The President Killed His Wife (A Rogan Bricks Thriller Book 1)

by Steve Richer

  Shiloh exhaled. “The First Lady doesn’t have any authority. She doesn’t have nuclear launch codes, there have never been any rumors about her doing anything shady.”

  “Maybe she was banging someone on the side?”

  “You don’t kill your wife on television because of that? He could have bloody hurt someone else in the gallery?”

  Rogan produced his new phone, something else Shiloh had given him at the house, and he dialed a series of numbers because he didn’t have his old contacts anymore. It took almost ten minutes but he ultimately got Gary Nero on the line.

  “Rogan! How have you been? You’ve practically disappeared from the map.”

  “Yeah, I’m mixing a little undercover work with the investigation.”

  “Oh cool!”

  “How are they treating you over there?”

  “So much better than in Alaska,” the probie said with optimism in his voice.

  “You mean they’re having you do more than just bringing coffee?”

  “They’re even having me help out on a local case, a prostitution ring linked to the Russian mob. Sure beats Anchorage’s boring crimes.”

  “Lucky you. Listen, I need your help about something. I know it’s Saturday but are you at the office?”

  “Yeah, in the conference room.”

  “So you have access to the case files?”

  “Pretty much, yeah,” Gary said.

  “Tell me about the First Lady. You guys searched into her since Wednesday?”

  “Yes, SAC Vanstedum insisted on a thorough investigation, especially since you went AWOL. About that…”

  “This is my problem, probie. Now tell me about Mrs. Rudd.”

  The kid exhaled and Rogan heard him typing on a computer. Rogan saw a police car down the road and hastily wondered if Virginia gave out tickets for using a cell phone while driving. Not taking any chances, he switched to speakerphone and lowered the device.

  “Let’s see, wasn’t much to find, really. She was definitely not sleeping around, if that’s the thing that was on your mind. We checked and everybody is categorical, Mrs. Rudd was just absolutely perfect.”

  Rogan was disappointed. “What else?”

  “Secret Service says she had no more death threats than usual, just your regular run-of-the-mill crazies. She had no enemies, no petty squabbles in the White House or all of Washington for that matter. Her causes were animal rights and inner-city education. Everybody describes her as a saint. It’s a dead end, Rogan.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Over here, we’re still considering this a mental breakdown from the President. It’s just a weird coincidence about his lawyer getting killed though. You heard about that? Some home invasion thing, he and his wife got shot. The whole house got shot up.”

  Rogan glanced at Shiloh and they were both thinking the same thing: Hephner had managed to keep the conspiracy under wraps.

  “Washington is a violent city. Bad luck being a defense lawyer, dealing with criminals all the time.”

  “Yeah. So this is all we have right now. What about you, Rogan? Any new leads?”

  “No, it’s a stalemate. Thanks for the information, Gary. Talk to you later.”

  He hung up before the young agent could reply.

  “That wasn’t very helpful,” Shiloh said.

  “True, but it eliminates one avenue, so it’s not all bad.”

  “We’re still back to square one. It’s just so maddening! Why would the faction have the leader of the free world shoot his wife? They were effectively controlling the most powerful person on the planet and they wasted the opportunity by having him do what he did.”

  “They wanted to punish him?” Rogan hazarded.

  “It remains a dumb move. When you play chess, you sacrifice your queen only if it can help you get in a better position later in the game, you don’t do it out of spite. What if…”

  Rogan was agape. “Son of a bitch!”

  “What?”

  “Son of a bitch!” he repeated, punching the steering wheel and grinning from ear to ear. “I think I got it.”

  “Superb. Will you tell me or is it a secret?”

  “His wife wasn’t the target.”

  Chapter 38

  Shiloh was immobile as she stared at him. She was holding her breath.

  “That is certainly an interesting theory.”

  “It’s something you said earlier,” Rogan began. “You said it was a stupid thing to do because he could have hurt someone else in the gallery.”

  “Right! But…” She got lost thinking for a few moments. “Wasn’t there something about the President being a competitive shooter? Mr. Hephner gave me your preliminary crime scene report before.”

  Rogan was dejected to have his hypothesis debunked so soon. Only this lasted a matter of seconds because he brightened up right away.

  “Exactly, that’s it! That’s what the group knew about him. Rudd went to Annapolis, he was in the Navy for eight years and spent God knows how long in the reserves. He’s a lifetime member of the NRA and shot on a regular basis. The faction knew he was a good shooter.”

  “Would you be so nice as to grace us with your point?”

  “They knew he wouldn’t miss his target. The whole point was to send a message, it was to scare the bejeezus out of someone else.”

  He glanced at her and she nodded. They both knew it made sense. Rogan was excited about this new lead.

  “The only thing to do now is to figure out who.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  Rogan was aware that the perfect next move would be to go to the FBI building. He would have everything at his disposal to follow this new lead. However, he didn’t want to leave Shiloh behind and he didn’t want her to have to undergo scrutiny just by being there. So instead they went to Denny’s.

  It wasn’t noon yet but it was Saturday and so the place was packed with families. Rogan and Shiloh managed to score a booth way in the back and she brought her computer along. The free Wi-Fi was essential to the investigation. They ordered water and some toast, mostly not to appear out of the ordinary.

  “Let’s do this thing,” Rogan said.

  The video of the shooting had been taken down from YouTube over 100 times. This alone had made the news. The footage was so graphic that it was understandable no company wanted to be responsible for broadcasting it. Still, Rogan remembered a British news site which still had the video.

  Besides, it wasn’t the shooting he wanted to see.

  “Shiloh, find me everything about the First Lady’s box.”

  “That didn’t sound dirty at all.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  She winked and went to work searching on her smartphone. The State of the Union was not just a political speech but a social event. Being invited was a status symbol. With the First Lady’s traditional role as a champion of social causes, she had a section of the gallery reserved for her and anyone she wanted to invite, most often people involved in her charities.

  By the time Shiloh found an article about this year’s special guests, Rogan had reached the news site’s document on the Capitol Massacre, as they’d dubbed the event. There were a few videos embedded on the page, the most prominent of which featured President Rudd stealing his bodyguard’s gun and shooting up at his wife, but there were also videos of the attendees.

  It was in the second video that Rogan found what he wanted. The footage wasn’t long, maybe three seconds, but it was all he needed. It showed the First Lady’s seating area and all her guests around her. She waved to the camera before turning to someone next to her, laughing at a joke. Rogan paused the video.

  “Here you go, hon,” the heavyset waitress said as she dropped off the glasses of water. “Sure you don’t want something other than toast? Some pancakes, grits, country gravy and sausage?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Me too,” Shiloh said.

  “All right, toast will be right up.”

 
After she left, Shiloh rounded the table and sat on the bench next to her ex-husband.

  “You have the list?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  For the next several minutes they compared the guest list with the people on the video. It was a simple matter of crosschecking their names against Google searches and then finding their faces in the visitors’ gallery. From the start the entire thing seemed futile. There were a few teachers, animal rights activists, an opera singer, a Rhodes Scholar from the Bronx, the mayor of Kalamazoo, definitely not anyone likely to be the target of an assassination conspiracy.

  Except one.

  Sitting to the left of the First Lady was a Navy officer in Service Dress Blues.

  “Rear Admiral Rick Gelhausen,” Shiloh said, reading off the phone.

  “Find everything you can about him.”

  Rogan twisted his laptop as the waitress came back with this sad-looking plate holding four halves of white toast. She made a last-ditch effort to get them to order something else and promptly left.

  “Okay,” Shiloh began. “Rear Admiral Rick Gelhausen from Jonesboro, Arkansas, 48 years old. Studied at Florida State, joined the Navy after graduation, served on the frigate USS Lewis B. Puller, followed by shore duty in San Diego. The usual deployments, climbing the ranks, assigned to the Sixth Fleet…”

  Her voice trailed off.

  “What?”

  “Here’s where it gets interesting. Since 2006, Admiral Rick Gelhausen has been working at the Pentagon, in the office of the Chief of Naval Operations, and beginning in 2010 he has been overseeing the Geryon Optimized Propulsion System program.”

  “Which is?” Rogan asked as he bit into a piece of toast.

  Shiloh searched and returned to sitting across the table.

  “The Geryon Optimized Propulsion System is a program under the jurisdiction of the United States Navy designed to better equip today’s fleet with fuel-efficient propulsion while preserving maximum readiness in combat environment.” She groaned. “Who writes this load of bollocks?”

  “That was a direct quote?”

  “It was. Let me see if I can understand a little better.”

  She squinted and continued reading while Rogan finished eating.

  “And?”

  “GOPS – apparently it’s pronounced jops – is something they’ve been working on since 2009. The goal is to retrofit non-nuclear ships with this system. It’s being touted as being almost green in terms of energy, is more silent and just as powerful as current engines.”

  “Sounds hunky-dory. How is that project going?”

  “It’s going at the tune of $3 billion annually.”

  “Wow.”

  “And there’s more. I’m searching here and all the articles appeared to be unanimous, it’s a propulsion system plagued with problems. There are energy savings only when the engines don’t run at maximum capacity, it’s nowhere near as silent as promised, some say the entire concept would be obsolete by the time of implementation.”

  “And you say we’ve been sinking $3 billion a year in this project since 2009?”

  “More. In 2011 alone the project was allotted $4.6 billion.”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Shiloh nodded.

  “So let’s get this straight,” Rogan said, lowering his voice and looking around to make sure it was just the two of them in the conversation. “We have a group of shady powerful people running the world, we have a defense procurement worth billions upon billions, and we have a man in the nosebleed section controlling it all.”

  “Admiral Gelhausen was sent a message,” Shiloh continued. “We control the President of the United States, don’t think we can’t control you. This man is at the center of it all.”

  “Get his address, I think we need to talk to him.”

  Chapter 39

  It took half an hour to drive up to Alexandria and find the admiral’s house. During that time Rogan and Shiloh hatched a plan that seemed crazier by the minute. But they had no choice, it was the only way to proceed.

  The neighborhood was the very definition of upper-middle-class suburbia, all houses looking the same and built too large on too small a plot of land. On a Saturday afternoon it would’ve been expected to see kids bicycling down the street or fathers tossing a ball with their sons, but it was winter. Where snow didn’t cover the lawns, the grass was yellow and dead. For Rogan, it drove home how depressing life was in the suburbs.

  “There,” Shiloh pointed ahead.

  They found the address and pulled into the paved driveway. The garage door was open about a foot and they could see movement inside, a pair of feet. Years of training made them both check their weapons and rack a round in the chamber. They got out of the car.

  “Hello!” Rogan called as he approached the garage.

  A second later, the motor engaged and the heavy brown door rose. Inside the garage was a man wearing faded jeans and an old Washington Redskins sweatshirt, both stained with black grease. From the pictures they’d seen this was Rear Admiral Rick Gelhausen. Beyond him was a blue Corvette Stingray. The hood was open and half the engine had been pulled apart.

  “Can I help you with something?” the man asked as he wiped his hands on a rag.

  “Rear Admiral Rick Gelhausen?”

  “Correct.”

  “Special Agent Rogan Bricks, FBI. This is my partner.”

  The Navy officer frowned as he looked at the flashed badge. “FBI? What’s this about?”

  “It’s about your future in our armed services.”

  Rogan and Shiloh came forward and entered the garage without being asked to. It was as much to keep out of the cold as it was apply some pressure on the man.

  “What the hell are you talking about? I’ve already talked to the FBI and the Secret Service about what happened last Tuesday. You boys really did a number on my wife, you know that?”

  “You played dumb, didn’t you?” Rogan said. “You’ve been asked about what you saw, about what happened when the First Lady got shot right next to you, and your statement was the most vanilla I’ve ever seen. Isn’t that right, Shiloh?”

  “Yes, very vanilla.”

  “But there’s a lot more to the story, isn’t it, Gelhausen?”

  The admiral tossed his rag away and took a step closer. “Do you know who I am, son?”

  “We absolutely do and that’s why we’re here. The Geryon Optimized Propulsion System program, such a sweet sounding name for such a steaming pile of bullshit.”

  This made the older man calm down. “I… Maybe you should take an appointment with my office. We’ll talk on Monday.”

  “We’re gonna talk now. We’re gonna talk about the First Lady becoming Swiss cheese next to you. What you failed to mention to the friendly law enforcement officers who interviewed you was that these bullets were meant for you.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Okay, you’re right. The bullets were meant for Mrs. Rudd but it was a message intended for you. So what’s the deal? Somebody up in the ivory tower isn’t happy about how GOPS is going?”

  Gelhausen bristled. He looked past the two visitors, as if afraid this was some sort of sting operation, and then he went deeper into the garage.

  “Please leave, I have nothing to tell you.”

  “But you do,” Rogan said softly.

  “I’m gonna call my lawyer.”

  Shiloh cocked her head to the side and took a few seductive steps closer. “This wouldn’t be such a good idea, Admiral.”

  “Because you say that, I know it’s a terrific idea.”

  He pulled his phone from his pocket and began swiping through his contacts.

  “You think the faction is going to be stopped by a lawyer?” Rogan asked. “They got the leader of the free fucking world to kill his wife in public just to make a point. You really think your discount lawyer is gonna keep you safe? The only way you stay alive involves you telling us what you know.”

 
The Navy officer set his phone down on a workbench and shook his head. “I can’t. They’ll kill me. If you know about the President then you know I’m just a small fish. I’m fucked!”

  “You’re fucked if you don’t act first. Let’s go on the offensive here, we’ll have a fighting chance.”

  “I can’t testify! I have a family, they’ll be dead before the end of the day!”

  Rogan shook his head. “I never said anything about testifying. These people try to have me killed on a daily basis, it’s becoming kind of endearing to tell you the truth. But I very well intend to serve justice one way or another, if you get my drift. So you tell me what you know and we’re one step closer to ending this thing.”

  “Admiral,” Shiloh began in a softer tone. “We know about GOPS and the numerous problems. This is what it’s about, isn’t it? We’re just trying to understand.”

  Gelhausen exhaled loudly and sat down on an old chair. He crossed his arms and shook his head though it was clear he was about to talk.

  “We’ll protect your family, Admiral,” Rogan said.

  “No, you won’t. You can’t. You don’t know these people.”

  “That’s why we need you to talk. Help us do the right thing.”

  The man shook his head and avoided looking into their eyes. At long last he said, “Okay, at this point I’m screwed either way.”

  “Tell us about GOPS.”

  “GOPS is a failure. It’s over budget, inefficient, and it’s a pretty safe bet that the Chinese have already copied the whole thing.”

  “And yet you’re still playing along.”

  Gelhausen shrugged. “I have two kids in college and these people are generous, all right? Besides, if it wasn’t me it’d be somebody else. I just string things along, give favorable recommendations. They have people in Congress rubberstamping the procurement requests. I’m just a small cog in a big machine.”

  Shiloh leaned against the Corvette, gently. “But you’re having doubts, aren’t you? You were about to leave the program?”

  “So far we’ve spent more than $15 billion on this. It was only a matter of time until this became a fuss and I’d be the first one left out to dry. Like I said, I got two kids in college. Losing the bribes they’re giving me would be harsh but I would make do with my O-8 pay grade. But if I’m drummed out of the Navy? My whole family’s future is ruined.”