The Incumbent

by Brian McGrory

  He paused again, as if collecting his thoughts. "I have some reasonably reliable information that this assassination attempt was sponsored by a group of freedom fighters based in Wyoming. They're a relatively new unit, inexperienced, with a commander who's hell-bent on making a national mark. This, apparently, was intended to be it."

  I sat for a moment in a stunned but relieved silence. Daniel Nathaniel was essentially confirming the initial FBI line on the shooting, cutting against the grain of most other stories since, including some in the New York Times. This was a significant development, not to be underplayed. A story indicating that a high-placed, well-up source within the militia movement was suggesting, if not outright saying, that the assassination attempt was militia-related would put me and the Record way ahead of the game. Sitting here in this cabin, it also gave me a surge of adrenaline, or maybe it was testosterone. Either way.

  "Okay," I said, partly to Nathaniel, partly aloud to myself. Looking right at him, I asked, "How do you know?"

  "What, you think I'm going to give away all my trade secrets? When you reported that time that the Michigan militia was on the brink of disbanding for lack of leadership, did I ask you how you knew?"

  I hate when people I'm interviewing answer questions with questions.

  Puts me on my heels. Wastes my time.

  "Different situation, different set of circumstances," I said. "You know that. I'm trying to get something into print. I have to make sure I can use it before I just go zipping it into the paper.

  Sometimes it's helpful to be accurate, even if it's just for kicks."

  He said nothing, so I asked, "What's the guy's name in Wyoming, the commander?"

  "Billy Walbin. Billy Joe Walbin to his friends. My understanding is he came up from Louisiana. He wears many hats, and maybe a cape, if you know what I mean."

  I think I did. A too-typical antigovernment zealot who, for good measure, also railed against blacks, Jews, gays, and anyone else slightly different from himself. A Ku Klux Klan member sowing his oats.

  I asked, "He accessible?"

  "I don't know. Maybe not if one of his guys just took a potshot at the president and bought the farm."

  I said, "I want to get this into print. I need to get this into print.

  Too many swirling questions about all this back in Washington. The FBI brass is saying one thing. The rank and file is leaking something decidedly different to the New York Times and the rest of the press.

  This assassination attempt is my fucking story. I was almost killed.

  I need your information to get something together on this. I need to know how you know."

  In police work, detectives say you don't really need a motive, that they can try you just fine based strictly on physical evidence, especially with the advent of DNA testing, and I suppose much the same is true of reporting. Information, especially good information, is valuable no matter how you come across it. Still, it's always good to know the motive of the person giving it to you, if that's how you're getting it. Subtleties can be shaded, or accented, or even omitted, all for the sake of the proper pitch. As a reporter, I like to know what I'm dealing with, and why.

  In this particular case, I sensed that Daniel Nathaniel might feel threatened by the burgeoning strength of the Wyoming militia generally, and of Billy Joe Walbin specifically. Fear is a good and trustworthy motive, when properly understood. I knew I could play this to my favor.

  He said, "Take the information to the bank."

  I replied, "The only place I can take it is to my editor, who's going to demand to know how you know. And unless you tell me, it will never see the light of day. Never. And think what a waste that will be."

  After a pause, Nathaniel looked me in the eye and said, "I have a pipeline into his group, but if that gets into print, my source is dead, and maybe so am I. But I know this reliably. They held a meeting. They have been planning this for about six weeks. The information is good."

  That takes care of that. I felt my hand balling up into a fist again.

  All that adrenaline. "What conditions are we talking under?" I asked.

  Nathaniel knows the game pretty well, knows how to use the press to his advantage, like all those high government officials back in Washington who he claims to despise.

  "A source familiar with the nation's militia movement," he said.

  That seemed too vague, leaving open the possibility it was a law enforcement official. I didn't like it.

  "No good. How about a well-placed militia leader?"

  "And the day you print that, you can come out and cover the assassination of Daniel Nathaniel for your paper."

  Fair enough, though I still grimace when people refer to themselves by name like that, as if their very sense of greatness transcends who they are.

  "Right. An authority who monitors developments within the militia movement?" I suspected he'd like this, being called an authority and all.

  He thought for a moment and said, "Good."

  I checked my watch for the time: 2:30 P.m. Pacific, meaning 5:30 in Boston. West Coast stories are a killer, given the deadline issues.

  Much to my joy, or maybe relief, I had achieved more than I thought I would on this trip. The problem now was getting it into print.

  "Let's go back over some of this," I said. "Have you had any direct contact with Walbin? Did he send a bulletin around to other militias that this was going to happen? Did he seek your advice?"

  Nathaniel said, "Look, we're not the fucking King Sisters. You know us better than that. I mean, we don't all pick up the phone every night and make small talk with each other, telling everyone else what we're doing the next day. And some of these guys, they're just weird, I don't know what the fuck they're doing."

  "You learned about this but didn't go to the feds with it?"

  "I don't like the feds."

  Good point. I pressed him but didn't get any more. He did say he had received calls in the last couple of days from reporters with the New York Times and the Washington Post, but hadn't returned them. I love it when people tell me that.

  "I'll pass on your regrets when I see them," I said. Finally, I added,

  "I have to run. I appreciate your help. You around tomorrow? I'd like to call you for some more info, or some clarification. But I'm on deadline right now, right up against it."

  "Call me," he said, nodding his head at me, still flat. He hit a button on his desk, and his two security goons came in. The interview was over. I bade a quick farewell to Nathaniel. It wasn't exactly friendly, because we're not exactly friends.

  Outside, I drove down the dusty road as fast as the rental Grand Am would take me, slowing down at the guard shack on the way out only so the kid there could see me flipping him the middle finger. I thought I saw him reach for his gun, but was far out of view by the time he would actually have been able to pull it. He was probably just scratching a sore.

  Decision time. No matter how I argued it in my own mind, I knew this story would benefit from another day of responsible reporting and thinking. Problem was, this was daily journalism, and responsibility and thought didn't have a fixed place here. I was caught in what is known as a cycle, when newspapers and networks breathlessly publish and broadcast scraps of information, half-truths, even nontruths, all, ironically, in the name of prominence and respect. This was about competition, not about reader enlightenment.

  As I sped down the highway toward Coeur d'Alene, the pines smacking past me out my side windows, I replayed the day. The most prominent militia movement leader in the nation was saying, for the first time, that the assassination attempt was likely part of a militia-related conspiracy born in the hills of rural Wyoming. It was enough of a story to get the Record credit on the morning wires and network shows again. Whether it was enough to get this anonymous old man to call me again, I couldn't be sure. He hadn't called after my last Hutchins interview, which was beginning to make me nervous.

  Still, there were many unanswered questions he
re, chief among them, Who was Billy Walbin and what might he have to say about this? Could Stevens or Drinker add anything? Would they? Was the FBI already on to the Wyoming angle, or would this be news to them? Right now, the story had more holes in it than Tony Clawson. On deadline on a Monday evening, I doubted whether I would be able to fill them.

  It was only 3:00 P.m. here, but already the sun was getting weak, and I flipped the heat on low. I had a batch of calls to make on my cell phone. The first was to my travel agent, to see what time their last flight of the day left from Spokane. The destination of the second call was a little less clear. Should I put my hopes in Stevens, or in Drinker?

  I had had more contact with Stevens, but doubts nagged over whether she had the stature, the authority, or even the confidence to leak me information of any great quality. Actually, I doubted that she did.

  Drinker was a more interesting case. From my research, I knew he had helped reporters in the past on significant stories.

  It's like a narcotic, the modern information game. Suddenly, obscure bureaucrats or hamstrung officials can see their secretly leaked information appear in print or on television before hundreds of thousands of people, shaping public discourse, influencing policy, getting results. And all without attribution. Once in, always in, and I decided right then that Drinker would be my best shot, so I placed my next call to FBI headquarters in Washington.

  "Director Drinker's office, please," I told the receptionist.

  The phone rang six times before it kicked over to a woman's recorded voice, asking me to please leave a message. I hung up and called back the main number.

  I said, sounding both confident and dismissive, something that came a little too naturally, "Hi, I'm trying to get Assistant Director Kent Drinker paged. Can you help me out?"

  The man was anything but helpful. "Can't do that," he said. "If his secretary's not in, I can pass you through to his voice mail and you can leave a message there."

  He seemed about to do just that when I butted in. "Look, this is Jack Flynn calling. I'm a witness to the assassination attempt on President Hutchins. I have some new information on the incident, and it is urgent that I talk to Drinker right away."

  The operator hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to do. Then he said gruffly, "Hold on." A couple of long minutes later, he came back on the line. "I can try him, but I can't guarantee anything. You have a number he can call you back on?"

  I gave my cell phone number, asked for his name in a not-too-subtle bit of pressure, and hung up. I had one other call to make, but kept the line open just in case.

  As I cruised down the highway toward Coeur d'Alene, it occurred to me I was about as far away from home as possible, not so much in distance as in life, surrounded by all this wilderness, all this craziness. As the heater blew warm air on my feet and hands and the pale sun seemed to balance on the tops of the tall pines ahead, I wondered what Katherine and I might have been doing on this Monday night. Maybe we would have ordered food from an upscale delivery service and would be spooning little bits of mashed vegetables to our baby between taking bites of grilled swordfish for ourselves. Maybe she'd be pregnant again, glowing as she did the first time around. Maybe we'd be strolling the neighborhood, pushing the carriage with the dog padding along beside us, exchanging knowing, amused looks when we awoke about how much our lives had changed.

  As I stared blankly out the window, the cellular telephone rang, thank God.

  "Jack Flynn here," I said, my throat surprisingly thick as I shook off my thoughts and brought myself back to the realities of death and life.

  "Kent Drinker here. What can I do for you?"

  Small talk, I assumed, carried no water with this guy, so I replied,

  "I'm running with a story tomorrow saying that an authority familiar with the inner workings of the militia movement believes the assassination attempt was orchestrated by an insurgent, newly formed militia unit in Wyoming. I'm trying to get FBI reaction, to see if the bureau has been pursuing that lead or has independent knowledge.

  Conversely, if you believe I'm wrong, it would be helpful to be guided away from the story."

  There was nothing but dead air on the other end of the line-dead air that carried on so long that I began to wonder if we had been disconnected. "Hello?" I finally asked.

  "Hold on," Drinker said. "I'm just trying to figure out what I can safely tell you."

  Not the answer I was anticipating. I was assuming he would tell me nothing.

  Another stretch of silence, then he added, "You would not be inaccurate in reporting that FBI investigators have been probing the relationship of a Wyoming militia group to this assassination attempt. I would be willing to say that on the condition of anonymity, as a senior law enforcement official."

  Here we go again. "How about a senior FBI official?" I asked.

  "No. I need at least some cover."

  I asked, "How did you get turned on to the Wyoming group? What's your best link?"

  "No way am I going that far with you," he said. "You have enough for a significant story. You sure have more than your competition. That's all I'm going to tell you."

  My mind was racing with more questions, but Drinker interrupted, saying in a clipped way, "I have to go. I've helped you enough." And then the click of his telephone.

  It was abrupt, but it didn't really matter now. I had hit pay dirt.

  Immediately, I dialed up another number, that of directory assistance in Cody, Wyoming, the supposed hometown of the Wyoming Freedomfighters.

  They weren't listed, but a B. J. Walbin was, so I took it and called.

  On the other end, I got the expected rigamarole-the snotty kid asking my name and my intended business, a referral to their so-called spokesman, who seemed to be inaccessible.

  "Handle this however you want," I told him. "But if I were you, I would inform Billy Joe that there will be a story in tomorrow morning's Boston Record that will highlight his role in a presidential assassination conspiracy. He might want to know about this before it runs. If he wants to know more, have him call me at this number."

  I gave him the number and hung up before the kid could say another word. Fuck him.

  Finally, I called Peter Martin at the office. I walked him briskly through what I had and told him where I wanted to go. He appeared in full agreement.

  "How long before you can file?" he asked.

  I said, "I don't have a word on paper yet. I'll have to write it from the road and hunt down someplace to transmit. Can you buy me a couple of hours?"

  Other editors were sticklers for things like deadline times, story lengths, and the like. Martin, to his credit, was an advocate of reporters, and as part of that would try to get me what I needed to do my job well, which in this case was a few extra minutes, like maybe sixty of them.

  He said, "No sweat. File to me. I'll buy you some time in Boston.

  Write the shit out of it."

  I continued down the highway, urgently scanning the darkening road for a fast food restaurant, a bar, or even a mini-mart where I could pull over to put the proverbial pen to paper. So far, nothing. So I had started writing the story in my mind, getting through the first few paragraphs with some nice turns of phrase, when I spotted a faded red neon sign that announced "The Dew Drop Inn." It was a log building with just one window and smoke billowing from a chimney. The University Club of Washington it was not.

  Outside were about a dozen pickup trucks and an olive-colored Buick LeSabre, vintage 1970's, which I assumed was owned by the town's one business executive. Nearby were another ten motorcycles-hogs, the owners probably called them.

  Inside, the wood floors were dusty and seemed to scratch and slide underfoot. Everything was made of unfinished particleboard-from the beamed rafters to the bar to the simple booths and benches. Music played from a jukebox. Smoke filled the air, along with the smell of old beer and hot nachos. I stepped up toward the bartender as a few of the patrons looked my way.

  I said,
"White wine spritzer please, with a wedge of fresh lemon."

  Just kidding. Mrs. Flynn didn't raise any fools. I ordered a Budweiser, specifically saying "Longneck," figuring, correctly, that's all they'd have here.

  The bartender, a fifty-something gentleman with pleasant features and salt and pepper hair, popped it down on the bar. "Buck and a quarter,"

  he said.

  My, my, I thought. Maybe this place wasn't so bad after all. "You mind if I plug a laptop computer in over at that booth?" I asked. My goal was to get this bartender on my side, just in case I'd need him.

  "All yours," he said.

  I laid a pair of twenties between us and told him, "Hit the bar all around."

  That gesture of goodwill bought me exactly what I had hoped: a few words of thanks from the boys, but mostly some privacy to sit back and type out a story as fast as I could, without interruption.

  As I finished writing my second graph, my cellular telephone rang.

  "Mr. Flynn, Billy Joe Walbin here," the caller said in a voice thick with a southern, good ol' boy accent.

  I had no time for niceties or introductory, fruitless conversation.

  "Thank you for calling back, sir," I said. "I am a Washington reporter for the Boston Record. I am planning on running with a story in tomorrow's paper saying that the Wyoming Freedomfighters, and you specifically, masterminded the failed assassination attempt on President Hutchins."

  "Hey there, aren't you the boy, the reporter, who was shot in that thing?" he asked. Always nice to be remembered.

  "I was, yes."

  "Well, your story's bullshit. And I don't waste my time talkin' to the Jew media. You're all the same, all you Jew editors and Jew publishers and Jew reporters. Fuck youse all. Fuck you."

  And just like that, the line went dead. So I inserted that in the story, minus the profanity. I quoted Nathaniel, anonymously. I quoted Drinker, anonymously. I backfilled all the details of the assassination attempt. I gave the whole thing a dose of context, and I was through, in time to make deadline, in time to get my flight back to civilization.