The 4 Phase Man

by Richard Steinberg

  She stopped at the private entrance to her office. “No press in the office, right? Not until further notice.” She checked her hair, then let herself in.

  Waving to her staff, she moved through the cramped corridors lined with file cabinets and junior staff. “Nothing but the essentials, right?”

  Krusiec shook her head. “It’s your funeral,” she said offhandedly, then immediately regretted it as her boss stiffened. “Uh, light schedule this morning.”

  “Run it.” Alvarez plopped down behind her desk, vacantly sifting through the overnight faxes, letters, and e-mails.

  Krusiec opened her clipboard. “Senator Pierson wants fifteen minutes to talk about the IMF.”

  “After lunch.”

  “The Speaker’s invited you to his exercise group…” “… in hopes of seeing me sweat through my shirt. Next.”

  Krusiec made a note to politely turn down the invitation. “No votes or committee meetings, but you are supposed to review the latest reports from the Intelligence Committee’s staff on the Source 24601 testimony, as well as meet with the minority counsel on the next steps to be taken.”

  For the first time, Valerie seemed to be paying attention. Rapt attention.

  “I don’t want to see any new reports on that issue until further notice,” she almost snapped. “And blow off counsel until next week.” Seeing the surprised look on her closest assistant’s face, she forced a smile. “I mean, hey! This thing’s been dominating way too much of my time as is, right?”

  The younger woman had never seen her boss so desperate for a supportive answer. It was in the tone of her voice, her body language, the look of begging in her eyes. “Whatever you say, boss.” She looked down at her list, mentally crossing off the next four things on it. “What about hometown visits and photo ops? You’ve got three scheduled for this morning. And there’s a fourth that’s a walk-in.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “You can’t just disappear entirely, no matter what’s going on! Krusiec allowed her disapproval of the current state of things to show. To her surprise, Valerie smiled.”

  “Okay. Down,” girl. She laughed in a forced way. “But no one with an agenda, right?”

  “Not a problem,” her assistant said with genuine relief. “They’re all tourists and loyalists. And I’ll screen the walk-in myself.”

  A moment later Valerie was alone in the big office. Trying hard to concentrate on the latest Congressional Quarterly and not stare into the eyes of her children that seemed to beg her from the gold frames on her desk.

  A quiet divorce after her first election to Congress had little impact on her rising career.

  An articulate, attractive minority woman—and the doors on the left quickly opened for her.

  A single mother, working to support her children, who was a gun ownership advocate caused the doors to the right to fly open and invite her in.

  A subcommittee chair before the end of her first term.

  A seat on the National Security Committee in her second term.

  National campaigner for other candidates in her third.

  Now, in her fourth term, she sat on the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

  But she always had time for her children. They had the run of her offices, knew she would never miss a recital, a game, an important moment for them. They were the passion and the center of her existence.

  And while she fought for the secure, safe, and glorious world that she dreamed of for her loves future, she never forgot the past.

  Bringing flowers monthly to her mother’s grave.

  Shooting for an hour each week at a Virginia firing range.

  Life had finally become what she had always longed for.

  Accomplishment.

  Acceptance.

  Control.

  Until just over three weeks ago.

  “You understand, Mr., uh, Smith,” Krusiec said, “that the congresswoman is an incredibly busy woman. It really would’ve been best if you’d called ahead for an appointment.” She didn’t like the look of the man in the ill-fitting suit across the conference table from her.

  “I appreciate that,” Xenos said easily. “But I still need to see her.”

  Krusiec looked at the mostly blank information sheet she’d had the man fill out. “I’m afraid that without more detail, the best I can do is put you with one of our general caseworkers.” She started to reach for the telephone.

  Xenos shook his head. “If I said it was a matter of life and death?”

  “I’d say whose, and you’d still have to wait. This is a busy office, we deal with so-called life and death issues every day of the week; and without more information from you, the best I can do is put you with…”

  “… a caseworker. So you said.” He stood, apparently to leave. “You really do a good job of guarding the palace doors.”

  “That’s my job,” Krusiec said as she moved past him to open the door to reception. “Next time, call ahead. It’ll make things…”

  But when she turned around, Xenos was gone, the door to the inner office area opened, and nightmares flashing through her head.

  “That the last of them, Barb?” Valerie asked as she splashed water on her face in her private bathroom.

  “Afraid not, Congresswoman,” Xenos answered flatly.

  Valerie snapped up and spun around. “Who the Hell are you?”

  Xenos heard a commotion coming toward the office. “I know about Queens, he said just before an armed Capitol policeman and Krusiec burst into the office.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ms. Alvarez, Krusiec hurried out. “But this man just got by…”

  Valerie ignored her, staring into the hard eyes and set expression. “It’s okay,” Barb. She hesitated. “Please leave us.”

  Krusiec looked confused, angry, and suspicious. All at the same time. She reluctantly left the room with the policeman; confused by Valerie’s manner and the way she and the man never looked away from each other.

  Valerie moved behind her desk, slowly sitting down. “Who are you?”

  “Names aren’t important, Xenos said as he moved to a chair across from her.”

  Valerie shrugged, the act casually covering her dropping her hands to her lap. Her right hand easily finding the familiar diamond-etched butt of the .38 Cobra taped under her desk. “You said something about Queens? I represent a district in Manhattan.” Her finger closed on the trigger.

  Xenos wasn’t sure how to proceed, was still uncertain of any connection between this woman and the DiBenetti boy, other than the building in Queens. But her reaction—so carefully casual—made him begin to believe that he was on the right track.

  “You met with three men in a building at 13520 Thirty-ninth Avenue in Flushing yesterday afternoon. You were strip-searched prior to the meeting, knocked a guy’s teeth out during the meeting, then were released after threats against your children.”

  His answer was the unmistakable click of a .38’s hammer being cocked. A moment later he stared into the barrel.

  “You bastards were never supposed to contact me here,” she said in an almost growl. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “I’m not with them, whoever they are.”

  Valerie held the gun at arm’s length, steadily aiming between the big man’s eyes. “I’m getting real tired of your game playing. Now say whatever the Hell it is you’re supposed to say and get out!” She took a deep breath. “Or there’s going to be an accident.”

  Xenos’s smile—relaxed, open—shocked her. “Really?” His voice was almost humorous.

  It was so odd a reaction—not mocking or overconfident, just, well, amused. She quickly recovered.

  “The gun is untraceable,” she said in simple, deadly tones. “You burst in here, past my assistants and staff. I tried to placate you, but you pulled a gun. We struggled, it went off.”

  “You really expect anyone to believe that?” The man seemed genuinely curious.

  She shrugged. “Whatever, you’
ll never know. You’ll just be dead.”

  The briefest pause as she gauged his nonreaction. “Now you either give me their message or tell them that I won’t be intimidated anymore. I’ll do what I said I’d do. But that’s it!”

  Xenos shook his head. “I’m not with them.”

  Something, some indefinable thing, made her hesitate. “Convince me.”

  “The way I see it,” Xenos said as he casually looked around the room, “you’re either a traitor”—he paused as he concentrated on one of the many certificates on her wall—“or you need a friend.”

  He stood up, slowly, deliberately, conscious of her gun’s tracking him as he moved across the room to read the parchment more clearly. He took the framed diploma off the wall. “I didn’t know you went to Columbia.”

  “You have one minute,” Valerie said uncertainly. There was something different about this man, stronger than the others she’d dealt with in the obscenity that her life had been in the last nineteen days. “What’s where I went to college have to do with anything?”

  “Paul Satordi worked for the Columbia Alumni Association doing contract research work,” he said without turning around.

  “Paul?” She allowed the gun’s aim to waver, slightly. “How do you know Paul?”

  Xenos turned to face her, sure of his ground for the first time since arriving in the States. “I can help you.”

  Valerie was feeling torn in two. This could all be some horribly sadistic game or trap perpetrated by the bastards who now owned her, body and soul. Just another control play to further humiliate and trap her within their malignant grasp.

  But there was something else standing in front of her as well. An indescribable strength and anger in the man who so calmly regarded her. An inner power and confidence that seemed to be willing to lend itself to her, for her. Perhaps a ray of light at the end of the blackest tunnel of her life.

  But the faces in the pictures on her desk pleaded with her to be careful.

  She lowered her gun. “If you have nothing else to say, I think you’d better leave now.”

  Xenos took a step toward her. “Tell me about Paul.”

  “I haven’t seen Paul since before spring break,” she said honestly. “I don’t know who you are, or how you know what you know, but please leave.”

  He studied her, saw the strain, the worry, the commitment.

  “Please leave and don’t say or do anything with whatever you may think you know.”

  Xenos stood very still for long moments, then barely nodded. He let himself out of the office, almost colliding with Krusiec just outside the door.

  “Valerie,” Krusiec asked softly, “are you okay?”

  “No,” Valerie said as she picked up the photograph from her desk and walked into her bathroom. “Not at all.”

  Even with the sun reflecting off the marble and asphalt all around him, Xenos felt cold. Like all the warmth was slowly but steadily being sucked out of him. Routine had become a puzzle, that puzzle—a cloudy something. A metaphorical fog bank that was closing in on him in an inexorable claustrophobic push that was forcing him more and more back to who he had been.

  Who he had sworn to never be again.

  The shadow of a missing Corsican student and a blackmailed member of Congress grew all the more ominous with the sound of a familiar voice behind him.

  “Helluva place for a dead man to show up, Jerry.”

  “What’s one more dead man to you?”

  “On other days, in other places, not much. I grant you that.” There was a pause while Xenos felt the author of the voice draw nearer. Close enough to reach out and strangle the life out of. “But this is one of those special days, it seems.” A light laugh. “You still remember those days, don’t you, Jerry?” The voice seemed to genuinely care about the answer.

  Xenos never turned to look into the cold familiar eyes. “Go away.” There was death in the sound.

  The much older man in the thousand-dollar suit just smiled casually. “When one of my favorite people comes to town?” He laughed, with the sincerity of a man who seemed to understand human emotions. “Now, what kind of friend would I be then?”

  “We were a lot of things, Herb,” Xenos said as he turned to face the man, “but I don’t remember friends being one of them.”

  Herb shrugged. “Semantics.” He nodded down DuPont Circle. “Walk with me, Jerry.” He set out as if expecting a recalcitrant puppy to fall into place.

  After a moment, Xenos came up alongside.

  Herb pulled the stub of a cigar from his jacket and began chewing it. “You see,” he began without preamble, “we naturally get nervous when one of our corpses turns up inside the Beltway. Especially when we find them talking to Congress.”

  “I imagine you would.” Xenos was completely relaxed… and aware of the two men who had dropped in behind them when they’d started off; as well as the two men just out of listening distance up ahead. He just assumed a car somewhere behind. “Faced any interesting hearings lately?”

  Herb gestured up at the Capitol dome. “They’re more interested in immolating each other than us, these days. Been kind of restful actually.” He began chewing again until a tourist family moved well past. “Until this morning.”

  “Sorry to wake you.”

  “I’m sure you are, I’m sure you are. But the thing is, well, I am awake now, you see. That’s the problem.”

  Xenos stopped and faced the man who he once thought of as a savior and now saw only as the devil. “We done with the word games?” Herb shrugged. “Say your piece and leave.”

  The older man shook his head sadly. “You’ve lost all sense of grace and charm in your Greek hills.” He sat down on a marble bench, looking up at the much bigger man. “I’ve been asked to give you a message.”

  Xenos laughed. “Since when are you a messenger boy?

  “Since this morning,” it seems.

  “I don’t believe it.” Xenos sounded almost sorry for the old man. “Who’s the message from? He sat down beside him.”

  “Don’t really know,” myself. But it comes from so high, I get nosebleeds just thinking about it. The briefest of pauses. “If I allowed myself to think about it, that is.”

  Xenos had never seen the man look anything but confident. And he didn’t look unconfident now. Just less confident. It was an impressive sight. As if Mount Rushmore had suddenly grown a new head.

  “What’s the message?

  “Son, you’re in it deep this time,” Herb said in a cautionary tone. “You’re shaking someone’s tree hard enough for them to worry about all-ever falling out.” He took out the cigar and gestured at the forest of government buildings around them. “Look around, Jerry. What do you see? What do you smell?”

  Xenos just stared blankly at the man, wondering vacantly if the shot would come from the tourists taking pictures on his left or the teens making out on his right.

  “What you smell,” the old cold warrior continued slowly, “is fear. This city was founded on it. Fear of offending the wrong person, or of not puckering properly to another. Fear of being passed over, fear of being singled out.” He leaned in so close Xenos could smell the sausages he used to share with the man every Thursday afternoon. “Fear of being discovered.”

  “You used to preach fear,” Xenos whispered. “Used to call it the great safety.”

  “Not this kind of fear. What we’re talking about here, Jerry, is stupid fear. The kind that makes otherwise sane people do crazy things. Things they’ll regret later, make private grievings over, but finite, permanent things.” He shrugged. “No one is safe when that kind of fear starts going around. It’s like an airborne virus passed from a man on the street, to another on a telephone, to a man in a tiny office. Eventually working its way up the line until even the eunuchs in their corner suites have caught the contagion.” The briefest, most spasmodic frown. “And when they catch it, son, the only cure is kill.”

  For the first time, Xenos saw something else
in his old boss’s eyes. Something he would have bet his life (and had many times) could never exist within this man.

  Doubt.

  “That your message?”

  Herb gestured with his cigar, and a black town car rolled silently up. “No,” he said simply. He stood up, looking down at the one man he’d thought he’d never lose, then lost. “My message is far simpler.”

  He put the cigar away, pulling a plane ticket out of the same pocket. “Your flight leaves in two hours, nonstop to Athens.” He turned and walked over to the open car door. “Don’t miss it.”

  When the car door didn’t close, Xenos got up and walked over. “And?”

  “What did you do in New York?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I wish I could.” He was silent for a minute. “Care to tell me what you told Hard-Ass Alvarez just now?”

  Xenos remained silent.

  Herb shook his head, closed the door, but lowered the window. “Don’t ever change.” He laughed lightly. “Stay pure forever, son. It’s what you do best.”

  Xenos handed the ticket back to the old man. “Message rejected.”

  The old man took the ticket and put it away. “You still don’t get it.” The engine started. “The message was in a 9mm that I never ordered to fire.” The car started to pull away. “The ticket was from me.”

  As he listened to the whines and whistles of the electronically swept line, the man entered the access code he needed. But before hitting the enter key, he carefully looked around the empty office—the office he’d ordered emptied immediately after getting a report on the encounter outside the Capitol.

  As satisfied as the paranoid man ever was, he took a deep breath, then pressed a key.

  “Canvas,” came the static-filled answer after two minutes.

  “This is Apple Blossom, the man whispered through a haze of confusion.”

  “Clarify.”

  The man spoke in a shouting whisper. “I say again, this is Apple Blossom, Apple, copy?”

  “Line clear. Go ahead,” was the emotionless response.

  “Apple Blossom reporting, latest results are insufficient, insufficient, copy?” the man said, remembering Canvas’s open distrust for anything but the most general comments over even secured lines.