The Greater Good

by Casey Moreton

  “I understand.” And he did.

  “The press will be on this day and night for weeks and months and on and on, once this breaks.”

  “For years,” he said, knowing full well the feast this would make for the news-gathering business.

  “Yes, for years.” There was thunder in her voice.

  “Miriam, what do you need for me to do?”

  “It would mean a tremendous amount to me if you could just be here. James would have wanted it.”

  “Of course. I’ll be there by late tonight.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What else can I do?”

  “I…don’t know. Everything has been chaos. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I’m exhausted, Nelson. I can’t believe he’s…”

  “Please, Miriam. Hold together till I get there.”

  She was nodding. “Okay. I’ll make certain there’s a car waiting for you at the airport. The kids will be glad to see you and—”

  “Miriam, don’t worry about me. This old cowboy has seen a lot, and there’s not much that scares me off. Don’t let those government crows spook you.”

  “Thank you, Nelson.”

  “I’ll be there in a jiff.”

  He hadn’t been to the office in three days, and hated having to put off some business responsibilities that had probably piled up. Nelson did not fit the mold of the traditional businessman. He was casual, even rustic, in his lifestyle, but he took finances seriously and was certainly not one to slack off when it came to getting the proper paperwork taken care of to get the job done and keep his customers happy.

  The snow and the wolves kept him doubly busy during the winter months. For every hour of daylight, it seemed he needed three more just to stay on par with everything that piled on his todo list. When he’d moved out west more than three decades earlier, his intention hadn’t been to become a corporate goon. And really, hewasn’t. But he was seventy years old, and the prospect of keeping his nose to the grindstone till he slumped over into the grave appealed to him about as much as life on an island of lepers. On the other hand, turning over the reins so that someone else could run the business made him more than a little nervous.

  Thus he found himself in the regrettable position of having to somehow go on with business even as he began to grieve the loss of his sibling. He dialed on his cell phone and told his wife to book the first flight she could get him on. His office was in town, twenty minutes from the ranch. He asked her to phone him there once the arrangements were made.

  The telephone on his desk was ringing when he unlocked the office door. Nelson threw his denim jacket on the coatrack and grabbed the phone. His flight left in ninety minutes. She would have a carry-on bag packed and waiting for him at the house. He’d have just enough time to tie up a few loose ends at the office, swing by the house for a quick shower and his bag, and make a dash for the airport. Opal even promised to have a tuna fish sandwich waiting for him on his way out.

  He shook the snow from the brim of his hat and dropped into the leather captain’s chair behind his desk. There were a half dozen messages on the answering machine, which he absently listened to as he shuffled through files and bills and receipts on the desk. He logged onto his desktop Mac and opened his email program. There were at least a dozen messages, but at the moment he had no time for them. He’d just print them and thumb through the stack on the flight out east.

  Nelson printed off the emails, folded them, and tucked them away. He was suddenly weary, overcome by the gravity of it all. It would’ve been nice to take a few minutes and sit back in the leather captain’s chair behind his desk. But he did not want to risk missing his flight. He’d be back in a couple of days, and right now he had to go bury his baby brother.

  The first official public absence came on the third day after Ettinger’s death. It was at a tiny, insignificant event. It was a pancake breakfast at a Methodist church in Portland, Maine, to raise money to upgrade the county’s 911 system. The vice president was to make an appearance of no more than forty-five minutes, but an appearance nonetheless. Just his presence alone would raise the number of charitable donations exponentially.

  The morning of the event, a call was placed to an official in charge, apologizing for the VP. It seemed he had come down with a nasty viral infection and was under doctor’s orders to stay in bed.

  If the absence raised any suspicions that anything might be out of the ordinary, none were voiced.

  The president met with his advisors in the afternoon, their second gathering of the day. He was getting anxious. Philbrick was being kept under wraps for the moment. Even Mrs. Philbrick had been left in the dark up to this point, at the president’s request.

  The director of the FBI, Curtis Martindale, presented what little data his people had managed to compile in the past six hours, none of which seemed very promising. Martindale assured the president that every available agent was being activated.

  The director of the CIA, Guy Palmer, for his part, read from a printed list of possible suspects. Most of them were members of various militant extremist groups scattered throughout central Europe and Asia. There was a Palestinian group that Palmer expressed particular interest in. But there was nothing tangible yet, nothing to link any of the parties in question to the crime at hand.

  The president had his reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose. He’d slept three hours in the past forty-eight and was quickly tiring of these two birds pointing fingers at each other. There was enough blame to go around, he figured. How this clown had been allowed near enough to Ettinger’s property to get a clean shotthrough his bedroom window was beyond him. More than that, it scared the living crap out of him. If some goon could get to Ettinger, it was just as likely there was a blind spot for getting to him, as well. And he had no plans to die in office.

  Both the FBI and the CIA laid out their tentative game plans for the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Russ Vetris probed them for anything they might know and might be choosing not to share at the present time. These boys were masters at telling you only what they wanted you to know. Harboring secrets was their stock-in-trade.

  Every international flight, whether inbound or outbound from U.S. soil, was being monitored. Analysts at Langley were reviewing security tapes of passengers boarding international flights at seven major airports in the United States, going back three days.

  The president had the fourth draft of a speech on his desk. It was the speech he would give when the time came to address the nation to officially announce the untimely death of their vice president. He was marking it up with a red felt-tip. He would be sitting right there behind his desk in the Oval Office when he read it directly into the television camera. Briefly he considered which suit he’d wear to convey the proper mixture of sadness and strength. He dismissed the thought—after all, that’s what his advisors were for.

  They scheduled a third meeting for 9P .M., and the congregation queued up and marched out of the Oval Office. The president looked at his editing job, and frowned. How long should they wait to make the announcement? It was the biggest story in four decades. If they held out too long, the story would break through less proper channels. And that would be no good. This was news that the American people should hear directly from their leader.

  13

  ASMALL ARMY OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS CONVERGED NEARthe front of the jet to assist with a kid in a wheelchair. The kid’s head was shaved, and he looked to have had a pretty sad run of things over the course of his short life. His arms were lined with needles that fed tubing, which in turn trailed off to hanging bags. A battery-operated ventilator kept his lungs pumping. The attendants and his harried-looking parents and a nurse maneuvered his wheelchair down the aisle toward the exit. The rest of the passengers waited semipatiently as the small caravan shuffled along.

  St. John remained seated for a few minutes, watching people brush past him. In front of him, the sweaty real-estate agent from Nebraska tussled with his carry-on, havi
ng wedged it against its will into the overhead compartment. The guy’s wife nagged for him to step it up a notch or they’d never catch a cab.

  The crowd thinned slightly. St. John fetched his hanging bag from the overhead compartment and waded into the aisle and off the plane. The air was static with the spirit of the holiday and the sighs of weary travelers. St. John moved along in the queue of heads and bodies heading down toward the terminal.

  As the ramp opened wide, the masses dispersed in all directions. He had an inch or two over most of the crowd, and his sharp blue eyes made a broad, patient sweep of the immediate area. It was surprisingly warm here. There were enough bodies in this room to heat a rural community. A Korean and three small children bumped past him like ballistic missiles. They shot down the thin carpeting to where a cluster of smiling relatives engulfed them with hugs and kisses.

  St. John stood straight and tall. His gaze had made it halfway back across on the survey when he saw her. His breath caught for just a moment, and he smiled. She saw him too. She’d been watching him, he could tell in an instant. She’d seen him step a foot or two out of the traffic and pan the crowd for any sign of her.

  St. John took a breath, then a big step forward. In that instant, he forgot the swarming heat, the half a billion winter-clad travelers milling around him, and the chaos of La Guardia Airport and New York City.

  She waited, standing next to a support column. The deplorable overhead lighting did nothing to diminish her beauty. Her dark hair framed her face like an angel. And her smile produced a current far more substantial than electricity. She wore a long coat over a short skirt, and held dainty leather gloves in her hands.

  St. John approached and stopped less than a foot away. He looked down at her, then took her hands in his. Two weeks, had it been, or an eternity? It was a question that each asked as they stared into each other’s eyes. When he could stand it no longer, he let go of her hands, touched his fingers to the smooth slopes of her neck and leaned in to kiss her.

  He kissed her deeply, and Megan received him in the way that he’d grown to crave. She groped her way beneath his coat and felt the tone of the muscles along his sides and back, and all the luscious memories of their time together came back to her in a flood. They had yet to speak a word.

  Chills fingered down her spine as he kissed her neck and chin.

  She managed to say, “How was your flight?”

  “Lonely, without you.”

  She couldn’t help but grin. His lips were warm against her flesh. Why had she ever let him leave her? Never again, she swore.

  “I have a cab waiting.”

  “Good. And you’d better have aroom waiting,” he purred, working up toward the lobe of one ear.

  She nearly melted. Megan nodded. “A big one. With a big bed, and room service.”

  “We don’t need a big bed, just a stout one.”

  “Let’s find the rest of your clothes.” Megan motioned in the general direction of the baggage carousel.

  “I don’t plan on needing them.” He attacked her other lobe with his tongue.

  “We’ll at least have toeat sometime.”

  “You said we have room service.”

  “New York is a city where a woman needs to be wined and dined,” she teased, pulling away with a laugh.

  “Very well. One meal. Then it’s back to bed for the two of us!”

  Megan Durant took Olin St. John by the hand. He collected his bags and they hurried to the cab. Even before the taxi had left the curb, he was kissing her again.

  Hardly nine months had passed since they’d first met. A mutual acquaintance had introduced them. It was at an exhibit opening at a large art gallery in London. The acquaintance was a major figure in certain circles in Europe and was ushered away to join another conversation mere seconds after Olin St. John and Megan Durant had said hello. Their eyes met, and in that instant, fate let its intentions be known: they were meant for each other.

  Though they’d met in England, they were both American by birth. Megan was hesitant to speak at any length about her parents. Her parents had divorced, she explained, and there wasn’t much more to add. She cared to remember little or nothing of life before the age of ten and was clearly determined not to dwell in the past.

  Olin lied. His family, he said, had been missionaries to Scandinavia for years. When they returned to the States he stayed behind, eventually building a career that had made him quite wealthy. In truth, his grandfather had fought in the Second World War and married a German woman and had a son. His father had worked as a watchmaker for thirty-five years until a thief put a knife in his back. Olin was raised on the streets, where he learned to make a living with a gun.

  She scribbled her number on the back of his program. He phoned within the week, longing to hear her voice. Soon he was visiting regularly. They fell in love hard and fast.

  Olin had traveled the world, and he enchanted her with stories of Moscow and Hong Kong and the Middle East. She let him make love to her in palatial rooms overlooking the Thames. It seemed clear that they were soul mates.

  Olin found himself increasingly distracted from his work, his heart longing for Megan more with each passing hour that they were apart. She thought of little else than Olin St. John, her body craving his touch.

  They’d known each other for such a short time when, only two weeks ago, Olin phoned out of the blue and proposed marriage. He was away on business. This, he declared, was his final account. He was retiring so that he could be her husband. He told her that he had accumulated enough wealth for them to populate the earth with their children and for neither of them to lift a finger for the rest of their lives.

  “Meet me in New York in two weeks,” he’d said as she listened breathlessly. “Then we’ll do something hokey—fly to Las Vegas or something, and be wed on the spot. No friends, no family, just the two of us, starting our life together on our own terms. Then we’ll make love till we go blind.”

  Through tears and laughter she accepted.

  Several more calls followed in the days to come, as they whizzed through the arrangements. Never again would they be apart, they promised with each conversation. With an ocean standing between them, they declared that their love would burn forever.

  A pair of stark-looking figures in dark suits and dark sunglasses were waiting when Nelson Ettinger appeared in the terminal at Ronald Reagan National Airport. They had been provided with photos of the vice president’s brother and were briefed on how to handle transporting him to the Ettinger estate in Washington, D.C.

  Nelson had barely stepped out of the narrow jetway into the terminal when the two gentlemen presented themselves and quickly ushered him into a waiting car. There was no conversation. Nelson had expected none.

  He was still perplexed by something he’d read during the flight. Among the emails he’d printed at his office was a message from his brother. The message was both intimate and cryptic, and Nelson had no idea what to make of it. Nelson ached at the thought that he’d not had a chance to say good-bye to James. But in some small way it helped to have these final words printed out on office paper. It was as if James had reached out to him one last time, and that meant the world to him. He intended to show it to Miriam. Maybe she could shed some light on what James had written.

  The estate in D.C. was massive. The mansion sat on a ten-acre, partially wooded spread. It was gated and, at the moment, guarded like the Pentagon. The Lincoln eased through security. One of the men in dark glasses carried Nelson’s bag for him. Nelson noticed the man run a detection device over and beneath the bag.

  Miriam’s sister, Elaine, was in the kitchen, giving instructions to the staff. It hadn’t occurred to him that Elaine would be there, though it made sense. He tipped his hat to her and she offered him a hug. Her kids were in Connecticut with her husband, she said. Bradey and Jude were in the family room watching TV.

  “How’s she holding up?” he asked, removing his hat and running a hand through what scraps
of hair he had left.

  “She’s coping.”

  He frowned.

  “Have you eaten?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t fuss on my account.”

  Elaine led him down a series of hallways, finally heading up a flight of plushly carpeted stairs. Along the way, she introduced him to various clusters of serious faces, presenting him as the vice president’s brother. Everyone offered condolences.

  The ceiling was high and vaulted. The place was much too fancy for his taste.

  “Miriam has been understandably withdrawn, the past day or so.” Elaine gestured as they walked. “She absolutely dreads the media blitz. Those scavengers are never going to leave her alone.”

  Nelson nodded, following a half-step behind. “When does Yates plan to make a statement?”

  She took an exasperated breath. “I honestly couldn’t tell you. I mean, the FBI wants more time, but Miriam needsclosure. There is a funeral to plan. She has to bury him, and it’s just not right to drag this out any longer.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “But they’re not concerned about her, they have their politics to worry about.”

  “Like what?”

  “What little I’ve heard, Yates has tapped Anthony Philbrick to fill the VP’s vacancy.”

  “As inSpeaker of the House Philbrick?”

  They came to the closed double doors of the master bedroom. “Just a second,” she said, and knocked lightly. There was no answer. Elaine turned the doorknob and eased open the exquisitely detailed raised-panel mahogany door. Once inside, she left the door open only a crack.

  Nelson Ettinger stood with his Stetson held at his side. He turned away from the door. Back down the hall, the way they’d just come, a Secret Service agent paused and flashed him a suspicious look. He had short auburn hair and a strong jawline. The old cowboy spotted the tiny receiver in the man’s ear. He offered the young man a courteous nod. The gesture was not returned.