The President's Henchman

by Joseph Flynn

  “He told you he was single?” Welborn asked.

  “He did.”

  “And by his own admission he didn’t wear a wedding ring.”

  “No, he didn’t. And not for a very long time, if ever. Women know what to look for: skin that’s pale because a ring has shielded it from the sun. Or simply an indentation where the flesh has been compressed as it continues to expand elsewhere.”

  She glanced at Welborn’s left hand as it held his coffee cup.

  “You don’t wear a ring, probably never have.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Dex’s hand is just like yours.”

  Welborn tried not to read anything into that.

  “At some point,” he said, “you and the captain began to see each other outside of work.”

  “Six weeks after we began working together. Physical tension had been present from the start, and by that point it was pretty unbearable for both of us. We both had to be careful at work, of course. Our jobs call for a high degree of focus and sober judgment.”

  The colonel laughed again.

  “That was the rationalization we used for going out the first time. We needed to dispel the tension so we could do our jobs better. We’d learned by then that we’re both very ambitious people, and our joke was that if he was going to make admiral, and I was going to make general, we’d have to get all this unspoken personal stuff sorted out pretty soon.”

  Colonel Linberg sipped her coffee.

  “Dex said we wouldn’t have to worry about talking out of turn because we both knew all the same secrets. So I said why didn’t we go out for a drink?”

  “You extended the first invitation?”

  “Yes … Hasn’t any young woman ever asked you out, Lieutenant?”

  There was an undertone of challenge in her voice.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then you know there’s nothing improper about it.”

  “No, ma’am. Nothing at all.”

  “Dex told me that first night that he was divorced. Not separated, divorced. He told me before we left the bar where we’d had drinks, before we went to the hotel.”

  “Do you remember how many drinks you had that night?”

  “Two,” Colonel Linberg said with certainty. “I never have more than two. I learned long ago that if I do, I’m not good for anything. And that night I wanted to be very, very good.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Welborn said as dispassionately as he could. “At any other time during your relationship with Captain Cowan, did he inform you, or did you hear from anyone else, that he was married?”

  “No.” Carina Linberg started to say something else but she stopped.

  “Ma’am?”

  The colonel began to strangle her napkin. “During the time we were … sexually involved, I noticed some male officers glancing at me, snickering in an adolescent way. They tried not to be obvious about it, and they always looked away when I looked at them. I thought maybe my body language and Dex’s had given us away, even though we tried to be very proper while at work.”

  “You never thought Captain Cowan might have —”

  “Boasted of his conquest? Not then. But now I wonder if they not only knew about us but also knew that Dex was still married.”

  “Can you give me these officers’ names, ma’am?”

  Colonel Linberg provided them without hesitation.

  “And when did you finally learn that the captain was married?”

  “The day I was assigned to my new office and duties.” She finished her coffee. “Thank you for the reprieve, Lieutenant, but unless you have more questions, I probably should be getting back.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” There was a time to push and a time to back off, he’d been taught.

  Welborn drove Colonel Linberg back to the Pentagon. He opened the car door for her, and they exchanged salutes. He watched her walk toward the building with her back straight and her head held high. But by the time she entered the massive building she looked very small. That was when he first thought she was a woman in need of rescue.

  And he would be what … her hero?

  That wasn’t what they’d taught him at Glynco. General Altman had been right. The case called for a more seasoned investigator. But there he was and —

  The president knocked on his door and stepped into his office. In a heartbeat, Welborn was standing at attention.

  “At ease, Lieutenant. Please.”

  Welborn assumed the at-ease position, but still found it hard to relax around the president, especially when she had someone with her. In this case a beautiful young woman with red hair. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her.

  “Lieutenant Yates,” the president said, “please meet Kira Fahey. Ms. Fahey is a summa cum laude graduate of Ohio State University and Vice President Wyman’s niece.”

  Now Welborn remembered. He’d seen the girl sitting on the stage when the president and vice president had been inaugurated. Vice President Wyman was a widower and childless, and he’d been accompanied by his sister and his niece.

  “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Fahey,” Welborn said.

  “Likewise, Lieutenant,” Kira said, a look of mischief in her eyes.

  “The lieutenant has lovely manners,” the president assured the young woman. “I think the two of you should get along nicely.”

  “Ma’am?” Welborn asked the president.

  “Ms. Fahey is also newly employed at the White House, Lieutenant. As of now, she is your liaison to me. If you need to see me, bring your request to her.”

  Welborn snapped back to attention and saluted.

  “That tuxedo makes you look like a movie star,” the president told McGill.

  They were in the presidential limo on their way to the Kennedy Center. The occasion was a night of comedy: 232 Years of Laughing at the President. Historians, actors, and stand-up comics would recount the history of how Americans loved to laugh at the men, and now the woman, who governed them. Tonight was the show’s premiere. Patti and the rest of the world would get their first look at the material that was targeted specifically at her.

  McGill had promised to shoot anybody who went too far.

  “Which movie star?” he asked his wife.

  “George Raft,” she said. Delivered the line with a straight face and innocent eyes. The woman could still act.

  “Is that payback for abusing Galia?” McGill asked.

  Patti nodded. “I can understand why you wanted to lay down the law yourself, but the donuts, that was mean.”

  “I didn’t think anyone would take it right if I spanked her.”

  The very thought made the president laugh.

  “Did you find someone to distract the boy detective?” McGill asked.

  It had been his idea to make sure there was a fetching young woman in the lieutenant’s life. If this Colonel Linberg did turn out to be a femme fatale, he didn’t want to have Patti’s personal investigator misplacing his affections. Leaving egg all over everyone’s faces.

  “Kira Fahey,” Patti told him.

  McGill grinned. “Now there’s a man-eater chomping her way up the food chain.”

  “Lieutenant Yates has been trained for combat. I thought they’d make an interesting couple. Certainly they’ll occupy each other’s thoughts for the next several months.”

  No arguing that, McGill thought. Well, the poor sap was Patti’s pet to abuse as she saw fit. It was time to turn to more serious matters, anyway.

  “You heard from Celsus Crogher today?”

  The president nodded and seemed relieved when McGill told her that he’d sent Sweetie to assess the situation and to reassure —

  “Oh, God,” McGill groaned, “I forgot to call Carolyn.”

  Patti handed him the limo’s phone. Secure communications to anyone in the world.

  “Go ahead. I won’t listen.”

  “Please do. I often need sensitivity lessons.” He tapped in his ex-wife’s number, and his youngest chi
ld, Caitie, soon answered the phone. McGill said, “Hi, honey. It’s Dad.”

  “Daddy,” his daughter said, “is somebody really trying to kill us?”

  Ever blunt, Caitie didn’t sound frightened, just curious.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Nobody. I was on my way to the kitchen to get a snack. The door was closed, but I heard Sweetie’s voice in there. I listened in and heard her talking to Mom and Captain Sullivan.”

  “Did you tell Abbie and Kenny what you heard?”

  “Yeah. They didn’t believe it either. Who’d want to kill us? We’re just kids.”

  McGill winced. Patti saw his pain and took his hand.

  “Nobody wants to kill you, honey. Even if they did, no way would Sweetie, Captain Sullivan, or I let them.”

  “That’s what I thought,” his daughter said, unconcerned.

  “Is your mom there?”

  “She’s upstairs lying down. Lars is with her.”

  “Okay. Please tell her I called, and I’ll call back tomorrow. I love you, honey.”

  “I love you, too, Daddy. Is Patti there?”

  McGill handed the phone over. His wife and his daughter talked briefly. Patti laughed and said she’d see what she could do. Then she added that she loved Caitie, too.

  The president told her husband, “Miss McGill would like you to intercede with the White House chef when the family gathers for Thanksgiving dinner. She’d like you to make your own personal stuffing for the turkey because all others are yucky. And if you can’t persuade the chef on your own, she asked if I could help.”

  McGill smiled, but hearing his daughter’s voice had driven home how vast his pain would be if he lost any of his children.

  “We don’t know that they’ll try, Jim. And we won’t let them get close if they do.”

  “Bring in the Secret Service?” he asked.

  “We have to.”

  “Not Crogher.”

  “I’ll talk to the director and find the right person.”

  “Thank you.” He squeezed his wife’s hand. “So how was your day, dear?”

  McGill’s question was asked in jest. He never stuck his nose into presidential business. Never offered an unsolicited opinion. He’d told Patti at the start his support was unconditional. The only time he ever needed to hear anything was if she needed to talk.

  Which just then she did.

  “The CIA thinks Raul Castro is dying. The end could be soon.”

  For years it had been Fidel that so many people had wanted dead. Out of power. But then the wily old revolutionary fooled everyone by handing over the reins to his younger brother, Raul. The previous U.S. administration’s propensity for regime change had not been lost on Fidel. First, he came down with an illness described as life-threatening by some and not serious by others. Photos of the Cuban leader in a hospital bed appeared, and, to the layman’s eye, his condition didn’t look good. Then came assertions by the state propaganda organs that Castro would be back on the job soon. But he wasn’t. And there were no more photos to show whether he was rallying, failing, or even dead.

  Fidel’s brother, Raul, assumed day-to-day control.

  But now Raul was on the brink, according to the spooks.

  “If Raul goes,” Patti told McGill, “the CIA thinks there could be a power struggle to claim the Castro brothers’ mantle. Perhaps even outbreaks of fighting between factions. And the Cuban exile community is making plans to invade. They have a secret base in Central America, Costa Gorda, funded and organized by my predecessor.”

  McGill said, “An invasion, of course, would unite the factions on the island, and, what, you’re worried Havana will strike back at us? You really think they’ll test you?”

  During the previous year’s first presidential debate, a conservative columnist had questioned whether Patti had the resolve — he meant the balls, but didn’t want to be indelicate — either to deter or if necessary strike back meaningfully against any terrorists who had a 9/11-scale atrocity in mind.

  Patti stared hard at the curmudgeon for a beat, then said, “If another assault is launched against the United States by any foe, we will determine the countries that supported the attackers and destroy their capital cities completely, without warning or mercy. If the United States is attacked with a weapon of mass destruction, that attack will trigger a nuclear response. Any aggressor nation involved in any way will be obliterated.”

  Some moments later, after the audience at the University of Chicago, the site of the debate and, by no coincidence, the world’s first controlled nuclear chain reaction, caught its breath, Patti’s opponent used a hundred or so words to say, “Me, too.”

  But she’d been the one to articulate what came to be known as the Grant Doctrine. And to that day, nobody had dared to cross the line she’d drawn. Or wonder about her resolve.

  Now she told McGill, “Revolutionary Cuba has always placed a strong emphasis on medical training and health sciences. Langley’s pretty sure they’ve put that expertise into creating biological toxins.”

  “Jesus. That crosses the threshold, doesn’t it? For weapons of mass destruction.”

  Patti nodded. “But the thinking is the Cubans won’t try to use those weapons against us.”

  “Then what?” McGill asked.

  “Another scenario. In the event a credible threat against Cuba appears ready to launch from the capitalist side of the water, it’s socialismo o muerte time.”

  “Socialism or death?” McGill asked.

  “Fidel’s legacy. His ultimate plan against having his revolution destroyed is to use his biological weapons against his own people. Genocide. Jonestown writ large. Leaving millions dead, the island despoiled, and the Yankee imperialists to blame.”

  “My God.”

  “The other possibility is that the whole notion is one big Cuban scam to get me to disarm the exiles in Costa Gorda. Make a fool of the new mujer in the Oval Office.”

  The motorcade glided to a stop in front of the Kennedy Center. A Secret Service agent opened the limo’s door, and the First Couple emerged, public smiles fixed firmly in place. Ready to enjoy a night of comedy.

  Chapter 9

  Thursday

  Chana Lochlan was waiting outside McGill’s P Street office. The building’s landlord, Dikki Missirian, had kept one of the café tables he’d obtained for the initial rush of McGill’s prospective clients and was filling a cup with coffee for Chana.

  Dikki saw McGill’s Chevy pull up to the curb and quickly produced a second cup for his famous tenant. “Coffee, Mr. McGill?”

  It was another beautiful day — the sun was shining, and the temperature was mild for summer in Washington. A cup of coffee outdoors sounded good to McGill. Last night’s show had gone well. Patti had come in for her share of kidding, but the humor directed her way had been witty for the most part, with only one mean-spirited joke. His wife had made him promise not to kill the perpetrator. Sweetie had called in that morning. The McGill children had slept safely and soundly, as had their mother and stepfather. The situation with Cuba was still hanging fire, but not getting worse.

  From the look on Chana Lochlan’s face, though, McGill’s run of glad tidings had just come to an end. He told Dikki, “Coffee would be great. Can you bring it upstairs? Ms. Lochlan and I will be in my office.”

  Then he took Chana upstairs, waited for Dikki to bring the coffee, and this time he closed his office door before she could even ask.

  He sat down and said, “How bad is it?”

  “Very.” She opened the soft black-leather attaché case she carried with her and pulled out a jade green thong. Looked like silk to McGill. But he wasn’t sure why she was showing him the skimpy undergarment, and he reconsidered the wisdom of closing his office door.

  “I found this in my dresser drawer this morning.”

  McGill arched an eyebrow.

  “It’s not mine. I don’t wear things like this.”

  Begging the question of how it
got there.

  “The caller?” McGill asked. “Was there any sign of a break-in?”

  “No.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “And tell them what, someone’s donating lingerie to my wardrobe?”

  “No, that someone trespassed on your premises and is sexually harassing you.”

  “You were a cop,” Chana said. “Would they do anything more than take a report?”

  McGill shook his head. In a small, affluent town like Winnetka, the PD could increase the number of drive-bys a patrol unit would do. Keep a watchful eye out for an intruder. But in a big city like Washington, the cops were too busy with actual mayhem and the budgets were too limited for such personalized service.

  “He’s coming for me,” Chana said, “and you don’t do protection.”

  Her tone wasn’t accusatory, but it stung McGill nevertheless.

  “If I did, are you now willing to accept the publicity that would come with it?”

  “No.”

  “I can call in someone with expertise in evidence collection. We can go over your residence, look for fingerprints, DNA remnants.”

  “Search my house?”

  The question was rhetorical, McGill could see. She’d already had one stranger invade her personal space. The thought of having others poke around did not appeal.

  So she rationalized. “I have my confidential-source information there. My story notes. Ideas for projects.”

  “Which you probably keep all in one place.”

  “A locked, fireproof filing cabinet, yes.”

  “Did you think to check it? If someone got into your house …”

  Chana Lochlan looked horrified.

  “I’ll call my producer and tell him I’ll be late. Can you come home with me right now?”

  “We’ll take my car,” McGill said. He went to the door and opened it for her.

  Chana extended the thong to him. “May I leave this with you?”

  “Is there a store label in it?”