His torrent of words fell on deaf ears. The two men couldn’t care less. They’d been ordered to guard him, not listen to him.
There was some commotion at the entrance to the lobby, and a few seconds later a little delegation filed past his door towards the Roosevelt Room. John could hear they were British diplomats—they always stood out in the crowd. They looked in at him as they went by, but all they saw was a man in an officer’s uniform, sitting on a chair.
Shall I try and get their attention? he thought for a second, and then he spotted Wesley, gesticulating energetically as he spoke to the diplomat he was walking beside.
“Wesley!” he cried, as loud as he could, but was clobbered on the back of the neck as he was about to yell again. It didn’t knock him unconscious—it didn’t even hurt much—but suddenly he didn’t have any control over his muscles. He couldn’t cry out, and his legs wouldn’t obey him when he tried to stand up. He fought with the armrest, but there was no longer any coordination between any parts of his body.
He was dumbfounded. He tried to form words, but none would come out. All that was left was his brain telling him that everything had stopped just as salvation was in sight.
“John?” He heard a voice over by the door. He tried turning his head, but his body still wouldn’t obey.
* * *
—
In spite of the security guards’ protests, they towed him over to Wesley’s office. “You know where he is, so don’t worry,” Wesley reasoned, and, with his position in mind, they were forced to obey. Kane would be returning in a couple of minutes, and until then there was no way they were moving an inch from Press Secretary Wesley Barefoot’s office door.
Wesley gave John some water to drink and said he was sorry that unfortunately his secretary was on sick leave. That she had broken down after they’d come and arrested her husband, and if she’d been there, he might have been able to offer him something stronger to drink.
John shook his head. It didn’t matter.
Then he cleared his throat a couple of times, and in a quiet, guarded voice told Wesley what he’d been through and what he knew.
CHAPTER 39
“I have to get in to see President Jansen as soon as possible,” said Wesley to the Secret Service agents stationed in front of the Oval Office.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Barefoot,” said one of them. These men were trained in refusing people; it didn’t matter whom. “We’ve been given specific orders that the president’s meeting with the prime minister not be interrupted—under any circumstances. Even the telephones and intercom are shut off.”
“Okay, I understand, but I’ve just received information whose only interpretation can be that there’s about to be an attempt on the president’s life.”
“Yes, we know about these rumors. They’re being dealt with.”
Wesley was taken aback. “It’s a missile attack we’re talking about that apparently can happen at any time.”
“We’re aware of it. You don’t have to worry, Mr. Barefoot, they’re working on it.”
He stepped back from the Oval Office door. He had other things to tell the president besides warning him about the assassination attempt. Like new information concerning the murder of Jansen’s wife that meant the president should be extra watchful around his closest, most trusted advisors. That there was reason to believe Bud Curtis was innocent. That John Bugatti was presently sitting in his office and had plenty to tell at the risk of his own life. That his secretary couldn’t work as long as her husband was being detained. That President Jansen had to do something about all of this for the best of the country and his own survival. But Wesley was being denied the opportunity—at least for now.
He glanced over towards Lance Burton’s office. They had barely spoken since Burton had revealed his surveillance center to him the day before. The implication was that it was better this way—Wesley would take care of his job, and Burton would see to the rest. The point was that Burton wouldn’t place Wesley in unnecessary danger, and if Burton were removed, Wesley would take over the surveillance. If Burton were gone—God forbid—Wesley would replace him anyway. Who else was qualified?
He looked at the closed doors in the corridor around the Oval Office.
They were all so very powerful, the men who sat behind these doors. But perhaps it was behind his own door that the most powerful man of all was sitting. John Bugatti was possibly the most important witness and defender of truth to be found in the whole country just now. It was he who still had eyes that could see and an intellect that hadn’t fallen victim to self-deception. And it was also he who Wesley was powerless to protect. It was a desperate situation.
He made up his mind and stepped over to Lance Burton’s office. The chief of staff was simply going to have to leave his preserve. If he didn’t demand entry to all these doors and convene the people behind them, nothing was going to happen. Burton had to do this, otherwise there would be consequences too awful to contemplate. And according to Bugatti, there wasn’t much time.
* * *
—
Wesley had expected to be greeted by Burton’s secretary’s usual mechanical, tight smile, but her seat was empty and the door to Burton’s office open. This was very unusual.
He could hear hushed voices from within the office, so he approached cautiously and knocked on the doorframe.
The sight that greeted him was just as unexpected as it was unwelcome. Lance Burton was sitting behind his desk, hands folded, looking at him as if he were a stranger. Vice President Sunderland was standing by the window with his back to them, and Ben Kane was standing next to Burton, in front of the open door to the little surveillance room, his hand on Burton’s shoulder. None of them spoke, nor was it necessary, because then the voices he’d heard from outside resumed from the door opening behind Kane. They came from the speakers inside the surveillance room.
And what they were listening to was seriously compromising for Lance Burton, for it was nothing less than the British prime minister’s voice that filled the office. It was easy to hear that Burton’s built-in window microphones in the Oval Office were already functioning optimally; it was as though they were in the same room.
Then Sunderland turned around, his face white with rage. But his hand was well under control as he turned off the listening-in mode. “Kane, go in and stop the video machines,” he said, waiting a moment before he looked at Wesley.
“You know anything about this?”
“No,” he said, without looking at Burton.
“I hope not, for your sake. But we’ll find that out later. . . . So you have absolutely no knowledge of this equipment, you say?”
“No—and I’m deeply shocked and outraged.” He said this looking straight at Burton, who let his eyes fall, making it easier for Wesley to betray him. That was Lance in a nutshell.
“But you knew about the audio monitoring?”
“Yes, former vice president Lerner was so kind as to inform us about it, remember? But I didn’t know the equipment was in here, and definitely not that it was used to eavesdrop on the Oval Office. Has the president approved of this?”
Sunderland didn’t answer. Instead his attention focused on Ben Kane, who had just reappeared from behind the door. They nodded to each other—the surveillance gear had been shut off. Kane went over and whispered something in Sunderland’s ear. Wesley could imagine what.
“Is John Bugatti in your office?” Sunderland asked.
“Yes.”
“You know he’s wanted, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That he’s spreading rumors about me.”
“No, I didn’t know that. What rumors?” Wesley studied Sunderland’s eyes. They were like a weasel’s—vicious and unpredictable.
Sunderland didn’t answer. Instead he nodded to Kane, who immediately heaved Burton out of his seat.
> “We’ll get back to this later, Wesley. And, Kane, you take the chief of staff over to the Situation Room and make sure he’s well guarded, understand? And get back here as fast as you can.” Chief of Staff Burton’s face revealed nothing as he was led out of the room. His bearing was dignified, like a serene, resigned condemned man on his way to the scaffold. Wesley knew he had nothing to fear; Burton would keep his mouth shut to the end.
“You stay in this room. Got it, Wesley?” said Sunderland.
Then he called a couple of Secret Service agents over from across the hall. “Barefoot is to be kept in Burton’s office until further orders, understand?”
After which he closed the door and left Wesley alone with his dark thoughts about the responsibility he had inherited from Burton.
A much too large responsibility. Once upon a time he’d told his mother that he was going to try to get to work for Jansen, just as she had, and she had stroked his cheek as though he had already vanished from her life and off the planet. She’d known what was to come: He would somehow be swallowed up—either by the void or the exuberance—and that’s what happened.
Right now he was just wishing his mother had never let him go. Life had held so many other possibilities then.
He opened the door to the surveillance cubbyhole and found the main switch, after which he turned on each individual apparatus until the room was dotted with little red lights. Now he’d have to find out if it all worked.
He proceeded to open the metal box above the equipment and turned on the monitor. A grayish picture flickered on the screen, and the show was under way. He took the selector knob and changed from one camera to another. First the camera in the empty lobby and then to the ones that followed Sunderland into the Roosevelt Room. From there he checked out the guards outside the chief of staff’s door and then the two security men standing before his own door, watching over Bugatti. Then he saw Bugatti himself, pacing back and forth in Wesley’s office. It was clear that his restlessness was propelled more by frustration than fear. Wesley moved on to the Roosevelt Room, where Sunderland was receiving the British delegation. The hearty mood lasted a little while, but gradually the delegates’ expressions turned more and more serious, and then to shock.
Wesley found the volume control and turned it up just as Sunderland held up an inauspicious notebook.
“It’s all here,” Wesley heard him say. “Every time I’ve become aware of another of the president’s injustices, I’ve written it down in this notebook. You can see what he’s been doing to this country, day by day. It’s all here. I would ask you to deliver this to Prime Minister Watts the moment you leave the White House, and that the contents be made public, but that my name be kept out of it for the time being. It’s impossible to say how long it will take to have the president removed from office, but until then our lives are at stake. He’s ordered so many killings already—what’s one more to him? And I could easily be the next victim.”
Wesley had to find a stool and sit down.
The leader of the delegation nodded gravely, accepted the notebook, and passed it immediately to a subordinate who dropped it into his briefcase. Sunderland had planned this well.
“At the same time I would like to appeal to the international community to begin investigating ways in which it can help. It could be a matter for the United Nations, but that means of recourse may already be cut off, at least as long as foreign diplomats aren’t allowed much freedom of movement these days. Or so I’ve been told.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll find a way,” one of the diplomats answered.
“This evening I will tender my resignation. Perhaps now is also the time to inform you that I plan to seek political asylum in the British embassy. Do you agree to that?”
“Yes, naturally,” answered the delegation leader. “But it’s hard to say whether the rules of diplomacy will be upheld, given the current situation.”
“I have to take the chance.” Vice President Sunderland shook hands with the British diplomat. “Now I will give you gentlemen the opportunity to discuss the situation among yourselves. And I hope you’ll have a chance to glance through my diary. Some of it is gruesome reading, but I felt it was best that way. Of course I have other kinds of material evidence when the time comes, hopefully. But now I must return to my other duties. I will be seeing you in the State Dining Room at three thirty.”
He shook hands with the rest of the delegation and walked out of the room.
Wesley patted the video machine. Gotcha now, he thought, before doubt set in. He still didn’t know anything for sure. Maybe Sunderland’s version really could be true, and Jansen was behind it all. Even with time running out, it was hard to eliminate either possibility with the evidence at hand.
Fucking load of shit, he thought.
Then he switched through the surveillance cameras to find Sunderland and see where he was headed.
On the third try he found himself looking inside his own office, with Bugatti over by the door connecting Wesley’s and Sunderland’s offices. A door that hadn’t been opened since Wesley had taken over Sunderland’s secretary’s room.
I’m afraid it’s locked, my friend, he said silently, as Bugatti reached out his hand and turned the knob. Which was why he froze when the door swung open.
Wesley flew out of the control room and over to the intercom on Lance Burton’s desk. “Don’t do it, John!” he cried. “Go out through my archive room instead, then down to the pressroom! The press conference is being held on the lawn, so stay in the pressroom. Find somewhere to hide—you know the place. And stay there, understand?”
He punched the intercom button a couple of times. It was completely dead.
He raced back to the monitor to see that his office was now empty. Then he switched to the camera in the corridor to the pressroom, but Bugatti wasn’t there, either.
“Goddammit, John, you dumb bastard!” he muttered, and moved to the camera in Sunderland’s office. There he was, the idiot, rummaging through all the drawers in the vice president’s desk. He clicked to the camera in the hallway between the Roosevelt Room and Sunderland’s office, just as Sunderland was approaching his office door.
Wesley’s heart was pumping so wildly, it made his temples throb. Sunderland had just come in the door of his office and discovered Bugatti, who immediately froze, half-crouched over a desk drawer.
He could see they were exchanging words, but there was no sound.
“Goddammit!” he swore, trying to find the wire that caught the signal from Wesley’s ID badge, still wedged between the cushions in the sofa. He finally found it and plugged it in.
The scene being enacted before him on the monitor progressed in a horribly simple and methodical fashion. It laid bare not only the extent of Sunderland’s villainy, but also the definitive end of a fine and honorable journalist’s attempt to survive to tell the biggest story of his life and maybe even save his country.
Sunderland wasn’t wasting time. In keeping with an old military man’s custom for dealing with completely incalculable situations, he walked calmly over to a cabinet in the corner and removed an old service pistol, like he’d done on a couple of very rare jovial occasions when he wanted to show off living proof of his manhood. He flipped off the safety, aimed the gun slowly at Bugatti’s body, and squeezed the trigger.
The loud report of the gunshot temporarily blew out the microphone in Wesley’s chip in the sofa, but he could see gun smoke rising in the air and a beloved friend being pitched backward against the wall and gliding to the floor behind the desk, leaving the stain from his mortal wound behind him.
Then the sound came back.
“Help! Help!” Sunderland was shouting, as he calmly laid the gun on his desk. “Get in here and help me!”
Wesley couldn’t take any more. The last thing he saw before he sank to the floor with his head in his hands was the door fly
ing open and two bodyguards, weapons extended, approaching the vice president’s desk.
CHAPTER 40
Thomas Sunderland had had his wings clipped as a boy. He was smacked around regularly until the day in his sixteenth year when his father beat his mother’s vivacious face in with a baseball bat.
His name had been Junior at the time—Leo Mulligan Jr., to be precise—and it was not a name he’d been proud of.
And Junior had packed up and took off down the farmhouse road before the authorities could manage to make him a guardian of the state.
Junior Mulligan wanted to go where the action was. He wanted to try everything America had to offer, and it was no new dream of his, either. He’d always heard that “this is a country where a man can get what he wants.”
* * *
—
The third time a motorist stopped to give him a lift during his escape, it was a woman whose ripe curves longed for caressing. This chance meeting taught Junior that no person is unapproachable as long as one is able to determine the outcome.
Then came a period of months where neglected suburban housewives instructed Junior in how he could stretch them tight as a bow in bed while the husband was at work. And in return he taught these women how best they could express their appreciation in the form of larger-denomination dollar bills. If they didn’t do it of their own accord, he threatened them. Twenty bucks for him to keep his mouth shut—it was worth it. Husbands’ reactions in cases like this were known for being pretty straightforward in this neck of the woods.
In this way, there was always enough money for a room, plus a little extra, with evenings off. Long speculative evenings where he read and dreamed and planned out his life. Basically, Junior wanted to be the country’s leader, where no one stood over him and no one could ever again try raising a hand against him without knowing the consequences.
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