Jim McGill 05 The Devil on the Doorstep

by Joseph Flynn

  Taking his cue from the suggestion of denim, Welborn had asked, “Sneakers or boots? Flannel shirt? Carhartt jacket?”

  Galia had no idea of what a Carhartt jacket was, but if it went with a flannel shirt, that would be good. As to the shoes, Galia said, “Boots, unless they’re the cowboy kind.”

  “Mine have more of a scuffed military look,” Welborn said.

  “Perfect,” Galia said.

  “Any other tips on wardrobe or grooming?” he asked.

  The chief of staff knew she was being twitted, but as long as he’d asked, “Don’t be disheveled, but don’t have every hair in place either.”

  “Baseball cap?” Welborn asked.

  Galia liked that idea. “As long as it’s nothing too eye catching.”

  “Right. This is just between us, Ms. Mindel? No mention to Kira?”

  “No mention to anyone, Captain Yates.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Welborn showed up at the restaurant at two p.m. on the dot, as instructed. He asked the hostess for Ms. Bernstein’s table, Galia having gone so far as to use an alias. He was shown to a booth with a fair amount of privacy. Good thing he had a sherpa. He wasn’t sure he would have recognized Ms. Mindel. She had her hair pulled back in a bun, wore pointy plastic-framed glasses that looked like they came from a time-capsule sealed in 1959, and was dressed in a Rayon pantsuit the color of Kraft caramels.

  Once the hostess had departed, Welborn asked, “Ms. Bernstein?”

  Galia pointed to the seat opposite her. Welborn slid into the booth. She gave him a long once over.

  “Too hayseed?” he asked “Or not hayseed enough?”

  “A happy medium,” Galia said. “Only I have to wonder, do you shave yet?”

  “Yes, ma’am, quite closely, as both my upbringing and training require.”

  His wife required it, too, but he wasn’t going to get into that. The whole hush-hush ambience of the meeting would have amused Welborn, if he wasn’t getting a very uneasy feeling about all the costume drama.

  Galia Mindel was the White House chief of staff, not some practical joker.

  She had to have a serious reason to put on this show.

  Galia asked, “So you could grow a … I guess a stubble would be what I’m looking for.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I could do that. I assume you’ll tell me why.”

  Galia nodded, and told him to stop calling her ma’am.

  Omni Berkshire Hotel — Midtown Manhattan

  Yves Pruet and Odo Sacripant took a taxi from JFK to the Omni Berkshire Place on East 52nd Street. With the recent decline in the value of the euro, New York was not quite the bargain for Europeans that it once was. Money, however, was not a worry for the two visitors from France. Augustin Pruet, Yves’ father and the head of the family business, was picking up the tab.

  He had insisted that justice be done, no matter the expense.

  Pruet was honored that his father had entrusted him with this duty.

  Still, he suspected that Papa had made a side agreement with Odo. An additional reason why his friend repeatedly made it clear he was willing to dispose of the villain in question. Not that Odo needed more than one justification to protect a friend or strike down an enemy.

  The two men had adjoining rooms on the third floor of the hotel.

  Odo tapped on the connecting door and Pruet admitted him.

  The bodyguard peeked into Pruet’s closet and bathroom, looked beneath the bed, surveyed windows of the buildings across the street, all to make sure no evildoer was about to strike. Normally, the magistrate would have found such melodrama mildly amusing, worthy of a quip. Not now. Blood had already been spilled. A dear friend lay dead.

  It would be foolish to think the malefactor would not expect a reprisal.

  Satisfied all was well, Odo asked, “You will be comfortable here, Yves?”

  “Oui.”

  The hotel was an elegant older building. It offered guest rooms not far above street level, Pruet’s chief requirement when looking for accommodations. He said he found it impossible to sleep soundly if he knew there was a large number of people of dubious judgment lodging between him and the ground.

  Smoking was forbidden in the hotel, but nicotine was an insistent demon. All it might take to cause a tragedy would be one fool flouting the rules and falling asleep in bed with a lit cigarette between his lips. Pruet knew this for a fact; he’d sent one such cretin to prison for the rest of his life.

  Thinking of the matter of crime and punishment, the magistrate asked his bodyguard, “Have you considered the possibility one or both of us might end our days in an American prison?” A thought struck Pruet and he added, “Is this one of the American states that has the death penalty?”

  Odo, always meticulous in his work, knew the answer.

  “There is a law providing for executions, but a court has ruled it can’t be used.”

  “Why not?” Pruet asked.

  Odo shrugged. “Technical reasons that are beyond my understanding.”

  The magistrate frowned. “For us, they would likely make exceptions.”

  On that cheerful note, the two foreign visitors left the hotel for a late lunch, before they started their tour of the city’s finest art galleries. They didn’t expect to find the Renoir stolen from the Pruet family hanging on a gallery wall. They were looking for a broker.

  Someone who sold stolen art to the unscrupulously wealthy.

  There were many places around the world where such reprobates thrived.

  For Pruet’s money, though, New York City was the place to start looking.

  Old Ebbet Grill — Washington, DC

  Galia had forgotten one detail in implementing her plan and that annoyed her.

  She didn’t want to be called up before a Congressional committee someday and have to admit that she’d broken a national security law. That or commit perjury. She had legions of enemies in the capital who would like nothing better than to see her behind bars. Permanently.

  So she asked Captain Welborn Yates, “Are you cleared to learn top secret information?”

  Welborn was about to say, “Yes, ma’am,” but he bit his tongue and merely nodded.

  Adding in whisper, “Everything but the nuclear launch codes, per the president’s order.”

  That sat Galia back in her seat for a moment, marveling at the degree of trust the president had placed in this young man. Without informing her. In a way, though, the strength of that bond would likely work in her favor. Captain Yates would want to repay the president’s high regard for him. But Galia didn’t get to that immediately.

  Instead, she observed, “To my ear, you’ve lost a good deal of your Southern accent during your years in the White House.”

  Galia had lost none of her New York accent.

  Unable to resist such an opening, Welborn said, “Overexposure to Yankees.”

  Galia parried without scolding. “Always a risky thing. What I’d like to know is, can you sound more down home, should you choose?”

  Welborn assumed his best aw shucks smile. “‘Course, I can. I jus’ think of Mama makin’ grits in the mornin’.”

  Galia smiled, liking the voice she heard.

  “And how often did she do that?”

  “Never,” he said in his normal voice.

  It had been a long time since anyone, other than James J. McGill, had cracked wise with her, Galia thought, but she liked Welborn’s attitude. His acting ability, too. He likely would need both those qualities and several more to acquit himself successfully. The situation into which she wanted to send him could well involve mortal danger.

  First, though, she had to get a better read on him. The worst thing would be to have him commit to what she wanted and not be able to follow through.

  “Forgive me for asking,” Galia said, “but how are things at home?”

  Welborn’s sense of unease soared. He had the notion to walk away there and then. Not worry if he might put the chief of staff’s
nose out of joint.

  Before he could move, though, the waitress arrived to ask for their lunch orders.

  That mundane inquiry made him feel his thoughts had veered into the melodramatic.

  He was just having lunch, albeit an unusual one, with one of the most important people in the country. It was perfectly within the bounds of civil conversation to inquire about the well being of a junior colleague’s family.

  Only once they’d given their orders and the waitress had departed, the spirit of the rendezvous swung back to the ominous again.

  That being the case, Welborn didn’t think it out of place to respond, “Why do you ask?” He’d been about to say ma’am again, swallowed it and let the question hang.

  Galia said, “You’re still relatively newly married. You’ve recently become a father. I hope everything at home is going well, but I also understand domestic responsibilities can distract even the most dedicated professional from his responsibilities. The only losing political campaign I managed happened when my two sons were preschoolers and I was working from home. I overcommitted when I took that job. Never should have done it. I had to apologize profusely to the candidate. She should have won.”

  “I’ve been able to balance all my obligations,” Welborn said in a quiet voice.

  “Kira and your little girls are well?”

  Welborn nodded.

  Galia thought about that. Maybe what she had in mind was too much to ask of this young man, recently married and newly a father. Remembering her own youth, in the days of military conscription, she recalled that young fathers had been exempted from the draft. A rare example of social decency in those days.

  Ironically, it was her reluctance to speak that piqued Welborn’s interest, and prompted a bit of insight from him. In a whisper, he told her, “You want me to do something off the books. Something dangerous.”

  Galia nodded. “Exactly.”

  “What?”

  Galia looked around. Seeing no one nearby she leaned over the table. Welborn responded in kind. If they’d been any closer, they would have been kissing.

  “I want you to find out for me, personally, how real and how immediate the biggest threat to the president’s life is.”

  Welborn Yates was a federal agent, a trained investigator. Beyond that, he’d become a protégé of James J. McGill and Margaret Sweeney, from whom he’d learned more than a few things. But he’d never worked undercover. He could only imagine the risks that might involve.

  Losing his life, for one.

  Leaving Kira a widow and Aria and Callista fatherless.

  If he rejected Ms. Mindel’s idea, though, and the president was assassinated, he’d never be able to live with himself. The president had plucked him from his desk at Andrews AFB and brought him to the White House. Without that, he’d never have met Kira, would never have had his twin girls melt his heart with their toothless smiles.

  He told Galia, “I’ll have to talk with Kira first.”

  Galia nodded.

  “And we’ll have to do this right,” Welborn said.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I’ll need some backup, and Mr. McGill will have to know.”

  The President’s Bedroom

  McGill said, “I’m glad I didn’t have to buy a ticket to that movie.”

  He and Patti reclined against their bed’s headboard, a quartet of pillows cushioning them.

  Patti looked at McGill and said, “That was the last time I’ll watch that video. It’s also the first time that I’ve thought to ask if the White House has a hypnotist on staff. I’m going to need some help to forget those images.”

  McGill picked up the remote control and clicked off the TV.

  He put an arm around his wife’s shoulders and drew her close.

  “The best thing you can do,” he told Patti, “is wake up the morning after the inauguration. Then you’ll know that scenario was just somebody else’s bad dream.”

  Patti nodded. “The way it was scripted, there was nothing you, I or anyone else could have done to prevent that awful ending.”

  “I think that was the point.” McGill paused to consider whether he should say what he was thinking. Maybe not. But then he said it anyway. “Are you sure Celsus Crogher is out of the loop at the Secret Service? This is just the kind of thing he might concoct to scare both of us into falling in line.”

  “Jim, Celsus is officially retired. Off the payroll. Out of the building.”

  “He might have left a memo behind.”

  The president thought about that. “He might have.”

  McGill shook his head. “No, on second thought, I don’t think he did.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’d do it in a heartbeat if it was just to manipulate me, but he’d never do anything to scare you. A nervous president is not an effective president. Besides, in his own near-human way, Celsus is sweet on you. He’s looking forward to that dance at the inaugural ball you owe him.”

  The president chided her husband. “Celsus is human, more than ever since he’s learned to dance. Still more since he turned his worries over to SAC Kendry.”

  McGill feigned a shiver. “Poor Elspeth, to think she might turn out like Celsus.”

  “Careful,” the president said, “or I might dance with her, too.”

  McGill looked at his wife and laughed.

  “That might cause a bit of an uproar. Be fun to see who keeled over from outrage.”

  Patti smiled and then sighed. “We’d better save the fun and games for later. David Nathan asked me to weigh the situation. Decide whether to go ahead with the ceremonial outdoor inauguration.”

  “Or do a webcast of the real one on January twentieth from the safety of the White House?”

  “Phone it in,” Patti said.

  “But you can’t do that, can you?” McGill asked.

  “No.”

  “Because if you do that you’ve surrendered. Might as well resign.”

  “Right,” Patti said. “I have to be out there with my game-face on because, as someone just told me, a nervous president is an ineffective president.”

  McGill said, “Words of wisdom. I’ll be right there beside you.”

  Patti bided a moment of silence and then she asked McGill, “Did you ever read any Greek and Roman mythology?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “we covered that at DePaul. Probably not in the same detail you did at Yale, but I know the broad strokes.”

  “That’ll do. You remember the names Baucis and Philemon?”

  McGill nodded. “Swell old couple, real nice people, had a long, happy marriage. Zeus and Hermes came to town in disguise one day and —”

  Patti said, “Baucis and Philemon, poor though they were, were the only people in town to offer the gods shelter and hospitality for the night.”

  “And their reward was?” McGill asked.

  “A warning. Get out of town because the gods were going to destroy everyone who had turned them away. Which they did with a flood.”

  McGill continued, “A flood that spared only the formerly humble home of Baucis and Philemon, which was transformed into a beautiful temple. Baucis and Philemon were granted the right to become the temple’s guardians. Possibly the first jobs program in history.”

  Patti smiled. “What was the other favor the gods granted the sweet old couple?”

  McGill said, “That when they died the same hour would take them both.”

  Patti kissed McGill’s cheek. “Goes to show. You don’t need the Ivy League to get a good education.”

  “Yeah, there’s always Stanford,” McGill said.

  The two of them chuckled. Then McGill added, “For all the romance and comfort there is in the idea of two aged lovers departing at the same time, it’s gotta be twice as hard on the people they leave behind. Assuming they survived the flood.”

  “No question,” Patti said. “Let’s send that myth out for a rewrite. Better yet, let’s not die together or separately anytime soon.�
��

  “You know what my takeaway from that story is?” McGill asked. “A clean-living, hardworking couple like you and me, anything bad is about to happen, we’ll get a warning from a higher power to beat feet or at least duck.”

  “You really think we’re as virtuous as Baucis and Philemon?” Patti asked.

  “Sure,” McGill said, “if we work on our hospitality the next couple of weeks.”

  Lower Manhattan

  After a meal at a Chinese restaurant on Mott Street — soup dumplings and fried fish for Pruet, pork in brown sauce for Odo — the two Frenchmen began their survey of Manhattan art galleries in the lower half of town. The prospect was daunting even for two keenly motivated investigators. There were four hundred art venues in the Chelsea neighborhood alone.

  Galleries had sprouted in all manner of industrial spaces, in churches, in storefronts and in what had once been private residences. The possibilities would have narrowed dramatically if Pruet and Odo had limited themselves to showcases of museum quality masterpieces such as a missing Renoir, but they were looking for a shady middleman, a fence, and that sort of scoundrel might fetch up anywhere there was a profit to be made.

  With the fickleness of the art market second only to that of fashion design, there might be huge sums paid for any artistic impulse imaginable: oils, pastels, watercolors, gouache, charcoals, abstracts, expressionism, representational art, street art. The list was endless.

  So was the extent of art theft and fencing.

  Very little of what Pruet and Odo saw impressed them. That helped the two foreigners to play their parts, making their nationality and their sensibilities plain. They spoke exclusively in their native tongue, unless addressed in English. In that case, Pruet affected an accent thick enough to make the person addressing him strain to understand.

  Giving Odo more than enough time to assess the other party’s character.

  They were approached by several gallery owners and other art hustlers. Pruet was polite to everyone, defying the stereotype that the French were haughty and rude. He was simply moins qu'intéressé — less than interested — in the art he saw and the sales pitches that came his way.