Headwind (2001)

by John J. Nance

  John Harris could see Jay’s expression darken, and their eyes met momentarily as Jay looked at the President, his mind consumed by a new wave of worry.

  “Jay and I need to talk, Mr. Garrity, before we continue,” the President said.

  “Indeed,” Garrity replied, puzzled at the sudden chill in the room. Sherry, too, looked off-balance.

  “John,” Jay said. “I think we may need to include everyone in this.” He met John Harris’s eyes again as the President stared at him. “Michael, here, has to defend you, and Sherry and Matt are integral parts of the team. I think everyone has a need to know.”

  “What are you talking about, Jay?” Sherry asked.

  The President had begun to get to his feet, but he sank back onto the edge of the chair with a long sigh and nodded. “Very well, Jay. You’re probably right.”

  “Jay, what’s going on?” Sherry pressed, looking from the President to Jay and back.

  “What’s going on, Sherry,” the President began, “is an allegation that Stuart Campbell dropped like a small bomb in the London Magistrate Court

  . Go on, Jay.”

  Jay described in detail Campbell’s assertion that CIA covert operations chief Barry Reynolds had briefed the President in the Oval Office and warned him that the people they were about to hire to carry out the planned Peruvian drug raid would most likely maim and torture anyone they found before killing them.

  “And you approved this as an official act?” Michael Garrity asked evenly.

  “Absolutely not!” John Harris said. “I mean . . . all right, look here. What happened was entirely different. Reynolds had been working the case personally and reporting directly to the DCI, who was reporting to me.”

  “I’m sorry?” Michael replied.

  “DCI. The Director of Central Intelligence,” the President responded. “Anyway, I received word that we were at a critical juncture in this search-and-destroy mission, and Reynolds needed to brief me personally. I recall thinking that it was an odd request, since usually the DCI or his direct deputy do such briefings.”

  “So Mr. Reynolds did come to the Oval Office?” Jay asked.

  John Harris sighed and nodded. “Yes, he did. There were times when such off-the-record meetings were necessary. We even have them occasionally with members of the military. No time record kept, no names on the appointment calendar. Nothing to indicate it ever occurred, for national security reasons as well as political reasons.”

  “I see,” Garrity said, his eyes locked on the President. “You call it plausible deniability, if I’m to believe Hollywood.”

  “That’s not too far from the real phrase,” Harris continued. “Okay, so I received Reynolds, he was there on schedule, and the Secret Service slipped him in the west door to the Oval. Matt? Were you the agent on duty that day?”

  “No, sir. I’ve . . . brought individuals in through that door, but I don’t recall that one,” he said with great care, his normal unreadable expression changing ever so slightly.

  “Well, that’s how it was done. Reynolds . . . and I recall this very, very clearly because of my utter shock when I got the report later on the bloodbath that had transpired . . . Reynolds told me that they had a team ready to go in and raid the drug factory and destroy it. We knew we could not use Americans, expatriates or otherwise. We needed mercenaries, and that’s what he had found. I asked him if they were militarily trained, and he assured me that they were trained and disciplined and veterans with formal military experience essentially gone bad. He assured me they would stick to their orders, kill only if unavoidable, and that they would thoroughly understand that their target was the factory, not the people who worked there. I knew there were campesinos . . . peasants . . . pressed into service in such places. But we had to stop the flow.”

  “So you approved the raid?” Jay asked.

  “Yes. As Commander-in-Chief, and ultimate head of special operations and every other government function. I had to act. The flow of their heroin into the U.S. was reaching epidemic proportions, and an incredible percentage was coming out of that very facility, and the exiting government under Fujimori was doing absolutely nothing.”

  “But, John,” Jay interrupted, “the most important point is this: Did Reynolds in any way, form, or fashion indicate to you that the mercenaries you would be authorizing him to hire would torture or murder the workers?”

  “No, he did not. In fact, as I’ve already said, he assured me they would follow orders. And my orders were to do no harm to the workers and to kill only in self-defense.”

  “Then,” Jay continued, his eyes welded on John Harris, “why does Stuart Campbell allege that Barry Reynolds made a videotape of that meeting, a tape that shows the opposite?”

  John Harris thrust his arms wide open in a sweeping gesture of frustration.

  “I DON’T KNOW! Dammit, Jay, do you have any idea what an accusation like that does to me? I know I’m not suffering from Alzheimer’s like poor Ronnie Reagan. So far I remember things clearly, thank the Lord, and I know for an absolute fact that there can be no such video or audio evidence because this President never . . . repeat, never . . . listened to any such representations from Reynolds. I mean, you couldn’t even read that into his words between the lines, because I specifically asked him if he was sure they wouldn’t go overboard!”

  Jay was nodding. “I demanded a copy of the tape.”

  “And?” John Harris snapped, his breathing accelerated and his face reddened.

  “And Campbell never delivered it, which was in part, I’m sure, because neither of us stayed in London long enough.”

  “We need a copy of that tape, I’m afraid,” Michael Garrity said.

  “Damn right we do!” John Harris said. “I mean, in the first place, the incredible act of claiming to have taped a conversation in the Oval with the President of the United States is ridiculous enough.”

  “You know, when . . . people were brought in that way,” Matt interjected, “we usually knew precisely who they were, and although we would pat them down, we wouldn’t run them through the metal detector.”

  “Meaning?” Jay asked.

  “Meaning, it’s not impossible that a known CIA chief could come through the door with a hidden camera wired to him. It’s not something you’d expect.”

  John Harris looked Jay in the eye, speaking slowly. “If there is a tape that has any words spoken by Reynolds or myself that vary from what I just told you, it has been electronically fabricated or altered.”

  Jay nodded slowly. “It’s entirely possible. But how do we prove it?”

  “Indeed,” Michael Garrity said, his eyes on the far wall as he stroked his chin. “A tape like that at a full-blown trial can be challenged, but in a hearing like this . . .”

  “It can be challenged here,” Sherry said, coming partially out of her chair, her eyes wide. “Remember the Rodney King thing? Those police officers were beating the hell out of the man on camera, in living color, and the defense team somehow fuzzed it up to the point of an acquittal. Who’s going to believe a ridiculous fake like this?”

  “That’s loyalty talking, Sherry, for which I’m grateful,” the President said sadly.

  “He’s right, Miss Lincoln,” Garrity added. “A tape like that in front of a judge at this stage is going to be very difficult to challenge.”

  “Can’t we attack it as illegally made and therefore inadmissible?” Jay asked.

  “Perhaps, but that’s entirely up to the judge, and you’re dealing with a bizarre combination of things, a U.S. President, the White House, a CIA chief, and I’m not certain that even a U.S. court could so easily declare such a tape patently inadmissible. Keep in mind that you told me Reynolds was a respected senior officer of Central Intelligence.”

  “So, if Campbell produces it in court in Dublin, it would be a problem?” Jay asked.

  “No,” Michael Garrity said, carefully choosing his words. “No, Jay, it wouldn’t be a problem. For what we’re trying
to do, it would be a disaster.”

  The Shelbourne Hotel, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, Ireland

  Stuart Campbell finished the last call he had to make and opened the window overlooking St. Stephen’s Green to clear his head.

  The temperature was moderate, if not balmy, and a light breeze rustled the curtains. He could almost feel the presence of the Four Courts building on Inns Quay bordering the River Liffey, unseen but less than a mile distant. There was something in the history of the structure that always affected him, a symbol of defiance on a level that his native Scotland had never achieved. The building had been left barely standing in the ruins of the Irish Civil War in April of 1922, a victim of shelling by pro-treaty forces that had all but collapsed the dome. The steely determination of the Irish had rebuilt it to be as much a symbol of the rule of law as the rule of the Republic, and the Four Courts had become the center of justice in the Republic.

  It would be the situs of the battle to come, and not the first for him. With the British and Irish legal systems essentially identical in form, he had been—as they expressed it—“called” before the Irish bar as a barrister many years back in a case representing U.K. interests. It had been a thrill he would never discuss with his fellow English barristers, many of whom delighted in rolling their eyes at anything Irish.

  Campbell turned for a moment to watch the beehive of activity behind him. The Presidential Suite was only his central command post. Across the city, the main Dublin office of his law firm was ablaze with lights and a team of sixteen lawyers, secretaries, and clerks working feverishly on the sweeping assignment they’d been given: prepare every possible order for every possible court for every possible contingency.

  For the past hour, between his own phone calls to the home numbers of various highly placed individuals, Stuart had received disappointing progress reports on the quest for a judge. As he had feared, there seemed to be no district judge anywhere in the Republic of Ireland who could be persuaded to consider the warrant at home.

  “I thought we had it at one point,” Patrick had told him twenty minutes before. “Mr. Justice O’Mally, it was, and I caught him by cell phone in his back yard. He said we could bring the case to his home, and then he discovered the warrant concerned one John Harris, former President of the U.S.”

  “What happened?” Stuart asked.

  “Well, the exact words escape me because there was some sputtering and laughing on the other end . . . and a few epithets . . . but the gist of it was that I was certifiably crazy if I thought he was going to issue from home an arrest warrant against a past President of the United States, quote, ‘the greatest friend Ireland has ever had.’ At the minimum, he said, it would take a full-blown hearing and all the protections possible under Irish law, along with full statutory notice to the other party, and he would accept no waivers of the time requirements for notifying Harris’s team.”

  “That’s all?” Stuart laughed.

  “No, he was also personally incensed that I was trying to allege that a former U.S. President could really present a risk of flight. After that, Stuart, I bade him good night, since I figured our prospects for a favorable decision from him were, shall we say, somewhat reduced.”

  “I think the phrase you’re searching for, Paddy, is ‘snowball’s chance in hell.’ ”

  “Right. At best.”

  The search had continued, but the few who could be located were not interested in holding court in their parlor, with one judge unconvinced that a former president would try to sneak away, and another of the opinion that an escape would be the best possible solution.

  “It’s almost eleven,” Campbell announced as he walked back into the reception area of the suite that already resembled a war room. “I think we should suspend calling judges for tonight and concentrate on strategy until about two A.M., then all get some sleep and get started again around eight.” He sat down at the table, watching the faces around him. “Any thoughts?”

  “Good idea. We’ve accomplished nothing, sir,” one of the men said, looking at the senior partner. “Did you get anywhere?”

  “Yes,” Stuart replied, glancing at his notes before looking up. “And I wager that Mr. Harris and Mr. Reinhart are going to be in for a rather rude surprise in the morning if they do what I fully expect them to do.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  The Great Southern Hotel, Dublin Airport, Dublin, Ireland—

  Wednesday—12:20 A.M.

  It was past midnight when Jay Reinhart, Sherry Lincoln, and Michael Garrity left the President in his room, with Secret Service Agent Matt Ward camped out in a connecting room.

  In the hallway, Garrity bade them goodnight and headed for the stairway and his car, leaving Jay and Sherry to walk to the elevator alone.

  “I’m going to recheck those flights before going to sleep,” she said.

  Jay nodded. “The first one’s at ten?”

  “Yes. That’s the Aer Lingus flight.”

  “If they can’t get the warrant for an arrest here in Dublin, they’re not going to manage it by the time he gets to Shannon. We just need to get him to the airport around nine, not too early, not too late. We can buy the ticket quietly at that point. In theory, it should work. Without an arrest warrant, neither the Garda nor immigration has any justification for refusing him access to the flight.”

  “That makes sense,” she said. “I’ll wake him on time.”

  There was a bench seat opposite the elevators and they both sank onto it.

  “You look exhausted, Jay,” she said with a weary smile.

  He smiled back. “I am, but it’s as much from worry as real fatigue, I think. I . . . I just don’t want to screw this up.”

  “Me either,” she said, pausing awkwardly to look away at the elevators. “He’s a good man, Jay.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ve worked for him for four years, and he’s one of the most decent, thoughtful . . .”

  “Let me stop you, Sherry. I know all the superlatives, and I agree with all of them. We should . . . spend some time together telling each other John Harris stories when this is over,” he said with a laugh.

  She nodded. “I’d like that. It was a real comfort, by the way, hearing your voice so reassuring on the other end of the phone, especially during the first hours of this mess.”

  He laughed. “You wouldn’t have been reassured if you’d seen my alleged command post in Laramie, Wyoming.”

  “Oh?”

  “How about a kitchen counter with a land line and a cell phone and a bathrobe?”

  “A bathrobe?” she smiled, cocking her head.

  He hesitated, looking more directly into her eyes than he’d done before.

  She’s really beautiful, he thought, validating the first impression he’d refused to let himself pursue.

  “Yeah. A bathrobe,” he said. “It’s a long story.”

  “I may want to hear that story. Sounds edgy, practicing law in your bathrobe.”

  “Keeps the judges completely off-balance,” he chuckled, remembering the nearly fatal flight to Denver. “That was perhaps the most surreal experience I’ve ever had, trying to get on top of this situation for John from Laramie, trying to stay in touch, dealing with people at a level I’d never experienced.” The memory of his front door slamming when Linda left replayed momentarily, but he chased it from his thoughts.

  “You mean at the White House?” she asked.

  “Yes, and the State Department, and the Justice Department, not to mention the later encounter with the British Government. I’m still not so sure this isn’t some wild nightmare induced by an evening of debauchery at a Mexican restaurant.”

  “They have Mexican restaurants in Laramie?” she asked.

  “They think they do. Actually, it’s pretty good Tex-Mex.”

  “How is this going to end, Jay?”

  He locked eyes with her again, feeling another small flutter before realizing she was focused on John Harris, not him.

/>   “I wish I knew. If we can get him on the way home, you’ve got a public relations battle ahead as to why and how he left Ireland, I suppose.”

  “We can handle it. John Harris is well loved back home.”

  Jay nodded. “But if we can’t get him out of Dodge, this could end up an extended stay in Ireland, although I’m very confident Peru isn’t going to shoehorn him out of here.”

  “I guess that’s what I wanted to hear,” she said. “That you’re confident about the ultimate outcome.”