“Just why does this fugitive traitor want to help me? I’m asking out of curiosity, not for ethical reasons, if that makes you feel any better.”
Boyce decided to leave out the part about how Wiley was doing this for Chinese intelligence.
“Because he genuinely believes you’re innocent. And feels that this is a way of doing at least something good. To make up for past misdeeds. Would you deny a fellow human being the chance to atone?”
“The only person on the planet who believes I’m innocent is a former FBI agent who sold out his country to finance his gambling addiction. What a fan club.”
“Now is not the time to be choosy.”
Judge Dutch listened without comment, his glasses misting to opacity. Deputy Attorney General Sandra Clintick listened in silence with an expression that needled from contempt to incredulity and outrage.
Beth concluded, “I wanted to inform you both of this privately. I know this comes late. I also realize that there are ramifications, since it involves sensitive issues of national security. But there it is, and I intend to pursue it.”
“This information,” Judge Dutch said, “where did it come from?”
Beth cleared her throat. “From Wiley P. Sinclair.”
“Objection!” Sandy Clintick snapped.
“We’re not in court, Ms. Clintick,” Judge Dutch observed. “You’re free to express yourself in nonjudicial language.” He turned back to Beth. “But I have to say, Ms. MacMann, I’m not impressed by this. Not a bit.”
“I would rather myself that it had come from some other source, Your Honor.”
“This is disgraceful, Your Honor,” Clintick said. “Disgraceful and desperate.”
The judge rocked in his chair. “Mrs. MacMann, if this turns out to be without foundation and you are ultimately found guilty, I will … weigh this at the time of sentencing. Do you understand the implications?”
Beth nodded. “Yes, Your Honor.”
“What if this witness—assuming I even allow you to call him—denies it? As he well might? What then?”
“Your Honor,” Beth said, “surely you don’t expect me to discuss matters of legal strategy in front of the prosecution?”
Beth and Sandy Clintick left the judge’s chambers together. Alone in his outer office, Clintick turned to Beth.
“When are you due?”
“June.”
Clintick smiled icily. “There’s nothing you two wouldn’t stop at, is there?”
“It was an accident.”
“Oh, right.”
“You think this was part of the overall defense strategy?”
“Why not? It’s actually a smart move. Makes it harder for the judge to hand down a death sentence, doesn’t it?”
Beth returned the gelid smile. “Is that why you haven’t mentioned it in public?”
“I’m hoping to get a verdict and sentence before you show up in a maternity dress.”
“I’ll try not to hold you up.”
Wiley P. Sinclair, being skilled in the arts of evasion, counterevasion, and even counter-counterevasion, had left Boyce with a means of contacting him, involving bright orange stickers and a stop sign on Glebe Road. A few hours later, Boyce was at a pay phone in Old Town, Alexandria. Wiley P. Sinclair laughed when Boyce told him what he wanted.
“Now doesn’t that take the cake,” Wiley said. When he was finished being charmed by the idea, he said, “You know the three cardinal rules, right? Don’t eat at a place called Mom’s, don’t draw to an inside straight, don’t go to bed with someone who’s got more problems than you do. Here’s a fourth: Don’t try to outfox someone named Wiley.”
“I wouldn’t presume to try to set a trap for you,” Boyce said. “But we need this document. Otherwise they’re just going to deny it, and where does that leave us? Who’re we going to call then?”
“No way, Counselor.”
“Do you want this to happen, or not?”
“Are you saying it’s a deal breaker?”
“Yeah.”
There was a long pause. Then Wiley P. Sinclair chuckled.
“Oh, are they going to be hot for my ass again. Red hot. I’m going to have to relocate so deep in Pandaland that I may end up discovering a whole new species of bear. But okay. You’re my kind of lawyer, Counselor. You do whatever you gotta do for your client. Say, I just gotta ask—she did it, right?”
“That’s on a need-to-know basis.”
“I can’t wait to see their faces when she waves this thing in court. You a betting man, Counselor?”
“Not in your league.”
“Do you know they had two hundred agents in Vegas looking for me? I was there, and they missed me! What a buncha numb-nuts. I went in drag!” Wiley laughed. “Lay you three to two that Judge Dutch is gonna burst a nose artery when she shows up in court with this.”
Wiley insisted on making the arrangements. Boyce counted the laws that he, Boyce, was breaking in doing this. He stopped at six.
Chapter 31
Two days later, Beth and Sandy Clintick were back in Judge Dutch’s chambers.
“I will ask you a last time not to use again the word bullshit, Ms. Clintick,” Judge Dutch said. “We’re not in court, but neither are we in a bar.”
“Then I’ll use the word travesty,” Clintick said, fuming. “This is a travesty. And you are permitting it.”
“I haven’t permitted anything as of yet, Ms. Clintick. But I won’t permit that sort of language. Anywhere.”
“She comes in here”—Clintick pointed at Beth, who was quietly enjoying her fury—“with an affidavit, by a fugitive traitor …”
“I’ve made no determination yet as to the affidavit, Ms. Clintick,” he said, then cast a disdainful glance at Beth. “Other than to acknowledge that it exists.”
He picked up the piece of paper imprinted with the notary public’s seal. “I take it,” he said, “that this notary had no idea who Wiley P. Sinclair is.”
“That would be correct, Your Honor. Mr. Sinclair—or so I was informed by Mr. Baylor, who supervised the notarizing and witnessing—was asked for two forms of identification, which he provided. A driver’s license, apparently still valid, and a Social Security card.”
Judge Dutch sniffed. “This is appalling, Mrs. MacMann.”
Beth shrugged. “I admit it’s untidy, Judge. But Mr. Sinclair’s legal ability to make an affidavit is unaffected by his status as a fugitive.”
“We appear,” Judge Dutch said with a sigh, “for the time being to have hopscotched beyond the issue of his criminality. Mr. Baylor will have to bear the burden of that matter. Since he is the one who”—he looked at her unbelievingly—“had the unlawful contact with our fugitive, Mr. Sinclair. Of course, Mr. Baylor can always claim that there was some duress, or that he was unable to effect the arrest of Mr. Sinclair.”
Beth wondered—was he prompting her?
“At any rate,” he continued, leaning forward, “we must now confront this Log Cabin business.”
“Defense calls Roscoe Farquant.”
Oh, the stir, the buzz, the rumbling, the craning of heads and shifting of glutei in Judge Umin’s courtroom. Boyce, feeling more than ever like a mole in his backseat hole in the bowels of the courthouse basement garage, would have given a testicle and three Supreme Court decisions to be there in person.
It had—naturally—leaked to the media that Beth was going to call the head of the National Security Agency, the only agency left in Washington that really had any secrets worth knowing. Her subpoena had created a sensation. NSA lawyers said he would not honor the subpoena. Judge Dutch replied that in that case he would have General Farquant arrested. The NSA relented. Nothing so concentrates the mind as the prospect of handcuffs.
No one knew what exactly she planned to ask him. The pixel pundits frothed over with speculation.
Farquant was, as most NSA chiefs tended to be, a former military person. He looked it: trim, peach fuzz hair, glasses, eyes beady with the big-big secrets. He
looked like a man who wouldn’t tell God something on the grounds that God was not cleared to know.
“General Farquant,” Beth said, addressing him in a courtly, respectful manner, “I won’t waste your time or the court’s establishing your credentials, which are beyond question. You are the director of the National Security Agency, and have been for the last five and a half years. That agency collects electronic information on behalf of the U.S. government. Is that an accurate description of its role?”
“It is a very general description of the agency’s function,” he replied.
“Does the code name Operation Log Cabin mean anything to you?”
Nothing so excites a Washington audience as introducing the term code name in a public setting. Invariably, what follows is evidence that the government has, once again, been up to something disastrously ill advised, or at least very, very naughty.
General Farquant stared unblinkingly at Beth, the court, the nation, the world beyond. The only sign that a white phosphorous grenade had just gone off in his stomach was a slight lateral twitch of the eyeballs.
“I’m not in a position to comment on that.”
Boyce bellowed out loud with delight, startling the Secret Service agent in the driver’s seat. Yes! The crew-cut SOB hadn’t denied it outright!
“Was Operation Log Cabin put into effect some eighteen months ago?”
“I’m not in a position to comment.”
“Of course. General Farquant, was Operation Log Cabin a covert surveillance program, mounted by the National Security Agency, whereby electronic eavesdropping devices were placed in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House? So that your agency could monitor the conversations?”
A giant sucking sound could be heard in the courtroom.
“I am not in a position to comment on that.” For all his sangfroid, General Farquant was beginning to resemble the frog placed in the pot of water that is slowly brought to a boil.
“Objection,” said Sandy Clintick. “The witness has answered the question to the best of his ability.”
“He most certainly has not,” said Beth.
Judge Dutch thoughtfully tapped his cheek with a finger. “Overruled.”
Beth continued. “Was the purpose of Operation Log Cabin—which presumably was so named after the fact that Abraham Lincoln grew up in a log cabin—”
“Objection. Conjecture.”
“Oh, honestly,” Beth said.
“Sustained.”
“Was the purpose of Operation Log Cabin to obtain information on persons who were guests of President MacMann and the First Lady?”
“I’m not in a position to comment.”
“On the night of September twenty-eighth, year before last, Ms. Babette Van Anka, the actress and activist, was a guest in the Lincoln Bedroom. Was such a device implanted in her cell phone or other personal effects by an agent or agents working for NSA?”
“I’m not in a position to comment.”
“Thank you, General Farquant,” Beth said pleasantly. “You’ve been most forthcoming.”
Boyce slammed his fist against the window and bellowed, “Yee-hah!”
“Sir,” said the Secret Service agent in the front seat, “do you mind?”
The President summoned his chief of staff.
“This Log Cabin thing, what the hell?”
“Do you want to know, sir?”
“No, I don’t. But goddammit, Henderson.”
“Yes, sir, I agree completely.”
“Get me distance on this. I want miles of distance between this and me.”
“I—we—all understand that, sir. We are at the moment working on that.”
“When did it—no, I don’t want to know. Get me—who’s in charge of this, this bucket of night crawlers?”
“No one at NSA seems to be stepping forward to claim credit for it, sir. We’re—”
“Heads. I want heads, Henderson. Heads lined up like golf balls, in the Rose Garden.”
“Understood.”
“I leave for Europe tomorrow. Sweet Jesus. I’m going to be with the heads of seven countries—plus the Queen. The Queen, Henderson! Of England! Did any of them stay in the Lincoln Bedroom during the MacBeth administration?”
“Heads of state typically stay in Blair House or the Queen’s Bedroom, as you know, sir.” Henderson cleared his throat. “However, the Queen of England did, in fact, stay in the Lincoln Bedroom on one occasion. She had expressed interest in it. Apparently she is a fan of Lincoln’s. So the MacManns put her there. I have the date here.…”
The President’s face drained of color. “I’m spending the night at Windsor Castle. As her guest.”
“Sir, I think we can make it clear that this Operation Log Cabin was in no way sanctioned by this White House. For all we know, it wasn’t even sanctioned by the last White House.”
“Well, let’s get that message out and cranking, and fast.”
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
“Henderson.”
“Sir?”
“What were they after, for God’s sake?”
It was probably just as well that Babette Van Anka was not driving herself to the studio to record her annual message of peace for the coming Easter-Passover holidays or she might have driven off the road and into a royal palm. She had given up watching the trial weeks ago, on the grounds that it was not good for her skin. Now her cell phone rang, the first eight bars of the sound track from Fabulous, Fabulous Me, the movie that had cemented her status as a star. Before she managed to say hello, she heard the sound of Max, calling her a cow in every language that he and his ancestors had spoken, with a few Far Eastern languages thrown in for good measure. He then related the substance of that morning’s testimony. And hung up.
Babette played the scene as she might in a movie. She rolled down the window and hurled her cell phone out of the car, in case it too was bugged. Fortunately, this being Los Angeles, there were no pedestrians to injure.
She told Massimo, her driver, to take her to LAX instead of the recording studio.
“Which airline, madame?”
“Any airline! International!”
She cursed Max for swinishly not sending the plane to get her. He had brusquely informed her, between epithets, that he needed it himself to remove himself even farther from U.S. justice.
Money. She would need money. As a star, she rarely carried any, since other people paid. Her secretaries took care of the occasional pecuniary necessities, supplying her with ironed banknotes. She looked in her purse. There were a few crisp, folded one-hundred-dollar notes. More would be needed. But she could hardly present herself at the bank. She didn’t even know which bank handled the Grab–Van Anka cash. Then she remembered the television commercials showing people inserting cards in machines and getting cash. Triumphantly, she produced a credit card from the purse and directed Massimo to stop at a machine.
She leapt out and inserted the card. After several minutes she raced back to the car.
“It keeps asking for a personal identification number,” she shrieked at the hapless Massimo. “What the fuck is a personal identification number?”
Massimo explained, earning himself a cuff on his chest. “How am I supposed to know it? Call someone! No—don’t! Into the car. Into the car! Drive! Just drive!”
At the international departures terminal, she frantically scanned the names of the airlines and ordered Massimo to stop when she saw one that seemed more foreign than the others.
She hurried in after divesting Massimo of his pocket money. Heads turned at the spectacle of America’s most notorious film star. The morning’s trial testimony had played over all the television monitors at the airport, so everyone was up-to-date.
She went directly to the “Emperor Class” check-in counter. A businessman, presumably an emperor, was being assisted. Babette placed a peremptory elbow on the counter. The man turned to tell the pushy broad to cool her heels. When he saw who it was, his mouth gaped.
/> “I require a seat,” she informed the check-in agent, a lovely young woman dressed in a silk sari from her native land. “I require the entire first class section. Here—” She dumped half a dozen credit cards on the counter.
“I’m afraid, Ms. Van Anka, that we are completely booked in emperor class.”
“You’ll have to move them to business class. I’ll pay for their seats. I have a scene I have to rehearse, and I need absolute privacy.”
“So charter a jet,” said the man she’d elbowed aside.
“I regret very much, Ms. Van Anka, but I cannot move other passengers. But there is one seat available in business class.”
Babette threw up her hands. “All right, all right. I was just trying to help you. Give me the seat.”
“May I see your passport, please?”
“I don’t carry a passport.”
“You need a passport to enter the country.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Babette said. She pointed to her face. “This is my passport.”
Glances were exchanged behind check-in. A more senior agent was summoned, a quintessence of competence and courtesy in a blazer with numerous little medallions on his lapel betokening years of competent handling of crises small and large. But on the matter of a passport, he was gently unmovable.
It was at this point that Babette, who had, to be sure, been under a strain these many past months, finally and irretrievably lost it.
She stormed off to a series of first class check-in counters of international carriers, demanding a seat, if not the entire section. Alas, the passport requirement was the deal breaker at each one. Her remonstrations drew a crowd. Her choices of words eventually caused security to be alerted.
The famous photograph of her being half carried away—she had tried to bite the Wackenhut security man—by half a dozen personnel, like some Seattle protester, was soon over the wires and onto the front pages, accompanied by the news that Max was, apparently, well on his way into somewhat deeper exile in the Far East, aboard his own plane, the first class section of which was all his own.
Chapter 32
No Way To Treat a First Lady Page 22