by James Bruno
“Why, I saw Mr. Ferret just the other day…”
“I suggest that you speak to the police, Mr. Gallatin. They may be interested in what you know about Mr. Ferret.” Then, in a hushed voice, she said, “The FBI is crawlin’ all over this place. And the Post too. They’re runnin’ a front page story on the killings. We’ve been in enough shock already, God knows.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, with Ambassador Goldman being removed and all. Tuesday he’s running things like always. Wednesday he’s fired. Well, he tried to hang himself at home last evening. Downstairs in the basement. And with his family upstairs watchin’ TV. Poor man. If it wasn’t for the creakin’ of the water pipe he used as a gallows, he’d be dead too. His wife ran down and caught him before his neck snapped. We here guess that Mr. Ferret’s killin’ his family the way he did — if he did kill them, mind you — on top of his being sacked was just too much for him to handle.”
“Ms—, uh, Gerrie. Who replaced Goldman?”
“Why, you musta heard through your office—”
“I’ve been away on a trip. Haven’t caught up on things.”
“Right. Well, it’s Col. Maxwell E. Kaiser, U.S. MA-rines,” she stated indignantly. “He’s making big changes. Thinks we’re all a bunch of kids in boot camp. You think this place was paranoid about guarding secrets before, you should see us now! Most of us civilians are sending out resumes. Ms. Hitz has also left. She’s in the nuthouse. Just checked out. Poor thing. No family to take care of her—”
“Gerrie. Sounds like you’ve got your hands full. Thanks.”
“I really think you should talk to the FBI. I’ll get one over here—”
“Gotta run. Hang in there.” Gallatin hung up.
The galactic leap from Wheeling-hick/fresh-out-of-grad school ingenue to junior staffer at the NSC was more than Lisa Valko could take in. But the meteoric jump to Director of Public Information after only a few months on the job was truly heady. In the rare moment she had to herself, Lisa would ponder her phenomonal success, but then stop. It was scary. If she allowed herself the luxury of navel-gazing, self-doubts about her abilities would surely arise. No. She would hang on to this career rocket for all she was worth and do her absolute best even if it did mean losing ten more pounds, adding wrinkles to her young face, and sacrificing anything resembling a social life.
Among the fast growing pile of yellow message slips which her secretary was neatly building on Lisa’s upper left corner of her desk — flush against a stack of unread, terse military analyses of the crisis du jour, just an inch away from a two-tiered in-box overflowing with memoranda, press guidance, cables and congressional correspondence, within an arms-reach of the half-eaten remnants of a cafeteria breakfast — were three from Craig, the last one marked “URGENT.”
She closed her eyes tightly and massaged her forehead with the fingers of both hands. “I don’t need this!” she asserted through clenched teeth.
The phoned buzzed.
“Yes!” Lisa said impatiently.
“It’s Senator Ballard’s office. His administrative assistant, Mr. Stratham, wants you to talk with the senator about next steps on the Middle East situation,” the secretary said.
“I’ll call,” Lisa replied tersely.
“Miss Valko, don’t forget the 11:15 meeting with Amnesty International in the Cordell Hull room.”
“I won’t.” She wanted desperately to hang up. Her energy resources were nil. Her coffee-corroded stomach rebelled. Her mind was suffering from information overload and chronic sleeplessness. She was running on empty. Just a few moments of peace and quiet. To collect her thoughts.
The phone buzzed again. She picked up the receiver, then dropped it promptly, cutting off whoever it was who was trying to reach her. Lisa grabbed a small bottle from her top desk drawer and quickly washed down two Advils with a stale diet Pepsi.
Amnesty International had become increasingly vocal in criticizing the Administration’s less than vigorous pursuit of war criminals in the ex-Yugoslavia. Haley had tasked her to neutralize their criticism by getting sympathetic media to run stories favorable to the Administrations policies. “Offer them exclusive interviews, show ‘em some classified analyses. Fix it,” he ordered.
The foreign relations committees of both houses of Congress were clamoring for briefings on the status of the Hague Tribunal’s progress in prosecuting war criminals. “Dazzle them. Nothing like a multimedia laser show with dancing pigs to to get their minds off the problem areas,” Haley instructed.
Lisa had acquired a reputation for dealing effectively with the press and non-governmental organizations. Her slick presentations, deft handling of government agencies and clever media manipulation made the Administration appear scrupulous and responsible. Over the months, however, she detected a change in her character. No longer the recently graduated ingenue, she became tougher, decisive, comfortable in pushing people around who were twice her age and possessed decades of professional experience. “Ballbuster,” she’d overheard an NSC staffer refer to her in a conversation with a colleague in the cafeteria.
And now Craig.
In the weeks he had been calling, she couldn’t muster the nerve to tell him it was over once and for all. The memory of catching him with her college roommate, Kimberlee, giving each other a body wash in Lisa’s shower burned in her brain. Never mind that Kimberlee had as much sexual discipline as Catherine the Great, and that Craig, pleaing drunkenness, was sweet and touching in his fervent apologies. But something tugged at her. Was it her ex-beau’s heart-stopping good looks and warm manner? Or was it her growing sense of loneliness and emotional suffocation under a mountain of crushing work pressure? She realized that she was vulnerable. She was, after all, human. And though she worked hard to subliminate it, the right male company would be welcome right now. A man with whom to share confidences, laughter and tender contact
Lisa never imagined that she would ever envy the dead. But a New York Times article she had read while on the toilet — it was becoming virtually the only time she could devote to leisure reading — fascinated her. Scientists had uncovered the 7,000-year old body of an Indian princess perfectly preserved in glacial ice in the Northwest Territories of subarctic Canada. Her skin was smooth and unblemished. She wore a leather frock decorated with in-sewn stone and quartz beads. Her long, black hair was held in the back with a deer antler barette. Ivory bracelets still graced her arms which were folded on her breast, over which lay the remains of meadow flowers. Anthropologists speculated that the young woman had been interred deep in a mountain chasm by her grieving clan.
The eternal coolness and solitude that the young woman had found in death had a mystical appeal for Lisa. Of course, one did not have to be dead to find peace. It was just that life could become so taxing that peaceful contentment could sometimes seem an impossible dream.
Gallatin’s call broke her fleeting mental escape.
He fumbled for words and was exceedingly solicitous and sincere. Again, just like men in West Virginia. He thanked her for taking the time earlier to meet with him and point him to the right official — Ferret. She had one eye on the clock.
“So, now I’m asking if you could give me the low-down on Ferret.”
Lisa was only half-paying attention. The reason she didn’t give him her well-practiced brush-off was her recollection of the tragedy involving the women in his life. She was proud of herself that she hadn’t lost the very human trait of caring.
“Ferret?” she asked. “Oh, the State guy. What do you mean, the ‘low-down’?”
“I mean, what’s the story? Did he really kill his family, and, if so, why?”
Lisa learned quickly that people assumed that if you worked at the White House, you knew The Truth about everything, be it UFOs, POWs, the latest news headlines, Elvis, whatever.
“Uh, well. I believe they’ve concluded he’s crazy. Flipped out.” Her secretary placed several more message slips on her desk. Five
additional unread emails rolled onto her screen. The President was to give a press conference in forty-five minutes.
“At your suggestion, I met with Ferret. Strange man. But he told me something which has been gnawing at me.”
“Mike, can you give me the abridged version, please?” Lisa’s eyes were fixated on her TV monitor. CNN had a special report on the succession struggle in China. The office clock buzzed as it struck the top of the hour. She brushed hairs from her eyes. I must get to a hairdresser!
Gallatin paused, restraining himself from shouting at Lisa, who was already acting like one of the Washington high rollers, supercilious functionaries who acted as if the universe revolved around them. No wonder politicians were constantly running for office by blasting the bureaucracy.
“It’s like this!” he said, barely controlling his anger. “Ferret told me that the Brankos were ‘no longer a problem.’”
“Well, that’s good,” Lisa answered absent-mindedly.
“What’s so good about it?! Don’t you get it? Listen to me!”
Lisa sat up with a start. This man was fast becoming an irritant. She simply didn’t have the time.
“They killed the Brankos. Because those two got out of control; went on a rampage. They burned down the house of a Muslim family, with my daughter in it! They tried to kill me!”
“All right, so who’s ‘they’ — that is, the ones who killed the Brankos?” Lisa said, challenging him.
“Your employer. The government. That’s why I’m calling you.”
“Why me? Call the FBI.”
“You’re at the White House.”
“That makes me employed, not divine.”
“Lisa, there could be a conspiracy…”
That was it. Yet another fruit cake. Give him any more slack and he’ll be railing about the Kennedy assassination.
“W-e-l-l, uh, look Mike, I really do have to run. Good luck. Nice talking to you.” She hung up.
Ten seconds later her phone rang again. Against her better judgment, she took the call.
“I want to meet. It’s terribly important.”
“I don’t think so, Mike. I’m really up to my eye-balls—”
“Please. I’m not a nut. My daughter’s life depends on this. I’ve got to know. I’ve got to find the truth. I’ll be back in D.C. on Friday of next week.”
Lisa paused and rubbed her forehead. She hated to be thought of as “ballbuster.” “Okay. At Chez Nous, on M Street, at 12:30, Friday.”
“I’ll be there.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Israel was on a rampage in the Middle East, bombing the hell out of Hizbollah and Hamas. Iraq and Afghanistan were getting no more peaceful. North Korea was launching yet more missiles. India and Pakistan were at it again, two nuclear powers beholden to no one. And the Taiwanese parliament had just passed a resolution to declare formal independence from Beijing, certain to have Chinese sabres rattling. The world seemed to be falling apart. And now, a cresting tide of violence in the Balkans threatened to derail the decade-old Dayton Peace Agreement.
Lord Braxton, the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary asked for quiet consultations on the Balkan situation. Quickly filling a foreign policy-making vacuum which he himself had engineered, Tulliver wasted no time in upstaging Secretary McHenry by dashing off to London to meet with the Brits. He took Lisa Valko with him.
Lisa got no rest on the eight-hour flight. It was all work. Hone the talking points. Prepare contingency press Q’s and A’s. Keep the State Department, CIA and Pentagon in the dark, the better to achieve progress. Inclusion equated to policy inertia as each player vied with the others. Tulliver took his cue from Henry Kissinger, the master of the fait accompli. When Lisa went to the restroom, she refused to look at herself in the mirror. She had earlier noticed the bags under her eyes in the rear-view mirror of a White House limousine and was well aware that wishing them away would not do the trick.
Her one consolation was the inclusion of Buckwheat Thompson in the small delegation. Of the several dozen professionals on the NSC staff, he was the only one who, refreshingly, did not take himself too seriously. On this flight, however, Thompson appeared uncharacteristically sullen, sitting alone staring out the window of his seat in the U.S. Air Force Boeing 757. She sat beside him.
“Your enthusiasm is infectious,” she said.
He cracked an anemic smile. “Matched only by your laid-back manner.”
“God. Is it that noticeable? I’ve been telling myself to ease up on the throttle, but events won’t allow it.”
Thompson stirred his double vodka on the rocks. “Take a tip from Uncle Buckwheat. Idle the engines for a while. Look around you.”
Lisa smiled at his signature comment. She looked around the cabin, then shrugged. “Well?”
“All these workabees. They all harbor illusions of becoming ambassadors, senior advisors, agency heads, Ivy League profs. The most any of them will achieve, however, is an empty life and a firm place on the treadmill of broken dreams.”
Thompson raised the tumbler to her and downed the contents. He signaled to the flight attendant for another. “What are you having?”
“I’ll pass. My body is suffering from enough ravages already without taking on another.”
“You’re a better woman than I, Lisa Valko.” He took the second tumbler, again raised it to her and brought it to his lips.
“Woman?” she giggled. “Let me ask you something, Munro Bathgate Thompson III. What keeps you in the game? You seem to be so bitter and jaundiced against the system. Are you nonetheless happy? If not, why not just unhitch yourself and go your own way?”
A look of bemusement crossed his face. “Fair question. For a long time I thought that I could actually change the system, make it more responsive to the human condition rather than to the egos of self-centered individuals. But I’ve come to realize that the way policy is made in 2006 is little different from the way it was made in 1906: the 800-pound gorilla gets his way and a loaded .45 beats four aces any day.” He ordered a third vodka.
Lisa eyed him wordlessly, trying to puzzle out this sensitive, yet embittered man. “So, answer my question. Why don’t you leave?”
He put his drink down and pondered, then looked at her thoughtfully. “Family reasons.”
“But you’re not married. And your mother lives in Pennsylvania.”
“It’s my partner,” he said with deliberation. “My partner is very ill and needs me.” He held his gaze onto hers. “I haven’t told anyone.”
“Ohh,” Lisa said, understanding. Her face was a study of feminine caring.
“And you? Is there a someone in your life?”
Lisa groaned. “What life?” She relented and asked for a glass of Chardonnay. “I went through a painful breakup. Now he wants to get back together. Trouble is, I have neither the time to think it over nor to pursue a normal social life.”
“Take a tip from Uncle Buckwheat. Don’t crucify your love life on the weighty cross of career.” He winked and imbibed. Then, changing subject, he continued, “This Ferret business has been bothering me.”
Lisa froze, looked at him intently.
“Something wrong?”
She shook her head slightly, as if shaking off an extraneous thought. “Uh, no. It’s just that somebody else just mentioned that name to me.”
“Who?”
“Michael Gallatin. Remember? You met him in my office.”
“Yeah.” Thompson leaned back and thought for a moment.
“He’s convinced there’s something fishy. He blathered on about a conspiracy. I have to be nuts. I’m actually meeting him next week over lunch.”
“Love interest?” Thompson asked playfully.
She hit him not so lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t be silly. It’s just that…just that—”
“You’re lonely…and he’s a hunk maybe?”
She was unswerving. “So what exactly bothers you about the case?”
“Ever wo
nder what would drive a guy like that to murder his family?”
“He wasn’t running on a full chip. Software crash.” She tapped the side of her head. “That’s what they’re saying. Makes me shudder to think what he did.”
“Maybe it was more. Maybe his conscience had gotten to him. And don’t speak of him in the past tense. He’s running loose somewhere as we speak.”
“Conscience? For what? Resettling refugees? I don’t get it.”
Thompson contemplated the ice in his glass and put on his tight, nervous smile. He then looked at Lisa squarely.
“Tell your friend, Gallatin, not to get close to this case. His life could depend on it.”
She looked back puzzled.
Thompson shrugged his shoulders. “Murder should be left to the professionals.”
Tulliver’s favorite hotel in London was the Dorchester. It was one of those classic British lodging establishments where the elegance was unostentateous, yet unmistakeable. Perfect for diplomats given to understatement and discreet, sensitive liaisons, unofficial as well as official. Neither baroque nor Hiltonesque modernity fit his dry New England character. Victorian came closest.
The meetings with the British had gone well. Tulliver ensured that much of the discussion involved only the British Foreign Secretary and himself — and one notetaker from each side; Lisa was Tulliver’s. He was eager to report the positive results immediately to the White House. As his traveling retinue began shuffling out of the suite, Tulliver signaled Lisa to stay behind as he punched Lt. Col. Dan Haley’s office number on the portable STU-III secure phone. Tulliver held a much-needed, 4-to-1 crisp Martini in the other hand. He gestured for Lisa to help herself at the makeshift bar in the corner.