By Order of the President

by Kilian, Michael;

  There was nothing on Brookes’s desk but a large inset telephone console. To his side, however, was an elaborate computer terminal, its large, brightly hued screen fully aglow. It was like coming upon the chairman of General Motors with a wrench in his hand. Brookes snapped off the computer, then swiveled back to glare at Kreski, who was smiling.

  “What’s so funny?” Brookes asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Kreski said. “I would have thought you’d have a few thousand people on the payroll who could do that for you.”

  “This computer is programmed for only one man to operate. Me. It accesses everything I own.”

  And doubtless much, much more, Kreski thought. He was still standing. There was no chair within reach, as Brookes doubtless intended.

  “I’m very busy,” Brookes said. “I don’t want to hear what you want. Let me tell you what I want. I want to know why I’m being investigated. I want it stopped. Immediately!”

  “I know nothing about any official investigation. I just want to talk with you.”

  “No official investigation? There were federal agents at all three of my foundations in Washington this morning. There were agents talking to my neighbors. I don’t even know my goddamn neighbors! The closest one is half a mile away.”

  “What federal agents?”

  “From the Federal fucking Bureau of Investigation!”

  “As I made clear to your people, I’m director of the Secret Service. I don’t initiate FBI investigations.”

  Brookes waved his hand disgustedly and swiveled away. “You’re all the goddamn same.”

  Kreski sighed. “With all due respect, sir, may I have a chair? I’m told that even the KGB occasionally lets its prisoners in the Lubyanka have chairs.”

  The reference to the Communists worked. Brookes abruptly stood up and started toward the opposite corner, where two curving couches were set by the windows. “Sit,” he commanded.

  Kreski did so thankfully, stretching out his long legs. Now they were arranged as equals, though Brookes still managed to dominate. The light from the windows illuminated his crystalline eyes eerily. Kreski had to look away.

  “Who planted all that stuff about me in the press?” Brookes said, before Kreski could speak. “I was talked about on the news last night, on ‘Today,’ ‘CBS Morning News,’ ‘Good Morning America,’ and that goddamn Ted Turner outfit this morning. Just because that Honduran had a copy of my book. What if he had a copy of one of Bill Buckley’s books? Would you have people talking to Buckley’s neighbors too?”

  “The only one from my agency who’s talking to anyone is me, Mr. Brookes. I’m afraid that what set off the news media was the fact that Huerta had all those back copies of Mercenary Magazine.”

  “And who dropped that on them?”

  “The Bureau released the inventory of Huerta’s possessions to the media. They’d been screaming for information.”

  “The Washington Post had a story this morning listing all my other activities in addition to Mercenary Magazine—as though Huerta were on all my boards of directors. Has anyone bothered to find out if this guy could even read English? I’m being set up, Krepski! I don’t like it. Keep it up and I’m going to fight back! Fights with me are not a lot of fucking fun.”

  “I’m sure they’re not, sir. And my name is Kreski. As I’ve been trying to make clear, Mr. Brookes, I don’t consider you any kind of suspect. I came because of your expertise on Central America. You have many interests there.”

  “I have interests in Korea, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Canada. You want my expertise on the skiing in Quebec?”

  “It’s not germane. You bankroll a lot of rightist guerrilla groups. Do you know of any terrorist or paramilitary organization down there that might go by the name of ‘La Puño’? On your side, or the other side?”

  Brookes’s eerie eyes gazed steadily into Kreski’s without falter. “None. ‘La Puño.’ The Fist. It’s not political or military sounding enough. Or poetic, like the ‘Shining Path,’ that Marxist outfit in Peru. ‘La Puño’ is the kind of name one of the cadre leaders might take for himself. It’s like ‘El Toro,’ ‘El Monte,’ ‘El Cicatriz.’ Macho stuff. There might be a couple dozen ‘Puños’ in Honduras alone, though I never heard of any.”

  “Give me a motive. What kind of Central American would be crazy or desperate enough to try to kill the president of the United States? Why? What possible benefit could accrue?”

  “On the Marxist side, they’ve got people fanatical enough to see wasting Henry Hampton as the ultimate triumph. And the place is crawling with Cubans and KGB who want to keep things destabilized. But I can’t see the Sandinistas wanting to pull it off. It wouldn’t suit their purposes at all.”

  “And on your side?”

  Brookes frowned.

  “Okay. There’s talk Hampton was trying to cut a deal with Managua. There are a lot of Salvadoran landowners in exile who don’t like that one fucking bit. But none of my people would get out of line. All of our groups are assisted by Washington. Our job is to pick up the slack when the Congress gets pricky. I say all this to you because I’m sure you know it already and just want to see how up-front I’ll be with you.”

  Kreski certainly did not know any of this, but he didn’t admit to it. He pondered his next question, but took much too long.

  “All right, Kreski,” Brookes said, standing. “That’s enough. You’re keeping me from my computer. I’m just warning you. I want you bastards to knock it off. I’m a friend of the president, you know. Been one of his most generous supporters. If just one more trenchcoat turns up at any of my operations I’m going to get Hampton on the phone and have him put some teeth marks in your backsides.”

  “If you can get the president on the phone you’re a much better man than I am. I’ve been trying since the shooting.”

  “He’s on television every night and he hasn’t talked to the head of the Secret Service?”

  “He’s spoken to Senator Rollins and the vice president, very briefly. To my knowledge, no one else.”

  “Well who the hell is running the government?”

  Kreski shrugged. “Ask your computer. I’m sure it knows much more than I do.”

  On the swift elevator ride down to the street-level lobby, Kreski found his spirits improving. This long-distance digression hadn’t been a complete waste of time. The itch he’d been feeling about Brookes had vanished.

  And now he had a new one.

  The motel out on New York Avenue northeast of the Capitol was missing some lights from its marquee and had what looked like an abandoned car parked opposite its office door. But then, the guests didn’t come there for the ambience. Senator Rollins and Reuben Jackson pulled their car up as close as possible to the police unit that waited for them at the curb, its Mars light revolving slowly, as though to proclaim there was no real emergency here.

  “He’s got a couple of cuts and bruises,” the officer told them. “I don’t know whether they did that to him or if he got them falling out of bed. He’s got a bad-looking gouge on his wrist from when they pulled off his watch. Should we take him to a hospital and have them look at it?”

  “We’ll take care of that,” said Jackson. “What else did they take?”

  “They dropped his wallet—I guess when they saw who he was. But there’s no money in it. Oh, yeah, they also took his pants. We couldn’t find them anywhere.”

  “Thank you, officer,” Jackson said. “Where do we find him?”

  “Room twenty-eight. Second floor.”

  “Will this go on the public record?” Rollins asked.

  “Just a routine report,” the policeman said. “Unless he wants to file a complaint.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t,” Jackson said.

  Motel employees stood silently and sullenly in the littered lobby, waiting for the unwelcome visitors to leave. White people had intruded upon their evening, disrupting the orderly flow of their business, commerce that could not be transacted in t
he presence of police. Rollins and Jackson hurried on.

  “Stole his pants,” said Rollins disgustedly, as they climbed the stained, carpeted stairs. “What the hell did he come out here for? I told you we’d fix him up with any woman he wanted. Not that he’s hard up. Your outer office is getting to look like one of those Baltimore girls-girls-girls bars.”

  “I guess he felt the need for a little strange.”

  “Strange he got. A lot of strange.”

  The shade had been knocked from the cheap bedside lamp, flooding the small, dirty room with a harsh glare. Senator Dubarry, dressed only in his underwear and one sock, sat on the edge of the bed, holding his face in his hands and rocking back and forth, muttering. There were two not quite empty glasses on the table, but no bottle. Dubarry’s friends must have taken that too.

  A black policeman stood in the corner of the room, looking unhappy.

  “We’ll take it from here, officer,” Jackson said. “Thanks for all your trouble. It’s appreciated.”

  The man lingered, though it didn’t seem he was looking for a tangible expression of that appreciation. “He’s got a bad gash on his wrist.”

  “Just put in your report that the gentleman declined treatment,” Rollins said. “We’ll take him to his own doctor. I hope he didn’t give you any difficulty.”

  “No, sir. He’s too drunk. If he had, he’d be in jail now, and you’d have to wait till the morning to get him.”

  “I understand,” Rollins said.

  Jackson began gathering what remained of Dubarry’s clothes. He shortly found himself pulling a moist sock onto the senator’s sweaty foot. His country was asking much of Reuben Jackson.

  With Jackson’s raincoat over Dubarry’s head, and the night’s darkness and a returning rain shower shielding them from any passing motorist who might recognize them, they quickly shoved him into the rear seat of Jackson’s car. By the time Jackson completed his U-turn and was heading back toward Capitol Hill, Dubarry was snoring loudly.

  “Where shall we take him?” Jackson said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring him home to his wife. She’s been threatening to go back to Louisiana as it is, and that would surely make the gossip columns.”

  “Let’s go to his doctor’s. We can tell him he got drunk and took a nasty fall.”

  “His doctor will certainly believe the drunk part. He’s been warning Meathead, er, the senator, about his liver for years.”

  “Somehow we have to keep the Senate and the public convinced that this man actually could serve as president of the United States. I wish we could keep him at Camp David until we get January behind us.”

  “Can’t do that.”

  “Nope. Things look funny enough up there as it is.”

  “Besides. Meathead is still a key player on the defense budget. He’s got a big subcommittee vote on the Stealth bomber tomorrow.”

  “How can you worry about national security at a time like this?”

  Bushy Ambrose took a full report from Senator Rollins over his secure phone, then hung up the receiver carefully, turning off the scrambler. He sat back in his chair, very satisfied, relaxing his posture for the first time that day.

  “Andy Rollins has just executed damage control on Meathead Dubarry. The bastard got himself rolled by some colored hooker in Northeast.”

  “That guy has the most understanding wife in America,” said C. D. Bragg, who, with Schlessler, had become a constant presence in Ambrose’s cabin.

  “Maybe she’s hoping he’ll get a heart attack.”

  There was a knock at the door, not the sentry’s.

  “Come in!”

  Jerry Greene entered, looking uncomfortable. He sat down heavily, shaking his head. “Our friend wants to leave,” Greene said. “He wants to go back to New York.”

  “We all want to leave,” said Bragg.

  “Tell him he can’t,” Ambrose said.

  “I have, endlessly. He says this place depresses him. He says it reminds him of the Catskills, only there’s no chopped liver and no one in his right mind goes to the Catskills in November.”

  “Tell him it’s okay. Appeal to his patriotism.”

  “I think we’ve exhausted that quality in his case,” Bragg said. “There wasn’t much to begin with.”

  “This is the presidency, for God’s sake,” said Ambrose. “He’s taking part in history. Doesn’t that mean anything to him? Anyway, he hasn’t been up here all that long.”

  “I think he’s afraid it’s going to be a lot longer.”

  “He’s got that straight,” Bragg said.

  Ambrose frowned. There were too many people involved in this who weren’t used to taking orders. “What would appeal to him?”

  “I don’t know,” said Greene, scratching his head nervously. “Maybe he’s horny.”

  “We could get a hooker up here from Baltimore,” said Bragg. “Or we could fly in one of Dubarry’s office bimbos.”

  “No, I don’t want to do that until it’s really necessary. There are too many civilians up here as it is. And once we bring them in they can’t leave.”

  “What else turns him on?” Bragg asked.

  “Money,” said Greene. “He likes money a lot.”

  “We’re paying him a hundred thousand dollars as it is,” Bragg said.

  “He says he can make that in a month at the Catskills. And he gets chopped liver.”

  “Tell him we’ll double the sum,” Ambrose said. “And we’ll have some chopped liver brought in. Anything to save the republic.”

  12

  Kreski returned earlier than he had expected, his plane settling onto the runway at National Airport in full daylight. To his surprise, Steve Copley was waiting for him at the gate.

  “To put it mildly, I’m curious about what you got,” Copley said, as they started down the concourse.

  “To put it mildly, you certainly are curious. Your boys came down with pretty heavy feet on Brookes. I think you spooked him.”

  “There was a bit of overkill, but we were trying to spook him, to see what he might do. The lads are getting impatient with the way this is dragging on, and Brookes looks like a live one.”

  “I believe the man is clean in this.”

  “Why?”

  “Let’s just say he has honest eyes.”

  The airport was crowded and there were people all around them, including some walking immediately behind.

  “Let’s wait until we’re a little more secure,” Copley said.

  “I’m supposed to have a car and driver waiting.”

  “You did have. I sent him back. I thought we could chat. Are you going back to your office?”

  “Yes. Although I suspect there are a few congressmen on my doorstep with a noose in their hands.”

  “I have some good news for you on that score. Atherton’s people on the Hill took a nose count. You’ve got a one-vote margin on the committee, providing you don’t provoke them by absenting yourself again.”

  “Do you have any other news?”

  “Just what’s in the papers, and on the networks. Nothing you can believe.”

  “I always believe the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Your people have found nothing more?”

  “Let’s wait until we’re more secure.”

  Copley had a car waiting in the cab lane. When he and Kreski appeared the driver got out without a word and walked away. Copley slipped behind the wheel. The engine was already running.

  “How did you know I was going to see Brookes today?” said Kreski as Copley sped them onto the George Washington Parkway.

  “I didn’t. I learned after the fact. We had agents all over Denver.”

  “He noticed.”

  “But he didn’t show any signs of panic? You didn’t pick up anything odd from him?”

  “Nothing beyond his known oddities, and the strong impression that he’s not involved in this. I didn’t think he’d agree to talk with me, but he was surprisingly cooperative—considering.”<
br />
  “You don’t think there’s any connection between his many interesting activities and La Puño, if there is a La Puño?”

  “He’s quite certain there’s no such thing, unless it’s the name of some guerrilla leader. Right wing or left wing. In any event, not an organization. Admiral Elmore said more or less the same thing.”

  “Brookes probably has better information.”

  Copley slowed the car as they approached the entrance ramp to the 14th Street bridge. “You said the office, right?”

  “The office. Agent Perkins should be waiting for me, presuming Mrs. Atherton has released him to my custody.”

  “Your custody?”

  “A joke. He’s been volunteering for overtime duty with her so much you’d almost wonder if they’re having an affair. I’ve been trying to get him in for a chat about Gettysburg for days.”

  “Do affairs like that ever happen? I’ve always wondered.”

  Kreski smiled. “Then I’m sure you’ve found out. In any event, I worry less about wives than I do about the daughters. Secret Service agents often are the only men in their lives.”

  Copley switched to the far left lane, proceeding on toward the center of Washington once they were across the Potomac.

  “My office is on 18th Street,” Kreski said after Copley had gone a block too far. “As you may recall.”

  “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I mean I was thinking. We’re going to go ahead with our field investigation of Brookes. And I’m going to make penetrations of his mercenary groups.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t do that years ago.”

  “I did. But now it’s time for another look.”

  “Do you really think you’re going to turn up anything? Aside from the usual right-wing crazies and survivalists? We made a couple of runs at his people in Florida last time the president went down there and couldn’t even find any neo-Nazis. They were mostly ex-military helping out with black job work for the Special Functions Force. The most dangerous people we identified down there were some of Admiral Elmore’s Cubans.”

  Copley swung the car left onto Constitution Avenue. “And?”

  “By dangerous, I mean bureaucratically. The admiral didn’t appreciate our intrusion.”