“Nice to meet you,” Tim said with a genuine smile. “During the campaign, he called me his ‘running mate.’”
I’ll bet, thought Jack.
“Tim and Phil were having Thanksgiving dinner with us, so it’s nice of you to let them come along.”
“I think we’re equipped to handle the crowd,” Jack said with a laugh. “This place is like living in a five-star hotel. Only there’re a lot of guys on the roof running around with machine guns.”
Rafael came in and took some of the social burdens off Jack. Rafael was very handsome, so the women gravitated toward him, making Jack just a little jealous.
(Francesca told him she thought he was so much more handsome than Rafael, that Rafael was “swarthy” and “Latin.” “Well, you’re from Italy, girl, and about as ‘Latin’ as you can get, don’t you think?” She’d tossed her luxurious hair and pouted, “There’s ‘Latin’—and then there’s ‘Latin,’ which in Jack’s view clarified—well, nothing.)
“Little Glorey” Mowbray was hanging on to Rafael, who looked splendid in his crisp Coast Guard uniform, thought Jack. His mind drifted back to his time in the service, as a SEAL on the super-secret Team 9, the one SEAL team (out of ten) the Navy never admitted even existed. While he still wasn’t happy about the way he left the SEALs, he was glad now that he was out of the military.
Jack came back to reality when his dad made a grand entrance. (He’d always had impeccable timing, thought Jack.) Taking a glass of Lagavulin 16-year-old single malt on the rocks from a tray held by Lonnie, he greeted everybody individually, giving each person a few minutes of his time.
Then his dad was upstaged, if that was possible, by the arrival of the President-elect, pushed in a wheelchair by an orderly and followed by Dr. Gerald Moore. Jack had never met Dr. Moore, just talked to him on the phone, but he thought the good doctor looked a little like Jack Nicholson, and couldn’t get the resemblance out of his mind all evening.
As soon as the President-elect made his entrance from the elevator, the whole dinner party broke into applause. Gloria rushed over to him, and as others congregated around Mowbray,
Dr. Moore remind them to relax and give the man a little breathing room, not to get him excited.
“Oh, pah!” Mowbray said over and over in very good humor. “I feel fine! I want some turkey!”
Then, from the other end of the Center Hall, Jack saw Francesca Santopietro walking toward him, escorted by an usher, and his face lit up. She’d surprised him by taking the shuttle down. He left his drink on an end table and rushed down to greet her, circling her waist with his arms and giving her a big kiss on the lips.
“This is great. Why didn’t you call?”
“So I could see the look on your face just now,” she smiled, tossing her long dark hair over her shoulder. So Continental. So sophisticated. So sexy.
He walked her down the length of the room to the others where she greeted the President and gave Rafael a big hug and kiss on the cheek. Antonia got the same treatment, but a little chillier, as she and Francesca had never been that friendly.
There’s a lot of hot Latin blood in this place right now, he thought.
Jack introduced her to everybody.
As they moved away from Dumaine and Harcourt, she whispered in his ear, “That Tim Harcourt is awfully handsome.”
“Mmm,” he mumbled. If only you knew.
His dad took Francesca by the arm and walked her over to Mowbray, leaving Jack to return to Tim Harcourt, who’d been left alone when Gloria Mowbray pulled Dumaine away.
“So,” said Jack when he came up to Tim, “it must have been quite a shock to get the news about Mowbray while you were down in St. Barts.”
“Yes, quite a shock. We’d taken a boat out snorkeling,” Tim began, but of course Jack already knew the details—well, the details as seen by Agent Rodriguez and passed on to him.
As Tim talked on about the beauties of St. Barts, Jack looked across the room to Dumaine, now talking to Mowbray and Gloria, and he could see these two guys together. But it had to have happened almost by accident. There was nothing in the deep background check he’d had Agent Rodriguez work up that indicated Tim hung around the D.C. gay bars or anything like that. In fact, there wasn’t much to know about the guy.
When the highly popular Dumaine announced he was running for President, Tim joined the campaign, first approaching Dumaine himself, who put him in touch with Phil Thuris.
The rest was… history. Secret history.
After a few important primary wins, he inched his way up in the campaign staff hierarchy (promoted oddly enough by Phil Thuris), and when the opportunity arose, jumped at the chance to become the candidate’s Body Man.
Across the room, Phil Thuris was taking stock of Tim Harcourt at the same time Jack was. But he was going over in his mind how few “friends” or “family” Tim had. Both parents had died young, in a freak skiing accident in Aspen triggered by an avalanche. An elderly aunt, sister to his father, raised him. The spinster aunt, with no relatives, died, leaving Tim with no relations, not even a distant cousin. If the son of a bitch just disappeared, Phil thought, nobody would miss him.
Except Bill Dumaine.
And what would he able to say about it? Nothing.
Sayonara.
Later, when they were all seated around the large dining room table, Dumaine asked about St. Clair Island.
“Well, it has a long and interesting history,” President St. Clair began, and proceeded to tell the story of how Henry Flagler had built the house, and the story of how the St. Clairs came to own it. He regaled his guests with the history of his family (although, thought Jack, everybody already knew most of it—he was the President).
“You were going to the island, weren’t you, Mr. Mowbray?” asked Rafael.
“Yes, I was, as soon as Bill got back from the Caribbean, but this little heart attack intervened.”
“Well,” said the President, “the offer still stands.” St. Clair nodded to Dr. Moore sitting at the far end of the table next to Mowbray. “As soon as Dr. Moore thinks you’re able to make the trip, I want you to come down and get some of our famous Florida sun.”
“That will be my pleasure,” said Mowbray. “Doc, what do you say?”
“It may be a while…” Dr. Moore demurred, rubbing his chin in a thoughtful, self-important way. “A lot depends on how he reacts to our treatment.”
“Naturally, Dr. Moore, I’m sure my father thinks it’s important for you to accompany the President-elect, just to make sure he has continuity in his medical oversight,” Jack added.
“I’m sure he’ll be ready in two weeks… at the latest,” Dr. Moore perked up.
Nobody saw when Jack turned to his dad and winked.
* * *
CHAPTER 69
In Tehran, there were ongoing discussions at the highest levels of Government about the wisdom of mounting a covert attack to kill William Dumaine. VASAK’s station chief in the U.S., Mahmoud Yazdi, continued to send daily briefings into Shahzad’s headquarters in Emami Street so Shahzad’s team was kept fully up-to-date.
At several meetings, the Supreme Leader expressed concerns that commandoes who died might be traced back and identified as operatives working for the Iranian secret police.
To quell the Supreme Leader’s worries, Shahzad recruited several additional operatives, interviewing potential candidates in a training camp at Darakeh, a suburb of Tehran near Evin Prison. He chose young, tough, driven men with half foreign blood (like himself) so they would not have the traditional “look” associated with Iranian men.
In his increasingly frequent meetings with the Supreme Leader, Shahzad pressed his argument that Dumaine should be removed.
“You give me the impression, Shahzad, that you are more interested in the adventure that is naturally associated with this attack more than you are the political purpose that would instigate it. Yes?”
“With respect, Supreme Leader, that is not true,” w
as all Shahzad could say in his defense, although he admitted to himself that the Supreme Leader might have a point. He’d always thrived on the dangerous aspects of his work, thrilled in it even. The secrecy, the preparation, the risks.
At another meeting, Shahzad had dramatically claimed, “I can cover my unit’s tracks so the CIA will never be able to prove an Iranian unit was behind the attack.”
But his arguments fell on the Supreme Leader’s skeptical ears.
“And if you or a couple of your men are killed in this action?” asked the Supreme Leader one day. “Forgive me, Shahzad, when I look at you, I cannot tell you have any Persian blood in you. But the rest of your team?”
At this point Shahzad threw a few photos of new members of his team into the empty space on the carpet between him and the Supreme Leader, who picked them up, looked them over, and nodded gravely.
“Very interesting, Reza Shahzad. You have even second-guessed me.”
* * *
Over the next couple of weeks, Mowbray’s condition steadily improved. Dr. Moore issued a press notice that he felt confident the President-elect would be released from Bethesda in time to spend Christmas at home with his wife.
Meanwhile, over the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the work of the Transition team went on methodically, as officials of the outgoing Administration briefed their counterparts in the new one, and as the old staffs began dismantling their rosters and new staffs were assembled to replace those leaving office.
Dumaine played a major role in the Transition, of course, now that Mowbray was temporarily sidelined.
President St. Clair was more and more impressed with Dumaine after each meeting. As he bid goodbye to Dumaine after one conference, he turned to Jack.
“Never met a man more diligent and competent in my life. And a Democrat! He’ll make a great Vice President. He’s got everything necessary for the job.”
Jack leaned in to whisper, “Dad, aren’t you forgetting about a little piece of baggage he carries with him?”
The President looked out at the driveway and saw Dumaine get into a Chevy Suburban with Tim Harcourt.
“Ahh… that baggage.”
* * *
Shahzad continued to develop several different contingency plans that he could choose from when (and if) the time ever came.
Besides his all-important point man in the U.S., Mahmoud Yazdi, he had operatives in New York, Boston and Washington sniffing around and securing safe houses and doing the groundwork that had to be done if he needed to move into the country on short notice.
The day before the Americans celebrated their Christmas holiday, Shahzad reported to his unit one morning and Ali Nazir greeted him with a smile.
“I think you might like this cable.”
He read a signal from the Iranian ambassador to the U.N., which brought their attention to a Transition meeting held the day before chaired by Dumaine at which punitive sanctions were discussed that might be put into place against countries selling Iran (and any other countries) parts or supplies or software or intellectual knowledge that might contribute to the furtherance of Iran’s supposedly secret nuclear program.
Shahzad smiled as he read further.
The draft report of the Transition committee working up this proposal for Mowbray’s consideration targeted all—every single one—of the countries currently supplying Iran with materials and knowledge necessary for the furtherance of the country’s nuclear ambitions.
Iran’s oil riches had bought the cooperation of many of these countries, but the Transition interim report laid out extremely harsh sanctions against these countries that included the virtual shutting down of the targeted countries’ banking systems.
The Americans had once, back in 2007, latched on to a sanction (it was basically just plain old-fashioned blackmail) that got North Korea’s immediate attention when the Koreans refused to attend negotiating sessions, called the Six Party Talks (involving the U.S., China, South Korea, North Korea, Russia and Japan) aiming to reduce North Korea’s proliferation program.
The North Koreans had successfully dodged the Americans year after year, promising this, threatening that, stalling, stalling, stalling. And it always seemed to work because the Americans didn’t do anything.
But in 2007, they did.
The Americans blacklisted a relatively small bank, the Banco Delta Asia in Hong Kong’s Macau district, which held $25 million in North Korean money.
Using Section 311 of the USA Patriot Act, the Treasury Department ordered all U.S. companies to sever ties with Banco Delta Asia, prohibiting the bank or any U.S. company dealing with it, to trade in U.S. currency. This act effectively froze the $25 million.
Though other banks handled North Korean funds, by selecting Banco Delta Asia, only the eighth largest bank in Hong Kong, the financial damage was limited, but the message was strong. The bigger banks in Macau were intimidated. Not to be able to trade in U.S. dollars effectively put any bank in the world out of business.
A delicate situation.
The North Koreans had quickly come to heel and promised (yet again) to return to the negotiating table, providing the Americans lifted the ban. The Americans did, and negotiations returned to normal.
Shahzad knew Bill Dumaine had been a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time, and obviously he’d seen how effective this measure had been with the North Koreans. He must also have imagined that invoking such a measure could be devastating to rogue regimes and terrorist organizations large and small all over the world, not just in Hong Kong.
Now, here was Dumaine pushing to use the same technique to muscle the whole world into stopping any and all transactions involving nuclear supplies or parts programs currently in place with Iran.
Shahzad realized that even with Iran’s vast oil riches, the international banks would not stand by Iran. Would you rather give up doing business with Iran? Or with America? And U.S. dollars dominated financial transactions worldwide.
Back during the campaign for the Presidential nomination, Dumaine had said, and he repeated at the Transition meeting, “America doesn’t have to use a single cruise missile to bring the Iranian nuclear program to an immediate halt. Not a single soldier must die. No drone aircraft have to be used. All we need to do is tell the world: ‘Do you want to do business with us, or with them? You can’t do business with both.’”
“Well,” said Shahzad, “maybe this will take the sawdust out of their heads.”
Just then, the phone rang and Dayan Pervaiz picked it up. He listened for a moment, nodded a couple of times, said “Yes” a couple of times, then looked up and handed the receiver over to Shahzad.
“It has.”
* * *
CHAPTER 70
While Shahzad was getting the green light from the Supreme Leader to insert a covert ops team into the U.S. for the sole purpose of assassinating William Dumaine, and Christmas Eve parties were going on all over Washington, out at Bethesda Naval Hospital, orderlies at breakneck speed pushed a gurney carrying Douglas Mowbray down a corridor connecting his room with an O.R. where a team of heart specialists had quickly assembled in response to an alert that Mowbray had suffered a second acute myocardial infarction.
Shahzad had left the ceremonial chamber where he’d met with the Supreme Leader and was making his way out to a car waiting to take him back to his VASAK office when he was called back hurriedly. Shahzad rolled his eyes.
What can the old man want now? If he’s had second thoughts and cancels this mission, I’ll quit.
On being led into the Supreme Leader’s chamber, he saw that a TV that had not been on before was now broadcasting the news (from a Paris station) that Mowbray had died on the operating table at Bethesda Naval Hospital outside Washington.
And that William Dumaine was now the President-elect who would be sworn into office in January.
“That’s less than four weeks from now,” said the Supreme Leader. “Can you move that fast?”
“We were planning to move within this timetable anyway,” said Shahzad, “before the dead man was sworn into office. We already have people in place in the United States. All I have to do is get my core team inside the country, and we will be able to move freely about after that. We have developed several contingency plans.”
“I have taken up too much of your valuable time already, Shahzad. You must eliminate this evil man. With the West, it is always about the power of money.”
“Yes,” nodded Shahzad.
“But one must concede that without the money we get for our oil, we would not be in the enviable position of power that we are.”
“Yes,” nodded Shahzad.
“So our relationship with all these international banks—the international banking system itself—is crucial to our survival.”
“Yes,” nodded Shahzad. It occurred to Shahzad that the Supreme Leader liked it a lot when people nodded and said, “Yes.”
“We must try to make this operation against Dumaine look like it sprang from another source. And was instituted for another reason. Any reason. We do not want to draw attention to the man’s banking plan. If others in America ever realize how effective Dumaine’s measure would be, they will attempt to implement it even after he is dead.”
“Yes,” nodded Shahzad.
All these subjects had been discussed just minutes ago when the Supreme Leader had agreed with Shahzad’s plan to take his team to America. The Supreme Leader cast down his eyes for a momentary pause, then looked up at Shahzad.
The Running Mate (A Jack Houston St. Clair Thriller) Page 25