Parkinson walked around the front of his desk and perched on the edge.
‘So you see why I need your help?’
Moberley sat back thoughtfully in his chair.
‘You can’t keep this quiet, Gerry. Word is bound to leak out. It’s going to get back to the White House.’
‘Not if we’re careful,’ Parkinson said. ‘And in a few days, it will all come out anyway. But you do see why I need you to be discreet until then?’
‘Yes,’ Moberley said quietly. ‘All right, Gerry. I’ll hold off for a couple of days. As long as I can say it’s at your request, and refer all inquiries to this office.’
‘Be my guest. I’ll take on another secretary if I have to. What difference would one more make?’
Moberley rose to his feet. ‘And you will keep me fully informed?’
‘Of course. I’m counting on your support.’
The House Leader extended his hand with a smile. ‘Do you need an escort back to your office?’
Moberley returned the smile, rather ruefully.
‘No. I expect my marshals are right outside the door. We’ll take the scenic route. I’ll talk to you later.’ He nodded to Stanley. ‘George.’
George Stanley stood and shook hands with Moberley, then watched with satisfaction as he left the room.
‘So, George, you’re all set, then?’ Parkinson asked.
‘Absolutely. You and I will be the main case managers. I’ll have the names of the other case managers to you by close of business today.’
‘Make sure you include Helen de Vries.’
‘Of course. John Mason will be working behind the scenes with our counsel. We’ll be ready to move within a week.’
‘Good,’ Parkinson said. ‘Let’s just make sure we cover all the bases.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ Stanley replied. ‘I’ve been waiting for this for years.’
36
TRYING TO DISGUISE the fact that his hands were beginning to shake, Phil Hammond drove slowly across the rough, unfinished grounds of the compound from the signals office to the main gate, where two armed sentries stood on guard. He had rehearsed the story he was going to tell them over and over since reading The Washington Post’s story, and had realized that his position had become insecure. The story was all he had. It would have been too risky to try calling the field office, even using an unlisted number. For security reasons, all outgoing calls were monitored. And even if he did, he knew that the office could do nothing to help him. He was on his own, and he had to find his own way out.
The electronic gates were locked firmly shut. One of the two sentries casually stepped in front of the car, his sub-machine gun tucked under his arm, and motioned to him to stop. Hammond pulled up, leaving the transmission in drive, and rolled down the driver’s side window.
‘Captain Seager, can I help you, Sir?’
‘Yes. I’m going to have to leave for a few hours. I’ll be back this evening.’
‘Just a moment, Sir.’
The sentry returned to the small gatehouse, went inside, and started to look through a pile of papers on his desk. His colleague stood at the gate, facing Hammond and looking carefully at the car. Hammond tightened his grip on the steering wheel, then reluctantly forced himself to put the transmission in park. After looking through the papers, the sentry picked up a red telephone and made a brief call. He then began to walk back to the car. Hammond felt his stomach start to churn.
‘Open the fucking gate,’ he muttered to himself.
The sentry approached and leaned in slightly through the driver’s window.
‘I’m sorry, Captain Seager,’ he said. ‘I don’t seem to have any paperwork for you. You are booked in through Thursday. You have to have a special pass to leave, Sir.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Hammond replied, hoping his voice would not betray his anxiety. ‘But I got a message just a short while ago. It’s my mother. She’s… well, she’s very sick. Heart condition. I’ve been expecting it for some time. I nearly cancelled my time here. I knew I might have to leave suddenly. I did mention it to the office when I arrived.’
Hammond tried staring the sentry down. He seemed unimpressed.
‘I’m sorry to hear about your mother, Captain Seager. But I have my orders, Sir. I can’t let you leave without an exit pass. May I suggest you go by the office and get one, Sir? After you meet with the Commander.’
‘After what…?’ Hammond asked quietly. ‘After I meet….’
‘With Commander Carlson, Sir. I called the office myself to check on any paperwork. They didn’t have any, but they did have a message for you. It seems you’re required in Commander Carlson’s office. Urgently. I’m sure the office can take care of your pass while you’re in your meeting.’
Hammond nodded grimly, and put the car in reverse for the short drive to Carlson’s office.
‘Thank you, Sir,’ the sentry said. He returned to his post.
As he approached the office, Hammond saw that two armed guards had been posted, one on each side of the door. He recognized the men. One of them was beginning his signals training. Hammond nodded to them casually. One of the guards knocked on the door of the office, opened it, and gestured to Hammond to enter. George Carlson was standing by the window, smoking a cigarette. Dan Rogers was to his right, leaning against a table. It was all Hammond could do not to run for his life in desperation. He was feeling faint.
‘Jim,’ Carlson said. ‘Sit down.’
‘What’s up, George?’ Hammond said, in what he hoped was a light tone.
Slowly, Carlson seated himself at his desk.
‘Well, I don’t know, Jim. I’m not sure what’s up. I was thinking maybe you could tell us.’
He picked up a newspaper which had been lying on his desk.
‘You know all about the publicity we’ve been getting, of course?’
‘Yes. I saw it. Where the hell did they come up with that story? I’m assuming there’s no truth to it?’
Carlson smiled at Rogers.
‘What do you think, Dan? Should we enlighten our signals officer? Should we tell him whether there’s any truth to it?’
Rogers shrugged.
‘I don’t see how it could do any harm, George. Not now.’
Carlson nodded. ‘I agree.’
He looked closely at Hammond.
‘Is there any truth to it, the man asks? Well, Jim, yes, there is some truth to it. It’s not the whole story, obviously. It never is, is it? You know what they say, never believe everything you read in the papers. But they’ve got the basic outline right, I would say.’
Carlson stood again, replaced the newspaper on his desk, and stood behind his desk, looking out of the window.
‘The idea came from Fox you see, Jim. Fox is pretty well connected, travels a lot, meets important people. Well, one day, in the course of his travels, he happened to meet our late and unlamented friend, Hamid Marfrela. Fox recognized him for the weasel he was, of course, but he thought he could be bought. Not just for money, Jim. That wasn’t Hamid’s deal. You couldn’t just hand him cash and send him away. No, Hamid was high maintenance. He liked to feel important, see, Jim. He liked the glamorous life, women, booze, drugs, being on the circuit, you name it. He loved being in America, Jim. I don’t think they have so much of the good life in Lebanon. What do you think, Dan?’
‘I would guess not,’ Rogers agreed with a grin.
‘Yeah. So what better way for Hamid to keep his employers happy with him and keep himself in America than to make some useful contacts and get some deals going? Makes sense from his point of view, doesn’t it? So Fox led him down the primrose path, indulged his appetites a bit, and when he had him by the short and curlies, so to speak, something to do with photographs taken at a party, you understand, he referred him to us. So one day, out of the blue, there’s Hamid standing at the gate, asking what he can do to help. So I ask Hamid, ‘Well what do you have to offer us?’ You with me so far, Jim?’
&nb
sp; Hammond nodded. ‘Sure.’
‘Good. So Hamid thinks for a while, and then he says he knows this babe, Lucia Benoni. Turns out to be very well connected. Better than Hamid, anyway. Not that that’s saying much. And unlike Hamid, she is into the money. Really into it. She likes the European fashions, expensive perfume and so on, and she likes to go buy it all personally. And Hamid thinks she might be useful. I think, maybe he’s right. So I contact Fox and I say this seems promising to me, but it’s going to cost some money, and I ask does he think it’s worth it. And, damn me, Fox comes back and says, ‘Yes, go ahead, it’s definitely worth it’, because it just so happens that this babe has a direct line to the President’s cock. Of course, then again, what woman doesn’t?’
Rogers sniggered.
‘It seemed like a good opportunity, Jim. Know what I mean? If we could get the President in deep enough, it might be worth something down the road. How often do you get a chance like that? Plus, Hamid said his employers would probably make a contribution, money, arms, whatever, because it was in their interests as well as ours to stick it to our philandering President. So, long story short, the deal was done, and now we’re reading about it in The Washington Post. Not the ending I’d hoped for actually, Jim. If we could have kept it going a bit longer, who knows? But at least it worked, up to a point.’
Hammond swallowed hard.
‘So, what happened to the Benoni woman? Why was she killed?’
Carlson shook his head with a look of disgust.
‘Fucking Hamid Marfrela happened to her. Fucking pervert. Part of the deal was that he got her for whatever he was into, which I don’t even want to speculate about. Dan will tell you. He took care of him when we let him go into Portland. There were a couple of incidents which weren’t very pretty, let me just put it that way.’
‘So… so, you took care of Marfrela?’
‘You bet your ass we did. Too much of a risk letting him roam around and maybe shoot his mouth off. Trash. Good riddance.’
Carlson resumed his seat.
‘Anyway, Jim, that’s all water under the bridge, as they say. The point of our meeting today is, I’m curious about how The Washington Post got their story. How did this Sullivan woman make the connection to us?’
He looked at Hammond directly.
‘Any ideas, Jim? Any thoughts at all?’
Hammond felt his pulse racing. He shook his head.
‘No idea, George. Maybe she has a source in law enforcement. It doesn’t sound like Marfrela would be too difficult to keep track of.’
Carlson nodded.
‘Yes, that’s what I thought. At first. But then, I got a message from Fox. Just this morning. Just finished decrypting it, as a matter of fact. Guess what Fox thinks?’
Hammond attempted a casual shrug.
‘I don’t know. What does Fox think?’
‘Fox thinks we have a mole in our midst, Jim. Mole, as in small animal that burrows underground. That’s what Fox thinks. He has friends in high places, you see. He hears about this kind of stuff. The word is our friends in the FBI have placed a spy in our midst. What do you think of that theory, Jim?’
‘Sounds a little far-fetched to me,’ Hammond offered. ‘Why would they take the trouble?’
‘Oh, they’d take the trouble,’ Carlson replied. ‘If they thought we were up to no good, and especially if they thought we were after the President. I think Fox is right. I think we have a mole, Jim.’
‘Who would that be?’ Hammond asked quietly.
‘Good question,’ Carlson replied. ‘Who indeed?’
He paused.
‘It wouldn’t be you, by any chance, would it, Jim?’
‘No, of course not. Why would you think…?’
With a smile, Carlson stood again.
‘Well, let me put it this way. This morning, Dan and I spent some time reviewing the credentials of all the people who joined us within the last six months. Trying to figure this thing out, you see, Jim. We have no way of knowing when the mole came on board, of course, but we figured it would have to be within the last few months. And we happened to ask ourselves a few questions about the information you gave us.’
‘What about it? Benson vouched for me.’
‘He did,’ Carlson said. ‘He did indeed. But you see, Jim, Benson wasn’t quite up to date. I didn’t realize it at the time. But Benson had to retire from the Congo campaign a few weeks before it ended. He took a bullet in the leg, you see.’
‘Ye … I remember,’ Hammond said.
‘Do you? Well, you see, the interesting thing was, as the question had been raised, I made a couple of phone calls. I talked to one or two of the boys who made it the whole way through the Lightning Bolt campaign, and asked them if they remembered Jim Seager, and they said, ‘Sure, Jim Seager, best damn signals man we ever worked with’.’
‘OK.’
‘And you know what else they said?’
‘No.’
‘The other thing they said was that Jim Seager stepped on a land mine just a couple of days before they pulled out. Nothing left of him but bits and pieces. Benson wouldn’t have known about that, you see, Jim. They flew him out after he got shot. When Seager stepped on the land mine, Benson was in the hospital in Dar-Es-Salaam.’
Carlson raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
‘Any comment on any of that, Jim? Any light you can shed on it?’
Hammond’s head sank on to his chest.
‘I’m sorry about your mother, Jim,’ Carlson added.
He nodded to Rogers, who opened the door of the office, and gestured to the guards to enter. One of the guards approached Hammond from behind and a struck him a single hard blow to the back of the head with the butt of his weapon. Hammond slumped forward in his chair, unconscious.
Carlson looked at him in silence for a moment or two, then turned to Rogers.
‘Dan, take our friend here to the interrogation room and attach the wires to his balls. Find out who he is, what he’s been doing, and everything he knows. When you’re sure you know everything, and not before then, dispose of him.’
Rogers motioned to the two guards, who picked Hammond up and carried him out of the office.
‘You got it, George.’
‘And,’ Carlson added just before Rogers left the room, ‘when I say ‘dispose’ of him, I mean I don’t want any part of him found. Ever. Got that?’
‘Got it, George.’
‘Oh, and Dan…’
‘Yeah?’
‘As soon as you get through, come back up here. Fox says it’s going to be time soon.’
‘Fucking A,’ Rogers replied.
37
‘I NEED TO see everything,’ Ed Monahan said. ‘Everything you’ve got. On Lebanon, on the Sons of the Flag, on Hamid Marfrela, on Lucia Benoni. Everything. Is that a problem?’
Monahan looked across at the President, who was sitting dejectedly at his desk. In the silence which followed his request, Monahan permitted himself to reflect briefly on the vagaries of his life. How in the hell had he ever come this far? What was he doing in this place? He was the youngest of six children of a poor Irish family in South Boston. A talent for boxing, developed on the street, won him a scholarship to Boston College, where he got interested in the law. After law school he became a federal prosecutor, and developed a reputation as a tough, resourceful trial lawyer. Ed might well have remained a prosecutor his whole career, if it had not been for Jimmy Walker. Walker was a high-profile white-collar criminal defense lawyer. He and Ed crossed swords in the courtroom a number of times, and Jimmy was very impressed by what he saw and heard. Once or twice, in fact, he had his ass comprehensively kicked by the prosecutor, an experience which was not a common one in Jimmy Walker’s professional life. The time came when Jimmy asked Ed to dinner at Fuglio’s. He had been consulted by Senator Frank Lawton, who was about to be indicted for extortion and racketeering. Jimmy’s health wasn’t what it was, and he needed help. With the aid of a significant
quantity of Bushmills, and an attractive financial offer, Jimmy persuaded Ed that he would not go straight to hell if he crossed over to the other side. Shortly before the Lawton trial began, Jimmy Walker’s prostate cancer got him, and it was to Ed Monahan that Senator Lawton owed his continued liberty and position in public life. The name of Ed Monahan began to be whispered in high places. Other political clients followed, and he represented them with consistent success. And then the President called. And now here he was, sitting in the Oval Office. With the President of the United States.
‘I don’t see any problem,’ Steve Wade replied. ‘There may be some stuff we will need special clearance for, but I’m sure it won’t be a problem. Everything important we’ve been doing in Lebanon has been in the Post, as far as I know. There’s nothing to hide.’
Monahan nodded.
‘My main concern is to cover all the bases. The problem with this procedure, Mr. President, is that there are very few rules. Impeachment is a political witch-hunt rather than a legal trial. So we have to be prepared for just about anything.’
Wade sighed heavily. ‘Well, for my benefit, why don’t you go through what we do know. I know Ellen and Martha would like to hear it too, since they’re going to be working with me on it closely.’
Monahan nodded to Ellen Trevathan and Martha Graylor, who had been sitting quietly in armchairs close to his own.
‘We would like you to brief the staff later,’ Wade added. ‘But the first thing is to make sure we understand this ourselves.’
‘Yes, Mr. President,’ Monahan replied. He went through the motions of spreading a few documents and notes on the coffee table in front of him, though it was mostly to inspire confidence. Clients liked to see documents and notes. They suggested that work was being done, that help was on the way, that it was all under control. This was, of course, an illusion. The truth was that the real work was invisible. Monahan could by now have lectured on the subject of impeachment for two hours in his sleep. Nonetheless, he made a deliberate show of referring to the notes.
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