The President's Henchman

by Joseph Flynn

  “Wisely must be the hard part,” McGill answered. “Like being a genie and not having the wishes you grant backfire.”

  Andy laughed. “Very good. I hope you won’t mind if I use that line.”

  McGill nodded his approval. Maybe Andy Grant was stroking him, maybe he wasn’t. Either way, for a rich guy, he was very easy to like. Except to the people who had threatened to kill him. Reason enough to overlook his wife’s continuing grump, McGill supposed.

  As alert to moods as ever, Andy asked, “Chief, just how serious do you think this threat against my life is?”

  McGill saw Patti Grant turn to look at him. Intently. She wanted to watch his face as he answered the question. He took out a duplicate of the threat message. The original had been left that morning inside a subscription copy of the Wall Street Journal delivered to Andy Grant’s mailbox outside his gate. When Andy had unfolded the newspaper to read it, the note had fallen into his lap.

  Get your wife to vote the right way. Do it, or she’ll know what it’s like to see the taking of an innocent life.

  “The note doesn’t specify the vote in question,” McGill told the philanthropist. “Nor does it say which way is the right way to vote, but when you read it to your wife, she understood perfectly, or so you told me.”

  Andy nodded, and said quietly, “Yes, she did.”

  The congresswoman’s rebuttal was a good deal louder. “It could all be a bluff!”

  She marched over to the table, stood before McGill, daring him to contradict her. This time Andy Grant didn’t intervene. Candor was more important than comity now.

  “Congresswoman,” McGill said, meeting her eyes, “I won’t ask you if you’ve ever made a death threat because I’d bet you haven’t. Never in any serious manner. But this note is serious. It communicates a threat that’s real. A threat that resonates. That’s why you’re so scared.”

  McGill was sure she wanted to pick up her drink and throw it in his face. But if she did that, she’d let Andy know just how terrified she was. Then how could she cast the vote that would endanger his life?

  McGill had no choice but to continue. No way to spare Mrs. Grant’s feelings.

  “If you vote against these people —”

  “You think there’s more than one?” Andy asked.

  “One is possible. But a group is more likely.” He turned back to the congresswoman. “If you vote against them after you’ve been warned, what do they say to themselves? ‘Well, it was worth a try.’ If they don’t at least attempt to kill Mr. Grant and give it their all, they won’t be able to believe in themselves anymore. Add in the inevitable religious element, and what they will believe is they’re all going to hell. I’m sorry, Congresswoman, but this is real. Defy these people, and they will come for your husband.”

  Patti Grant loathed McGill at that moment.

  But Andy agreed to install an underwater barrier to protect his beach.

  The next day, McGill got a courtesy call from the FBI office in Chicago. They’d been advised of the threat on Mr. Grant’s life by Congresswoman Grant. The congresswoman wanted the Bureau to take over the case. Only as far as they could tell, Mr. Grant’s being a private citizen and Congresswoman Grant’s saying her husband never tried to influence her congressional votes, the threat was a matter for the local police.

  Still, the case was being studied by DOJ lawyers in Washington to see if there was any reason federal authorities should take over. Sweetie was in McGill’s office when he took the call, and he gave her the gist of the conversation.

  “The lady wants some control back in her life,” Sweetie said. “She figures she has a better chance of getting it with the feebs than with you.”

  McGill nodded absently.

  “There is a way in for them,” he said. “They’ll spot it before too long.”

  Sweetie gave him a look.

  McGill told her, “Andy Grant said his copy of the Journal wasn’t in the newspaper box outside his gate, it was in his mailbox.”

  “Federal turf,” Sweetie said. “Maybe Mr. Grant didn’t share that with his wife.”

  “Maybe.” McGill got to his feet. “I’m going to talk with him again. You start asking around. Did anyone see a passerby who didn’t look North Shore near the Grant house yesterday morning? Someone who took Andy Grant’s newspaper out of its receptacle and put it in the mailbox? Start with the Journal’s delivery person.”

  “We should’ve thought of that right away.”

  “I know,” McGill said.

  “Well, aside from getting shot occasionally, we don’t get to do much real police work out here in the leafy ’burbs. A cop can get mentally lazy.”

  “Let’s watch out for that.”

  There were two armed guards at Andy Grant’s gate — a first for Winnetka — and his mailbox had been removed. The Journal’s plastic bin, too. McGill wondered if the FBI had them. Some sharpie had learned how the threat was transmitted and had carted off the containers to check them for fingerprints and DNA. There had been neither on the threat message itself.

  The guys at the gate called for a colleague to meet McGill at Andy’s front door.

  Andy waited just inside and shook McGill’s hand when he entered. The congresswoman, he told McGill, had departed for Washington to tend to the people’s business. Just as well. She hadn’t been happy about his hiring the new security people, but Andy had thought there was no reason to do things halfway.

  “Feds have your mailbox and paper bin?” McGill asked.

  Andy shook his head. “The new security guys. When they heard I go out to pick up the paper and the mail myself, they took them away. Said they represented unacceptable risks.”

  McGill nodded. “Meaning the people who’ve threatened you could make good by booby-trapping one or both. That was one of the things I was going to talk to you about. That and things like varying your routine.”

  “Yeah. They’ve talked to me about that.”

  McGill was starting to feel like the slow kid in class.

  Ever sensitive to other people, Andy clapped him on the shoulder, and said, “The security guys said you were right on the money about protecting the lakeside of the house.”

  “Your tax dollars at work,” McGill said.

  Andy laughed. Then he looked a good deal more sober.

  “I told Patti, of course, that she couldn’t let any of this affect the way she votes. We start down that path, and it’s the end of democracy in this country.”

  “You’re absolutely right.”

  “But I am scared. The new water barrier’s going in right now.”

  Which explained the sounds of heavy machinery McGill heard.

  “I’d be scared, too,” he said, “and I get to carry a gun.”

  “Just so you know, Patti’s anger at you was nothing personal; she’s more frightened than I am.”

  McGill nodded. He knew all too well what fearing for a husband’s safety could do to a woman. His ex had left him when she couldn’t take being a cop’s wife any longer — after he’d been shot on the job.

  “We’re looking for whoever left the threat,” McGill told Andy. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

  One thing McGill could do occurred to him that evening. He called Andy and got the phone number of the supervisor of the work crew that was putting in the barrier off the Grants’ beach. The man’s name was Costello, and he had a suspicious nature. He insisted on talking to Andy Grant himself before he said anything. Then he said he’d call McGill at the number listed for the village police in the phone book.

  McGill told Costello he appreciated his precautions and would wait for the return call. He wondered if the man was naturally careful or if he’d been briefed by Grant’s security team.

  In either case, the wait was short. Costello called back in five minutes.

  “Mr. Grant says to talk to you, Chief. So whattya want to know?”

  “How soon before you finish the job?” McGill asked.


  “It’s done. Rush job, premium pay.”

  Money did have its advantages, McGill thought.

  “What kind of a barrier did you put in?”

  “Structural steel beams. Anchored in the lakebed eighteen inches apart, pointing out and up at forty-five-degree angles. Rip the bottom right outta any boat that tries to land on that beach.”

  Effective but damn ugly, as McGill envisioned it. He was sure it would offend the community’s sensibilities. Too bad if the Grants were in danger. Winnetka had its aesthetics to consider.

  Costello interpreted the chief’s silence perfectly. “The beams don’t break the surface. They stop a few inches under the water. But not enough for a boat to get over. Of course, we get a dry year, and the lake level drops …”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” McGill said.

  “Hey, rich people don’t have worries. They chase ’em away with Franklins.”

  Andy Grant wasn’t going to solve his problems with money, but McGill didn’t want to get into a debate. He asked Costello, “Did you notice anyone taking an interest in the job you were doing? Anyone who didn’t look North Shore?”

  Costello laughed harshly. “You mean rich, white, and to the manner born?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No. A few boaters eyed us for a while. You could tell they were interested in what we were doing. Like maybe this was some new status symbol they had to have, too. But every last one of ’em looked real North Shore.”

  An hour later, just before sunset, McGill took his boat out onto the lake. It was a small aluminum skiff with a ten-horse outboard. His dad had given it to him so the two of them could go fishing on the Chain O’ Lakes. He’d never had it out on Lake Michigan. As he chugged along, he made a conscious effort not to venture out any farther from the shore than he thought he could swim — and he scolded himself for not bringing a life jacket. He came to a point just east of where he estimated the Grants’ new barrier to be, turned toward the beach, cut the engine and raised the motor out of the water. Momentum eased the little craft forward.

  The skiff didn’t draw much water, and with only one man in it, McGill wanted to know if it might skim over the newly installed —

  A steel beam hit the aluminum hull far sooner than McGill expected. The jolt almost knocked him into the water. He had to grab the sides of the skiff to regain his balance. When he did, he thought he could see Andy Grant in a second-floor window at the left corner of the house. Then a high-intensity spotlight illuminated his boat. McGill squinted and shielded his eyes. He could make out a man on the beach holding a scoped rifle. The guy brought the weapon to his shoulder.

  That was when McGill realized he didn’t look North Shore. Not in his jeans, T-shirt, and humble small watercraft. Be a helluva thing to die in a case of mistaken identity.

  McGill did the only thing he could. He pulled out his badge and held it in front of the eyes he now squeezed shut. After the longest three count of his life, he took a look. The marksman had lowered his rifle and moved his spotlight slightly to McGill’s right.

  McGill could see that the man was yelling at him, but he couldn’t hear the words. The distance was too great and the pounding of his heart was too loud. Still, he doubted the man was thanking him for testing the Grants’ new defenses.

  He turned the skiff around and headed back to the launching ramp.

  Believing the lake would not be the avenue of attack.

  Just to be safe, though, he called every marine copper he knew from Milwaukee to Gary and let them know of his worries and to ask that they call him if they spotted anyone suspicious.

  Congresswoman Grant cast her vote opposing the Support of Motherhood Act. It failed and … nothing happened. A month went by. Patti came to believe she’d been right. The threat had been a bluff and nothing more. She began to find the presence of a large number of security men in and around her home intrusive.

  She spoke to Andy about letting them go.

  “I’ll talk to the chief, see what he thinks,” her husband said.

  He did and reported back. The Grants discussed the matter in their kitchen as they prepared a light supper to eat outside.

  “Chief McGill thinks we should move. Temporarily. But without notice. Or publicly revealing where we’ve gone.”

  “That’s preposterous.”

  “He says it only makes sense for attackers to wait until the defenders relax. But if we take the initiative, change the place we live, we might force them out into the open.”

  Patti’s eyes narrowed. “In other words, he hasn’t been able to find any evidence that the threat was ever real.”

  “No, and it’s eating him up. Because he’s positive the threat is real.”

  Congress was in its summer recess. It would be a natural thing for the Grants to take a vacation trip, then … simply not come home. At least not for a while.

  “I won’t do it, Andy.”

  Andy sighed and nodded. “I don’t like the idea of being run out of my house, either.”

  “We’ll keep the security men.”

  “Or let them go if they bother you too much.”

  They carried their food and drinks outside, nibbled for a while without talking.

  Finally, Patti asked, “You like him, don’t you?”

  “The chief?” Andy asked. “Yes, I do. He’s smart, honest, has a ton of experience. His professional accomplishments aside, everybody I’ve talked to about him says he’s a good man and a devoted father. He has three kids, two girls and a boy.”

  That hit home. Both Patti and Andy were infertile. Their shared sense of personal regret was one big reason why the Grant Foundation sent millions of dollars each year to organizations with proven records of bettering the lives of children in need.

  “Good for him,” Patti said, and left it at that.

  After Labor Day, Congresswoman Grant returned to Washington when the House of Representatives reconvened. She declined Andy’s suggestion of having a bodyguard accompany her, and he didn’t push it too hard. By that time, he was beginning to have doubts, too, that the threat against his life had been real.

  Chief McGill still thought it was, but even the most astute professional made mistakes. Andy dismissed the security force at his house, thinking it would make a nice surprise for Patti, the next time she came home, to have the house to themselves. He didn’t notify the chief of his action; he didn’t want to debate the matter any more.

  Andy kept the new armored Mercedes and the chauffeur who’d been trained in evasive driving. He varied his routine. He was alert to his surroundings. But that was it. He just wasn’t going to be afraid all the time. It took all the joy out of life.

  He was killed three days after he let his security people go.

  The attack came from the lake. Nobody had to storm the beach. The night was still, the lake was flat, and a cabin cruiser was used as a shooting platform. From a point just outside the barrier, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired through Andy and Patti’s bedroom window.

  Second floor at the left corner of the house.

  When he got the news of an explosion at the Grant house — a terrified neighbor had called the village police — McGill wanted to kill someone himself. “Goddamnit, goddamnit, goddamnit!” he roared, and slammed the phone down without thinking.

  Klara, his dispatcher, called back and told McGill that Sweetie was on the way to his house. ETA five minutes. While he got dressed, he told Klara to make sure every one of his thirty-six sworn officers was out on the street. He ordered that the Village of Winnetka be sealed. Absolutely no one was to leave his jurisdiction without his permission.

  He also told Klara to make sure that every cop in the country — and Canada — got the word of what had happened. But he was not yet able to tell his brother officers for whom they should be on the lookout. Then the brief whoop of a police patrol unit announced Sweetie’s arrival.

  McGill lived in the northwest corner of Evanston, two gilded suburbs down t
he social ladder from Winnetka and the Grant estate. Fifteen minutes away in normal traffic. Less at that time of night. Much less at the speed Sweetie was driving.

  But there was still plenty of time for Sweetie to tell him.

  “The neighbor who phoned in the report said the explosion was in Mr. Grant’s bedroom. Apparently, he has a clear view of the Grant’s place from his house. He was embarrassed when he had to admit he knew what the room was. But you live next door to a former movie star’s boudoir…”

  Sweetie shrugged at human foibles.

  “Did he see any sign of life after the blast?” McGill asked.

  “Klara asked about that. The neighbor said no.”

  “Had anyone noticed if Mr. Grant was home tonight?

  Sweetie nodded. “The neighbor. Saw him in his bedroom before the light was turned off.”

  “Shit.”

  Sweetie asked, “You going to make the call, Jim?”

  He nodded and took out his cell phone. He had the number in the 202 area code committed to memory. Andy Grant had given it to him. Just in case.

  She answered on the third ring, and McGill said, “Congresswoman Grant? This is Chief of Police James J. McGill. I have some bad news …”

  The FBI called McGill just as he reached the Grant estate. Sweetie had radioed the company that maintained the property’s electronic security system and was given the code to open the gate. She was punching it into the keypad as McGill took the FBI call. The gate rolled open, but she waited at the entrance to the driveway while McGill talked to the feebs.

  The Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago office, a guy named Braun, told McGill that Congresswoman Grant had informed them of what had happened. The Bureau was assuming control of the case.