The Washington Decree

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  “Yes, Thomas?”

  “The prime minister will be arriving soon. We ought to run through our plan one more time.”

  “Yes, let’s. You’ll be told more later, Wesley. But you should know our first objective is merely to infect specific websites with a fatal virus. You can probably figure out which ones I have in mind.”

  “Yes,” he said quietly. There wasn’t much else he could say. It was all downhill from here, not the first time in history those in power had attempted to suppress the opposition’s right to express itself.

  No, Hitler and Stalin had not lived in vain. Of course he could do without the extremist websites—the Ku Klux Klan, Hells Angels, Moral Minority, the White-Headed Eagles, and the child porn, bomb recipe, and satanic cult freaks. For his sake they could all be banished to a desert island and wind each other up to their heart’s content. But what about the opposition with a legitimate bone to pick? The righteous indignation of the common man or the masses who were not clever enough to formulate themselves? Should they also be trampled underfoot?

  Jansen clapped his hands one time. “Good. Let us take the security procedures first, then we’ll run through the entire agenda, step-by-step. Would you be so kind as to keep notes, Lance?”

  * * *

  —

  More than one member of the White House security team had noticed Eleanor Poppins’s physical attributes and were happy to let her wait for Wesley outside the Oval Office. She’d fixed her makeup and, in spite of the dark circles under her eyes, had brought herself up to par in terms of authoritativeness and charm. There were many who would have given their right arm for a few minutes’ private audience with Wesley’s secretary, but at the moment Wesley wasn’t one of them.

  She greeted him nervously. “What did Billy Johnson say, Wesley? Did you ask him?”

  He looked at her, wishing she would just disappear. Who the hell had he thought he was, giving her false hopes? There was no way he could have brought up a subject as insignificant as the detainment of Eleanor Poppins’s husband when the president and all the others had much bigger fish to fry. No, he hadn’t done what he’d promised, and he wasn’t very pleased with himself.

  “Not really, Eleanor,” he answered.

  “‘Not really’? What does that mean?”

  “I’m just telling you he didn’t say anything definite. He wasn’t familiar with the case.”

  “But you mentioned it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but it didn’t lead to much. He didn’t know anything about it, Eleanor.” She followed him into his office.

  “But you said he should help, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, Eleanor, I did.” He looked at his watch. He felt sorry for her, but there weren’t many minutes left before he had to be in the pressroom. Enough was enough. Couldn’t she see his hands were tied, that what she was asking of him was a waste of time? That he already had more than enough nasty problems to deal with?

  A faint ringing could be heard from the secretary’s switchboard. “I’m expecting an important phone call, Eleanor,” he said, both relieved and apologetic, and signaled that she should go transfer the call in to him. “We’ll discuss your husband’s predicament later, okay?”

  The way she closed the door after her expressed—better than words ever could—how much stature he’d lost in her eyes. Wesley drove the self-contempt out of his mind and picked up the phone on the first ring. If it weren’t because he simply wanted to get rid of Eleanor, he’d never have taken the call.

  “Wesley Barefoot,” he said curtly, signaling that he was a very busy man.

  “I’ll say it fast. You don’t say anything.”

  Wesley sat up straight in his chair, amazed. It was Doggie. His mind began flying in ten different directions.

  Don’t say her name, he told himself, just listen. But please let me know you’re okay! Maybe it was safe to talk and maybe it wasn’t—only Lance Burton knew the answer to that. Or were there others listening in? Were there other surveillance systems he didn’t know about? Did they register all phone calls as a matter of course? Certainly. If they were lucky, she was calling from a number that wouldn’t arouse suspicion. He knew she would try to be careful. If he didn’t say anything in particular, nothing in particular would be registered. Not that he didn’t wish he could. He had an overwhelming desire to say something so she knew he wanted to do the right thing, for them and the rest of mankind, but he dared not move his lips.

  “I’m okay,” she said. It was certainly the voice of composure, but she obviously wasn’t all alone. He could hear street noises in the background, like there was traffic nearby and the streets were wet. She could be anywhere. He looked out his window. It was raining.

  “I’m meeting T soon. You might hear from me again—I think you will. We’re going to try and get in.”

  Get in? Hopefully, she didn’t mean the White House. He shook his head. Of course she did.

  “Are you in Washington?” he asked, regretting it immediately.

  “I just want to tell you to watch out today. Everywhere you go. I have a feeling.”

  He wanted to ask why, and whether she was “watching out.” What was he supposed to do? But the phone conversation was over. He imagined she smiled as she said good-bye and hung up.

  He sat, staring out the window for a minute or two. It had begun raining hard.

  Then his door opened; Eleanor was standing in the doorway. Her eyes were calculating, taking in any and every detail that might enhance the chances of her getting her husband back.

  She saw how he attempted to avoid her gaze, supporting her suspicions as to whom the caller was. Finally he looked at her. “Were you listening in, Eleanor?” he asked.

  She nodded very slowly. These were grounds for dismissal, but she didn’t care. Wesley represented her only chance to have her husband freed; this was what mattered most. “I think you’d better speak with Billy Johnson again, Wesley. Later today, preferably. Aside from that, it’s time you went down to the pressroom.”

  CHAPTER 36

  It had gone just as Rosalie and her boys had predicted. Ollie Boyce Henson had sung to the police the moment he heard about the reward for Doggie Rogers, and the manhunt was under way.

  And while the dairy truck was making its way south with the country’s most-wanted woman in its stainless steel container, Rosalie’s eldest son, James Lee Jr., turned up at the police station and told the story about how Doggie Rogers had tried to have them put her up and how he, his brother, and his mother had tried unsuccessfully to keep her there while they contacted the authorities.

  The police officers naturally wanted to know how a diminutive woman could outmaneuver such a big, strong boy like him, but James had anticipated the question. She had already escaped the FBI, Secret Service, the military, and the CIA, he said, so how could they expect three regular people to do any better? Without a doubt Doggie Rogers was a cunning bitch who knew what to do, and when. Out the back door, down the fire escape, and she was gone in a beige-colored Galaxy. They had yelled out the window for someone to follow her, but she’d shaken off her pursuers somewhere near White Plains. He had witnesses, he said. The license plate had been beat up and illegible, but otherwise the car had been in fucking good shape, with plenty of chrome and black racing stripes on the hood, so it should be easy to recognize.

  He ended his statement by demanding the reward if his information led to her apprehension. It was their problem that they’d already promised it to Ollie Boyce Henson.

  * * *

  —

  The alibi should have put them in the clear, but that night Rosalie couldn’t sleep. She was too discouraged in heart and mind.

  A couple of days ago, there had been three healthy boys sleeping in the bedroom next to hers, and now there were only two. Suddenly it was as if the coldness of the empty bed was spreading through the apartment, demo
lishing any fragile dreams of a bright future. The fear of losing another child dominated everything, including her grief, and the shame she felt over not grieving enough made sleep impossible.

  She lay in bed all night, praying to Jesus and wishing she could cry, but her head was too full of dark thoughts.

  Early the next morning she was awakened by her neighbor Annabelle Morrison. Bubbling with excitement, she told Rosalie what had been happening during the night. It had all begun with a pirate radio’s claim that soldiers had successfully traced Tom Jumper’s mobile transmitter and had subsequently killed him on a rural Virginia road, north of Front Royal. The incident had ignited massive spontaneous protests nationwide; even big Hollywood stars with plenty to lose had vented their outrage. A couple of hours later the same pirate station began listing the Jansen’s drugstores all over the country that had been plundered, starting in Des Moines and eventually reaching the Jansen’s Drugstore at Dewey and Randall, right down the street. Now, apparently, all the locals were headed for the store on Harding Avenue. It was a case of first come, first served, her neighbor said.

  Rosalie asked Annabelle to calm down a little, that she, Rosalie, had been brought up to respect the law, as Annabelle Morrison well knew. Besides, Dennis and James were still sleeping, and she didn’t want the boys overhearing them and getting bright ideas. Then anything might happen.

  When Annabelle finally headed off for the store on Harding Avenue with a pile of empty plastic bags under her arm, Rosalie turned on her CD player to hear a little Sonny Rollins in an attempt to offset the growing commotion of sirens and yelling outside. This usually had a calming effect on her boys as well but not this time. After two minutes they were standing before her with their sideways baseball caps, looking much too alert for that time of morning. They had sharp instincts when it came to easy money.

  They left the apartment without saying a word, and Rosalie was alone in the kitchen like so many times before. She felt like a hostage with a hood over her head, like a prisoner in solitary confinement who had never been sentenced. Time disappeared, leaving nothing good in its wake and offering little hope for the future.

  She folded her hands and attempted to digest all her neighbor had told her. Had this been the United States’ “Crystal Night”? Was this the beginning of the end, with only suffering, death, and destruction to look forward to?

  She prayed to Jesus and tried to find peace of mind. But every time she heard tumult on the street she had to start over.

  Thus she sat for two hours until the neighborhood once again grew quiet, but her boys had yet to return. Did that mean they hadn’t taken part in the plundering—or that they had?

  “Dear Jesus in heaven, please don’t let them be in trouble,” she prayed, battling a sense of dread. How could she go on living if another of her boys were killed? She put her hand to her breast and stood up, once again feeling about to pass out.

  By now it was stark daylight, and even though there were dark clouds building to the south, one couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful spring morning. Birds were chattering, perched on the roof gutters high above. It had been years since she’d noticed them; among the many sounds one heard in her neighborhood, this was rarely one of them. She went to the window to see if she could identify any of them, at the same time noticing two white men climbing out of their car and heading for her apartment building. They looked like undertakers in their black suits. They would be ringing her doorbell in a minute, she was sure of it—stand in her doorway with grave expressions and give her bad news. Nothing happened by the book these days. It was no longer the older, veteran cops who came at times like this. It could be any kind of representative of the law.

  She opened the door on the first ring and nodded curtly to the two G-men, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to look them in the eyes. Let them speak their piece, emit their odor of masculine vitality, and lead her by the arm to her easy chair, but not expect any eye contact. Sight was the only one of the senses that was selective, and she aimed to make use of that special feature.

  “Say it,” she said calmly, her eyes fastened on the doormat Dennis had won ten years ago in a bingo game at the YMCA over by Castle Hill. “Is it both of them? Are they badly hurt? Just say it.”

  “Mrs. Lee, we have a search warrant here . . .” The slighter man stuck a piece of paper in front of her face. It held no meaning for her.

  She swallowed the lump that had been growing in her throat.

  “Ma’am, you had a wanted person in your apartment yesterday. Doggie Rogers,” said the other one.

  She nodded. Was that all, or was there more? “Yes, that’s true. We reported it down at the station a long time ago.” Rosalie looked at the smaller man’s neck, scrawny and white as chalk. Was it about to produce words that would make her break down in tears? “She disappeared suddenly down our fire escape, you know. . . .” Rosalie summoned her courage and raised her eyes to theirs. “Then you didn’t come here because of my sons?”

  “James and Dennis? Yes, as a matter of fact we’d very much like to speak with them, too,” said the bigger one.

  “I see.” She exhaled the breath she’d been holding. So they knew nothing. But that still didn’t mean the danger had passed. “Well, they aren’t home right now,” she stated.

  They thrust the photocopy of a search warrant in her hand with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s stamp on it and went to work. They were thorough, and after ten minutes returned and laid two joints before her on the coffee table. She needn’t worry, they said, just as long as they didn’t find anything worse than that.

  “If you do, it’s my son Frank,” she quickly assured them. “I suppose you know. He died from an overdose yesterday,” she said, thinking they were sure to take the joints with them and smoke them themselves. One heard stories like this all the time.

  * * *

  —

  While they were in the process of sniffing her laundry, turning over mattresses, and poking around everywhere in the kitchen, Rosalie sat herself down by the window and scanned the street. More than anything she was wishing she’d spy her boys down there so her pulse could return to normal. When she did, she’d use sign language to make them disappear again. She wasn’t worried about what James might say if they questioned him, but one never knew with Dennis. That boy had always had problems keeping his mouth shut at strategic moments—something he’d inherited from his father.

  The soldiers must have stopped the protesting and plundering, because the neighborhood was settling down again. She saw only one of her neighbors struggling up the front stairs with a stack of stolen goods in his embrace—that was all. Fine, just as long as her own boys showed up soon.

  “What’s this?” asked one of the detectives, placing a photo album in front of her. He pointed at a photograph taken in Beijing Airport many years ago. It was a considerably more streamlined Rosalie, standing next to Senator Jansen and smiling.

  “Yes, that’s me and the president in China,” she said. “If you keep looking you’ll come to pictures of me and the vice president and a couple with Doggie Rogers as quite a young girl.”

  They asked what the occasion was in Beijing with the president, and in the course of answering she forgot to keep her eye on the street. Suddenly there were sounds of footsteps on the stairs and a key in the lock, and there they stood: James and Dennis with armfuls of stuff from Jansen’s Drugstore.

  A couple of seconds passed before they let it all cascade to the floor in realization of the situation they’d walked into. A situation that was emphasized by the drawn weapon of one of the cops.

  “It looks like you two have some explaining to do,” he said, waving his gun in the direction of the wall so his partner could frisk them.

  “Yo, man, these’s purchased goods, fair and square,” popped out of Dennis. “Lotta bargains down on the street today, and that ain’t no shit.”<
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  Rosalie watched in horror as the little detective with the skinny neck stuck his gun all the way into Dennis’s ear and cocked it. “Whatever you two say from now on can and will be used against you. You’re to open your mouths only in answer to a question, and I would strongly advise you to speak the truth. You’re busted if we’re in a moment’s doubt—got it?”

  Dennis nodded. Thank God for that.

  “Where’d you get the goods?” the cop asked, and returned his weapon to its holster.

  “We bought them off some mother down on the street who’d boosted them from the drugstore down on Castle Hill.”

  That went over like a lead balloon.

  “Okay, take the other one out in the kitchen and question him, Jeff,” said the bigger one. “Then we’ll compare notes and see what happens.”

  The detective called Jeff gave James a rough shove. He was at least a foot shorter than Rosalie’s son, with a neck thinner than James’s arm, but he was also the one bearing a firearm.

  “Hey, man, take it easy, take it easy!” James exclaimed. “We don’t have to go through all this hassle. It’s my baby brother, dig? Don’t mind him, he don’t know what he’s saying half the time. We were down at Castle Hill about thirty minutes. The shit was lyin’ everywhere, swear to God. We just scored things other folks had stolen and left behind, and that’s the truth, take it or leave it.”

  That one was a little better, a little more plausible. One had to take that into consideration.

  “How did Doggie Rogers contact you before she showed up?” asked Detective Jeff.

  “Contact us? She didn’t, dickhead, she just showed up!” Dennis was so busy playing smart-ass, he realized too late—again—what words were coming out of his mouth. By then the bigger detective was in the process of hammering the butt of his gun into the nape of Dennis’s neck. Rosalie sank into her chair and watched helplessly as her youngest son’s body sank lifelessly to the floor and flopped halfway under a chest of drawers.