The President's Henchman

by Joseph Flynn

The mourners at Andrew Hudson Grant’s funeral numbered more than a thousand. The president of the United States was forced to send his condolences, but the First Lady and the vice president were there. As were more than a hundred members of Congress. Winnetka Village President Henry Healy was one of the pallbearers. Friends, both exalted and humble, came to say good-bye. Sergeant Margaret Sweeney, formidable in her dress uniform, and an honor guard of fellow officers, represented the village police department.

  Other than the president, the only person of note missing was James J. McGill.

  He turned up at the cemetery the next day, after the crowd had gone home. He knelt beside the freshly turned plot of earth, made the sign of the cross, and asked God to grant Andy eternal rest … and to forgive him for letting a good man die. When tears filled, then overflowed McGill’s eyes, he didn’t bother to wipe them away.

  There was no one around to see him, he thought, and he was almost right.

  Only the widow, unable to stay away and watching from a distance, saw him.

  The trial of four of the five conspirators in Andy’s death was scheduled quickly and proceeded without delay. Lindell Ricker, per his plea bargain, testified against the others. The defense did not contest the facts of the case. Rather it argued that the defendants had acted out of a moral imperative. To save the lives of countless unborn children it was necessary that Andrew Grant lose his life. Only such an extreme lesson would finally make it clear to all politicians that the law must be changed to allow no abortions.

  Erna Godfrey was far more blunt. “Once his wife refused to save him, God wanted that man dead.”

  The jury took only sixty-five minutes to disagree and return a verdict of guilty.

  Erna Godfrey, spurning the offer of a lesser sentence if she would implicate her husband, was condemned to death. Walter, Penny, and Winston Delk were sentenced to life without parole. Lindell Ricker was sentenced to ten years, a long time but hardly the stuff of martyrs. Representative Doak Langdon and Senator Howard Hurlbert, cosponsors of the Support of Motherhood Act, would run for reelection unopposed.

  The reporters covering the trial asked Congresswoman Grant if she thought the sentences were fair. McGill was standing nearby and could have tried to run interference, but he didn’t think Patti Grant would have wanted that. And he was curious, too.

  She said, “There’s nothing fair about having someone you love get killed. There’s no undoing it. There’s no forgetting it. There’s only the hard work of trying to find peace. What happened here today is the first step down that path. Ask me ten or twenty years from now if the sentences were fair; maybe I’ll have a better answer.”

  The media mob turned to McGill and asked him the same question.

  “I think they should all be strapped to gurneys,” he said.

  Two weeks later McGill was cooking Italian for his three kids and a soon-to-arrive friend when the doorbell rang. A moment later, McGill’s youngest, Caitie, appeared in the kitchen, leading Patti Grant by the hand.

  “Dad, company,” Caitie announced.

  The McGill children were no slouches. They read the papers, knew who Patti was, what had happened, and their father’s role in the matter. They were also smart enough not to let their favorite meal with their dad, angel-hair pasta with tomatoes and basil, descend into a somber occasion.

  “Invite her to dinner, Dad,” Kenny said, mischief in his eye. “It’s about time we had a good-looking woman around here.”

  His sisters blew raspberries at him. Patti suddenly looked uncertain of herself, but before she could say anything, Caitie added, “The congresswoman brought some men with her. Four, I think. They’re outside.”

  McGill raised his eyebrows.

  “Protection,” Patti said. “The president insisted. For a while anyway. I … I’m sorry. I should have called first. I just wanted to properly express my appreciation for … for … I don’t want to interrupt your dinner.”

  She was backing out of the room when McGill asked, “You know how to slice tomatoes?”

  “Pardon?”

  “We’re having one guest for dinner, but we can set another extra plate. I’m making pasta and my famous focaccia. You will have to earn your keep however.” He held up a knife.

  While she was trying to decide, Caitie piped up, “You won’t mind eating with Democrats, will you? We’re all Democrats here. Every McGill is.”

  The elder McGill rolled his eyes. “I’m an independent.”

  Older and more sensitive, McGill’s eldest child, Abbie, said, “It would be an honor to have you join us for dinner, Congresswoman Grant.”

  Kenny just waggled his eyebrows. Patti couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Thank you. I think I will join you. After all, some of my best friends are Democrats. Not to mention an independent or two.” She took the knife from McGill.

  They worked next to each other at the kitchen counter. McGill kneaded the dough for the focaccia. Patti sliced the tomatoes. The McGill children kept the conversation light but shared furtive glances. They could tell already. Something was happening here.

  They were right. That night was the beginning of something lasting, even after Patti told McGill that to honor Andy’s memory she was going to run for president as he’d urged her to do.

  “Who better?” McGill asked.

  Chapter 5

  Wednesday

  Galia Mindel typically arrived at her West Wing office, a few steps from the Oval Office, before her secretary or any other staffer, but that morning someone else got there first. McGill sat at her desk, his feet up on her polished mahogany, reading from a file folder on his lap. The folder was stamped in red: TOP SECRET. A stack of other files rested on the desk. At McGill’s elbow was an open box of donuts, crumbs and flecks of sugar further marring Galia’s beautiful work surface.

  McGill looked up when she appeared and smiled.

  “Morning, Galia,” he said. “Care for a donut?”

  The chief of staff was dumbstruck. McGill never set foot in the West Wing unless the president sent for him. That was one of the man’s saving graces. He was publicly apolitical. He’d even declined the opportunity to throw out the first pitch of the baseball season. But here he was, his big feet up on her desk, grinning and reading —

  Newsweek? That was what Galia saw when McGill let the TOP SECRET folder fall open on her desk.

  McGill stopped smiling, and said, “Close the door and have a seat. We need to talk.”

  Galia thought briefly of telling McGill to close the door and not let it hit him in the ass on his way out. But, damnit, you just couldn’t bully the president’s hench — the president’s husband. She closed the door and, choking on her pride, sat in one of her own visitors’ chairs.

  “I saw the look on your face, Galia,” McGill said. “You thought I’d broken into your desk and was reading through files that were none of my business. Not a very pleasant feeling, is it?”

  Galia was able to speak now but couldn’t bring herself to answer.

  McGill sighed. “You’re a real piece of work, lady. My problem is, the president told me she needs you.”

  Galia allowed herself a tight smile.

  McGill took his feet off the desk and leaned forward.

  “She also said there’s a line: Cross it, and you’re gone.”

  Galia’s smile disappeared.

  “So really it’s up to you,” he told her. “If you like your job, if you want to keep it, you’ll learn to play nice. Meaning you’ll never snoop on McGill Investigations again. My business and my clients are off-limits to you. If you resent that, if it thwarts your sense of prerogative, too bad. Content yourself with being helpful to the president.”

  McGill got to his feet and gave Galia his best cop stare until she looked away. He crossed the office. Galia didn’t turn to watch him go. He left the door open as he departed.

  And called back, “Enjoy the donuts, Galia.”

  He knew as well as anyone else in the White H
ouse that the chief of staff was perpetually on a diet and how much trouble she had sticking to it.

  Celsus Crogher, the SAC of the White House Security Detail, was waiting for McGill just down the hall from Galia’s office. McGill had been a resident of what Bill Clinton had called “the crown jewel of the federal prison system” long enough not to wonder how the White House Secret Service boss knew where he was. It was Crogher’s job to know where the president and McGill were at all times — and the man was nothing if not serious about doing his job.

  But this was the first time he’d approached McGill personally since he’d lost the battle over how many of his minions would ensure that McGill didn’t go toes up.

  “Morning, Celsus,” McGill said. “Galia’s got donuts if you’re hungry.”

  Not that McGill thought Crogher ate. He suspected that somewhere beneath the SAC’s clothing, there was a pair of electrodes he used to recharge his batteries for an hour or two each night. Eyes wide open, of course.

  Crogher, as he always did, got straight to the point. “Mr. McGill, I’m not getting the cooperation I need.”

  “From whom?” McGill asked.

  “From Captain Sullivan of the Evanston PD.” Barbara Sullivan was the Evanston copper who coordinated the protection of McGill’s children.

  Normally, the president’s children were provided with Secret Service protection. But McGill’s children were the president’s stepchildren, who also had a mother and a stepfather. Such a blended family was new to the presidential scheme of things.

  Everybody agreed that Abbie, Kenny, and Caitie had to be protected. Andy Grant’s tragic death was an example of the jeopardy that could attach to anyone the president loved, and Patti Grant had come to love McGill’s children dearly. So the federal government thought to extend Secret Service protection to them.

  But not to their mother and stepfather.

  Then the kids had met Celsus Crogher and said no way.

  The president settled the matter. Patti insisted that since she was the reason the children needed protection in the first place, she would be the one to pick up the tab. She was the only one, other than the government, who had the means to afford around-the-clock security for the children, their mother, and their stepfather, who, like McGill, were Evanston residents.

  Barbara Sullivan, who might have been Sweetie’s older, kinder, no-less-tough sister, ran the security detail, using off-duty Evanston patrol and detective personnel. Strictly as a courtesy, Barbara had agreed to keep Celsus Crogher informed with semimonthly reports.

  Now Crogher told McGill, “I asked Captain Sullivan to switch to a weekly reporting basis.”

  McGill frowned. “Why?”

  Crogher was silent, and that was all the answer McGill needed.

  “Are my children at increased risk, Crogher? Sonofabitch, did you tell Barbara?”

  Of course, he hadn’t. Feds never told local cops anything. And a local cop was how Crogher would always see McGill. No, now he was even worse in the SAC’s eyes. He was a private cop. Holmes.

  McGill didn’t know if he could coldcock Crogher, but he was sorely tempted to try. It wasn’t the uncertainty that stopped him; it was his promise to Patti not to do anything to embarrass her. But Crogher must have recognized the threat of violence in McGill’s eyes because he took a sudden step backward. Even that gave McGill no satisfaction.

  He strode back through Galia’s doorway, and told Crogher, “Get in here.”

  Galia had left by the back door, the one to the Oval Office, leaving the donuts behind. McGill picked up her phone, got an outside line, and called Barbara Sullivan.

  “Barbara? Jim McGill. I’m going to put SAC Celsus Crogher on the line.” McGill handed the phone to Crogher. “Every last thing you know. Don’t hold back a word.”

  Crogher began a terse recitation, never acknowledging Barbara Sullivan. A machine who’d had his PLAY button pushed, he was nevertheless effective in bringing McGill to a cold sweat.

  Federal government monitoring of right-wing Web sites and chat rooms, as well as classified intercepts of other communications, had picked up increased and increasingly threatening mentions of the president’s illegitimate bastard offspring. Stories were circulating that the president and her current husband had been longtime secret lovers. Abbie, Kenny, and Caitie were really the president’s out-of-wedlock whelps. She’d gone to a private clinic in Switzerland to birth them. When sad sack Andy Grant finally wised up, the president and McGill had him killed so the faithless wife wouldn’t lose all those billions in a divorce. Then they blamed the killing on poor God-fearing Erna Godfrey, who was sitting in jail right then waiting to die. Well, if the goddamn government killed Erna … maybe the thing to do was go after those kids.

  Crogher handed the phone back to McGill.

  Barbara promised to alert her people and call McGill nightly for as long as necessary.

  McGill didn’t know if Crogher had come completely clean with him, but he’d certainly heard enough for now.

  McGill was leaving the West Wing when he felt a hand catch his left arm. He’d been too preoccupied to notice anyone approach, but when he looked around, he saw the White House physician, Artemus Nicolaides. Nick to all who knew him.

  Nick was sixty or so, McGill had heard, but looked to be in his late forties, even with his shaven scalp. His Mediterranean complexion tanned on exposure to a sunny smile, and he was lean and fit, which he attributed to the daily consumption of olive oil and power walks up and down the National Mall.

  “You don’t look so good, my friend,” Nick told McGill. “Pale even for an Irishman. Fall sick, then what kind of henchman will you be for the president?”

  “Patti called you again,” McGill said.

  “The president loves you, a gift as rare as a man might know. She asked me to remind you once more that you are overdue for your annual physical examination. Several weeks overdue. Also, you are pale.”

  “Even for an Irishman,” McGill added. He gently disengaged his arm from Nick’s grasp. “Soon, Nick, I’ll have my checkup soon. I’ll come to your office.”

  Nick smiled with perfect white teeth. “For you, I even make house calls.”

  McGill got into the backseat of his black Chevy. Leo and Deke sat up front. Leo went to put the car in gear, but McGill told him to wait. Leo waited, looked at the boss in his rearview mirror. Deke looked over his shoulder at McGill.

  He told them of Galia’s snooping. “I know neither of you blabbed.”

  “Not one little peep,” Leo agreed.

  Deke nodded.

  “I’m going to have the office swept for bugs. I’ll find a private firm. Just so you know, there will be an unfamiliar face or two around soon.”

  “We should do a background check first,” Deke said, “on whoever you hire.”

  “I’ll check them out. I can’t ask you guys to be involved because then your bosses will be involved, and pretty soon the whole federal government would know. I just wanted to alert you so some electronics guy doesn’t find himself looking up the barrel of an Uzi.”

  McGill sat back, thinking Leo would drive off.

  But the driver didn’t drive, and the bodyguard didn’t look for threats.

  “What?” McGill asked.

  “You tell us,” Deke said.

  They could see something else was wrong, McGill thought, and they were right to want to know about it. Anything that put him off his game increased the risk to them. He shared the news about the threat to his children that he’d pried out of Crogher.

  “You ought to let us put another ring around them,” Deke said. “The Service could work things out with the local police so we’re not stepping on each other’s toes.”

  “That’s what I’d do if they were my kids,” Leo agreed.

  “I’m thinking about it,” McGill said. Then he realized he’d have to let Carolyn know what Crogher had told him. Poor Carolyn. His ex-wife had been terrified about the dangers he’d faced as a cop. No
w, when she heard the kids were the subjects of threats … he decided to call her when Lars was home. Carolyn’s new husband, a pharmacist, was a steady guy. A safe guy.

  Hell, maybe he’d ask Patti to buy them a sheep ranch in New Zealand.

  Let the kids grow up to be Kiwis.

  “Let’s go,” McGill said. “I’m not the only one with problems.”

  Chapter 6

  Lieutenant Welborn Yates had never been to the Pentagon before the morning he showed up to interview Colonel Carina Linberg, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if a body-cavity search were required to gain entrance. Not after the terrorist attack on the building. After all, he might be an Air Force officer with a legitimate reason to be on the premises, or he might be an SOB with a great disguise and a credible cover story.

  If protecting the building were his job, he’d check out everyone down to their corn pads.

  So when he arrived at the security checkpoint and an Air Force major on the far side of the metal detector nodded to the chief of the detail, who then waved Welborn through, he was sure somebody must have made a mistake. He started to open his briefcase for inspection.

  But the major, whose name tag read SEYMOUR, told him curtly, “Don’t bother with that, Yates. General Altman is waiting to see you.”

  “Sir?”

  “General Warren Altman. The Air Force chief of staff. You’ve heard of him, Lieutenant?”

  Welborn had. Four stars on each shoulder. That General Altman.

  “Yes, sir. But he’s not who I came here to see.”

  Major Seymour smiled, his teeth a brilliant white against his dark skin. “But that’s who you’re going to see, Lieutenant. If for no other reason than the general sent me to fetch you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Welborn said.

  The first thing Welborn noticed was that the general’s office was bigger than the Oval Office. The second was that Major Seymour was literally breathing down his neck. Nothing he could do about that. He was standing at attention, holding his salute.