Paramour

by Gerald Petievich

  "Do I know everything, Jack?"

  "Everything except the fact that Marilyn Kasindorf was having an affair with the President. That's why I was asked to conduct a discreet investigation rather than turn the matter over to the FBI. I was protecting the President from embarrassment."

  "Now I understand."

  "I'm asking you to keep that secret forever-unless you find yourself still in danger. But it's something you should know. It could provide a valuable piece of the puzzle later."

  "I don't want you to do this," she said, her voice cracking. "Please. I love you, Jack."

  "I love you too, Susan. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But I have to go through with this."

  "No, damn it. You don't. There has to be another way."

  She threw her arms around him, and he hugged her tightly.

  "After I left Kassel I thought about you every day," she said. "I swore I was never going to take another government assignment. Now I'm afraid I'll never see you again."

  He tried to move from her embrace but she held him. He gripped her arms firmly and pulled them from around his neck. "Don't put your lights on until you reach the highway." Though he had the urge to kiss her again, tell her he loved her, get back in the car, and drive away, he turned and walked to the river's edge.

  He heard the car start, and she drove off. Powers stopped and turned. As the shadow of the sedan moved past some trees along the roadway and disappeared, Powers felt suddenly empty and alone, more alone than at any other time in his life.

  Dropping to his knees at the muddy edge of the water, he donned the SCUBA backpack, weight belt, and other gear. With these items fitting snugly, he slipped into swim fins and waded into the black water. Before going under, he shoved the BB gun and screwdriver inside his wet suit and tied the bolt cutters to his left wrist with a nylon cord. Rubbing spittle on his facemask to keep it from fogging later, he checked the regulator hose.

  He slipped underwater for a moment to test the equipment and sensed the dull, aching cold of the water surrounding his wet suit. When he was sure his breathing equipment was operating, he worked his fins and moved into the middle of the river. For more than a mile he traveled slowly downriver without going underwater. Then, at some jutting rocks, he realized he was within the one-mile security perimeter of Camp David. Already his arms and legs were aching from the cold.

  Per the Secret Service Camp David Security Manual, Marines on roving posts were responsible for patrolling the river and the woods for one mile outside Camp David. All were equipped with night-vision glasses allowing them to see clearly in darkness, two-way radios, and a body alarm that activated an emergency radio frequency in the event someone was lying down for more than five seconds rather than standing. Any guard killed or knocked unconscious by an intruder would alert everyone at Camp David.

  Powers submerged.

  Underwater, with his limbs aching from the cold, he moved by treading with his fins. Careful to remain along the edge of the river near Camp David, now and then he would become disoriented and flail about to get his bearings until he touched the shallow riverbed. After what he guessed was about twenty minutes, he came to the surface. Camp David, security lights illuminating its perimeter fences, was about two hundred yards away. Praying the sentries hadn't seen him, Powers submerged again.

  Swimming close to the right bank with his right hand guiding him, he made his way along the river until his hand hit an obstruction: a chain-link fence extending across the bed of the river. It had been installed about five years ago at Landry's suggestion. Wedging himself close to the fence, he tugged the cord on his wrist and drew in the bolt cutters. Guiding the blades of the tool to a strand of chain link, he laboriously clipped through an approximately four-foot-square section and swam through. Continuing toward Camp David, he surfaced frequently, searching for the storm drain opening along the riverbank.

  Traveling as fast as he could manage with the fins and other equipment, Powers moved himself to the drain opening. He unzipped his wet suit and pulled out the BB pistol. Pulling the slide to charge the cylinder with air, he aimed the pistol into the mouth of the drain opening and fired. With the knowledge that the BB alone was enough to set off the motion alarm installed inside the drain, he shoved the gun back into the wet suit and submerged.

  Confident that in the darkness he would be invisible to Marines probing the water with flashlights, he headed for the bottom of the river. If his oxygen ran out and he had to come to the surface, he might be shot. Though the standing orders for those assigned to the perimeter were not to fire unless they spotted a weapon or believed the intruder was engaged in an activity designed to result in either loss of life or property damage, in the eyes of a nineteen-year-old combat-trained Marine what else would a frogman be doing in the hours of darkness near the temporary residence of the President of the United States?

  Finally, after hiding on the bottom for what he guessed was about twenty minutes, he came back to the surface. In the distance, near the Palace, two figures were kneeling on the ground shining flashlights into the drain opening. After a while, the men got to their feet and there was the metallic echo of the grating cover being dropped into place over the drain mouth.

  His plan was working.

  As he'd expected, the motion alarm had been activated and two agents from the Camp David Secret Service command post had been sent to investigate. Seeing nothing, they would notify the command post of the false alarm via radio and return to their assigned posts.

  Powers used the breaststroke to make his way to shore. He unzipped, took out the BB pistol, pulled the slide back, and fired into the drain opening again. He shoved the gun back into his wet suit and dove underwater,

  A minute or so later, a spotlight moved across the top of the water. Remaining on the river bottom, Powers turned the switch to activate his auxiliary oxygen tank. Later, with the sentries gone, Powers returned to shore for the third time and shot BBs into the drain opening. Again, he waited until the guards had gone.

  The fourth time Powers fired the air pistol into the drain opening, nothing happened. Whoever was on duty in the Camp David command post had, as Powers planned, come to believe the alarm was defective and had disabled it by turning off its power switch.

  Heartened by the absence of activity, Powers paddled to the storm drain. Making his way to the opening, he shrugged out of the SCUBA backpack and removed the swim fins. Having unfastened the weight belt, he tossed it into the water. Because the fins and air tanks would float and might be observed by one of the Marines on patrol, he pulled them inside with him, after crawling into the opening of the drain pipe on his back and head first.

  With barely enough room to crawl in the pipe, he inched his way along, holding one swim fin in each hand and with the SCUBA backpack scissored between his shins. About forty feet in, figuring the items would be safe from a probing spotlight at the drain opening, he dropped them and continued to crawl.

  Suddenly, there was an electric slap-crack of thunder. Powers started. Echoing through the pipe was the sound of rain hitting the lake. "Sonofabitch," Powers said out loud. He crawled faster in the darkness but was stopped by an impediment, a lump of something wet and pungent, which he hoped was nothing more than just a mixture of earth and mown grass that had washed into the drain. Holding his breath, he pushed his way through the soggy mass. About fifty yards away, up the grade at the end of the pipe, was a faint gleam of light: the drain opening.

  Water coming from that direction hit him fully in the face and mouth. He gagged and, panicking for a moment, raised up involuntarily and bumped his head on the cement pipe. At that moment, he imagined, if he was killed, his drowned corpse would float out the opening of the drainpipe and plop into the Cavetown River: Jack Powers as flotsam. Susan, whom he would never see again, would probably be standing on the shore downriver watching as agents and marines dragged his swollen remains to shore.

  With rainwater running steadily through the pipe, h
e found himself losing ground and being taken down the pipe toward the opening. Simultaneously arching his back, spreading his feet for traction with fingers scraping along the sides of the pipe above the water line, he continued his agonizingly slow forward progress. Nearing the drain reservoir, he reached the motion alarm. Attached with a cement screw to the top of the pipe, it looked like an aluminum speaker, and it occurred to him that, since the rain probably would have activated the alarm anyway, he had wasted his earlier effort. On the other hand, he didn't know it was going to rain.

  By the time he reached the three-foot-square drain reservoir at the mouth of the pipe, he was exhausted and his fingers were raw. Rainwater was rushing into the drain and splashing on the cement. He spread his arms to keep himself from being washed down the pipe.

  As he pulled himself fully into the cramped cement reservoir, it occurred to him that the SCUBA equipment he'd abandoned inside the storm drain might have been washed all the way back down the pipe. The oxygen tanks would float and be seen by some agent on post near the river after all. He had to hurry.

  On his knees, he reached up and pushed the heavy steel grate. It wouldn't budge. Water was filling the reservoir. Had someone welded the drain shut?

  Coming to a squat position with a steady stream of water rushing into his face, Powers held his breath and maneuvered himself into position so that his back was flat against the underside of the grating. Powers knew the grate was in the field of responsibility for the agent manning post twelve. From having spent hundreds of hours manning twelve over the years he knew the area around the grate itself, though not illuminated as well as the area around the presidential residence, it could be seen clearly. If, when he lifted the grate and crawled out, the agent happened to be looking away, he would have enough time to crawl to a shadowed area next to the residence itself. However, if the agent happened to be staring in the direction of the grate as Powers emerged, Powers figured it would take him only two seconds to grab either a shotgun or submachine gun from the post gun box and open fire. Because the residence was so close, there would be no chance for Powers to surrender. In another scenario, there was a good chance that all the agents, having been notified of Powers's escape, might be holding their shoulder weapons while on post. In that case, Powers might simply push open the drain and be shot in the face.

  Powers shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. With all his might, he pushed upward.

  He could feel the grating, seemingly immovable, dig heavily into his back. Nothing. He pushed again ... and again. Had it moved? Coughing and gasping for air as the water continued to rush in, he gave one last mighty shove.

  The grating came free.

  Powers edged forward to unseat it a few inches from the top of the reservoir. Using all his strength he slid it from the opening and poked his head out. He was less than fifty yards from the President's quarters.

  He crawled out of the reservoir and low-crawled frantically, following a shadow extending from the President's quarters, to a spot he knew was just a few feet out of range of the command post surveillance cameras. Waiting there to catch his breath he low-crawled in the grass and mud to the wall of the President's house. Lying hidden in a thick bed of ice plant next to the building, he unzipped his wet suit and took out the wire cutters. Then he moved forward to a crawl-space opening. Working as quickly as possible, he snipped a body-size V in the screen covering and slid into the crawl space under the house. On his hands and knees, he made his way slowly and quietly, in the total darkness, to the opposite side of the house, where he remembered the wine cellar to be. Feeling a ridge of cement, he lowered himself into the basement and stopped for a moment. He could hear himself breathing.

  Crawling again to avoid falling in the darkness, he located the bottom of the steps. Making his way up the steps to the door on all fours, he leaned close to the keyhole. The door across the hall was the office used by the President. Powers was in luck again. If the President had been in the room, a Secret Service agent would have been posted in front of the door.

  Using the screwdriver, Powers worked to remove the door handle without making a noise. Finally, he pulled and the handle came away from the door.

  There was no sound coming from the hallway, so he pushed the door gently. It came open. He closed the door behind him and checked that the outside door handle remained in place. Across the hall, the door to the President's office was open. Powers entered.

  Crawling to avoid being seen by agents posted outside, Powers moved through a spacious study lined with tall bookcases. A gold leaf table, the focus of the room, was surrounded by three overstuffed sofas. The President's desk was in the corner. In the bedroom, where he knew he was safe from being spotted by any of the outside posts, Powers came to his feet. On the table next to the President's bed were three White House telephones installed by a select inter-agency military communications team who worked twenty-four hours each day to ensure that the President, no matter where he was in the world, had the ability to communicate. The three instruments, which Powers knew had been hand-carried under lock and key from Washington, were red-striped.

  Powers looked in the mirror. His entire body was covered with mud.

  There was the sound of footsteps in the hallway ... more than one person. The footsteps came into the study. A door closed and there was the sound of rustling papers, as if the President may have set them down on the desk.

  Powers took a deep breath and let it out. He turned the handle slowly and opened the door.

  The President, a tall sixty-three-year-old man with a full head of gray hair and the ruddy features of an outdoorsman, was sitting at the desk with his feet up. He was reading a blue Top Secret briefing book. As was his habit when reading, he ran a finger quickly down the middle of the page and then, with a snapping sound, flipped the page. Once, at the presidential vacation residence in Key West, Florida, Powers had watched him plow through a full box of books and briefing papers in less than three hours.

  The window facing the President was within binocular view of the Secret Service command post. The security floodlights gave the trees and shrubbery outside the look of a movie-set forest.

  Powers, his heart beating wildly, stepped into the room. Staying out of view of the window, and with the thick carpeting muffling his footsteps, he tiptoed to the right side of the desk close to the President.

  ****

  TWENTY-NINE

  "Mr. President?"

  The President started and turned. His eyes widened with fear and he reached for a small red dictionary on the desk, a disguised alarm button that, if activated, would transmit a danger signal through the Secret Service radio net. Upon hearing the sound, response team agents, per the Secret Service Manual of Protective Operations would, within seconds, burst into the room with guns at the ready. Powers figured he would probably be shot by the first agent through the door.

  Powers grabbed the President's hand firmly.

  "Please don't activate the crash alarm, Mr. President. I'm not here to harm you. I know you've been told that I'm crazy, that I've made threats against you, but those are lies. I know I look strange in this wet suit, but there was no other way I could get to talk to you. As God is my witness, I'm here to inform you of a matter affecting the national security. "

  The President, who the press agreed owed his political success to an uncanny ability to read people, studied Powers eye to eye. He didn't try to move his hand.

  Powers took his hand slowly away and, holding his own hands away from his sides, stepped back slowly.

  "You can see I'm not armed, sir. All I'm asking is that you listen to me for a few minutes. Then, if you still think I'm crazy, you can sound the alarm."

  After a while, the President moved his hand away from the dictionary. He rose slowly from his chair and took off his half-frame reading glasses.

  "Sir, I'd like you to step to the window and close the drapes," Powers said.

  "Why do you want me to do that?"

  "The
agents on the outside posts use binoculars and can see you clearly through the window. If they see you talking with someone in here and there's no visitor signed in on the log, they'll come to investigate."

  "Are you armed, Jack?"

  Powers unzipped his wet suit, raised his arms, and turned around slowly.

  The President walked the few steps to the window and tugged a cord. The drapes closed.

  "Sit down, Jack."

  Powers, his temples throbbing, sat down lightly on the edge of a sofa.

  The President sat down on a sofa opposite him. "How did you get in here, through the sewer?" the President said.

  "I've done the security advance here, Mr. President. It still wasn't easy. I mean, it shouldn't reflect badly on the Secret Service-"

  "I was sorry to hear you'd resigned. The government is infested with so much dead wood it's a shame to see a hard worker like yourself leave the federal service," the President said, studying Powers.

  "I thought you asked that I resign."

  "Why would I do that?"

  "I guess I'd better start at the beginning-"

  "Jack, I'm in the middle of preparing for the first election debate. If I lose, I'm out of business. I'm going to let you have three minutes to tell me about this matter of national security. Starting now."

  "It all started when Peter Sullivan called me in and asked me to follow Marilyn Kasindorf."

  The President, whom Time magazine referred to as the "velvet hammer" because of his ability to wield Machiavellian power while maintaining a smile, did not avert his eyes at the mention of Marilyn's name, nor did he blink.

  In careful detail, Powers recounted the surveillance in Washington and in Kassel and the apparent defection. He explained the circumstances causing his resignation and Landry's telling him about finding the listening device in Marilyn's desk. Step by step he detailed the events arousing his suspicion that Landry's murder wasn't a street robbery gone bad but an assassination. He related how he'd located Susan and what she'd told him, his call to Sullivan, the events at the Rustic Inn, and his escape from St. Elizabeth's. As he spoke, the President, his mouth a straight line, nodded and made notes. Finally, Powers was finished. The President set his pen down.