The Hearing

by James Mills

  “Maybe not. She could find herself under a lot of pressure. She’d have to be a very strong thirteen-year-old.”

  “In my opinion, Senator, the way this is shaping up, you will not win this, at least not by any orthodox means. If the decision were mine, I’d pack it in now, cut losses, accept Parham, and live with it. If not, you’ll end up spending large amounts of money, time, and political resources, and you’ll lose. So dump it.”

  “Orthodox means?”

  “Any fight can be won if you’re prepared to do whatever it takes to win.”

  Taeger stared at him. Isaac stared back.

  After Isaac left, Taeger spent several minutes leaning back in his chair, reflecting on the meeting. Then he heard a car, looked out the window, and saw headlights flash across the parking lot. Five minutes later Harrington was seated at the desk.

  Taeger said, “Bring me up to date, John.”

  “It’s not looking good, Senator. Since Helen let it out on Larry King that Samantha’s been found, the polls have been swinging fast and hard to Parham. A CNN producer tells me he could renegotiate his contract if he had an interview acceptance from Samantha. A picture someone stole from the video we had will be in the Post tomorrow morning. After that, look out.”

  Taeger swiveled his chair around to look out the window at the glistening asphalt. He was hearing from Harrington the same things he’d heard from Isaac. “You’ve had it. Give up. Cut your losses.” Taeger’d been hearing those words since he first ran for office fifty-one years ago. When people said you’d had it, it meant the handshaking was over and you were down to business. If there was anything Taeger loved, it was bare-knuckled politics. He’d never been in a fight so tough he couldn’t enjoy it.

  He could hear Harrington behind him, breathing hard, unhappy to be awake and out of his home at this hour. Taeger had nothing to go home for. Last night he slept in the office, and he’d sleep here again tonight, trying not to think about his wife, about Parkinson’s disease, what it would do to him. He was glad the Parham thing was turning into a good vicious brawl. He was seventy-six years old, dying of Parkinson’s disease, and would not run for reelection. He liked the idea of leaving the Senate after one final bruising fight, and if it was the most savage fight of his career, so much the better. Parham was—well, it wouldn’t be too strong to say Taeger hated his guts. That did not put Parham in exclusive company; Taeger hated most people. He’d never met Parham, but he’d studied every case he’d ever prosecuted or judged. As a legislator who wrote laws but had never been a lawyer, Taeger had contempt for the judges who applied those laws, or in his view misapplied them. He admired men you could count on, men who did the right thing from their guts and didn’t have to spend five days with a law book to find out what they believed. Men like Parham, you didn’t know what they were going to think or do from one day to the next.

  Harrington, addressing Taeger’s back, said, “So, what do you think?”

  Taeger ignored him. He was thinking now about Hacker v. Colorado and Javez v. Rench, two Supreme Court cases that had to be won. From the start, he’d made no bones about his support for both. Since they entered the appeal process five years ago, he’d been even more outspoken. Lose them now, Taeger thought, and I’ll leave the Senate as a loser, it’ll almost be as if I was never here. And Parham—well, you could be sure how he’d stand on the partial decriminalization of cannabis, not to mention the law that helped put Ernesto Vicaro away for twenty years. On either of those cases, Parham’s vote could swing the Court. Well, Parham’s vote would not swing the Court. It would not have a chance to swing the Court. Taeger’d been in tougher fights than this one. And this was his last. This was his exit. He would not lose.

  He said, “How much do we have left?”

  “Money? Not enough. Isaac says it’s no longer a matter of money, and I agree. It’s psychology, public emotion. Attack Parham, you attack the girl. And that makes you look like a heartless bastard.”

  “What’s Helen think?”

  “I had dinner with her last week. I’m sure she thinks the same.”

  “So it’s over. That’s what you’re saying?”

  Harrington hesitated. “I’m out of ideas. I’m out of people who might have ideas.”

  “How’s your friend Vicaro?”

  “A lion in a cage.”

  Taeger slowly swiveled the chair around and faced Harrington.

  “Why’s that?”

  “He’s counting on Javez v. Rench to get him out.”

  “He’s crazy.”

  “Of course. But the thought of Parham, who put him in prison, casting the Supreme Court vote that’ll keep him there is too much for Vicaro. Right now he’s just made of hatred. He’s also got some crazy idea that Hacker v. Colorado will make him rich.”

  “Rich?”

  “Richer.”

  Taeger thought carefully about what he was about to say. He reached under his desk and flipped a switch disconnecting the office telephone system. He glanced warily at Harrington’s attaché case. He went through a mental checklist of everything they had done so far, of every anti-Parham initiative taken by the Freedom Federation, by Harrington independently, and by himself. He ran through everything Isaac had told him. He thought about everything he’d heard and read in the past twenty-four hours about Ernesto Vicaro. A lot had happened to that young man since Taeger first met him as a political officer and soon-to-be legislator. A 132-page DEA intelligence profile and an eighty-seven-page CIA profile made it clear—if there was anything Vicaro understood it was intimidation. He was a virtuoso of intimidation. When Vicaro wanted you to see things his way, you saw things his way. He had a genius for exploiting soft spots—find one, squeeze it, don’t let go until you have what you want. An NSA annex to the CIA document mentioned intercepts of telephone communications between Vicaro and a man named Jonathan, followed by calls from Jonathan to a Who’s Who of traffickers, law enforcement and intelligence officers, and politicians in Central and South America. Vicaro knew what he wanted, and he knew people who could help him get it. He was ruthless, treacherous, and well connected.

  Taeger said, “What do you think would happen if he got out?”

  “Got out?”

  “You said something about a cage.”

  “Oh. If he were encouraged, I …”

  “What might encourage a man like that, do you suppose?”

  Harrington thought for a moment, picking his words. He knew he had an opportunity in the next half minute to do for Vicaro something that would command any fee he wished to attach to it.

  “Well, Eric”—a sudden warmth in Taeger’s manner seemed to invite the first name—”he’s certainly a man with an experience of political power, both in his country and in others. I know he realizes the power resident in—well, in certain bodies of government, certain key people … your own power, for example. So that if he felt he had the … the friendship … the support … of people who would be able to help him in areas where he feels deserving—he believes, for example, and I feel he has some justification here, that his sentence was arbitrary and unjust—then he might have the confidence to attempt remedies that otherwise he would normally—”

  Taeger raised a hand and stood. He’d said and heard as much as he dared to or needed to. “It’s an interesting thought, isn’t it? Perhaps we should pursue it.”

  “I think—”

  “Yes, of course, think about it. I know you’ll come to an effective decision. Politics is a fascinating science, isn’t it. Soft one moment, less soft the next. And now, as unlikely as it might seem at this hour, I do have another appointment.”

  Taeger watched Harrington rise from the chair and reach for his attaché case. At the door Harrington said, “I’ll call.”

  “Better not.” Taeger looked at his watch. “It’s late. You’ve got a lot to do. Come back at noon.”

  “At noon?”

  Harrington looked shocked. But Taeger figured eight hours would be enough. A
short nap, one or two phone calls. More than enough. All Harrington had to do was talk to Vicaro. Harrington himself had used the word—encouragement Taeger was sure it wouldn’t take much. Vicaro was on a hair trigger, and hair triggers don’t require a lot of pressure.

  Taeger didn’t know precisely what Vicaro would do, and he didn’t want to know. Whatever could be done to stop Parham, the only one left to do it was surely Vicaro. In politics it was often best to put things in the hands of the most capable people and not worry too much about their methods. He had never wanted to know how Warren Gier did what he did, or how Isaac Jasper did what he did, or how Helen Bondell did what she did, and right now he didn’t want to know how Vicaro would do whatever he would do. Ignorance was insulation. If something went wrong, it’d be Vicaro’s fault. Maybe, just possibly, it’d be Harrington’s fault. But certainly not Taeger’s. All Taeger had done was remind Harrington that he’d said something about a cage. But Harrington had understood, and Harrington would do whatever had to be done to unleash Vicaro.

  As Taeger watched Harrington disappear through the office door, he reflected on the old adage that two things you never want to see being made are sausages and legislation. To those Taeger would now have added Supreme Court confirmations.

  17

  Phil, how are you?”

  “Fine, Pete. What can you tell me?”

  Peter Rexroth, the White House intelligence coordinator, had telephoned Rothman in his office.

  “I just had a chat with a couple of our providers.” CIA and NSA.

  “Yes?”

  “Something I think you need to know, maybe the President.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Two Pen hits, one from a federally incarcerated, profiled Colombian trafficker, politician, and intelligence officer named Ernesto Vicaro-Garza to an active but undocumented contact called Jonathan.” A Pen Register was a device secretly but legally attached to a telephone to record the numbers called but not the calls themselves. “The other was from Jonathan to a D.C. public phone. We don’t yet have a hard identification on the male who picked up the phone, but the number’s had three previous accesses by a Colombian intel cutout with special action clients. We’ve also had three documented Colombian special action agents passing separately through Dulles and Miami International over the past four days. That’s highly unusual.”

  “And it all means?”

  “Providers give a level four probability of a terrorist action in the capital within ten days.”

  “Just from that—two Pen numbers?” Level four was only three levels below certainty.

  “Plus what they know about Vicaro, the cutout, his clients, the four agents at the airports. Analysts in the past have made bull’s-eye predictions with less than that.”

  “Send all the hard stuff, Pete. Analysis, documentation, profiles.” He looked at his watch. He had a meeting with the President in two hours and twenty minutes. “Call back in two hours. What makes them think ten days? Best guess for an objective and target.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  On a Thursday afternoon more than a month after they’d moved into Blossom, with the Judiciary Committee confirmation vote finally set for the following Monday and the win-or-lose Senate floor vote for Wednesday, Samantha was in the Box with Todd Naeder and Fred Knight, a balding, fatherly agent who was chief of the Blossom security unit. Michelle had gone out and Gus was upstairs working in his office.

  Todd rose from the desk and told Knight he was going to the bathroom.

  He’d been gone a couple of minutes when Knight, lifting his eyes from a month-old copy of Time to a TV monitor covering the intersection at the west end of the block, said, “Well now, who’s this?”

  A Mercedes station wagon had just stopped at a temporary security kiosk in the middle of the street. The kiosk had been installed the previous evening to monitor vehicles entering the block in preparation for a reception that evening at the Norwegian embassy next door.

  Knight waited until the Mercedes, cleared into the block, had pulled away from the kiosk, then picked up a white telephone handset and punched a button.

  “Blossom Three. So what can you tell me?”

  Blossom Three was code for the Box. He was talking to the kiosk.

  “Plates and passport, Norwegian diplomatic.”

  “Registered to?”

  “Plates to the embassy. Passport matches DL. You guys worry too much.”

  “Nobody worries too much.”

  Knight put the phone down and shifted his attention to a neighboring monitor, which picked up the Mercedes as it slowed in front of Blossom and maneuvered into a parking place between the house and the Norwegian embassy, across the street from a residence owned by the Colombian Trade Commission. The driver climbed out and disappeared from the screen, walking east toward the embassy’s side entrance.

  Knight returned to Time.

  Samantha, looking fresh and cool in cut-off jeans and a white T-shirt, said, “It’s so exciting.”

  Knight kept reading.

  “Don’t you think so?”

  Knight grunted. He really liked Samantha, but privately he called her Cinderella. She’d really been bugging him about the reception. Would there be presidents, kings and queens, could you see them going in and out, what would they wear, what would they eat, would they dance?

  Knight had worked security on about seven zillion diplomatic receptions, and what the guests ate was never a matter of interest, as long as it wasn’t poison.

  The phone buzzed. Knight picked it up.

  “Yeah. Okay. But listen, last time it dumped all over the sidewalk. Keep it clean, okay?”

  Todd walked in and Knight said, “The dog’s here.”

  “I saw.” He lowered himself into a chair. “Take a break?”

  Knight put the magazine down. “Why not?”

  Knight was just out the door when Samantha heard barking in the street. She had never heard barking so fierce. She darted to the window. A cute little black spaniel was going absolutely insane at the back of the Mercedes.

  Todd yelled, “Hang on!”

  Knight was back in the Box, a hand moving Samantha out of the window while he took a look.

  Ten seconds later he was in the street.

  “Can I go?” Samantha asked Todd. She was not allowed out of the house without permission.

  “No way. Get away from the window.”

  The spaniel trembled and growled on the end of its leash.

  Knight was back, picking up a phone.

  “He alerted all over the back end of that thing. Man, he is just crazy.”

  “Yeah, this is Blossom Three. We’ve got an explosives dog just alerted on the rear end of a Mercedes station wagon with blacked-out windows, DPL plates have—”

  He stopped talking, listened.

  “Right. Be quick.” Waiting, he said to Todd, “They just got it from the van. They can tell from the way the dog—Yeah, right, how long’ll that take? I need it in three minutes, latest. Right.”

  He hung up.

  “They’re getting another dog and an RF locator. Who’ve we got?”

  Todd looked at a chart on the wall.

  “Us and the judge.”

  “Where’s Mrs. Parham?”

  “Out.”

  “Beggie?” The cook.

  “Shopping. Something. I don’t know. Not in the house.”

  “Louisa?”

  “With Beggie. Who’s that?”

  Two men in dark suits had arrived at the Mercedes, talking to a tall man in a green windbreaker. Another man jogged over from the Norwegian embassy.

  Knight was out the door.

  Samantha watched him talk to the other men. Together they walked around the Mercedes.

  Knight turned and ran back to the house. He came in yelling.

  “Get the judge and Samantha in the limousine and out”

  “Where did—”

  “The Norwegians say the plates and the driver’s documen
ts are all phony. Nothing matches. No one’s seen the driver since he parked.”

  Todd grabbed a set of keys off a hook on a wall board and started for the door.

  Knight, punching numbers on the phone, yelled “Run!” Then, into the mouthpiece, “This is Knight at Blossom Three. We have a confirmed explosives alert. We’re gonna need ATF and an EOD unit. Feebs, military, PD. Fast as you can. Right. And get Falco.”

  He slammed the phone down and ran back to the street.

  When Todd and Samantha reached the living room hallway they almost bumped into Gus coming down the stairs.

  Gus said, “What’s up?” He seemed solemn and distracted. Taeger had had him in the witness chair for three hours that morning.

  “Please come with me, sir. There’s a major security problem outside, and I’ve been ordered to take you and Miss Young out in the limousine.”

  “What’s the difficulty?”

  Gus looked ready to go to the Box and find out for himself.

  “An explosives vehicle, sir. We have to get out right now. Please.”

  Gus said, “Let’s go. Where’s Mrs. Parham?”

  “Still out, sir.”

  “Carl?”

  “He’s been called, sir.”

  Gus followed Todd and Samantha to the garage. Todd opened the back door of the limo for them, climbed into the front, put the keys in the ignition, but before he could close his door he heard Knight’s voice calling to him from the door to the kitchen.

  “They in the limo?”

  Knight would not be able to see them through the tinted glass.

  Todd yelled, “Yes.”

  Knight said, “Leave them there.”

  Carl, out of breath, appeared beside Knight. “Leave them where they are.”

  Todd turned. “Do what?”

  Knight said, “Leave them.”

  “But—”