By Order of the President

by Kilian, Michael;

  The room was not an overly large one, but they all managed to crowd in and find seats, Dresden pulling up a chair next to the expensive VCR. With not a little nervousness, he explained the slow-motion and freeze-frame tapes of the shooting at Gettysburg as carefully and methodically as Tracy Bakersfield had explained them to him. He had tried four more times to reach her on the telephone. Without success. He could only hope she had gone into hiding as he had urged, but there was no certainty of that. Tracy could now be as dead as Charlene.

  He was just as meticulous with the presidential radio recordings and the voice prints. The videotapes of the supposedly recovering president at Camp David, however, he let speak for themselves—showing his audience the president in his various poses speaking hoarsely. Then, using the tapes he had taken from the network archives in New Jersey, he showed the president in exactly the same poses, the same clothing and expressions, speaking in his normal voice and saying things that were not only completely different from those heard on the Camp David tapes but remarks most in the room remembered from past newscasts. Afterward, Dresden passed around the tape cassette cases from the archives, with the network slugs and file dates clearly visible and clearly authentic.

  While these were being examined he played back the audio tape of Howie King’s doorman and of David Callister. There were some frowns and dark glances at the sound of Dresden’s threatening voice and that of the blows and pain suffered by Callister, but when the man’s confession finally came, their apparent antagonism vanished.

  Tapping his foot, Atherton asked to see everything again. Without hesitation or complaint, Dresden complied. When he clicked off the last of the audio tapes for the final time, the vice president turned to FBI Director Copley.

  “It’s been definitely established that the president was not wearing his Kevlar vest?” he said.

  “Yes, sir. He disliked them. Walt Kreski noted that in his report.”

  Atherton stared at the empty video screen for a long moment, then looked to Dresden. His eyes had changed. They seemed aglow. “Is all of this for us to keep?”

  “Yes, sir,” Dresden said. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “I’m very grateful. We’ll place the material in the custody of Director Copley, if there’s no objection.”

  No one spoke.

  “Very well,” said Atherton, “I think perhaps, now, that some refreshment is in order.”

  They all had drinks in the same downstairs parlor, but this time everyone stood, the vice president taking his whiskey to the fireplace and resting his arm on the mantel. “Mr. Dresden,” said the vice president, carefully. “As much as I appreciate your bringing this material to us, indeed, all that you’ve done, there’s a complicating factor. You are the subject of a murder warrant in Santa Linda County, California, technically, at least, and that puts us in something of an awkward position.”

  “My office has been asked to assist in your arrest,” Copley said. “For breaking into Callister’s house. So you also put us in a difficult position.”

  “Mr. Vice President, the victims of those murders were people very dear to me. If I hadn’t been delayed in getting home that night, I probably would have been a victim myself. I think they, the killers, were after some of the things I’ve just shown you. They came after me after I appeared on a local television show in San Francisco. If I had anything to do with those murders I wouldn’t be here now, I’d be in another country.”

  Copley cleared his throat politely. “I had the San Francisco field office make a few checks this afternoon, Mr. Vice President,” he said. “The evidence against Mr. Dresden is strong, but it’s entirely circumstantial. Mr. Dresden’s side of it is not only plausible, a lot of it checks out.”

  “Very well,” said Atherton, setting down his glass. “We’ll let all that pass for the time being. Certainly there are more important matters before us now.” He looked to Calendiari. “George. I don’t know what our course of action is going to be, but I’d appreciate your continuing cooperation and discretion.”

  “Of course,” George said.

  “And I’d appreciate it if you’d remain where we can get a hold of you quickly. Mr. Dresden, you and Mrs. Calendiari are key witnesses in a matter of very grave concern. We may need you at any time. If you have any fears for your safety, Mr. Copley can make arrangements for your protection.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I can be reached at our home in McLean or my office on the Hill,” Calendiari said. “Your staff has all my numbers.”

  “Good. Mr. Dresden, just one more question. What prompted you to get so involved in this in the first place?”

  “That’s simple enough, sir. The truth. I just didn’t want to let it pass. I’ve had, well, many years of experience in television, and the truth just seemed obvious to me from the beginning.”

  “As it did to no one else. Including me. As I said, we deeply appreciate what you’ve done. We’ll be in touch with you again soon. Very soon.” He shook Dresden’s hand again, and then Maddy’s, and then Calendiari’s. As though on signal, the butler appeared with their coats. Calendiari nodded to the vice president one more time, and then led the others out.

  When they were gone Atherton and his entourage seated themselves again. Neil Howard ordered another drink for himself from the butler. No one spoke until the servant had once more departed.

  “First of all,” said Atherton, stretching out his long legs. “Has anyone any doubts whatsoever about anything we’ve seen or heard?”

  Shawcross, Howard, and Copley shook their heads. “We’ve won capital cases with less evidence than this,” the attorney general said.

  “Precisely,” said Atherton. “We have Mr. Ambrose exactly where we want him. Exactly. Do you suppose this Dresden fellow made copies of these things?”

  “Anyone smart enough to put together what he did is smart enough to make copies,” Copley said.

  “Yes, and presently you will have to deal with that matter, Steven. The question now is, what next?”

  “I say we move at once,” said Howard, “on all fronts.”

  “Maybe,” said Shawcross, a shadow of uncertainty on his face. Mrs. Hildebrand, as always, simply kept her eyes on Atherton.

  “No, not now. Certainly not,” said the patrician Crosby, sipping from his brandy. “It’s Christmas, don’t you know. The American people would be totally unprepared for this kind of revelation, and certainly for any sort of national and international turmoil. No, we must bide our time. We must wait for public frustration over President Hampton’s continued absence to build.”

  “He’s right,” Shawcross said. “The time will come for Bushy Ambrose to put up or shut up. Then we move.”

  “If you will observe your calendars,” Crosby said, “you’ll note that that time is not all that distant.”

  “The State of the Union address,” said Shawcross.

  Atherton glanced at his watch. “There are a number of matters to attend to,” he said, rising. “A number of matters. Steven, we must talk about the elusive Senator Dubarry. The rest of you can go home. I’m returning to the White House. I can’t stand to be in this house for any length of time. Not any length of time at all.”

  No one needed to ask why. He had complained of hearing his wife’s voice here.

  Returning to the Calendiari home in McLean, the three went from the garage to the front hall again. George opened the closet door and removed his coat, but Maddy did not.

  “I don’t want to stay here, George,” she said.

  “What do you mean? This is our home.”

  “I’m frightened. What we just gave the vice president is very important. It’s going to cause a lot of trouble for some very important people. And now a lot of people know about it. I just don’t feel safe here. We’re on this hilltop just two miles from the CIA. Anyone in Washington can reach us in fifteen minutes on the parkway. I want to go somewhere else.”

  “Somewhere with Dresden.”

&nb
sp; Charley stepped back, leaning against a wall. He wanted no part in this discussion.

  “I want you to come with us, George. You’re not safe here, either.”

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “I’m not being ridiculous, damn it! People have been killed. I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want Charley to get hurt. I don’t want anyone else killed. As you said, the vice president will know what to do. Let him do it. In the meantime, I want to sit everything out. I want all three of us to sit it out.”

  “Madeleine, you know I can’t do that. I have responsibilities, especially to the vice president.”

  “You can do it, George. You’re not that indispensable, no matter what you’ve thought all these years.”

  He controlled his temper. “Madeleine, I simply can’t.”

  “I mean it, George. I’m going to go, and Charley’s coming with me.”

  “Very well. Go.”

  “I’ll pack a bag.” She hurried up the stairs. In a moment they heard her moving back and forth in a room on the floor above. Calendiari stared at Dresden a long time before speaking.

  “I realize I can’t ask anything of you,” he said, finally. “I did that many years ago and ultimately it didn’t do any good.”

  Charley remained silent.

  “Anyway, you know how I feel.”

  “Yes.”

  “Take care of her, Dresden. Protect her.”

  “I will.”

  “I want her back.”

  “I’ll take care of her.”

  She came down the stairs again, quickly, carrying a bag slightly larger than the one she had taken to New York. She set it down, and hugged Calendiari tightly. “Good-bye, George.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “The beach house.”

  “The beach house? You think that’s safe?”

  “It’s just down from the Rehoboth boardwalk. And no one would expect us to be there in December. You’ll be able to reach us easily, and, if it’s important, we can be back in Washington in three hours.”

  “There’ll be hardly anyone in Rehoboth this time of year.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “I have a gun,” Dresden said, reaching to take Maddy’s bag for her. She had also brought his down. “We’ll be all right.”

  “I’ll worry.”

  “We’ll all worry, George. I’d worry a lot less if you’d come with us.”

  “No, Madeleine. That’s final.”

  “All right, George,” she said, moving on down the hall. “We’ll call when we get there.”

  Dresden did not speak until they were speeding down the parkway in her yellow Mercedes, heading toward the bridge and the thoroughfare that would take them to Highway 50, and then to Annapolis, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and the Eastern Shore beyond.

  “You really wanted George to come with us?”

  “Yes. I want him to stop being my husband, but I don’t want him hurt. I don’t want him to stay with us, but I wanted him to come.”

  “You’ve thought it over carefully, about leaving him?”

  “Yes. For years.”

  “You’ve thought about me?”

  “Yes. I’ve thought about you. At odd moments. Driving. Doing housework. Late at night. Sometimes after making love with George. You two really are the only men I’ve had. I married George, but as I told you, I never really married him completely. I’m going back to you, but there’s something very incomplete about us, too. There may always be. I probably should leave the both of you and start a new life altogether. I’ve thought about doing that, too. I thought about it today.”

  “Why don’t you? It would be the wisest thing to do.”

  A car had been following them closely, but it abruptly pulled out and passed, hurrying on with seemingly no further care of them.

  “Because I’m pretty sure I love you. Just as crazily and dangerously as I did in the beginning.”

  “But you left me then. Why not now?”

  She said nothing. They were nearly to the turnoff for the Interstate that would take them across the Potomac and away from Washington.

  “I’m not sure you’ll believe me if I tell you.”

  “Of course I’ll believe you.”

  “All right. A very big reason for my wanting to stay with you is because of what you’re doing, because of what we’ve just done.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The country’s in trouble. You’re trying to help. It’s very brave of you. Very foolish, too, I suppose, but very courageous. I feel very strongly about this country, about what this country stands for in this terrible world. That’s one of the reasons I put up with so much from George. I couldn’t stand his being so inconsiderate. I couldn’t take being telephoned by one of his aides instead of him, but I never tried to stop him from going on his trips. He was trying to help. He did a lot of things he didn’t need to do and got no thanks for. All I ever did was bear up under it all. The noble wife, dining alone. Now, thanks to you, and also thanks to George, I’m doing something more. You never paid any attention to my politics, but I’m very Republican that way.”

  “Democrats aren’t patriotic?”

  “Of course they are. But putting the country first, what it stands for, that’s what being a Republican means to me. That’s what I think it meant to Lincoln, when being a Republican meant supporting that awful war. I think that, in a way, the country is in the same kind of serious trouble. I was appalled by what you were saying at first. Now it has me scared. Not just for us, but for everyone in the country.”

  “Why don’t you trust the vice president, and the other people we met tonight?”

  “Right now, Charley. I only trust you and George.”

  He caught a glimpse of her face in the flare of the oncoming headlights.

  “Are you sure about this beach house?”

  “Yes. It’s right on the ocean. I’m always happy when I’m there. It’s like Great Falls. It’s a place where I go to sort things out.”

  “Just you and I.”

  “Yes,” she said, patting his knee, “just you and I.”

  The multitude of guards and sentries around Camp David did not interfere with those within the compound at night, as long as they did not go near the perimeter fence. There were lights along the paths, but Ambrose had ordered them extinguished for security reasons. He had ordered constant helicopter patrols maintained day and night around the mountain, but an aircraft bent on deadly mischief could penetrate them easily.

  For the late-night stroller, who had now been out of his cabin for more than ten minutes, the pale moonlight sufficed. He quickened the pace of his walk. As it had for most there, Camp David had become a frustrating, suffocating prison. No amount of alcohol, no narcotic, no exotic woman or companionship of any kind, however agreeable, could substitute at that particular moment for an evening’s expensive meal in one of New York’s four-star restaurants, or even a walk along Central Park South or Broadway. Ambrose seemed almost gleefully malicious, outright mean, in issuing orders against any departure. Patriotism was becoming a burden increasingly difficult, if not impossible to bear.

  The stroller followed a path into the shadows between two cabins. He sensed movement, but heard no sound, until a strong hand suddenly clamped itself over his mouth and another bent his body backward. Two other hands pulled his arms behind him and bound his wrists. A moment later his ankles were bound as well, and tape was pulled over his mouth. He was placed in some sort of plastic bag, and lifted. He panicked, thrashing about, terrified, until he realized they had cut holes in the material through which he could breathe. He was not being murdered, just taken somewhere. He ceased thrashing, and a small measure of calm returned to him. Wherever he was going, it would likely be outside of Camp David. There was that consolation, whatever else happened to him.

  After a careful, quiet descent of a gentle slope, he felt himself being lifted and swung, perhaps over t
he tailgate of a truck or station wagon. He was set on a hard surface, but laid against some large, soft objects—other bags, he presumed. There was a peculiar, if not clearly discernible, smell. He lay back, relaxing, listening as he heard the two front doors of the vehicle open and shut, the engine starting shortly thereafter. He had to go to the bathroom, but that could wait—surely it could wait until they were out of Camp David. He would do nothing to interfere with that.

  The two in the cab of the truck spoke little, at least until they had descended the mountain and were through the last checkpoint. Reaching Highway 15, instead of proceeding directly across it into Thurmont, they turned right and headed south toward the town of Catoctin. Several miles before it, the driver pulled off into the entrance of Cunningham Falls State Park, halting the truck behind some trees and killing the lights.

  “He’s been too quiet,” the driver said. “You’d better go back and check on him.”

  “Shall I let him out of the bag? There’s no need for it now, if we keep the canvas down.”

  “Okay. Might as well.”

  The other stepped out, his footfalls noisy on the gravel in the quietness of the woodland night. The driver could hear the sounds of heavy movement in the rear, and then swearing. After a moment his companion returned.

  “No use taking him out of the bag,” he said. “He’s dead.”

  “Dead? How the hell could he be dead?”

  “He must have rolled over some way, cutting off the air holes.”

  “I didn’t hear him struggle. Hell, you’d think he’d kick a little.”

  “Well, he’s just lying there.”

  “Go back and check again. With the flashlight. He may have just passed out or something.”

  This time, the other man was gone longer. But he returned with no different news.

  “Dead. One hundred percent dead. No pulse. His eyes are blank. His skin looks like the inside of a fish.”

  “I sure as hell didn’t plan on this.”

  “What’ll we do, dump him?”

  “Yeah, but no place around here. Get in. We’ve got some time to make, some miles to make.”