Oath of Office

by Michael Palmer

  “And a perceptive one, at that. You’re the second woman who asked me that question in the last hour. My thirteen-year-old daughter, Emily the Sorceress, diagnosed me over the phone as not being my usual bubbly, positive self. Forgive me … Darlene. I didn’t tell Em, but just a day ago, I was being chased through a cornfield by some professional killers who, when they weren’t shooting at me, were trying to run me down with a combine harvester.”

  “Ouch! As the daughter of a wheat farmer, I know those harvesters. Thank goodness they’re not too maneuverable.”

  “Actually, I was six-foot-nine before this one got me.”

  “Well, no wonder you look a little peaked.”

  Lou loved her laugh.

  “Under normal circumstances, I’m a certified, dues-paying nonsleeper,” he said, “but there’s no sleep and there’s running for your life from people who want to shoot you or chop you up no sleep. I’ll look less chalky soon.”

  “I’m working on a pretty endless day, myself. I promise we won’t be long, but I want to hear about everything.”

  No, no, take as long as you like, Lou found his inner voice saying. Take all night.

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I’m tough.”

  “My daughter, Lisa, is locked into me like a Patriot missile, just like Emily is to you. She has a tougher time getting a read on her father, but as you might have discerned if you’re at all political, not many people do, if any.”

  Darlene’s expression was enigmatic, and Lou wondered if the statement was calculated or had just slipped out. He suspected it was spontaneous. This was not a woman who measured her words.

  “I vote,” he said. “Does that count as being political?”

  “It counts more than everything else put together. Good answer. Hey, Victor, this guy comes as advertised. I like him. Let’s go to Plan B.”

  “You got it.”

  Keyed by Victor, the window between the front and backseats glided shut. As the Lincoln eased away from the curb, Lou turned to look behind them, but never made it past Darlene. He was stunned to realize that the First Lady was staring at him as well.

  She made no attempt to look away.

  He could not remember ever being so immediately attracted to a woman who was not Renee, and warned himself to remember he was compromised by stress and exhaustion, and she was more than compromised by the obvious.

  He felt a slight burning in his cheeks and suspected he no longer looked pale.

  Darlene spoke first. “Do you need anything to drink?” she asked. “Water? Soda?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  He wondered if she knew that he didn’t drink alcohol. He could see the car had a small well-stocked bar. She could have offered him a cocktail. Victor knew about his boxing. Had she been studying up on other aspects of his life? She said he came as advertised. They had to have done some homework on him.

  “Before we begin,” she said, her directness not at all surprising, “You should know, if you don’t already, that my chief of staff and I did a little research on you when I knew we two might meet. Nothing too elaborate—mostly a little background checking, some phone calls, and Google and Yahoo, plus a dab of LexisNexis.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first. What did you learn?”

  “Let’s see. From several sources, we learned that you don’t get along all that well with the head of the Physician Wellness Office. We also learned that the poor doctor who went crazy in Virginia was back at work because you felt he was ready.”

  “That about summarizes it. Anything else?”

  “From Google, I learned that you dug yourself out of a hell of a hole about nine years ago, and have helped a lot of other troubled doctors over the years since then. From Google Images, I learned that you don’t photograph well and that your eyes are your best feature.”

  “My dentist, Dr. Moskowitz would say it was my teeth, except he worries that I grind when smart, terrific-looking women say nice things to me.”

  “Thanks. Are you grinding now?”

  “Down to the nubs.”

  That smile.

  “I won’t say stuff like that again, Lou,” she said. “Sorry. I can be a little flip and flirty at times, and I have a tendency I’m not proud of to fish for compliments.”

  “Not to worry, I have dental insurance. So … you checked me out, you emailed me, I’m here. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, first of all, I wasn’t the one who emailed you.”

  “No?”

  “It was a man my chief of staff, Kim Hajjar, and I call Double M. It’s short for mystery man.”

  “And who is your mysterious Double M?” Lou asked. “And more importantly, what’s his connection to Kings Ridge, Virginia?”

  “Believe it or not, I don’t know. Our guy is either extremely cautious or absolutely paranoid. He has made it clear to me that his life may be in danger if his identity becomes known. He contacted me because of my friendship with Russell Evans—”

  “The Secretary of Agriculture?”

  “Former. He and I played in the Kansas dirt together when we were children. It was through me that he became friends with Martin. I’m sure you heard about the scandal involving him and a young woman, and his subsequent resignation.”

  “Of course. I’m glad to hear that he’s not guilty, but I tend not to judge people, so I hadn’t formed any opinion.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. Double M wants me to convince my husband to reinstate Russ and get him back to work. He said the secretary was framed because of certain of his policies, but he didn’t say which ones.”

  “Do you have any thoughts about that? I had heard that the FDA and the Department of Agriculture were at war over lots of things.”

  “Because the food manufacturers don’t have to tell people precisely what goes into the food they’re eating. For example, the way the current legislation is set up, most products that are GMOs are exempt from the label saying they’re a genetically modified product. Their argument is that foods developed using new genetic methods don’t differ from the real-deal foods in any meaningful way. For instance, cows that are fed on GMO grain—are they GMO cows or not? The problem is that the government hasn’t made it clear who is in charge of what.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve recently been given new information from Double M. It’s that information I’ve come here to discuss with you.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  Darlene sighed. “Alas, my best quality and worst shortcoming are the same. I trust everyone—at least until they’ve given me serious reason not to.”

  “In that case, I can’t think of a worse game for you to be in than politics,” Lou said.

  “Amen to that. But don’t forget, I didn’t choose politics. I chose Martin.”

  Lucky Martin. The thought popped uninvited into Lou’s head, and began to nest.

  “I voted for your husband,” Lou said, “partly because I have the same problem you do with trust, and I read more about you as a doc than I did about him as a politician.”

  “Well, then, you’ll want to listen to this.”

  Victor continued driving as Darlene handed Lou an envelope containing the materials Double M had compiled regarding the call girl he knew only as Margo. Using a set of headphones Darlene provided, Lou listened to the audio of the girl prepping to entrap Russell Evans and being obliquely threatened should she fail to perform up to expectations.

  “The man’s voice, whoever it is, is digitally altered,” Lou said, pulling the headphones away as if they were burning his ears. “Whoever your Double M is, he is an expert in electronics or has one on his payroll.”

  For a time, they rode on in silence.

  “Tough stuff,” Darlene said finally.

  “She sounds awfully young. I can’t help thinking about Emily.”

  “Same with me and Lisa when I first heard it.”

  “Do you know what’s become of this girl?”

  Da
rlene’s expression grew strained. “Supposedly accidental drowning while staying with her mother in Florida. Lots of alcohol in her system.”

  “Damn.”

  Victor cruised past American University, then down Arizona Avenue, and finally to a parking spot just off the Palisades Playground.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “A little shaken, but I’m anxious to hear how this all connects with Kings Ridge.”

  “In that case, let’s walk a bit.”

  They stepped out of the car into heavy, damp air and headed down a narrow, paved bike trail, deserted this time of night. Lights from the city reflected off the rippling water of the Potomac. Victor followed a good distance behind.

  “I took Emily here when she was younger,” Lou said.

  “I like to ride here when I have time.”

  “With the president?”

  “That would happen only if it would help him in the polls. Plan B was for Victor to come here unless I gave him a signal that I wasn’t interested in talking to you.”

  “Let’s hear it for Plan B,” Lou said.

  CHAPTER 38

  “Martin absolutely deplores Russell Evans for humiliating him at a time when the polls have him at an all-time low. Russ’s father was a farmer like my dad, but Russ got a master’s degree and ended up going into academics. I always felt close to him. He and I are mutually interested in kids’ nutrition. Martin has forbidden me even to mention his name.”

  “That’s got to be hard,” Lou said.

  Walking slowly through the dense night, the two physicians shared information along with bits about each other’s lives. Their conversation was easy and animated except for Lou’s account of the almost-certain death of Anthony Brite, which was obviously painful for her to hear. After a while, it was as if he and Darlene Mallory had been longtime friends. Still, the tension that had brought them together was never far from the surface.

  Lou sensed another feeling building inside him as well—the excitement of merely being close to her.

  “Assuming those killers are connected with Russ Evans and Double M,” she said, “Anthony’s death only underscores the importance of our figuring out what’s going on.”

  According to Double M, she went on, Gretchen Rose, whose name the president had submitted to Congress as Evans’s successor, had strong views on states’ rights and limitation of federal involvement in setting agriculture policy. Evans was close to her polar opposite.

  “And that horrible tape?” Lou asked.

  “Martin is quite the skeptic, and is already extremely prejudiced against Russ. I needed to find the girl on that recording to convince him that someone was manipulating his administration. Sadly, that’s not going to happen now. But Double M has another plan—something that he’s asked me to make happen. That’s where you come in.”

  “Tell me.”

  Darlene tucked her hands into the pockets of her Windbreaker. “It’s all about corn,” she said.

  “That’s about as far as I had gotten in Kings Ridge,” Lou replied, “before the well ran dry. I feel like the six blind men each trying to describe an elephant.”

  He described the findings that led him, Cap, and George to refer to William Chester’s crop as Frankencorn.

  “Double M has never mentioned anything about this to me until today,” Darlene said, “but he called and said that rather than try to get Russ Evans reinstated when the president won’t even allow his name to be spoken, I should concentrate on stopping a shipment of corn that’s loaded on a cargo train scheduled to head west. I don’t know who supplied this corn, or precisely where it’s going or when, but I’ve been told that this shipment must be stopped.”

  “Darlene,” Lou said, “is there any way, any way at all, that you can tell me something about this man that would help to figure out who he is? It may be very important.”

  Darlene sighed deeply. “I’ve met him, but it was pretty dark, and he had on glasses with heavy black frames and a baseball cap—a Nationals cap, I think. He spoke to me using an electrolarynx, even though there was nothing that I could see wrong with his neck.”

  “Probably just distorting his voice,” Lou said. “Go on, please.”

  “Well, he’s a big man—probably taller than you.”

  “I’m almost six-one when I don’t slouch.”

  “Okay, six-one and a little on the husky side. He had a full beard, but I thought it might be fake. I promised I wouldn’t push him to tell me who he was. He said he would be in great danger if his identity became known.”

  “I won’t ask again. He wants the corn shipment stopped by the president? What could be wrong with it?”

  “I don’t know,” Darlene said. “According to Double M, you might have the answer to that.”

  “Me? I don’t know anything about any shipments.”

  “No, but Double M says you know a lot about the residents of Kings Ridge exhibiting very strange behavior. Apparently he believes there’s a connection.”

  Lou flipped through the people he had spoken to since Meacham’s killing spree, focusing on those who were above average height and husky—Gilbert Stone, employees at DeLand Regional, members of the police department, farmers he had met at the Grange Hall—where he also posted a notice asking for any information surrounding shootings in the Chester Enterprises fields, or any stories of severe lapses in reason or judgment. Then there were the politicians he had yet to meet, and others who might have feelings pro or con regarding Russell Evans. The list was already daunting. In fact, Lou realized, Double M could easily be an actor hired by Russ Evans, and the tape could be bogus.

  Lou stopped as though he had just walked into a wall. “Hey, what if it’s the corn itself?” he asked.

  “The corn?”

  “The Frankencorn. What if it’s somehow toxic for people?”

  “Meaning that this shipment of corn and John Meacham are connected?”

  “Well, I didn’t think the killings had anything to do with corn until just now,” Lou said. “But I can see the possibility.” Then he related what he had observed about the corn—the unusual size and growth. “When we spoke with William Chester, he tried to convince us that the corn was just the by-product of a new type of fertilizer Chester Enterprises is patenting.”

  “Genetically modified organism,” Darlene whispered. “So, do you think that Double M works for William Chester?”

  “I don’t know,” Lou said. “There could be hundreds of corn shipments headed west.”

  “Even if we narrow it down to a specific company, Double M is concerned about only one specific cargo train filled with corn.”

  “So where does that leave us?” Lou asked. He realized he was intentionally avoiding too much eye contact with the woman, fearing she would feel, correctly, that he was staring.

  “My instructions were to get you and Martin together. I guess Double M wants you to tell Martin what you’ve just told me.”

  “Why? If Double M’s not going to tell us which train we’ve got to stop, what good will that do?”

  “Maybe he’ll give us that information after you talk to Martin,” Darlene offered.

  “Maybe. From what you’ve told me about your husband, I don’t think he’s going to do anything without demanding to know who Double M is.”

  “If that’s the case, I will tell Martin what I know. I certainly understand there may be lives at stake, but I can’t begin to tell you the measures this man has taken to keep his identity a secret. Martin’s out of town right now. There’s no way I can get you a meeting with him until he gets back. Lou, if it is the corn, how do you think it’s affecting people?”

  Lou shook his head. “I just don’t feel like I know enough, unless…”

  “Go on, please.”

  “From what we could tell, there are hundreds, probably thousands of acres of that GMO corn growing in Kings Ridge.”

  “And?”

  “And what if the problem is something airborne,” he said. />
  “Pollen?”

  “Sure,” Lou said, “pollen! The tassels on the ears produce pollen that gets dispersed by the wind.”

  “Airborne! That’s how people could be getting exposed. They could be inhaling the pollen and be allergic to it.”

  “That would certainly explain some things I haven’t been able to understand.”

  “Explain what things?” Darlene asked.

  “The termites.”

  Lou glanced back to ensure that his sudden enthusiasm hadn’t brought Victor any closer.

  “Termites?” Darlene echoed. “What on earth do—?”

  Lou put one foot up on a bench, leaned on his knee, and recounted the astounding setup at Joey Alderson’s small apartment, and the piranha-like efficiency with which his termites had totally dispatched a mouse.

  Darlene listened wide-eyed, occasionally brushing her hands down the length of her arms, as though the termites Lou was describing were crawling there.

  As he expected, Darlene gleaned the significance of the tale immediately. “You think this airborne toxin causes mutation in the insects?” Darlene asked.

  “I think along with a number of other questions, it’s one worth answering.”

  “And how do you propose to go about doing that?”

  “Dr. Oliver Humphries,” Lou said.

  “Who?”

  “One of the world’s leading experts on termites. My smartphone and I are sort of joined at the hip. I found him while I was Googling ‘flesh-eating termites’ after my visit to Joey’s. I certainly hadn’t connected the little beasties to corn, but I was running out of paths to follow in investigating John Meacham’s rampage.”

  “So you had already planned to speak with this bug man about these termites?”

  “Yes. I have an appointment with him the day after tomorrow. Now I have more questions to ask him, such as whether some sort of airborne mutagen might be at work.”

  “And if perhaps the effect on people is different from that on the termites, but caused by the pollen nonetheless,” she said with new excitement. “Where is he based?”