by James Bruno
“Oh, just cleaning the files out.” Thompson hurriedly logged off.
“Cleaning out the files is a useful thing. So is OpSec. What do you think?” OpSec — operational security. Acronyms are to the Pentagon crowd what Hershey bars are to a chocoholic. Haley paced slowly around Thompson’s office, one hand in his pocket, the other examining bric-a-brac, awards certificates, framed photos and other personal office paraphernalia. He picked up a piece of driftwood bearing a brass plaque from the U.S.S Thomas Paine. “Hm. ‘For Exceptional Loyalty and Service Dedication. Operation Just Cause, January 1990.’” He turned toward Thompson. You were part of the Grenada mission?”
“Briefly. I was a lieutenant serving on the Thomas Paine. Everybody was awarded something. The so-called ‘Oh, fine. I Was There in Eighty-nine’ medals.”
“Doing what?”
“N-2. Intelligence.”
“You were awarded the Bronze Star. You must have done something.”
“I was tasked with obtaining TACINT on a hill where a bunch of armed Cubans were holed up. I climbed the hill, took pictures and notes and radioed data in. No great shakes.”
Haley parked himself in front of Thompson’s office window, now with both hands in his pockets, and gazed out on the gray courtyard walls and inner parking lot of the OEOB.
“Loyalty. So important in a line of work where lives are at stake. Where if just one weak link in the chain breaks, the walls come tumbling down and people get hurt. You agree?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“On that hill in Panama, you took the initiative, and with positive results. But you remained in the chain. A strong link in the chain.” He turned and looked Thompson directly in the eye.
Thompson said nothing.
“The point is this. In this outfit loyalty is rewarded. Disloyalty is punished. Just as it is in the military.” He tapped his temple with a forefinger. “Remember that.”
Haley glided out of the office as silently as he had entered it.
As soon as he was gone, Thompson called home.
“Gordon?”
“No. Hospice for Dying Gay Attorneys. How can I help you?” the voice at the other end said in a bare rasp.
“Stop kidding around. How are you feeling?”
“I’m not taking the AZT any more, Buckwheat. The cost isn’t worth it.”
“Don’t worry about the cost, damn it.”
“I don’t care any more. I’m not afraid. It’s the agony of waiting. I dread it.”
“Gordon. Listen to me. How about you and me leaving D.C. Go to Santa Fe like we always dreamed about? It’s always sunny there. Warm. You’d like it.”
“You’re a sweetie, buddy. But what’s the use?”
Tears streamed down Thompson’s cheeks. “I’m quitting, Gordon. We’re leaving D.C. Hear me? I’m coming home.”
Gordon hung up.
So did the CHASM security man tapping the line.
“I’m going to get a cup of coffee,” Thompson lied to the duty secretary. He left his office, in its usual disarray, for the last time. His suit jacket remained on the coat hanger. His father’s leather brief case was open on the desk.
Thompson walked briskly three floors down the ornate marble staircase of the beaux arts building. He ducked into the cafeteria and purchased a coffee. Back out in the corridor, he looked around. Just the usual sample office population and blue-collar types moving supplies. Mindful not to rush, Thompson walked to the Seventeenth Street exit, ran his building pass through the card reader and flagged down a cab outside.
He got out in front of Pollo Criollo, a Salvadorean chicken joint a block from his apartment house, and stood and observed. A half hour passed. Just the customary mix of Latinos, yuppies, strolling diners, African-Americans and African-Africans. A police van zipped by with its blue roof lights whirling.
Thompson strolled in a five-block circuit until he reached the rear of his building. Having quickly unlocked the door, he ran like an Olympic athlete to the stairwell at the end of the basement corridor, passed an empty laundry room, and scrambled up the stairs.
At the fifth floor, he paused inside the stairwell to catch his breath. He nudged open the exit door and peeked down the length of the hallway. Nobody. Nothing. Stillness.
He ordered himself to take stock for a minute. He was reasonably sure that no one had followed him. Everything else seemed normal. Certainly, by now, the duty secretary would notice that he was away far too long only to fetch a cup of coffee. Shit! Why didn’t I tell her that I was off to a late meeting? Shit! He recalled Lisa’s scolding him for being paranoid. She’s right. This job has turned my mind into mush. Time to get a life. Not much longer now.
Thompson stood flat against the stairwell wall. He shut his eyes and breathed deeply. He saw his mother. She was smiling. She was stroking his hair. He was a little boy. Very sick. And she fawned over him. Assured him that he would get better. God will help you, she said soothingly. God helps all good, little boys. He wondered if God would help him now. He certainly had not been good. Not since he was recruited into CHASM. Thompson made the sign of the cross.
He took his key out and slowly approached apartment number 5506 knowing that, one way or another, it would be the last time.
He paused. Cocked an ear to see if he could detect any telltale signs of Gordon. But all he could hear was the pounding of his heart.
As if he had all the time in the world, Thompson touched the key into the entry lockset of the deadbolt. He slipped it in silently one notch at a time. Time to move!
Thompson flung the door open, but was prepared to dash back. Just like he had on the hill in Panama.
The TV was on. Gordon never missed the evening news. He had always been a news junkie. Thompson left the door wide open. He stepped forward into the living room. Gordon was in his usual position in his usual house robe seated on his favorite easy chair watching Brian Williams.
Thompson came from behind. “Gordon,” he whispered. “Get up. Time to pack up and get out of here.”
Gordon didn’t budge. Since he’d lost fifty pounds, Gordon tired easily. Sleep was his escape from the misery that wrecked health brought with it.
Thompson stood over Gordon. He placed a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “Wake up, man! Let’s get out of here!”
Gordon was stiff. Thompson shook again, harder. Gordon’s head rolled back. The right temple was bashed in, the eye smashed. Brains, mixed with coagulating blood, fouled Gordon’s robe, the arm chair and the carpet below.
All Thompson could do was to freeze. “No! No!”
He began to back away. The door slammed shut. It was too late.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Harder! Harder! Faster!”
John Tulliver felt he was too old for Olympic Sex. The worst of it wasn’t so much that he lacked the physical stamina. It was just downright embarrassing for an already inhibited Yankee. A fifty-five-year old, overweight man boffing a forty-year old woman in contortions that would win the envy of Chinese circus performers was just plain ridiculous. At least the ambitious young women on the NSC staff were malleable. They let him call the shots. It was his nickel after all. Boss fucks subordinates. Boss rewards subordinates. That’s the way it had been since the new republic’s first diplomat, Ben Franklin, nailed every female he could lay his pudgy fingers on. Here the roles were reversed. Tulliver was the underling being fucked to earn a shot at promotion.
At least it wasn’t in the Lincoln Suite this time. Screwing in Old Abe’s bed went beyond embarrassment. It was sacrilege. The Rose Suite wasn’t quite as burdened down with historical baggage.
“Now step up!” Manny Merriman commanded. “Pull that ottoman over and stand on it.” Her breathing was labored.
“Manny. Please come down. Can’t we just…just cuddle. Or something?” Tulliver pled.
“I can’t stay like this forever, goddammit! I’ll lose my grip. Not to mention my desire. Now get up here!”
Tulliver sighed. He loo
ked up at the First Lady, spread-eagled between the ceiling-high rear posts of the antique poster bed. Gloriously naked, except for spiked high-heels, and a coating of sweat.
Tulliver maneuvered the small ottoman to the foot of the bed. Gingerly, he stepped on it.
“That’s it lover. Now come and get me. Get me!”
Tulliver held his now limp member as he struggled to maintain balance.
“Get it up! What the fuck is wrong with you? Get it back up!”
But fear of falling and sexual arousal don’t work the same on all individuals. In Tulliver’s case, the fear part overwhelmed the arousal part. He went crashing down to the floor. The Paul Revere silver tea set on the Townsend dresser crashed to the floor too. A troupe of girl scouts from Nevada participating in an awards ceremony in the East Room one floor below winced at the impact, certain that the ceiling of the old mansion was crashing down upon them.
A man and a woman of the White House service staff rushed to the suite and banged on the door. “Mrs. Merriman? That you in there? Are you all right?” the man shouted.
“Yes! Fine! Now go away!” Manny shouted back. She sat at the foot of the bed hugging her knees. She beheld the National Security Adviser sprawled naked on the one-hundred-year old silk Kashan carpet. “Oh, ho, ho, ha, haaa!” Manny squealed at the hillock of quivering, pink flesh which lay before her. She laughed uncontrollably for two minutes.
Tulliver pulled himself up with effort. He wanted to swat the First Lady. But career aspirations got in the way.
“Ooohh. Come here. Come to mama,” she cooed, arms outstretched.
Tulliver obliged.
“Poor baby. Can’t play mama’s games? That’s okay. I love you anyway.” She stroked Tulliver’s thinning hair. “Yes, we can cuddle. Come. Under the sheets.”
Tulliver greatly welcomed the respite from sexual barnstorming. He lay with his head on Manny’s breast.
“Manny. I’d like us to be honest with each other,” he said after catching his breath. “Tell me frankly. What do you see in me? I’m hardly Antonio Banderas in pinstripes.”
“Oh. Well.” Manny played with her curls, her eyes searched for the answer. “Who my Antonio Banderas is — that is, if I have one — well, is my secret. You. You’re fun. Yeah. You make me laugh.”
Tulliver again wanted to swat her.
“Manny? Have you talked with your hus—, with the President about the Secretary of State job?”
“Oh, yeah. I did.” Manny’s mind was somewhere else. Her dancing eyes told Tulliver that it probably was with Banderas, or, at least, her own Banderas.
“And?”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah. Well, with this homosexual spy ring thing about to break at State — why does State have all of these homosexuals anyway? And Buckwheat Thompson was right in the middle of it? With that slaughter machine — what’s his name?”
“Ferret.”
“Right. That guy. Eeoow! Gives me the creeps!”
“Yes, Manny? And, what did, er, the President say?”
“Graham? I told Graham that he’d be nuts not to fire McHenry. Not a minute after the spy scandal is uncovered. I mean, it’s been one disaster after another with that guy. He’s sick and old, besides. Time to trade him in for a newer model. And do you know who I recommended as a replacement?”
Tulliver looked at her expectantly.
“Do you?” she teased.
“Uh, why don’t you just tell me. I presume it wasn’t Antonio Banderas.” Tulliver barely held his sarcasm in check.
“John ‘Flying Dick’ Tulliver. That’s who!” She poked his nose with the tip of her finger.
Tulliver embraced Manny and planted a fat kiss on her lips. He looked down at her, stroked her hair. “You’re a remarkable woman. You have everything. Power, beauty, wealth.”
“Brains?”
“Yes! Of, course. And with them, you always have the country first in your heart.”
“But only in my heart. I reserve other places for other people.”
Tulliver forced a laugh.
“Just think of it, Tully. If Graham does name you Secretary of State, you’ll be able to fuck over the whole country, the whole world, instead of just us girls in the lil’ ol’ White House.”
Tulliver could not force a laugh.
Lisa. It seemed that all of the women in Gallatin’s life met with tragedy, and that, as a result, torment was his lot. His wife, Celeste, robbed by cancer of her beauty and strength and, ultimately, her life. His daughter, Lauren, at the wrong place at the wrong time, hurtled into deep trauma and unconsciousness. Lisa. Against his better judgment, he was falling deeply in love with her. Much faster than he should. She, far into a lion’s den of treachery, yet so unknowing and innocent. Should anything happen to her, he simply wouldn’t be able to go on. He would give up.
He stared at Mr. Jameson straight in the eye. A double, straight up, sat there, a mere foot from his lips, beckoning Gallatin to loosen up, to let Mr. Jameson show the way to fend off pain.
But Gallatin just kept staring Jameson down. So far, it was a standoff.
Shaughnigan’s was busier than usual for a Thursday night. Working men often spent their paychecks the day before they actually got it, and the onset of cold weather tended to drive more of them to the bars.
The trio of musicians sang sweetly of lost loves and homesickness. In due course, they would transition into patriotic songs of battles lost and battles to be won. By that time, the largely besotted bar crowd would be singing, or slurring, along with them.
Gallatin reflected on his own battle. Over the well-being of Lauren. Months of personal investigation had gotten him virtually nowhere. The doctors told Gallatin that eventually Lauren would come to, but that her subsequent full recovery depended upon her ridding herself of the demons who put her in her present state. Gallatin needed to find those demons and strangle them. Only then Lauren would feel secure.
Jameson touched his lips to those of Gallatin. The old, familiar aroma of grain gone wrong wafted against Gallatin’s face as seductively as a first kiss.
The glass fell hard on the oak bar and cracked, sending Gallatin’s nemesis running in all directions. The bartender rushed over to wipe up the mess. He obligingly offered Gallatin a refill, on the house. But Gallatin declined, paid the tab, and marched to the phone as if his daughter’s life depended on it.
“Lisa. I miss you.”
There was silence at the other end.
“Lisa. Is something wrong?”
“I…need you, Mike. Please come.” She was sobbing.
“I’m taking the first flight tomorrow. But I need to speak to your friend, Thompson, urgently. I’ve been thinking about it. He’s the only link to Ferret. If he could help—, he’s got to help. He seemed on the up-and-up. Ferret’s the key—”
“Mike. He’s dead.”
“What do you mean?”
“Buckwheat. Murdered. Last night. With his partner. I’m afraid, Mike. But I know who’s behind it. Come help me.”
“I’m coming, baby.”
News of the bloody murders of Buckwheat Thompson and his roommate swept through the august corridors of the Old Executive Office Building like a cold wind. In hushed voices, NSC staffers strained to recall encounters with the elusive deputy director of the Office of Policy Coordination. A consensus was quickly building among the overwhelmingly white, suburbanite NSC professionals that such were the risks of living in high-crime Adams Morgan.
The front office wasted no time in circulating a memo from the National Security Adviser informing all of the tragedy and containing Tulliver’s own personal condolences to the family. It suggested that donations be made to Washington Children’s Hospital in Thompson’s memory. Tulliver praised Thompson as “this most dedicated public servant who devoted his life to the pursuit of peace.”
Haley’s voice made Lisa’s heart skip a beat. She had no idea how long he’d been hovering behind her, whether he had caught her conversation with Gallatin. He
leaned against the office shredder, arms folded across a chest that did one-hundred push-ups every morning and another hundred at the end of the day.
“Terrible news,” he said in an even tone.
“Thompson,” Lisa said.
“Yeah. He was a good deputy, at first. It goes to show that crime touches everybody. I used to tell him he was nuts to live where he did,” he said, shaking his head.
Haley’s professions rang hollow to Lisa. She held back tears. “I’ve never had a friend killed before,” she said.
“You two had become good friends, I gather?”
“Well, you work in the same office environment for months, you get to know people…a bit.” She shrugged. “Do the police have any leads?” she asked, seeking to steer the conversation away from her friendship with Thompson.
Haley shifted from the shredder to the window. “Yes, as a matter of fact,” he said with his face away from her. “Of course, we’re being fully cooperative with the FBI.”
“FBI?”
Haley turned around. “Yeah. Oh. You see. We’ve been investigating Thompson for some months now.”
“Investigating? Why?”
Haley stood over her. “Espionage.”
Lisa looked at Haley blankly, as if she hadn’t understood.
“We shifted you over to science and technology in order to shield you from Thompson; to allow the investigation to proceed in secrecy and without undue interference. Now you can have an opportunity to get back into some of your previous stuff. Dealing with the press, which you do so effectively.” He dropped a ream of papers on her desk.