by Joseph Flynn
Having been reminded of Carina Linberg, Welborn recalled that when somebody was in trouble at the Pentagon he’d do well to take that person out of the building. He suggested as much to Mr. Drummond.
Benjamin added, “Many people find my office a good place to speak freely.”
With that, the three of them were off to FBI headquarters.
The Oval Office — The White House
Mather Wyman kissed Edwina Byington on the cheek after she told him, “It’s so good to see you again, Mr. Vice President.”
The best part of the greeting was Wyman knew the president’s secretary was sincere in her show of affection. “You, too, Edwina. Do I need to cool my heels for a few minutes? I know I’m a bit early.”
“No, sir. Madam President said you’re welcome to join her as soon as you arrive.”
“Well, that’s nice.”
Wyman felt Patricia Grant was also truly glad to renew acquaintances. Unlike Edwina, though, he was sure the president would also want something from him. He even had a good idea of what it was.
He entered the Oval Office and the president got to her feet the moment she saw him. She graced him with a smile that would have caused a straight man’s pulse to race. Absent the sexual note, it made him a bit happier to be alive. She came around her desk and took both his hands in hers. Her face assumed a look of sympathy.
“I saw you at the Winstead School yesterday.”
Mather Wyman saved her the necessity of asking the question.
“Kira and I know the family of one of the boys who was wounded not killed: Peter Greenlea.” Wyman shook his head. “Quite the dismal day, isn’t it, when we have to take comfort in an act of violence being less than mortal. At least for Peter.”
The president squeezed his hands and told him, “We’re going to move on a number of fronts to stop the bloodshed. Please have a seat.”
Wyman sat only after the president returned to the chair behind her desk.
He’d been right. They were there to do business. If the meeting had been purely social, it would have taken place in a less formal setting.
“Do your plans include anything you can get through Congress?” Wyman asked.
“We’re not bothering about Congress.”
Wyman raised his eyebrows. “The revolution has begun? You’d like me to head a tribunal? Send all the bourgeoisie to the firing squads?” The former vice president’s own words made him frown. “Sorry, this is definitely not the time for firing squad jokes.”
“No, we’ll table those for a later date. Would you like me to tell you what we intend to do about preventing gun violence? Or should we get down to the business at hand?”
“First things first,” Wyman said. “If you’ll allow me to show off just a bit, I’ll say you’re worried about the Ohio legislature.”
The president nodded. “It looks like Pennsylvania is going to —”
“Petition the federal government to call a constitutional convention. In fact, the decision has already been made. I’ve heard from the speaker of Ohio’s house. He said his counterpart in Pennsylvania had called him. It’s a done deal in Harrisburg.”
The president sighed. “How do you feel about it, Mather, our country having another constitutional convention?”
He laughed. “I’d have my doubts about doing it again with the original cast. Thinking about using a bunch of today’s stand-ins makes me shudder, but …”
“It’s damn tempting, too,” the president said, “to think you could rewrite the constitution as you would like it to be.”
“Yes, it is. The seduction lies in thinking you can go the giants of American history one better. It’s Walter Mitty with a political slant, but who doesn’t indulge in those sorts of fantasies?”
The president shook her head. “I fantasize about a simpler life and quiet times.”
“Well, sure, you’ve done it all. The rest of us are still striving.”
“Hah. I hear from my spies that your greatest pleasure comes from visiting your granddaughters.”
Mather Wyman had neither biological children nor grandchildren, but his niece Kira had anointed him as a surrogate grandfather to her twin daughters, and immediately had dropped surrogate from the description.
He beamed at the president. “Aria and Callista are the lights of my life.”
“Then we’d best leave them a constitution written by true giants.”
“I suppose we should. If I were still governor of Ohio or even if I hadn’t come out as a gay man, I’m pretty sure I could win the day for us, Madam President. But now? All I can say is I’ll do my best.”
“That’s all I can ask. Now, would you —”
Edwina buzzed and said, “Madam President, Vice President Morrissey is here.”
Mather Wyman gave the president a look. “Should I go? Two vice presidents is one too many, no?”
“Please stay, Mather. Edwina, please send Jean in.”
Vice President Morrissey entered the Oval Office, took in Mather Wyman’s presence without batting an eye and had the grace to extend her hand and say, “Mr. Vice President, a pleasure to see you again.”
“And you as well, Ms. Vice President.”
Jean held up an iPad and said to the president, “Here’s the TV spot my friends in Minneapolis did, the one arguing against the sale of assault weapons. It’s been updated to use the victims at the Winstead School.”
Wyman raised his eyebrows, questioning just what was going on.
Morrissey told him, “The original spot was filmed using the victims of another shooting, but the format is modular. It can be updated whenever there’s another shooting. This version will never be aired without the permission of the families involved.”
Edwina buzzed again. “Madam President, Chief of Staff Mindel needs a word.”
“Send her in, Edwina.”
Galia entered the room, acknowledged the president and shook hands with Wyman and Morrissey. “I have some news, Madam President.”
“Can it wait just a moment, Galia?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Let’s all take a look at the TV commercial Jean has brought us.”
The vice president handed her iPad to the president. She and the others clustered behind the president to watch. The president tapped the tablet’s screen to start the video.
The sun rises over a Minnesota pond and a flock of geese takes flight.
On the shoreline three hunters are ready. Two raise shotguns.
One raises an assault rifle. Both his friends push the barrel down.
“Geez, give ‘em a chance, why don’t ya?” one friend says in disgust.
A buck with ten-point antlers steps into a forest glade.
Two camouflaged hunters are waiting. One raises a deer rifle.
The other raises an assault weapon. His friend shakes his head.
“Damn sporting of you.”
A husband-and-wife team stalks a wild turkey in the woods.
Spotting it, the wife raises her rifle; her husband raises an assault weapon.
She sneers at him. “What kind of man are you?”
A voiceover announcer asks: So what kind of game can you hunt with an assault weapon?
The sound of an automatic weapon firing starts as …
School photos of the six dead football players and three dead coaches from the Winstead School appear sequentially. The gunfire continues throughout.
When it finally stops a message appears on the screen.
Hunting season lasts all year long …
Until you stop it.
The president stopped the video. She and the others were silent for a moment. Then she said, “I’d run this ad in a heartbeat, but it’s the parents’ call.”
“That’s what we said in Minnesota, too. The parents in our shooting couldn’t bear to do it,” Jean Morrissey said. “As governor, I was the one to ask them the question. If you like, Madam President, I can do the same at the Winstead School.”
&nbs
p; “No, let me do it, please,” Mather Wyman said. “I know the people there. They’re my friends.”
The former vice president’s eyes were moist.
“Would that be all right with you, Jean?” the president asked.
“Yes, of course, Madam President.”
“You’ll talk with the parents soon, Mather?” the president asked.
“Them, the administration and the student body. I think it would be best to get everyone on board. I’ll go as soon as I can get a copy of the video.”
“Thank you, Mather. You’re a good friend.”
“A pleasure to serve, as always, Madam President.”
“What do you have for us, Galia?”
The chief of staff turned to the vice president. “May I borrow your iPad a moment, Ms. Vice President?”
Jean Morrissey nodded and the president handed the tablet computer to Galia. She pulled up the Twitter home page and pointed to the Trending in the U.S. column. Number one was #FourStepsToMurder.
Galia said, “This is a point Mr. McGill made in his interview with WWN. That anyone in this country is only four steps away from knowing someone who has been killed, has committed suicide or has been wounded by gunfire.”
“But the interview hasn’t aired yet, has it?” the president asked.
“No, ma’am. But somebody leaked at least this part of it, and it’s already the hottest topic of discussion on Twitter domestically. We’re getting people’s attention.”
“Word of mouth,” the president said. “There’s nothing more powerful.”
Chapter 17
WWN Washington Bureau
Hugh Collier wanted to edit Ellie Booker’s interview with McGill at the network’s offices. Ellie agreed with the provision that the final word on any cut was hers. Perfectly aware that McGill had made his approach to Ellie not WWN, Collier agreed. He said he only wanted to have the final product in hand as soon as possible.
That and to keep any clips out of competitors’ reach before WWN started airing them.
Ellie had made the executive decision to leak the #FourStepsToMurder meme on social media. Both she and Collier were overjoyed how quickly the ghastly parlor game had gone viral. People were sharing the word coast to coast.
The ratings for the McGill interview would be over the moon.
Amidst the mutual good feelings, Ellie raised the idea McGill had shared with her off camera, “So is WWN going to start airing daily and cumulative gun death totals on the evening news?”
“I don’t think so,” Collier said.
“Why not?”
“Don’t you think it’d be too damn, pardon the phrasing, deadening?”
“If it was just numbers, sure. But if you show the human element, just who gets killed on any given day, and do a brief but poignant sketch, it’d be a legitimate horror show. Look who we lost today. It’s more than a shame; it’s goddamn outrage. It’d be compelling.”
Collier saw Ellie was genuinely working herself up.
But she was always one spark away from becoming an inferno.
“I have to disagree with you on this one,” Collier said.
“Fine, I’ll do it myself. Put it online. Do any follow-up interviews with McGill that way, too.”
“Only after I get my first look,” Collier said.
“Yeah, don’t hold your breath. You don’t like what I do, sue me.”
Ellie stormed out of Collier’s office.
He considered the surly departure a considerable improvement from the time she’d waved a knife under his nose on a New York street. The truth was, he and Ellie needed one another. Short of one of them killing the other, they’d remain codependent for a long time.
He’d give Ellie’s take on McGill’s idea a bit more thought.
Right now, though, it just didn’t grab him.
The Playground — Washington, DC
The sports bar on a quiet street in the Brookland neighborhood of Northeast Washington was called Kinzie’s, but the clientele nicknamed it The Playground. The place was a byproduct of the long overdue decision to have the nation’s intelligence agencies share information. In the discussion of how to achieve that goal, one sharp thinker who preferred to remain anonymous came up with a bright idea.
“What we need,” this genius said, “is the equivalent of a good cop bar. A place where all our people can meet, gripe and gossip. You know, a place to buttonhole one another and say, ‘Hey, did you hear about …’”
Some stuffed shirts thought this was a far too informal way to exchange vital information and in some cases, with the really big stuff, they were right. But for everyday chatter that might turn into something big, it proved wonderfully effective. Gave competing operatives the opportunity to get to know and trust each other as people.
Bridge building with drinks, munchies and war stories.
Half-a-dozen federal agencies chipped in relative nickels and dimes from their budgets to open the place. Within six months, the bar revenue made it self-sustaining. Like any good cop bar, it gave off a vibe that it was really a private club. Non-members took one look around and turned around, frequently apologizing for making the mistake of stepping inside.
Sports events from around the world were shown on a dozen large TVs but that was just window dressing. Few of the customers paid any attention. They were more interested in the global varieties of spirits and beers.
Just north and south of the Playground, the city’s crime rates were substantially higher. Occasionally, there was some bleed-over into Brookland. Bad guys showed up where they shouldn’t have. One Tuesday night, when the place was crowded, a member of an armed robbery gang burst into The Playground.
Not to rob the place but hoping to elude the police.
When two Metro cops charged in minutes later, they all but skidded to a stop. They recognized the atmosphere immediately. And they knew it wasn’t one of their cop bars. Having a job to do, the senior cop still asked, “An African-American guy with a gun just come running in here? Looked to us like he might have.”
In fact, that was exactly what the cops saw.
The lead bartender, however, shook his head. Nobody else so much as blinked.
The level of cooperation didn’t please either cop. Before they could object, a blonde-haired guy who looked like he was half-a-hippie stepped forward and showed his FBI identification. Sonofagun was a deputy director.
He told the cops, “This is a quiet place where federal officers come to relax. If we turn up any information on your guy, we’ll be sure to let you know.”
The deputy director’s tone was sweet reason. His subtext was: Don’t bother us.
Both Metro cops knew there was no point to fighting the feds.
Their own brass would shut them down.
So that was it. The cops were positive they saw Dontell “Don’t Tell” Marsh, an armed felon with a rap sheet as long as his leg, run into Kinzie’s. Only no one there was going to tell them dick. And — poof! — just like that a fucking armed robber was gone, never to be seen again.
That last part was okay with the cops. Guys like Don’t Tell deserved to disappear.
The next part was even better. An anonymous snitch called in a tip giving the Metro cops the location of Don’t Tell’s stick-up gang right after they pulled their next job. The bust netted six repeat offenders with the proceeds of their latest heist. The messages were clear to both the cops and the creeps.
Cops: Work with us, we’ll work with you.
Creeps: Steer clear of The Playground.
The second message was supplemented by the rumor that Don’t Tell had been cleaned up, dressed up and passed off as a radical American imam whose release had been demanded by Somali pirates in exchange for a couple from Newport Beach, California whose boat had sailed into the wrong waters.
The rumor was true. The guy who came up with the improvisation was the same dude who’d talked to the Metro cops that night.
Now, Byron DeWitt took one of th
e booths in The Playground and ordered two bottles of South Pacific Export Lager, the pride of Port Moresby, New Guinea. He filled his glass and by the time a fine, foaming head had built Oscar Rogers slid into the booth opposite him. Rogers grabbed his bottle, ignored the glass and said, “Cheers.”
He drained the top half of his beer at a swallow.
“Takes the gloom off a gray day, a good beer does,” Rogers said.
“Who could argue with that?”
“Some effete, wine-sipping —”
“Don’t say Californian,” DeWitt warned.
Rogers grinned. “Okay, do they drink wine in Oregon?”
“Only screwtop.”
“We’ll drop the subject then.” Rogers finished his beer and called for two more.
DeWitt had never learned Rogers’ exact title at the CIA, but the man had told him he’d once been a field operative who had worked Southeast Asia from Bangkok to Port Moresby. Rogers’ cover was that he had been an African-American radical on the run from the law.
He’d loved it when he heard the stunt DeWitt had pulled with Don’t Tell.
He’d introduced himself, bought DeWitt a South Pacific and they became friends.
Going more slowly with his second beer, Rogers paused to ask, “So what can I do for you, Byron?”
DeWitt said, “Tell me everything the Agency knows about the Kalils, the late Bahir Ben and his sister, Hasna.”
McGill Investigations, Inc. — Georgetown
The turns in their separate investigations brought McGill and Sweetie back to the office at the same time. Sweetie had stopped at a convenience store along the way to pick up some liquid refreshment. Two tall slim plastic bottles of a dark red liquid.
McGill asked, “What’s that?”
“Something Putnam introduced to me. Blamed me for, actually. Said it was my fault he’s started looking for non-alcoholic, sugar-free things to drink.”
“Fruit juice?” McGill asked.
“Maybe. There’s a reference to fruit on the bottle. It has green tea extract, too. I tried it and liked it. I’m trying to decide if we should let Maxi drink it. It tastes good, doesn’t seem to have anything bad in it and it’s carbonated for fun.”