by Joseph Flynn
Police? Pruet wondered.
Would Kinnard have identified himself that way—outside of his own country?
That was when Pruet noticed that the young businessman had stopped his own advance and was craning his neck to see what was happening. He leapt a foot in the air when Pruet tapped him on the shoulder.
“Can you see what is happening?” the young man asked in French. “I am calling the police.”
Pruet flashed his ID and asked for the man’s name.
“Paul Leroux.”
“Please wait right here, M’sieur Leroux. You will be perfectly safe and I will be back shortly.”
Pruet hurried off toward McGill and Odo who seemed to be fighting with alarming authenticity … as Gabbi, unsteady on her feet, slinked off. Odo kicked at the arm with which McGill carried his imaginary object. McGill howled and countered by sweeping Odo clean off his feet. Pruet’s heart climbed into his throat as he was sure his friend’s head would break against the concrete, but McGill caught Odo before that happened and pulled him back to his feet.
Then he shook Odo’s hand and embraced him.
Weak with relief, Pruet turned to the businessman, Leroux, and waved him forward.
Georgetown
4
Sweetie got to the office at dawn, sat behind Jim McGill’s desk, and for the next three hours read Google entries for His Excellency George O’Menehy, archbishop of Arlington, whose diocese comprised sixty-eight parishes in the twenty-one northernmost counties of the Commonwealth of Virginia. As with so many other outposts of the Universal Church, the Arlington diocese had been ensnared in the shameful scandal of enabling pedophile priests to continue their predations. As with the other dioceses, Arlington had been hit with a plague of mega-million dollar lawsuits, and had agreed to pay settlements amounting to far in excess of a year’s worth of the faithful’s weekly offerings.
Properties had to be sold to meet the legal liabilities.
Many people speculated it was only a matter of time before an embittered Bishop O’Menehy was retired by the Vatican. Photos of the white-haired, bespectacled, grim-faced prelate made it look as if that would not be an unwelcome development. Some observers, provocateurs obviously, put forth the notion O’Menehy’s replacement might be an elevated Father Francis Nguyen — if the rebellious priest started toeing the Vatican line.
Sweetie had fallen into the habit of thinking in Latin while mulling the Byzantine turns of church politics; it was so apt to the subject. So when there was a knock at the office door she asked, “Quid illuc?”
There was a pause before a North Carolina accented voice replied, “That you, Ms. Sweeney? It’s me, Leo. I brought you a visitor.”
Sweetie switched to English. “Come in, Leo. Who’s with you?”
The door swung open and Leo waved Deke into the office
He and Sweetie looked at each other.
Leo asked, “What was that you said a minute ago?”
“I asked ‘who’s there’ in Latin.”
“Huh,” Leo said. “Anyway, ol’ Deke here asked to see you, so I swung by his place and brought him in.”
Sweetie nodded. She and Deke continued to stare at each other.
Leo said, “I’ll just leave you two alone. You want to give Deke a ride home, I might just take some vacation time.”
He closed the door without waiting for an answer.
5
Calling off the staring contest, Sweetie said to Deke, “You’re upset. You think your mother shouldn’t have broken her promise to you.”
Deke nodded.
Sweetie continued, “And since your mother gave away your secret, you’re about to do what, give away one or two of her secrets?”
Deke took a seat and said, “You must have been a pretty good cop.”
Sweetie smiled “Back when I was in the convent, I thought I’d become a principal at a parochial grammar school. Daydreaming of how you can keep a horde of rambunctious kids in line pretty much gives you the mindset to be a good cop.”
She then gave Deke the opportunity to bare his soul.
Or at least rat out his mom.
After a moment of silence, Deke said, “My mother is a schemer. That’s how she makes her money. She acts as a business consultant to people who bring “hypothetical” ideas to her. She helps them see any flaws in their logic, suggests practical alternatives, and indicates where more research is needed.
“Any people in particular?” Sweetie asked. “These people your mother advises.”
“They’re the kind you probably locked up whenever you got the chance.”
“Members of your ethnic community?”
“My mother’s side of my ethnicity. The ideas she comes up with are only hypothetical, if you ask her. So she doesn’t need to concern herself that they involve illegal acts. She never takes any money for her consulting services, so she can’t be legally connected to anyone who puts one of those hypothetical ideas into effect. But she does receive a series of exceptionally good loans for her businesses. A lot of those loans are eventually forgiven.”
Sweetie bobbed her head, impressed by the deviousness of it all.
She almost slipped back into thinking in Latin.
“How did your mother get into this line of work?”
“Consulting? She learned from my grandfather.”
“He did the same thing?”
“He was a spy, a double-agent. Worked for the U.S. and the North Vietnamese.”
“Ultimately for himself,” Sweetie said.
“Just like Mom,” Deke replied. Then he added, “You know she’s playing you.”
“Paying me, too. But I’ll concede your point. What do you think she wants?”
“To protect Francis.”
“Anything else?”
“Maybe to protect me, too.”
“From what?” Sweetie didn’t see the bad guys Musette had fingered, Bao and his punk, taking another shot, a deliberate one, at a federal agent.
“From myself. So I don’t take out the suckers who shot me.”
That sat Sweetie back in her chair.
“I know,” Deke said. “The last thing you’d expect.”
Well, now that he’d raised the idea, maybe not.
“You do have an interesting family,” she said.
“Sometimes I get my own strange ideas. Maybe it’d be a good thing for you to wrap this whole thing up. For Francis and me. I thought it might help if you knew about Mom.”
A question occurred to Sweetie. “You’d have to be in good shape to act on one of your strange ideas. So how are you feeling, really?”
“Getting stronger every day,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’ll find my own way home.”
Arlington, VA
6
Sweetie knelt in prayer in a pew opposite the confessional booths in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. In the central compartment of the confessional, Bishop George O’Menehy was hearing confessions for an hour: 10:30-11:30 a.m., according to the online cathedral bulletin. Her head bowed humbly, her eyes seemingly closed, her blonde hair gleaming, her skin ruddy and flawless, her hands steepled, Sweetie was a model crying out for a Renaissance master. Or an example of the spiritual peace that came with the cleansing of a soul.
More than a few of the penitents who came out of the confessional took a pew near Sweetie to tick off their Our Fathers and Hail Marys. Two even said a whole rosary. Throughout it all, Sweetie never moved, as if her soul had already transcended earthly sorrows, and only her body remained among the living.
In truth, Sweetie was doing her absolute best to overhear the sins being confessed by those seeking the bishop’s absolution. And she had very acute hearing. It was one of the things she had thought would have made her a good teaching nun—if only thoughts of the boy next door hadn’t persisted long enough to make her doubt her religious vocation. Sweetie had heard admissions of missing mass and doubting papal teachings, especially as pertained to using contraceptive
s; doubts that a marriage could be sustained, especially if the bastard kept beating her. And if the abused woman turned the wife-beater in to the cops and he got locked up for years the way he deserved, no way could she do without a man the rest of her life.
Sweetie felt she was sinning by eavesdropping on such sorry stories. She was stealing the privacy of others. But she kept at it. Heard the doings of a despairing serial shoplifter—who was going to psychological counseling—but just couldn’t seem to help herself. A man was having an affair with the neighbor next door, but it wasn’t really his fault because he was sure the devil was in the woman. He freely admitted he was sinning by sleeping with the woman, but he knew he’d be unable to stop unless the bishop came by to cast the devil out of the woman. Then she’d just be an ordinary female to whom he wasn’t particularly attracted.
Compared to the quiet voice in which Sweetie used to utter her own confessions, she was surprised by the casually accessible volumes these people used to admit their imperfections; it sounded as if they were speaking into microphones for an audience of millions. Only two men—both Vietnamese, Sweetie could see through her finely slitted eyelids—spoke too quietly to be overheard. Horatio Bao and Ricky Lanh Huu?
Seemed like a good guess to Sweetie.
Unless his excellency was confessor to Northern Virginia’s whole Asian mob.
Both men had entered and left the confessional quickly, less than a minute. They both left the cathedral without kneeling to say their penance, and Sweetie hadn’t heard the bishop say to either of them: “I absolve you in the Name of the Father…” They had both looked at her as they walked out of the cathedral, but Sweetie remained motionless, showing no awareness of them.
Just as they hadn’t noticed Welborn Yates standing in the shadows on the far side of the church, snapping their pictures along with all the others who had asked the bishop for forgiveness.
The two Asian men were the last to seek absolution that morning, and Sweetie was genuinely losing herself in prayer when a quiet voiced asked, “Do you have need of me, my child?”
She opened her eyes. The bishop had stepped out of the confessional and addressed her.
Sweetie told him, “I do.”
She entered the confessional to enumerate her sins. Most of them.
Winfield House, London
7
Galia stepped into the sitting room of the president’s suite. Patti was rereading the speech she would be giving within the hour. As with any first-rate actor, she was memorizing her lines: no Teleprompter for her. The chief of staff was the one with butterflies; Galia looked as flustered as Patti had ever seen her.
“Madam President,” she said, “Jean-Louis Severin is here. He wants to see you.”
Patti put her speech aside. “It’s okay, Galia. I know my lines. A visitor isn’t going to throw me off. Please show the president of France in.”
Galia couldn’t believe the president was going to accommodate the intrusion. The nerve of that Frenchman. He had to be trying to get advance word of what the president would say. The fact that he’d once had a personal relationship with Patricia Darden Grant only made it worse.
“Really, Galia, it will be all right. Jean-Louis and I go back a long way.”
Exactly what worried the chief of staff.
Where the hell was James J. McGill when she needed him?
Her misgivings notwithstanding, Galia opened the door, and a smiling Jean-Louis Severin, president of France, entered. He crossed the room to Patti, took the hand she extended and bowed to kiss it. Galia’s eyebrows arched. Patti waved her out.
Severin was a darkly handsome man, an inch or so shorter than Patti. He, too, had acted, but only on stage during his student days. After graduation, politics had been his only profession. Patti gestured him to the chair opposite her.
“M’sieur le président, s’il vous plait, asseyez-vous.” Please be seated.
“Oui, madame la présidente. Merci beaucoup.”
Patti asked, “How are you, Jean-Louis?”
How was he after his divorce, they both understood.
He shrugged. “I am … glad I still have friends.”
“Friends expect less than a spouse.”
“Perhaps a spouse expects too much.”
“Fidelity?”
“Tell me, Patti, from a woman’s point of view, which is worse, for a man to be seduced by his career or another woman?”
“Neither is pleasant, but a job doesn’t leave lipstick on your collar.”
For just a second, Severin’s eyes darted toward his shirt.
Patti sighed. “Oh, Jean-Louis.”
“You will not disown me?” he asked.
“I need you too much for that.”
“I am not without my charms?”
“Not without your uses, certainly.”
The president of France laughed. Patti Darden was an old friend. She had the right to needle him.
He told her, “Before she sued for divorce, Aubine said my passion for my work left none for her. Once she decided it would be foolish to ask me to resign my position, the light in her heart darkened, for me at least.”
Patti asked, “Was she right? Would it have been foolish to ask you to resign?”
Jean-Louis met her eyes. “Who among us, the leaders of nations, would give up our position for a woman or a man? Would you? What would you do if your henchman came to you with such a choice?”
“You liked it when Jim called himself my henchman, didn’t you?” Patti asked.
Severin beamed. “Who isn’t disarmed by a winning rogue?”
Galia wasn’t, the president thought. She could do without both Jim McGill and Jean-Louis Severin. But Patti knew her counterpart was still waiting for an answer to his question. A reply from one of the few people in the world who could give him a meaningful answer.
“I’d ask Jim if I could finish my first term, if he came to me with such a request.”
“And if he couldn’t wait?”
“Vice President Wyman is a good man. The country would be in able hands.”
Severin studied his peer. “I believe you are sincere, Patricia. I also believe you are certain M’sieur McGill would never put you in such a position.”
“I really can’t see that he would.”
Severin smiled. “Then I shall have to see that I never disappoint you either.”
“Better not,” Patti told him.
Washington, DC
8
Bob Merriman entered Senator Roger Michaelson’s office with a wicked smile on his face and a manila envelope in his hand. Closing the door behind him, Merriman told Michaelson, “I’ve got him.”
There was no need to identify him.
Michaelson pushed aside a pile of paperwork on his desk and said, “Give.”
Merriman stepped around his boss’s desk and handed the envelope to the senator. Michaelson opened it and saw a photo of a young woman coming out of the P Street address where McGill Investigations, Inc. had its offices. The young woman’s face was clear, but the area around it was framed by fuzzy green shapes.
“What is all this stuff?” Michaelson asked, indicating the visual clutter.
“Leaves,” Merriman said. “I rented an office across the street from McGill’s place — in the name of a shell company. Had the tree out front pruned strategically. My place’s windows are tinted so no one can see the camera setup. I thought it’d be a good idea to keep track of who is hiring McGill to be their gumshoe. Without him knowing, of course.”
Michaelson smiled at his underling’s deviousness, including the fact that Bob hadn’t shared the news with him until now. Giving Michaelson deniability, if something had gone wrong.
“Who’s the woman?” Michaelson asked.
“Emilie LaBelle. Took a little while to pin down who she is because she has no criminal record and almost no public profile,” Merriman said.
“Almost none but enough for you to find something useful.”
It took Michaelson only a few seconds to place the name. “The guy who killed the French soccer player?”
The incident had made news on both sides of the Atlantic.
Merriman said, “Yeah. Kinnard’s a former Chicago cop, just like McGill.”
“Do they know each other?”
“Haven’t pinned that down for sure yet. But with Kinnard’s daughter going to see McGill, I’d have to think so.”
“Then we know who the bastard is working for in Paris.”
Merriman nodded. No way this was a coincidence.
He said, “It shouldn’t be too hard to screw things up for McGill. He’s trying to save Kinnard’s ass? Every frog who loves his wine and cheese has to hate that. Well, they would if they knew about it. So how about a little bird tells them? McGill’s case blows up in a flurry of newspaper headlines and TV stories. That ought to cause beaucoup embarrassment for the president.”
Glee filled Michaelson’s face. “Yeah, do it. Now, what about the direct attack on the White House?”
“We’ve started the whispering campaign about Patti Grant and Jean-Louis Severin being more than just friends, more than just colleagues, and it’s finally reached our intended target.”
“Severin’s ex-wife,” Michaelson says.
“Exactly,” Merriman replied. “I think we should be hearing a public statement from the former Madam Severin very shortly.”
“Great work, Bob. You’re the best.”
Merriman basked in the praise. Political destruction was an art, and he was Michelangelo.
Michaelson continued, “It’s only fitting you’re the first to hear.”
“Hear what?” Merriman asked.
Michaelson said, “I’m going to run for president, and you’re going to put me in the Oval Office.”
Merriman’s face went slack. His head started bobbing to a soundless beat as he considered all the ramifications of what he’d just been told. He returned to the other side of the senator’s desk, slumped in a visitor’s chair, and stared at his boss.