by Joseph Flynn
Sweetie thought about that. “I’ve mellowed some lately, but I haven’t taken to wearing lace or letting a friend go unavenged. I guess you’re right. A girl can change only so much.”
McGill said, “Speaking of being protective, where do things stand outside of Shangri-La?”
That being the original name of Camp David.
“I put Leo on the company payroll.”
“Good … and is Deke sulking?”
“No. He’s happy heading up the security detail for Abbie. Says she’s a lot more reasonable than her old man.”
“Ain’t that the truth? Now, Caitie on the other hand …”
Sweetie laughed. “She’d try to subvert her security people first. Then she’d be willful just like you. She seems to be doing okay though with the beefed up number of Evanston cops back home. One of the new guys is a former SEAL What I hear, Caitie thinks the two of them will co-star in a movie someday.”
McGill grinned and asked, “Carolyn and Lars?”
“They’re covered, too.”
“Putnam?”
“I’m going home tonight. He’s holed up in a five-star hideout until then.”
“You’ve got to sleep sometime. I know this guy in France who might be able to lend a hand.”
“He comes with your stamp of approval?”
McGill said, “Highly recommended. He’s one of the guys who helped take down the Undertaker.”
“Okay, we’ll keep him in mind. Meanwhile, everybody’s covered, and we’ll see if we can’t let the FBI catch Damon Todd and his new traveling companions. One of the Feebs’ big guys is waiting for us along with that former CIA shrink, Daryl Cheveyo … and Elspeth Kendry. You’re going to behave, aren’t you, Jim?”
“I’ll be good. I’m in enough trouble as it is.”
They turned around and headed back to Aspen Lodge.
McGill told Sweetie something he wouldn’t even share with Patti for the time being.
“When I saw this one Marine trying to bring this stick down on my head, I thought I can’t let this happen. Not now. Not when it looks like we just pulled Kenny back from the brink. I didn’t want my son and everyone else to lose me. I think that’s why I reacted the way I did.”
Sweetie questioned McGill in a way only she would.
“Did you feel like killing the guy?”
“Yes.”
“Did you have an opening to do it?”
“Yes.”
“So what you did was a measured response. You gave the guy a rap on the knuckles. That’s no more than a nun would have done in the old days.”
McGill smiled. “It’s always a pleasure to talk with you, Margaret.”
“Yeah, I get a lot of that, too.”
Aspen Lodge
By the time Galia Mindel and Stephen Norwood walked in on the president and Kenny McGill they’d already broken their clinch. That only made it easier for Kenny to get to his feet and startle Galia with a hug.
“Thank you,” he said, “for volunteering to help me.”
“You’re welcome, Kenny.”
Galia fought off the first blush she could remember feeling in ages as Kenny let her go, extended a hand to Stephen Norwood and introduced himself. Norwood returned the favor.
“Well, I’ll let you guys get on with making sure the trains don’t go off the tracks. Thanks again, Patti.”
The president, her face radiant with love, watched her stepson leave the room.
“Quite the young man,” Galia said. “All is going well with him?”
Patti nodded and cleared her throat. “Yes, it seems so. Please, Galia, Stephen, have a seat.”
They sat in arm chairs opposite the president. At the moment, the floor belonged to Galia. She and her deputy had made the trip to Camp David only because they had news too important to share by phone.
The White House chief of staff began by assuming responsibility.
“Stephen has informed me I can save myself by throwing him under the bus for what we’re about to tell you, but all the blame, if it comes to that, falls directly upon my shoulders.”
The president looked at Norwood. “Very gracious of you, Stephen.” Looking back to Galia she added, “You’re really getting to be a bit of a drama queen, Galia.”
Norwood muffled a chuckle but said, “This is fairly dramatic stuff, Madam President.”
Patti gestured to Galia to proceed.
“Howard Hurlbert has followed your lead and left the GOP. He’s forming a new party called True South and will run for president as the head of that party.”
It was the president’s turn to stifle a laugh. Seeing that her chief of staff was serious, she dispelled her mirth and said, “The last I heard, Hurlbert was going to challenge me as a Republican before I left the party. What happened? And True South, really?”
Patti was tempted to ask how Galia knew this, but one of the first things she’d learned from her chief of staff was that a degree of deniability for the president was usually a good thing.
If Galia had been asked, she would have told the president that one of her spies was Merilee Parker who had worked as Senator Hurlbert’s press secretary and had been married to Bobby Beckley, the senator’s chief of staff and campaign manager. Merilee had ended her marriage, and her job with Hurlbert, when she got tired of Beckley beating her.
The follow-on Mrs. Beckley, a friend of Merilee, had needed only one beating to knuckle under and become totally subservient, but she was always looking for ways to get even. When Merilee, at Galia’s behest, offered money to know what Beckley and Hurlbert were up to, the new battered wife jumped at it.
“What happened, Madam President, was that RNC Chairman Reynard Dix and House Majority Leader Peter Profitt decided the wisest choice for their party would be to draft a candidate for president who was not Senator Hurlbert.”
“And who might —” A thought hit the president with a jolt. “No, not Mather.”
Galia nodded. “Who better, really? After you left, the vice president is the senior official in the Republican Party. He put down Burke Godfrey’s insurrection quickly. His favorability rating is ten points higher than yours. It’s just a bounce, but no one else in the GOP comes close.”
But Mather had told her he was going to leave the White House, Patti thought. He was going to run for a seat in the House from Ohio. And he’d told her he was —
“There’s more, Madam President. We have reason to believe the vice president is actively considering the idea. Senator Daniel Crockett walked out of Hurlbert’s True South meeting, ridiculing the idea, but shortly after that he called the White House and left a message for Mather Wyman, saying if the acting president was considering the draft proposal the senator would be happy to keep him informed of further developments of which he might otherwise be uninformed.”
“He’s angling to join Wyman on the ticket,” Norwood said. “That would give the GOP a nice north-south balance.”
The president had to agree with that, thinking that Edwina Byington, God love her, must have shared Crockett’s message with Galia.
“Stephen will cover the next point, Madam President, and if it’s all right with you, I think Stephen would make an excellent manager for your coming campaign. I would be available to advise him on strategy and tactics, and I’d be watching your opponents and countering any of their less than ethical attacks.”
The president assessed that idea, looking at the deputy chief of staff.
“Very well,” she said.
Norwood nodded in appreciation and said, “Considering the new dynamic of Senator Hurlbert becoming a third-party candidate, Galia and I thought it might be better for you to run as a Democrat rather than as another candidate outside the two-party structure. But we’ve wondered if the Dems are getting cold feet about you given your health situation.”
“I would, if I were them,” Patti said.
“You can bet Roger Michaelson is laughing somewhere,” Galia added.
“Ye
s, I imagine he is,” Patti agreed in a flat voice.
Norwood continued, “What we thought we should do then is give the Democrats reason to worry. To that end, with an embargo date, I offered a tidbit to a reporter I know on the Washington Post that you’ll be running as a self-financed independent candidate.”
Galia said, “Not only will that make the Dems anxious, it will lay the foundation for an independent run if that would suit you better.”
With a straight face, the president asked, “You think it’s too late for me to make amends with the GOP and head off my vice president?”
Norwood, relatively young, took the question as being serious.
Galia just smiled and said, “Probably is.”
Patti nodded. “The leak was a good move. Credit to both of you. No blame at all.”
Galia asked, “Do you agree that the Democrats would be the best vehicle for your candidacy?”
“Only if they move fast. I won’t wait long once I’m back in the Oval Office.”
Galia continued the list of revelations by telling the president of her scheme to reorder the primary election system, displacing the importance of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, and putting New York, Illinois and California at the top of the list.
Patti said, “Everyone else is going to jump in the pool, too. We’ll have a national primary.”
Norwood said, “At that point, we can suggest counterbalanced regional contests, bundle groups of states so all points of the compass and the political spectrum are represented on any given Tuesday.”
The president laughed. “I get the feeling the two of you enjoy your work.”
Galia said, “We like to keep busy.”
Patti said, “So much of what we’ve discussed depends on two things: when I return to Washington and what Acting President Wyman decides to do.”
Galia and Norwood looked at the president.
She’d have to be the one to answer the first question.
Patti let her eyes close. She consciously slowed her breathing. Let her muscles relax.
Given everything they had just discussed, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect she might be a bit keyed up. But she didn’t feel her heart racing. Didn’t hear her pulse pounding. On the contrary, she felt at peace.
Remembered Kenny McGill’s whispered profession of love.
Was sure she could run again and not forget what was truly important.
She opened her eyes and told Galia and Norwood, “I’ll be back sooner rather than later. I’ll ease back into things. Work a Ronald Reagan schedule: early to bed, late to work and a nap in between. Limit my direct participation to a handful of the most important matters.”
Galia wanted to leap to her feet and clap.
She contented herself by merely smiling.
“You know how we’ll see what the vice president’s plans are?” Galia asked.
“Of course,” the president said, “he won’t take the risk of nominating anyone to the Supreme Court, but he’ll let it be known who his choices would be if he were elected president.”
“That’ll be the race’s starting gun,” Norwood agreed.
Camp David — Laurel Lodge
Laurel Lodge had a conference room, so that was where McGill and Sweetie met with Daryl Cheveyo, Elspeth Kendry and FBI Deputy Director Byron DeWitt. McGill, being courteous, let his guests enter the room first, and saw that was a mistake. The others arranged themselves two to a side and left the seat at the head of the table open for him. He gave Sweetie a dirty look as he passed her.
She replied with a smirk.
As long as he was occupying the position of power, McGill felt it acceptable to mention his wife. “The president told me she would have the CIA make available to us complete histories of the two former CIA agents, Olin Anderson and Arn Crosby, who escaped with Damon Todd.”
“I have them, Mr. McGill, SAC Crogher forwarded them to me,” DeWitt said. He put the briefcase he’d brought with him on the table. “I had copies made for everyone.”
The willingness of an FBI poobah to share with others, including former local cops, had been a concern for McGill. But DeWitt handed out the copies with an air of geniality. He was the most laid back feeb McGill had ever seen. Even his haircut looked relaxed, and he had a tan.
McGill just had to know.
“Mr. DeWitt, any chance you might be from California?”
The deputy director smiled. He teeth could have starred on the silver screen.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Pretty much,” McGill said.
Sweetie said, “Or he comes from South Boston with a great sense of misdirection.”
“Now, there’s a flexible thinker,” DeWitt said. “But I was born in Montecito and went to college at UCSB. The thing most people overlook about me is I’m Chinese.”
“One of those rare blue-eyed blonde Chinese,” Elspeth observed.
“Our numbers are few,” DeWitt admitted. “It was a matter of adoption. Not that I was taken in by another family. I adopted Chinese culture to a larger extent than most Westerners. That was after my father volunteered our guest house to a visiting professor from Shanghai University; Dad taught political science at UCSB.”
Cheveyo asked, “The visitor decided to stay in the U.S.?”
DeWitt nodded. “After the Tienanmen Square massacre, he and his family requested political asylum and got it. My dad insisted Professor Chen and his wife and two sons continue to live as our guests, rent free, as long as they liked. The Chens insisted we be willing recipients of their hospitality for an equal period. As a result, I spent my formative years learning to eat, speak, read and to some degree think Chinese.”
“So you bring several useful skills to your job,” McGill said.
DeWitt bowed his head in modesty. Another thing not often found in the FBI.
“I try,” he said.
With that, everyone turned to reading the files on Anderson and Crosby.
The two men had been extraction specialists or as they’d described themselves kidnappers who had the consent of the abducted. They didn’t snatch people from their families, they took high value individuals from governments who hated to see them go. Shortly before the CIA ended their careers there was a joke going around the agency that Anderson and Crosby were going to make off with the entire roster of the Cuban national baseball team.
Then hold a bidding war and sell the players to major league teams.
Or wholesale the lot of them to the New York Yankees.
Bringing oppressed people with useful skills to the land of milk and honey had a long and honored history in American espionage. The problem was that Anderson and Crosby didn’t go about things in the prescribed way. Instead of leading their would-be émigrés out of bondage by stealth, guile and, only if necessary, force, they hit upon the idea of assassinating a high official in the national security apparatus of the country in question while casting blame on local malefactors.
While the bad guys were distracted by chasing one another and blowing each other to bits, Anderson and Crosby would waltz off with the man or woman they were sent to liberate. They’d worked their dark magic from the Balkans to Burma. Each time, they were warned not to do it again. The blowback would be unacceptable if they were ever caught.
Both men had sworn they’d blow themselves to bits before they’d ever be taken prisoner. That kind of talk only worried their superiors more. Asked if they, too, thought they’d get a party boat filled with booze and virgins after their earthly demise, Anderson said, “Nah, all we expect to get is one last laugh.”
Without much debate, it was decided Anderson and Crosby had gone far around the bend. It was only with meticulous planning and flawless execution that they’d been taken alive. They were committed to the CIA’s psychiatric facility. Their term of treatment was listed as indefinite.
One by one, the people around the table finished reading.
McGill asked, “Thoughts?”
; Cheveyo offered one that hadn’t occurred to anyone else. “Anderson is a Swedish name. Crosby can be either Norse or Teutonic. It’s Northern European at any rate. I read about these guys and one word popped into my mind: Berserker.”
Sweetie said, “That’s a new one to me. Does it come from mythology?”
Cheveyo said, “No, berserkers were quite real. Historically noted. They were the most feared of the Norse warriors. They fought like madmen. Once engaged in battle, they were uncontrollable. Some contemporary reports say they worked themselves into a rage before the battle; others say they used folk medicine, what we’d call drugs, to induce their ferocity. They wore wolf pelts and carried spears.”
“An edged weapon,” McGill said. “Like a knife. Their dossiers say they liked to start the trouble they caused by slitting someone’s throat.”
“Or taking off the occasional head,” Elspeth added. “That might be the work of a big knife with some heft to it. Then again it could be a short sword or an axe.”
DeWitt leafed though his copy.
He said, “Sharp steel does seem to be their preference, but there are a couple of long-range rifle shots in here. That would indicate some degree of calculation in how they approach their work, and proficiency in modern weapons.”
Sweetie said, “So they’ll do what’s necessary, but their fun comes from close-up work.”
Cheveyo nodded. “My surmise is they not only like it, they probably need it. Whatever forces shaped them as young men might have built deep wells of anger and resentment within them. The only way to relieve that hostility is by venting it upon others.”
“By ventilating others,” Elspeth said. “A pair of charmers, these guys. But if they bring knives to a gunfight, maybe they’re not so smart after all.”
McGill said, “At close quarters, a knife can sometimes strike faster than a gun.”
DeWitt added, “Dr. Cheveyo mentioned berserkers used spears. They can be lethal at greater distances than a knife. Again, it’s a matter of who can strike first, whatever the weapon in hand might be.”
Remembering how her last debate with McGill had ended, Elspeth said, “I’ll take your word for it, Mr. Deputy Director.”