by Allan Topol
"That bad?"
"Worse."
* * *
Waiting for Kendrick and Crane, Taylor finished her preparation of Boyd by asking questions that Cady would undoubtedly ask. The phone started ringing furiously. She instructed Donna not to answer it. When Kendrick and Crane arrived, Taylor sent Boyd upstairs to dress while she briefed the others.
As she recounted what had happened, she saw Kendrick getting madder and madder. When she told him about the grand jury proceeding this morning, he looked as if he were ready to explode.
Kendrick roughly pulled her off to one side. "Goddammit," he said in a hiss. His face was red, and the veins in his neck were protruding. "Why didn't you tell me about this fucking investigation as soon as you learned about it?"
"I thought I could make it go away."
"We're supposed to be full partners in this campaign. That was the condition you agreed to when you hired me. You should have told me from the beginning."
He was right. She looked chagrined. "I'm sorry. I was dead wrong. It's been a tough couple of days. I've just been trying to stay afloat. But I would like you to come down to the courthouse with us. Help with damage control with the press."
There was a long pause. She knew what Kendrick was thinking: If this ended in disaster, would he be better off as far away as possible? She wasn't letting him have any choice in the matter. "He'll need you," she stated emphatically.
Crane approached Taylor and Kendrick. "What can I do to help? I mean it. I'll do whatever will help Charles."
He sounded sincere, which impressed Taylor. Even though she had persuaded Boyd to take Crane as his VP in order to get the nomination, she had doubts herself about the silk-stocking, mainline native from Philadelphia. Today Crane was demonstrating that he was a class act. He had the most to gain from a Boyd withdrawal. Yet he wasn't trying to disassociate himself.
"The offer's appreciated," Taylor replied, "but I'm the kind of gambler who likes to hedge her bets whenever possible. The first thing I care about is getting the senator into the White House. The second is getting Webster out."
"Meaning what?"
"You should go home, turn on the television set, and don't answer the phone."
"How can I find out what's happening?"
She turned to Kendrick. "Give him one of our cell phones and write the number down for me on a piece of paper. I'll call you, Governor, when I know something." She paused. "Now, what else are we missing?"
"Sounds to me like you've got a handle on this greased watermelon," Kendrick replied sourly.
"That has to be one of the greatest overstatements of all time. I'll get the senator."
* * *
She saw bedlam in every direction around the six-story stone courthouse. Reporters and TV cameramen were two and three deep, swarming like locusts over Constitution Avenue with their equipment.
"A bunch of vultures," Taylor mumbled to Kendrick, who was sitting next to her in the back of the long black bulletproof limousine. Facing them were the senator and Wes Young. As the Secret Service driver navigated through the traffic, another car loaded with more Secret Service followed right behind.
"This is about as close as I can get," the driver said to Young.
"Okay, turn off the engine. We'll take it from here."
At moments like this Young's experience as a fullback at Penn State paid dividends. The agent reached in and pulled Boyd out of the car by the arm. He put his head down and forced a path through the crowd of screaming newspaper and television reporters, with the senator right behind him, followed by another Secret Service agent, then Kendrick and Taylor. Thank God Sally's out of town, Taylor thought.
"Senator Boyd," someone shouted, "do you have a statement?"
"Any statement?"
Suddenly Taylor stopped and wheeled around to face the cameras. "I'll make a statement."
They flocked to her, allowing the others to continue unmolested inside.
"I'm Taylor Ferrari, Senator Boyd's lawyer," she began in a calm voice. Just then she spotted Cooper and she nodded to him. "I want to tell you what's happening. We're in the middle of a close election. Suddenly an investigation of the senator is being launched in the name of the attorney general, who just happens to be the president's campaign manager. Now, you can all figure out what's going on." She pointed in the direction of the White House. "They can't beat us fair and square. So they're reaching into their bag of dirty tricks. This time they pulled out the ultimate dirty trick. All I can say is, you people weren't fooled by the Watergate break-in. So don't be fooled by this latest version of gutter politics."
"Taylor... Taylor..." reporters screamed.
"Unfortunately, that's all I can say right now."
She pivoted and headed into the building, which was off-limits to the press. Inside, she caught up with the others. In the elevator, a middle-aged African-American woman in a drab blue coat gave the senator the thumbs-up sign. He smiled at her.
For the last stretch to room 208, Taylor proceeded alone with the senator. An armed U.S. marshal was standing in front of the door to preserve the secrecy of the process.
"Remember," she said to Boyd, "I'll be out here in the corridor. Anytime you want to, and I mean anytime, you can come out and talk to me. You've got a constitutional right to do that. Don't let Cady intimidate you."
"Got it."
The marshal knocked twice and the door to room 208 swung open. When Cady came out, he nodded to Taylor and introduced himself to Boyd. The two men disappeared inside.
A battered, dark brown wooden bench with peeling paint on the arms and back lined the corridor wall, but nobody sat down. Young and another agent stood on separate sides of the door to room 208, their eyes darting continually in all directions. Kendrick stood next to the window staring at the courtyard below, which was littered with cigarette butts and pigeon droppings.
Taylor paced restlessly back and forth along the corridor, her head down, dully focused on the marble floor. An awful, eerie recollection kept popping into her mind, of waiting outside a hospital room. At the end, when her mother was dying of cancer, Taylor had maintained a vigil for four straight days and nights. The last words her mother had said to her were, "You're going to make me proud of you. I know that, Maria." No amount of pleading, ordering, or cajoling by her father or brothers could make Taylor leave the hospital. At the end, the doctors tried a last-gasp surgery, while Taylor remained outside the operating room. Afterward a nurse found her in the corridor on the floor, more asleep than awake, and announced the awful news: "Your mother has passed."
"You're driving me crazy with your damn pacing," Kendrick said to Taylor after an hour. "You must have already covered ten miles. I'm going downstairs for some coffee. You want one?"
"A double. Strong and black."
But this wasn't going to end with the senator the way it had with her mother, Taylor told herself. Charles was innocent. He had told her that many times. And she believed him. Now, given the chance to question him, Cady would believe the senator, too. She was certain of that. Charles would walk out of that grand jury room a free man.
* * *
At twelve-fifteen, the door to room 208 opened. Senator Boyd's face was flushed with anger and indignation.
Taylor was horrified. "What happened?"
He pulled her into an empty room and closed the door. "The bastards are trying to frame me," he said, pounding his fist on the table.
"What do they have?"
"A phony document from a California tax office that makes it seem like the sale was a fifty-million-dollar transaction instead of ten. False testimony from Harvey Gladstone consistent with the phony document, and a forged canceled check that looks as if I paid Gladstone a commission on ten plus an additional hundred grand that he says was for keeping his mouth shut on the true purchase price. All of it corroborates the bullshit story Azziz told Cady."
Taylor collapsed into a chair. Cady was too smart to be snookered by phony evidence. "Ho
w could he let that happen?"
Then Harrison's words came back to her. Had the senator been lying to her all along?
Boyd started moving toward the door. "What are you going to do?"
"Stand out on Constitution Avenue and tell the American people the truth. The short version. Then tomorrow morning we'll have a press conference and turn the tables on Webster and McDermott."
"Let's do it."
With his entourage, he marched down the stairs and out of the building. In front of the microphones, Boyd announced, "Someone is trying to pull off the worst dirty trick in the history of this country. I'm innocent, and I intend to fight back," he vowed. "We'll have a press conference at ten tomorrow morning. I intend to launch my own investigation of the people who played this dirty trick. I promise you that I'll smoke out the people responsible if it's the last thing I do."
The senator refused to take any questions. When they were back in the limo and proceeding along Constitution Avenue, Boyd looked at Taylor and Kendrick. "Listen, you two, I'm going out to St. Michaels. I want to be by myself right now. I have to work on a statement to deliver tomorrow. It's got to be personal in order to succeed. I hope you don't mind if I do it that way."
Taylor did mind. She and Kendrick had a lot to offer. "We could come out and not be in the way."
"Look here, e-mail me your thoughts. You and Bob can be more helpful in Washington getting everything set for the press conference and keeping the wolves at bay. I'll try to email you a draft this evening. In any event, I'll meet both of you at my Georgetown house at eight in the morning. We'll take it from there. I intend to fight this all the way."
She saw no point arguing with him. She had learned long ago that when the senator wanted to do something his own way, that was how he did it. She had to respect his judgment. It was his reputation and political life on the line. Not hers.
She might as well go back to the privacy of her apartment, rough out her thoughts, then e-mail them to the senator in St. Michaels. Together they would come out firing.
Kendrick saw the determination gathering on her face, but he was not impressed. "In this situation, you're guilty until you prove your innocence. And you're going to have a hell of a time doing that."
Chapter 17
In a cold fury, Sato hit the power button on the remote control to turn off the television set in his office. The intensity with which Senator Boyd had delivered his statement was etched on his mind. This wasn't at all how events should be unfolding. Boyd should be on the ropes. He should be withdrawing from the campaign. What Sato saw was a man who was getting ready for a fight.
Sato picked up the phone and called the man he had dubbed R.L. "Not a good day for us, was it?"
"I'm surprised, but it's false bravado on his part. He won't be able to fight the evidence Cady has. It'll take a little longer, but I think we'll get what we want."
Sato's grip on the phone hardened. "That's not good enough for me. There's too much at stake to take a chance."
"It's the only thing we can do."
Sato gave a short, chilling laugh. "You're not as creative, my friend, as I had been led to believe."
The American understood what Sato meant instantly, and he was appalled. "I don't think anything like that is called for."
"That's my decision, not yours," Sato said, his mouth grim. "I'll talk to Terasawa and have him call you. He'll need certain logistical information and assistance from you. That's all. Unlike you, he is very creative."
The American wanted to protest. This wasn't what he had bought into. But he was in too deep for that. His involvement thus far was already a felony. Sato could leak that to the press or a prosecutor. Also, he now understood the consequences if he crossed Sato. The man was very capable of turning Terasawa loose on him.
* * *
At Oxford on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay, Terasawa walked into Martha's Marina and followed the script R.L. had given him. "I'm the Chinese tourist who's here to rent the boat."
As Terasawa had been promised, all of the arrangements had been made by R.L. by phone. A thirty-five-foot sailing boat was waiting for him on the dock. That was all he needed to cross the inlet to St. Michaels.
The air was cool and dry. Terasawa was glad he had worn a black leather jacket. A brisk tail wind was blowing, which made the trip even faster than Terasawa had gauged from looking at the charts.
Alone in the sailboat, he pulled out a pair of powerful binoculars at the halfway point. By sailing up and down the inlet like a tourist, he could see Boyd's house from all angles and get a clear fix on security. Outside in the front he spied two Secret Service agents. One was sitting in the black limo behind the wheel. The other was standing next to the car. The two of them were locked in a serious conversation. Terasawa couldn't see anyone in back of the house.
He eased the boat into the dock behind Boyd's house at a ninety-degree angle to minimize the chances that either of the Secret Service agents would see it. He pulled in carefully, not wanting to strike the dock and have the sound alert the agents.
Once Terasawa had the boat tied up, he raced up to the back door on the toes of his Nike sneakers. He had one hand on a small burglar's tool in his jacket pocket. Before pulling it out he turned the doorknob. The door opened.
He tiptoed across the kitchen floor. "Where are you, Senator Boyd?" he whispered.
* * *
Upstairs, Boyd ripped off his clothes and tossed them on the floor of his bathroom. He'd always found that a good place to think was in the tub. Thinking was what he had to do: about the kind of statement he should make tomorrow/, and about what steps he should take to launch his investigation into who was responsible for all of this. He turned on the water and adjusted the temperature in the Jacuzzi tub.
With his body aching from tension, he looked in the medicine closet for Epsom salts to add to the water. The jar was gone. That damn Sally, he cursed to himself. She takes things and never returns them. He turned off the water and, naked, charged down the hall to her bathroom.
* * *
Staying away from the windows with a front exposure, Terasawa was moving slowly and methodically through the downstairs, which seemed deserted, when he heard the water begin running overhead. Has to be a bathtub, he decided. Good, Boyd will be in the tub. That's perfect. I'll give him a few minutes to get settled in there.
He walked into the den and saw a television playing on mute, and a powered-up laptop with a long list of e-mail messages on the screen. His gaze idly scrolled through the list on the screen while he waited.
Time to move, he decided finally. He started up the wooden stairs on the toes of his sneakers. A loose board creaked, and Terasawa cursed silently.
Suddenly the water stopped. Terasawa watched the bathroom door open; then Boyd, naked, walked along the corridor in the direction of the stairs. Yanking the .38 caliber revolver from his jacket pocket, Terasawa gripped the gun hard. Terasawa pushed himself against the banister, holding his breath, hoping Boyd wouldn't see him. Terasawa didn't want to kill him when Boyd had so much freedom to move.
As he passed the top of the staircase, Boyd was muttering something that Terasawa couldn't hear. The senator never looked down the stairs. Not then. Not when he returned to his bathroom a few minutes later with a jar in his hand. He shut the door and began running the water again.
Terasawa put the gun back in his jacket pocket. He'd give Boyd five minutes to get comfortable in the tub, he decided, glancing at his watch. Softly he climbed the rest of the stairs with the gun in his hand. He turned into a recessed doorway where he couldn't be seen.
When the time was up, Terasawa extracted a pair of surgical gloves from his jacket pocket and put them on. He removed the revolver and wiped the handle clean with the cloth from his jacket. Then he screwed on the silencer.
Turning the doorknob carefully, he slipped into the room and closed the door behind him. As he crossed the room, the view through the open bathroom door became wider and wid
er. Senator Boyd was sitting in a huge Jacuzzi with the jets running and his eyes closed. Perfect, Terasawa thought. The motor in the tub made so much noise that no one outside would hear a thing. Noiselessly he glided into the bathroom.
Sensing the presence of an intruder, Boyd opened his eyes with a start. Seeing a strange Japanese man, he recoiled in fear. "Hey... what—"
Instinctively Boyd reached for the metal loop along the side of the tub in order to pull himself to his feet, but he never had time. Ramming the gun against Boyd's temple, Terasawa pulled the trigger. Skull fragments and tissue were blasted against the pale blue tile wall. It was precisely the single-shot kill Terasawa had wanted. Boyd was right-handed, so the assassin rubbed the gun against that hand, which was hanging over the edge of the tub, then let it fall to the floor.
Not disturbing anything, Terasawa retraced his steps downstairs. In the den with the gloves still on, he stood in front of the laptop and composed a message.
Please forgive me, Sally, but I can't live with the humiliation of what happened. Love, Charles.
Rather than printing it, Terasawa simply left the message on the screen. Then he departed as silently as he came.
Chapter 18
Don't count us out, Taylor vowed as she fixed a glass of Finlandia on the rocks and took it out on the balcony of her Watergate apartment. She was feeling feisty. There's plenty of time to expose the perpetrators of this big lie. When we do, the senator will gain sympathy from the public that will enhance his lead.
She watched boats moving up and down the Potomac as the sun began setting over Washington. The drink tasted good. Maybe she'd have one more before she fixed some pasta for dinner and called the senator to see how his statement was coming. Inside the apartment she checked her watch. Two minutes until the first network news. She turned on the television to hear how the story was being presented to the American people.
The first image she saw was Senator Boyd's house on Chesapeake Bay. She heard the words St. Michaels and Maryland and then "A Secret Service agent discovered the senator's body when he came into the house about an hour ago."
