9
THE PRESIDENT CONTINUED TO STARE INTO the camera until Hopkinson stepped in and pulled him out of his chair. “Sir, all of these mikes are still live, and the camera is sending out a feed.”
The president nodded, knowing what his
communications director was implying. The previous year Stevens had
told several off-color jokes following his Saturday-afternoon radio
address. He thought the microphones had been turned off, but they
weren’t. The press had jumped all over him, but since the jokes
were actually funny, the damage was minor. Hopkinson and Garret
were always on the alert to prevent a similar
mistake.
Garret walked over and said, “Come on,
gentlemen, let’s go to my office.” He shook his head toward the
door, and the president and Hopkinson
followed.
When they entered Garret’s office, the
president turned to Hopkinson and asked, “How did I
look?”
“You looked fine,
sir.”
“Did it look genuine and
heartfelt?”
“I thought so, but we’ll know more in
about an hour. I’ve got a polling group calling five hundred homes
right now to try and get an early read on what the public
thinks.”
Stu Garret sat down behind his desk,
shoved a cigarette in his mouth, and turned on the little brown
smoke-eater next to his ashtray. After taking a deep drag, he
pulled the cigarette away from his lips and started to speak, his
lungs still filled with smoke. “You did a nice job, Jim. If we
handle this thing right, I think we’re going to see a big jump in
your approval ratings.” Smoke started to seep out of Garret’s nose,
and he tilted his head back, exhaling a deep gray cloud toward the
ceiling. “There’s nothing like the exposure you get from a
crisis.”
Back in Blacky’s, the roar of conversation
had returned as the patrons discussed the events of
the day and
the president’s speech. O’Rourke was intentionally keeping his
mouth shut as Scarlatti stared at him. He looked over the top of
his menu at her big brown eyes.
“Michael, you know I’m dying to hear what
you have to say about this whole thing.”
“About what?”
Scarlatti pulled the menu out of his
hands. “Don’t play coy with me, Michael, I’m serious. I really want
to know what you think about this. I mean, it isn’t every day two
senators and a congressman get
assassinated.”
Michael thought about sugarcoating his
comment and then opted for the direct approach. “In a nutshell,
Liz, I think Koslowski, Downs, and Fitzgerald were the scum of the
earth. They represented the core of what is wrong with this
town.”
“Come now, Michael, how do you really feel
about them?” asked Scarlatti
sarcastically.
“Listen, I’m not crazy about our political
leadership getting gunned down under the cover of darkness, but
considering where we’re headed, I’m not so sure these assassins
aren’t doing all of us a huge favor.”
Scarlatti looked down and said, “I’m
afraid there are a lot of people out there who would agree with
you. Doesn’t it worry you at all . . . as a congressman . . . that
these terrorists may turn the gun on you
eventually?”
“No.” Michael shook his head. “There are
bigger fish to fry than me. And besides, I’m not so sure they’re
terrorists.”
“You don’t think they’re terrorists?”
asked Liz with a quizzical expression.
“No. It’s an overused cliché, but one
man’s terroristis another man’s freedom fighter. These guys haven’t
killed any civilians.” O’Rourke paused for a second. In a voice
just above a whisper he continued, “If no one else dies, and this
group can bring about the changes they stated in their demands,
this will be one of the best things that has happened in this
country since the civil rights
movement.”
“Well, from what the president just said,
there’s reason to believe that letter is a
fake.”
“Come on, Liz.” O’Rourke frowned. “You’re
a reporter. Do you really believe a word that comes out of
Stevens’s mouth? The White House is already trying to spin this
thing and they don’t even know what’s going on. Those guys are
sitting over there right now shitting in their pants.” O’Rourke
picked up his fork and tapped it lightly on the place mat. “Today
was supposed to be a big day for them. The president was going to
pass his budget, but instead he wakes up and finds out that two
senators and his point man in Congress have been assassinated. Then
he receives a letter telling him it’s time to get his act together,
or he’s next. Liz, this is their worst fear, and not just the
president, all of them. They’ve played their little game of party
politics for years. Every election they say they’re going to cut
all the wasteful spending, give a tax break to the middle class,
and balance the budget. They say anything to get elected, and then,
once they’re back in office, it’s the same old crap: more spending,
no tax breaks, and more deficits.”
Scarlatti shook her head and
smiled.
O’Rourke looked at her and asked,
“What?”
“I guess I’m just a little shocked. I
would have thought that you, of all people, Mr. Law and Order,
would have been denouncing what happened today. I mean, I’m the
liberal. I’m supposed to be supporting anarchy, not
you.”
“This isn’t anarchy, Liz. It may be a
revolt, but it’s not anarchy.” Smiling, he said, “Besides, you’re a
member of the press. You’re supposed to be neutral . . .
remember?”
Special Agent McMahon was sitting at the
head of the table in a large conference room down the hall from his
office. The room was quickly becoming the command center for the
investigation. He was staring at the TV in disbelief. The president
had just finished his address to the nation, and McMahon did not
like what he had heard. He grabbed the phone next to him and dialed
the direct line to Roach’s office.
After several rings, the director
answered, “Hello.”
“What in the hell was that all
about?”
“I have no idea,” Roach responded
flatly.
“Has anyone from the Bureau told them we
believe the letter is a piece of
disinformation?”
“No,” sighed
Roach.
“You didn’t actually promise him that we
would catch these guys, did you?”
“Skip, you know better than
that.”
“What in the hell is going on? I don’t
understand why in the hell he would say something like
that.”
“I think I might. Why don’t you meet me in
my office tomorrow morning at eight? The president
wants to see us at noon.
That should give us time to go over some
things.”
“I’ll be there at
eight.”
“How are things going on your
end?”
“So far the preliminary reports on the
autopsies haven’t turned anything up, and the letters we
intercepted were negative for prints. They may find out more after
they pick them apart, but I doubt it.”
“Have any of those people from the park
come in to try to give us a composite of the guy they
saw?”
“Yeah, we’ve got three who think they saw
the perp. Right now they’re in separate rooms giving their
descriptions to different artists. When they’re done, we’ll bring
them together and compare.”
“Good. I assume we’re taking extra
precautions to make sure their names aren’t
leaked?”
“As far as the press knows, there are no
witnesses to any of the killings.”
“Have we made arrangements to provide
protection for them?”
“It’s already been taken care
of.”
“All right, stay in touch. I’ll be here
until about ten.”
McMahon hung up the phone and buried his
face in his hands. He didn’t move for almost five minutes. He was
trying to think of a reason why the president would say the letter
was a decoy. He stood and looked at the two agents sitting to his
left. “Kathy and Dan, come with me.”
McMahon walked out of the room and down
the hall to his office. Special Agents Kathy Jennings and Dan
Wardwell followed. When Jennings and Wardwell entered the room, he
shut the door and motioned to the couch. The two agents sat down. McMahon
paced for a moment and then stopped.
“I think we all agree that the letter
mailed to NBC was sent by the same group that killed Koslowski,
Downs, and Fitzgerald. It’s a no-brainer. The letter was mailed
before the murders took place and it names the men who were killed.
Are we all in agreement?”
Jennings and Wardwell nodded
yes.
McMahon held up a copy of the letter. “I
would like to hear your opinions on whether you think this letter
is what it appears to be or if you think it is, as the president
said, ‘a piece of disinformation.’ ”
The two agents looked at each other for
support, neither quite sure of the answer their boss was searching
for. Wardwell spoke first. “Who, at the Bureau, told the president
they thought the letter was a piece of
disinformation?”
“No one did, as far as we know, but that
is not what I’m concerned about. I don’t want any of that to seep
into your train of thought. What I want to know is, based on the
evidence you’ve seen, do you think this letter is a piece of
disinformation?” McMahon leaned against the edge of his desk and
waited for an answer.
“Based on what we know, no, I don’t think
this letter is a piece of disinformation,” Wardwell
said.
“Why do you think it’s genuine?” McMahon
asked.
“You tell me why I should think
otherwise.”
“That’s not the way I want you to go about
this.” McMahon started to shake his head and wave his hands. “Let’s
try this. Dan, I want you to assume that whoever murdered these guys had an
ulterior motive. Kathy, I want you to argue that they didn’t have
an ulterior motive. Now, Dan, if the motive for killing those three
guys wasn’t to scare the politicians into doing what that letter
says, then what was it?”
There was a long silence while Wardwell
pondered the question. All of a sudden he slapped his thighs with
both hands. “Oh, my God. I didn’t even think about it. The
president’s budget was supposed to be passed today. You take those
guys out, and the budget is dead.”
“If the motive was to derail the budget,
then why kill all three of them? Koslowski was in charge of the
Appropriations Committee. All they had to do was kill him and the
budget would have been dead. Why kill the two senators?” McMahon
prodded.
“Well . . . if they wanted to cover their
tracks and not make it look like they were trying to stop the
budget, they would have killed more than just
Koslowski.”
“Fair enough.” McMahon paused and tapped
his finger on his chin. “Assuming you’re right, why would someone
take such a big risk just to stop the
budget?”
“There could be a million different
reasons . . . probably, all of them having to do with money. Maybe
there was a new piece of legislation in there that was going to
cost someone a whole lot of money, or maybe they had just cut
funding for a program, and the people who have been receiving that
money weren’t very happy about it. The budget is a huge piece of
legislation. There could be over a thousand new entries in there that could
drastically affect someone or some group’s finances,” Wardwell
said.
There was a short silence while they
thought about Wardwell’s comments, and then Jennings spoke up.
“Yeah, or it could just be a group of Americans pissed off at the
way these jerk-offs run the country.”
McMahon turned to Jennings. “All right,
hotshot, it’s your turn.”
Jennings sat forward on the couch. Her gun
hung loosely in a shoulder holster under her left arm. “There are a
lot of Americans out there who are sick and tired of the way these
guys are running the country. Our own Counterterrorism Department
has reported an alarming rise in threats against politicians over
the last eighteen months. If I were an individual who was worried
about losing money because of a new piece of legislation,
Fitzgerald, Koslowski, and Downs would be the last three I would
kill. They were the biggest spenders on the Hill. . . . Unless the
president has some hard evidence that there’s an ulterior motive
behind these killings, I think they’re just spewing political
rhetoric.”
“Don’t you think the timing is a little
strange?” McMahon asked.
“What timing? That they were killed right
before the budget was supposed to be voted on?” Jennings shook her
head sideways. “No, I don’t. This afternoon you told me what that
Kennedy woman from the CIA had to say about these murders being
committed by military-trained commandos. Well, I
thought about that for a
while and then called my old firearms instructor from the FBI
Academy. His name is Gus Mitchell. Have either of you ever met
him?”
“Sure, I know him real well,” McMahon
answered. Wardwell shook his head no.
“Well, Gus is an old Delta Force commando,
so I called him and ran Kennedy’s theory by him. We could only talk
for a couple of minutes because he had to go teach a class, but in
that short time he said something that didn’t really sink in until
you brought this budget thing up. Gus said one of the most
difficult things about planning an operation like this would be to
pick a time where you were guaranteed that all of your targets
would be where you wanted them. When you look at these
assassinations from the killers’ standpoint, the morning before the
budget is supposed to go to a vote is the perfect time. All of the
congressmen have to be in town to vote, and all of the senators
stay in town to try to influence the outcome. Any other day, and
these guys are flying in and out of town with little or no
notice.”
McMahon nodded his head up and down while
he thought about Jennings’s new angle. It might be worth his time
to go give Gus Mitchell a little visit.
O’Rourke and Scarlatti were walking down
the sidewalk. Scarlatti had both arms wrapped around O’Rourke’s
waist, and he had his arm around her shoulder. The cold night air
felt good on their faces. Liz reached up and kissed him on the
chin. O’Rourke smiled and noted it was the first time
he had done
so in days. Everything had been so tense, so serious, over the last
several weeks. It felt good holding on to Liz, but something told
him things in Washington were going to get worse before they got
better.
When they reached O’Rourke’s house, they
walked up the steps to the front door. The first level of the
brownstone was a two-car garage. Parked on the same side of the
street and down about three houses was a black BMW with dark-tinted
windows and diplomatic license plates. The man behind the steering
wheel watched as the handsome couple entered the house. He looked
up and down the street to see if anyone had
followed.
As Michael and Liz entered the house,
O’Rourke’s yellow Lab, Duke, jumped up from his spot on the kitchen
floor and ran down the hallway. Liz let go of Michael to greet the
excited dog.
“Hello, Duke. How are you? I’ve missed
you.” Scarlatti patted him on the side and scratched his neck,
while the eighty-pound Lab wagged his tail. O’Rourke said hello to
his roommate of seven years and patted him on the head. Scarlatti
stood up. “Where’s your ball, Duke? Where’s your ball? Go get your
ball.” Duke frantically tapped his paws on the hardwood floor and
then bolted down the hallway in search of his
ball.
O’Rourke took Scarlatti’s jacket, hung it
up, and said, “Hey, don’t get him too excited. I’ve got more
important things for us to do than play
fetch.”
“Come on, Michael, he’s been inside all
day. He needs to blow off a little
steam.”
“Tim came by during lunch and took him for
a jog, and
believe me, I need to blow off a lot more steam than Duke does.”
O’Rourke smiled and wrapped both arms around her
waist.
“Easy, big boy. You’ll get yours soon
enough.”
“I’m going to hold you to that
promise.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t have to.”
Scarlatti stood on her toes and kissed him. A second later Duke
returned and dropped his blue ball at their feet. They ignored him
for a while and continued to kiss until Duke let out a loud bark.
Scarlatti let go of O’Rourke and grabbed the ball. She waved it in
front of Duke’s mouth several times, then threw it down the
hallway.
O’Rourke patted her on the butt and
started up the stairs. “I’m going to go fill the bathtub. When
you’re finished with Duke, why don’t you grab a bottle of wine and
come on up.” Scarlatti smiled and nodded her
head.
When O’Rourke reached the second floor, he
walked down the short hallway to his den. Standing in front of his
selection of CDs, he ran his eyes over the thin plastic cases
turned on their side. He stopped at one of Liz’s favorites.
O’Rourke grabbed the Shawn Colvin CD, put it in, and hit play. The
light by the window was on, and the shade was open. He walked over,
turned off the light, and stood for a moment looking down at the
dark street below. The young congressman reflected back to a
hunting trip he had taken almost a year ago. A trip where he had
divulged a dark and damaging secret involving Senator Fitzgerald.
For the first time since the murders, Michael allowed himself to
wonder if the person he had told that secret to was capable
of taking
the lives of Fitzgerald, Koslowski, and Downs. O’Rourke did not
have to search deep—the answer was a resounding yes.
The assassin looked up at the shadow
standing in the window on the second floor. The windows of the car
were cracked slightly so he could hear what was going on outside
the car. For several minutes, he continued to scan the street,
checking to see if there were any new people or cars he hadn’t seen
on previous nights. He did so with minimal movement. Only his eyes
darted back and forth, using the mirrors to look behind. After
several minutes, he started the car and drove off. He had seen what
he needed.