He had been around Marco and the Taylor Street ethnics long enough to understand some Italian words flying between the stranger and his partner. The diplomat had met Marco at the Italian police academy before joining the Italian secret service. He reached the pinnacle of that cloak-and-dagger career by exposing the CIA’s kidnapping of Muslims on Italian streets in broad daylight with the collusion of higher-ups. For his unwelcome vigilance, they put Marco’s friend out to pasture as a security attaché at the Italian embassy in Cuba. The yellow bow tie would have been reason enough for the tropical exile.
Their host ushered them into a conference room of cinnamon-colored wood glistening with lacquer. A waiter appeared with three wineglasses of Aperol Spritz. The attaché lifted his glass in a salute toast before huddling with Marco in rapid-fire Italian.
From what he understood, Marco and the attaché were catching up on old times. Marco switched to English to discuss his idea for countering the double-cross by their double agent. The attaché’s face lit up when he heard the idea. “Un momento,” he said. The attaché and the butterfly on his throat flew off to another room.
“My idea advances,” Marco said.
“You only got to first base.”
“How is that?”
“It’s like you told me. Never promise the sun before it rises.”
While Marco flipped through a newspaper, Jim examined a mosaic of chocolate-brown wood chips set into a wall of cinnamon-colored wood. A mosaic of Che Guevara in his beret and beard kept watch over the room with brooding eyes. He had been a detective long enough not to wonder whether the dark-chocolate eyes concealed electronic surveillance.
“It is done,” the attaché said in English. He looked at the Che Guevara image and lowered his voice. “The ambassador approves.”
The attaché took them to the foyer where he explained the Italian embassy would facilitate a meeting between the Cuban Intelligence Directorate, commonly known as G2, and the detectives. A G2 agent would contact them at the Hotel Capri where they stayed if the Cubans wished to discuss a deal. The G2 wanted the attaché to inform the foreigners that Cuba might do this only as a favor to the Italian government and not for the Yanquis. Whatever, Murphy thought, as long as we get our man and go home.
“The ambassador received this daily news summary from Rome,” the attaché said with a smile. “It concerns the commissario.” He handed it to Marco.
Marco’s face grew somber.
“Who died?” Jim asked.
“I have been appointed chief of police . . . the questore . . . for Rome.”
In a White House medical examination room, Dr. Bert Gaines laid the medical report from Walter Reed hospital on the crash cart.
“The MRI confirms you had a stroke. There’s a small lesion in your temporal lobe.”
“Is there some way—”
“To spin this?” He came to the examination table where Dallas Taylor sat with legs dangling over the side. “No, my dear. You can’t spin this. You’re lucky to be alive.”
He caressed her cheek.
Does he want an answer?
“One last check before I hand you over to another doc.” He winked. “I’m much too involved to be yours.” He took off his navy-blue jacket. “Close your eyes and raise both arms.”
She raised her right arm to almost the same level as the left one. Hope surged. She was still in the game.
“Good,” he said. “Hold your arms out and resist while I push them up and down.”
She resisted with all her strength. She hated losing, whatever the game. Her right arm gave way earlier than she expected. “Not so good, right?”
“A little better.” He took her right hand and splayed the fingers, stretching them one way and then another. “The finger curling’s almost gone. How’s your hand?”
“The chill’s gone but still a little numb. I can write with it.”
“Your speech?”
“Back to normal.”
“Really?” He raised his eyebrows. “That’s not the White House scuttlebutt.”
“I get tired reading and don’t always find the right words. So what? I can do without the fancy words.”
“Too bad, Dallas, but your duties require a lot of reading and fancy words.” He took out his iPad. “I’m making a note to have a speech-language pathologist see you.”
“Everything will get back to normal . . . eventually . . . right?”
“For the next three months at least, you’ll need intensive rehabilitation.”
“I can work that into my schedule.”
“I don’t think you should continue as president.” He folded his arms. “You’re at high risk for another stroke. You’ve been letting yourself go. You need medication for your cholesterol. You have an irregular heartbeat. And, to top it off, there’s a small aneurysm, or bulge, in your abdominal aorta. If that rips open . . . well, I don’t have to spell it out.”
“What’s your answer?” he asked.
“I want to be president.”
“That’s not the question I asked you at Walter Reed.”
“I want to marry you. But I also want to be president.”
“And I want to marry you.” He put his jacket back on. “But I don’t want to be a first gentleman . . . lounging around the White House . . . worried about a wife who ignores her husband’s medical advice.”
“The country needs me.”
“The cemeteries are full of needed people.” He walked to the door. “And the country sure doesn’t need a dead or disabled president.”
“Think it over, Bert.”
“I have. Me or the White House.”
Chapter Seventy-Three
Marco Leone and Jim Murphy finished dinner in the Hotel Capri restaurant. With no contact from the Cuban Intelligence Directorate, they decided to cut their losses and leave the island the following morning before the Cubans arrested them. Operation Big Shoulders had morphed into Operation Bummer. Jim waved good night as Marco entered his room down the hall. He then opened the door to his own room. In the dark, a window air conditioner sputtered its death throes.
A table lamp switched on.
An intruder wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap sat in the corner. About to light a cigar, he asked, “May I?”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I assume that’s a no.” He put the cigar down. “Let’s say I’m called”—he touched his forefinger to his lips—“Hmmm. Raoul . . . or Roberto if you like.”
“You’re from G2.”
“Possibly.” He raised a folder. “You’ve had quite an up-and-down career, Detective Murphy. My condolences for your son’s death.” He placed the folder down. “Not surprising. Your country is known for its violent crime.”
Bryan had warned him that Cuban spies knew their trade.
“Why are you here?”
“I’d rather not be. I don’t like Uncle Sam.”
“You sure like his baseball caps.”
The Cuban agent scowled.
Murphy took a chair and placed it opposite the intruder’s. “Down to business.” He sat backward facing the Cuban over the rear of the chair. He refused to be cowed by the intelligence agency’s intimate knowledge of him. “We want Sebastian Senex returned for trial.”
“And you want us to just hand him over?”
“What do you want in return?”
“We want Edel Montez.”
The feds had caught the Cuban spy working at the National Security Agency. They gave him an early retirement in federal prison.
“I don’t have authority to exchange him.”
“Then I’m wasting my time.”
“Even if I could, how do I arrange that from Cuba?”
“Use that.” The agent pointed to the telephone. “It’ll be charged to your room. Uncle Sam alway
s has money for foreign meddling.”
Murphy dialed his brother with the private number Bryan had given him. Bryan had emphasized that President Taylor would do her utmost to bring Senex back. When Bryan heard of his brother’s plight, he promised to contact the president and call back within the hour.
“Thanks, bro.” Jim hung up. “My brother said—”
“We already know.” The agent smiled. “I was told to wait for the answer.”
“Your big brother knows all,” Murphy said. “How comforting.”
“I understand why you want Senex. For murder in Chicago. But why does the FBI?”
“Economic and environmental crimes.”
“What did you expect? He’s a success in your robber-baron system.”
“I’m not here to argue politics.” He checked to confirm the presence of the return airline ticket in the nightstand drawer. “Why do you guys always blame us for your problems? We left seventy years ago.”
“You understand nothing. You don’t know how my peasant parents lived before the revolution.” The agent put the dossier on Murphy back into his briefcase and sighed. “The problem is you never left. You remain stuck in our national consciousness like a chicken bone in the throat.”
“Whoa.” Murphy held up his hand. “Let’s stick to business.”
The Cuban sulked while they waited for Bryan’s call. Murphy killed time by leafing through a tourist magazine as the minutes dragged on. The background Afro-Cuban jazz from the rooftop band stopped for an intermission. That meant an hour had now gone by without Bryan’s call.
Had his brother abandoned him again?
The agent received a call that woke him out of his doze.
“Here’s the situation,” the Cuban said afterward. “If the deal goes through, we give you the location of Senex. You wait a day before you come for him. There is no need for force. It will be arranged to appear you Yankees kidnapped him.”
“Why wait a day?”
The agent hesitated before answering.
“His daughter is coming tomorrow.”
Murphy put two and two together. “Wow. She brings protection money and you guys—”
“Betray him. Is that what you think?” The agent took off his Yankees cap and fanned himself. He put the cap back on. “Whatever you call it, you are responsible with your embargo. We are a proud people who will do whatever we must to live as we wish.” He shrugged. “And you are a proud people who will do whatever you must to make us live the way you wish.”
“Why do you hate us so?”
“I don’t hate you. And I don’t love you. I both hate and love you Americans.”
The telephone rang. He heard his brother’s voice say, “It’s a go.”
Vice President David Chang stood in the doorway of the Oval Office.
“You can beat this, Ms. President,” said Emily James sitting next to Dallas Taylor on an Oval Office sofa.
Her friend’s encouragement simmered her competitive juices.
The press secretary nodded. “The optics are doable.”
“Don’t be shy, David. Enter.” She waved him in, to any empty chair next to the sofa. “Any thoughts about this political mess, Mr. Vice President?”
Chang sat down. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. “Excuse me. I arrived late last night.” He replaced the glasses and said, “The situation reminds me of President Truman. When he ran in 1948, the polls were against him in a four-person election. The pundits predicted he’d lose, but he didn’t.”
“Exactly,” said Emily. “Truman was a bigger comeback kid than Bill Clinton.”
“I can see it now,” said the White House communications director. “We wage a Trumanesque give-’em-hell campaign against the do-nothing Republicans in the House. Teddy Roosevelt had his Square Deal. FDR had his New Deal. And Truman his Fair Deal. What you need, Madam President, is a Real Deal campaign slogan.”
“John Kerry already used Real Deal.” Emily wrinkled her nose. “Kerry lost.”
“Hold on you.” She waved her hand. “You all are counting your chickens before they hatch. They want to boot me out with the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, not an election.”
She eyed Chang to see if he’d pledge his undying loyalty and say I’ll refuse to concur with the cabinet in declaring you unable to perform your duties of office, no matter what your medical records show. He remained silent. Hurt erupted inside her at his failure to say anything. She checked herself in time before venting her pique.
“You’re right, Madam President. Your medical condition is the immediate problem.” Chang looked down, shaking his head. “Your advisors and I don’t like prying.” He looked back up. “But if we want to hatch those chickens, we’d better know your medical condition for an effective response.”
“The medical records before I became vice president are off limits. Period.” She grabbed the edge of the sofa with her right hand to prevent the fingers from curling. “I should have the same medical privacy as every other citizen.” She didn’t have to hang out her teenage abortion like dirty linen for the whole world to poke their noses into.
“Then what about the Walter Reed test results?” Emily asked.
“I’ve been thinking hard about that.” She had almost lashed out at David Chang because of irrational suspicions about his loyalty. What has come over me? She had kept the depth of her medical condition to herself. It wasn’t fair to David or her staff.
Her fear was that David wouldn’t equate the good of a friend with that of the country. She was ashamed of her fear, but there it was. And this integrity was a key reason she had picked him for vice president in the first place. He was the same person as always. Was she? They said it was the stroke, and the mood swings would tend to fade away. The word tend worried her.
An aide broke in with news. A super PAC and individuals fronting for Sebastian Senex were running ads and preparing a lawsuit to challenge her qualifications to be president. They claimed she failed to meet the minimum age qualification of thirty-five years under the Constitution.
“It’s the Obama birther issue all over again in another form,” the White House communications director said. “It won’t hold up. Bryan Murphy at Justice agrees.”
Chang added, “You clearly were thirty-five when the House voted you in as president. I don’t see the relevancy of your age when you occupied a temporary caretaker position until the House election of a president.”
“No so fast.” The press secretary tapped a pen against his lips. “Sure, a court might dismiss the lawsuit. But for some, President Taylor has to be an illegitimate president. They can’t accept that an African American woman could have attained the highest office in the land. Obama had to fight the issue over and over again.” He stuck the pen in the breast pocket of his jacket. “Don’t underestimate its dog-whistle appeal.”
“They’re going to drag the names of my mama and papa through the mud. They’re going to say my parents bribed the midwife, they committed fraud on the birth certificate, probably murdered the midwife before they’re through.”
She shook her head. A sob came up uninvited from her chest. She pulled herself together. “I know what I’m going to do.” She had to be careful. If she gave her emotions free rein, she might have another stroke.
“You’re going to produce your test results, right?” the White House communications director said. “Good decision. Once they’re public we can do damage control. Otherwise it looks like you’re hiding something.”
“I’m going to resign as president of the United States.”
“Why on earth?” asked the director of communications.
“You’ll understand once you see my hospital test results. I had a stroke.”
“We already suspected something like that. The message can be massaged,” the director of communications said, “before t
he results go public.”
“Still in shock, I see.” She looked at them all. “I’ve had it. The stroke has forced me, kicking and screaming, to look at myself. I simply have to admit I’m not up to the job anymore. The public isn’t going to want another Woodrow Wilson in the White Home . . . I mean House.”
She burned with embarrassment at an erroneous choice of words that her advisors pretended not to notice.
“Fact is I do want to go home . . . back to Texas.”
The director of communications cleared his throat. The press secretary studied his fingers. Their silence told her they understood her decision whatever their objections.
“Consider this,” Chang said. “The Twenty-Fifth Amendment allows me to be acting president until you are capable of resuming your duties as president.”
“That’s kind of you, David. But when you see the medical records and talk to Dr. Gaines, you’ll find my disabilities are serious and probably going to last beyond my term of office.”
“That means, Ms. President, I shall become president once you resign.”
“Exactly as I intend.” She patted his hand. “The United States could not be in better hands.”
The chief of staff waited until the men left the Oval Office.
“In my bones, I knew this would happen.” Emily James hugged her best friend. “Good for you, Dallas. Get out of this pressure cooker and get well.” Tears fell down her cheeks. “Without you here, I don’t know what I’m going to do next.”
“How’d you like to be my bridesmaid?”
Chapter Seventy-Four
Sebastian Senex, who would live forever, lay dying within the walls of a plaster-peeling bedroom in a seedy part of Havana. Sunlight streamed through warped window shutters. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. He was supposed to have the best medical talent money could buy. Their only task would be to keep him young.
American Conspiracy Page 30
