Shelley's Heart

by Charles McCarry

  “She’s out walking again,” Lucy said.

  “Has she been home since the last time we discussed this?”

  “No, sir, she has not. She’s been wandering all over town, alone, for hours. She went to a movie in Union Station during the afternoon, then ate in one of the junk-food restaurants in the station, then went to the Library of Congress.”

  “To do what?”

  “Nothing. She sat at a computer screen in the reading room for a couple of hours calling up news files on Ibn Awad, then walked down to the National Gallery and looked at pictures for another two hours, then walked the whole length of the Mall.”

  “Does she seem distraught?”

  “No. Thoughtful.”

  “Why is she doing this?”

  “She may be trying to draw surveillance into the open. Her behavior is consistent with this.”

  “Surveillance? You mean yourselves?”

  “We think she knows we’re there, Mr. President. But so is somebody else.”

  Mallory’s face grew stern. “Somebody else?”

  “We’re not quite sure,” Wiggins replied. “We just know someone is there.”

  “You’re not sure? Have you warned her?”

  “No, sir. We haven’t interfered.”

  “Why the hell not? Have you no memory?”

  This was a nearly unbearable question. Wiggins flinched. He and Lucy remembered, the entire security staff remembered in dreams and in every waking moment, what had happened to Susan Grant under their eyes on Inauguration Day. Corrective measures had been taken to ensure that the method used by Grant’s assassin could not succeed a second time, but of course the attack on her had not been anticipated, and an unanticipated event meant that something even worse could happen in the future. Wiggins replied, “That’s why we haven’t intervened, Mr. President. We want her to flush the subject for us. Because of the danger to you.”

  “Flush the subject?” Mallory got to his feet, trembling with rage. “You mean you’re using her as bait? Why haven’t I been told about this?”

  Lucy and Wiggins stood mute. Although they still had not been able to establish Sturdi’s identity, they had confirmed her surveillance of Zarah Christopher even before Zarah herself recognized the goggled runner in Rock Creek Park. Just as Hammett had feared, Wiggins had in fact spotted Sturdi watching Zarah and himself outside the National Gallery. Then they had spotted her again and again. They had taken advantage of her interest in Zarah because Zarah was often close to Mallory, and protecting him meant protecting and suspecting anyone who had access to him.

  Mallory said, “Who is this subject?”

  “A female,” Lucy said. “We have a good physical profile, even videotape. But so far, no positive I.D.” She said no more; neither did Wiggins, though Mallory gave him an opportunity to do so with a glance. The mere fact that Sturdi masqueraded one day as a runner, another as a cyclist, another as a dog walker—what next?—suggested that she was either a psychotic amateur or a highly trained and disciplined professional terrorist who wanted to give the impression of amateurism. Either possibility (Which had Lee Harvey Oswald been? Or Sirhan Sirhan?) made the blood run cold. It was entirely possible that Sturdi’s actual purpose was to draw them off, leaving Mallory exposed.

  There was no need to voice these possibilities to Mallory. He saw them for himself. He said, “Do you have people with Zarah now?”

  “Yes, sir. Every minute.”

  “I want you to call the team following her and instruct them to walk up to her, identify themselves, and hand her a telephone. Then I want you to put me on the line with her.”

  Lucy’s eyes widened. This meant blowing the entire operation, not only to Zarah, but also to whoever was watching her. It meant that their best chance of learning something fundamental about Zarah herself would be lost, possibly forever. Wiggins and Lucy knew, as well as they knew anything, that Mallory was on the point of choosing this woman as Susan Grant’s replacement in his life and work. The moment she accepted his proposal—it never occurred to them that she might refuse—she would be above suspicion, let alone investigation. They had always been uneasy about her; it simply wasn’t plausible for a person of her high physical noticeability and intellectual attainments to have come out of nowhere, knowing no one; in the age of computers it wasn’t even theoretically possible.

  Mallory said, “Now.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Lucy, with a sinking heart. Wiggins, who was already on the phone to the surveillance team, said, “They’re almost home, walking north on the east side of Massachusetts between S Street and Belmont. Do you want to wait until she’s in her own house, sir? It would preserve the team’s integrity.”

  “No. She may not answer her phone. I want her on the line this minute.”

  Seconds later Mallory heard Zarah’s voice. He said, “The person who just handed you the telephone works for me.”

  “So he said.”

  “I didn’t know until just now what they were doing. They have some idea of protecting you.”

  “So I supposed.” Her voice was faint, distant, uninterested.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you all day,” he said.

  “Well, you seem to have called the right number at last.”

  Mallory paused, then said, “Can you come and see me, please? The people you just met can give you a ride.”

  Zarah did not answer immediately. He could hear the hoarse respiration of the traffic on Massachusetts Avenue and other low-pitched sounds of the city at dusk. Then she said, “Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about my role as a messenger?”

  “Yes. Something has happened. Or is about to happen. I must see Lockwood. I promise you, if there were any other way to arrange matters, I would.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to call his wife and say I will come in person tonight, at the same hour as before, by the same entrance.”

  “All right.”

  She hung up. Mallory repeated her name into the broken connection. On their computer displays Lucy and Wiggins could see the number that Zarah was punching out on the cellular telephone the surveillance team had handed to her. It was Polly Lockwood’s private number at the White House. It was not a secure phone. They scanned frantically for an intercept in case someone else was monitoring the call, and though they identified a sudden decrease in radio energy indicating a possible tap, they were unable to confirm it.

  They heard Polly answer. Without identifying herself Zarah said, “Please tell your husband that Franklin will come tonight at the same time, by the same entrance.”

  Polly said, “Zarah, honey, is that you?”

  In a voice that contained echoes of her mother’s Bluegrass intonations, Zarah said, “Yes, ma’am, it’s me. Did you understand the message?”

  “I believe so—same hour, same entrance, same visitor. But I’m honestly not sure they’ll let him in, dear. Everything has changed.”

  Zarah said, “For the worse?”

  “That’s a mild way of putting it,” said Polly. “However, dear, I’ll see that the message is delivered.”

  16

  This time Mallory was met at the back door of the Treasury Annex at two o’clock in the morning by Norman Carlisle Blackstone and a tall, intensely alert Secret Service agent. Mallory recognized Bud Booker and shook hands with him. “Pleasure to see you, Bud.”

  “Same here, Mr. President,” Booker replied, his eyes probing the shadows of the Treasury cellar. He stepped out ahead of Mallory and Blackstone, just beyond earshot, where he belonged. Another agent trailed behind them. They walked on in silence through the cellars, the parking lot, the underground passage, and finally the mansion itself.

  To Mallory’s surprise, Lockwood received him in the Oval Office. He had expected to be greeted by a rumpled Lockwood surrounded by the usual litter of documents and coffee cups. But the President was shaved, combed, and dressed in a dark suit and tie with a starched white shirt he had o
bviously put on for this encounter. Mallory himself was dressed as before, in an old corduroy jacket and a turtleneck sweater. It was evident that Lockwood was in no mood for pleasantries. He neither spoke nor rose to his feet when Mallory entered, nor did he invite him to join him in an easy chair. Instead, he sat his predecessor down like an aide in the hard chair beside his rough-hewn slab desk. Blackstone sat in the other chair. The fact that he did so without his usual deferential hesitancy told Mallory that he had been instructed to remain as a witness.

  Evidently Lockwood was waiting for someone else to join them. Pointedly ignoring Mallory, he said, “Where is he?”

  Forefinger pressing his earphone tighter, Bud Booker replied, “Inside the gates.” He listened again. “Coming down the corridor now, Mr. President.”

  Time passed—less than a minute, during which Lockwood, still wordless, stared straight at the opposite wall, seemingly absorbed in a Bierstadt landscape that rendered the Rocky Mountains as the Alps, with bison, deer, elk, wolves, and grizzly bears communing like a convention of vegetarians beside a crystalline lake. Mallory himself was in no mood to smile, but he felt a certain rueful amusement, as he always did when confronted by an example of Lockwood’s taste in art. The paintings the President liked had the same sentimental vocabulary as his political rhetoric: both promised escape into lands where all appetites and temptations had been overcome, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the human heart was as pure as the water in Ibn Awad’s icebergs.

  Another man came in, late and hurried, even slightly resentful, but in no way apologetic. Recognizing him from his television image and photographs, Mallory found this lack of deference interesting; he himself had received more apologies and more flattery in this room than in all the others he had ever entered combined. Lockwood greeted the newcomer with a stare of displeasure before turning his chilly gaze on Mallory and speaking to him for the first time.

  “Mr. President,” he said in formal tones, “this is my personal attorney, Alfonso Olmedo. He just flew down from New York. Alfonso, the Honorable Franklin Mallory.”

  Mallory and Olmedo nodded wordlessly to each other. There was no chair for Olmedo and Lockwood did not offer him one.

  To Lockwood, Mallory said, “I gather this is going to be an on-the-record meeting.”

  “No, Franklin, just a one-on-three knifefight. Since you’re the one and us ordinary folks are the three, I figure that evens things up a little bit. Ears only—no notes, no tapes, everything stays in this room.”

  “We’d better get down to it,” Mallory said. “Mr. President, I assume you know what’s coming out in tomorrow’s newspapers under Ross Macalaster’s byline.”

  “I’ve heard rumors. Macalaster’s a tight buddy of yours, isn’t he?”

  “He’s a newspaperman. He’s got the tape.”

  “From you?”

  “No. But he will print it, and that will change everything. We both know that.”

  Lockwood leaned forward, his head shooting toward Mallory at the end of his long neck. “Do we?”

  Composed as always, Mallory replied, “Yes, we do. I’ve come to ask you again if you’re now prepared to discuss the transfer of the presidency to me under the Twenty-fifth Amendment.”

  Lockwood smiled, as though these were exactly the words he had been expecting. Then he said, “Franklin, I don’t give a damn what’s going to be in the newspapers, the answer is still no. Not now, not ever. No. I thought I told you that in the first place.”

  “We are no longer in the first place, Frosty.”

  “What’s changed?” Lockwood said. “My election was certified by Congress; I took the oath of office; I’m sitting in this chair.”

  Mallory said, “Congress certified your election on the basis of fraudulent returns. You took the oath under false pretenses. Pretty soon the Senate is going to confirm those undeniable facts, and at that point you’ll become nonqualified and so will your Vice President. Both offices will be constitutionally vacant. That will effectively render you powerless to influence the outcome of this situation or any other having to do with the presidency.”

  “You know what the Senate’s going to do for a certainty, do you, Franklin?”

  “Unless we’re both living in a dreamworld, yes, I’m sure. And so are you.” Mallory turned in his chair and spoke to Olmedo. “Mr. Olmedo, having reviewed the documentary evidence and having interviewed the witnesses, have you the slightest hope that the Senate will confirm Mr. Lockwood in the presidency?”

  Olmedo looked at Lockwood, who made a gesture giving him permission to answer Mallory’s question. Still he did not answer.

  “Answer the man, Alfonso,” Lockwood said impatiently.

  “Very well,” Olmedo said. “I can’t predict the outcome, but the President’s innocence in this matter has never been in doubt—even in your mind, President Mallory.”

  “That is no longer the issue,” Mallory said. “The theft of the election is going to be linked to the murder of Ibn Awad. It will be shown that your client lied to the American people about the facts while professing to confess all. He can’t survive that—not the murder, the unnecessary lie. No one could.”

  Lockwood stared fixedly at Mallory, then once again transferred his gaze to the idyllic scene in the painting over his shoulder.

  “Frosty, listen,” Mallory said. “It’s over. You don’t belong here; you can’t stay. The people didn’t put you here.”

  Lockwood reddened. “What the hell do you know about the people?”

  “The same thing you know, Mr. President. They’re sovereign. Not the Hubbard boys, not Congress. The people.”

  The two Presidents leaned toward each other, gripping opposite edges of the desk, glaring furiously at each other. Olmedo watched, spellbound by the sheer human perversity of what was happening. The fate of the United States, therefore the fate of the world, was at stake, and the two men who held the future in their hands were behaving like taxi drivers after a fender bender. God’s masterpiece, Olmedo thought; what hope can there ever be for this harebrained species?

  “Whether you like it or not, this time you’ve got to make a choice,” Mallory said.

  “Like hell I do,” Lockwood said. “Why should I? I’m in. You’re out. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Not anymore it isn’t. Before, it was just you and me and the truth. Now it’s more than that. As soon as Macalaster’s story hits the papers you won’t have a friend in the world. The radicals will desert you, the media will turn on you, your party will turn and run. You’ll be eaten alive, like Lyndon, like Nixon, by the people you’ve done the most for. You can’t win, Frosty. You won’t have the votes in either house of Congress.”

  Shaking his head in mock wonderment, Lockwood said, “Franklin, I’ll tell you what I think. There’s no way what you say is going to happen can happen. I did the right thing about that maniac.”

  “Maybe. But you got caught. And then you lied.”

  “When the whole story comes out, I’ll be all right.”

  “When the whole story comes out, you’ll be finished,” Mallory said. “For the last time, Frosty: Will you resolve this crisis under the Twenty-fifth Amendment before it’s too late?”

  Lockwood stopped smiling. “Lemme see if I remember the plan,” he said. “Willy Graves resigns as Vice President. He’d be only too glad to do that, of course; all I have to do is ask. Then I appoint you Vice President. Congress will be only too glad to rubber-stamp that, seeing as how half of them would like to see you ground up for dog food. Then I resign and you become President. And all because I saved the world from a religious fanatic who was going to blow up Tel Aviv, and maybe New York City, with nuclear bombs and kill all the Jews plus a few million Protestants, Catholics, and Hare Krishnas. Have I got it about right?”

  Mallory said nothing in return because he understood at last that Lockwood had decided to go down fighting, that he really thought he could win it in the last minute of play, and that there was no
hope of persuading him otherwise. What Lockwood had given him was not a response. It was a performance.

  Shaking his head, rising to his feet in dismissal, Lockwood said, “Franklin, you may be President of the United States again someday. Stranger things have happened in this great country. But you’re never going to sit in this chair again if I have to put you there.”

  “You’d better start reading the Constitution. There are other ways this can turn out.”

  “I don’t need to read the Constitution to know what’s going to happen in the end. Do you know what that’s going to be, boy? Nothing. It was all over on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November last. You lost, and you’re the only guy in the world who doesn’t know that.”

  Mallory said, “You’re wrong.”

  “So you say. But I’m in and you’re out.”

  There was no more friendship in Mallory’s eyes. He nodded his head several times, as if agreeing with his own thoughts. At last he said, “As a formality, I ask you this: Mr. President, do I now have your final answer?”

  Lockwood said, “As a formality I reply: Yes, sir, Mr. President, you sure do.”

  Mallory stood up. Bud Booker appeared behind him in the doorway. Mallory said, “Good luck.”

  “Same to you,” Lockwood said. “And don’t forget to eat your Wheaties.”

  Lockwood waited until Mallory and his escort were out of earshot. Then, speaking to Olmedo and Blackstone, he said, “He thinks he’s going to lose in the Senate. And by God, he’s right. That’s what that was all about.” He looked directly at Olmedo. “Do you agree, Alfonso?”

  “Yes,” Olmedo said, “I agree that’s what he fears.”

  Norman Carlisle Blackstone cleared his throat. “He has a point, a very interesting one, about the Constitution.”