by Brian Haig
The previous year’s tax return had been easily acquired and quickly evaluated by a financial forensics stud. That effort produced the following estimates: minus his real estate holdings, Jack’s net worth nested between fifteen and twenty-five million, probably around twenty; the previous year, his pretax income was six million and change; he invested carefully and conservatively, tucking the bulk of his money in tax-free municipal bonds; aside from his home mortgage, no debts, no child support, no alimony.
In short, after a superficial five-hour peek, Jack was discovered to be moderately wealthy, a wholesome, apparently well-adjusted, red-blooded, healthy American male who drove a three-year-old Lincoln (this was the only surprise; his profile nearly screamed Beemer or Mercedes). He had dated serially his whole life, tapering off a lot the past few years. Why was an open question. A good-looking, wealthy bachelor who had never been married raised obvious questions about his sexual disposition. The evidence, though, simply did not support a man who didn’t enjoy the company of women. Perhaps boredom, or an emotional setback, or plain disinterest accounted for it. Maybe he just enjoyed being single. His four-year fling at Princeton had been his only long-term romance.
If he had a current love interest, nobody knew about her.
Also, he owned a small, quaint cottage on the shore of Lake George; occasionally he spent weekends there, and all his vacations as best they could tell. No Vail, no Aspen, no Hamptons. No hobby ranch out of the middle of Nowhere, Montana, where he raised hobby horses and prattled around in cowboy duds, playing at Roy Rogers on the big range. None of the usual enclaves where the rich and hyperambitious mingled and vied to show off the swankest house, the biggest yacht, the gaudiest toys.
O’Neal was satisfied with the amount of information gathered and deeply concerned about the utter vagueness of it all. A lot of traits and colors that added up to barely a sketch: it remained anything but a painting. The absence of dirt or bad habits was particularly annoying.
O’Neal held out hope, though. After only a few hours of digging, what did they expect? Martie was confident he could find it, given enough time. He had vetted Supreme Court nominees, cabinet members, even a number of senior generals and admirals in need of background clearances. There was always something. Always. Some dark secret. Some hidden fantasy life or regretful sexual escapade, some concealed addiction or crime or loony aunt tucked away in an attic.
If it was there—and Martie O’Neal was sure it was—he would find it.
A terse written summary was sent by messenger and hand-delivered to Mitch Walters.
A scrawled directive from the big man himself shot back an hour later: Spend whatever it takes, do whatever it takes, keep looking.
In other words, find the dirt or concoct it.
At six, the taxi dropped him off, and Jack stepped off at the curb to discover a long, shiny black stretch limo idling, dead center, in his driveway. A rear door flew open and out popped a silver-maned man dressed in an elegant black tuxedo, who eagerly and noisily closed the distance. “Bill Feist,” he barked before he was all over Jack. A crushing handshake accompanied a huge smile: Jack quickly lost count of the backslaps. “Listen,” Feist told him, frowning tightly, “about that thing this morning, we couldn’t be sorrier. An awful embarrassment. Edward Blank, what a horse’s ass. We let him go this afternoon.”
Before Jack could react to that news, the frown flipped into a smile that seemed to stretch from wisdom tooth to wisdom tooth. “So, Jack, what are your plans for the evening?”
“Oh, you know. Slap a little dinner in the microwave. Catch up on the news. Then I thought I’d slip into my office and digest the offers I got today.”
“Time for that later. Hey, you got a tux?”
“Yes, why?”
“Don’t ask, just believe me, you’ll have a ball. I mean, literally, a ball.” A pause and the smile seemed to widen. “Incidentally, the tux has to be black.”
“Forget it, Mr. Feist. I have another meeting in the morning.”
“It’s Bill, and of course you do. Where?”
“In the city, but it’s early,” Jack replied, digging in his heels.
“I’ll have you home by midnight, promise.”
“Look, I appreciate the—”
“Don’t make me beg, Jack. Think of the kids I’m trying to shove through college. Spoiled brats, both of them—if I get sacked, they’ll come home, and my life will turn miserable.” He paused before he whispered, almost an afterthought, “Ever met the president?”
“What president?”
“Good one, Jack. We’re going to the White House. Come on, grab your tux.”
Whatever reservations Jack had felt instantly disappeared. “Give me a minute.” Inside five minutes, he was sinking comfortably into his seat in the rear of the long stretch limo, his tux packed neatly in the trunk, his new friend Bill shoving a scotch with two cubes in his fist. “Glenfiddich on the rocks,” Bill announced with a knowing wink. “Your favorite, right, Jack?”
“You’ve done your homework since this morning,” Jack noted, accepting the drink.
“We got off to a slow start, but we’ll catch up. I’m aware you don’t smoke, but would you care for a cigar?”
“Don’t overdo it, Bill.”
Feist chuckled. Unable to stop himself, he held up a paperback novel; the cover displayed an inhumanly handsome man with engorged muscles wrapped tightly around a lusty-eyed woman. The girl was dressed, or barely dressed, in an impossibly tiny string bikini; the guy wore an even skimpier loincloth. They stood knee-deep in the frothing waves of a white beach, a large orange sun setting gently behind some generic jungle paradise. Ecstasy in the Wild, screamed the luridly suggestive title in large silver letters.
“Read the first ten chapters on the way up,” Bill reported, slapping the cover. “Tammy Albert—lovely girl from the jacket picture. You actually dated her at Princeton?”
Jack took the question in stride. “How was the book?”
“Truthfully?” Bill didn’t wait for a response. “Awful, I mean really pathetic. Women actually read this weepy crap?”
“She can buy and sell both of us. Tammy’s sold over forty million copies.”
“For real?”
Jack smiled. “In college, she dreamed of writing the great American novel. Apparently she changed her mind.” Jack paused. “What’s this about, Mr. Feist?”
“It’s Bill, and forget business tonight. I’m only here to make amends for the morning.”
“Won’t be easy.”
“Didn’t think it would.”
“Well, give it your best shot.”
The large limo swept through the dying remnants of rush hour and nearly sprinted to the airport. Feist handled Jack like a pro; the banter and jokes and scotch never abated for an instant. After ten minutes, Jack was Jack, my boy. After twenty, Jack’s arm was limp from being squeezed and massaged.
Call-me-Bill’s best shot turned out to include a Boeing 747 parked at Teterboro Airport, fueled up, ready to launch. An armada of corporate and private jets was littered about, a convention of shiny Lears and Gulfstreams and Embraers. Beside the 747, the entire lot looked cheap, like a puny third world air force. Large gold letters—THE CAPITOL GROUP—were splashed on the side to be sure everybody knew exactly who to envy.
Bill bounded up the stairs and nearly danced into the expansive cabin, as if he owned the plane. Inside were only eight chairs, a large conference table, an entertainment console with a gigantic flat-screen television, two workstations, and a gleaming oak bar, all surrounded by enough burled wood to make a rain forest blush from envy. Designed to seat hundreds, the plane had been gutted and gentrified with enough luxury appointments to satisfy the wildest fantasies of only eight. “It’s often used for overseas flights,” Bill mentioned, as if any explanation was called for. “CG believes in taking care of its people.”
Speaking of people, two striking young women in cocktail dresses—one brunette, one blonde—occ
upied two of the seats. “Jack, this is Eva and Eleanor,” Bill announced with a wave of his hand.
It was impossible to tell which was more fetching. Tall, bare-shouldered, high-cheekboned, matched blue eyes—both were nothing short of stunning, with incredibly long pairs of legs that seemed to stretch to their earlobes. If they weighed two hundred pounds together, it would be a miracle. There was barely any back to Eleanor’s dress, barely any front to Eva’s.
The brunette, Eva, carefully eased out of her seat and approached Jack with her hand out and a dazzling smile, one that disclosed a spectacularly talented dentist. “I think you and I are together tonight. I hope you don’t mind.”
Before Jack could jump to hasty conclusions, Bill explained, “This shindig is a couples affair. Eva works at CG, the accounting department, if you can believe it.”
Jack didn’t believe it—the idea of anybody wasting legs like that on numbers defied reality. But he nodded and said, “I don’t mind at all.” Really, how could he?
Eva pretended to act relieved, as if there was any chance Jack would be disappointed.
The instant they fell into their seats the jet sprinted smoothly down the runway, lifted off, and gained altitude. A smiling young lady in a handsome blue uniform materialized out of nowhere. She was hauling a tray with four flutes of bubbly and a large silver bowl overflowing with black beluga caviar. Bill threw a wink in Jack’s direction. “We’re quite serious about making up for this morning.”
Jack took the first slow sip from his flute. There was no label, but from the profusion of spirited bubbles, Jack calculated at least a hundred dollars per flute. He dug a cracker into the caviar, pulled out a large dollop, and inhaled the first small nibble. The caviar was so fresh it made loud pops when he chewed.
Eva reached across Jack toward the caviar. “You played lacrosse in college, I hear,” she said by way of opening a conversation.
Jack nodded.
“So did I. Harvard, class of 1999.” Not only Harvard undergrad, it turned out, also the B-school, and Eva threw out a few of the professors’ names she was sure Jack would recognize. It further turned out that she happened also to be an Army brat and an All-America, three years, first team, goalie.
She flirted shamelessly, and laughed and smiled at the slightest tinkle of humor. Their life stories were nearly identical: military brats, MBAs from Harvard, college lacrosse stars, with a million common interests left to be discovered and explored.
Just another all-American couple brought together by the wonderful, caring folks at the Capitol Group. By Delaware, they were swapping names of Army posts where they had lived, and Eva was treating Jack to hilarious stories about a legendary B-school professor who had chased her around the classroom a few times.
He had been one of Jack’s favorite teachers. You never knew.
Thirty minutes after the limo departed, three men dressed in black and wearing gloves and sneakers quietly eased up to the rear door of Jack’s house. The door led to Jack’s walk-out basement; as they were warned it would be, it was locked. One man briefly studied the lock, withdrew a small kit from his pocket, and selected the perfect pick. The door swung wide open inside a minute.
The alarm was silent and connected directly to a Vector Security branch office in Red Bank, about twenty minutes away.
One of the three, a crackerjack at electronics and alarms, barely gave the alarm system a glance. Who cared? Howl for all you’re worth, he wanted to scream. The night crew at the Vector branch office was under orders directly from the regional headquarters to ignore it. A test, they were told, one requested by the owner. A technician shut it down a minute after it went off.
The three men climbed the stairs to the ground level. They paused and began a cursory survey. Enormous house for a bachelor, they agreed. Nicely furnished, too, and in a decidedly masculine fashion they all liked a lot—dark leather, wood paneling, and heavy furniture were the predominant theme, the kind of decor a girlfriend would loudly admire as she quietly schemed about replacing everything with whites and flowery pinks the instant she moved in.
They paused briefly to envy Jack’s cavernous family room—a massive walk-in fireplace; heavy, ornately carved pool table; and a mammoth flat-panel hanging off a wall. This is why you get rich, one remarked, and they all laughed. One man climbed the stairs to begin nosing through Jack’s bedroom and bath. The other two raced to the large home office, where the real work would be accomplished.
Jack’s tan buttery briefcase was located on the floor, wedged awkwardly between the trash can and desk. They attacked this first. The paper slides concerning this company with the miracle product were withdrawn then, one by one, photocopied on the portable copier one man had hauled in. Odd, one remarked, that the papers never yielded the name of the company. But so what? The slides were no doubt loaded with hints and clues that might be unraveled later, to reveal the name.
Next, Jack’s black book was located and also photocopied; the snoops down in D.C. could mine it for more information and leads. One man began digging through desk drawers, the other rifled through the big wooden file cabinet against the wall. Fortunately, Jack was the neat and organized type. They appreciated this. The files were alphabetically organized by topic—dental, financial, medical, social, and so forth. Three years of credit card purchases and four years of old tax returns were also withdrawn and efficiently photocopied.
O’Neal had given them a detailed inventory of topics to search for; they marveled at how easy Jack Wiley made it.
By then the upstairs man had finished with the bedroom—nothing the least bit interesting, certainly nothing incriminating, a place to sleep, nothing more—and was preparing to switch the search into the bathroom. On Jack’s dresser sat a silver-framed black-and-white photo of a handsome military officer with his lovely, adoring wife, Jack’s parents, no doubt.
But there were no photos of any other women, which certainly seemed to support the existing theory that Jack was currently unencumbered in the romance department.
He eased into the bathroom, stuffed his pug nose inside Jack’s medicine cabinet, and began poking around. Nothing worth noting here, either—the normal array of shaving supplies, mouthwash, toothpaste, and a spare bottle of shampoo. The strongest medicine in the cabinet was a bottle of aspirin—unopened and two years past the expiration date.
They would continue the search for two more hours. Everything—every paper, every paper clip—would be put away just as they found it. They were pros. They would leave only two traces of their presence.
Before they snuck back out the rear door, the electronics man would stuff bugs into all of Jack’s phones.
The other two would plant a five-pound sack of marijuana on a storage shelf at the back of Jack’s expansive three-car garage, slightly behind a mulch bag Jack might never touch, but certainly not before spring. An insurance policy; they had done this before and it worked like magic.
If it was needed, fine.
If not, they would sneak back at some later date and retrieve it.
The instant the jet cruised up to the private terminal at Ronald Reagan Airport, another black stretch limo raced up and cruised to a stop at the bottom of the steps. Jack, Bill, and the girls piled in, laughing at another Feist joke and having a ball. Feist began doling out the booze before they were rolling. He was a heavy drinker, matching Jack at least three for one, but he obviously had had plenty of practice, and he handled the booze well. A brisk ride ensued before they were idling at the side entrance gate to the White House parking lot. Bill rolled down his window and shoved some type of magic pass in the faces of the uniformed security guards. “Thanks, Earl, Tommy,” he made a point of saying quite loudly as they were whisked through without a second glance.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. Feist,” one barely had time to mumble back as the limo shot by.
“You’ve been here before,” Jack observed.
“I worked here, under two different presidents,” Bill noted wi
th an obviously insincere attempt at modesty.
A young naval officer packing enough ribbons and gold braid to capsize a battleship escorted the foursome upstairs, then across a broad hallway, straight into the spacious state dining room, where more than a hundred guests in resplendent finery were already congregated, sharing drinks, stuffing hors d’oeuvres down their throats, and gabbing about important subjects.
Eva and Eleanor were instantly adored by every male in the room. By far the two youngest guests, the most scantily dressed, and the loveliest, half the room admired them with every cell in their body.
The other half plainly detested them.
On just one side of the room alone, Jack picked out the secretary of state, secretary of defense, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs huddled together with their wives. Slightly to their right, the clutch of bespectacled gents whispering seriously among themselves were either Supreme Court justices or excellent imitations.
Bill and Eleanor split off, leaving Jack and Eva to drink, chat, and ponder the incredible fact that they were in the White House. The White House!
Bill immediately launched into a fast-paced whirl, virtually dancing around the room, gripping illustrious hands, complimenting the ladies, flitting from group to group, pollinating laughter in his wake.
If he was trying to impress Jack with who he—and by extension, the boys of CG—rubbed shoulders with, the performance was nothing short of impressive.
On several occasions Eva pointed out some luminary. “Who’s the big man Bill’s talking to? Isn’t he a movie star or something?”
“Was. I think now he’s governor of California,” Jack answered.
“What about the lady beside him? I’m sure I recognize her face.”
“On his left, the attorney general. The other one, the good-looking blonde, she’s the intern the president’s sleeping with.”
