He would call off the state of emergency and make peace with the militias, the right-wingers, the lobbyists, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. The only thing he was worried about was what former vice president Michael K. Lerner might do. How would he try to stop Sunderland if he reappeared on the political scene? How many votes could he win? He’d disappeared completely since quitting his job in protest. Apparently, Jansen wasn’t interested in his scalp, but Thomas was. He’d ordered Kane and his men to find him and neutralize him as quickly as possible.
The United States of America was to have a cynical gigolo and son of a wife killer as its next president whether it wanted him or not.
* * *
—
Thomas looked at his watch. He was expected for tea in the State Dining Room at 3:30 P.M., after the press conference on the terrace outside the diplomats’ reception hall. It would be an exceptional press conference, not least of all because it would be the first one in his career Thomas wouldn’t be attending. He studied the rain pelting his window until Kane came in the door.
“What about the rain?” Sunderland asked.
“No problem. It’s letting up now,” answered Kane.
“You got Burton out of the way?”
“You bet. Two men are guarding him as though their lives depend on it—which they do.”
“And Barefoot. What’s your take on him?”
“He didn’t have anything to do with Burton’s little surveillance scheme.”
“According to who?” asked Sunderland. “Burton?”
“Burton’s been through a pretty robust interrogation. He has too weak a character to make a convincing liar. He would have betrayed Barefoot long ago.”
“Fine, then we keep Wesley. He could be a witness for us. We’ll have to work on him when this is all over.” He banged his hand on his desk. “Now sit down a moment, Kane. We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”
Kane usually preferred standing, but he set his two-hundred-and-twenty-pound bulk down on Sunderland’s sofa.
“You say Burton’s been through quite an interrogation,” Thomas continued. “No marks on the body, I hope.”
“No, none of importance.”
“He’s going to have to disappear.”
“Yes, we know that.”
“What have you told the FBI about Bugatti?” asked Thomas.
“Just what we agreed. That Bugatti forced his way into your office and threatened you. That you had no way of knowing he was unarmed and shot him. Case closed.”
“Are you completely certain we’re prepared for our retaliation against the Cairo group? There cannot be a single one of them left who can tell about my role here, Ben.”
“It’s a hundred percent under control. We’re going to gas them while they’re still in the monument.”
Thomas nodded. “Be thorough.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No survivors—got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you have an updated list of all the renegade officers around the country?”
“Yes, and at the moment it’s being forwarded to FEMA.”
“They’re to be gotten rid of all at once—and fast—before the confusion dies down, understand?”
“Yes. The directive we’re sending FEMA states that over half of these men are extremely dangerous and that no means should be spared to stop them.”
“And Moonie Quale?”
Kane sat forward eagerly on the sofa. “He still thinks we’re giving him amnesty.”
“Where is he now?”
“Up in Seattle, still suffering from his injuries.”
“It’s a good thing we kept him alive,” said Sunderland, and laughed. “Think of the useful information he’s given us. Ironic, isn’t it, that for the past two weeks we’ve had in custody the man whom the enemy sees as their leader? That’s hysterical.” He gave his lieutenant a conspiratorial wink. “That was good thinking, Kane. And you say now he’s in the safe house in Seattle?”
“Yes.” Ben Kane looked pretty pleased with himself. Everything was progressing on schedule.
“Bomb the house flat.”
“Orders have already been given.”
“Moonie Quale’s death will be my first victorious act as president, do you realize that? Without him, most of the militias will throw down their weapons.” He smiled. “And your men—what about them?”
“I’m keeping two. They’re okay.”
“And the others?”
“I’m putting them in the line of fire. They’ll be standing behind the president. They won’t have a chance, and it’ll look completely natural.”
“Very wise, Kane, very wise! And Bud Curtis? You had his execution moved up to six o’clock tomorrow morning?”
“Yes, but we’re implementing another plan because it’s looking very much like a certain Sheriff T. Perkins may be able to prove Curtis was innocent.”
“T. Perkins . . . ?” Thomas could remember the man from the trip to China and how he’d hoped the sheriff would be eliminated from the quiz show in the first round. This was the guy who had brought him in to the courthouse in Monterey in his youth, when he was on the run. Just imagine if Perkins had recognized him in China? He shook his head. What the hell was it with all these people from that trip popping up in his life again to cause him so many problems? Fucking Doggie Rogers, whom he still had to deal with, Bugatti, who was taken care of, to a lesser extent Wesley Barefoot, and now this skinny sheriff who never said a word. “Sheriff Perkins is a dead man,” he decided. “I hope we agree on that.”
“Sure, but there were plenty of people who heard Jumper and Bugatti’s radio program that night, so there could well be others who will try and demand an investigation into Curtis’s trial.”
“Yeah, Tom Jumper—go figure! That ridiculous, worthless white trash turned out to be the only one with any balls. Amazing.” He smiled, remembering the pictures he’d seen of Jumper inside the transmission van. There hadn’t been much left to recognize. “Have you prepared a statement refuting the claims he and Bugatti made on that program?”
“Yes, long ago.”
“Okay, as to the Bud Curtis matter, we’ll go over to plan B. When are the militias planning to storm the prison?”
“In twenty minutes.”
“And we let the militia prisoners go free?”
“For the moment, yes.”
“And Bud Curtis?”
Kane drew his thumb across his throat.
CHAPTER 41
Doggie and T arrived at the White House the same moment a helicopter came plowing its way noisily over the uniform-clad mass of humanity and turned south.
Doggie clutched her midriff, her stomach tied in knots.
T took a deep drag off his cigarette and pointed at a line of patrol cars and white vans bearing discreet FEMA emblems, parked in front of concrete barriers. He backed his own sheriff’s car in between two of them, turned off his blue, blinking lights, and turned to her.
“You leave this to me now, Doggie,” he said, stubbing out his butt in the ashtray. “Don’t say a word, no matter what, do you understand? Give me a look if there’s something that bothers you, and just remember that it’s me who makes the decisions.”
Doggie nodded. Wild horses wouldn’t get her to open her mouth.
“Lean forward,” he said next and clapped his handcuffs around her wrists. “Now you offer a little resistance as you get out of the car, and I’ll pull you the rest of the way out, okay?”
“Yes, just so long as you don’t start beating the shit out of me.” She smiled.
He didn’t smile back. “If that will save our asses in this imbecilic caper, I’ll do that, too.”
Then he yanked her out of the car and shoved her along before him in the lessening drizzle, through the co
ncrete barriers and up to the guard post. She felt like an outcast on her way to a public stoning. Everyone was staring at her, including the soldiers, but no one tried to stop them, not even the undercover agents. Things didn’t start getting intense until they reached the control post with its concentration of decorated uniforms.
Here they pointed small, nasty automatics at them and demanded positive ID, looking as though they were hoping the identification wouldn’t be satisfactory so they could shoot them on the spot if they made a false move. T made some grumbling noises before he showed them his badge and raised his arms in the air to be searched, and Doggie followed his example. The soldiers groped professionally all over their bodies, hands stopping occasionally to make sure what they were feeling wasn’t a concealed weapon. They weren’t being rude, but the dangerous intimacy of the situation made Doggie feel sick.
Then the soldiers retreated a step.
“This is Doggie Rogers. You know who she is,” said T matter-of-factly. “She is to be brought directly to the Secret Service, so call them now, okay? She has important information they have to get out of her.”
The soldier in charge, who stood on the other side of the wrought iron fence, nodded to the guard in the control booth whom Doggie used to greet every morning. A gate was opened and a photograph of Doggie passed on to the commanding officer. He held up the picture next to Doggie’s face to determine whether they were the same person.
“It is her, believe me,” said T.
“Not the woman she once was,” the soldier ascertained, shaking his head.
Doggie looked at T, feeling her heart pumping heavily. Open season had been declared, and there was no way to defend herself, nowhere to hide. And here she was, her existence totally dependent on the taciturn, bony man who was standing next to her, dying for a cigarette.
T squinted his eyes in concentration, trying to decipher the telecommunication that was taking place behind the armored glass. Then the guard nodded a couple of times and reported to the officer outside, using a sign language that might as well have been the green light for their immediate disposal.
Instead a small pack of men in black suits began making haste straight for them along the White House paths. Their leader waved the iron gate open, and they were propelled into the lion’s den.
* * *
—
Three minutes later they were sitting in Ben Kane’s office—a small, windowless chamber that Doggie had never set foot in.
The atmosphere in the White House was hectic, perhaps with a tinge of panic. People she had never seen before were half running up and down the corridors. Clusters of security agents were constantly regrouping, and the ones keeping them company all had vacant expressions as they listened intently to what was coming through their earpieces.
One of Kane’s men sat down across from T and asked him where he had caught Doggie and who his White House contact was. He was less than pleased when T merely shrugged his shoulders and pulled out a cigarette.
“Smoking is prohibited in the White House,” barked the guard standing by the door. He was one Doggie recognized as spending almost an hour each day chain-smoking under John F. Kennedy’s magnolia tree.
Then the first guy repeated his question, and when T answered by asking for a cup of coffee, he gave up. It was clear there were plenty more important jobs they could be—and would prefer to be—doing instead of dicking around with some ornery hick sheriff.
So they asked him to open the handcuffs and lock her arms behind her chair, which T did without hesitation.
“Kane will have to deal with this himself,” said Kane’s lieutenant to the others.
“There’s no way Ben Kane is going to interview me,” she said, shifting to make her arms and wrists a bit less uncomfortable. “Send for Wesley Barefoot or Lance Burton. They’re the only ones I speak to, besides the president!”
The men surrounding her were pretty much the same ones as Sunderland had presented a year ago in the governor’s office in Richmond. Their job was to provide security and peace of mind, but that was of little consolation in the present situation. Their whispering together in the corner gave her the creeps.
She checked T out. He hadn’t so much as raised an eyebrow the whole time. What the hell’s going on inside your head, T? she wondered. They’d agreed their goal was to get hold of Wesley, and, failing that, find another way to get through to the president. So why was he sitting there, sleepy-eyed, asking for coffee?
“They’re saying Kane is busy with Lance Burton,” reported the chain-smoker with his hand to his earpiece. “Hartmond’s coming instead.”
“Why him? He’s Secret Service,” said another of Kane’s men.
“Don’t worry, Jones is coming, too,” replied the first.
This was enough for T. Standing up, he said, “You guys have a nice wait. I haven’t had a bite to eat all day, so I’m going down to the canteen.” He raised his hand to ward off their protests. “You can find me there if you need me. Then I’m heading home. Highland County Sheriff’s Office—that’s where you can send the reward.”
He swaggered out of the room like a cowboy without a horse. In another situation this show of bravado might have seemed comical. How was this eccentric country cop ever going to find his way around in this labyrinth? He probably couldn’t even find the men’s room.
He turned towards her on his way out and shook his head almost imperceptibly as though he could sense what she was thinking. It wasn’t a signal not to worry—not by any means. It was just a reminder not to say a word, no matter what they did to try and make her talk.
* * *
—
As Doggie waited for her interrogators, the handcuffs were beginning to make her hands go numb. This is how my father was sitting the last time I saw him, she thought. It almost made her cry. A few more hours and his handcuffs would be replaced with leather straps on the execution gurney.
She leaned forward so eagle eye couldn’t see the emotion welling up inside her. Oh, God . . . her heart began pleading. But no, she had to pull herself together and concentrate on the situation at hand.
Then the two men arrived and asked the others to leave.
Both were to be feared, in spite of their diametrically opposite appearances. One was thin, dark, and silent—a man Ben Kane had hired just after the attempt on Jansen’s life in the White House tunnel—and the other was a flabby, pale, older man who reminded her of the librarian in Chesapeake when she was a child.
They were the same men who questioned the West Wing personnel after the assassination attempt, and rumor had it that they hated each other, since Jones was on Ben Kane’s payroll and Hartmond worked for the Secret Service. But both of them had the habit of going straight for their victim’s jugular—showing no mercy and offering no promises of leniency if they talked. Their job was to extract information, even if that meant using unconventional methods.
“You are charged with attempting to kill the vice president. Do you know what the consequences could be, Miss Rogers?”
She shut herself off and studied the wall behind Kane’s desk instead, where at least twenty framed photographs were on display of Kane with some of the people he’d been a bodyguard for. Many were prominent names, and several had their arm around the shoulder of a grinning Kane. They were like certificates of merit hanging on the wall of a doctor or a psychologist—they were his profession’s stamp of approval.
“You won’t achieve anything by remaining silent, Doggie Rogers. We’re pretty persistent, as you well know,” said Hartmond, who had crammed himself into the seat opposite her.
“Who do you work for, Miss Rogers? You’re going to have to tell us if you’re to have hope of receiving any form of leniency from the court.”
But it was like he wasn’t even there. Wasn’t that how T had told her to behave?
Hartmond tilted his head. �
�Miss Rogers, your father is to be executed a few hours from now. Speak to me, and I’ll see what I can do. Maybe there’s still hope for him if you talk now.”
Then she focused her eyes on him.
“I said maybe, Miss Rogers. Let me hear what you can give me.” He was already looking self-confident, the dumb bastard. “Who paid you?”
She took a deep breath. “Do something for my father? How do you mean?”
“I could take that phone there and call Homeland Security, for example. They’re the ones in charge of appeals and stays of execution these days.”
“Then take the phone,” she said immediately. T wouldn’t be pleased, but what else could she do? Hartmond leaned forward in anticipation. He already thought he had her backed up to the edge of the cliff.
She checked out Jones from the corner of her eye. He didn’t seem to be following the interrogation; someone was apparently talking to him through his earpiece.
“Kane’s on his way to the Situation Room with Lance Burton,” said Jones, removing his hand from his earpiece. “The chief of staff has been arrested.”
A shiver went through her body. Lance Burton—arrested? What would be next?
Hartmond’s eyes bore down on Doggie. “Hello? Miss Rogers? If you wish to save your father’s life, then answer my question.”
She caught an unconscious flickering of his eyes. Behind his fixed expression she could see his mind was somewhere else. It was circling around his next question like a hungry buzzard, but his eyes betrayed a heat-seeking missile that hadn’t a chance of hitting its target. Call Homeland Security? That was the last thing he’d do, she could tell. Her father wasn’t even an issue.
The Washington Decree Page 55