Cohen would reach out through his prison bars to wreak his revenge.

  When she’d stepped down from the witness stand and glanced at Cohen, sitting there beside his lawyers, a paunchy sixty-year-old guy with a bald head and big ears and horn-rimmed glasses, he’d smiled at her, pressed his two fingers to his lips, then wiggled them at her.