House Divided

by Mike Lawson

  DeMarco was sure all this was true, but he’d always thought that Paul had been a rather boring, mousy guy. Even as a kid, he hung back, awkward and shy, barely saying a word. DeMarco recalled the one time he had lunch with Paul when Paul first arrived in Washington. His cousin didn’t like sports, nor did he play any. He rarely watched television and didn’t go to many movies. He had no interest in politics whatsoever. So after they had discussed the few relatives they had in common, they had very little to talk about. At one point, Paul told him he was looking for a good congregation to join and asked where DeMarco attended church—and DeMarco lied. He said he didn’t attend any particular church, that on Sunday he just went wherever the mood struck him. The truth was, he only went to church for weddings and funerals. The consequence of all this was that it had been an uncomfortable lunch filled with long periods of silence, and DeMarco was relieved when it was over. But based on everything Paul’s landlord and his boss had said, it sounded as if his cousin had been a good man and DeMarco regretted that he’d never made the effort to know him better.

  He asked Jane if he could look through Paul’s desk and his computer to locate a will or the name of Paul’s lawyer, but when he said this Jane told him, quite firmly, that she wouldn’t allow him to do that unless he had some authority, like documentation confirming he was the executor of Paul’s estate. DeMarco pointed out the catch-22: he wouldn’t know if he was the executor of Paul’s estate unless he could find Paul’s will, but he couldn’t find Paul’s will because he couldn’t prove he was the executor of the estate.

  “Well, I’m sorry about that,” Jane said, “but you’re a complete stranger to me and I can’t let you go pawing through his desk. And anyway,” she added, “the FBI took his computer.”

  “They took his computer?”

  “Yes.”

  “When was the FBI here?” DeMarco asked.

  “A couple of hours ago.”

  “An agent named Hopper?”

  “Yes. He had a warrant and he looked through Paul’s desk. And he took his computer.”

  It looked like all this had happened while DeMarco was at Paul’s place.

  “Okay,” DeMarco said, “but would you mind looking through Paul’s desk for me? All I’m trying to do is settle his estate.”

  “Yes. I have to clean out his desk and if I come across a will or a reference to one, I’ll let you know. But I can tell you that Paul wasn’t the sort of person who did personal business at work, and I doubt if he kept any of his private correspondence here.”

  DeMarco was about to leave but said, “Let me ask you something. Did Paul have access to drugs?”

  “Of course,” Jane said, and then she explained.

  People under a hospice’s care were not given medications to stop them from dying or to even slow down the pace of whatever was killing them. Nonetheless, they had mini-pharmacies in their homes: drugs to help them sleep, to help move their bowels, to help reduce their pain.

  “Things like Valium?” DeMarco asked.

  “Why are you asking about this?” Jane said.

  “Because the FBI thinks Paul may have been stealing meds from his patients and selling them. Didn’t Hopper tell you that?”

  “No, and that’s absurd. Paul would never do something like that. He was the most honest person I’ve ever known.”

  “So no one—family members, drugstores, doctors—ever complained of drugs being missing or having to refill prescriptions too often?”

  “I just told you, no. It’s offensive that you’d even suggest such a thing.”

  “I’m not suggesting anything; the FBI’s the one who’s saying that. But what I can’t figure out is why he was at the Iwo Jima Memorial at one in the morning and got shot. And, as much as I hate to say it, dealing drugs is a possibility.”

  “No. It’s. Not.”

  “Then why do you think he was there at that time of night? I heard once that the park near the memorial was a gay pickup place. Do you think he could have been—I don’t know—sneaking around, trying to meet a lover there?”

  “Paul wasn’t in the closet; he didn’t need to sneak around. He wouldn’t have snuck around.”

  “Well, maybe he hooked up with some married gay guy and then decided to tell the guy’s wife, and the married guy whacked him to keep him from telling.”

  “I think you should leave.”

  “Hey, I was just thinking out loud,” DeMarco said defensively. “And I believe you when you say he was a good guy. So who would want to kill him?”

  “I don’t know,” Jane said, “but something was bothering him last week. He was spending a lot of time with one particular patient and when I stopped by to see how things were going, he was … I don’t know. Different. Subdued. Nervous, like he was worried about something. He was always so upbeat I was surprised.”

  “Did he tell you what was bothering him?”

  “No.”

  “Who was this patient he was taking care of?” DeMarco asked.

  11

  Claire stood in front of the mirror in the ladies’ room—and shook her head in dismay.

  Her mother had an expression, some nonsensical thing she’d probably read in Ann Landers or heard on Oprah: You make the face you get. Silly, irrational saying—but maybe it was true.

  Claire had been a pretty young woman: a nice slim body, long blonde hair, a perfect nose, light blue eyes. She once had that healthy All-American girl look you see in leggy models who advertise sportswear for upscale clothing stores. At thirty-eight, she still had the long blonde hair and the slim build—but in the last ten years she’d become downright gaunt. Her face had become narrow, almost predatory, her arms muscular yet stringy. She had the look of a person who burned calories standing still.

  She was still undeniably feminine—it wasn’t as if she’d become mannish looking—but there wasn’t anything soft about her anymore. That day, the day it happened, the softness just began to fade away—and, along with it, any sense of playfulness she once had. She now looked like … well, like the person she was: driven, relentless, perpetually restless. Her eyes had become cold and lifeless; her lips thin and bloodless; and those lines etched into her cheeks, bracketing her mouth…. Where the hell had those come from?

  She couldn’t help but wonder: Would she have this face if he had lived?

  Enough, she said. You don’t have time to feel sorry for yourself. Get back to work.

  Gilbert was not in his cubicle, so Claire had to walk all around the damn room until she spotted him, talking to Irwin, another one of her techs. As she walked up behind him, she heard Gilbert say, “Jessica Biel, man, she’s way fuckin’ finer than Jessica Simpson.”

  That was just what she needed to hear.

  She cleared her throat and both techs looked at her, deer-in-the-headlights expressions on their faces, embarrassed to have been caught bullshitting instead of working.

  “Bring me what you have on Russo and Hopper,” she said to Gilbert, and walked away without waiting for an answer.

  As Gilbert stood anxiously in front of her desk, eating his fingernails, she ignored him and read the printouts. Regarding Russo, the guy sounded like some sort of gay angel: hospice worker, didn’t cheat on his taxes, gave to charity like he was Bill Gates. He’d never had a traffic ticket, much less committed a real crime.

  “Autopsy report,” she said.

  Gilbert handed it to her.

  The first thing she noticed was that the autopsy had begun at five A.M. the day Russo died and had been completed at six A.M. No way. Speedy-friggin’-Gonzales couldn’t have chopped the guy up that fast. But the bell ringer was the cause of death: death by gunshot wound to the head at close range and, based on entry and exit wounds, the weapon had most likely used 9mm ammunition. No bullet had been recovered.

  Bullshit. Double bullshit.

  The report in the Arlington cop’s computer said there had been no exit wound, which there would have been if Russo had been shot at close rang
e with a nine mickey-mike. And she was convinced from the transmission they’d intercepted that Russo had not been shot at close range. He’d been popped from some distance away by a sniper, and if there was no exit wound, the ordnance involved was probably the type the SWAT boys used, the kind of ammo that penetrates the skull and then explodes into a jillion little fragments, instantly shutting off all voluntary motor functions. But a 9mm would fit the story that the nurse had been killed in some drug deal gone bad, such a weapon being gangbanger, drug-dealer, street scum preference.

  Claire sat there looking at Gilbert, but she wasn’t really looking at him. She was staring at his chest, his shirt a narrow blue wall for her to focus on.

  “Uh, you need me for anything else?” he said.

  “Hush,” Claire said.

  Hospice worker. Nurse. Drugs. No. Hospice worker. Dying people. Death-bed secrets.

  “Get me the names of Russo’s last ten patients,” she said. “Leave the file on Hopper with me. Oh, and do a data dump on this doctor who did the autopsy, this Dr. Lee.”

  David Hopper.

  Claire reviewed the file Gilbert had compiled on the FBI agent, noticing that he had served in the army before joining the Bureau. She also noticed he was on the take.

  Hopper was a GS-14 and thus made a decent salary, but he had two ex-wives and four children and had never been in arrears on either alimony or child support. Not only was he father-of-the year, but based on his credit card statements, he dined at some of the best restaurants in town, purchased his clothes from high-end stores, and owned a pricey and relatively new Mercedes. The supposed source of Hopper’s additional income was a trust fund established by a dead uncle, but a little research—the sort of research Claire’s people could do in their sleep—showed that the uncle had been an alcoholic insurance salesman who had three DUIs in an eight-year period. No way had Uncle Boozer left Nephew David any money.

  Turning last to his phone records, she noted no calls to anyone who struck her as unusual. However, at about the same time as Paul Russo’s body was discovered, Hopper had received a call on his cell phone from another cell phone whose owner Gilbert had not identified.

  She marched back out to the technician’s desk.

  “Who made this call to Hopper?” she said, jabbing her finger at the phone record.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Well, find out.”

  “I’ve tried,” Gilbert whined.

  “Try harder. Don’t leave until you get me an answer.”

  “Geez, Claire, I was hoping to get out of here on time for once. Can’t someone else—”

  “Look at me,” she said.

  Gilbert looked at her with the eyes of a martyr. None of her employees knew the demons that drove Claire Whiting. All they knew was that she was fanatical about her job and she would work until she dropped—and she would work you until you dropped. Gilbert also knew of another technician, a man with three kids all younger than eight, who had been transferred to a listening post on the North Korean border because he’d failed to meet Claire Whiting’s expectations.

  “This could be important,” Claire said. “I need answers fast.”

  Gilbert nodded and glumly turned back to his computer.

  Whoops, Claire almost forgot. “Did you identify Russo’s last ten patients?”

  “Yeah,” Gilbert said wearily, and pulled a sheet of paper from his printer. He had accessed the hospice’s billing records.

  12

  General Martin Breed’s flag-draped casket sat in the main aisle of the National Cathedral, bathed softly in the light coming through the cathedral’s magnificent stained-glass windows. The cathedral, even as big as it was, was half full, the pews occupied by men and women in uniform, high-ranking civil servants, and media-conscious politicians. Charles Bradford had just delivered Martin’s eulogy; after he stepped away from the lectern, he saluted the casket—his last tribute to Martin—and sat down with Martin’s family.

  Replacing Bradford at the lectern was Martin’s brother, Jerry, a soft-looking dentist who bore little resemblance to his soldier sibling. Jerry began to speak about an incident that had occurred when he and Martin were boys, the point of the story being that even as a child Martin Breed had been fearless. Charles Bradford knew that Jerry Breed had no idea how truly courageous his brother had been.

  Martin’s wife, Linda, begin to cry again as Jerry was speaking. She’d been incredibly brave during Martin’s illness and had held up well throughout the service. Her daughters, two pretty teenage girls, were pale and still as statues, stunned seemingly motionless by their father’s passing. Bradford put a fatherly arm around Linda Breed’s shoulder and pulled her close for a moment, letting her know he would always be there for the wife of a warrior.

  Bradford had met Martin at the Pentagon. He had just received his second star and Martin, only a major at the time, had been assigned to his staff. One evening, after a particularly frustrating day, he discussed with Martin his dissatisfaction with a member of the National Security Council who was preventing the army from dealing directly with an obvious threat. He wasn’t surprised Martin agreed with him—Bradford was, after all, his boss—but he knew Martin wasn’t simply telling him what he wanted to hear. He sensed immediately that Martin Breed was one of the special ones, one of those men like himself and John Levy, men who were willing to do whatever was necessary to protect their country.

  It took many long philosophical discussions before he was totally satisfied that Martin was a man he could take into his confidence. These discussions primarily focused on three critical questions. Is it ethical for men in power, men entrusted by their countrymen with that power, to go outside the law if the situation demands it? Second, is it reasonable to expect the average citizen to understand what needs to be done? And last, is it logical to expect self-serving politicians to act on what needs to be done?

  It was the politicians who frustrated Bradford the most. It seemed to him that their primary agenda was not losing the next election rather than accomplishing something meaningful once they were elected. They never agreed on anything, and by the time a decision was made it was often too late and the damage was already done. So as dangerous as it was for him personally, Bradford finally decided that it was cowardly and irresponsible for a man in his position to ignore obvious threats to national security and blame his failure to act on others. There was no one in a better position than he was to do what needed to be done. He had superbly trained personnel and virtually unlimited funding, and he was privy to almost as much intelligence as the president. He knew who the enemy was, what they were plotting, and what was at stake. All he need was the courage to act—and he found that courage.

  A situation with the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey was the first assignment he gave young Major Breed. The base had been in existence since 1955 and was theoretically operated by NATO, meaning that in reality it was controlled by the U.S. government. It was a vital jumping-off point for deployments to the Middle East, but a charismatic member of the Turkish parliament had taken a popular position that the American infidels should be booted out of the country. The State Department had talked to the man until they were blue in the face, but neither money nor logic could move the Turk. He was adamant. The Americans had to go.

  Bradford told Martin how the loss of the base was not just an expensive inconvenience. The base was a strategic necessity, and losing it would create a perilous hole in America’s security. Furthermore, there was a very good possibility the Turkish politician would one day be the prime minister of his country, and a onetime ally would become another hostile anti-American power. The Turk, he said to Martin, was as big an enemy as any terrorist with a bomb—but he didn’t propose a solution. He wanted Martin to arrive at the solution on his own, and finally he did. Martin said, “Sir, if this man is our enemy, then he should be treated as such.”

  Martin flew to Turkey three days later, going supposedly to review the base’s security procedu
res. Accompanying him were two young enlisted men Bradford had personally selected for the assignment; Bradford didn’t tell Martin, however, which regiment the enlisted men came from. Not at that time.

  A Christian lunatic was eventually executed for the Turkish politician’s murder.

  It was after the operation in Turkey that he brought Martin completely into the fold and told him about the mission of the Old Guard, the true mission of the soldiers who protect the Unknowns’ tomb. He also told him about John Levy, but he didn’t tell him Levy’s name. He trusted Martin, but security procedures had to be followed.

  Bradford knew that many Americans—not all, but many—would condemn what he and Martin had done in Turkey. Yet if those same Americans were asked, Do you wish Osama bin Laden had been eliminated when we first knew he posed a threat? what do you think their answer would be? Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization were known to be behind the first World Trade Center attack in 1993, the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, and bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen in 2000. So why didn’t we kill him before 2001? The answer was because the politicians vacillated until it was too late. They were concerned about violating international law and what our Muslim allies might think if we killed bin Laden on their soil and without their approval. They were concerned the intelligence wasn’t one hundred percent accurate (it never was) and worried about the international reaction if innocent civilians were killed. They debated if we should capture him rather than kill him, and if there was some way to get the Saudis or some other Islamic government to do the capturing for us. They vacillated over everything, and because of this bin Laden was allowed to live, and three thousand American civilians died, and nothing has been the same since. Had Bradford taken the initiative before 2001—and he blamed himself to this day for not having done so—9/11 might not have happened. But now—thanks to men like Martin Breed and John Levy—he was taking the initiative.