Executive Privilege
Phillip Margolin
New York Times bestselling author Phillip Margolin is back, this time with a powerful tale of murder that snakes its way through Washington, D.C. 's halls of power, leading straight to the White House and the most powerful office on earth.
When private detective Dana Cutler is hired by an attorney with powerful political connections, the assignment seems simple enough: follow a pretty college student named Charlotte Walsh and report on where she goes and whom she sees. But then the unexpected happens. One night, Cutler follows Walsh to a secret meeting with Christopher Farrington, the president of the United States. The following morning, Walsh's dead body shows up and Cutler has to run for her life.
In Oregon, Brad Miller, a junior associate in a huge law firm is working on the appeal of a convicted serial killer. Clarence Little, now on death row, claims he was framed for the murder of a teenager who, at the time of her death, worked for the then governor, Christopher Farrington. Suddenly, a small-time private eye and a fledgling lawyer find themselves in possession of evidence that suggests that someone in the White House is a murderer. Their only problem? Staying alive long enough to prove it.
Executive Privilege, with its nonstop action, unforgettable characters, and edge-of-your-seat suspense, proves once again that Phillip Margolin-whose work has been hailed as "frighteningly plausible" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) and "twisted and brilliant" (Chicago Tribune)-belongs in the top echelon of thriller writers.
Phillip Margolin
Executive Privilege
On January 8, 2007, at 1:40 in the afternoon, Doreen,
my wife for thirty-eight years, passed away.
She was my hero, the personification of class,
and as close to perfect as a human being can be.
Everyone loved her. She lives on in my heart.
Prologue
Brad Miller woke up at 6 A.M. even though his meeting with Roy Kineer, the retired Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was scheduled for nine. He was too nervous to get back to sleep, so he went into the bathroom to get ready for the most important meeting of his life. Under normal circumstances Brad would have been anxious about being in the presence of an intellectual giant. Not so long ago, he had been reading Kineer’s landmark opinions in law school. But it wasn’t Kineer’s stature that made Brad’s hand shake as he shaved. What frightened him was the possibility that he was wrong, that he’d misinterpreted the evidence. And what if he was right?
Brad stared in the mirror at his half-shaved face. Nothing about his average looks or personal history was outstanding. He was twenty-six, with curly black hair, a straight nose, and clear blue eyes-not ugly but certainly not male model material. He was a fair athlete who was good enough to be the second best player on his college tennis team, but his athletic skills had never been championship caliber. Brad had done well enough in law school to make the Law Review, but he hadn’t won any other academic prizes, and he was employed as a junior associate in Oregon ’s largest law firm, which meant that he occupied the lowest rung on a very high ladder. Until today, he had been a fairly insignificant member of the human race. If he was right, he was about to become a key figure in the biggest political scandal in American history.
The sound of running water woke Dana Cutler, who never slept easily. It took her a moment to remember that she was in the FBI safe house and another moment to decide that there was no threat. Brad Miller was in the room next to hers, and he was probably taking a shower. While her breathing eased, Dana lost herself in the shadows that were shifting across the pale white ceiling. When she was calm she got out of bed.
Dana had been sleeping in a T-shirt and panties and she looked sexy until she took off the T-shirt, revealing the scars on her breasts and stomach. Plastic surgery and time had turned most of them into pale, oddly shaped souvenirs of something really bad. While she washed and dressed, Dana turned her thoughts to the meeting she would attend later this morning. She prayed that it would usher in a return to normalcy. She was tired of the violence, tired of being hunted; she longed for calm and quiet days.
Brad finished in the bathroom and dressed in his best suit. Before going downstairs, he pulled the shade aside and looked out the window of the safe house, which was separated from the woods by a wide field. The leaves were changing from green to vivid reds and yellows. The sky was clear, and the colors looked even more intense in the strong sunlight. Below his window, an agent was patrolling the grounds. The guard exhaled and his breath turned white in the chill fall air.
Brad turned away from the window and headed down to the kitchen. He had no appetite, but he knew he had to eat. He would need all of his energy when he met with Justice Kineer, who had come out of retirement to head up the investigation that was occupying the front page of every newspaper in the country. United States presidents had been suspected of sexual infidelities, financial schemes, and criminal activity, but no president had ever been the subject of a murder investigation while serving in office.
Brad didn’t recognize the agent who was making coffee on the kitchen counter. He must have come on duty after Brad went to sleep.
“Want some?” the agent asked, pointing at the pot.
“Yeah, thanks. What is there to eat?”
“There’s a full larder. Take your pick-eggs, bacon, cold cereal.”
Normally Brad was a pancake and omelet man, but he didn’t have much of an appetite this morning so he settled for a bowl of cold cereal and then carried a mug of coffee into the living room. He would have liked to get a breath of fresh air, but Keith Evans, the agent-in-charge, had instructed him and Dana Cutler to stay inside and away from the windows. Brad suddenly felt sick when it dawned on him that he’d made himself a perfect target for a sniper when he’d pulled aside the shade to look outside earlier.
“How’s the coffee?”
Brad turned and saw Dana descending the stairs. She was wearing a business suit, and it threw him. He had never seen her dressed up before.
“It’s good, strong,” he said. “I didn’t sleep so well last night and it’s just what I need.”
“I didn’t get much sleep either.”
“You should have something to eat before we go.”
Dana nodded and walked into the kitchen. Brad watched her. Even though they were on the same side, Dana made him nervous. He had grown up in a nice, middle-class family. Until the Clarence Little case entered his life, he had followed one of the approved middle-class routes through life-college, law school, employment in a good firm with plans for a family of his own and a house in the suburbs. There was no place in this design for acts of extreme violence, the exhumation of corpses, hanging out with serial killers, or trying to bring down the chief executive of the United States of America, things he’d been doing way too much of lately.
Brad heard the guard in the kitchen say good morning to Dana before walking toward the back of the house. Plates rattled on the kitchen table, Dana making something for breakfast. Brad knew for a fact that he wouldn’t be sitting in this house surrounded by armed guards if it weren’t for her. He would probably be in his broom closet-size office working on a memo for one of the partners concerning some minuscule aspect of a multimillion-dollar real estate closing. Of course, some would say that being bored to death was better than being dead for real.
Part One.A Simple Assignment
Washington, D.C.
Two and a Half Months Earlier
Chapter One
Dana Cutler’s cell phone rang moments after Jake Teeny’s pickup disappeared around the corner and seconds after she closed the door of Jake’s house, where she was house-sitting while he was away on an assignment.
> “Cutler?” a raspy voice asked as soon as Dana flipped open the phone.
“What’s up, Andy?” she asked.
Andy Zipay was an ex-cop who’d left the D.C. police force under a cloud a year before Dana had resigned for far different reasons. Dana had been one of the few cops who hadn’t shunned Zipay, and she’d sent business his way when he’d set up shop as a private investigator. Six months after her release from the hospital, Dana had told him that she wouldn’t mind working private if he had some overflow and the jobs were quiet. Zipay gave her assignments when he could, and she appreciated the fact that he had never asked her what had happened at the farm.
“You up for another job for Dale Perry?”
“Perry’s a pig.”
“True, but he liked the last job you did for him and he pays well.”
“What’s the deal?”
“A tail. It sounds like easy money. He needs someone right away and I have a full plate. You in or out?”
Dana’s bank account needed an infusion of cash. She sighed.
“Does he want me to come to his office?”
“No.” Zipay told her where to go.
“You’re kidding?”
It was two in the morning when Dana eased Jake Teeny’s Harley into a parking space in front of a twenty-four-hour pancake joint in suburban Maryland. She was wearing a black leather jacket, a black T-shirt, and tight jeans, an outfit that made her look tough. Even without the Harley and the outfit as props, people would back off instinctively in Dana’s presence. She was a hard twenty-nine, five ten, lean and muscular, and she always seemed on edge. The intensity in her emerald green eyes was intimidating.
Before entering the Pancake House, Dana removed her helmet and shook out her shoulder-length auburn hair. As soon as she stepped through the door, she spotted Dale Perry in the rear of the restaurant. She ignored the hostess and headed to his booth. The lawyer was in his late forties, short, overweight, balding, and working on his third divorce. His fat face reminded Dana of a bulldog, but she was certain that Perry didn’t see what others saw when he looked in the mirror, because he came on to every halfway attractive woman he met. Perry had made a pass at her the last time she’d done a job for him. She’d deflected it deftly and had even dropped hints that she was a lesbian to dissuade him, but that only seemed to create a challenge for the lascivious lawyer.
Dana rarely smiled, but her lips momentarily curled upward in amusement when she considered the spot that Dale Perry had selected for their meeting and the way he was dressed. Perry, a senior partner in a big D.C. firm, was a close friend of the president and very influential behind the scenes in national politics. He was the type who dressed in three-thousand-dollar power suits and conducted business in the bar at the Hay-Adams hotel, where Washington’s power brokers decided the fate of the world while sipping twenty-five-year-old, single malt scotch. Tonight, the lawyer was cradling a chipped mug filled with bad Pancake House coffee and wearing jeans, a Washington Redskins jacket, dark glasses, and a Washington Nationals baseball cap with the brim pulled low.
“Qué pasa?” Dana asked as she slipped into the booth across from Perry and deposited her motorcycle helmet on the cracked vinyl.
“It’s about time,” Perry growled. Dana didn’t react. She was used to Perry pulling rank. He was a macho pig who loved dumping on underlings. Dana didn’t consider herself an underling, but there was no profit in letting Perry know how she felt. She never let her ego get in the way of making a buck.
“So, Mr. Perry, what’s the problem?” Dana asked as she took off her jacket.
A waitress appeared and Dana ordered coffee. When the waitress was out of earshot, the lawyer resumed their conversation. Even though there were no other customers in their vicinity, he lowered his voice and leaned forward.
“Remember that job you did for me last year?”
“Tailing the guy who worked for the senator?”
Perry nodded.
“How’d that work out?” Dana asked.
Perry smiled. “Very nicely. I played him the tape. He threatened to sue, have me arrested, blah, blah, blah. But, in the end, he caved.”
“Glad to hear it worked out.”
“You do good work.”
Now it was Dana’s turn to nod. She did do excellent work. Private investigation suited her. She could stay in the shadows a good part of the time when she was working at jobs that Perry’s firm would never assign to their in-house investigators, and the pay for assignments that weren’t completely kosher was higher than most hourly wages. They were also tax free because she was always paid off the books and in cash.
The waitress returned with Dana’s coffee. When she left, Perry dug into a manila envelope that was lying on the seat next to him. He pushed a color photograph of a young woman across the table.
“Her name is Charlotte Walsh. She’s nineteen, a student at American University. I’ll give you her address and some other information before you leave.”
Dana studied the photograph. The girl was pretty. No, more than pretty. She had a sweet, fresh-faced look, like the good girl in movies about teens in high school, blue eyes, soft blond hair. Dana bet she’d been a cheerleader.
“My client wants her followed everywhere she goes.” Perry handed Dana a cell phone. “The client also wants a running account of everything Walsh does.” Perry slid a piece of notepaper with a phone number across the table. “Leave voice mail messages anytime she makes a move with details about what she’s doing. Pictures, too. You’ll give me everything you’ve got. Don’t keep any copies.”
Dana frowned. “This kid’s just a student?”
“Sophomore studying poli-sci.”
Dana’s brow furrowed. “Who’s the client, her parents, worried about their little girl?”
“You don’t need to know that. Just do your job.”
“Sure, Mr. Perry.”
The lawyer took a thick envelope stuffed with bills off the seat and handed it to Dana.
“Will that do?”
Dana lowered the envelope beneath the tabletop and counted the cash. When she was done, she nodded. Perry handed her the manila envelope from which he’d taken Walsh’s photograph.
“There’s more information about the subject in here. Get rid of everything after you’ve read it.”
“Do you want any reports?” she asked.
“No, just the photographs. I don’t want anything on paper. Keep me out of it unless there’s a problem.”
“Sure thing.” Dana stood up, leaving three-quarters of the coffee in her mug. She put on her jacket, stuffed the money in a pocket, and zipped the pocket shut. Perry didn’t say good-bye.
Dana reviewed the meeting on the ride back to Jake Teeny’s house. The job seemed easy enough, but she knew there was more to this assignment than figuring out how a cute coed spent her days. The money Perry had given her was more than a simple tail merited, and there was no way Perry would want to meet at two in the morning in a bad pancake restaurant in the suburbs if this was an ordinary assignment. If she needed more proof that something was up, Perry hadn’t hit on her. Still, the money was good, and tailing a college kid should be easy. Dana forgot about the job, goosed the Harley, and gave herself over to the ride.
Chapter Two
Charlotte Walsh looked up from the economic report she had been pretending to read and glanced around the campaign headquarters of the Senator Gaylord for President Committee. It was five-thirty and most of the volunteers and employees were either at dinner or headed home, leaving only a skeleton staff. When she was certain that no one was near the office of Reggie Styles, Senator Maureen Gaylord’s campaign coordinator, Walsh took a deep breath and crossed the room. Styles was out of the office at a meeting and the desks near his office were deserted for the moment, but that could change in a heartbeat. The suite was usually filled with noisy volunteers.
The only reason Walsh had the economic report was because it was a thick stack of loose pages. She car
ried the report into Styles’s office. If she was caught, she would say she was leaving it for him. She felt light-headed and a little nauseated. She also felt guilty. She had never meant to be a spy when she volunteered for President Farrington’s reelection campaign, but Chuck Hawkins, the president’s top aide, had asked her to infiltrate Gaylord’s headquarters as a personal favor to the president. There had been a promise of a job at the White House as a reward. And then there had been the private meeting with President Farrington in Chicago.
Walsh swallowed hard as she remembered that midnight meeting in the president’s hotel suite. Then she forced herself to concentrate. She had seen Styles put the spreadsheets for the secret slush fund into the lower right drawer of his desk. Walsh looked over her shoulder. When she was certain no one was looking, she used the key she’d copied and took the five sheets out of the desk. When she’d slipped them randomly between the pages of the economic report she hurried to the copying machine and started feeding the sheaf of papers into it. When the copy was finished she would take it with her after returning the originals of the purloined material to Styles’s desk.
“Working late?”
Charlotte jumped. She’d been so focused she had not heard Tim Moultrie slip up behind her. Moultrie was a junior at Georgetown who was an avid supporter of Senator Gaylord. He also had the hots for Charlotte and had hit on her as soon as she started working as a volunteer. Moultrie wasn’t bad-looking, and he was awfully smart, but he was just a college boy, and boys her age didn’t interest Charlotte anymore.
“Hi, Tim,” she answered, unable to keep a tremor out of her voice.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, laughing. “I guess I just have that effect on women.”
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