by Gene Riehl
Franklin paused in the sudden chill as the president stepped past the table to the wood-framed windows, tall windows that let in more than enough light to make using the electric fixtures unnecessary. The president looked out toward Franklin’s golf course in the distance before turning to the wall to his left, to the photographs on that wall, pictures of many of the guests who’d enjoyed Franklin’s hospitality over the years.
He was looking, Franklin saw, at the latest addition, the large photograph of Vladimir Putin that Grace had hung in here only yesterday. The Russian president had been a dead shot with both skeet and trap, not surprising given the former KGB chief’s background with weapons. The president glanced at Franklin before turning back to the table and grabbing the nearest chair. He grunted as he settled into it.
“Your back okay?” Franklin asked, as he took a chair across the table from his friend. “You seem a little tense today.”
“Back’s fine. Good as it’s ever going to be, at any rate.”
Franklin waited for more, but the president just stared at him. Franklin leaned toward his friend “What’s going on? You look like you want to punch somebody in the mouth.”
“I’m just hungry,” the president said. “Did you say Grace sent something over?”
Franklin rose from his chair and stepped around the table to a small door set into the wall on their left. In keeping with the “good old boy” spirit of the place there were no servants in the skeet house, but that didn’t mean there was no service. Of all the innovations he’d brought to Battle Valley Farm, Franklin was most proud of the minisubway system he’d designed to transport food and drink throughout the property. The dumbwaiter was part of a circuit that ran in a loop through the farm, assuring that Franklin and his guests would never be far from refreshment. Starting in the immense kitchen back at the mansion, the tunnel came here first, then hit the fishing house on the bank of the stream running a half mile west of the golf course, before heading for the golf house at the far edge of the estate, and finally back to the kitchen.
Franklin opened the dumbwaiter door and reached in to retrieve the silver serving tray. He carried the tray back to the table, set it down, and lifted the cover. On the tray were two barbecued chicken sandwiches and two bottles of Samuel Adams, their favorite beer, along with a pair of tall crystal glasses. The president stared at the food for a moment, then looked up, directly into Franklin’s eyes.
“You’re right,” he said, as Franklin sat down again. “I am tense today. More than a little bit, as a matter of fact.” He paused. “But it doesn’t have anything to do with my back.” Suddenly the president’s eyes were granite hard. “I know what you’re up to, Tom. I know what you’ve been doing.”
Franklin’s mind went numb. He stared at the president and tried to respond, but his tongue was suddenly thick in his mouth.
“I …” he began. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“Stop it!” the president snapped. “How could you imagine I wouldn’t find out? How could you think the people you’ve been talking to behind my back wouldn’t come straight to me?”
What? Franklin thought, as his shoulders sagged with relief. That’s what this is all about? His legs began to quiver as the adrenaline drained away.
“You’re making a mistake, Mr. President,” he said. “I can’t seem to make you see that, so I went to Jimmy Allen and Fred Baxter. To ask the senators to talk you out of this thing with Japan. To save you from a decision you won’t survive.” He leaned forward. “I owe you that much. You know I do.”
“What you owe me is loyalty, Tom. What you owe me is not to go to my two biggest enemies on the Hill.” He continued to stare directly into Franklin’s eyes. “Disloyalty is an everyday part of my job … but you?”
“A yes-man, is that what you want from me? Someone to validate you even when you’re wrong?”
“That doesn’t even deserve an answer.”
“Then listen to me, that’s all I’m asking. Give me another opportunity to show you how wrong you are.”
The president grunted, then lifted his hand and gestured for Franklin to continue. Franklin paused to gather his thoughts, his stomach beginning to churn. The stakes were huge. He wouldn’t get another chance to change the president’s mind, and he couldn’t allow himself to think of the consequences should he fail. What would happen to Global Panoptic should he fail.
“You think giving Japan a bomb will force North Korea into line,” he began, “but you’re wrong.”
The president frowned. “You’d rather we do it ourselves? Use American men and women to protect the region instead?”
“Nobody has to do it, is what I’m saying. Not when Korea’s on the brink of reunification. The new government in Seoul is pushing even harder for it. Give them a chance first. Give them time to make it happen.”
The president shook his head. “The only way Kim Jong Il’s going to reunite is if he’s in charge, and that’s never going to happen.”
“His people are starving. He has no choice.”
“He cares about his people? You’re talking about a man who has hungry children cutting his lawn with scissors.”
Franklin stared at the untouched sandwiches on the table, at the untouched beer. He looked at his friend. How could he make the president understand the necessity of a unified Korea? He fought to keep his tone moderate, and his argument alive.
“Kim’s already convinced you’re trying to destroy him. You arm Japan, you’ll give him even more proof of that. He’ll react by isolating himself even further from the south. Reunification will go down the drain. He’ll build even more nuclear weapons to protect himself from us.”
Franklin heard his voice rising. He had to stop himself from standing up and shouting.
“You’ve got to negotiate with Kim Jong Il, Mr. President. Make him see that one Korea is the only way to save his people.” He paused to take a breath. “Offer him money, for Christ’s sake. Write him a big enough check, he’ll do whatever you want.”
The president looked away, over Franklin’s shoulder toward the wall with all the photographs. When he turned back, his eyes seemed even harder. “He won’t stop building the nukes. Surely you’re not naive enough to think he would.”
“That’s why we have spy satellites.”
“Satellites can’t see underground, or inside mountains. If we can’t find the facilities, we can’t do a damned thing about them.”
“So what you’re saying is that we have no idea whether he has nukes or not.”
“He admits having two warheads capable of reaching Tokyo. CIA tells me he has three. We can’t stand by and hope for the best. Either I give Prime Minister Nakamura what he wants, or I send more troops to add to the ones we already have in Japan. And more, and more. Forever.”
Franklin reached for his beer, but withdrew his hand and leaned toward the president. “You’ll be adding them to the nuclear club. Adding another country with weapons we’ll have to worry about.”
“I’ll take my chances with Japan. If that’s what it takes to keep peace over there.”
Franklin took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Maybe there was a better way to go here. Another way to survive this thing.
“Let’s say you’re right,” he said, “but I’m still convinced that now is not the time. At least wait until after the election. Until you get your second term. If you do this before November, you’re going to lose.”
“I don’t have any choice about the timing. Ishii Nakamura’s term ends soon, and he’s the only leader in Japan with the guts to ask for a bomb. Hatred of nuclear weapons is born into his people … they’ll despise him for what he’s doing. It could be generations before we get another prime minister like him over there.”
The president glanced again at the wall of photos. At several ex-presidents, along with all the others.
“George Bush,” he said, turning back to Franklin. “George W. had a similar problem. Don’t go after Iraq, his peo
ple told him … you’re going to get blown out of office if you take on Saddam now. But he knew he had no choice. ‘I’ll probably lose the presidency over this,’ Bush told them, ‘but this is the right thing to do and I’m not going to shy away.’”
Franklin nodded, but he still wasn’t finished. “At least make Nakamura go to the United Nations first,” he insisted. “At least do that much to protect yourself.”
“The U.N.? By the time they do anything it’ll be too late. Nakamura will be out of office.”
The president pushed his uneaten sandwich out of the way, then put his elbows on the table.
“I’ve always appreciated your candor, Tom, but the time for arguing is over. Nakamura will be here a week from today. He’ll spend the afternoon with you on the golf course. I’ll join you for a few minutes in the evening. We’ll minimize the press coverage, and get this thing done.”
Franklin stared at the president. He managed to choke back the first response that came to mind, then forced himself to nod instead. “Of course, Mr. President. You can count on me.”
“I know I can.” The president’s eyes caught and held Franklin’s. “And I know you won’t disappoint me again.”
NINE
It was all Monk could do to keep from screaming.
He’d heard the stories about these MRI machines, but he’d had no idea.
And what made it even worse was that he had only himself to blame.
“What about claustrophobia?” the radiologist had asked him. “We can give you a sedative if it’s a problem. Or send you to a facility that uses the newer more open machines.” Monk had shaken his head, but what else could he do? He was an FBI agent, for God’s sake. How could he possibly admit to cowardice in the face of a routine medical exam?
Now, wedged inside a steel tube that enveloped him like a coffin, his head locked in a cage to keep it rigid, the only things Monk could move without violating the technician’s orders were his eyelids. The problem was that opening them only made it worse. The sight of the shiny metal just inches from his nose brought on a cold sweat that bathed Monk from head to toe.
He forced himself to breathe deeply, pulling the stale air in through his nose, blowing it out slowly past tighter and tighter lips. Let it go … let it happen. Forty-five minutes, the radiologist had told him, but he must not have heard right. Surely he’d been in here an hour already. Surely they’d made some kind of …
A metallic voice interrupted, distant in the headphones they’d attached over his ears to drown out the hammering of the magnets.
“Halfway there, Mr. Monk,” the technician told him. “You still okay?”
Monk scowled.
Halfway? Are you fucking kidding me?
He mumbled a response that must have satisfied the voice, because a moment later the banging started up again, like someone standing outside the tube with a wooden mallet, pounding like a madman trying to get through to him. Monk tried to ignore it. The trick was to think about something else, of course, but that wasn’t easy when you were locked into a machine that was scanning your brain, peeling away the layers as it searched for the reason behind your increasingly disturbing symptoms.
Drawing a deep breath through his nose, he went to work distracting himself. He thought about sex and tennis, about blow jobs and topspin backhands down the line. He tried to conjugate the dozen or so Spanish verbs he remembered from his childhood in San Diego, but gave up when he couldn’t get past tenemos to the third person plural. Three English words came a whole lot easier: fear, rage, and loneliness. Pillars of the human condition, a woman had once told him. Right now Monk knew she’d been right. He tried to drive her words from his mind. Tried not to admit to the fear, give in to the anger that it had come to this, or the lonely emptiness of his cold dark tube.
But it only got worse.
No matter what he tried to think about, his skin continued to crawl, the sweat running down his forehead into his eyes, soaking out of his armpits through the cotton fabric of his dark green golf shirt. He had no choice, Monk decided. He had to use Lisa early. He’d been trying to save fantasizing about his FBI agent girlfriend for later, in case it came down to shouting into his microphone for help, but he couldn’t wait. First he pictured Lisa’s face, imagined the herbal scent of the shampoo she used on her long brown hair. He visualized her naked body, the two of them in bed together. Saw her …
Suddenly Monk realized it wasn’t her … that it wasn’t Lisa Sands anymore.
That Lisa had somehow turned into Bethany Randall.
Christ, he thought. What was William Smith’s ex-fiancée doing in the middle of his fantasy?
He opened his eyes to kick Bethany out of his head, but she refused to leave. Suddenly he could see her with magical clarity, the two of them alone in a place they should never have been. Good God, Monk told himself, startled at the images, so vivid he was sure the radiology technician was watching right along with him. He opened his eyes again, but couldn’t keep them open. The steel surface just beyond the cage seemed to shrink even closer. It was either Bethany Randall or the tomb around him, and Monk didn’t have to think for even a millisecond to know which one he preferred. So he shut his eyes even tighter, let Bethany take him wherever she wanted to.
And where she took him was directly back to that night in the hot tub.
The three of them had gone skydiving earlier in the day. Bethany had grown up in a family of fliers and had been a pilot since her college days. Fixed wing, at first, but later on she’d flown helicopters and did a short stint in the right seat of a corporate jet. Early in their relationship she’d convinced William to take up skydiving, and William hadn’t had to work very hard to get Monk involved as well.
They’d spent the afternoon in Frederick, Maryland, jumping out of a small private airport in the woods outside the city: the same airport where Bethany kept her plane, a distinctive dark-blue and white Beechcraft Baron twin-engine with a bright red eagle painted on the rudder. Exhausted, they’d dragged themselves back to William’s house in Arlington for dinner. Before they could even think about eating they decided to have some drinks and unwind. They changed into swimsuits and climbed into the hot tub built into the back deck. William brought the booze with him to the hot tub, a big blue bottle of Bombay gin, along with a couple bottles of tonic and a bucket of ice. Enough of the good stuff to relax the entire neighborhood.
After an hour, however, and way too many drinks, the water got too hot for William. He left the tub to go to the kitchen and start the process of fixing something to eat, leaving Bethany and Monk behind.
Monk realized that Bethany had caught him staring at her, and that she was sliding around the circular edge of the hot tub to get closer, close enough now that she could reach out and touch him. He shrank from the sudden proximity, but not for long. Despite knowing better—despite being far too cocktailed to take on such danger—he felt himself moving even closer to the woman whose yellow thong bikini he couldn’t seem to ignore. Bethany Randall was a puzzle, he’d found himself thinking. How could a woman so demure in regular clothing be so deadly in a bikini?
For one thing, her body was absolutely flawless. Her legs seemed impossibly long in the high-cut swimsuit, and the flat ripple of her stomach only accentuated the bulk of her breasts in the wisp of a halter top.
Monk had been staring at her from the first moment they climbed into the hot tub, guardedly at first, but more and more brazen as the gin had worn away his resolve. That Bethany had noticed was certainly no surprise. Twenty-seven years old, she must have been dealing with men like him for at least a decade already. As though reading Monk’s mind, she leaned toward him. The ends of her wondrous red hair brushed her shoulders, damp with sweat. She lifted her glass and pointed with it toward where William had gone into the house to escape the heat of the water. Clearly as unbalanced by the gin as he was, her green eyes sparkled playfully as she slid an inch closer to Monk.
“William couldn’t take the heat,�
� she said, “and you look a little warm yourself.”
“I can take it if you can,” he told her. “A few more minutes anyway.”
She sipped her gin and tonic, held the icy glass against her cheek, then reached across and held the glass against his cheek as well. “How’s that?” she asked. “Better?”
“Much.” Monk held up his own glass, showed her that the ice had pretty much melted away. “But you better stay close.”
She chuckled, deep in her throat, then raised out of the water far enough to expose the top of her bikini. This time she applied her glass just above her right breast, and held it there for a moment. “Get up,” she ordered. “This is way better.”
Monk hoisted himself out of the water. Bethany transferred her glass to his chest and held it there until he slid back down. Jesus Christ, he thought, as he realized what was happening. What in the hell was he doing here? He slid a full three feet to his right. This wasn’t a date, for God’s sake! This was William’s fiancée. Sure, they’d been having a few problems, but that didn’t make her fair game. It was time to get out of this tub. To get out of this house and back to the safety of his own life.
But in the next second he realized he couldn’t.
That he was trapped by his own body.
He had sprung an erection, Monk realized. A hard-on he could use to pole-vault with, and much too protuberant to bring to Bethany’s attention. He slid away from her as he waited for it to shrink.
“Where are you going?” she wanted to know. “I can’t reach you over there.”