He waited until the red light on the TV camera went off. He knew he hadn’t rounded off his news spot very well, but his brain could hardly function anymore. He’d been up twenty hours by now. Twenty hectic, insane, and very dark hours that had affected him deeply. He made a sign to the security men that he was ready to take the elevator up to his room, but they shook their heads and asked him to stay put in one of the lobby’s easy chairs. Obeying orders, he sat down and absently watched the floor numbers light up on the panel above the elevator.
All the elevators had been standing still on the twelfth floor for at least ten minutes when suddenly and simultaneously several security people tilted their heads and listened intensely to their earpieces. A couple of them checked out the hotel’s entrance as if to make sure there was free passage. Then one of the elevators began to descend. First the one, then the others, all on their way down as though in a race.
Bugatti made to stand up but was asked to sit down again. Security was waiting for the first elevator to arrive. Its doors opened and a phalanx of men with intense expressions stepped out with someone tightly wedged between them. Bugatti stood up but couldn’t get a glimpse of the man’s face as he was rushed towards the entrance and met by more men in dark suits. Outside, floodlights lit up at least a couple of hundred press people and local citizens, all waiting to hear more news.
The next elevator brought Thomas Sunderland and his closest assistants down to the lobby. Then came Wesley Barefoot, Doggie Rogers, and other members of Jansen’s staff. Doggie’s face was white as chalk, and everyone looked very worried.
With no one to stop him this time, Bugatti rose and joined the others on their way towards the hotel’s well-guarded entrance.
“Stay here while we get the arrestee out.” The command from the big bodyguard with the golden bracelets rose above the tumult. Other gray-and-black-clad security men opened the front doors and led the apprehended man out to the snowstorm and questions from the flock of reporters.
Bugatti could hear Doggie shouting something through the swell of voices, but he couldn’t hear what. Grabbing the arm of a man who had come down on one of the elevators, he yelled, “What’s happened?”
“They’ve caught someone who they think is behind the assassination!” the man yelled back. Bugatti swore. His state of exhaustion had to be put on standby once more. If only this had happened ten minutes earlier, he could have gotten it onto his last nationwide broadcast. He’d be hearing from his boss for this.
By now the first group of security had made it through the flashbulbs and floodlights with their valuable cargo. The hotel doors were closed, and suddenly it was possible to hear oneself think again.
“Do you know who they took into custody?” he asked the man next to him.
“Yeah, it’s the hotel owner, Bud Curtis!” The man nodded when he saw Bugatti’s expression.
“That’s right, Doggie’s father.”
CHAPTER 4
February 2009
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Wesley Barefoot clutched his leather briefcase close to his body as he passed the FBI building. All in all, he was pretty satisfied with his life. The president had made him his press secretary. One couldn’t do much better than that at such a young age.
It was two weeks since Bruce Jansen had taken over the office of president, and Wesley was already used to Washington’s bustle and noisy streets. His apartment in Residences on Market Square was pure luxury and only a fifteen-minute stroll from the White House. He had no particular expenses, was one of the most desirable bachelors in town, had a private chauffeur at his bidding, and so far the press adored the White House’s new, young spokesman. He loved all of it. He led a truly privileged life—almost the life he’d always dreamed of.
Almost.
Because, if he put his ear to the ground, something didn’t sound right. There was a serpent hissing somewhere in paradise. A disquieting atmosphere was spreading, growing day by day from behind closed doors in the White House.
* * *
—
President-Elect Jansen hadn’t appeared in public the first weeks after his wife’s murder three months previously. Some said he worked day and night; others said he was about to drown in grief. Needless to say, there was enormous speculation about his state of mind, but the vice president–elect, Michael K. Lerner, had calmed people down, even though he wasn’t particularly known for having the warmest relationship with Jansen. He reported that the president was fine, all things considered.
Jansen had finally gone on television and explained how he battled every day with his grief and shock but managed to maintain an even keel. He did so with composure but also very sadly, and when he said he intended to be the best president in history, no one doubted that he wasn’t only a fantastic person but that his intention would become reality. Here was a real man, worthy of being a leader—exactly as a president ought to be. He was of the kind of stuff reserved for the very few.
Barefoot became all the more devoted to his chief as he watched Jansen dealing with his grief and the enormous burden he’d accepted with the presidency. Wesley would work his ass off for that man and see to it that nothing ever tarnished his reputation. He’d do everything in his power to shield and protect him, as was his duty as press secretary.
Then New Year’s Eve came, along with plenty of snow, and Wesley and the rest of the staff-to-be were invited to Jansen’s country home in Onancock to give their next four years together a festive send-off.
Many of them were surprised to see the opulent setting that greeted them, Wesley included. While most of them knew that the Jansen clan’s nationwide drugstore chain was one of the country’s twenty- five biggest businesses in terms of turnover, not many had speculated over how so much wealth actually manifested itself. When the pine grove parted to reveal fifteen gigantic, mahogany-beamed pagodas, Wesley stopped in his tracks. It was a sight that spoke of endless riches, and he thanked his maker for his foresight in having handpicked serious journalists to attend the evening’s event. Was there any point in making folks more envious than necessary? No, the gossip journalists would have to find other juicy stories, and the poor voters who eked out an existence in Maryland or Georgia’s “wagon towns” could easily do without seeing this kind of wealth.
Jansen received them with dark circles under his eyes, yet he embraced each one of them and said he hoped it would be a good evening.
Wesley surveyed the scene. The setting was both festive and touching. Here they were, those of them who’d stood shoulder to shoulder during the long campaign and who, more than anyone, believed in Jansen’s visionary ideas. Here were the local campaign whips, the fund-raisers, lobbyists, and office workers. There was Lance Burton, Thomas Sunderland, and all the others who’d sat on the tour bus through most of 2008, sweating away in the standard belief of campaign workers that, with their help, America could be a better place. They were all there except Doggie. Wesley hadn’t seen her since the murder, but people had told him she felt like hell. Donald Beglaubter, who was to be Lance’s assistant, had told her there was a job for her at the White House because the president felt he owed her for all her campaign work, but she wasn’t going to be invited to the New Year’s party. Jansen was a nice guy, but that would be a hug too many for one evening.
Jansen himself spent most of the evening in the corner of a rococo-inspired parlor that had long purple drapes and enough crystal chandeliers to light up Madison Square Garden. There were plenty of women during the course of the evening who would have liked to console him, but there were also those who kept away. There was talk of a kind of “Kennedy curse” that hung over the women Jansen attached himself to, and no one wanted to be the third victim. Not the bright ones, in any case.
In spite of everything, Jansen managed all the intense attention that was directed towards him. Even though Wesley could see he still suffered, a family instinct aut
omatically kicked in, built up over generations of his relatives holding dinner parties for members of America’s elite. Shortly after midnight he brought a toast for the New Year and the coming administration, promising the gathering that under his leadership the country was to experience great and radical changes. Wesley noticed how several of Jansen’s closest staff raised their eyebrows at the word radical, but it didn’t bother him. There were influential press people present, so why not give them the impression that Jansen was fit for fight? No, the word was just fine, no matter how one interpreted it.
After the toast, Jansen encouraged people to enjoy themselves, even though he himself was going to retire for the evening. Most of the guests understood.
Jansen kissed a couple of the women standing nearest and walked past Wesley without seeing him. Close up, there was no doubt. Here was a man who needed to be watched over if he was ever to become his old self again.
They’d been working hard up to the twentieth of January when Jansen was to be sworn in as the United States’ forty-fourth president. Many things still had to fall in place, like Cabinet post candidates who had yet to find favor in staff chief Sunderland’s impassive eyes. Wesley had heard the two of them arguing many times behind closed doors. Sunderland’s face was often completely drained of color when he left these meetings, but he never let a word slip as to what had gone on.
It wasn’t until the president’s acceptance speech that Wesley began sensing something was wrong. He had written the text, but Jansen wound up improvising, and what he said gave the speech an indefinable sense of foreboding. It made Wesley feel strange, as though he no longer knew where Jansen stood.
He assumed he was the only one who felt like this, since the rest of the world had listened enthusiastically to the new president’s speech, and most of the newspapers’ front pages had proclaimed their approval of, and respect for, the calmness and composure Jansen exhibited at his inauguration ceremony. And even though he’d aged since the death of his wife and unborn child, Wesley had to admit there was no doubt that the man standing there, taking an oath before God, looked like a man with a firm grip on the situation. This, in spite of the fact that he’d just heard Jansen say words he’d never heard before. Words like false security, vigilance, rule of law, day of reckoning, and uncompromising. Underneath it all lay an undertone of bitterness and unpredictability that Wesley couldn’t define, even after listening to the speech many times. Later it turned out that others had noticed—some of the regular White House reporters as well as members of the staff—but it apparently hadn’t made them uneasy, so Wesley forced himself to cool down.
It had been only during the past couple of days that most people could finally see it. Bruce Jansen was changing.
Wesley had tried speaking a couple of times with staff chief Sunderland about Jansen’s mood changes and his increasing number of savage attacks on the country’s federal authorities and legal system, but Sunderland had played it down. What was so strange about it, considering the violent events the president had been through?
So Wesley let it ride. Bud Curtis’s trial had just begun, another great source of pressure on the president, as it would have been for anyone so closely involved in a murder case. Jansen had suffered severe wounds to his psyche, Sunderland had said, but time would heal them. What else could Barefoot do but relax and see what happened?
Bud Curtis was to be arraigned in a couple of days, and the president wasn’t the only one who was affected by it. Quite understandably, it was a particularly rough time for Doggie Rogers, too. It had been impossible to coax a smile out of her since her first day at the White House. She just sat in her little office, day after day, hurt and silent. And in the course of the trial it could get worse, Wesley reckoned. He’d decided he had better keep an eye on her, the thought of which didn’t bother him at all. Besides being a good companion and colleague, Doggie was by far the finest and most interesting female employee in the West Wing, and at one point he’d considered making serious advances. He was thirty-four, and it was getting to be time for a wife and kids. Doggie was the perfect match for any man; she was intelligent, beautiful, and rich as well. But at this point he didn’t know. If her father were convicted of incitement to commit murder, Doggie would clearly be too big a liability to his career. Wesley knew Washington: Nothing was sacred. When Bruce Jansen’s term was over, Wesley would be replaced, simple as that. But if he did an outstanding job as presidential press secretary, his future would be very, very bright. The offers would roll in, and he could pick and choose. So it was better to wait and see, and in the meantime help Doggie when he could. And even though her hair was like silk and her lips were disturbingly tempting, it should never blind him to the fact that there were other fish in the sea, and Wesley loved fishing.
* * *
—
He passed the busy Willard Hotel on his right and then the White House appeared, as if out of nowhere. He looked at his watch. The morning briefing was in twenty minutes in the Oval Office, and he was late. He nodded to the guards at the entrance, the same two uncouth jerks as the day before, and just managed to read his e-mails and skim the front page of The Washington Post with the latest news on the New York sniper, before stepping into the inner sanctum.
Besides Barefoot, there were four men in the Oval Office, as usual, and every morning it struck him how politically correct the little gathering was, ethnically. Communications Chief Lance Burton was compact and black as night. He could trace his roots back to the first slaves who were shipped to America, way back at the beginning of the 1600s. Donald Beglaubter was Polish of Jewish extraction, President Jansen was Scandinavian with a little Irish blood thrown in, and Barefoot himself had an Italian mother and a Scottish father. He had no idea where Sunderland’s family was from, but he was surely another ingredient in the great American melting pot.
Chief of Staff Thomas Sunderland and Communications Chief Lance Burton had plopped down, each on his own sofa, while Burton’s assistant, Donald Beglaubter, sat down rigidly in a newly upholstered easy chair next to one of the sofas. The president sat at his desk, back to the window, with both elbows planted on his blotting pad as usual, ready to make running notations of their meeting directly on his laptop. Two busy weeks had already gone by without him once calling in his secretary to take notes. This was how Jansen preferred it. These were new times, even in the Oval Office.
Wesley sat down in an easy chair next to Beglaubter and waited. The plan was to discuss a congressional proposal to change the tax laws, plus the coming debate on educational reforms. It wasn’t much to get steamed up about, so he stretched and smiled in anticipation of the nice cup of coffee Jansen’s secretary would soon be offering them.
President Jansen removed his reading glasses and nodded to all of them. “Good morning, gentlemen! Let me begin by saying some small changes have been made to today’s agenda.” He gave a brief, strained smile. “As you know, Bud Curtis’s trial starts for real in four days, and we have to expect this will put an unusual amount of pressure on all of us. Among other things, the prosecutor has subpoenaed the three of us here who were present when the crime was committed—that is, Wesley, Thomas, and myself. We’ve been called in to give evidence the first day of the trial, and we can expect the trial to run for several weeks. Apparently, the evidence against Bud Curtis is massive, but you never know in cases like this. The prosecutor promised us a transcript of the indictment this morning, but I don’t think it’s come yet. Has it, Thomas?”
Sunderland sat up on the sofa and removed some papers from a plastic folder. “Yes, we received this fax half an hour ago. I’m not a lawyer, but as far as I can see, the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. Everything points to Bud Curtis having manipulated Toby O’Neill into committing the murder, and they’ve also found evidence of a large money transfer from Curtis to O’Neill.” He rummaged through the papers. “Here it is. . . . Only ten days before the assassination,
twenty thousand dollars was transferred from an account in Liechtenstein belonging to one of Bud Curtis’s companies, to Toby O’Neill’s account in the Community Bank on Nevan Road in Virginia Beach.” He handed the paper to Jansen. “A transaction like this has never taken place between the two of them before. Toby O’Neill’s wages were always paid in cash on payday, just like the rest of the personnel. Besides that, the police technicians have confirmed that the murder weapon was registered in Curtis’s name.” He ran his hand through his thinning hair. He looked worn-out, as though he’d been working all night. Wesley didn’t doubt this could be the case. Few people needed as little sleep as Sunderland, and few people were so unappealing, with or without sleep.
Sunderland found another memorandum he was looking for. “Here it says that a number of witnesses have concurred with the prosecution’s claim that on several occasions Bud Curtis had worked up a hatred in Toby O’Neill for the president and his wife.”
Donald Beglaubter shook his head. “Something sounds strange here. Why did Curtis transfer money like that? He could easily have done it more discreetly. Why didn’t he give him cash? That’s what I would have done if I were as loaded as he is.”
Communications Chief Burton sent him a stern look and cleared his throat. That meant a question was on its way that nobody could answer. “Do we know if there’s a chance Curtis will confess?” Yes, Lance Burton was the guy who always asked the impossible questions, but someone had to do it.
Sunderland laid his papers down. “No, we don’t, but why should he? He’s been in pretrial detention for two months, he’s been denied bail, and he still rejects all charges to anyone who’ll listen. He knows the law and his rights, so we’ve got to expect he’s going to proclaim his innocence to the bitter end.”
Wesley Barefoot looked at his president. Jansen’s expression was calm and attentive, but the old glint in his eye was gone, the fervor extinguished.
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