Final Finesse

by Karna Small Bodman

  He pointed to a paragraph on the page. “At least it’s not a done deal yet. They say that Victor still has more meetings coming up. I mean, Victor Aguilar is the president of our operations for all of South America. You’d think he could handle this.”

  “You’d think. But he wasn’t able to handle the last round of confiscations, now was he?”

  Tripp sighed. “You’re right. But let’s just hope he can stave this off for a while. We’ve got too many other things on our plate right now.”

  “I know,” Godfrey said. “The new energy exploration bill, the gas line explosion, the White House situation. Then again, sounds like you might want to spend a little more time on that particular situation.”

  Tripp looked up and cocked his head. “Yeah. I just might.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MEXICAN BORDER–MONDAY NIGHT

  The Mexican farmer trembled as he faced the Zeta member holding a submachine gun. “Silver or lead, Amigo?” the man demanded. The farmer stared down at his torn jeans and nervously twisted the bandana in his hands.

  “I said silver or lead.” The imposing man repeated. Then he softened his tone and lowered his weapon. “Come now, you know the rules here. Work for me, and you get silver.”

  “And if I don’t?” the farmer whispered in a halting voice.

  “Then we kill your family. That’s the lead, my friend. And you do want to be my friend, don’t you?”

  The farmer wiped some dust off his forehead with the back of his hand and asked. “What do I have to do?”

  “You know what goes down here. We need mules. Mules like you to help the coyotes get our people across the border.

  “But it’s not just people,” the farmer said.

  “Of course not. We are businessmen. Now you will be a businessman as well. I’m here to tell you that we have a convoy coming through here soon. Probably tomorrow night. You will go ahead, and be a look out. We will give you a gun and ammunition.”

  “But the border patrol. We all know they are there. We know they have people from their government, from their FBI and ICE and all the others. You cannot get through.”

  The agent laughed. “Don’t believe those stories. They haven’t extended that stupid wall yet. We have secured the Falcon Reservoir south of Laredo. It’s turning out to be one of our best crossings.”

  “But that’s where the firefight was. People were killed.”

  The agent shrugged. “That was a fight between two of our paramilitary groups.”

  “Our groups?” the farmer asked, wide-eyed.

  “The Mexican Army fought with the Mexican Navy over control of the northeast shoreline. So it got a little bit out of control. We worked that out. Believe me, the Americanos were not even there.”

  “Who is coming here tomorrow?” the farmer asked.

  “Now that you are with us … and you are with us, right?”

  The farmer slowly nodded.

  “Then I will tell you. MS-13 from El Salvador is working with us. We have a special cargo and some special people. This will be the last leg for the cargo. We brought it up on a submarine from Colombia.”

  “Colombia? So far away?” the farmer said.

  “Our operations extend a long way, my friend. We have an endless supply, but we need more people. People like you.” He tossed the farmer a small wallet and retrieved a pistol from his knapsack. He also took out a small supply of ammunition. Handing all of it over he said, “Here is money for your family. Head toward the border and by tomorrow night, if you see any of the patrol, you fire two warning shots.”

  “But then they will know I am there.”

  “Just stay on this side of the border. They won’t follow you. Don’t worry. We have many more mules all along the way.”

  “But my cousin at the next farm. They recruited him too, and he was killed last week. He left a family. Many babies. I have babies too.”

  “There are lots of risks in life, but like I said, you want silver or lead?”

  The farmer opened the wallet, counted the pesos and murmured, “Silver. Si.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE WHITE HOUSE–TUESDAY MORNING

  “Excuse me, Samantha. Call for you on line two,” Joan said. “It’s Mr. Princeton.”

  Samantha took a deep breath before she picked up the phone. He was calling. Maybe he had new information from his company on the pipeline situation. She hoped it would turn out to be some sort of maintenance screw-up.

  With all the other problems they were facing now, to say nothing about trying to implement the latest HSPD as the new Homeland Security presidential directives were called, she had enough to worry about without adding an energy issue to their list. The tips seemed to be proliferating like kudzu and they dealt with possible threats to dams, transportation, mass transit, the energy grid, emergency services and pipelines. This new HSPD was number twenty-four. She pushed it aside and took the call.

  “Samantha Reid.”

  “Good morning. Tripp Adams. Thought I’d check in with you.”

  “Nice to hear from you. Anything new on the pipeline in Oklahoma?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, among other things.”

  “Other things?” she asked.

  “Yes. Seems that there’s a lot going on, and now that the snow has stopped and the roads are being cleared, I wonder if you might be able to break away so we could get together?”

  “Again?”

  “I didn’t mean another White House meeting. I was thinking, well, I’ve got a chock-a-block day going here, and I’m sure you’re busy too …”

  “Always,” she replied. “So what did you have in mind?”

  “Any chance we could grab a bite later today?” he asked.

  “You mean lunch?”

  “No. I was thinking dinner somewhere. I mean, if you can get away. It could be a late supper if you’re tied up.”

  “Uh, dinner? To talk about the pipeline?” she asked cautiously.

  “Sure. That and a few other things we’ve got going here. I’ll fill you in later. Then again I thought maybe we could catch up a bit on the old days,” he suggested.

  “Catch up? Oh, you mean about Princeton?”

  “Sure. Do you think you can get away? I could meet you some place. Or I could pick you up? Where do you live?”

  This was rather sudden, she thought. Here she had just met the guy, and he was already asking her for dinner. Was it a business meeting or was it a dinner date? Then again, they had some sort of history from college days. She had to give him that much.

  She hesitated. It had been so long since she’d accepted a dinner date with anyone. Several friends had arranged group dinners, trying to introduce her to various guys from the Hill who all looked like they were poster boys for the Hair Club for men.

  Then there was the guy whose only ambition was to be on the Olympic luge team. Since she wasn’t really into toboggans, that didn’t go too well. She hadn’t been out alone with anyone since Dexter. It had always just been too hard to airbrush him out of her memory. But Tripp? Talk about issues? Princeton? Why not?

  She twirling the telephone cord around her finger and answered. “I live in Georgetown, near Key Bridge, but I could meet you somewhere.”

  “Hey, that’s handy. I’m just across the bridge in Arlington. So, let me think. How about Chadwick’s around 8:00? Would that work for you?”

  “Uh, sure. I guess so. That’s right down the street, I can walk from my place.”

  “Oh, there’s my other line. Gotta run. See you at eight.”

  Tripp pushed through the wooden doors with beveled glass panels leading to Chadwick’s, a restaurant at the foot of K Street that had been popular with the Georgetown set for the last forty years. The Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” was playing on the juke box. When he heard the line, “It’s a gas,” he thought about his own gas line problem. Can’t seem to escape that one.

  He found a stool at the long bar,
crowded with a horde of thirty-something’s, and glanced over at the action on the TV screens next to the mirrors on the back wall. He waved to the bartender and ordered a Sam Adams.

  Tripp looked at his watch. Not quite eight o’clock. He figured Samantha might be late. Most women he knew were late. Then again, most women he knew weren’t much like Samantha Reid.

  He thought about their short meeting the day before and realized that he’d been thinking about her off and on for the last twenty-four hours. And that was weird. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had so captured his imagination that he had to conjure up an excuse to see her.

  Other women usually called him, and he often made excuses that he had to work late just to avoid the pushier ones. But this one was different. At least she seemed different. He couldn’t be sure.

  Their meeting had been awfully short. Yet, there was something about her. Some combination of smarts and curiosity. All-business yet all-woman. He liked that. And besides, it wouldn’t hurt to have an ally in the White House, if that’s what she turned out to be. He was new to this job, though he wasn’t new to the city.

  He had grown up in Potomac, Maryland, and gone to St. Albans prep school in the District, the elite school that shared the highest point in the city with the National Cathedral. It was the place where senators and diplomats, businessmen and lobbyists sent their sons, if they could get in. He had played football with kids from Jordan and studied Spanish with boys from Argentina.

  His parents still had a place in the area, but spent most of their time in Naples, Florida. He thought about the beaches down there and imagined lying on the warm sand with Samantha next to him. But there was no chance he was going to get away to Florida any time soon, unless it was on the way back from a trip to Venezuela. And even if he pulled that off, he knew he wouldn’t have a busy lady like Samantha with him. Somehow the thought made him wistful.

  He felt a blast of cold air and swiveled around to see the woman in his imagination ducking through the doors, pushing strands of windblown hair out of her eyes. There was that hair again. Damn she looks good. If she looked any better, she’d need a body guard. He jumped up and went over to her.

  “Glad you could make it. You’re right on time.”

  “I try to be,” she said demurely, shedding her coat and hanging it on a rack by the door. “Do we have a table?”

  “I made a reservation just in case. We’re upstairs.” He reached into his pocket for his wallet and pulled out a dollar bill. “But first, I think I’ll feed the juke box. Any favorites?”

  She smiled and said, “That’s one of the great things about this place. They’ve got all kinds of music.”

  “So what do you like?” He asked, walking over to the juke box.

  “Country. She glanced down at the list and pointed. “How about ‘Boot Scootin’ Boogie?’ I love that old one.”

  He shoved the dollar into the machine, punched some numbers and took her arm. “You got it. Twice.”

  They climbed the open staircase to the left of the bar and took their place at a small table with blue and white checkered tablecloths. He pulled out her chair and noticed the lithographs on the wall, colored scenes of old Washington homes along the canal and ancient schooners on the Potomac. They looked a little bit like some of the prints his father had in his study.

  A waiter handed out menus and offered to take their drink orders. “A glass of pinot noir, please,” Samantha said.

  “I’ll have another Sam Adams, thanks,” Tripp added and opened the menu. “So, since this is your neighborhood, what do you suggest?”

  “They’re kind of famous for their ribs, if you don’t mind getting rather messy when you eat them,” she said with a smile.

  That smile, he thought. I always like a woman with a great smile. “Ribs? Maybe. Let’s see. Instead, I think I’ll go for the New York strip.”

  “I’ll try the shrimp pesto tonight.” She laid her menu aside, leaned her elbows on the table and laced her fingers together. “So, tell me the latest from the world of GeoGlobal. Most of the papers had stories about the trouble caused by the ice storm, the power outages and how it was all made a lot worse by the gas line break.I did see one story about how your company sent down generators and supplies. That was a good move because the Washington Post had pictures of tiny babies being carried out of hospitals and people crowding into some grange hall with a big fireplace. In fact, now that I think about it, there were major stories in all the papers, although I only saw a couple of lines in USA Today.”

  “USA Today? Summarizing seems to be their specialty. Maybe there should be a Pulitzer Prize for best investigative paragraph.”

  Samantha laughed. “You’ve got that one pegged. But really, the whole thing is causing major headaches down south. Is there anything new on how it all happened?”

  The voices of Brooks and Dunn began to drift up from the bar as Tripp leaned forward to answer the lady.

  He told her everything he knew about the gas line problem, which wasn’t much. He then talked about the situation in Venezuela, the nationalizations and the possibility of a trip to Caracas to negotiate with their government’s energy officials. Samantha seemed to know a lot about Venezuela. She mentioned the Orinoco fields and how the Russians were moving in to take a lead on their development.

  The waiter brought their drinks and took their dinner order. Samantha continued to listen to Tripp talk about his company. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him, and she liked the way he made eye contact with her. He obviously wasn’t one of those guys who talks with one person while trying to scan the room at the same time for somebody more important or more attractive. No. She had Tripp’s full attention, and for the first time in a long time she wanted to revel in it.

  But he said that he might be going out of town soon. “You mean, you might have to go to Caracas? It’s dangerous down there. Besides, Christmas is coming. You don’t want to be traveling now, do you?” she said in a more lamentable tone than she’d meant to reveal.

  He shrugged. “We’ve got the president of our South American operations making another stab at this whole issue. So I won’t know for a while. But hey, let’s talk about something more pleasant than a damn dictator. I’d like to hear something about Samantha Reid. How did you go from a Princeton geology class to the White House staff?”

  “It’s kind of a long story,” she said, taking a sip of her wine.

  “Okay, so who’s in a hurry? After I left Princeton, you graduated three years later, right?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Not quite? What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I went back to Houston for a while.”

  “Houston? That’s where you’re from?”

  “Uh huh. My dad’s in the oil and gas business.”

  “Like father like daughter.”

  “Yes. But, as I said, I had to take some time off.”

  “Why?”

  Raising her eyes, her expression turned somber. “My mom got sick. Cancer.”

  “Oh Lord! What happened?”

  “I went home to be with her and take care of my younger brother who was still in high school back then,” Samantha said.

  “So you went home. For how long?”

  “I stayed a year, until she died.”

  He reached over and touched her hand. “Samantha, I’m so sorry.”

  “It was a pretty rough time for all of us.” She took another sip of her wine and settled back in her chair. “Then again, that was a long time ago. We pulled together, my dad, my brother, and I. You know how it is. Family gets closer at times like that.”

  He nodded and continued to stare into her eyes.

  “After that year, my brother graduated from high school and went off to Purdue to study engineering, and I went back to Princeton to finish up. I hated to leave my dad, but he insisted I get my degree.”

  “How’s he doing now?”

  “He’s fine. Still living in Houston. Still working too har
d. I keep hoping he’ll meet somebody nice.”

  “Sometimes it happens, you know,” Tripp said.

  Samantha gazed up at him. What’s really going on here? She wondered. A picture of Dexter invaded her mind’s eye. It happened from time to time, though the instances were getting farther and farther apart. She struggled with the image for a moment and tried to refocus on the conversation. “So anyway, after I left Princeton, I got a job with a consulting firm working on energy issues. Then Greg Barnes hired me to come into the government.”

  “When he was assistant secretary of energy?”

  “Yes. And then when he got the White House appointment, he asked me to come along. So there I am. Chief cook and bottle washer for Mr. Barnes.”

  “I’d hardly classify your position that way.”

  “Maybe not, but I do feel like we’re in hot water all the time.”

  The waiter hurried up to their table, put Tripp’s steak and Samantha’s shrimp at their places and asked if they’d like another drink.

  “Another Pinot?” Tripp asked.

  “Sure.”

  “And I’ll switch to a glass of cabernet, thanks.” Tripp turned back to Samantha. Now then, where were we?”

  “I was talking about taking the job at the White House, but I can’t really talk about what goes on in our shop.”

  “Everything’s classified, right?”

  “More or less. So let me turn the tables and ask how you got from Princeton to GeoGlobal? Come to think of it, I thought I remember hearing that you were heading out to join the Navy or the Air Force.”

  “You’ve got a good memory. I was hell bent to get on board a ship and get out of town. I went through a lot of training.”

  “What kind of training?” Samantha asked. “I mean specifically.”

  “Nuclear power, submarines, explosives.”

  “That’s pretty heavy stuff.”

  “Tough, but I loved it,” he said.

  “Then what?”

  “I was recruited by Greyfield.”

  “The government contractor?”

  “Yes. We did get a lot of government contracts as well as commercial work for all sorts of companies around the world. I found myself on an oil rig at one point, checking their security, possible explosives, that sort of thing. That’s when I got to know the GeoGlobal people. They made a pretty good offer so I took it and did a bunch of assignments for them. Then one day, when they had a big labor dispute, I ended up defusing it. To use a term. I was able to negotiate an agreement. Guess they figured I was a better negotiator than trouble shooter. So here I am. Vice president of the company.”