by Stephen Frey
Dorn caught his breath.
“Maddux is a member of Red—”
“I know who Shane Maddux is.” Baxter seemed shocked by the revelation, which Dorn enjoyed tremendously.
“You do, sir?”
“He was a member of Red Cell Seven,” Dorn said. “But he defected after he was told by Roger Carlson that I intended to obliterate the cell. He’s a man on the run.”
“Well, that’s true, but there’s more to the story than—”
“Maddux was behind the attempt to assassinate me,” Dorn continued. “He didn’t actually pull the trigger. He had one of his subordinates do that. The kid’s a sniper specialist named—”
“Ryan O’Hara.” It was Baxter’s turn to interrupt, to show what he knew and confirm his credibility. “Maddux told me that, too.”
The president stared at his chief of staff for several moments, wondering who to trust, how much to trust, and when to open up. As he gazed at Baxter, he made his decision. He had to trust someone. It was one of the worst parts about being president. Having to work with Congress was a bitch, too.
“Stewart, I want to destroy Red Cell Seven. Even in the face of what’s going on in this country right now with these terrible death squad attacks, I want to burn RCS to the ground and scatter its ashes to the wind. I don’t care what they’ve done to save this country in the past, and I don’t care how valuable they could be in the future. We cannot call ourselves a great society or a true democracy when we allow a small group of men to live among us who can operate outside our laws and follow their own creed. When we do, they take advantage of it. And I don’t care about some goddamn Executive Order that Richard Nixon signed forty years ago as he was going clinically insane thanks to Watergate. Do you understand me?”
“Absolutely, sir.” Baxter could barely control his smile. Much wider and it would seem unprofessional.
“I’ve been playing Bill Jensen for the last few weeks.”
Baxter exhaled a heavy sigh of relief. “Thank God.” His smile inched even closer to unprofessional. It was teetering on the edge now. “You should get an Oscar for your performance, sir, and I’ll be happy to contact the Academy on your behalf. Let me tell you, I was worried there for a while that you’d actually switched colors and gone to the other—”
“And you were exactly right, up on the third floor of the residence the other day,” Dorn broke in. “They did miss this one. They didn’t short-circuit the mall attacks. They didn’t ID the death squads ahead of time. That’s exactly what they’re supposed to do, and they didn’t.”
“No, they did not.”
The president’s expression turned steely. “Or worse, they intentionally missed it. They ignored it.”
“Sir?”
“They wanted it to happen, they let it happen. They knew about it ahead of time, and they did nothing to stop it because they want more-invasive and aggressive investigative powers over the civilian population. They want Congress to roll over and play dead when U.S. intel inevitably demands greater surveillance flexibility as a result of the Holiday Mall Attacks. At the heart of it, they want unlimited powers to spy on anyone, civilian or otherwise. I wouldn’t be surprised if some very senior people at CIA and NSA were involved in this thing.”
“Jesus,” Baxter whispered.
“Either way, whether they knew ahead of time or not, Red Cell Seven is directly to blame for the bloodshed this country has suffered over the past few days. It’s just another in a long line of reasons to take them down.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dorn gritted his teeth hard. “On top of all that, it’s personal for me, Stewart.”
“How could it not be?” Baxter agreed.
“I will destroy the people who tried to kill me. And I will bring them to justice.”
“As you should, sir.”
“Which presents us with a problem.”
“Maybe not as much of one as you think, Mr. President.”
“What do you mean?”
“Shane Maddux is a friend,” Baxter spoke up, anticipating what his president was about to say. “But first and foremost he is a confidant.”
The president’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand why he’d indict himself to you, why he’d admit his guilt, even if he is a friend and a confidant and believed you would keep his secrets.”
“He claimed killing you was simply an order that came from above. He was only doing what he was told to do in his capacity as the leader of a Red Cell Seven division. He doesn’t look at himself in the mirror as being guilty of anything. He was only being loyal to the chain of command, as he took an oath to always be, long ago.”
Dorn shook his head. “He’s one of them. He can’t be trusted.”
Baxter nodded. “Maybe not, but he can be used.”
“Spin that out for me.”
“Shane Maddux is in no-man’s-land right now, Mr. President, and that’s a horrible place to be. He’s vulnerable, and he’s not accustomed to being in this position. We can take advantage of his weakness.”
“How?”
“Maddux’s defection from Red Cell Seven was cover. Roger Carlson and Bill Jensen believed that Red Cell Seven could not be seen in any way as endorsing the assassination of a United States president. They were worried, and rightfully so, that rank-and-file RCS agents would not accept a course of action that was so drastic and blatantly unpatriotic. They were worried that it could lead to massive defections. So they gave Maddux the go-ahead to create his defection story, whisper it out to some people, as they did from the top as well. And they gave him authority to recruit a limited number of agents to help him.
“Then Carlson died, and Jensen saw his opportunity when Maddux lost his mentor and protector. Jensen turned on Maddux. He ordered Maddux’s execution so he could absolutely distance Red Cell Seven from anything Maddux had done, especially after the assassination attempt failed. In the last few weeks he has subtly convinced the rank and file that Maddux is truly a defector of his own doing. And that the man must be taken out if RCS is to maintain its sterling reputation among the few senior intel people in this country who know about it.”
“That’s why he begged me for more time to find Maddux,” Dorn whispered.
“What, sir?”
“Bill told me that Maddux was responsible for the assassination. He’d blamed it totally on the guy, of course. Said he was rogue, operating completely on his own. I told Bill I couldn’t allow the FBI to continue searching blindly for my assassin. It was too much wasted time and money, and besides, the country needed to know who’d shot their president and that the assassin would be punished. I told Bill that very soon I’d have to put the FBI onto Maddux, anonymously, of course.”
“Of course.”
“That’s when he begged me for time. We had that discussion when we were up in the residence.”
“Interesting.”
“Bill did not want me putting the FBI onto Maddux. He was very firm on that. He told me he wanted to find Maddux and deal with the man himself. He claimed he was afraid Maddux might try to cut a deal with the authorities if he was apprehended. He claimed Maddux would spill everything he knew about Red Cell Seven to try and get leniency.”
“Sir, I believe that was simply an expertly crafted cover story. A story Bill put forward to mask a hidden agenda, Mr. President.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bill Jensen had a more personal reason for finding and dealing with Shane Maddux himself, another reason that was literally much closer to home for him.”
“Which was?”
Baxter grinned smugly. “Do you remember when I asked Bill about Rita Hayes the other day?”
“Of course. He was sitting right where you are now.”
“He got animated, very upset.”
The president nodded. “Yes, he did.
I remember that.”
“Rita Hayes was his longtime executive assistant at First Manhattan. She’s an attractive woman.”
Dorn’s eyes widened. The code was clear. He understood immediately why Baxter had used the word attractive. “Bill was having an affair with her.”
“That’s right,” Baxter confirmed. “And Maddux knew about it. He had a video she’d secretly recorded of Bill and her having sex. You see, Rita Hayes was working for Shane Maddux. Maddux was afraid all along that Bill wasn’t loyal to him, so he did something about it. He recruited Rita to be his eyes and ears at First Manhattan. Now Maddux is convinced Bill knows he has the video. Maddux believes Rita might have told him about it if he’d threatened her, and Bill is desperate to eliminate any possibility of the affair coming to light.”
“For obvious reasons, Bill wants to make certain that tape is never played, especially because of all that happened with his wife and him so long ago.”
“Cheryl has never truly trusted him since,” Baxter said. “That’s my information, anyway.”
“Would you trust him if you were she?”
“Of course not. So,” Baxter continued, “the only way to eliminate the tape coming to light is to eliminate Shane Maddux.”
“What about Rita Hayes?” the president asked. “She could talk.”
“I don’t think so. I think that’s why Bill got upset when I mentioned her.”
“Why?”
“She’s disappeared. No one can find her. He was worried about me digging deeper into all that.”
“Do you think…” Dorn’s voice trailed off.
“Do I think Bill had her murdered because he found out she was being disloyal?” Baxter nodded. “Absolutely. And he has plenty of people who’d do his bidding.”
Dorn stared steadily over the desk at Baxter for several moments. “We must destroy Red Cell Seven, Stewart, and this is our chance. They are weak.”
“I agree, Mr. President. But we have to wipe them out completely.”
Had Maddux told Baxter everything? Dorn wondered. “Where is it that you believe we start?”
“You mentioned it earlier.”
“What? What did I mention?”
“The Executive Order Richard Nixon signed back in 1973,” Baxter replied. “I know you said you don’t care about it, but if we’re really going to wipe these guys out we have to care.”
“I know,” Dorn agreed, frustrated by the obvious.
“Maddux told me that Nixon signed two originals in 1973, giving Red Cell Seven the power and authority to exist and to carry out the laws of the land as an agent of the executive branch of the United States government. Apparently, Roger Carlson took both of them after a meeting he had in the Oval Office with Nixon and his two top aides, Haldeman and Ehrlichman. We must get possession of at least one of those original documents, sir.”
“We need to get both originals, Stewart. If we do, then RCS has no credibility, no authority to exist.”
“Maybe not,” Baxter disagreed gently. “If we have one of them, we’ll know what we’re dealing with, and I believe we’ll be able to prove that RCS is effectively unconstitutional. Remember, history has not been kind to Richard Nixon. We may be able to get that Executive Order overturned simply on the basis that it was he who wrote it. Most people around the world regard Nixon as a criminal. I’m willing to bet the current members of our Supreme Court will, too.”
The president smiled thinly and nodded. Baxter was very good at this kind of thing. Despite the man’s notoriety for being a consummate prick, he was incredibly valuable. Down deep, Dorn didn’t like the man very much, though maybe his feelings were starting to change based on this conversation. “You’re probably right.”
“Here’s the other thing, sir,” Baxter continued. “According to Maddux, one of the original documents may be lost forever anyway.”
“Why?”
“It was the document Roger Carlson kept for himself, the one he always kept close by. According to Maddux, Carlson never told anyone where he kept it, so it may be lost permanently.” Baxter held up his hand, indicating that he wasn’t finished, when Dorn began to speak. “But we may be able to find the other one.”
“How?”
“Maddux told me that RCS agents greet each other with two phrases. One of them, the first one, is ‘Decus septum.’”
“Honor to the seven,” Dorn spoke up.
“You obviously took Latin in college.”
“It was high school, Stewart, and I saw that phrase penned in some of the files Bill gave me. There was another phrase written in those files, usually just after Decus septum.”
“‘Protect the peak,’” Baxter said.
Dorn nodded. “Yes.”
“Maddux told me that ‘protect the peak’ is the second part of that traditional RCS greeting.”
A chill raced up Dorn’s spine so fast and furiously it almost hurt as the meaning dawned on him. “The hiding place of the second original document.”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?” Dorn asked breathlessly.
“Maddux couldn’t tell me.”
The disappointment was palpable for Dorn. He’d felt they were suddenly so close. Now they were back to being miles away. “You mean wouldn’t tell you. His desire to be your confidant clearly has its limits.”
“I don’t think so, sir. I really don’t think he knew where it was when we spoke.”
“Maybe no one does. Maybe that secret died with Carlson as well.”
Baxter shook his head. “Maddux believes that one other person knows where it is, which peak the phrase refers to.”
“Why does he think that?”
“Carlson told him.”
Dorn gazed across the desk at his chief of staff. “It’s Bill Jensen.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dorn shrugged. “What do we do? Arrest and interrogate him?”
“On what charges?”
“I don’t know, Stewart. I was counting on you to figure that out.”
“And do you really think he’d tell us anything if we did arrest him?”
The president shook his head. “So you’re saying we’re dead in the water. We’re an inch from destroying them, but once again they slip away.”
“Not necessarily,” Baxter replied.
“Talk to me.”
“I have another confidant.”
“Who?”
Dorn smiled when he heard the name. He’d definitely made the right choice for chief of staff. “You know, Stewart, maybe we should search Carlson’s townhouse in Georgetown just to be thorough.”
“His wife, Nancy, still lives there. She rarely leaves.”
“So?”
Baxter nodded. “All right, I can take care of that.”
Dorn relaxed into the wheelchair for the first time in fifteen minutes. Until now he hadn’t realized how tense he’d been during this conversation. “Where are we with the attacks, Stewart? Is there any new information in terms of leads or clues?”
“Nothing credible, sir,” he answered in a low, frustrated tone. “Thousands of crazy tips from terrified civilians, but nothing we can use. Not as of an hour ago, and I spoke to everyone before I came in here.”
Dorn shook his head and glanced out the window into the sunshine of the new day. His relaxation had been short-lived. “They will strike again,” he said as he looked back at Baxter.
“Undoubtedly.”
“Why can’t we find them? Why can’t somebody do something?”
Baxter exhaled heavily. “I hate to admit this, Mr. President, and not because you were right but because it’s such a terrible reality for all of us to face. I think you were absolutely on the mark the other night. George W. Bush couldn’t find the DC Snipers for three weeks even though every law-enforcement official in
this area was looking for them. And as you pointed out, the DC Snipers were just two incompetent idiots. What we’re facing now in this country is a hundred times worse. These are trained killers with tremendous resources who are absolutely committed to a common cause.”
“It’s guerrilla warfare by zealots. It’s the nightmare scenario.”
“Here’s something else you should hear, sir.”
Dorn looked heavenward for divine intervention—or something that would take the edge off. “More good news, I’m guessing.”
“Economists are already estimating that the attacks are taking approximately four billion dollars a day out of the economy. That’s one-point-five trillion dollars annualized, and that’s three hundred billion dollars in federal taxes. And that’s now. The longer the attacks go on, the worse it’s going to get, sir. We’re already in recession territory, and it’s only been a few days. If these guys stay out there much longer and keep hitting us, it’ll be catastrophic for the economy. Obviously the loss of life is the most tragic thing, but”—Baxter hesitated—“what’s happening to our economy isn’t far behind. If things keep going like this, it’s going to be far worse than what happened with the real estate and mortgage debacle of a few years ago. It’ll make that look like a speed bump, and a small one at that.”
President Dorn turned to stare out the window again as Baxter’s words faded. He needed a break, and he needed it fast. Very soon the country was going to start wondering about his ability to lead, even though he’d almost been murdered a few weeks ago. The country had a short memory, and in this ADD world the mantra was “What have you done for me lately?” no matter who you were—even a president who’d almost been killed.
He muttered to himself, suddenly furious. The bastards had finally figured it out.
CHAPTER 26
“HOW ARE you feeling?” Troy asked as he moved across the hospital room toward her.
Jennie smiled up at him sweetly and appreciatively from the bed, which had been raised so she could sit up. “Much better. Thanks.”
There was a book on the nightstand, he noticed, with a page marker in the middle. “I understand you had a pretty rough trip to the mall the other day.”