Root and Branch

by Preston Fleming

  “Mr. Zorn, I’m very pleased to see you again,” Blackburn began as he took a seat at the head of the table. “Margaret insisted that I hear your concerns about the ESM program. Though I wonder sometimes why people tend to pick me whenever they have distressing news to deliver.”

  From Blackburn’s playful grin and ironic tone of voice, Zorn took the advisor’s goodwill to be genuine. But, before he could answer, Brenda returned wearing an anxious expression.

  “Excuse me for interrupting, gentlemen, but Margaret isn’t responding to my pages. And one of the other attorneys said she hasn’t been seen at her desk.”

  Zorn returned the assistant’s worried glance and cast one of his own at Blackburn. But the latter remained unruffled.

  “I wouldn’t be too concerned,” he remarked with a dismissive shrug. “It wouldn’t be the first time Margaret hauled herself into the office at noon or turned up late for a meeting. Now, Mr. Zorn, I understand you’ve brought me some sensitive materials to look at. So why don’t we…”

  But Zorn interrupted him as the assistant turned to leave.

  “Excuse me, Brenda, but would you mind trying Margaret’s mobile number? And the landline at her apartment? I know she was counting on joining us, so I’d like to make sure that nothing’s gone awry.”

  “Of course, Mr. Zorn. I’ll try again and get back to you when I know more.”

  An impatient expression flashed across Blackburn’s fleshy face as he picked up where he left off.

  “Shall we go across the hall to the SCIF, Mr. Zorn? Since the program we’ll be talking about is classified, we don’t want to run afoul of the security people. They can get quite unpleasant if they find anyone taking a cavalier attitude toward sensitive information.”

  “Understood,” Zorn replied, returning the folders to his briefcase.

  The two men stepped outside the conference room and headed down the corridor. As they stowed their mobile phones in the cell phone lockers outside the SCIF, Zorn noticed Brenda coming after them at a rapid clip.

  “Margaret’s not picking up at home or on her cell. And the front desk says she hasn’t signed into the building today,” the assistant announced, twisting her beaded necklace while she awaited their response.

  “Thank you, Brenda,” Blackburn replied with a pasted-on smile. “Please leave Margaret a message to join us in the SCIF when she arrives.” Turning to Zorn, he added, “This sort of thing happens with Margaret from time to time. She’s a brilliant lawyer and a very dear friend. But she has her days.”

  And to illustrate, he tilted his head back and raised thumb to mouth as if tippling from a bottle. Zorn found the gesture unworthy of someone who had just called Slattery a friend and whom she regarded as a mentor. What on earth got into people when they reached high rank in Washington? Zorn considered rebuking Blackburn but thought again.

  “If she’s not here by now, and she isn’t answering her mobile,” Zorn replied as he retrieved his phone from the security locker, “something’s very wrong. I spoke to her yesterday and she insisted that nothing short of main force would keep her away.”

  “As I said…” Blackburn went on with emphasis.

  “I’m sorry, but I think we should reschedule. I’m going out to look for her.”

  Blackburn regarded Zorn as if he had just sprouted a spare head.

  “Mr. Zorn, if you have something to convey to me, I suggest you do it now.”

  “Not without Margaret. Excuse me, but I have to go.”

  “She said you had some sort of dossier. Would you care to leave me a copy?”

  Zorn shook his head.

  “Margaret has one. Go ask her.”

  Traffic was heavy on Fifteenth Street until Zorn escaped the downtown congestion. En route to Slattery’s U Street apartment, he called her landline and then her mobile, but both calls went through to voicemail. He left no message.

  On arriving at his destination, Zorn parked by a fire hydrant and dashed across the street. Using the key Slattery had given him the day before, he entered the lobby and took the elevator to the seventh floor.

  “Margaret?” he called out once he entered the apartment. Then he shut the door and listened.

  Silence.

  Next he entered the living room, where he found some take-out food wrappers and breadcrumbs on the coffee table but nothing else. From there he dipped into the kitchen and noticed dirty dishes piled in the sink and a dinner tray on the counter. Nothing surprising about that. So why was he getting gooseflesh?

  He went to the master bedroom and stopped just inside the doorway. Margaret Slattery or, more likely, her corpse, was lying on the bed, half under the covers, as if she’d turned in for the night in a completely normal way. But her face had taken on a grayish hue and Zorn didn’t need more than a brief touch to her cold throat to know she was dead.

  A chill went up his spine and Zorn stiffened. She’d been fine when he left her the morning before. He felt a surge of anger but stifled it. This was not the time.

  He gave the room a quick sweep with his eyes and, next to her bedside lamp saw the brown plastic vial, the half empty bottle of bourbon, and the crystal glass beside it. Yes, Margaret sometimes used sleeping pills. And yes, she often drank to excess, sometimes before taking her meds.

  But Margaret Slattery didn’t drink bourbon. And he hadn’t poured more than a few ounces from the newly opened bottle when he’d been there two nights before. Zorn bent over the body and took a long sniff. A faint odor of whiskey rose from some botches on the bodice of her satin nightgown. Stains like those didn’t happen when a person sipped bourbon from a glass. They came from a spill. Someone who didn’t know Slattery’s drinking habits must have seen the bourbon bottle and used it to fake her suicide. And Zorn had a good idea why.

  Anger, sadness, bitterness and regret all rose up in him at once to cloud his thinking. For a moment, he was at a loss to decide what to do. The police, or the maid, or someone from Slattery’s office, might appear at any moment. He ought to call the police and tell them how he found her.

  Zorn left the room and headed into the dining room to use the landline telephone. But before he could pick up the receiver, his burner phone rang. It was Jack Nagy.

  “A team from Renditions Branch is on its way up to you right now. You’ve got to leave this second. Hang up the phone, stop whatever you’re doing, and take the stairs down to the lobby as fast as you can. Then get in your car and start driving. Anywhere. When you’ve put a mile or two behind you, call me back. Got it?”

  The hard edge to Nagy’s voice cut straight through the fog in Zorn’s head.

  “I’m on my way.”

  Zorn raced down the stairs, expecting pursuers to appear at any moment. Upon reaching the ground floor, he cracked open the door to scan the lobby from the stairwell. Seeing no one, he dashed across the marble floor, exited the building and bolted for his car. The street and sidewalks were clear, with no one in sight. But as he pulled the rented Avalon out into the street, Zorn noticed a gray SUV pull out behind him. It was still following when he made a half-right turn onto Florida Avenue. Was it Tetra’s goons?

  Forced to stop at a traffic light a few blocks further on, Zorn remembered to return Nagy’s call. He reached across the passenger seat for his burner phone and fumbled while unlocking it to make the call.

  “What next?” he blurted out without introduction.

  “Keep going straight for a mile, then hang a left onto New York Avenue. The sign will say U.S. Route 50 but it’ll still be New York Ave, so don’t panic. Then stay on Route 50 for about four miles until you see a sign for the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Get onto the Parkway headed north.”

  “But how do you know where I am now?” Zorn demanded, alarm rising in his voice. “Is there some kind of tracking device on my car?”

  Nagy laughed.

  “Nothing so technical as that. I happen to be the one following you in the silver Nissan SUV.”

  Now it was Zorn’s turn
to laugh.

  “Damn. For a while there I thought I was screwed.”

  “You would have been, if they’d assigned anybody else but me to tail you this morning. Didn’t you see my car behind you when you left Farragut Square an hour ago?”

  “No. I was too wound up about Margaret missing our meeting.” Zorn’s voice turned somber. “But you already knew she was dead, didn’t you?”

  “I’m afraid so. I was pulling surveillance duty outside her apartment last night when the team went in. Only I didn’t know then who they were after. And I certainly didn’t expect them to kill her. Who was she, anyway? And why would they want to take her out?”

  “She was a White House lawyer who didn’t like what DHS and Tetra were doing to detainees,” Zorn replied as he stopped at another traffic light. “Margaret and I were scheduled to meet with someone about it at the EOB today, but she never showed up.”

  “And do you think Tetra knew about your connection to her before you arrived at her apartment just now?”

  “They had to,” Zorn said with a flash of revelation, recalling the thugs who had followed them in Georgetown. “What an idiot I’ve been!”

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” Nagy told him in a matter-of-fact voice. “If the people who control Renditions Branch want someone dead, they’ll get him. Or her. Just thank your lucky stars they were slow in coming after you.”

  “So what now?”

  “You’ve got to get out of Dodge. They probably planned to fake your suicide up there. Or, failing that, to pin the woman’s death on you. And it won’t take them long to figure out who helped you get away. So from here on in, we’d better assume they’re on the lookout for both of us.”

  “My god, they’re not able to track your car, are they?”.

  “No, Renditions Branch isn’t the CIA or the FBI. Believe it or not, our methods are still pretty low-tech.”

  “So where are we going?”

  “How much gas do you have?”

  “About half a tank.”

  “And how much power on your phone?”

  “Fully charged.”

  “Okay, then. Stay on the Parkway and I’ll call you again in half an hour.”

  Zorn was a few miles short of the Parkway’s Fort Meade exit when he received Nagy’s call.

  “In about fifteen minutes we’ll be at BWI Airport. You wouldn’t happen to be carrying your passport, would you?”

  “I would, actually,” Zorn replied, having brought it to the EOB for identification.

  “Excellent. That should make things a lot easier. Now, as soon as we exit the freeway, I’m going to overtake you on the left. Then follow me into short-term airport parking and don’t leave your car once you’ve parked. I’ll come to you.”

  A quarter of an hour later, Zorn pulled into a slot on the fifth level of the BWI hourly parking garage, near the skywalk to Concourse A. Within a few moments, Jack Nagy opened the Avalon’s passenger door and seated himself beside Zorn.

  “Give me your car keys,” Nagy said, holding out his hand.

  “Why?”

  “Because a rendition team is on its way here and I told them I’ve tracked you to the parking lot by Concourse E. I’ve got to move your car over there before they arrive so I can lead them on a wild goose chase.

  “But you said they’ll suspect you of helping me. Why stick around?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Nagy replied, snatching the car key out of the ignition. “I’ll find a way. Right now I want you to go inside and book yourself a seat on the first international flight out of here. Southwest has several to the Caribbean around this time of day. Mexico, Jamaica, Aruba, whatever. Try Southwest first.”

  “Why don’t you come with me?” Zorn suggested with a mischievous look. “Southern France is lovely this time of year.”

  “Nah, can’t do that. Not till I find a way to help Carol.”

  “Are you sure? Once we get to Toulouse we could hire her a lawyer. It would give you time to…”

  But Nagy wouldn’t hear of it.

  “No, I’ve got to stay,” he insisted, his face drawn with fatigue. “You would, too, if it were your kid.”

  “Then let me give you the name of a woman at the Justice Department who can help you. She’s already acquainted with Carol’s case and was working with Margaret to stop ESM abuses. I think she’d be very interested to know more about Renditions Branch.”

  “How well do you know her?”

  “Well enough to trust her. Her name is Audrey Lamb. If you contact her, use my name. She’ll make the connection.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “If you do, consider taking this with you,” Zorn proposed, reaching for his briefcase and the copy of the dossier he had intended for Nelson Blackburn. “You can tell her I’ve got a lot more material like it.”

  Nagy took the folder, shuffled through its photos quickly, and stuffed it into his waistband before zipping up his windbreaker.

  “One last thing then,” Zorn went on, gathering his belongings. “If you ever need a safe place to hole up, just say the word. I’ll get you on a plane to France and you can stay with Kay and me for as long as you want.”

  “Can I take a rain check?”

  “Consider it done.”

  “All right, then, off you go,” Nagy replied as he cracked open the passenger door. “And don’t give another thought to what happened in that poor woman’s apartment till you’re at cruising altitude with a stiff drink under your belt.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Truth and Reconciliation

  “Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.”

  –Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  ONE YEAR LATER, MID-SEPTEMBER, CARCASSONNE, FRANCE

  On a late September afternoon, Roger Zorn brought his friend Jack Nagy home to Carcassonne for dinner. The two men had spent the afternoon at Zorn’s latest vineyard purchase at Boutenac, a few miles south of his vineyard at Lezignan. The autumn sun hung low in the sky as Zorn’s vintage Citroën C6 sedan crunched onto the gravel driveway sandwiched between the cars of his security detail. The land still clung to its residual warmth from the long Languedoc summer and the yellow leaves on rows of almond and apricot trees fluttered in the breeze. Just ahead of the Citroën, a freak whirlwind stirred a cloud of fine dust.

  Zorn parked the Citroën behind the villa and opened his car door to the sound of barking from Asterix, the family’s bouffant black Bouvier. Now that Zorn seldom traveled on business, the dog was once again his best friend. It followed close on its master’s heels as Zorn and Nagy entered the house.

  The two men trod with dust-encrusted boots down the whitewashed corridor that led out onto the stone veranda, where Kay Zorn had laid out a bread-and-cheese platter and a plank of charcuterie on the sideboard. She rose and greeted each man with a hug and kisses on both cheeks.

  “I know we’re a mess, but we’ll clean up for dinner as soon as we’ve quenched our thirst,” Zorn announced while devouring the cheese platter with his eyes. “Walter called us from the road and said he’ll be along in a few minutes. The shabab in Toulouse were rioting again near the airport.”

  “Your charcuterie board looks picture-perfect, Kay,” Nagy added while spreading some triple-cream cheese onto a chunk of baguette. “Stop me before I polish off the whole thing by myself.”

  Nagy felt quite at home at the Zorn estate, having stayed there more than a month that spring as a houseguest. He had fled to France ahead of multiple death threats, after the American news media exposed him as a key Justice Department whistleblower whose revelations about large-scale Muslim deportations and disappearances brought down the DHS’s infamous Emergency Security Measures program.

  “Take the load off your feet while I pour you something to drink,” Kay told the men with an indulgent smile.

  She drew a slender bottle of local rosé from its silver cooler and poured each man a generous glass before serving herself.

  “To your new vineyard,”
she said, raising a glass to her husband before placing the bottle back on ice.

  “And to our best wines ever,” he replied as he took a long draught of the chilled rosé.

  While Zorn speared a slice of saucisson from the charcuterie board, Asterix took up position by his side, waiting patiently to be slipped something under the table. Though it was against house rules to feed scraps to pets, Kay didn’t intervene, knowing how much her husband loved the animal. Since Roger’s retirement, she had watched him soften and grow more affectionate to those around him and didn’t want to impede the process.

  “How is the new vintage coming along?” Kay asked after her husband had taken the edge off his thirst.

  "Better than expected. The vigneron and his staff are first-rate, and the facilities far superior to what we’ve had at Lezignan. Not to mention the magnificent old vines. Today Jack and I tasted some of the estate’s prize bottles and now I understand completely why Boutenac is considered one of the top appellations in Corbières.”

  “So why did Walter sell you the place?”

  Zorn let out a deep breath while a painful frown furrowed his forehead.

  “Chalk it up to poor financial planning. I warned him to sell his Tetra shares the day the merger went through, but Walter wouldn’t listen. When the scandal broke last fall, Tetra’s share price cratered. It’s recovered a bit, but the shares are worth only half of what they were at their peak. And I suspect Walter may have sold many of his near the bottom.”

  “And you sold your shares at the top?” Nagy asked between bites of food.

  “Thank God we did. And Kay’s brothers, too, after some arm-twisting. We made a small profit, but Walter was certain Tetra’s stock could go nowhere but up. Sadly, his retirement isn’t going to be as comfortable as he expected. I hear he’s decided to do some consulting to make ends meet. I’ll be interested to find out what he comes up with.”