“Resign,” Sebastian Senex said.
Everyone at the table faced him.
“Why should I?”
“Let me give you another reason,” Senex said, going over to the table and sitting down. “Your birth certificate.”
“My what?” Taylor’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened. “Are you going to push the fake news I wasn’t born in the United States? That didn’t work in the Obama years, and it won’t work now.”
“Let me tell you a fairy tale.” Senex eased back in the seat and wrapped his hands around the back of his head. “There once was a girl born by midwife in a backwater town in Texas. Her parents had the midwife, who now lives in Austin, backdate the birth certificate by a year . . . in return for a little sweetener, of course.
“By affidavit the midwife claimed the parents did so because of a fierce desire for their girl to succeed in becoming the female Michael Jackson. To do that they needed her to meet minimum age requirements to enter tap-dancing contests around the country at the earliest opportunity.”
“Where are you going with this?” she asked.
“It’s truly a fairy tale of Cinderella proportions.” Senex touched his fingertips together. “The girl became a tap-dancing wonder, then a lawyer, a TV judge, a member of the House of Representatives, a senator, a vice-presidential candidate . . . and now an accidental president who is acting until a real one takes over any day now.”
Senex passed copies of the birth certificate and the midwife’s affidavit around the table.
“Why are you whistling up the wind?” Taylor fingered the birth certificate. “You’re going after my parents for lying about my birth. You can’t. They’re dead.”
“We’re going after you.” Senex pointed his finger straight out at her. “The Constitution requires a vice president and president to be at least thirty-five years of age.” Senex waved a copy of the Constitution. “You weren’t thirty-five when you became an accidental president.”
She bit her lower lip.
“What do you have to say?” Harrison asked.
She stiffened up as if struck. “Even if this document is genuine,” she said and stopped for a moment. She placed her hand on her throat and removed it. “I had absolutely no idea my parents had done this.”
“That’s what you would say,” Senex said.
“Prove I knew.”
“Let us stay on track,” the national director of intelligence cut in. “It’s irrelevant either way. Your state of mind has nothing to do with the objective age requirement set out in the Constitution.”
Taylor sprang from her chair and went over to the fireplace. She looked at the fading embers while wringing her hands and found the answer in the embers. She returned to the table. “Let me finish your fairy tale, Mr. Senex, with an omitted fact. I turned thirty-five a week ago.”
She returned to her seat and looked Senex in the eye. “I am now thirty-five and eligible to be president.”
“You weren’t thirty-five when you took office.” Senex’s voice rasped. “It doesn’t matter how old you are now.”
“We’ll see what my acting attorney general says about that.”
“She’s wrong, isn’t she?” Senex nudged the director of national intelligence.
The director shrugged. “It’s for the courts. But I have to wonder why anyone would drag their parents through the mud.”
“I beg you to resign,” Harrison said. “Spare the nation a legal battle over this. Look at the facts. Chicago is in flames and you won’t call out the National Guard. Our foreign enemies are circling us in the middle of a perfect storm of constitutional crises.”
“I wanted to be president of the United States,” she said in a whisper, slumping her shoulders, “to take necessary action. I knew it would be hard. But you have all made things much harder. I never expected to see the den of vipers we have become.”
“Then resign,” Senex demanded.
Chapter Sixty-One
“What are you doing here?” Bryan Murphy’s jaw went slack. “You’re the guy who didn’t want to see me.” He put down the corned beef sandwich he bought at the Berghoff Cafe in O’Hare International Airport. “Now that you’re here, have a seat.”
“I’ll stand.” Jim Murphy clutched the back of a chair across from Bryan. “Katie said you had something to say.”
“Jim, do you think he knew?”
“Do I think Senex knew what?”
“Not Senex.” Bryan wiped his hand with the napkin. “Dad.”
“Sis promised you’d talk only about Senex . . . not your father.”
“Our father.”
“That’s not what the DNA says.”
“You were always his favorite.”
“Until he turned on me.”
“He always loved you, but he had a vision problem. When he looked at you, he saw the commander.” Bryan wrapped the sandwich remainder in a to-go bag. “Our dad had a hard time living in the present.”
“Another word about your father and I’m gone.” Jim noticed a man looking at them from two tables over. Lowering his voice, he gave a nod in the man’s direction. “Know that guy?”
“FBI security.” Bryan lifted his small glass of dark beer in a mock toast. “I’ve been promoted to acting attorney general.” He took a drink of water from a plastic cup. “It comes with the territory.”
“I can read the newspapers about your promotion,” Jim said, waving away a waiter asking if he wanted anything. “Pin a rose on you . . . as Mom would say.”
“Don’t go prickly on me just because you didn’t make commander.”
“Kiss my tuchus.” Katie had blabbed about another of his failures. He about-faced and strode back down the concourse away from Berghoff’s.
A hand gripped his shoulder.
If he stopped and turned, things could get ugly. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t hear what Bryan might have to say about Senex. He turned. “Stick to business. I only want to hear what you have on Senex . . . and no more needling.”
“Agreed. I’m sorry you took offense.”
“Sure you are.” He motioned to a couple of unoccupied plastic bucket chairs at the nearby United Airlines gate. “Let’s talk there . . . and stick to Senex.”
Bryan laid out how DEA agents during a routine raid of a Sinaloa-funded meth lab in Texas had found an ephedrine stash. Similar raids in the southwest also uncovered other large quantities. The meth labs were about to close for lack of the drug. As if by magic, they now had all the ephedrine they needed. During the latest raid, DEA agents extracted an invoice from the mouth of a Sinaloa chemist before he could swallow it. The invoice showed the ephedrine came from a subsidiary company controlled by Promethean Pharma.
“This is tip of the iceberg,” Bryan said. “I thought you’d like to know.”
Bryan’s account confirmed Outfit rumors that Jim had wrongly discounted as vendetta badmouthing of Promethean Pharma and the Sinaloa cartel.
“Why are you telling me this?” Jim asked. “Senex gave you your break as general counsel for Promethean Pharma. Why turn on him?”
“I have my reasons.” He pulled a roller carry-on closer to his seat. “My question is why you came if you thought I was in Senex’s pocket?”
“Even thieves fall out.” Jim looked at a plane taking off outside the window. “That’s the only reason.”
“Sure it is.” Bryan reached for his roller carry-on. “You’re going to get a lot more dirt on Senex, bro.”
“Half bro.”
“Whatever.” Bryan opened the carry-on and pulled out a directive he had issued to the FBI.
After reading it, Jim scratched his head. “So you’re really going full bore against the old bastard. I wouldn’t have believed it.” He was going to shake Bryan’s hand but pulled away. Too many teasing pranks and put-downs for that. “Ti
me to level. Why did you turn on Senex?”
“Let me count the ways.” Bryan shook his head. “He wouldn’t stop pressuring me to take a dive on litigation involving Promethean Pharma.” He paused to check the flight-information monitor. “He even fantasized I might influence you to back off the murder rap against him.” Bryan scoffed. “Shows how little he knows.”
“I have to thank you for the information.”
“No thanks needed. Strictly business, remember?” He checked the airline ticket in his breast pocket. “I’m doing this not just because it helps bring down Senex. It advances my goal of being appointed attorney general, instead of just an acting one . . . and then who knows?”
“Upward and onward.” Jim shook his head. “That’s you alright . . . but thanks anyway. You didn’t have to give it to me.”
“It’s not about you.” Bryan raised the retractable handle for his roller carry-on. “The man’s a menace to the United States.”
“Welcome to the anti-Senex fan club.”
“I have a favor to ask.”
“I might have known.”
“Surprised? We’re from Bridgeport, ain’t we?” Bryan snickered, holding on to his carry-on handle. “This is only the beginning. I know a lot about Senex and the way he operates. I’m willing to share.” He ran his free hand over his slick black hair. “All I want is to make your CPD investigation of Senex in Chicago part of a joint task force with the FBI.”
“Whoa, pal.” Jim sprang from his seat. “I do that and the FBI will hog all the credit. The Fibbies have burned us too many times.”
“Not this time . . . not with your brother overseeing things.”
“How can I trust you? You went off with your buddies when the neighborhood bully beat the crap out of me.” He rubbed his hands down his sides. “When did you ever look out for me?”
Final boarding call for United Airlines Flight 1633 to Washington, DC.
“Are you going to live in the past like him?” Bryan got up from his seat. “You were always his favorite. Remember when the three of us got tight at the local tavern. You and I traded some punches and you ran off. The old man ran after you to see if you were hurt. Never asked about me.”
“Whaddaya talking about?” Jim walked beside him to the gate. “You always got the grades. He was proud of you. I can’t forget how he turned on me when he found out about the affair.”
“But he and I were never close . . . not like you and him . . . until he turned on you.”
“You and I were never close either, you know.”
“How could we be? I excelled in school to get his attention but still hadn’t until he became demented. Great compliment, no? You got it without trying while he had all his marbles.” He got into line to board. “Why are we bickering over the past? Do you want to live there?” Bryan held out his hand. “Want to get closer?”
Jim took the hand and shook it. Not Bryan’s usual bone-crusher grip. “I’m in, bro.” He walked away a few feet and stopped to ask, “What’s our joint operation called?”
“Let’s call it . . .” Bryan caught himself and smiled. “You name it, bro.”
“Me? Something wrong with you today?” Jim cracked a return smile. “I name it Operation Big Shoulders.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
From the stage President Dallas Taylor squinted at the sunlit gold buttons of West Point cadets seated in white trousers and white bandoliers over gray jackets. On this, their graduation day, they sat up ramrod straight with military parade hats on their knees and eyes trained on her.
The earlier discovery of an explosive device where she now stood to deliver the West Point commencement address had Secret Service agents turning the stadium upside down in the search for others. They found none . . . at least none they could detect. The agents fingered white supremacists, neo-Nazis, or radical skinheads as the probable culprits.
Myriad hate groups and individuals had communicated to her their assassination threats if she did not resign. Any one of them could be responsible for the device. She had already received as many death threats as most modern presidents in their entire first term. Until now, no actual attempt had been made.
This attempt, however, crossed a red line. Every twisted copycat in the country would be out to assassinate her. The assassination of her running mate, Franklin Dexter Walker, had blooded the political waters. The predators would rise from dark depths in their frenzy to take her down.
The assortment of bigots and nutjobs and political fanatics worried her less than the disciplined phalanx of military brass seated on the dais behind her. Her spine tingled with the thought of their hostile glares drilling into her back. Many distrusted her administration and disliked her unorthodox entry into the Oval Office.
But they were ambitious military men familiar with the fine art of being political while not appearing so. The uncertain extent of their displeasure fermented below the surface of the DC political swamp. The ambiguity of the forces against her and how far they might go to expel her from the White House worried her. She would not let it panic her into paranoia.
About to speak, she turned to an aide rushing onstage to report a military unit had stationed itself near the White House. She pulled herself together at this puzzling news. The commander claimed the unit was ordered there to protect the White House against a bomb threat and would remain in place for twenty-four hours. Something wasn’t right.
Would they bar her from reentering the White House on some pretext when she returned to DC? Like the landlord did to her parents when the rent was overdue? She took deep breaths and reined in her suspicions. She’d see what actually happened when she returned to the White House.
Unfettered imagination was indispensable for artists but an unreliable guide for politicians. The fate of the republic might come down to the sober decisions of an African American woman, the descendant of slaves in that same republic, navigating the ship of state through the treacherous narrows of political upheaval and constitutional turmoil.
Have I made the right decision? Is it what LBJ would have done?
Taylor released her death grip on the lectern and stood tall for her commencement address. After a perfunctory recognition of the VIPs in attendance, she followed the tradition of using presidential authority to pardon West Point cadets for their minor disciplinary infractions.
She tried joking that she could have used such a pardon for antics she had committed in college. Few responded to the warm-up line that had worked for past presidents. The country was as tense as a trapeze wire about to snap. And she was doing the high-wire act on stage without a net with many wondering if she would jump off or be pushed.
When Taylor turned the page of her text, Sebastian Senex and General H. A. Harrison, about to be fired when she returned to DC, slipped through the stage wing into two chairs to the immediate left of the lectern. Harrison and Senex came to preside over her humiliation. A West Point alumnus, General Harrison had turned cadets and faculty against her. The military academy would have canceled her appearance if she hadn’t already accepted its invitation to deliver the commencement address.
She and Senex made eye contact for a moment before breaking away. His eyes told her what he expected as she began her speech.
She spoke of political courage as a virtue that no republic could survive without. Most often courage was equated with playing one’s cards even with a deck stacked against you. Often overlooked, she said, peeking down at her text, was another aspect of courage pointed out by the songwriter Kenny Rogers, useful advice for politicians as well as card players: the courage of knowing when to fold them. There was, for example, the courage of LBJ in refusing to run for reelection when he had become a divisive figure in the country.
Senex and Harrison smirked.
She wanted to rub the smirks off their faces.
She wandered more and more from her set sp
eech with increasing passion and improvisation. When asked what type of constitution the framers had devised, she reminded her audience that Benjamin Franklin had replied: “A republic if you can keep it.”
She implored the cadets to shun the purveyors of political gloom and doom, the pessimists, the naysayers who panic in times of crisis and yearn for the rule of a strongman over the rule of law. Even as we talk here, she said, the House of Representatives has elected a new Speaker.
“The new Speaker has taken charge, and she is ready to take a vote that, according to my best sources, is practically certain to give us the next president of the United States within days. We don’t need anyone on a white horse to ride in and save this country. We only need the House of Representatives to do its job.”
She clung to the glimmer of hope in a call from her acting attorney general, Bryan Murphy.
He and his brother were on their way to a hearing conducted by the Senate Committee on Finance. Armed with a search warrant for Promethean Pharma headquarters, a joint task force of the FBI and the Chicago Police Department called Operation Big Shoulders had uncovered reams of documentary evidence incriminating Sebastian Senex in kidnapping and murder in collusion with Chicago criminal elements and in the distribution of illegal drugs in collusion with the Sinaloa cartel. The evidence revealed a lurid type of blood procedure inflicted on kidnapped victims by a neofascist named Dr. Angelo Mora for whose death an Illinois grand jury had been summoned. She expected more complete information when she met the Murphy brothers after her return to DC.
Exhorting the cadets to go forth and learn the lessons of leadership while mastering the complicated machinery of modern warfare, she recited the motto of West Point . . . Duty . . . Honor . . . Country . . . while conflicting thoughts raced through her mind.
“Go forth and pledge your lives, your fortunes, and your sacred honor for the good of the United States.”
Do it or don’t do it for the good of the United States?
American Conspiracy Page 25
