To Kill the President

by Sam Bourne

  The result was that she had not read the long profiles of Bob Kassian, or tuned into the Senate confirmation hearings for Jim Bruton. The new President had nominated them, and as far as Maggie was concerned, that was indictment enough.

  So now she dug into her laptop to see what she could see. Kassian first. Long-time party operative, brief spells in the corporate world, but otherwise a devoted servant and backroom player: his DC career had begun with stints serving as a legislative assistant and then legislative director to the senior senator from Ohio (who, Maggie noted, had been one of those slow to endorse the President during the primaries). Kassian had moved over to run party headquarters ahead of the last election cycle. They’d lost, but no one had blamed him. On the contrary, a New Yorker profile said he was widely credited with staunching the bleeding. ‘With Kassian, a certain catastrophe became a mere defeat.’

  He was solid and, truth be told, a little vanilla. He had never run for office himself, though there was, inevitably, some talk of him returning to his home state to seek the governor’s mansion once he was done at the White House. But he had never faced the relentless scrutiny of a campaign, a process which tended to flush out the full life story.

  The only point of genuine interest she could see, usually dispensed with in a paragraph or two, was that Kassian was a veteran. He had served in the army, 75th Ranger Regiment, after college, including a stint in Iraq during Desert Storm. There were plenty of boilerplate quotes – ‘It was a privilege to serve my nation …’ or ‘Those of us who have worn the nation’s uniform …’ – but no detail. She wondered if, given his skill set and later career, he had in fact only ever been a bureaucrat in khaki, confined to a desk in HQ. She had come across plenty like that in her time: the only weapon they’d fired in anger was a computer keyboard.

  The Secretary of Defense was much more of a known quantity. A Sunday talkshow favourite, General Bruton had been a key commander in the second Gulf War – though plenty suspected it was his record as a TV pundit rather than on the battlefield that had attracted the President’s attention. (As a rule, the President tended to appoint only those who were TV regulars: he did little to dispel the impression that his chief insight on the world, even now that he sat in the Oval Office, came not from intelligence briefings or his advisers or books or the expert opinion of the think tanks, or even from the quality press, but from talking heads sounding off in thirty-second soundbites on television.)

  Bruton too had had a brief spell in the boardroom and that gave Maggie an idea. She went back to the tab she’d left open with the fullest profile of Kassian, in the Wall Street Journal. She scanned her way through it till she reached the stint he’d had on the board of two companies before returning to politics. One was a pharmaceutical giant, the other a health insurer – both interests of his former boss in the Senate. Was this – medicine – the link to Frankel?

  Now she toggled to the equivalent article on Bruton. His corporate experience was more extensive; he’d been involved as a director or board member of several firms. Predictably, they were defence industry contractors, one a supplier of high-end GPS equipment, another related to ‘logistics’, while a third was one of those ‘Strategic Risk Assessment’ outfits that always struck Maggie as highly dubious – inhabiting the twilight between government intelligence and the profit-seekers of private industry. She was not naïve; she knew these two worlds were linked by a revolving door and that most of these companies were staffed by ex-military and ex-CIA men. But it never smelled right.

  She sat back and rubbed her eyes. She had hoped this area would yield the overlap between Kassian and Bruton that might somehow explain that late-night visit to Frankel and everything that followed. But she couldn’t see the connection.

  A buzz at the door. She checked her watch. It was late, later than Richard usually came over. Despite the hour, despite how tired she was, despite the absorption in the task, she felt that familiar tingle of anticipation. She repressed her desire. She needed to focus.

  He came in, slung his bag on the couch and flopped into a chair. ‘I am telling you, that place was batshit crazy today.’

  ‘Over Frankel?’

  ‘Like no one could talk about anything else. And all this weird shit going on around his office.’

  Maggie passed him a glass of whisky, which he rejected. Without thinking, Maggie sipped at it herself. ‘What kind of weird shit?’

  ‘People going in and out; secretaries, clerks.’

  ‘You saw this?’

  ‘And they’re coming out with boxes. Removing files, I guess.’

  ‘Removing files?’

  ‘They said they were following police instructions, to seal the office. But I didn’t see any police.’

  ‘So did they seal the office?’

  ‘They said that’s what they were doing. And I suppose eventually they locked it. But there can’t have been much left in there by the time they’d finished.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘I know. You’re working on this, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘McNamara put you on it.’

  She didn’t reply. She was thinking.

  He got up, shifted to the kitchen area and poured himself a glass of sparkling mineral water.

  Maggie called out, trying to ask a question that didn’t sound as if she was asking. Richard was a stickler; there was a strong risk he would use the words ‘Chinese wall’ again. As casually as she could, she said, ‘So who told the secretaries to empty out Frankel’s stuff?’

  ‘I heard it was Kassian. Apparently he ordered it done first thing this morning. Soon as they found out.’

  First thing this morning. Had Kassian known about this even earlier than Crawford McNamara? And if so, how? Maggie made a mental note to construct an exact timeline. If Kassian had somehow been aware of Frankel’s death before any official word had reached the White House, that would raise an immediate and obvious suspicion.

  ‘Anyway, what about you, Mags? What kind of day did you have?’

  She began to tell him about the scene in the Frankel house, the intensity of the grief, the closeness of family and friends, how none of it pointed to suicide as far as she could see. He nodded along, saying that that was what people had been saying at work too. That Frankel was old school, a bit stiff, but solid. No one had ever suspected any kind of mental illness. Some had taken that to prove you never could tell, that people could hide even the darkest secrets. But most thought it made the whole thing a bit … suspect.

  By now, they were next to each other on the couch and, maybe it was the whisky, or perhaps just the presence of him so close, but she finally lost the battle she’d been fighting since she’d heard the buzz at the door. She wanted him. The intensity of it almost surprised her. She had only to place her lips on his, and she felt herself devoured by desire.

  Later, while he slept, she stared at the ceiling, going over each point again and again. She had told Richard about Helen Frankel’s mention of a conversation between her husband and Kassian and Bruton, and he had not dismissed it but taken it seriously. She was encouraged. She was sure that the answer lay, somehow, with those two men.

  The obvious thing to do was to go steaming into Kassian’s office first thing in the morning and demand an explanation for that late-night house call to Dr Frankel. But rushing in before she’d accumulated the evidence and thought through all the implications: no, she had made that mistake before, with huge and dreadful consequences. As the familiar nausea resurfaced, she vowed that she would not make that mistake again.

  Now, in the dark, she reached for her phone, picking up where she’d left off on the laptop. Richard’s naked chest, rising and falling with each breath, was lit by the glow.

  She looked again at that profile of Bruton. A thought was forming.

  Like every article on the Defense Secretary, it devoted most of its attention to his service during the Iraqi invasion of 2003. That was where he had made his reputation. But of course
, Maggie now thought, his military career had not begun then. Given his age, he would have seen action long before.

  She scrolled through that piece and others, but all were maddeningly vague. She decided to go around another way. Using just one hand, she typed in Jim Bruton Desert Storm.

  As she’d expected, confirmation came swiftly. He had been a veteran of that war. But on his precise role, there was next to nothing. They’d both been there, Kassian and Bruton. But on what they’d done or where they’d been, details were strikingly scarce. These were public figures, people whose past lives were usually compelled to be open books. But, for both men, this chapter was, it seemed, deliberately opaque.

  Maggie didn’t understand it. She didn’t know why or what possible connection it could have to Frankel’s death. But something told her that she needed to know about this past. She would have to uncover what she guessed was a secret from long ago, shared by two men now at the very centre of American power.

  15

  The Pentagon, Wednesday, 11.02am

  ‘At ease, soldier.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Jim Bruton waited for the click that meant the door of this, his inner office, was closed, before embracing the man in front of him. This was not the usual male bear-hug, fleeting and rote. It was sustained, a second or two longer than was required. The warmth between them was real.

  ‘How long’s it been, sergeant? Three years? Four?’

  ‘It’s been six years and seven months, sir. We last saw each other at Fort Bragg. I was working as a trainer and you came to—’

  ‘Give the commencement address. Of course. You got a good memory, sergeant.’

  They both paused. Jim reflected on the strangeness of this situation, two men calling each other ‘sergeant’ and ‘sir’, because that was what they’d always done and to change it now would be awkward. What would he call him? Sergeant Garcia? Julian? Nothing sounded quite right.

  He took in the man opposite him. Bruton was glad to see that he seemed to be in very good shape. Aged forty-five, his hair silvered now and cropped short, he carried no hint of the paunch that Washington life had bequeathed on Bruton (though somehow, he had noticed, not on Kassian). Difficult to tell through civilian clothing, but Garcia appeared lean, his muscles taut. Out on the street, he could have passed for a former athlete, maybe a professional coach. But his eyes were dimmed by a weariness that Bruton recognized. He had once had it himself. Maybe he still did.

  ‘Well, as you can see, life comes at you pretty fast,’ Bruton said, gesturing at his office. He suspected his old comrade was uncomfortable being here. Bruton was used to that. The Pentagon was an intimidating place for people not used to it. That was part of the point: power projection was the business this department was in. That was especially true of the inner sanctum, the Secretary’s office. There were plenty of Pentagon veterans who never made it here.

  It was all but designed to intimidate. Naturally, it occupied the most prestigious spot in the vast complex, on the third floor of the outermost of the Pentagon’s five ‘rings’, directly above the grand portico entrance, facing the river. It was huge too, with three different meeting areas in the one room, including a circular table, big enough for four, on one side of the desk and a rectangular one, suitable for ten, on the other. On the walls, there were the requisite flags and portraits of previous holders of the office, of course, but also a long, horizontal digital display, showing the time of day in Washington, London, Baghdad, Kabul, Islamabad, Seoul and Moscow. (It struck Bruton as pretentious, but he’d never got around to having it removed.) The carpet was a shade of deep, presidential blue. But there any similarity with the Oval Office ended: this room was much bigger.

  Still, none of this was the true source of what Bruton guessed was Garcia’s discomfort. Even if the office had been small and understated, his guest would surely have been shifting in his seat. The problem, Bruton supposed, was that this was a man who had spent most of his adult life in the field, operating in the shadows, living off his wits. Even if he had retired a couple of years ago, suddenly being summoned to head office, having to behave like an employee of a big organization, must have felt wrong. The organization might be the Department of Defense, but to Julian Garcia it must still have felt civilian and therefore alien. Even being so close to an American city might have been unsettling: a career in active intelligence, on the ground rather than behind a desk, meant he was more used to the backstreets of Kabul or the desert wastelands of Iraq. People talked of corporate time-servers becoming institutionalized. They talked far less often about men like Garcia, who had become de-institutionalized. And yet it was a real phenomenon. Burton knew that, because it had so nearly happened to him.

  ‘What are you up to these days, sergeant?’

  ‘Oh, the usual thing for men like me, sir. Security consultant. Saudi. The Emirates.’

  ‘I’d heard something like that. We were lucky you were in the country. Such short notice.’

  ‘Visiting my sister, sir. Family stuff.’

  ‘Yes. I know about that. And I’m sorry.’

  ‘But you know that wherever I’d been, sir – wherever it was in the world – I’d have come here. You only had to say the word.’

  ‘That’s good to hear, sergeant.’

  ‘It’s the truth. Twice you saved my life, sir, and those two times are only the ones I know about.’

  ‘Well, we looked out for each other. All of us. That’s what we did.’

  ‘It’s what we do, sir. Always.’

  Bruton let out a sigh of unmistakable relief. That ‘always’ was especially welcome. ‘I suppose you want to know why I’ve asked you here.’ He signalled for the two of them to sit at the smaller table.

  ‘I read from your file that, even at the end of your service, you were regarded as the best marksman in the United States military. Do you know your final set of scores?’

  ‘They don’t tell us, sir. Only if we make the grade.’

  ‘That’s right, isn’t it? I remember that now.’ He was speaking to himself as much as to his guest. ‘Well, I know your scores. You closed out on a thirty-nine point nine-six average. Out of a possible forty.’

  Garcia gave a tiny nod.

  Bruton went on. ‘You were an exceptional soldier, Garcia. From the very top of the top drawer. You have first-rate computer skills and have counter-intelligence experience in the field. I’ve read your file very closely.’ He looked up. Garcia absorbed the praise but did not swell from it. Bruton could see that he was waiting for instructions.

  The Defense Secretary leaned forward. ‘Tell me something, Sergeant Garcia. You left the service nearly two years ago. It would be natural if you’d relaxed a little, if—’

  ‘I’m still active, sir. I’m still fit. I’ve had to be. For my new … clients.’ Bruton registered the hesitation over that last word.

  ‘Well, that’s good. Because I need you to undertake a mission that will require great sharpness. It’s of such importance and such secrecy that you will take orders from me and me alone. No one else knows about it or can know about it. If word of this mission were ever to leak, I would deny it and would have to take drastic steps to sustain that denial. That might even mean drastic steps against you, sergeant.’

  ‘I understand, sir,’ Garcia said.

  ‘I need you to take out a high-value target.’

  Garcia neither nodded nor shook his head. He was waiting.

  ‘This target will be well defended. Extremely well defended. And you will have to take him out in a public place. What’s more, it will not be enough that you’re not caught. There can be no trail of evidence or suspicion that in any way, because of our connection, implicates me. You’ll soon see why. If that means you have to involve another person, then you can do it, but under the same conditions. It would have to be someone we would both trust with our lives. Do you understand what I have told you so far?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I should also warn you
that you have nothing like the amount of time you need, not even close. This mission has to be complete within the next three days. You will have to start work as soon as you leave this office. Are you still with me?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good. I wish I could say there was something in this for you. But there isn’t. I can’t even pay you. I can give you a few thousand dollars in cash, for the very basic costs. Some logistical help and back-up. But that’s it.’

  ‘I don’t need payment, sir.’

  Bruton felt moved by this man’s loyalty and – though it would have sounded corny to say it out loud – his sense of duty.

  ‘I have not yet told you the target for this operation.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I need to say something before I do that. I need to tell you that I am still the man who you knew on that battlefield, when you and I were side by side, up to our necks in blood and shit and piss. I am still the man who was proud to lead you and so many other good men, including the ones who never came back. I was ready to give my life to this country then and I am still. You need to know that none of that has changed. Not for me and, I suspect, not for you either.’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘In the order I’m about to give you, I act as a patriot, a man who has sworn to defend this republic. And when you accept that order, I hope you will see that you too will be acting as a patriot, serving this nation that we both love.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad we understand each other. Because, Sergeant Garcia, your target is the President of the United States.’

  There was a pause, as Garcia dipped his head, taking in what he’d heard. Something in his expression told Bruton that this instruction had not come as a complete surprise. Perhaps Garcia had intuited it even before he walked through the door, maybe even before he came to Washington this morning. He was no fool; he could read the newspapers, same as anyone else.