Things worked out for the best. Plan B-Corker was too reckless to be an effective president. He’d go all out for Brock Brewster.
“Keep in mind,” Murphy said. “The House vote alone counts. Not the electoral vote.”
“The handwriting is on the wall. Brewster’s going to be president, I tell you.”
“If you say so, that must be right.” Murphy checked the time. “Now that I’m the acting attorney general, I have a lot of work to do. Got to get back to Justice. Why’d you want to see me?”
No thanks for all he had done to get Murphy promoted to acting attorney general. Without the dirt he had dug up on the attorney general, Bryan would not have the promotion. The feminist attorney general suing Promethean Pharma for environmental violations and defending against Senex’s lawsuit challenging the takeover of Promethean Pharma had resigned her office in disgrace. Opposition researchers funded secretly by Promethean Pharma sniffed out proof that in her earlier years as a prosecutor she had withheld information from an African American defendant that would have exonerated the man. Instead, a death sentence was carried out.
“Why did you look around before getting in? Afraid of being seen with me?”
“Afraid of being seen with someone arrested for murder,” Murphy said through clenched teeth. “It wouldn’t look good for you or me if it hit the news.”
“Don’t get high and mighty with me. The case was dismissed.” He fiddled with his seat belt. “Your brother tried to nail me. What are you doing to keep him off my back?”
“My brother and I aren’t talking. Nothing I can do with the state murder charge . . . even if I wanted.” Murphy took a water bottle from the backseat cooler. “Weak case anyway. They don’t have Mora’s body.” He swigged from the bottle. “All circumstantial.”
“Let’s discuss things you can do.” He made sure the privacy partition was closed tight. “As acting attorney general, you have control over the environmental cases and federal eminent domain case against Promethean Pharma.”
“I’m listening.”
“Good.” He ordered the driver to turn up the background stereo music for added precaution. “I want that methylene chloride pollution case in Illinois to go away.”
“Sorry.” He wrung his hands and peeked out the window. “I can’t do anything. She filed the case the day before her resignation.”
“You can dismiss it, damn it.”
“Hey, Sebastian. I wasn’t Dallas Taylor’s first choice. I’m only acting. She could can me if I did something so obvious . . . and where would that leave you?” He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it. Make a lowball offer to settle the case. I’ll see if we can accept close to your offer and dismiss the case. It looks better that way.”
“I fully expect the case to be settled for the dollar amount I suggest. The Justice Department won’t nickel-and-dime me.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Make an offer.”
“And what about the Tampa facility case? That hasn’t been filed yet.”
“No way.” Murphy squared his shoulders. “It’s a heater case. The media would crucify me if I didn’t file suit. You agreed.”
“When I agreed my exact words were . . . ‘you aren’t high enough on the totem pole to help.’” He raised his voice. “You’re on top of the totem pole now. I expect you not to sue.”
The chauffeur turned his head to look through the rearview mirror. Senex waited until the chauffeur faced forward. “If you want my support when you run for the Senate, you’d better remember who brung ya to the dance. I made you and I can break you. Once the House picks Brewster . . . any day now . . . Taylor’ll be out on her ear.” He jabbed Murphy in the shoulder with his forefinger. “And so will you, sonny boy, unless I put a good word in with President Brewster.”
“Back off, Sebastian.” He rolled down the rear window and took a deep breath. “I’m not your errand boy.”
“Just do what I tell you.”
“Screw you.” Murphy scrambled out of the limousine. “Get another errand boy.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
“I rule as follows,” Judge Pomo declared, fingering the white cane propped up against the bench in the Circuit Court of Cook County. He adjusted sunglasses on his nose. “Although I acknowledge Jim Murphy, the current custodian, has grown up believing Patrick Murphy was his father, the DNA results from the fingernail samples left by the deceased Jack Cronin lead to only one conclusion. Jim Murphy is the biological son of Commander Jack Cronin.”
Standing next to his brother before the judge’s bench, Jim Murphy now knew what the commander meant when he had said at Northwestern Hospital: You’re looking at the proof and you don’t know it yet.
This wily rogue cop called Mr. Billy Club had outfoxed him.
Jim Murphy didn’t buy the testimony of the commander’s manicurist-girlfriend that she hung on to the toiletry bag with his fingernail clippings for sentimental reasons . . . despite the slip of a teardrop or two on the stand. The commander must have instructed her to hang on to the bag once he heard Bryan was starting a custody battle.
He cursed himself for agreeing to the DNA testing for himself and his . . . or what he thought was . . . his father and letting the results be compared with those of his brother and the commander. The DNA tests had ripped apart the family story that was part and parcel of who he thought he was. The truth had left him angry and confused.
“However,” Judge Pomo continued, “because of the strong family bond created between Jim and Bryan Murphy and the man they considered their father, I further rule that they be appointed plenary co-guardians over Patrick Murphy, and that until otherwise adjudicated or agreed to by Jim and Bryan Murphy, Patrick Murphy remain in the custody of Bryan Murphy.”
His instinctive reaction was to assume some hidden incompetency or the corruption of the judge for letting Bryan keep physical custody in Washington, DC. But his conscience wouldn’t let him. The judge had a reputation as an exceptionally honest and fair jurist.
He had to face facts and look at himself. Law and science said Patrick Murphy was not his father. Jim Murphy couldn’t match the same quality of home care Mr. Hotshot could provide for Patrick Murphy. He just wasn’t the success Bryan was. His head told him to give up the battle, but his heart hadn’t caught up with his head.
“We don’t get along,” Jim said to the judge preparing to leave the bench. “How can we cooperate as co-guardians?” His attorney tugged on his sleeve to silence him. “Your decision won’t work.”
“I believe,” the judge said, “you two will work it out. You are bound to the man who was the biological father of only one but the real father of both.”
Patrick Murphy remained seated at the counsel’s table, murmuring singsong to himself. In his hands he kneaded the patrolman’s service cap he had worn after joining the CPD.
“You both care about him. In caring for him you will learn to work together.”
“And if we don’t?” Jim asked.
“My door’s always open. I’ll decide for you.”
“But we have nothing in common . . . not even a father.”
“Detective Murphy,” he said, rising from the bench with his white cane. “Take it from an only child. As the years roll by, I predict you’ll come to cherish the one person with whom you share a history needing no explanation. The court is now adjourned.” He tapped his way down the bench stairs and back into chambers.
Jim bolted out of the courtroom into the eighteenth-floor corridor of the Daley Center. The wall of reinforced window glass overlooking the rusted Picasso sculpture in the Daley Plaza below brought him to a stop. He pressed his head against the glass and closed his eyes.
His family had fallen apart. His wife and Santiago were dead. He and Bryan were at each other’s throats. And the man he thought was his father wasn’t. Patrick Murphy had denied paternity and he
, the would-be son, was the demented one for refusing to believe it. His dear sister had tied herself into emotional knots trying to keep things together between him and his brother . . . no, his half brother.
The man who was his biological father was everything he despised. He had lost one relationship he loved and gained another he loathed. Life was absurd, just like his lawyer’s admonition that he wear his police uniform to court to make a good impression, even though a blind judge heard the case. Maybe Marco was right . . . Mondo cane . . . It’s a dog’s world.
A tap on his shoulder. “Katie. What do you want?”
“I want you and Bryan to work this out.”
“Still believing in miracles, is that it?” Jim asked. Over her shoulder he saw his own lawyer and Bryan’s conferring outside the courtroom. “Like the time you prayed for money to buy a Supergirl doll and found twenty-five dollars on the floor of your closet when I was the one who put it there.”
With his arm around Patrick Murphy, who wore a nobody-inside smile, Bryan stood next to the lawyers and a popular journalist covering the custody hearing. The journalist took down every word falling from Bryan’s mouth, as though words from an oracle. The only reason for that had to be Bryan’s promotion to the position of acting attorney general of the United States.
“Maybe you were the miracle I prayed for.” She brushed the hair away from her eyes. They looked swollen and red. “Just try to work it out, Jimmy . . . for my sake.”
“OK, sis . . . for your sake.” Bryan stared back at him with a stone face. “But no promises.” He averted the stare to avoid getting into it with Mr. Hotshot.
She kissed him on the neck, whispering, “Thanks, little brother.”
“I’m only one year littler.” He touched her cheek as she pulled back.
“Bryan stopped me outside the courtroom,” she said. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Not now.” He turned his back to her and stared out the window with arms folded. A pack of kids raced around the Picasso sculpture like a troupe of monkeys. “I’m in no mood to make nice-nice with Mr. Hotshot about . . . what do I call that man now?”
“How about Dad, like always? He acted like a father. Isn’t that what counts?”
“Until he turned on me.”
“Forgiveness came hard to him.” She held his hand. “He couldn’t handle the cheating by both his wife and best friend.”
“I’m not talking to Mr. Hotshot about Patrick Murphy.”
“That’s not what he wants. He wants to help you against Senex.”
Chapter Sixty
“Why’s he here?” asked Dallas Taylor. She pointed to Sebastian Senex sitting in a corner of the rustic conference room at the Camp David presidential retreat.
“I invited him because you weren’t available to ask,” Horatio A. Harrison said. “The rest of the cabinet agreed. He has sensitive information you may want to challenge directly.”
Seated at a round oak table in the center of the room, she let him stay and skimmed the petition asking for her resignation from the presidency. A little over half of her cabinet had signed it. “Do you seriously expect me to resign?”
“We do,” continued the secretary of defense. He turned to the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff seated to his right. “Gentlemen?”
“We agree,” said the director of national intelligence. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs added, “And so do the others not here today.”
“For the record,” the national security advisor said, “the secretary of state and I don’t agree with the petition.” The secretary of state nodded agreement.
“You’re not a cabinet official,” Harrison said to national security advisor. “Why are you here?”
“Neither is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” the secretary of state said. “But he’s here.”
“General Harrison.” Taylor turned to her secretary of defense. “We have irreconcilable differences. I intend to act on the signed but undated letter of resignation you gave me.”
“I withdraw my offer of resignation and will confirm my withdrawal in writing after this meeting.” Harrison looked to Sebastian Senex nodding support.
“If you don’t resign, I’ll have to dismiss you.”
“I wouldn’t advise that,” the director of national intelligence said. “The existing cabinet is in charge.” He avoided Taylor’s eyes and shifted his feet. “A majority of your cabinet has signed that petition. You lack the votes to dismiss General Harrison.”
“Hogwash. My acting attorney general, Bryan Murphy, assures me my powers as president are full and complete until the House selects a president.”
Sebastian Senex now knew on what side Bryan Murphy stood. He’d see to it that Murphy had no future in politics. He poured a glass of water from a silver pitcher near the fireplace and swallowed an aspirin. He glanced out the window at the wooded hills. Green buds were breaking out on the tree branches swaying above melting islands of snow. For now he would stay silent in the background with his ace in the hole unless he had to play it.
“For the good of the country, we ask you to resign,” said General John Klaine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “I bear you no ill will.”
“For the good of the country?” She shook her head, looking puzzled. “If I resign, that means a crucial delay for the presidential election in the House of Representatives. We have no vice president now. So the Speaker becomes president. Until the House elects a new Speaker to direct the presidential vote, the country remains in a dangerous uncertainty.”
“You have failed to protect us against our enemies.” Harrison spread out a map of the South China Sea. “Look here.” He tapped a spot on the map with his finger. “During a military drill, a Chinese warship fired on one of the Spratly Islands. A Taiwanese garrison was hit. Two soldiers died, four wounded. And you have done nothing. This is an escalation, beyond probing by fishing boats and building artificial islands.”
“Aren’t you the folks who told me the Chinese wouldn’t withdraw from Taiping Island. But they did. Not one of you acknowledged I was right. But I was.” No one responded to her accusation. She had caught them off balance. “I just learned the Chinese ordered the warship to return home. Our secretary of state has demanded an explanation.”
“And how far has that gotten you?” Harrison asked, turning to the secretary of state.
“No response yet.” The secretary rubbed his wrist. “But we’re working on it.”
“Meanwhile,” the national director of intelligence said, “a Russian brigade supported by tanks blitzkrieged yesterday out from Kaliningrad along the sixty-mile border between Poland and Lithuania, and you’ve again done nothing.”
“Problem solved.” Taylor called on her secretary of state.
“We received word this morning,” the secretary said. “The Russians explained it as a military exercise gone wrong. Their troops are on the way back to Kaliningrad.”
“I respectfully disagree, Madam President,” objected General Klaine. “They’re testing us. The Chinese have convinced the Russians to join them by using Oriental psychological warfare. Their feint-and-withdraw tactics are designed to mess with our heads when we’re vulnerable without a president. When they’ve demoralized and divided us enough, they’ll attack for real if we don’t hit back hard now.”
“No one else in the Pentagon is buying that theory,” she said. “The important point is that they’ve stood down.”
“And then there’s this,” the director of national intelligence said. He took out a document from his briefcase and handed it to her. “Several prominent neurologists observed you on television when you collapsed in the Oval Office. They concluded that you possibly suffered a stroke, potentially rendering you unfit for the office of president.”
“You know it’s unethical for physicians to diagno
se persons they never examined,” Taylor said. “The White House physician, Bert Gaines, did examine me and concluded that what I experienced was a transient ischemic attack, what’s called a TIA, with no residual effects.”
“You want us to take the word of Dr. Bert Gaines,” the director of national intelligence said, “a college boyfriend? How is he less biased?”
“Dr. Gaines is a friend and social companion. I’m in the unusual position of being an unmarried woman president. I needed to attend several public functions, and he was simply my escort.”
“You’re evading the issue,” Harrison said. “Do you have a romantic relationship with him?”
“Even if I had one, that’s none of your business.”
“What do you say about this?” Harrison held up a copy of the International Enquirer.
“I say your reading habits leave something to be desired.”
“Do you deny an intimate relationship?”
“I said all I’m going to say.”
“Let’s not get sidetracked,” the director of national intelligence said, shooting a frown at his colleagues. “A TIA significantly increases your odds of getting a full-blown stroke.”
“You boys are a few pickles short of a barrel if you think I’m going to resign because of this,” she said. “I’m not disabled and even if I were, you can’t make me resign without the concurrence of a vice president. And we don’t have a vice president. You won’t remove me under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment because you can’t.”
“That’s not all we have,” Harrison said, looking over at Senex.
Sebastian Senex felt his restraint at an end. She had taken over Promethean Pharma and humiliated him on all the news networks. The news clips of him being escorted out of his office by US Marshals when he refused to cooperate with the occupation of his company had gone viral. No matter the outcome of his judicial appeal, the media humiliation cried out for revenge. He could never forget or forgive Dallas Taylor. He would have to play his ace in the hole.
American Conspiracy Page 24
