The Washington Decree

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  So there he’d sat in the check-in hall, head in hands, a well-known journalist at the pinnacle of his career. There wasn’t a notable person worth interviewing whom he hadn’t interviewed; he considered himself an objective reporter who was good at his job. Shouldn’t let these skills go to waste, he told himself. What good does it do, just sitting on your hands in no-man’s-land? He could catch a bus and then another bus, and another, until he reached Canada. It couldn’t be totally impossible to get out of this damned country if one tried hard enough. Or else he could stay and fight the good fight. With the United States being run by madmen, he couldn’t just carry on with his job like nothing had happened. If he went back to NBC now, he’d have capitulated once and for all.

  He hunted around in his pants pocket and found the piece of paper with the e-mail address Tom Jumper had given him two nights ago as he was leaving John and Danny’s home. “I have a transmission van in Arcola,” he’d said.

  This could still be a possibility if he acted fast. He pictured the slim, blond-haired man. They’d make a hell of a couple: NBC’s star reporter together with the world’s most unscrupulous, sensation-hungry TV host. It was a combination that would make people take notice. But did he dare risk everything? He knew the odds. Jumper was on the run, and the people who were after him were going to catch him sooner or later. And what about himself? What would happen to him? He wasn’t crazy about the idea of falling on his sword in the name of professional pride. Was there really no better alternative?

  He sat there considering his options as the check-in line refused to budge. Several times he heard the protests of prospective passengers who the security personnel or police had picked out for questioning. One even tried to escape but was caught on the stairs to the parking basement. John could hear the chase’s violent conclusion.

  How many times had he sat here, peaceful and happy, looking forward to a couple of days in Hawaii or heading up to Quebec, where Danny loved to visit? His present situation seemed totally surrealistic.

  Finally he made a decision and headed for the information desk.

  “How can I go on the net?” he asked the tired-looking lady.

  “There are hot spots throughout this level. Just plug in your computer.”

  “Yes, I know,” John nodded, “but I don’t have my laptop with me,” he lied, said laptop clenched between his knees. They’re monitoring the Internet, Jumper had warned. They can trace your cell phone and tap your phone. Your credit card can reveal your whereabouts in a matter of seconds. One couldn’t be too careful these days, especially if one was trying to come in contact with Tom Jumper.

  The information assistant tried to be helpful. “Then use the Wi-Fi connection on your cell phone. I can show you how, if you haven’t tried it before.”

  “I’m sorry, I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t have a cell phone, either.”

  She gave him a look that left no doubt he’d used up his quota of her attention. “Then you have to go down to one of our business service centers. There’s one in both the east and west wing.”

  The two young women he found in the glass-enclosed service center looked no less tired. “Can you help me?” he asked, trying to adjust his face the way it looked on television. Perhaps one of them would recognize him. “Unfortunately I’ve had my laptop and my cell phone stolen, and I really need to send an e-mail to NBC. Is that something which can be done from here?”

  One lady pointed over at the Internet terminal. “Just swipe your credit card through over there and you’re online.”

  “Well, you see, that’s kind of a problem. They stole my credit card, too.”

  “Then why didn’t you send your e-mail from the security booth? You reported the theft, didn’t you?”

  “Uh, no, because these things were all stolen in town, not out here, and in the meantime something’s happened where it’s imperative that I contact my office.”

  The other attendant eyed him closely. “Did you say NBC . . . ? Aren’t you the one who’s on TV sometimes?”

  He cleared his throat. “I suppose I am.” He put out his hand. “My name is John Bugatti. I’m a news reporter for NBC.”

  “Oh, right!” she said. “Now I recognize you. The other day you were reporting on a garden show in front of the Capitol, weren’t you? You got in an argument with the lady who’d arranged it, didn’t you? You criticized her for . . . What was it now?”

  John cringed. “It was about the relative importance of arranging a garden show when the country’s in the midst of a crisis.”

  The young woman’s hand flew to her mouth. “Goodness, that’s right! And she shoved you, too, didn’t she?”

  Now the first girl was showing interest, too. “What’s happened, since it’s so important that you send this e-mail?” She gave a sweet, skeptical little smile, as though the class nerd had just asked her for a date. “Tell us, and I’ll let you use my credit card.”

  “This is simple blackmail.” Bugatti laughed weakly, his mind racing to find a ploy.

  “We’re really not allowed to, you understand.”

  “Okay, okay, but promise to keep quiet about it, for God’s sake.” He looked at them sternly until they both nodded. “I saw Tom Jumper getting on a plane a little while ago—disguised as a woman! He was wearing black tights and blue mascara.” What harm was there in a little white lie? Jumper was safe for the moment. Hopefully.

  Both women stood there with their mouths open. Tom Jumper—wow! One could see they were impressed.

  He put his finger to his lips to remind them of their promise and sat down at the computer while one of them swiped her credit card. He wrote in Jumper’s e-mail address, plus the words: “Count me in. How do I find you? JB.”

  It only took half a minute before he received a reply: “This is an automatic answering service. All inquiries can be made by telephone to Gould, Coffey, Morris, & Kaplan,” it read.

  He took note of the phone number, and one of the young ladies let him use her cell phone while they tried to imagine the phenomenon of Tom Jumper in drag. This was an incredible bit of news that they obviously were going to have a hard time keeping to themselves.

  He called the law office. It was a little, efficient firm that specialized in protecting the interests of the entertainment industry’s heavyweights. Journalists like him knew these people all too well. If a movie star’s cosmetic surgery went wrong, he or she could be sure to receive a calling card from Gould, Coffey, Morris, & Kaplan. They also got involved if a reporter uncovered some dirt on an actor who didn’t meet with the agent’s approval. It was a win-win situation for them, no matter what. And the winnings were substantial.

  He gave his name to the receptionist and had to wait several minutes before a deep, man’s voice identified himself as senior partner Truman Coffey and that he had a personal message for Bugatti.

  “How can that be?” asked John.

  “Don’t ask me. Are you in the vicinity of a fax?”

  John got the service center’s fax number from one of the girls.

  “Please wait by the fax. You’ll be receiving confidential information,” intoned the lawyer.

  Jesus! he thought, when the girl handed him the fax copy a moment later.

  “The Pink Box, 12 North Madison St., Middleburg, 2:59 P.M.” it read. Not exactly a cornucopia of information.

  * * *

  —

  John could remember he’d been there before, many years ago. He paid an exorbitant amount for the taxi ride with two of Danny’s crumpled banknotes and read the sign in front of the miniature stone building. It read: TOURIST INFORMATION CENTER. OPEN WEEKDAYS, 11–3 P.M. WEEKENDS, 11–2 P.M.

  The last time he’d visited this pale red building, he’d needed to use the men’s room and had been shown the way by an imposingly beautiful eighty-year-old woman with fiery red Lucille Ball lips and a glint in her eye
that a few years earlier no man would have been able to forget. She’d spoken about Jacqueline Kennedy as though they’d been close friends, which could have been true, and motioned unsentimentally towards the plot of land next door that housed a wooden pavilion bearing Jackie’s memorial plaque.

  The pavilion and the plaque were still there, but the old lady was not. He nodded to her replacement and leafed through some tourist brochures as the time approached 2:59.

  You better be on time, Tom. They’re about to close, he thought, already trying to figure out plan B.

  “We’re closing in one minute, if there’s something I can help you with,” said the lady behind the counter. And then the phone rang.

  “Yes . . . ? Yes,” she answered. “Yes, there is.” The woman looked over at John. “Yes. No, I don’t know.”

  Then ask if it’s for me, goddammit! he raged silently, considering tearing the phone out of her hand.

  “I think it’s for you,” she finally said, handing him the receiver. “This isn’t a public phone booth, you know.”

  “Yes, it’s me,” he said, recognizing Jumper’s voice.

  “Ask her if she has a fax,” Jumper said.

  He asked and got the same answer about it not being one of their public services, so he laid ten dollars on the counter, saying it had to do with his wife, who was very ill. It worked.

  “I’m faxing you the address. Go there immediately” was the last thing Jumper said.

  The tourist office had a fax machine, but it was out of paper. John drummed his fingers on the counter while the employee searched in vain for a new roll.

  “Then use this,” he said, removing Jumper’s attorney’s fax from his jacket pocket. “Use the back side.”

  * * *

  —

  Now he’d been standing at the spot he’d been told to go to for over five hours, and the sky was getting darker and darker. Waiting was starting to become a habit.

  “I think you should know it’s not so safe out here,” this taxi driver had said, as he lit the cigarette butt that had remained unsmoked during the long trip. “There was fighting a couple of miles east of Front Royal the day before yesterday, and there are still militias on the loose. You sure you want to get out here?”

  That was one of many questions he’d pondered as he stood there, scouting the undulating planted fields from a niche in the windbreak along the side of the road. He’d read Jumper’s fax at least ten times to assure himself that he’d understood it correctly. So here he was, north of Delaplane on Route 17, close to where the railroad line crossed the road, and nothing was happening. Every time an occasional vehicle approached, he grabbed his little suitcase, only to put it down again. A couple of times he thought he saw a patrol car coming and ducked down in the thick brush. He didn’t want to have to answer any questions regarding his presence there.

  Rain began falling lightly and the wind was starting to blow up from the Shenandoah Valley, and he considered dropping the whole project. “What the hell are you doing out here, Bugatti?” he yelled, up at the threatening clouds. Now it was almost six hours since he was supposed to report for work, and poor Danny must have had his hands full, fending off repeated telephone grillings from Alastair Hopkins. NBC’s editor in chief had been a reporter half his life and was a hard man to thwart with lame excuses.

  “You don’t have any job left anyway, big shot,” he sneered at himself. So what was the rush? He had to laugh. Well, a man with AIDS, in the process of giving himself a case of pneumonia, better be in some kind of rush before his body gave up.

  “I’m giving you a half hour, Jumper, not a second longer,” he told himself. He told himself the same thing an hour later.

  Then a massive, white moving van rolled up the road towards him. GULLIVER’S MOVERS, SWIFT & GENTLE GIANTS was written on the cab door. He’d heard of them and at one point had considered using them when Danny was no more; he couldn’t stand the thought of living alone in Danny’s house. But that was before it had been ascertained that he, too, had AIDS.

  He stepped away from the road and was ready to walk back to town, when the truck put on its airbrakes and stopped fifty feet down the road.

  A guy opened the passenger door and waved to him. Sure, why not? John thought. Jumper obviously wasn’t coming anyway, and he couldn’t just continue standing there, waiting for pneumonia to finish him off.

  The man grabbed his suitcase and asked him to climb into the cab. The driver, big and strong, nodded his consent.

  “Okay, let’s head south again,” the man said into a microphone under his sun visor. The driver backed into a side road and began turning the moving van around.

  John was astonished. “Tell me, was it you I was waiting for?” he asked.

  The man stuck out his coarse paw. “My name’s Phil Kinnead, and that’s Pawel. You look wet.” Then he turned towards the partition behind them and knocked on it through a thick curtain. “You’ll have to step up on the seat to get in there,” he said, and pulled the curtain to one side.

  A hatch above the back of the seat opened from within, and a head stuck itself out. “We’re playing music right now, so come on in.” The new man extended his hand and practically pulled him through the hatch into a room of about eight yards square that contained a bed, a little table, a hotplate and refrigerator, as well as a sound mixer that was manned by two guys who presented themselves as friends of Tom Jumper. Above them and stacks of CDs was a glass wall, behind which Tom Jumper sat in a mini-studio, in front of a microphone. He waved through the glass to an accompaniment of country and western music. John hadn’t been able to hear a thing outside the van, not even from inside the cab.

  “What the hell is this?” he asked the sound engineers. “Did you rent a mobile sound studio from a moving company in Washington?”

  They laughed. “This isn’t from any moving company. Tom just had their logo copied. No one will suspect us as long as we keep off the main roads.”

  “But what if you’re stopped anyway? Tom will be a sitting duck if they open the back doors.” They laughed again. “If they do that, all they’ll see is two hundred crates of auditing reports from Virginia’s biggest accounting firms, six whole feet into the van from the back doors. It’s packed solid with the shit. Believe me, when they see that, they’ll let us drive on.”

  “What are you going to tell them if you get stopped?”

  “That the shit’s being sent to be destroyed. Incinerated. Depending on where we are, we always know the nearest disposal plant, and that’s where we’ll say we’re going. Simple as that.”

  John nodded slowly as he removed his wet coat and took his medicine.

  “Tom asked us to suggest you take a little nap, so you’re fresh for the show later,” one of them said.

  “We’ll wake you up when it’s time. When it’s the Saturday night show, time waits for no man.”

  * * *

  —

  They shook him awake an hour before midnight. Constellations in the sky were gliding rapidly past through a little plexiglass hatch in the roof. They told him he was on in ten minutes and briefed him about what Jumper had in mind to talk about, as well as what he should do if for some reason the show was interrupted. They pointed at a couple of firearms next to the mixer and told him they’d make sure he was safe.

  It didn’t exactly make him feel more comfortable.

  “Where in the world are we?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

  “Beats me. That’s the boys in the cab’s job, but I figure we’re somewhere down around Amisville. We’re crisscrossing back and forth. It’s just a matter of keeping this buggy moving on the small roads.”

  “Tom will be calling you John Doe,” said the other sound man, “and when we’re finished distorting your voice, you won’t be able to recognize it yourself, I promise. He’s just been talking about Doggie Rogers’s escape an
d the killing of militiamen down by Twin Lakes. You’ve got to be prepared for him being blunt, no matter what the topic, okay?”

  Bugatti knitted his brow and cleared his throat. “Doggie Rogers’s escape? What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, right, I guess you haven’t been able to follow the news. She attacked Sunderland earlier today, and now everyone’s out trying to catch her.” They both laughed. “They want to bust her for trying to assassinate the VP. Apparently, she kicked him in the balls, which is bad enough, but it’s not exactly an assassination attempt!”

  “Okay, it’s still only a rumor,” added the first sound man. “We don’t know what she did for sure, but there’s going to be plenty of issues to discuss tonight. Later in the program Tom’s planning to urge the different units of the army and police to mutiny, so normal law and order can be restored. He’s going to try and convince them that they’re fighting a hopeless battle for a mentally deranged president, and that they shouldn’t fear death. Do you have a problem with that?”

  It was hard to say. He had to admit he doubted Bruce Jansen was insane, and he didn’t think agitating for mutiny was such a good idea.

  “America desperately needs everyone in uniform to wake up,” he continued earnestly. “We won’t be popular, but people sure as hell will hear what we say.”

  John took a deep breath. He was having a hard time following all this. Everything was so strange and unreal.

  * * *

  —

  He and Tom Jumper swung well together in front of the microphone, Bugatti had to admit. They began speaking freely from the first moment, which was a relief at a time like this. They discussed Doggie, the Killer on the Roof and their respective conspiracy theories, as well as serious accusations regarding the White House, and began understanding each other with greater and greater clarity.