by Joseph Flynn
Special Agent Latz completed his inspection of the car’s interior and looked at Kira.
“What?” she asked. “You want to offer your best wishes but can’t find the words.”
The special agent shook his head.
For a moment, Kira was at a loss. This would be a hell of a time for the guy to hit on her, she thought. He was cute enough, but no way was she going to give up Welborn for him. Then it occurred to her what he wanted.
“The password?” she asked.
He nodded.
“O lucky man,” she said.
Latz nodded. “Thank you, Ms. Fahey. Best wishes to you and your lucky man.”
“Thank you, Augie. Please convey my thanks to all your colleagues … and if I have to give the password, don’t you dare let anyone else slip by without doing the same.”
“Not a chance,” the special agent said.
With a slight bow and a small grin, he waved Kira on.
Kira entered the vice president’s mansion without anyone else challenging her right to be present. Since Uncle Mather would be giving her away, they agreed Kira would use his office as her dressing room. It would be big enough for her, her mother and all the bridesmaids to fuss over each other, compliment one another, weep with joy, take a nip of liquid courage and do whatever else women did in such situations … and just in case Kira got cold feet, the back door of the office led to the rear of the house and a quick getaway.
She stepped into the bathroom off the office and hung the garment bag sheltering her wedding dress over the shower rod. She put her makeup case atop the cabinet next to the sink. She’d do her face and nails; her stylist would come in an hour before the ceremony to do her hair. Her jewelry case and shoe bag she put onto the eye level shelf of a cupboard in a corner of the room. Normally used as a storage place for towels, Uncle Mather had it cleared out for her use. She placed the overnight bag containing the clothes she would change into before she and Welborn departed the reception on the lower level of the cupboard.
A place for everything and everything in its place.
But Mother and Kira’s bridesmaid friends would undoubtedly bring things that would have to be stuffed somewhere. She looked up. The cupboard had a top shelf, too, but Kira even in her three-inch heels would be unable to reach up there. Uncle Mather might not even have had it cleared out. You’d have to be a really tall man to make use of that shelf.
Which, unbeknownst to her, was the exact reason Congressman Zachary Garner had chosen to leave his gun up there.
Kira turned out the light and left the bathroom.
She lay down on the couch in Uncle Mather’s office, daydreaming of the moments that lay ahead. Feeling sure nothing could go wrong with her wedding now.
B Street SE, Washington, D.C.
Speaker Derek Geiger’s cell phone woke him, far earlier than he had planned. He found it with a groping hand, keyed the answer button without looking and said a groggy, “Hello.”
“Did I wake you, baby?”
Harlo’s voice was soft and sweet. Geiger started to get excited — until he remembered the treacherous bitch was divorcing him, had tossed his ass out onto the street.
“You damn well did,” he said.
“Do you miss me?” she asked.
In his gut, he knew she was fucking with him, but he still couldn’t help but hope she was reconsidering — if only to give him the chance to dump her.
“The good times,” he said, hedging his bets.
“I’m afraid this isn’t one of them,” she said and laughed.
Then she proceeded to tell him how her investigator — the most famous private eye in Washington — had discovered all of Derek’s dirty little secrets for her. The world wouldn’t have to know what they were, of course, but he should be entirely agreeable when Jerry Mishkin sent over a list of her new settlement demands.
Otherwise, there might be one of those awful Washington leaks, and the whole world would learn he was the most famous pimp in town.
“Oh, and Derek, I’m going to see my doctor today, and if you’ve given me any sort of creeping crud from one of your bimbos, then I go on TV and tell the world.”
Harlo clicked off, and Derek Geiger knew he was finished.
No matter what he did or didn’t do, Harlo was going to rat him out eventually.
W Street, NW, Washington, D.C.
Welborn was little more than thirty minutes behind his betrothed in waking that morning. By six-thirty a.m., he was leaning against an immaculately washed and waxed ice blue Chevy Impala. Vintage mid-sixties was his guess. It sat outside a rehabbed townhouse whose sales price, Welborn guessed, had probably quadrupled in the past ten years. The area had been largely African American for decades but was gentrifying rapidly, in spite of the housing slump. There were still people with money to spend and many of the sharpest were picking up foreclosed real estate at bargain basement prices.
He and Kira with relatively stable government jobs had joined the number of house hunters in the past six months and had three properties in mind. They’d agreed on their order of preference among the trio and would e-mail their broker with timed bids before they left for Barcelona tomorrow.
In the course of doing their real estate search, they’d learned there was already a stratum of solidly middle-class residents living in the rising neighborhoods and those people had been busy working with small banks, using their equity to secure home improvement loans and add to the pace of the gentrification.
Welborn and Kira had liked that. It would make for cultural diversity while maintaining pride of ownership. The quality of schools, police and fire service would rise to meet the vigorous demands of families with two substantial income earners.
Among the beneficiaries of an improving quality of life was Rockelle Bullard.
Outside of whose residence, and upon whose ride, Welborn lingered.
Apparently, she was not an early riser or terribly worried anyone might make off with her beautiful old car. Welborn couldn’t afford to wait all day for her to notice his presence. He was getting married that day, a matter related directly to his presence outside Lieutenant Bullard’s digs.
He didn’t want to do more to Rockelle’s car than smudge its finish. So he stepped over to his Porsche, parked in front of the Chevy, and leaned on it just hard enough to set off its alarm, which was loud enough to wake up the whole District and large parts of the adjoining states.
In short order, Rockelle’s face appeared in an upstairs window facing the street.
She was downstairs and out her front door, looking none too happy, before Welborn could count ten. The index finger of her right hand was directed his way and a pointed lecture was undoubtedly about to begin when Welborn hit the control on his key fob and killed the alarm. The sudden quiet brought Rockelle to an abrupt halt on the sidewalk in front of him. Still frowning. Not liking being tricked.
“That was your car making all the racket,” she said.
Welborn nodded.
“It was close enough to make me think it was mine.”
“I wouldn’t mess with your car,” he said.
She saw the smudge on the Chevy but didn’t call him on it.
Instead she said, “Around here, nobody messes with my car.”
“Completely understandable.” Welborn handed her a copy of Eli Worthington’s pig pin design.
Rockelle looked at it and asked, “Where’d you get this?”
Welborn told her the story, including who commissioned the pig.
“Congressman Zack Garner?” she asked.
“Unh-huh. You know him?”
“Know of him. Supposed to be a gentleman, and honest.”
“A rarity, no doubt.” Then he told the Metro homicide lieutenant of Jim McGill’s interview with the congressman, and finished with, “I spent two hours of my last night as a single man doing a computer search for any connection between Garner and Putnam Shady. Couldn’t find a thing.”
Rockelle gav
e him a long look. “You’re telling me in your usual polite way, I’ve got me a better suspect than Mister Shady.”
“I am.”
“But there’s more than that.”
“There is.”
“You’re telling me, if I come to your wedding, don’t bring one of my detectives as my date and don’t even think of leaning on Mister Shady, whom I’m guessing will be there with Margaret Sweeney.”
“A reasonable assumption.”
Rockelle peered at him to see if she’d divined everything Welborn had come to say.
And saw something more. “Damn, Garner’s gonna be there, too?”
“He is.”
“But you sure don’t want me arresting him while he’s there.”
“That would be awkward for everybody.”
Rockelle put a hand to her face, pondering one last assumption.
“But my invitation’s still good. In fact, you want me there. In case the congressman goes off the deep end. That happens, the arrest is mine. I get to collar the K Street killer.”
“What are friends for?” Welborn asked.
Chief of Staff Galia Mindel’s Office
McGill waited until he was sure Galia had arrived for work before he stopped by her office that morning. Galia was observant in her faith on the high holy days. Most Saturdays, she was at her White House post or traveling with the president. Her only concession to the weekend was to allow herself an extra fifteen minutes of sleep … unless there was a crisis. Then she lived in her office and the Oval Office next door.
After McGill knocked, Galia invited him in, but gave him a look nonetheless.
“I liked it better when we gave each other elbow room,” she told McGill.
“Me, too. May I take a seat?”
Galia nodded. McGill sat.
“What can I do for you?” The “now” was implied.
“Before I get to that, I have to tell you Harlo Geiger was impressed by the dirt you provided on the speaker.”
Galia offered a thin smile. “She ought to be. There’s none better. The man didn’t fool around himself, but he thought it was okay to provide women to the jerks who do.”
“Yeah. There’s a name for that, isn’t there?”
“He didn’t take money for the service. I believe that’s part of the job description.”
McGill said, “He got compensated in some fashion. You didn’t say how, but it gets down to the same thing.”
“I suppose.”
“Ms. Geiger offered me a bonus. I told her to split the entire amount and donate it directly to my two favorite charities: Saint Ignatius and Saint Jude.”
Galia’s smile was warmer now. “Nicely done. No taint attaches to you or by implication the president. Now, if you can tell me why you’re here.”
“I need to get a read on Derek Geiger. He seems to have lost a handgun, unless he hasn’t.” McGill explained what he meant and the possible connection to the killings of the K Street lobbyists. “What I’m trying to figure out is why he’d want the kind of gun meant to slip past metal detectors and whether he really lost it or if he just told Harlo that to give himself an alibi in case he ever wants to use it. Of course, now, she might be a target.”
Galia, by the expression on her face, was busy processing the information McGill had given her, but she was still able to shake her head at the idea of Geiger shooting his departing spouse.
“If not Harlo, who?” McGill asked. “Assuming he still has the weapon.”
Galia focused on McGill and said, “Mather Wyman.”
“The vice president?” That baffled McGill.
“Think,” Galia said. “What’s the president about to do?”
Donate bone marrow to Kenny, McGill thought … and invoke the twenty-fifth amendment.
Making Mather Wyman the acting president.
If he were to die, the next in line would be Speaker Derek Geiger.
“But Patti’s going to be incapacitated for only a short time,” McGill said. “What good would that do Geiger? Being a seat warmer for a few hours.”
For just a heartbeat, scorn showed in Galia’s eyes. But it was displaced by a look of deep compassion. Leaving McGill to feel a moment of whiplash.
“What, Galia?” he asked. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m sorry. I just had a thought I regret. You and Carolyn are thinking of Kenny first and foremost. I understand that; as a mother I empathize completely. But as the chief of staff, you know whom I have to think of before all others.”
“The president,” McGill said.
“Exactly. When I learned she would be a donor, I did the research into whether there would be any risks for her. I informed her of what they were. Don’t you have this information?”
McGill shook his head, feeling a terrible sense of guilt that it had never occurred to him to think of the risk to Patti. Or to Clare and the others who’d agreed to make separate donations. He’d been so focused on Kenny he hadn’t thought of anyone else.
“What are the risks?” he asked.
“They’re small but real. The usual after-effects of bone marrow donation are lower back pain, fatigue, stiffness and bleeding at the collection site. But the collection is done under general anesthesia, and that always carries a risk. Slightly more than one percent of patients experience serious complications. There can also be damage to bone, nerve or muscle tissue. There’s some chance the president might be incapacitated for far longer than a few hours.”
“Jesus,” McGill whispered. “You told her all this?”
“I had to; she had to know.”
“And she’s still willing to do it.”
“The president told me she would resign the presidency if necessary to help Kenny.”
McGill covered his eyes with a hand.
Galia told him, “The risk is small. The overwhelming majority of donors come through the procedure with little more than some localized soreness and maybe a headache.”
McGill lowered his hand.
“We can’t let anything happen to Mather Wyman,” he said.
“No, we can’t,” Galia agreed. “What we have to do is talk to SAC Crogher.”
The Oval Office
Edwina Byington read the expression on McGill’s face as he approached her desk and didn’t even try to slow him down. She gave the president two quick buzzes of the intercom as a heads-up and said, “Good morning, Mister McGill.”
McGill paused at the door to his wife’s sanctum sanctorum.
“Good morning, Edwina. Barring a national crisis, no interruptions.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
Leaving unstated she’d be the one to judge both what constituted a crisis and its scope.
McGill closed the door behind him as he entered his wife’s office. He stepped behind her desk and kissed her. He looked her in the eye and kissed her again. Unintentionally scaring the hell out of her.
Patti grabbed her husband’s wrist, “Is something wrong with Kenny? Dr. Jones just spoke with me not five minutes ago. She asked me to be at the hospital by three this afternoon.”
McGill realized he’d thrown a fright into Patti and shook his head.
“No, no. I haven’t heard anything was wrong. I didn’t know you’d spoken to Dr. Jones. I just came from talking with Galia and Celsus.”
The president let go of her henchman’s arm. He took a seat in one of her guest chairs. That gave Patti all the time she needed to figure out what her husband had learned from her chief of staff. What he had to say to Celsus Crogher, she’d have to find out.
Patti shrugged and told McGill, “I meant what I told Galia. Kenny’s life is more important to me than this job. So are you.”
“Makes me feel a bit overrated.”
The president laughed. “Well, as long as you don’t feel a lot overrated, we’re all right. And I don’t doubt you’d a take a risk greater than one-point-three percent, if I needed your help.”
“Anything up to and includi
ng one hundred percent,” McGill said.
“You’ve joined the Secret Service?”
“In spirit if not in fact. I don’t see myself working for Celsus.”
The president laughed again and said, “Speaking of SAC Crogher …”
McGill told her of Speaker Geiger and his plastic gun. Patti’s conclusion was exactly what McGill had figured out on the short walk to the Oval Office.
“Geiger wants to do in the vice president and have Putnam Shady blamed for it.”
“In a nutshell, yeah. Is he up to attempting something like that?”
The president said, “A desperate politician is like a cornered animal. Survival is all, risks be damned.”
An unpleasant image indeed, McGill thought. He was glad Patti had Galia, Celsus and him looking out for her. To keep her from ever getting truly desperate.
McGill said, “So, Geiger’s likely feeling a sense of urgency to get the deed done and move quickly past it. He couldn’t ask for a better opportunity than an event where both of his would-be victims will be present as part of a milling crowd that will be focusing its attention elsewhere”
“Welborn and Kira’s wedding?” Patti asked.
“If it’s going to be soon, where else?”
Patti shook her head. “Nowhere.”
“Question is, do we ask the young couple to postpone their nuptials again?”
“Another question is, do we even let them know what we suspect? We could be wrong.”
“Galia was the one who told me the vice president would be the likely target. How are her instincts about this kind of thing?”
“Rock solid,” the president told him.
“We were invited to the ceremony, weren’t we?”
McGill hadn’t noticed, but thought it was a safe assumption.
“We were.”
“What time are the vows scheduled to be exchanged?”
“One p.m.”
“Gives us time to get to the hospital afterward. Better let Celsus know what we have in mind.” Patti picked up her phone and McGill told her, “Have him tell all the troops I’ll be armed.”