Give Us This Day

by Tom Avitabile

  No one was more shocked than James Mitchell himself, when he came out on top in the popular as well as the electoral vote on that election night six years ago. And even though there were allegations of voter fraud, which he himself brought forward in a rare move, the House and the Senate bestowed what amounted to a vote of confidence on him. He went on to win reelection for his second term with the indisputable margin of victory of fifty-eight to forty-two percent.

  Knowles knew that anybody who spent ten seconds with the guy knew two things. He’d grab a gun and defend America in an instant and that he was the poster boy of a good family man. Which is what made this affair so outside the box. “Well, they say the job changes a man. Maybe Mitchell changed,” he said after Diane filled him in on what she was ready to report to the country, if he gave her his editorial blessing.

  “So you are giving me the green light?” Diane had the bristling energy of a teenager asking her dad for the car keys.

  “Do you have two independently verifiable sources?”

  “Two. Both high placed, but insisting on anonymity.”

  “Of course . . .”

  “Well, can you blame them, Ed? Who’s going to go on the record against a president with a fifty-seven percent approval rating?”

  “That’s exactly what’s eating at me. Are you sure we aren’t being used?”

  “I’ve seen the secret service logs. I have confirmation of them being at Camp David . . . alone.”

  Eddy looked up at her. “No one’s ever alone at David.”

  “Well, that’s true.” The moment hung as they both suddenly were frozen by the impact this story would have on the nation, its people, and history.

  Diane assumed Eddy was thinking the same thing . . . “You want me to spike the story?”

  “Are you crazy? As long as you are dead certain. Otherwise we are both dead—period.”

  “Thanks, boss.”

  “I wanna see your script before you go on the air, and I want a full package pre-recorded, family shots, times of tension, that time in New York with the suitcase bomb and that thing with the crazy computers. Not a slam piece, just a plain statement of the guy we all thought we knew . . . until tonight!”

  “Got it.”

  .G.

  Morgan Prescott was in a room with his family. The tears were drying up but they were all still misty eyed. He must have said to his wife Deidra a thousand times how sorry he was and she, just as many, saying that it wasn’t his fault; THEY did this to him and to their family.

  Prescott held his little girl, Polly, on his lap. She had been violated, as his wife had been. As a man, he felt so impotent, so useless. He’d failed at the primary responsibility of a male with a family, to protect them and keep them safe. He vowed that no matter what it took, therapy, counseling, support groups . . . whatever, even if he had to quit his job, he would do it to help them deal with the horror they had undergone. Every time his little girl shifted in his arms, he thought of how her innocence had been shattered by those monsters on the island. The thought of her lost childhood made him well up, his chest flutter. Even though the woman, Burrell, had made sure the bastard would never be able to commit rape again on anybody else’s little girl or wife, for him it wasn’t enough. He wanted to filet the guy, torture him for every minute that his daughter and his wife would suffer because of the violation of their bodies.

  Agent Stover poked his head in. Prescott still thought of him as Miles Wheaton, the man he’d been instructed to check out for the kidnappers.

  “Mr. Prescott, may I have a moment?”

  “Of course.” He handed his daughter to his wife. “Deidra, would you take her?”

  Out in the hall, George found an empty room. “In here, please.”

  “So your name is George?” Prescott said a little shocked.

  “Yes, George Stover, attached to FinCEN at Treasury.”

  “And you saved my family?”

  “Well, me, Brooke, and Walters.”

  “I owe you a debt I can never repay. I feel horrible that I put them in jeopardy.”

  “Mr. Prescott . . .”

  “Please, Morgan.”

  “Morgan, it’s clear you had no choice in the matter.”

  “Still, I am in your debt.”

  “Morgan, there is something I need to know.”

  “Anything . . .”

  “Why did Joe Garrison have to die?”

  “Joe . . . ? Joe’s dead?”

  George was surprised. “Sorry, I thought you knew. I didn’t mean to break it to you so coldly.”

  He sat stunned for a second. “Joe was one of my first hires. He came over from Bear-Sterns, back in the day. Joe was the best comptroller . . . Oh god, his wife, Peggy, I should call her.”

  “Do you know why he would have been killed on the morning of the raid?”

  “How did he die? Was he in the office?”

  “No, he never made it to work; he was killed in the subway.”

  “Dear God . . .”

  George waited for the man to collect himself. “Did the people who asked you to check me out ever mention him?”

  “Yes, once. They asked who you worked with. I told them Joe, Patricia, Jenny, Morris. Dear God, are they okay?”

  “Yes, as far as I know they are fine.”

  “Well, wait, Agent Wheaton, er, Stover, were you, in fact, working with Joe?”

  “That’s the thing. He didn’t know who I was, and the report I was getting from him that morning was innocent enough, just routine T&E reports mostly. As far as he knew, I was reconciling accounts for a possible tax audit. I actually kind of tricked him into it by saying my system was down.”

  “Look, for what it’s worth, Joe had no idea about me being blackmailed or any of Kitman’s put and calls. Those shorts and longs were all under Kevlar.”

  George wrote down the names Kitman and Kevlar. “Yes, I discovered that Joe was clean early on and, just so you know, Joe was getting a pass. I was getting him out of the building prior to the raid. I also wanted his alibi preserved in case I needed him to corroborate State’s evidence.”

  “Based on what you just said, they, Kitman or whoever else, must have found out about your plans.”

  “Do you know if your handlers ever bugged your office or tapped your phones?”

  Prescott had to think. “No. Maybe. They did seem to know a lot about my movements and where I was going.”

  George had his answer, or so it seemed. “Well, thank you, Morgan. I’ll let you get back to your family.”

  “Agent, how long will we be here?”

  “Brooke and Bridge still want to debrief you. After that it’s hard to say . . . For your own safety this is the best, most secure place for all of you right now. I’ll see what I can do about getting the US Marshalls to arrange for a safe house.”

  “I have a chalet in Vermont.”

  “I’ll see if that’s good with them. It shouldn’t be too much longer.”

  .G.

  “Cut it right there, after he turns to his right.”

  In the TV station’s editing bay, Diane was feeling her oats, calling for shots and juxtaposing the Hallmark-type images of the Mitchell family from the early days of his presidency, before the terror attacks, and then more recent shots of an older-looking, grayer James Mitchell. The conclusion she was trying to draw was that not only did those attacks change him, in that they had surely taken their toll on America’s father figure, but also changed his behavior.

  “No, zoom in on his face instead then slow dissolve to the helicopter crashing into the building; then dissolve to the concrete nuclear containment egg they put around it, then back to Mitchell at the window of the oval office.” She directed from the edge of her seat.

  “Miss Price?” The editorial assistant came in.

  �
��Yes,” she responded without taking her eyes off the large screen that showed the edit.

  “We only found one clip of Agent Burrell-Morton and graphics found the Navy ID photo of Commander Morton.”

  “Josh, can you put that up?”

  The editor hit a few buttons and Brooke’s pictures filled all the monitors in the edit control room.

  “Wow, she’s a good-looking gal. This may just click after all.” Diane found the rationale to the affair, the oldest in the world: this Burrell woman was very attractive. Case closed! “Oh, I know . . . I want to do a slow dissolve between this shot of her and the one of the first lady, the one where she was caught frowning. Long, slow dissolve from the wife to the younger, prettier girlfriend.”

  Josh the editor looked up. “Yeah, she’s a doll all right . . . Hey, wait. I’ve seen her before . . . When was it?” He thought about it for a second. “Phil, rack up that clip of the fire in New York two days ago.”

  It took a few seconds then Josh fast forwarded through raw footage of an office building fire touched off by a gas leak up in New York. “Here . . .” he said as he rewound the footage. It stopped on a close up of a woman hanging off a building on a flagpole. “Damn, it’s her . . . Hold on, later I think there’s a shot of her by the ambulance.”

  Diane’s mouth was open and her head locked. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “Damn . . .”

  “She’s a fucking hero?” Josh said.

  “Worse . . . a victim.” Stunned and deflated, Diane got up and left the edit bay. She walked out onto a fire exit that had a little landing most folks used to catch a cigarette. She stared at the back of the Capitol as she lit up a Parliament and took that first drag. Her nerves settled. She took one more puff and ground it under her feet as it fell through the metal lattice and onto the back alley. She walked briskly back to her office. She now knew what she had to do.

  “Diane Price, MSNBC for Agent Brooke Burrell-Morton.” She tapped her pencil and waited.

  “Okay then, may I speak to Director Burrell-Morton?” She wrote down the word director and the word promotion? and circled it. “I know she’s busy. I need to confirm a story before we go to air . . . I’ll hold.” Diane’s computer on her desk was in sleep mode and the screen was dark. Her reflection looked back at her as she waited. A small pang of guilt arose from her and she hit the space bar. The screen came on and the reflection was gone. “No, I don’t need to speak with the press spokesmen for the Treasury. I need Director Burrell-Morton . . . Very well, can I at least leave a message?”

  Diane did something she hadn’t done since she was thirteen. She bit her nail. Nervously pinching it between her teeth then tearing back a good chunk of the tip. The taste of her nail polish jogged her into dropping her hand and chiding herself. She heard the beep. “Director Burrell-Morton, my name is Diane Price, senior correspondent MSNBC. I am calling to see if you would like to comment on a story we are about to run which alleges . . . which alleges . . . that you are having an affair with James Mitchell the President of the United States. My number is 202-999-0100. If you’d like to comment in time for air, please return this call by six forty-five p.m. today.” She hung up.

  Diane relaxed her shoulders, but didn’t remove her hand from the phone headset. She set her jaw and picked up again and dialed a number she knew well.

  “White House Press Office . . .”

  “Lynn, it’s Diane Price. Can I get a minute with Connie? It’s important and I am on a deadline.”

  Connie Cochran was a former Washington editor for Time magazine who’d gotten the press secretary job in Mitchell’s second term. She and Diane had an understanding and were members of the news sisterhood clique. She owed it to her and to the practice of journalism to reach the parties in the story for comment. “Connie, thanks for taking the call. This is a big one. We are about to move a story that alleges Mitchell had an affair . . .”

  Diane waited to gauge the reaction. And waited. She continued, “We have logs and eye witnesses that put the president and one Brooke Burrell-Morton, a former special agent, now assigned to Treasury, alone many times.”

  There was more silence. Then in a calm, flat voice Connie said, “Diane, are you sure all your logs and witnesses were legally attained?”

  “Connie, this is tight. We put them together on three separate occasions. One for a weekend at Camp David while the FLOTUS was in Europe.”

  “This is the first I am hearing about this, Diane. Can I get a courtesy delay until I have a chance to see if there is any merit to these charges?”

  “Sorry, Connie. But Eddy’s all over this. The package is ready to go and it rolls at seven p.m. eastern.”

  “You are not giving me much time, Diane.”

  “I am so sorry, Connie, but that’s where we are. If the administration would like to comment you have until 6:45 to call back.”

  “If I call you back. Till then, I have to go on record as no comment.”

  “I understand. Again, Connie, I am sorry for the short notice.”

  “Diane, don’t play semantics with me. This is an ambush. And I won’t forget this ‘courtesy call.’” Then she hung up with ear-splitting punctuation.

  It made Diane wince and actually freeze. She didn’t mean to blindside her colleague, but this . . . this was a career maker. She could land the NBC anchor chair with a scoop like this. Connie would eventually get over it. She got up and headed to makeup.

  .G.

  Brooke saw the caller ID from MSNBC on the readout of her office phone but she made it a policy never to talk to the media. Besides, she was busy. She, Bridge, and George were finally debriefing Prescott after he’d been allowed a few hours with his family. That Brooke now considered him a reluctant co-conspirator was a sea change in the investigation. Having rescued his family, Prescott was very amenable to telling all.

  “As I said to George earlier, I owe you all a debt I can never repay.”

  “Yes you can, Mr. Prescott. You can tell us everything you know. Every little detail no matter how small can be the key that unlocks the riddle of who this group is.”

  “I don’t know of any group.”

  “Okay, then who do you think kidnapped your family?”

  “I have no idea. I only got an email. It had a picture of my family and two men with guns pointed at them. They told me that I was to do whatever they wanted. That no one would know my family was captured. They had replaced my family on my boat and that in four weeks it would all be over.”

  “When was this?” Brooke said.

  “Almost four weeks ago.” Brooke looked to Bridge.

  “So what did you do?” Bridge said.

  “We set up put and calls for various municipal and governmental bonds, insurance industry, medical and energy and power sectors,” Prescott said.

  “Did securing those contracts to buy or sell set off any alarm bells with you?”

  “Not at first, but then again I wasn’t thinking clearly. They had my family . . .”

  “I understand, but why did you suspect George?”

  “I didn’t. I got an email telling me to check on my people; that someone from the SEC may be in my company posing as an analyst. Miles . . . er . . . George was the last hired. I went through company HR records and found someone who matched his educational history. It was the only way I could think of to try and see if he was who he said he was when we hired him.”

  “How did all your files disappear on the day we raided your offices?” Brooke said.

  “I don’t know. I was out of the building ten minutes before the raid in a car to Teterboro.”

  “Did you arrange that?”

  “No, again an email said be downstairs at 11:50.”

  “How did they know about the raid?” George said.

  “Barry Kitman.”

  “Who?” Bridge said.

&nb
sp; “Barry Kitman. His firm was big into the areas we were transacting. He also had the Secretary of the Treasury, Cass’s ear,” Prescott said.

  Brooke was too good at liar’s poker to react to Prescott’s invocation of the secretary’s name. But now she understood the instinctive bad feeling she’d had when she met Kitman at the Harvard Club, that she could sense he was guilty of something. “So, how would Kitman have known of our raid?”

  “Well, it’s obvious now. I mean, since you weren’t with the Securities and Exchange Commission then the tip must have come from someone at FinCEN or Treasury.”

  “And you think Kitman was behind the leak?”

  “Maybe his family was also kidnapped?”

  Brooke nodded to an assistant. She knew it meant “get me everything on Barry Kitman immediately.”

  “In fact, we set up every contract for Kitman, not for us,” Prescott said.

  “Was that the 14TGG code?” Brooke said.

  “Yes, we already had it set up and since it was a blind account, it made sense for me to use it for what I was forced to do for Kitman. I mean, they made it clear, if anybody found out, they’d kill my family.”

  Brooke looked at George. “Did you know about this, about Kitman?”

  “I never saw any 14TGG proceeds. Never saw any documents or contracts with Kitman Global on them.”

  “Mr. Prescott, do you see the problem I am having here? Why should I believe you? You say you weren’t set to make a killing on the put and calls, and yet George, who went through your company with a fine-tooth comb, never heard of KGI. How do you explain that?”

  “Paper safe, securitized collateral issues under a lock and key of sorts.”

  “So, George wouldn’t have had access?”

  “Once set up, even I couldn’t reach them. Only Kitman Global Investments. Probably just Barry himself.”

  “So Kitman plays big in all this?”

  “Kev . . .” Prescott was about to answer when George interrupted.