The Washington Decree

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  She sat on the edge of her chair, and he smiled at her indulgently. To him, her reaction was a sign of confidentiality. He’d delivered a couple of his lines, and she was already prepared to sing. His partner watched as a smile grew on his lips, then saw it vanish as she reared back her head and spat in his face. There was no masking his surprise and confusion. Now he really looked like the public librarian who didn’t know how to handle a roomful of unruly kids.

  She sat back again, studying him as he dried off his face with a calmness that clearly signaled the opposite, especially as far as her own fate was concerned. It felt good in the moment, but that was all. She was the one handcuffed to the chair.

  “We’ll get what we want out of you, Miss Rogers, don’t worry. If you want to do yourself a favor, then talk to me. Some of my colleagues don’t possess my sense of humor.” This time his smile didn’t work at all.

  Now she knew the two agents would trade roles. She could see in Hartmond’s eyes that he would yield to Jones’s more straightforward approach. Something was about to happen; she just didn’t know what. Would Jones grab her head and twist it until her neck cracked? Maybe he would force water down her throat with a funnel until she was about to suffocate. She was scared now, in any case.

  Jones stood up and walked around behind her. He had beautiful, ice-cold eyes, but it was his hands she was watching. What were they about to do? They hovered over her body like a bird of prey searching for the most vulnerable spot on its victim’s body, then swooped down to gently caress her pulsing carotid artery.

  He lowered his face until it was level with hers. “We’re here to find answers, Miss Rogers, so I’m asking you: Who do you work for?” He stroked her neck as he spoke.

  “I don’t work for anybody. I’m a White House employee. Let me speak to Wesley Barefoot.”

  “Is he involved in this, Miss Rogers?”

  She could feel the panic rising. “What’s this all about? I haven’t done anything, and Wesley Barefoot has nothing at all to do with any of this. Have you gone totally paranoid?”

  He increased the pressure on her artery. A tiny squeeze, but it started all her warning lights flashing.

  “Why did you want to kill the vice president?” he asked, relieving the pressure again.

  Doggie looked over at Hartmond with pleading eyes. “Help me,” she entreated. “Make that phone call, and I’ll tell you everything. Just get them to grant my father a stay of execution.”

  But Hartmond ignored her. One didn’t easily forget being spat on.

  “You’re not going to just sit there and let Jones strangle me, are you?” she tried. “You’re not like Kane’s men.”

  Jones pressed a little more, barely noticeably, but suddenly the two men seemed far away and the room began darkening. The next moment he relaxed the pressure, blood circulation returned to her brain, and her senses returned to normal.

  “Why did you want to kill the vice president?” Jones repeated. “Who paid you?”

  Please, T, get back here. Make them stop, Doggie prayed silently, and then she noticed that Jones’s hands were no longer hovering about her neck.

  She looked up at them and detected a sudden, instinctive alertness in their expressions, like a rodent raising its head even before the scent of danger reaches its nostrils. They turned instantly towards the door, before she heard the muffled sound of a gunshot.

  Commotion erupted immediately in the hallway. Figures and footsteps raced past the half-open door, and the two men’s bodies tensed.

  “Did that shot come from the Oval Office?” asked Hartmond, trying to remain calm.

  “If you have anything to do with this, you’re dead meat,” Jones snarled to Doggie. “Where’d that damn sheriff go?” he demanded, striking her straight in the mouth. “Are the two of you part of this?”

  Doggie sucked on her lip; the blood tasted warm and sweet. She was beginning to lose her grip.

  “No!” she shouted back. “Not at all! We haven’t done a thing, can’t you understand?”

  Jones put his hand up to his earpiece. “It’s the vice president! They say he’s calling for help!” He gave her one savage look and shot out the door.

  Her heart was hammering wildly. Had T done something crazy? Was he all right?

  “I have nothing to do with this,” she said again, looking at Hartmond imploringly.

  Then the man picked up the telephone and began dialing. Was he actually going to help her now?

  “Yes, call them,” she urged. “Make them stay the execution, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  He raised his hand to quiet her. “We have a crisis situation over here,” he said into the phone. “There’s been a shot fired inside the vice president’s office. . . . No, I don’t know what happened. I’m here interrogating Doggie Rogers. . . . No, I’m not getting anything out of her. . . . No, it’s doubtful. . . . Yes, Jones went over there. . . . Yes, I’ll let you know.”

  He hung up and gave her a fierce look, similar to Jones’s. “You stay put if you’re really interested in saving your father. You still may have a chance when I get back.”

  Then he, too, was gone.

  Just before he slammed the door she got a glimpse of the lobby’s high ceiling. She remembered the first time she’d stood there, taken in by the White House’s impressive grandeur. A memory from another lifetime altogether. If, on that first day—in the midst of all that splendor—she’d had a premonition of her present desperate situation, she would have turned around and walked out the door.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. No tears would come, but her numb, fettered hands were shaking. She filled her lungs with air and concentrated on thinking rationally.

  If she could hop the chair over to Kane’s desk, maybe she could lean over and use her chin to press Wesley’s number on the intercom. Just maybe.

  She laid her weight cautiously forward and began her attempt. If she fell, she was finished. She straightened her legs and succeeded in hopping a quarter of a step forward. She tried again.

  This time her foot caught under an electric cord. Doggie pitched forward and banged her forehead on the edge of the desk. The room began rotating, and she hit her head again on something as she fell to the floor.

  She landed halfway under Kane’s desk with her legs under her and the tendons in her wrists about to snap. The pain was indescribable but she dared not make a sound. Instead she prayed.

  Oh, God, why are you letting this happen? What have I ever done to you? Help me, please help me.

  She kicked with her legs and tried to wriggle into a better position, but it was hopeless. So she prayed some more.

  Then she heard someone come in. Twisting herself around, she could see it was T. Perkins.

  He closed the door after him. “Hey, Doggie, what are you doing? Are you okay?” he asked, pulling her into an upright position. “There was a shot fired over in the West Wing.” For once he sounded definitely agitated. “Sounded like a high caliber. It’s time for us to move—now or never.”

  She could smell his aftershave as he bent over her and unlocked the handcuffs. It was the best smell in the world.

  “Where do we go, Doggie?” he asked. “You’re the one who knows her way around here.”

  “Have you seen Wesley?” she asked instead, massaging her wrists.

  “I’ve seen nothing but gray security agents and black security agents, plus some pretty serious-looking British ones,” Perkins said. “Prime Minister Watts brought plenty of protection; they’re stationed all over the place.”

  “Who was shot? Do you know?”

  “No, but don’t worry about that now. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  But suddenly fear froze her on the spot. Her hand flew to her mouth. What if something had happened to Wesley?

  “Come on, Doggie, let’s go!”

  Yes, D
oggie, come on! her insides screamed. Come on, think! Do something!

  Her eyes flew around the office and came to rest on a suit hanging behind the door. It was definitely on the big side, but T would blend in better if he had it on.

  “Here,” she said, thrusting it towards him. “Take this with you!”

  Next she rummaged feverishly through several of Kane’s desk drawers until she found what she was looking for: two ID badges with the built-in microphones. They lay all the way at the back of a drawer, under stacks of black-and-white portrait photos of people she didn’t recognize but immediately felt sorry for.

  She opened the door cautiously and checked in both directions. The lobby was full of people, all of whom were looking towards the section of the building that housed the Oval Office and the vice president’s office.

  So she pulled T out into the hallway and steered him in the opposite direction, towards her own office. Not that it would be a very good destination at the moment—it was sure to be the first place they’d look for her. No, it was because it was the section farthest away from the fray, with the smallest offices for employees with the lowest status.

  Doggie cast a quick glance into her old office. Her desk appeared untouched, although one of her piles of journals had spilled over onto the floor. Looks like those cases will have to wait, she thought, with some satisfaction. But what difference did it make? What difference had her job ever made, for that matter?

  “Here, T,” she said, opening the door across the hall. It was the office in which two of the wing’s worst magpies exchanged beauty tips and mindless gossip every day while they practiced walking in their new too-high heels. The stench of cheap “exclusive” perfume was still very present, Doggie noticed.

  “These hens deal only with market conditions, so they don’t work on Sundays,” she said quietly. “Lock the door, T, and I’ll try to see if I can get hold of Wesley.”

  She dialed his in-house number and waited. Take it easy, she told herself when there was no answer. There could be any number of reasons. Try again in a couple of minutes.

  “Look at this,” said T, removing a pleated, canary-yellow dress from a closet behind the door. Just the kind of little number one of these bimbos would wear to festivities at the White House. Doggie knew the type. These women were prepared to strike if, one evening, they were lucky enough to be seated next to an eligible career diplomat of the proper vintage, from the right continent.

  “You’re not getting me into that, T,” she said.

  “And you really expect me to climb into this circus tent?” T retorted, holding up Kane’s Armani suit. “Try looking at yourself,” he said, nudging her over towards a full-length mirror inside the closet door. The cheap threads she’d bought that distant morning in the Bronx looked worse than a worn-out, two-piece burlap coal sack. Every crease and wrinkle was caked with an indeterminable substance, her fake black hair hung in greasy clumps, and her complexion was reminiscent of the surface of a neglected toilet.

  She emptied her pockets of the rest of her cash and the militiaman’s two drawings. Then she ordered T to turn his back as she removed her ratty blouse and pants and stuck her head into a little sink in the corner of the office and went to work.

  After the third washing the water in the sink was still gray, so she took a towel and tried to rub the rest of the filth out of her hair and off her face. When she was finished she looked at herself again in the mirror, amazed. If there ever was anyone with rosy cheeks, it was she. She looked like a farm girl, straight out of a Douglas Sirk movie.

  Last of all she pulled the dress on over her head and combed her hair.

  “Wouldn’t you say this was overdoing it a bit, for a Sunday afternoon?” she asked, turning towards T. His eyes appraised her approvingly, then himself, less approvingly. Was he really going to have to wade around inside this Armani suit? It was a sure attention-getter.

  “Overdoing it? No, it’s better—much better. But what are we going to do about me?”

  She quickly hitched up his jacket and bunched the trousers at the back, under his tightened belt.

  “Okay,” she said, “that’s better. But you’re just going to have to live with that huge jacket.”

  He found it helped if he stuck out his chest. Then he, too, emptied his coat pockets—sheriff’s badge, lighter, wallet and change, car keys, and his faithful talisman, the dart—dumping everything into the Armani jacket pockets. It made him look weightier, but not enough, so he took his classic western-style revolver and stuck it in his belt. This did little to enhance the overall impression.

  “Leave that thing, T,” she recommended.

  He looked at her as though she’d shot his horse.

  “If you pull it out around here, they’ll shoot you dead, so just leave it behind.” He put on a pained expression and stuck the gun under a stack of papers.

  “Now we put these on,” said Doggie and handed him an ID badge. “We won’t get far without them.”

  He took the thing, turning it over and over in his hand before pinning it so high on his lapel that no one could avoid noticing it.

  “This is a test,” she said, putting on her own. “To all of you listening in, this is Doggie Rogers speaking. My father is innocent, and that’s why I’m here. The charge they’ve made against me of trying to kill the vice president is total nonsense. The only thing I killed was Sunderland’s self-respect, which, of course, is probably worse than murder. But the son of a bitch deserved it. He’s the one who was behind the killing of Mimi Jansen and the chief justice of the Supreme Court, among others. Sunderland isn’t the man he pretends to be, just so you know. Did all of you hear that?” A smile flashed across her face. Maybe not the smartest thing to do, but it felt good.

  “I’ll try getting hold of Wesley again,” she said, but gave up after his phone rang ten times. This time she was really worried. “What now, T?”

  “While I was waiting for a chance to get you out of Kane’s office I overheard someone saying there was to be a press conference outside, in front of the diplomatic reception room at three twenty. That’s very soon. Do you know where it is?”

  She looked at him. A press conference out on the terrace? “That’s very unusual.” She shook her head. “Thomas Sunderland always used to be against outdoor press conferences. ‘The weather can be unpredictable, and so can the security.’ I’ve heard him say it himself.”

  “And so . . . ?”

  “So we always hold them indoors, even though Jansen hates it. The last time one was held outside was in Richmond during his election campaign.”

  T’s jaw dropped for a moment. “But this time he’s letting it happen. . . . Isn’t that strange?”

  She instinctively remembered the two drawings she’d emptied out of her pocket that were lying on the desk. She picked them up.

  Suddenly both of them could see what the sketches meant. And it wasn’t good at all.

  CHAPTER 42

  Wesley no longer knew who he was or where he was headed. Until a couple of weeks ago everything in his life had been organized according to a formula that he’d always believed would lead him to the top, step-by-step. Now a matter of mere minutes in front of the monitor in Lance Burton’s surveillance room had shown his years of effort to have been to no avail. He had witnessed Sunderland murdering Bugatti, and suddenly the future had lost any structure or meaning. Now there was only one thing left that was certain: If he survived the present catastrophe, his striving-to-reach-the-top days were definitively over.

  There had to be other ways to make a living.

  He watched the screen as Kane’s men carried John Bugatti’s body out of Sunderland’s office. Then he forced himself to switch to the camera in the corridor to see his old friend for the last time as he disappeared down the hall.

  All the people in the hallway just stood and watched—American security, the expre
ssionless British special agents, the diplomats who happened to be passing by.

  He clicked to the camera outside the Oval Office, the door to which was still hermetically sealed, and then on to the camera in the reception room where small groups from the British delegation were standing, talking in hushed voices.

  Then he switched back to Sunderland’s office to see Ben Kane’s back towering over the vice president’s desk.

  Wesley turned up the sound from the ID badge that was still stuck in the sofa. The sound was slightly muffled, but he could hear everything.

  “Barefoot. What’s your take on him?”

  “He didn’t have anything to do with Burton’s little surveillance scheme.”

  “According to who? Burton?”

  “Burton’s been through a pretty robust interrogation. He has too weak a character to make a convincing liar. He would have betrayed Wesley Barefoot long ago.”

  “Good. Then we keep Wesley. He’ll be good to have on our side when this is all over. Now sit down a moment, Kane. We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”

  At this point Kane sat down on the sofa, his huge body ending any chance of hearing the little microphone.

  At least these two sadists don’t suspect me, Wesley thought, without feeling any sense of relief. He could still see John Bugatti’s lifeless body before him, and he couldn’t stop wondering what they’d been putting Lance Burton through.

  He tried fruitlessly to glean some meaning from watching the two men gesticulating on the screen. Then, after about a minute, Kane shifted his body, and some of the sound returned.

  “He still thinks we’re giving him amnesty,” Kane was saying.

  Wesley sat up straight. Who were they talking about now? Was it an exiled politician?

  “Where is he now?” asked Sunderland.

  “Up in Seattle, still suffering from his injuries.”

  “It’s a good thing we kept him alive,” Sunderland said, 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?”