Removal (53 page)

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In silence, Kelly and Jeff walked upstairs from the situation room, through the West Wing, and out into the fresh air of the Rose Garden, where a light rain had started to fall. Captain Manning followed a little way behind them. The three stood looking up into the sky, enjoying the freshness of the rain on their faces.

‘Do you think she did it?’ Jeff asked, eventually.

Manning looked at his watch.

‘We’ll soon know,’ he said. ‘If we get to ten minutes from now, and we haven’t heard an almighty big bang, or lots of people shooting at each other, we’re probably going to be OK.’

Three months later

A
S
K
ELLY
AND
J
EFF
were shown into the Oval Office, President Ellen Trevathan and Vice President Ted Lazenby stood to greet them. Lazenby shook hands with Jeff, then, ignoring Kelly’s outstretched hand, pulled her into a giant bear hug.

‘How are you doing?’ he asked gently.

‘OK,’ Kelly replied quietly.

Ellen hugged both Kelly and Jeff, and seated them in front of her desk. She remained standing, leaning against the desk.

‘Was it good to get away for a while?’ she asked.

‘Fantastic,’ Jeff replied. ‘Another six months of that, and I might even start feeling normal again. I had no idea how much stress I’d accumulated. How are you doing, Madam President?’

‘Better with every day,’ Ellen replied. She turned to Kelly.

‘How was Linda’s funeral?’

‘Beautiful,’ Kelly said. ‘Beautiful. And the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.’

Ellen nodded sympathetically. ‘I’m sure.’

‘Her parents really appreciated your message. They understand you couldn’t say it publicly, but I know it meant a lot to them.’

She hesitated.

‘Of course, they asked me…’

‘Linda’s not going to come out of the inquiry too badly,’ Ellen said. ‘At least by comparison with others. Once the facts are known, I think people will understand, even if they don’t agree with what she did. I wish I could say more.’

‘I know,’ Kelly said.

‘How is Gary doing?’ Jeff asked.

‘Still in the psychiatric wing at Mount Sinai,’ Ellen said. ‘Still under a suicide watch. The doctors say it’s going to take some time. They’re doing everything they can.’

‘Is he going to be prosecuted?’ Kelly asked.

Ellen smiled, pushed herself upright and walked back behind her desk to take her seat.

‘No,’ she said. ‘And the reason I’m smiling is that, technically, you should have had some input into that decision. But I was sure it was one you would want to delegate, not to mention that you would have been a witness, so I had Justice take a preliminary look at it. We can’t really say anything officially until after the inquiry, but everybody seems to agree that no useful purpose would be served by bringing charges.’

‘I’m glad,’ Kelly said.

She shifted uneasily in her seat, joining her hands tightly in front of her.

‘While we’re on that general subject, Madam President, I did get your message. Look, I’m really flattered, but I can’t…’

‘Why on earth not?’ Ellen asked, smiling. ‘I didn’t extend the offer in order to flatter you. You’re my number one choice for the job. You more than proved yourself while you were Acting Director. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the natural choice to succeed Ted.’

‘Amen to that,’ Lazenby agreed.

Kelly sat up as straight as she could.

‘It’s just that… well, being Acting Director in an emergency is one thing. But when it comes to the job itself, there are many people much better qualified and much more experienced. It would cause all kinds of jealousies and resentments. There would be all kinds of political fall-out.’

‘Why don’t you let my people handle that?’ Ellen suggested.

‘I don’t mean political in that sense, Madam President. I mean, within the Bureau.’

The President raised her eyebrows in Ted Lazenby’s direction.

‘Kelly,’ he said, ‘when the President mentioned to me that she was going to nominate you for Director, I took some soundings myself within the Bureau. There may be a little grumbling, but then, there always is. There was quite a bit when I was appointed. That’s something you just have to live with. It’s the same with any high-profile public appointment. But the people who matter feel that it would be a slap in the face for the Bureau if you were not nominated. After all, when did the Bureau last have a national hero, or heroine, in its ranks? Let’s face it, Kelly, we haven’t looked this good in, well, God knows when. So, when the President asked for my opinion, I said she could not possibly make a better choice.’

Jeff laughed and took Kelly’s hand. ‘See, I told you,’ he said.

Kelly smiled.

‘I’m still worried. I just don’t want it to be a problem for you, Madam President.’

‘It won’t be,’ Ellen replied firmly. ‘I’ve already told the Senate Leaders that they are welcome to give me any early feedback they pick up from their members. I promised them that, if it seemed to be a real problem, I would offer you the choice of withdrawing. But so far, everything is overwhelmingly positive. I’m confident that you’ll sail through the confirmation hearing. The rest is up to you. Assuming you want it…’

‘I’m just in such an emotional state right now…’

‘I understand,’ Ellen said.

‘If I could have a little time…’

‘Of course. There’s no real rush. I was going to suggest announcing your nomination in a day or two, but we don’t have to. I haven’t assembled much of a staff yet. We may even have someone to work with you by the time you decide.’

Kelly gently released Jeff’s hand, stood, and made her way towards the window to look out over the garden.

‘What a mess this has all been,’ she said, almost inaudibly.

Ellen also stood.

‘Yes. But it could have been worse,’ she said. ‘At least those people put their guns down and went home. We got the Senate and the Chief Justice out safely. And the only shots fired were the ones fired here in the White House.’

‘Thanks to your speech, Madam President,’ Jeff said.

‘Thanks to many things, including what the two of you did,’ Ellen rejoined.

Kelly looked back at Ted Lazenby.

‘Do you think we will ever figure out what really happened?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Do you believe Steve Wade was mixed up with Lebanese agents and white supremacists? I kept asking myself, while I was at Linda’s funeral, what it was all about, and none of it makes sense. I just wanted to know why I was watching my friend’s coffin being lowered into the ground, what it was she had to die for, and I couldn’t make sense of it. I couldn’t find any answers.’

Lazenby pulled his hands through his hair.

‘I’m not sure we’ll ever know the full story,’ he replied. ‘But we did make a little progress while you were away. The Agency and the Bureau both spoke to George Carlson at some length. I decided not to tell you about it while you were involved with Linda’s funeral, but you’ll find copies of the reports on your desk when you get back to work.’

Kelly looked up in surprise. ‘The Sons of the Flag guy?’

‘The same,’ Lazenby said, smiling. ‘They picked him up at the Capitol as the demonstration was breaking up, and he’s been talking his head off ever since.’

‘Carlson’s talking?’ Kelly asked. ‘Wasn’t he a mercenary? I’m surprised they got any cooperation out of him.’

Lazenby laughed.

‘They didn’t at first,’ he said. ‘But during a separate military debriefing, it came to light that Hessler had given orders to a marine colonel at the Capitol that Carlson was to be taken out. It occurred to me that it might be interesting to pass that information on to Carlson, and see how he reacted. So, I suggested to our agents that they introduce him to the colonel. I think it’s fair to say he didn’t appreciate it very much.’

Kelly’s eyes opened wide. ‘Hessler was going to have Carlson killed? Why?’

‘Because he knew too much. Hessler was the Sons of the Flag’s contact in Washington, Kelly.’

Kelly leaned against the wall. ‘Hessler was ‘Fox’?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Sonofabitch,’ Kelly exclaimed. ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry, excuse me, Madam President…’

Ellen laughed.

‘That’s OK Kelly.’

‘Anyway,’ Lazenby continued, ‘when they confronted Carlson with the colonel, and he realized how close he had been to going to the big compound in the sky, he started singing, and he sang a good long song.’

‘And implicated Hessler?’ Jeff asked.

‘Hessler, and some other people,’ Lazenby said, ‘but curiously enough, not necessarily Steve Wade.’

Lazenby walked slowly to a chair and made himself comfortable.

‘Hessler’s acquaintance with the Sons of the Flag goes back quite a way,’ he began. ‘Long before any of this started. Hessler hasn’t talked at all, by the way, at least not yet, but preliminary indications are that he’s seriously crazy. It seems he’s had this obsession for years: America is going soft, America is being sold short by the politicians, time the military took control, and so on. Which, of course, is pretty much the same message the Sons of the Flag were putting out. Anyway, according to Carlson, Hessler approached him out of the blue one day. None too gently either. Carlson happened to be in Washington for some nefarious purpose or other. Hessler has him followed, has him accosted on the street, and bundled into the back of a car, Al Capone style, and driven off at high speed to some secret rendezvous. At this point, Carlson figures he’s history, his enemies have caught up with him. But it’s his lucky day. Instead of being rubbed out and having his body dumped in the Potomac, he finds himself drinking whisky in a shack out in the boonies somewhere with a senior general, a general in the real army, talking about the good times in Africa, man to man, old campaigners sharing war stories, and so on.’

Lazenby stood and poured himself some coffee from a pot on a side table, then resumed his seat.

‘And the upshot of all this is that Hessler suggests they keep in touch, because if there is truly a God, their day will come. The day will come when Hessler will find a way to bring down the government and replace it with someone worthy of America, presumably himself.’

‘My God,’ Jeff said quietly.

‘Yes. Carlson’s role, of course, is to build up his operation and prepare for the big day. So they establish a protocol for secret communications, and Hessler becomes Fox. A few years go by, and they have a couple of strokes of luck. The first is, Hessler gets himself appointed to the Joint Chiefs…’

‘And that’s something we’re going to take a hard look at,’ Ellen Trevathan observed bitterly. ‘Believe you me. I want to know how that happened.’

‘Right. And the second piece of luck was that, in his new capacity, he discovered the Williamsburg Doctrine.’

‘What was all that about?’ Jeff asked.

‘I can answer that,’ Ellen replied. ‘I’ve had one or two very intimate conversations with General Terrell about it. It was a classic piece of mid-1960’s Cold War paranoia. You have to understand, that was the height of the military machine’s influence. If there’s a red spy under every bed, and communists are taking over the whole world, you have to try to impose your own form of order on everything. These people actually thought that they were important enough to bypass the Constitution in the interests of military control. They had a meeting in Williamsburg, all hush-hush, of course, and they came up with this pernicious nonsense, essentially denying the Presidency to anyone who wasn’t a white male who shared their obsessions about military supremacy. Then the Sixties ended. Terrell says that, after that, until Hessler came along, no one took it seriously. It was buried away in the archives and never mentioned, except for laughs over a few drinks. But Hessler saw it as a lot more than a funny story. He actually believed it could be used.’

She shook her head.

‘It’s history now,’ she concluded. ‘You can be sure of that.’

‘So,’ Lazenby resumed, ‘eventually, Hessler got the break he had been waiting for. He had been trawling for opportunities to compromise Wade in some way or other. Carlson said Hessler had a pretty impressive network of contacts, and somehow he came up with Hamid Marfrela. Marfrela was ambitious, he liked money, he liked the high life, but he was still pretty low level, and he was desperately anxious to impress his masters back home in Lebanon. And he was quite prepared to get his hands dirty with a little intrigue, if he got the chance. So, naturally, Hessler found him interesting, and he sent him to Carlson to see what could be arranged. He probably had in mind some Lebanese involvement in the Sons of the Flag’s activities, stirring up trouble, what have you. But it was Carlson who stumbled on the real gold dust. At some point during the discussion, Marfrela mentioned his connection to Lucia Benoni and, of course, through her, to Wade.’

‘What was Marfrela’s connection to Benoni, exactly?’ Kelly asked.

‘Money and violence, not necessarily in that order,’ Lazenby said. ‘Carlson said Marfrela was a sicko, got his kicks beating up women. Once he found that Benoni was a compatriot, and she had a direct link to Wade, he pounced on her and wouldn’t let her go. He set her up in an apartment, gave her money, sent her abroad to buy clothes, told her she was serving her country, and eventually brought her back in to spring the honey trap. But the interesting thing is, Carlson doesn’t think she ever came up with anything concrete they could use. He thinks she liked Wade, and didn’t want to hurt him.’

‘Maybe that’s why Marfrela killed her,’ Kelly observed. ‘Maybe she wasn’t playing ball, and he ran out of patience.’

‘Either that, or it was just for kicks,’ Lazenby said. ‘Carlson never found out. Either way, he and Hessler were pretty mad with Marfrela. Mad enough that Carlson had Marfrela killed, though that was partly to protect the Sons of the Flag’s position.’

‘Nice people,’ Jeff said.

‘Aren’t they? Of course, losing Lucia was a blow for Carlson and Hessler. But it wasn’t the end. The story wouldn’t go away. Mary Sullivan was playing it for all it was worth in the
Post
, and the opposition, with their damned Committee, was all over it, and before they knew what was happening, there was talk of impeachment. In some ways, it was worse for Wade with Lucia and Hamid dead than it would have been with them alive. The whole thing just kept looking more and more sinister.’