“Nelson.” She motioned for him.
He followed Elaine beyond the door. They stopped beside the huge bed. Nelson observed his surroundings. The master bedroom was the length and breadth of a modest home.I wonder how much hay I could fit in here? A quarter of the opposing wall was composed of floor-to-ceiling windows. Beyond the glass, a balcony protruded from the mansion.
“She’s out there,” Elaine said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I’ll leave you two to talk, and I’ll make sure your dinner is ready when you are.” With that, she was out the door.
He spotted his sister-in-law seated in a deck chair on the balcony, a blanket across her lap. He could only guess how long she’d been there. Perhaps the harsh winter chill helped her to deal with the shock and the pain.
He tapped on the glass before stepping out.
“Don’t get up,” he said. He bent down to hug her. She kissed him on the cheek.
“I don’t imagine you expected to fly all the way from that ranch of yours to stand out here in this nasty weather?” Her complexion was pale and her eyes were noticeably streaked.
“The cold isn’t a problem,” he said, a big warm grin revealing startlingly white teeth. “Enduring the traffic in this city, though…”
“Still just an old cowboy?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you for coming on such short notice, Nelson.”
“The security around here is nuts.”
“Yes it is. Perhaps James would still be alive if they had exercised such rigid precaution on a regular basis. He was shot in ourbedroom, Nelson. How could they have allowed that? There is no excuse!”
“No one can be kept safe one hundred percent of the time.”
She met this comment with silence.
“If there’s anything you need from me, Miriam, don’t even hesitate. Jimmy and I weren’t the best at keeping in touch, but I know full well that he’d have been there for Opal in a flash if the tables were turned. The sad truth is that he was the second most visible and powerful man on the planet. Not the safest job you could choose. There are some awfully vile folks out there with a lot of hate. And they’ve got to direct that hate toward somebody.” Nelson looked out over the lawn beneath the balcony. Arc lights cast elongated pools of light across the largely undisturbed snow. He could see Secret Service agents moving about along the perimeter of the grounds.
He could tell she was freezing but wagered that the discomfort of the biting cold was a small price to pay to keep away from all the activity inside the house. He could spout all sorts of encouraging, uplifting drivel, but her life had been washed away in one fatal blow. The heart heals in its own time.
The corners of her blanket fluttered in the crisp breeze. Nelson could feel his own nose going numb, and his ears were beginning to sting, as well.
“My visit will be as long or short as you request,” he continued, aware that his presence would serve very little purpose other than moral support. “I’m here for you and the kids. If you need help with funeral arrangements, just say the word.”
She turned to him, tears glistening, the weight of the world reflected in her eyes. “You’re a good brother.”
“Ah, don’t get carried away, young lady.” He gave her a wink. “I loved my brother. And I love his family.”
Miriam reached out a hand for his, giving it a squeeze.
“That sister of yours promised me a hot meal. You reckon there’s any truth to that?”
“Absolutely,” she said with a forced smile. “The food around here might even impress an old dog like you.”
His grin faded as he unbuttoned an inside pocket of his sport coat. “Listen, Miriam, real quick. I was curious, was something peculiar going on with Jimmy?”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
Unfolding the email printout, he handed it to her. “Well, I didn’t understand it myself. It’s the strangest thing. I didn’t know what to make of this. But perhaps it might be of some interest to you.”
14
OLIN SURPRISED HER WITH TICKETS TOTHEPRODUCERS.Sitting at a small round metal table at lunch, Megan was dreamily lost in his eyes. The restaurant had a generous view of Central Park. He slid the matching pair of tickets to her, banded with a Christmas bow.
They’d frequented shows in London. He kept a brownstone in the theater district. It was a place to unwind, with a fireplace in the den and a tree out front, nothing fancy. Megan hadn’t been much on theater until they’d met, but now she was addicted.
“These are for the eight o’clock show. Are you pleased?” He didn’t need to ask. She was beaming. She took his hand and leaned to kiss him.
“Very much so. Thank you.”
They dined on pasta and white wine. The small table was very intimate. They talked, keeping their faces close together, and flirted like teenagers, hands groping, kissing, eyes sending plenty of uncoded signals. The flirting flowed with an energy of its own. These past few weeks had seemed unending. All they wanted was to be near each other, to touch and hold, and to know that the wait was over.
Even with the cold and the wind and the ice-crusted sidewalks, it was a pleasure to stroll together along the streets of New York. Megan nestled herself against Olin. He bundled her in his arms.
They shopped, leisurely browsing. She tried on this and that, modeling for him, and turning in front of the tall mirrors. Olin carried her bags.
Midafternoon, they stopped for cappuccinos, sipping and chatting as flakes of snow specked the windows.
“I want a whole house full of children,” she said, a bit of foam from her hot drink clinging to her upper lip.
“That’s what you’ve said.”
“What do you think?”
“I think we need to get in lots of practice first.”
“A girl first, though; a sweet little thing, with a huge red bow in her hair, and lots of frilly white lace on her dress. Then a few boys, as handsome as their father. Then, whatever happens to come along after that.”
“I’m glad you’ve put in your order early.”A father? The thought was like shrapnel tearing through his consciousness. It sounded absurd. Sure, he was setting sail into a new life, a new existence, but hurtling headlong in paternity—how could it be? He’d spent more than half of his life killing for profit. How could he expect to be an example to another human being? Not that his nurturing side didn’t exist. But how can you discipline your child for picking a fight or not cleaning her room, when you’ve opened up a man’s chest with a foot-long serrated blade as he begged for mercy that you never for a second considered granting? These were the questions that would haunt him in the future, he knew. For now he’d pursue only what was directly in front of him, here in this moment.
An icy finger of cold, absolute terror trailed up President Clifton Yates’s spine. He read the words again, and again he choked hard on his panic. This had to be a joke. But there it was in black and white. His stomach lurched. He felt like he would be violently ill, right there on the steps of the monument. But to his credit, he held it in. For the moment, no matter how nauseating the sight of the message made him feel, he had to remain cool.
Nelson,
If and when you hear my taped statement, please forgive me. I’ve turned out to be neither a good brother nor a good citizen.
I’ll call you in a few days.
James
Taped statement?What on earth could that mean? His imagination was spinning out all sorts of feverish scenarios. But Yates had to focus…focus and breathe.
“This is as baffling to me as it is to you, Miriam. I assure you,” Yates said.
Miriam Ettinger stood only a few feet away, her countenance the very definition of sober. She was bundled in an elegant fur coat and a scarf. It was after two in the morning, Wednesday. She had phoned him personally, shortly before 1A .M., and was adamant that they meet right away, alone, to talk. How could he say no?
His driver delivered him, per her request, to the Lincoln
Memorial. The temperature was scraping zero. They stood at the base of the magnificent edifice of the Great Emancipator, his likeness bearing down on them.
The president had adjourned the last meeting of the night at eleven-thirty, and had settled in for some ESPN. When her call came, he had muted the game he was watching, and spoke to her as if he’d just been thinking of calling. But the voice on the other end had been, as it was now, all-business. She was slightly enigmatic on the phone, stating only that it was urgent that she see him immediately. And he’d honestly seen no harm in humoring his running mate’s grief-stricken widow.
But now, more than anything on God’s green earth, Clifton Yates wished he could rewind to that moment and simply pacify her with some benign words of sympathy, just to get her off the phone. Instead, he was holding a copy of an email written by James Ettinger mere hours before his assassination. An email containing two infinitely volatile words. Words, that in a city like Washington, had the potential to bring down administrations.
Taped statement.
“Was it something he wasplanning to do, or something he had already done?” Miriam Ettinger asked him, as if he should know.
Most of the color had left the president’s face. The extreme cold was a blessing, otherwise she might have noticed the terror-induced whitewashing of his features. “Miriam, I…couldn’t even begin to explain this message. Clearly, he had something on his mind, but I think it would be unwise to jump to any conclusions on this. James and I talked almost daily, and he was in perfect spirits the day before his death. Perhaps this was just something between brothers.”
Miriam shook her head violently. “No, Clifton. Nelson has no idea what James was trying to tell him. He brought it to my attention because of his own bewilderment. Besides, if it were between brothers, why would he call himself a bad citizen? What would he mean by that?”
“I wish I knew,” Yates said. Indeed, he did wish he knew yet feared that maybe hedid know. Most paralyzing at this moment was the amount of room there was for speculation. He knew very well what James Ettinger might have meant by those words. But it seemed unlikely.
Ettinger had been faithful to the party for so long. Faithful to the machinations required for success. Faithful to the administration. Nobodyliked living with what they’d done. Yet nothing worth doing ever got done without discomfort or sacrifice. And they had managed to slip under the radar, to accomplish something that was all too necessary for the country they loved to remain strong and great, for the nation to remain the most powerful force on earth. They had lived under the weight of paranoia for nearly eight years now, but they’d finally made it out of the danger zone.
Taped statement.
The focused heat of speculation was boring a hole through his chest. This woman wanted an answer. He would not be able to provide her with one. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
“Was he planning to speak before Congress? Could that be it?” There was rising desperation in her voice.
“Miriam, I can look into this—and I assure you that I will immediately—but for me to speculate at this time would be unproductive and foolish. I’m in no better position than you are. I need time, Miriam. You’ve sprung this on me out of the blue. And you’ve got to leave room for the possibility that this means nothing at all, as painful as that might be to accept. After all, it says right here that James had planned to call Nelson in a few days to explain. It’s probably nothing.” Glancing at the massive likeness of Lincoln and thinking of how many tremendous sacrifices Abe had made in the name of the greater good, he wondered whether he himself—if the truth were ever made known—would be held in such high regard.
Miriam Ettinger wanted none of it. Her first reaction was to cast off his argument. But the voice of cool reason finally offered its counsel, stripping her rebuttal of its momentum. Maybe the message was benign. Could it be that her urgency to find meaning in James’s message to Nelson was fueled merely by the desperation of a woman grieving the loss of her husband? Possibly, she thought.
A stiff breeze brought leaves skittering across the top steps leading up to the memorial. She took a step toward the president. “Clifton, I apologize. You’re probably right. Please forgive this inconvenience. I’ve kept you out on such a miserable night. You were a good friend to James.” She motioned to the printout in his hand. “Feel free to throw that in the garbage. You’ve always known what’s best.”
“James was my friend, Miriam. You have become like a sister to me. You could never inconvenience me. And I mean that. I will not rest until his killer is brought to justice. You have my word.” The president put his big hand on her shoulder, offering her the same look of unquestionable sincerity that had won him back-to-back elections.
Miriam thanked him. She turned and descended the steps to her waiting Jaguar. The car whisked her into the night.
President Clifton Yates looked down and read James Ettinger’s words again. He would not let that man destroy him from the grave. He crumpled the paper in his fist but did not discard it. It did not belong in the garbage. In time, it would be burned, and the ashes scattered. But not yet. Before that could happen, other eyes would have to see it.
A frantic call was made at 3A.M. The call originated from the car carrying the president between the Lincoln Memorial and the White House, and was answered by a sleep-soaked voice at a behemoth stone mansion in Silver Spring, Maryland. The person on the receiving end of the call was H. Glen Shelby, the president’s attorney. The conversation was short and enigmatic.
A short time later, Shelby parked his Lexus next to a playground at a local junior high school and waited with the engine idling. In no time the president’s car appeared at the street corner and then stopped at the rear of the attorney’s car. Glen Shelby climbed inside, and the president offered him coffee in a tall paper cup.
The car turned out onto the street, the deep, cold night passing over its black-tinted windows. The excursion, which took them on a meandering route through D.C., lasted three-quarters of an hour. The point of the drive was to have a private conversation. The topic of conversation was decidedly not fit for the Oval Office—or any other space within the walls of the White House, for that matter—where unseen electronic eyes and ears were far too prone to eavesdrop.
A few minutes after 4A .M., the black limousine dropped Shelby back at his car. He started his Lexus, feeling rattled. He sat in the cold, staring straight ahead, thinking, both hands on the wheel. He put the car in gear and started to pull away from the playground, but then eased the gearshift into neutral, taking a moment to catch his breath. He lifted his phone but suddenly realized he wasn’t sure who to call first with the news he’d just been given by the most powerful man in the world.
15
AFTER SIX DAYS IN ANNBC NEWS EDITING BOOTH, BLURRY-EYEDfrom piecing together a story that had been in the works for nine months, with her brain reduced to mush from absolute zero daylight for the past eighteen hours, a very scary thing happened to Brooke Weaver: she found herself suddenly attracted to Barry, the cameraman who’d made dozens of passes at her in the past two or three months. The thought of it made her skin crawl. But her rods and cones were so warped and distorted from staring at archival footage that nothing made sense anymore; up was down and down was…
Get a hold of yourself!Brooke shook her head, trying to clear up whatever had short-circuited in there. She found her Diet Coke can sitting behind a computer keyboard, and shook it. Empty.
Barry Hickman was on the other side of the massive glass partition, working on something with Darla Donovan, her boss. Darla had been a producer for NBC News for nearly twenty years and had established enough clout in the industry to pretty much write her own ticket. For her age—forany age—she looked stunning. Brooke could not imagine why a woman with Darla Donovan’s beauty and brains hadn’t wanted to workin front of the camera. Actually, Brookeknew the answer to that question. The truth was that the real fun of TV news was behind the scenes. The talking heads o
n camera got the big bucks and all the special perks, but thereal journalists were off camera, doing the legwork, putting the stories together.
That’s why Brooke had begged, pleaded, and come just short of committing a felony for the chance to work with Donovan. And by some miracle, she’d gotten it straight out of graduate school.
And now here she was, worn down to the point of actually thinking Barry Hickman lookedpretty good! Ouch. It was sad and ultradepressing to even acknowledge. But after four years at Harvard, two more years for her masters in journalism, and three years of the brutal work schedule of Her Majesty, Darla Donovan, she was exhausted and had no social life to speak of.
At twenty-seven, she was Donovan’s personal assistant and had been granted more responsibility than she could have ever dreamed possible. This wasprecisely where she’d dreamed she’d be at this age. But she was ready for some sleep, some spicy Chinese takeout, and, more than anything else, she needed…a man!
Barry peered over the cubicle where he and Darla were talking and he caught Brooke staring at him. A big, beaming smile stretched from ear to ear. Then he winked at her.
Brooke suddenly felt three inches tall. She could feel her face flushing red. More than anything in the world, she wanted to crawl under the desk where she was working and die. If she thought Barry had been a parasite before, there was not a shadow of a doubt that he would never,never, let her live this down. Out of frustration with herself, she snatched the empty Diet Coke can from the desk, crushed it, and then hurled it across the room, missing the wastebasket by an embarrassing distance.
She flipped a page in the script she’d been working with to edit the raw camera footage and stared blankly at the typescript, the words suddenly incoherent to her.Thank heaven for Christmas, she thought, rubbing her eyes and yawning. All she had to do was to get to Darla’s designated stopping point, and then she could call it a day. Then she’d run across town and barricade herself inside her apartment. Tomorrow evening was the party at Darla’s. She’d sleep late, apply badly needed makeup, and spend the evening at Darla’s condominium with the rest of their production team at their annual Christmas party. And the morning after that, she’d be off to the country to celebrate Christmas with her family.
The Greater Good Page 7