‘Yes, you’re right. You will have to testify. But the legal people can give you some good tips on how much you have to say, how to deal with the questions, how to act during your testimony. They’re the professionals. They can help you a lot.’
Linda suddenly stood and leaned on the desk.
‘I should tell the truth, shouldn’t I?’
Martha’s eyes opened wide.
‘Yes, of course…,’ she began automatically. She took a step back, and placed a hand over her mouth. She saw Linda close her eyes. A terrible thought came to her. She walked back to the desk and stood right next to Linda.
‘Someone’s got to you, haven’t they?’
Linda shook her head desperately. Martha put her hands on Linda’s arms and pulled her around to face her.
‘Agent Samuels, you need to tell me what’s going on. This is too big to fool around with. Who’s been talking to you, and what did they say?’
Linda raised her head and looked straight into Martha’s eyes. Her look was enough to confirm Martha’s worst fears.
‘The President?’
Linda swallowed hard.
‘He called down to the Detail office yesterday, just before I went off duty. He said he wanted to see me for a moment. I assumed it was just about something that was to happen today. But when I got to the Oval Office, he was alone. He asked me if I’d heard anything from the House Committee, and…’
‘Wait a minute,’ Martha interrupted. ‘Not too fast. This is important. I want you to be absolutely precise. Did you tell the President that you’d been contacted by the Committee, or did the President ask you? How did the subject come up?’
‘He asked me directly, Ma’am. I didn’t volunteer anything, believe me. He asked me, had I heard from them. It was as though he knew it was going to happen, but he didn’t know when. So, I told him the truth, I said I had, that I had received word they wanted me to testify.’
Linda hesitated.
‘Go on,’ Martha said gently.
‘Well, that’s when he said he expected me to be loyal, to stand by him.’
Martha collapsed into the armchair. Aghast, she stared at Linda, her mouth open.
‘Lord have mercy,’ she whispered. ‘Are you sure that’s what he…’
‘Yes, Ma’am, quite sure,’ Linda interrupted bitterly. ‘He didn’t put it in so many words, but I knew exactly what he meant. He was asking me to lie for him.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I honestly don’t remember, Miss Graylor. I was shocked. As far as I remember, I made some excuse, and got out of there as soon as I could. But since then… well, I’ve had all night and all day to think about it, and…’
‘You’re right to be shocked,’ Martha said, as calmly as she could. ‘Look, I’m sure the President didn’t mean anything by it. You must understand, he is under a great deal of stress, and…’
Linda shook her head decisively.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Graylor, but he meant every word. I know he did.’
She stood, turned and walked away a step or two towards the door. ‘In any case, he’s right. I should be loyal to him.’
Martha Graylor was not sure she had heard correctly. ‘Excuse me? What did you say?’
‘I should be loyal to him,’ Linda repeated, less certainly.
‘I don’t believe this,’ Martha said after some time. ‘Agent Samuels, for God’s sake. He has no right… Think about what you’re saying…’
‘No,’ Linda said. ‘No. I’m not talking about committing perjury. I know that would be wrong. I wouldn’t do that.’
‘What, then?’ Martha asked.
‘Just not testifying, refusing to cooperate with them.’
‘But you said it yourself, you have no choice. There’s no privilege. They can make you.’
‘They can put me in jail,’ Linda replied, a determined edge creeping into her voice. ‘But that’s all they can do. They can’t make me testify.’
Martha walked over to Linda, put both arms around her, brought her back gently to the armchair, and sat her down. She knelt on the floor in front of her.
‘Linda, listen to me. If you do that, your career will be over. You will spend a long time in jail, because there is no way these people will give up. Believe me, I know them. They will not just give up.’
‘I know that.’
‘And you would still do it?’
‘It’s my duty.’
Shaking her head, Martha climbed slowly to her feet. She glanced at her watch. She was about to be late for her meeting with the President.
‘Would you at least talk it over with someone else, someone who knows a lot more about this than I do? I feel the President had no right to do this to you. I feel you’re being led astray. But I have a feeling you need to hear it from someone other than me? Will you do that?’
‘Yes, Miss Graylor, of course. I didn’t mean to imply…’
‘That’s all right.’
Martha walked quickly back around her desk, picked up the phone and dialed an internal extension.
‘Vice President’s Office,’ a female voice said.
‘Julie, is the Vice President there? I really need her.’
‘Just a moment, Miss Graylor,’ the secretary replied. There was a short silence. ‘You’re in luck. She was just about to leave. Putting you through.’
‘Martha?’ Ellen Trevathan said brightly. ‘What’s up?’
‘Ellen,’ Martha said, ‘I really need you over here for a couple of minutes. Can you come?’
There was the briefest of pauses, as the Vice President weighed the edge in Martha’s voice.
‘I’m on my way,’ Ellen said.
28
MARY SULLIVAN AND Irene had been waiting impatiently in The Washington Post’s conference room for over an hour by the time Harold Philby was finally able to extricate himself from a production meeting to join them. While waiting, they had assembled a small mountain of paper. Irene was seated at the table, thumbing through a file, trying to make sure she had mastered her brief before having to confront the Editor, a prospect which made her even more nervous than submitting her work to Mary Sullivan. Harold Philby was a legend and, despite the prospect of an A-plus, she was worrying that her internship might be about to spiral out of control. Mary was pacing up and down in front of the window, apparently distracted, clutching a cup of coffee. Philby grinned at the sight, as he entered and took his seat.
‘Sorry to keep you, Mary,’ he said. ‘Those damned production meetings can be like old-time revival meetings. Sometimes you think they’ll never end.’
‘Good afternoon, Mr. Philby,’ Irene stammered, standing awkwardly as her chair stubbornly resisted her efforts to push it backwards away from the table. ‘I don’t know whether you remember me, but I’m…’
‘Irene,’ Philby replied. ‘You’re our intern from George Washington. Of course I remember. I may be getting older, but reports of my senility have been greatly exaggerated. Isn’t that so, Mary?’
‘If you say so, Harold,’ Mary smiled thinly, joining him at the table. She gestured to Irene to sit also.
‘Well, thank you for that vote of confidence,’ Philby replied, taking a spectacle case from an inside pocket of his jacket. ‘Let me see if I can force my mind to concentrate for a few minutes.’
He waved the spectacle case in Mary’s direction. ‘You were right, by the way, or rather your source was.’
Mary looked up. ‘About what?’
‘About the President appearing on the Conrad Beckers show this evening.’
‘Really?’ Mary mused. ‘I wonder what the occasion is. My source said they were keeping a very tight lid on it at the station.’
‘I couldn’t get anything out of Martha Graylor either,’ Philby said. ‘All she would say was that it’s not unusual for the President to appear on Beckers.’
‘It’s unusual for them to bump a show just for the pleasure of his company. I can’t recall them ever do
ing that except for a national crisis of some kind,’ Mary pointed out.
‘I put that to Martha. She insisted it was a normal courtesy to the President, or some baloney to that effect. Obviously, the intention is that we all find out at the same time. I’ve set up a viewing, of course. Are you free?’
‘I’ll be there. But can we get the pizza from our usual place this time? The stuff we had last time, during the budget fight, was terrible.’
‘I’ll make a special note to arrange it personally, Mary,’ Philby replied. ‘I’m just the Editor, after all. I have almost nothing else to do.’
Irene bit her lip in an unsuccessful attempt not to giggle.
‘Now,’ Philby continued, ‘you said something about needing a decision. What have you got here?’
Mary Sullivan folded her arms in front of her on the table.
‘Some time ago, I asked Irene to put together materials on the major players making contributions to both political parties. It’s something I do every year.’
Philby nodded.
‘This year, Irene came across an outfit which was new to me, calling itself the Western States Geophysical Research Institute. Does that mean anything to you?’
‘Not a thing. What do they do?’
‘Ah, well, that’s a good question,’ Mary replied. ‘According to their website, they research and write position papers for groups interested in supporting the environment against special interests like logging, mining, oil exploration.’
‘But…?’
‘But they don’t. Or at least, they haven’t yet.’
She looked at Irene.
‘I did a complete check, Mr. Philby,’ Irene said hesitantly. ‘All the web sources, the journals that would run pieces on something like this. I even called the clients they list. Nothing.’
‘Well, maybe they’re just getting started,’ Philby ventured.
‘No, Sir, the company’s been around for several years,’ Irene replied.
‘And, what’s more to the point,’ Mary added, ‘is that they’ve been extremely well funded during those several years.’
She slid several documents, clipped together, across the table.
‘Feast your eyes on this.’
Philby removed his reading glasses from their case, put them on, and scanned the documents carefully.
‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ he said, replacing the documents on the table. ‘If I were funding them on that kind of scale, I might want to see some return for my money.’
‘My feelings exactly,’ Mary continued. ‘Now, you’ll notice a contributor mentioned in there called Middle and Near East Holdings, Incorporated. That’s a company incorporated in Delaware. It’s essentially a shell, formed by a group of Lebanese nationals. Other than contributing to Western States, they don’t appear to do anything, and they seem to be shy about divulging information about themselves, especially in the form of filings.’
‘Assets?’ Philby asked.
‘Nothing we can find,’ Mary answered.
‘They must have some money,’ Philby pointed out. ‘They gave quite a chunk to Western States.’
‘We don’t know it was their own money they gave,’ Mary rejoined. ‘In fact, it probably wasn’t.’
‘You mean, they were laundering it?’
‘Possibly. Or at least providing cover for the real donor.’
Philby nodded. ‘Interesting.’
‘It gets better,’ Mary smiled. ‘It turns out, Middle and Near East also have the lease on that apartment in North West, where the President’s friend, Lucia Benoni, was found murdered.’
‘Well, for God’s sake,’ Philby muttered, moving across to pour himself a cup of coffee.
‘Not in their own name, naturally, but their idea of cover isn’t very subtle. The original named lessee was one of their own people, a guy called Hamid Marfrela.’
‘That rings a distant bell,’ the Editor said wryly.
‘I thought it might.’
Philby paused, coffee pot in hand.
‘Is there a paper trail to the money?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Mary replied. ‘Middle and Near East is a generous underwriter of Western States, which in turn is a generous contributor to the President’s party, even though the President’s policy on environmental issues is generally bad news for the type of causes Western States is supposed to represent.’
Philby walked back to resume his seat.
‘So, you think there’s something else going on?’
‘There has to be,’ Mary said. ‘It’s too much money to be just a sop to keep the local congressmen and senators happy. In any case, they could do that by making contributions to their individual campaigns, which they haven’t done.’
‘And the local incumbents aren’t much more interested in the environment than the President,’ Irene added tentatively. ‘There’s no obvious reason for Western States to support them.’
‘Right,’ Mary agreed. ‘So I asked Irene to dig deeper into Hamid Marfrela and see what she could come up with. Go ahead, Irene.’
Irene opened her file.
‘Nothing very unusual in his past on the face of it, Mr. Philby. School in Beirut, followed by a spell in the Lebanese army, mandatory for two years under their law. Then he works for a family business, exporting rugs to Europe and the States for a while, does a fair amount of traveling. He seems to have made some money. He disappears from sight for a year or two. Finally, he shows up in Washington as a diplomat. He speaks fluent English and French, and he seems to be a favorite on the cocktail circuit. But he also makes some strange friends, some of whom later become contributors to Western States. He makes several extended trips out to Oregon.’
‘To visit his strange friends at Western States?’
‘Presumably, Sir. Well, let’s put it this way, he had no legitimate diplomatic reason for being in Oregon.’
‘How did you find that out, for God’s sake?’
‘I have a classmate who’s interning at the State Department,’ Irene grinned sheepishly.
‘Good work,’ Philby nodded encouragingly. ‘What else?’
‘Well, Sir, the people associated with Western States also have close ties to other individuals, who are involved with some of the white supremacist groups they have out there. I checked with Archives. Quite a few of them show up in articles we’ve run on those groups in the past. And…, Miss Sullivan…?’
‘And,’ Mary added, ‘my source says the police are pretty much convinced Marfrela was murdered by a hit man working for one such group, a bunch of nasty specimens calling themselves The Sons of the Flag, who run a military-style compound near Portland.’
Philby drank his coffee thoughtfully.
‘I think I see where you’re going with this,’ he said quietly. ‘No wonder the House wants to hold hearings. I’m sure the Intelligence Committee has been down the same road you have.’
‘The way it looks to us, Harold,’ Mary said, ‘is that we have a money trail leading from Lebanon to the President, or at least to his party, filtered through some rather nasty people, by way of two companies which have no apparent activities except as part of the laundering process, if you want to call it that.’
‘Motive?’ Philby asked.
‘That’s what Irene and I kept asking ourselves. There are only three conclusions that make sense. One is the Lebanese Government or some Lebanese interests are providing financial support to white supremacist groups, presumably with the intention of destabilizing the United States Government, and the President’s involvement with Lucia Benoni is coincidental.’
‘Let me hear two and three.’
‘Two is the President is playing footsie with the Lebanese Government or some Lebanese interests, and is getting paid off by means of illegal foreign contributions in return for favor or favors unknown in the foreign policy field. An unpleasant thought.’
‘Very,’ Philby agreed. ‘Three?’
‘Three is the Government of Lebanon or some Lebanes
e interests are interested in compromising the President by creating an appearance of motive two.’
Philby nodded grimly.
‘Conclusions two and three also being supported by the presumed fact that Marfrela set the President up with Lucia Benoni as a sweetener.’
‘And as a possible source of information. But for some reason, Lucia became too dangerous, and couldn’t be trusted any more. Perhaps she got too fond of the President and they were afraid she might blow the whistle.’
‘So they told Marfrela to get rid of her, which he did, but then they decided they couldn’t trust Marfrela to keep his mouth shut, either, so he had to go, too.’
‘Looks that way. But the other thing, Harold, is that everything they’ve done seems calculated to be discovered. They reported the Benoni murder to the police. The Marfrela killing was bound to be discovered as soon as he didn’t show up for work at the Embassy. They left his body in his apartment for the police to find. And the money trail is so amateurish it’s almost comical. All you had to do to find it was fall over it. I can’t think of any reason why they would play it that way, except to set the President up.’
‘That points to three,’ Philby said.
‘I agree.’
‘Well, then, I suppose the question is,’ the Editor said ponderously, ‘whether they are setting him up for something he did or something he didn’t do.’
There was a long silence.
‘So, can I write the story?’ Mary asked.
Philby looked at her across the table.
‘That depends,’ he answered quietly. ‘Which story are you going to write?’
‘I’m not sure. Why not put them all out there? Let the chips fall where they may.’
Philby shook his head decisively.
‘No, not on something like this. Write me a draft with alternative endings, like one of those wretched audience-participation dinner theater who-done-its my wife is always dragging me to. We’ll publish once we see which way the wind is blowing.’
‘Harold…’
‘You know it’s the only way, Mary. Let’s see what the President says on the Beckers Show, and let’s listen to the opening statements in the Committee hearings. After that…’
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