by P. K. Abbot
Mike pulled Burton away from Mueller and pushed him down into his chair.
Burton glared at Ryan and Mueller, and said, “You will have to finish the paperwork on the case tonight. I will be flying the Governor to New Hampshire tomorrow.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Mike said.
“Pete, the Governor wants you on his flight to New Hampshire tomorrow.”
Burton just stared at Mike with a dazed look. The color seemed to drain from his face.
Mike looked at Burton and said, “Pete is the officer who arrested Roshni. The Governor wants to show him off tomorrow at his rally in Exeter.”
Then Mike turned to Mueller and said, “I do not care how you feel about it, Pete. This is something that you must do. It will be dangerous for you not to do it. You will have to fly to New Hampshire with the Governor in the morning.”
Mueller just made an angry, frustrated huffing sound, but Burton seemed genuinely disturbed by Mike’s news.
*****
When Ryan and Mueller left the CSU later that night, Wilson Cooper was on the television. He was reporting breaking news.
“In a stunning upset,” he said, “Governor Jamieson of New Jersey has defeated Senator Thornton of Illinois by a wide margin in the Iowa Caucus.
“Senator Thornton was expected to win easily in his neighboring state of Iowa, but Governor Jamieson’s surprisingly strong victory there may have just ended Senator Thornton’s campaign for the White House. With no significant opposition remaining, Governor Jamieson seems to have wrapped up the Republican Presidential Nomination after the first contest.
“There seems to be a consensus among the participants of the Republican caucus. The overwhelming majority of the participants felt sympathy for Governor Jamieson after his son’s murder. There was backlash against the Iranians for their involvement in the murder, but, most of all, there was admiration for Governor Jamieson. Universally the participants felt that Governor Jamieson handled himself extremely well during these crises. The consensus could be summed up in one sentence.
“Governor Jamieson just seems Presidential.”
Chapter 30
Wednesday, January 6
Mueller had slept in Atlantic City last night. He was in the same hotel where Governor Jamieson was celebrating his victory in the Iowa Caucus. He and Burton were scheduled to fly with the Governor to New Hampshire from the hotel’s helipad this morning.
Burton had told Mueller to meet him at the helipad before 6 AM. When Mueller got there, the helicopter’s engines were already running. It was a beautiful machine, an AgustaWestland AW189, with two turbo shaft engines and a cruising speed of 170 mph. It was painted on the outside as a State Police helicopter, but inside it was luxurious.
Burton was already in the cockpit, running his preflight checklist, but Mueller wanted to avoid him and walked into the passenger compartment. The passenger compartment was large enough to hold fifteen people, but it was configured to accommodate eight in luxury. There were soft leather club chairs and tables, plush carpeting, a liquor bar, and a flat screen television on the rear wall.
Burton’s voice came over the intercom. “Mueller, why are you back there? You are not a guest on this flight. You are just one of the help, boy, like me. Get up here in the cockpit.”
Mueller walked forward and squeezed through the cockpit door. Burton was wearing his communication helmet, and was still working through his checklist.
“Close the cockpit door behind you,” Burton said to him.
“Do you want me to lock it too?”
“No. Not yet.”
Mueller closed the door and then slid into the copilot’s seat. It was a very tight fit. There was no room outside of the seat, and he seemed to be surrounded by scores of meters and instruments.
Burton continued with his checklist, and Mueller sat silently since he still did not want to speak with him. Finally Burton looked at his watch and broke the silence.
“I need you to do something for me right away, Mueller.”
“What?”
Burton handed Mueller his room key and said, “I need you to find my cover in my room and bring it back here.”
“Your cover?” Mueller said. “You’re joking, right? That’s what you want me to find for you? You persecuted me at the Academy because I once misplaced my cover, and now you want me to find yours before the Governor gets here?”
“That is right, Mueller. We are not taking off without it, and I cannot stop my checklist to look for it. You need to find it for me.”
Mueller stared at him for a moment and shook his head in disgust. “Okay,” he said.
“It is somewhere in my room. Do not come back without it. If you cannot find it, call me on my cell phone, but do not come back without it.”
Mueller just grunted. As Mueller was climbing out of his seat, Burton grabbed Mueller’s forearm.
“What,” Mueller said.
Burton extended his hand to him and said, “Thank you, Pete.”
“Yeah,” Mueller replied. Then he grudgingly shook his hand and went out the door.
When Mueller walked into Burton’s room, it looked as if the maid had already made up his room, but she had not. The money that Burton had left for her was still on the nightstand, but the bed had been made, and the used towels were folded and piled neatly on the bathroom vanity.
“For someone who is so ridiculously neat and compulsive”, Mueller thought, “how could he misplace his cover?”
Mueller looked everywhere for Burton’s cover — on the bed, in the closet, in the bath. No cover. He went through every drawer in the hotel room. Still no cover.
Mueller called Burton on his cell phone. Six rings – no answer.
Mueller called him again. Six more rings – still no answer.
Then Mueller heard the helicopter’s engines revving. He looked out the window and mumbled to himself, “Damn him.”
Chapter 31
As soon as Jamie, Black, and Elliot had taken their seats in the helicopter, Burton locked the internal and external doors. He lifted off, flew out over the ocean, and banked toward the northeast, toward New Hampshire. The ocean’s surface was choppy and frigid, but Burton kept the craft low. He was close enough to see ice crystals in the spray from the rotor’s wash.
“Where is Sergeant Mueller?” the Governor asked Burton through the intercom.
“He told me that he intended to leave last night, Governor. He should be waiting for us when we land.”
Burton then turned off the helicopter’s radio, cutting all communication between the helicopter and the ground. Within a few minutes, Burton’s voice came over the intercom again. He sounded grave and authoritative, compelling his passengers to pay attention to him.
“Governor...Gentlemen... Our investigation into Trey’s murder has uncovered new evidence. I would like to share that evidence with you. It is an audio recording, and it was created by one of the participants of the meeting which it records.”
Burton started to play the recording which Ryan and Mueller had taken from Roshni.
In a few moments, Jamie, Black, and Elliot began to realize what was on the recording. All three lost the color from their faces, and they began breathing in rapid, shallow breaths.
Elliott was the first to react. His face hardened and reddened with anger. He had hatred in his gray eyes as he loosened the strap on his holster and started to draw out his pistol.
Elliott’s movement shocked Black out of his own inactivity. Black quickly placed his hand over Elliott’s and forced him to keep his side arm holstered. Black stared at Elliott and raised his open palm to signal him to slow down and to compose himself. “Wait...just wait,” Black said in a hoarse whisper.
Black then turned toward the Governor and could see that Jamie was in distress. Breathing was still difficult for him. His face was still pale, and cold beads of sweat now appeared on his upper lip and forehead. His green eyes stared without focus into the distance. The look in his eyes
was one of confusion and loss. He was bewildered and dazed. Hearing the recording of that meeting had made the Governor physically ill.
Black gently squeezed Jamie’s forearm and waited until Jamie looked into his face. Black held his gaze and said, “I’ll take care of this, Jamie. Don’t worry. It will be alright.”
The Governor nodded at him, and his breathing began to steady.
Black then spoke to Burton through the intercom.
“Captain Burton, we appreciate your bringing this finding to our attention. Since we all know what has been recorded on the rest of it, would you stop playing the recording now? We should begin discussing its implications...for all four of us.”
Burton turned off the recording.
“Captain,” Black continued, “how did you get this recording?”
“Sergeant Mueller took the recording from Roshan Roshni.”
“What do you plan to do with it?”
“Ryan and Mueller were very intent upon arresting all three of you.”
“Why did you say were, Captain Burton?” Black asked.
“Because I stopped them from pursuing you.”
“How did you do that, Captain?”
“I forced them to give Roshni’s recording to me.”
“Are there other copies, Captain Burton?”
“No. This is the only copy.”
“Then is it possible that we can reach an accommodation, Captain?” Black asked.
“An accommodation?”
“Yes,” Black said. “An accommodation… some reason to make this recording disappear.“
“But you committed crimes — serious crimes, Doctor.”
“There was a lot at stake,” Black said. “The Presidency is the most powerful office in the world. If we failed to attain it, Jamie’s legacy would have died. We were justified, Captain.”
“Were you justified in attaining it with blood, Doctor? — even with murder?”
“We did what we needed to do.”
“You are asking a lot from me, Doctor."
“We are asking a lot from you, Captain Burton, but you know that Governor Jamieson will reward you if you can find a way to make that recording disappear. You can name your price, Captain.”
“I expected that you would say that, Doctor. Thank you,” Burton said.
Now Burton addressed the Governor.
“Governor, I felt that you did what you believed you needed to do. Didn’t you, Sir?”
Jamie did not reply. He simply stared at the floor.
“But it was not easy for you, was it, Sir?” Burton said. “I could hear the anguish in your voice on the recording.”
“It was a horrible situation,” Jamie said.
“I can empathize with you as a father. I can understand your disappointment with Trey. His affair with Brandon Rush would have destroyed your campaign and everything that you had accomplished in your life.”
“It was worse than that,” Jamie replied. “He would have destroyed his family over the affair. He would have destroyed the lives of his two little girls.”
“I can understand your anguish, Governor. I am very sorry for you.”
“Thank you, Captain. At least your son did not disappoint you.”
“That is not entirely true, Governor. JR disappointed me as well.”
“But he was a hero.”
Burton thought for a moment and then replied to the Governor.
“JR’s mother died on 9/11 in the collapse of the World Trade Center.”
“I did not know that, Frank. I am very sorry.”
“After his mother’s death, I felt the pressure of being a single parent. I decided to give him the best opportunity that I could. We moved from urban Northern New Jersey to a good school district in suburban Central New Jersey. I also stopped flying helicopters. I took a job with more regular hours. I became an instructor at the State Police Academy and kept that job until JR graduated from high school.”
“You did very well by him,” the Governor said.
“It was mostly JR. I did instill in him a work ethic — a burning desire to succeed — but he responded very well. He excelled in his studies and in sports. He won scholarships to the country’s major universities. His future seemed assured.”
“You must have been extremely proud of him, Frank.”
“I was then — But then he threw it all away.”
“I don’t understand, Frank.”
“As a little boy, JR loved his mother. But then, after her death and as he grew, JR began to put her on a pedestal. He thought of her as a saint. He worshiped her and wanted to honor her memory. I think it was because of his mother’s memory that he drove himself so hard and achieved so much in his studies and in athletics.”
“He was an outstanding young man,” Jamie said.
“But he was an idealist,” Burton replied. “JR did not understand the world as it really exists – he did not know the world as you and I know it, Governor. But you and I know better, Governor, don’t we?”
Jamie did not reply, so Burton continued speaking.
“You and I know that the game is about power – and influence – and perception. You have always been the master of playing this game, Governor, and I truly admire your skill at it. You crafted a narrative to make yourself into that decisive leader– the People’s Champion. Your narrative may take you all the way to the White House this year. It is a masterful story. The narrative may not be true, but that doesn’t matter, does it, Sir?”
Jamie did not reply, but Black laughed rudely and said, “As long as the American people believe that it is true, that is all that matters.”
Burton laughed in return.
“That is what I tried to tell JR,” Burton replied, “but JR wanted to honor his mother’s memory by joining the military. He threw away his chance for a successful and comfortable life. He threw away his life for an ideal which does not exist. I knew that he was wrong, and we argued constantly about it.”
“We cannot make our children live the lies that they should,” Jamie said.
“In the end, I lost out to his mother. I found out that I could not win an argument against a saint. I could not stop JR from honoring his mother’s memory. He gave up everything to honor that memory. He gave his life to honor that memory. JR threw his life away on an ideal.”
“But JR is a hero, Frank.”
“JR is a dead hero, Governor. In the end, his death did not do one damned thing to bolster his mother’s memory, but it destroyed everything that I had to live for.”
The cabin was awkwardly quiet. None of the three men said a word in reply. Then Burton broke the silence.
“But there’s one bothersome thing for me. Mary, my wife, was an innocent victim. She was not a martyr — she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. But JR chose to die for an ideal — an ideal that has been warped and twisted until it no longer resembled what it once was — until it is now only a dream. But JR chose to die for that ideal, even if it is now only a dream, even if it is now just a lie.”
Burton now reached between his seat and his exterior door. He extracted his cover from the space. He stared at the triangular NJSP badge on the front of the hat and thought about its symbolism. The three sides represented the three elements of the state police motto: honor, duty, fidelity.
Then he whispered to himself, “He shouldn’t have died for nothing.”
The men were silent in the cabin. The only sound was the drone of the rotors. Burton looked out over the choppy whitecaps toward the horizon, past a fishing trawler about 2 miles to the northeast.
“You devised a nearly perfect plan, Governor, an incredibly clever plan with only one flaw.”
“What flaw?” Jamie asked.
“You entrusted the fate of your enterprise to someone who has nothing else to lose.”
*****
For the last fifteen minutes the man on the bridge of the Portuguese fishing trawler had been watching the helicopter through his binocula
rs. He had the look of a hard man. A knife scar showed white through the gray stubble on his cheek, and his cold, gray eyes mirrored the threatening, lowering skies.
The helicopter had appeared twenty minutes earlier above the southwest horizon. For that entire time the helicopter seemed to be stationary, hovering only fifty meters above the ocean’s surface.
Now the man watched as the helicopter suddenly climbed to a height of a thousand meters, swiveled, and dove straight down toward the ocean. The helicopter exploded on impact and spewed fire and fuel across the ocean’s surface as it started to sink beneath the waves.
The man on the bridge issued a mayday call and gave his coordinates to the Coast Guard. Then he ordered his helmsman to steer toward the wreck with maximum speed.
Chapter 32
From the hotel’s lobby, Mueller called Mike Kieran to report that Burton had abandoned him at the hotel. As he said goodbye to Mike, Mueller’s eyes were drawn to the television in the hotel’s lobby.
On the television screen, Wilson Cooper’s face appeared above the banner, “BREAKING NEWS.” Cooper looked ashen and very grave as he broke into the network’s normal programming to read his news bulletin.
“Sources at the United States Coast Guard have informed us that the helicopter of New Jersey’s Governor Jamie Jamison has crashed this morning into the Atlantic Ocean. There are no known survivors.
“The Coast Guard reported that they have not yet recovered either the helicopter’s cockpit voice recorder or the instrument recorder.
“The crew of a Portuguese fishing ship, the Boa Sorte, witnessed the crash. The first on the scene, they recovered the body of Governor Jamieson and the bodies of two New Jersey state police officers who were identified as Captain Elliott, the Governor’s driver, and Captain Frank Burton, the helicopter’s pilot.
“Because of the severity of the crash, the Coast Guard is expecting no survivors. The bodies of Doctor Lucien Black and NJSP Sergeant Peter Mueller, who were also on the flight manifest, have not yet been recovered.”