by Melody Clark
Lee coughed out a laugh from behind them. “The cop thought you were a psychiatric patient?”
“Hell, that was the nicest thing he thought,” Hamilton said. “At first, he thought I was a goddamned john looking for action. When I told him I was a Senator, he wanted to pack me off for a 51-50 psychiatric evaluation. Given the circumstances, I expect he had the right to be suspicious.” Hamilton turned around and glared at Lee, who had withdrawn into the rear seat. “Do I even know you, partner?”
Lee nodded. “I’m Senator Jefferson’s secretary,” he said.
“Lee, like the general right?” Hamilton asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“I remember. Then again, you’re a bit hard to forget.”
Lee nodded. “So I’ve been told, Senator.”
Hamilton yanked down the seatbelt and fastened it sharply. He glared over at T.J. “So where the hell is your goddamned boyfriend?”
“You’d know that better than I,” T.J. said, glaring around at him. “What did he say to you?”
“He didn’t say any damn thing. He turned tail out the goddamned staff hallway to get around me, the little son of a bitch. He told Deke Mendelsohn he was going to get the list from Michael whats-his-bucket. Jack also borrowed Deke’s pass key to the Banks building.”
“The Banks building,” T.J. said, looking over at him hard. With a second to consider, he swerved into the turn lane and made a hard left toward Morton Street. “Good lord, at least I know where he’s going. I just wish I knew why.”
T.J.’s phone rang. “Jack?” he asked hopefully, with the word that had become a greeting for him in the last few hours.
“No, it’s Taneesha,” the woman’s voice rang back through the line. “I haven’t talked to him in a while. He won’t answer his phone so I thought you might have heard from him. I told him to call you which, of course, he didn’t.”
“What did he say when you spoke with him?”
“I told him some stuff I found out about the Banks building,” she said. “That wall he’s been fixated on.”
T.J.’s heart almost stopped. “What did you tell him?”
“Only thing I could find out. That the wall had been part of President Adams’ summer office. It’s top secret, with a Secret Service seal. I suggested it might be a backdoor into the Lincoln bedroom, and that seemed to trigger something in him.”
“That makes sense. And it explains why he’s headed there. Call me if you hear anything. I’ll do the same,” T.J. said. He shut down his phone then looked over at Hamilton. “Ham, you know of anything hush-hush that might be concealed in the older section of the Banks building?”
Hamilton grimaced in thought. “Well, there’s the old saw about the Lobsterback Pass, but that’s just a myth.”
“Perhaps not. What is it?”
“Supposedly some emergency bolt-hole out of the White House and down to where they had a carriage at ready, in case the redcoats attacked. Of course, back then it wasn’t the White House. They called it the Presidential Estate or some such.”
“Why did they call the tunnel Lobsterback Pass?” T.J. asked.
“Because lobsterbacks was another name for redcoats. The story goes that Franklin and Jefferson designed the thing. That would have been some huge engineering feat for the time, given the circumstances. The end of the bolt-hole was supposed to be the office the President used for the summer. The idea was to go down to the far end of the point and then by boat across the river to escape.”
“And if you could get from the White House to the Banks building,” T.J. muttered, mostly to himself, “Then you could get from the Banks building to the White House. Inside the building. Beyond the gates.”
Hamilton shrugged. “If it really existed, sure, but it doesn’t.”
“Perhaps it does,” T.J. said.
“Tommy, wouldn’t something like that be fairly obvious?” Lee asked.
“Well, it’s supposed to be hidden behind a wall or something,” Hamilton said.
‘Smashing my way through a wall,’ Jack had said.
“Oh my God,” T.J. said, realizing. “If I know my Jackie, and I think I do, he’s going to confront President Walker with the fucking list.”
“Messing with Wendell Walker is like French kissing a king cobra, Thomas,” Hamilton said. “And I am still in my nightie. All I need is to go ambling along down the Beltway so some photo-snapping son of a buck can shoot me in my jammies with the likes of you two. That might knock the Horse Thief off the front page.”
“Gee, thanks, Senator,” Lee said.
“No offense intended,” the senator replied.
“Now, how could I possibly be offended at that?” Lee shot back.
Hamilton frowned over at him. “What I’m saying is, you best drop me by my penthouse.”
T.J. slammed the heel of his palm against the steering wheel. “What the hell do you mean? I have to get to Jack before he gets himself arrested.”
“I understand that, Thomas,” Ham said. “Just drop me off at the switchback to M Street. I’m in the West End. I can hoof it from there.”
“I’m in the West End too,” Lee added. “I’ll walk you home. I’m not getting my ass in grass either.”
“You live in the West End?” Hamilton said, suspiciously. “What kinda salary you make working for Thomas?”
“My husband is the Gallagher of Gallagher, Peters and Associates,” Lee stiffly replied.
“You mean to tell me,” Hamilton spat out, “Five-over-Par Tony Gallagher is your gay boyfriend?”
“Only when he’s having sex with me, honest,” Lee replied tartly. “Be careful, old man, or I’ll trip you while I’m walking you home.”
Jack always marveled at how much lighter the inside of office buildings appeared at night, as if the electricity within fought to build a dam against the darkness. He imagined how dark the buildings must have been in the days of dark wood and fire-lit lamps, especially at night. He thought of that especially as he rounded the corner to the oldest part of the Banks building.
He had planned ahead, of course. He pulled out an old black shirt and tented it over the tire iron’s teeth so he could raise the shirt and fit it over the front of the video surveillance camera’s eye. He trusted in the cheapness of the last years of Presidential administration to provide for a system that wouldn’t alert the surveillance operator to a lapse in visual cues. Sure enough, no signal had sounded.
‘Turn the knob and it opens.’
He wondered if the darkness had been the reason the knob was made easy to find. And it was still easy to find. It took three or four hard twists with the help of his thumb.
‘Turn the knob and it opens.’
He turned the knob, and the wall slipped apart from the corner. He pushed against age and dust to force the wall to slide into the opposite pocket, fit inside the rest of the wall.
There was a door. There was absolutely a door.
Of course, he knew he had to have read of this somewhere. The little girl ghost had arisen from the last of the hallucinogen in his body. The information itself he must have already read or seen. Good, old cryptomnesia was the culprit, he told himself.
He tried to force the door aside, against even more age and dust. When he couldn’t, he squinted at the door’s edge to see a line of rusty old nails that had been hammered into wood. Somebody had nailed the door shut a long time ago. A long, long time ago.
He lifted the tire iron again to pry the nails away from the wood. They exploded like brittle teeth in a broken jaw. The door came open without another complaint.
A rush of stale air and dust blew past him, as if something inside had been waiting to exhale a very long time. There was a very old piece of yellowed parchment hammered to the inside of the door. The parchment read “Lobsterback Flight from Presidential Palace”. Beneath the words, a crude sketch had been made, a diagram of what appeared to be a passageway from one black X through a series of rudely articulated corridors up to what Jack
recognized as the basic floor plan of what was now called the White House, but which had only been called the White House for a little over a century.
Judging from the lettering, the parchment was a lot older than that.
He knew where this went, but he yanked down the diagram, just to be sure. He pulled out his flashlight and drew the door closed behind him. He shone his light into the dark passageway ahead. The rough floor seemed to have been unwalked for a long time. His footsteps left imprints behind him.
He didn’t know how long he walked … he didn’t even know where he was walking, for sure … He knew, but he didn’t, which was the best way he’d be able to explain this to anyone for years after.
Above him, streams of light filtered through the dust. He thought he heard street noise. He sensed he heard voices. He had the notion he wasn’t far underground which, for a man with mild claustrophobia, was a comforting sensation to cling to, so he clung to it.
He turned a corner to find three more planks covering his way. He raised his crowbar to pry those away. It took more effort through longer moments, since the wood seemed less fragile, but he pried away one that allowed him to move through.
In all, there stood five more barricades ahead of him, each made of three to four planks, each blockade newer than the last. For a man who didn’t know where he was going, Jack told himself, he certainly made short work of the obstacles in his path.
The final obstacle was another wall. He felt along the edge till he found the knob, just like the other. This one turned more easily.
He hadn’t really known where he was going. He didn’t have a reason to expect a stronger obstacle. But wherever he was going was at least as old as the tunnel. The Presidential Palace had been one of the first names for the White House, so he supposed it was on the walk. That building would surely have been renovated too, as the Banks building had been.
But all that was revealed after he slid the wall aside was another door, just like the last door. No one had nailed shut this door. He turned the knob and it simply opened.
He was looking through the slots in what seemed to be industrial shelving. He could see the inside the small, spare room. It stood old, cement-walled with nothing embellished and looked somewhat like an old heating room – like the old heating room in the White House.
He hadn’t been expecting this. Well, he had but he hadn’t.
He leaned his shoulder against the shelving and managed to push it out of the way of the door. It moved just enough for him to squeeze himself around it. The space had once been part of the porter’s room that had become the old boiler room and later a utility closet. Most of this part of the building had been burned in 1814 by the hand of the British. Very little of the original interior structure remained so none of it was original. Apparently, only the tunnel door had survived the onslaught, no doubt due to the tiny room around it.
He slipped out of that room, around the dumbwaiter and through rooms that were now used as part of the national office. Before he had enough time to stand in awe at the place where he stood, black suited men encircled him from every angle. Each of them pointed a sizeable gun at him.
The Secret Service team leader raised a hand and each of the others drew back a little. “Senator Paulson?” he asked. “I’m Deputy in Charge Duffy. I’m sorry, sir, did you have an appointment with President Walker we weren’t informed about?”
“No,” Jack said, smiling, “But he’ll see me.”
Duffy regarded him with a skeptical squint. “President Walker is in the private residence, sir. His office hours – ”
“Are over, I know, but he’ll see me.”
Double doors from the direction of the main staircase opened. President Walker, whom Hamilton had called President Horse Thief so many times that Jack had almost forgotten Walker’s real name, stepped into the corridor.
Walker looked like he’d been run through with a sword. “I’ll see him, Agent,” the President said, as if he had to spit out each distasteful word.
Jack smiled at Duffy as the other man holstered his weapon and nodded to the others to stand down.
“Sorry to disturb you, Senator. Good evening, Mr. President,” Duffy said, as he led the retreat like Doc before the Seven Dwarves.
Walker’s eyes turned dark as they turned toward Paulson. “Well, Senator, my press secretary has just spoken with the London Times. We know the … situation.”
Jack shrugged. “I’m sorry, sir, I wouldn’t know what situation that is. I just came to warn you about this list thing that’s going around. Senator Jefferson and I spoke with various House and Senate members, but I made the decision to bring it directly to you, once I had a copy of it. That way, you and the Vice President could protect yourselves from any fall-out from the press. I mean, you know, since you’re both on the list.”
“We’re … aware of that.”
Jack grinned. “Are you? Then you must know the highly sensitive nature of the information.”
The President combed fingers back through his brown-dyed hair. “Enough so that I’m standing here, talking to you, instead of calling the Uniformed Deputies, Senator.” Walker stared down at his feet. Jack couldn’t see his eyes but he wagered they weren’t happy and shiny. ““I know you don’t like me. I know we see things very differently. Believe it or not, I only wanted to serve my country, but our term in office is half over. If we do as we now plan, we’ll avoid House Hearings, a Special Prosecutor, Impeachment and the rest. I’m sure this outcome will make you happy.”
“No, it won’t make me happy. I hate your politics, but I’ve got nothing against you. I didn’t know you and the Veep were on there. I mean, I didn’t care. But for thirty years, you and your ilk have whipped up this sanctimonious fervor against people who are different. You used it to hold office and drive out enemies. You blackmailed everyone for doing what you yourselves were doing. You hide behind this family values bullshit plank and stage vicious, unfounded attacks on anyone who doesn’t comply with your pro-corporate political agenda. But you got hoisted on your own petard, Mr. President. That’s what you get for hiding in the closet while you serve the rich, abuse the poor and sneer at compassion.”
Walker grinned a little in contempt. “I’m in no closet, Senator. I am straight, as is Vice President Richards. I think the number of women on our respective entries might have indicated that. Although I’m not sure what you’d call yourselves these days.”
Jack laughed harshly at the sound of the words. “You call me whatever you want. I’m a man who fell in love with another man. Everybody knows who and what I am. You can’t use anything against me. See, this is what you guys don’t get. It’s not about your sex life. It’s your hypocrisy … Mr. President.”
Chapter Six
The Banks building glittered off the starlight, so close T.J. could almost see inside the lobby windows. The traffic down to Morton Street, at that hour of the night, had thinned. He neared the exit and his cell phone rang.
“Jack?” he asked, hopefully.
“No, just me,” Lee said. “Are you sitting down?”
“Of course not,” T.J. replied, making a sharp turn toward the bridge exit again. “I always stand at attention when I drive through DC. What the fuck could have happened? I just dropped you off ten minutes ago. I’m still trying to get out to Jack.”
“Don’t be bitchy. This is big. The BBC Daybreak Report broke the story in its morning report. We just got it over the wire.”
“About the list?”
“No. The wire service story says that the President and Vice President will be making a serious, early morning announcement. The speculation is they’re going to resign. You think Jack got to them?”
T.J. stopped at the red light, just one turn away from the building. “He must have. President Horse Thief doing something selfless? There had to have been a powerful motivator behind that.”
At that moment, T.J.’s passenger door popped open. Jack climbed inside. T.J. practically melted
into the seat with relief. He reached over to pluck some chalky white dust off Jack’s shoulder and then kiss him hard on the side of his face. “Thank great flipping God. Where in hell have you been?”
“Oh, here and there,” Jack said, grinning like a sunbeam.
“Call me back!” Lee yelled through the phone.
“I’ll call you back,” T.J. said, and hung up the line. He tossed the phone between them. “Did you hear about Walker and Richards?”
“Hear about it?” Jack said, laughing. “Tommy, I had a front row seat.”
“I’ll just bet you did. They were both on the list?”
