A few friends called him Bobby, Jr., in honor of his political idol Robert F. Kennedy. In many ways it was a natural association. He looked and somewhat sounded like a Kennedy. The way he rolled his “r’s.” The way he threw caution to the wind. The way he won school elections. Teddy Lodge had charisma, he cared about people, and he had a beautiful girl on his arm. His friends were right. He was Bobby, Jr. and he probably was “doing it” already.
It was about that time that classmates actually envisioned Teddy in the White House. His school paper raised the possibility in an article about his bid for Freshman Class President. One teacher passed the article along to Bob Mehrman, an afternoon talk show host at a nearby radio station in Lynn. Mehrman was intrigued and booked Teddy on his call-in show the next day. This was his first interview, however he presented himself with poise, humor and dignity. It raised his visibility even more.
A WBZ TV anchorman caught the radio show while driving to work and insisted that the news desk shoot a feature for the 6 P.M. broadcast. Within 24 hours, Teddy Wilson Lodge might as well be running for President of the United States. He had made great friends with the camera.
His parents saw his potential, too. They decided that private school would give him the edge to get into Yale. And Yale could lead him into politics. So at age fifteen, Teddy applied to Harvard Essex not far from home in Amesbury. And that’s when his life began to change radically.
His father died the summer before he left for school. It happened during a father-son baseball game at the Elks club; tragically when Oliver was pitching to Teddy.
With two strikes on his son and Teddy determined to get a solid hit off his father, Oliver suddenly clutched his chest. He looked at Teddy through pain and tears, immediately knowing what was happening. Then he collapsed. Parademics tried to revive him but they couldn’t.
Teddy didn’t do much for the rest of the summer. He occasionally talked to his girlfriend, but primarly stayed with his mother, who he’d soon be leaving. He told her he should finish up school at Marblehead and forget going away, but Katharine Lodge insisted that Teddy get on with his life. And so in September he left for boarding school.
Teddy threw himself into his studies. He became “Mr. Lodge” to most of his teachers and vowed to live up to the Harvard Essex’s motto, “Qui tacet consentit.” “He who is silent agrees.” Except during ski season.
In January of his sophomore year, Teddy and seven friends borrowed a red and gray VW bus for a skiing trip to Mount Washington. They were racing to beat an oncoming Noreaster.
Teddy later explained how he saw a scruffy hippie on the side of the road, laden with boots, skis and backpack. O’Connell opined in his newspaper article that Teddy, like his grandfather, apparently had a soft spot for helping people in snowstorms. So even though the van was packed they took on another rider for the trip to the North Conway, New Hampshire slopes.
As they headed up the Route 93, the temperature dropped fast. The snow began to fall, then drifted across the road. Visibility diminished rapidly and they were quickly losing the light. According to the police records, a light brown Nova pulled up behind the VW and tailgated for a good 15 minutes, making a dangerous drive even more treacherous.
Teddy knew every twist and turn in the road and kept up the pace. But the driver behind him was on the horn the whole way. He finally drove up alongside Teddy and screamed a string of profanities. The Nova then passed the bus, only to slow down in front of them.
According to what Teddy recalled, at that point the hitchhiker started acting irrationally; signs of a drug high kicking in. He grabbed the steering wheel and swirved toward the rear end of the Nova. Track marks in the snow suggested that another car simultaneously approached from the opposite direction. Its lights may have cut through the oncoming snow, blinding Lodge while he struggled for control of the vehicle. Suddenly, the Nova slammed on the breaks.
First Teddy turned the wheel away from the edge of the road. But that only directed him into the oncoming car. The hitchhiker fought Teddy off and yanked the wheel toward the right again. The sudden maneuver on the slick mountain road put the minibus into an uncontrollable spin.
Teddy couldn’t control the 2200-pound VW. It crashed through two baby pines on the side of road and then careened off the edge, head first toward a bluff 50 feet below. From there it skidded upsidedown onto a mountain access road where it stopped and burst into flames.
A pickup truck with cross country skiers was the first to find the twisted wreck. Six bodies were recovered from the interior. They could only be identified through their dental records. The driver and a man, later identified as the hitchhiker, had been thrown clear. Only one person survived, though badly hurt. Teddy Lodge.
Eight of his teeth were knocked out. His jaw and nose were broken. His right leg was fractured, four ribs were cracked, his left shoulder was dislocated and he suffered a spinal injury that the paramedics could not fully evaluate. And he was unconscious.
His mother would never seen him again. The day after the accident, friends from the Lodge’s church came to the house to drive Katharine to the North Conway hospital. They knocked on the door. She didn’t answer. After waiting ten minutes they went around the back. The porch door was unlocked. They went inside and discovered that Katharine had collapsed while packing. She’d suffered a fatal heart attack.
Michael O’Connell concluded his article. Lodge’s life was the water cooler talk of the morning.
CHAPTER
8
Washington, D.C.
Washington Center Health Club
8:00 A.M.
Scott Roarke’s private cell phone hooked to his shorts vibrated while he was spinning at ungodly speeds. “Come on, leave me alone,” he said ignoring the call. After awhile he got his wish and he returned to the front page of The New York Times and the various reports on the shooting the day before. He’d already gone through The Washington Post but a Times writer really seemed to capture the mood.
A minute later the phone vibrated again. Only a handful of people had the number. Given the news, he was actually expecting a call.
“Okay, okay,” he said to no one in particular. He stopped peddling and flung his feet to the side. The pedals would continue to rotate for another minute. He fumbled for the phone and it fell to the gym floor. The caller was gone by the time he picked it up. The screen read “Caller ID unavailable.” He punched in a number from memory. It was a line that was also private and skipped the master switchboard.
A woman’s voice answered the phone warmly. “Hi, honey. Thanks for getting back to me.”
“Hi sweetheart,” Roarke said. “Everything okay?”
Roarke topped off at six feet. He was muscular, but with more of a swimmer’s physique or the body of someone skilled in the martial arts, which he was. Chest hairs flowed over his t-shirt and his biceps pushed at the threads. Roarke’s open smile set him apart from other Secret Service agents with coldness chiselled on their faces. And although he had a slight scar under his chin, he was approachable; more friendly-looking than dangerous. He kept his dark brown head of hair a little longer than required, but clipped his sideburns short. He exuded an air of confidence, though he was quieter than people would at first expect. Roarke also had a flirtatious manner, which came out when he felt comfortable with people. To all others he always remained on guard.
“Fine,” she said, “but I miss you.”
“Me, too.”
“I thought you’d call me this morning and I wouldn’t have to call you,” she said.
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, as long as we’re talking now, that’s all that matters.”
“Yeah,” Roarke added.
“So…”
“So.” Roarke said wiping the perspiration from his brow.
“So, can you come by this morning?”
“I guess.”
“Say ten-thirty?”
“Ten-thirty it is.”
“I guarantee
you it’ll be interesting,” she offered.
“I bet. Usual place?”
“You got it. 10:30.”
“Uh huh. See ya,” Roarke said and hung up.
The entire exchange lasted only eighteen seconds. Louise Swingle timed it on her stop watch. Roarke had an internal clock that was ticking away as well. They were always careful not to talk long. In fact, he was a second away from hanging up when they finished.
Scott Roarke looked at the newspaper again and shook his head. He wasn’t surprised by the phone call. Not one bit. And though it was unlikely anyone was eavesdropping, they kept the exchange sounding like so many others between consenting adults. But in this case they were adults who consented to work for President Morgan Taylor.
Roarke had been Taylor’s “go-to guy” for two years. As such he should have headed over to his boss’ office first thing in morning. Instead, he chose the gym. Deep down inside he liked getting called. Still he didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to keep up the pace.
Officially he was a salaried government worker earning $114,300 a year. But he didn’t have to apply for the job or fill out the damned OF 612 or SF 171 application forms for Federal Employment.
Roarke was hand-picked for PD16. He also drew additional expenses from another account; one that had him banking in Drachmas, Yen, Eurodollars or other national currencies whenever his work took him on the road.
It had been that way ever since Uncle Sam noted his unique skills in basic.
Early in his training, a mean son of a bitch of a sergeant named Miller took a liking to Roarke. That meant he made his life a living hell, throwing every imaginable obstacle in the recruit’s path; all to test his limits.
Nothing stopped Roarke. Not grueling runs. Not lack of sleep. He toughened with heavier backpacks and hardened in extreme elements.
At the end of his basic training, Roarke wasn’t shipped off to a cushy assignment in Europe or Asia. On Sgt. Miller’s recommendation, Roarke received special papers sending him to greater hell that the Army made available for future intelligence officers or spies.
His post was in the middle of Utah at a location that didn’t officially exist and where commercial jets weren’t allowed to fly over. He became a member of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), an outfit that both analyzes data amassed by the CIA and is dispatched to do some “dirty work” around the world.
The DIA turns out “agents no one talks about.” They’ve deployed clandestine spies in the Persian Gulf, Somalia, Pakistan, Russia and China. They are drawn from Army, Navy and Air Force soldiers who have “volunteered” through the good graces of observers like Miller.
DIA ran their operations under a unit known as Defense Humint Service. In spy language, Humint stands for human intelligence —the kind of data that is collected by agents on the ground.
Reporters who dig deep enough to confirm the existence of the DIA’s efforts barely scratch the surface. The Pentagon only admits to having retooled some separate intelligence programs run by the numerous services into one. And yet, it is a fully functional, impressively managed operation which outnumbers the CIA analysts by nearly 10 to 1.
Early in their history, Humint teams scored some impressive successes in the field. In the 1990’s, DIA officers bought parts of a Russian SA-10 air defense missile system from the former Soviet republic of Belarus. The result of the procurement allowed the U.S. Air Force to better evade Russian radar.
A few years earlier they participated in the capture of an officer in the command structure of Somali warlord Mohammed Farrah Aidid.
In the mid 1980s, Army intelligence officers unearthed a North Korean division that spy satellites had missed. The Army also fractured an agreement that Iraq forged with China to build a nuclear reactor.
The barely supervised super secret agents of the Pentagon worked in concert with the CIA, which gets most of the attention and all of the credit. And that was just the way Roarke liked it then and now.
Attention was bad. Credit, he didn’t need. People who remembered faces could kill you. So he shunned being photographed; always trying very hard to blend into his surroundings.
Now, as the most trusted member of PD16, a unit of the Secret Service not unlike DIA, Roarke knew the faith Morgan Taylor placed in him. Yet, even to most friends, he passed himself off as merely another lowly member of the President’s walking bullet stoppers, when, in truth, he was much more.
Roarke picked up the newspaper from the health club floor. The news was definitely not good. He considered it might be time to think about a radical sabbatical. After all, at age thirty-six, he was becoming an old man in a young man’s business.
However, depending upon the election results in November, that decision might be made for him. He could have a considerable amount of time on his hands and a government retirement package waiting at the back door.
Hell, he wondered. Maybe I should just vote against the boss and help save myself a lot of grief.
He flung The New York Times back onto the health club floor and returned to spinning. He had ninety minutes before he had to be at the White House.
CHAPTER
9
Tripoli, Libya
The same day
Abahar Kharrazi read the International Herald Tribune. It carried Michael O’Connell’s story from The Times. Halfway through he shook his head in disgust. What an appalling shot. If this gunman had worked for him, he’d have him thrown into Abu Salim Prison, tortured and then left to contemplate his failure for the rest of his miserable life. It was the kind of cruel streak that seemed to run in the family.
The White House
1030 hrs
“This better be important. I was working on my self image,” Roarke joked as he entered the Oval Office.
“Most people would open with, ‘Hello, Mr. President.’”
“Hi, boss,” Roarke managed.
“Here, have some water. Sit down and shut up,” the president said going to his refrigerator.
Morgan Taylor knew he had Roarke’s respect. And it went way beyond the presidency. Roarke loved his country. It’s just that the accoutrements of the White House didn’t affect him. Morgan Taylor’s judgement did, however. That was the subject of today’s meeting.
The president tossed Roarke a bottle of Evian. “Thanks for coming.”
“I work for you.”
The president chuckled. ”Yes, you do. So let’s talk about work for today.”
Roarke cracked open the bottle’s plastic seal.
“I have a, let’s call it a project for you.”
“Project? That’s different than an assignment or a job. It’s certainly different than a mission.” Roarke was used to Morgan Taylor choosing his words carefully. All presidents had to. But Taylor was better than most.
“Just call it a project for now.”
“About Lodge?
“As a a matter of fact, yes.”
“You put him under Secret Service protection early?”
Another yes.
Roarke took a seat on the couch opposite one of the two revolutionary-era chairs in the Oval office. One had been owned by Thomas Jefferson. The other belonged to John Adams. Morgan Taylor sat in the Adams chair, which signaled this was political not philosophical. He never let on that he had the president psyched out. It was a great game to play, however.
“By law he wasn’t entitled to be under Service watch for another few weeks or until he got the nomination. But considering the circumstance….” The president lowered his eyes.
“Totally understandable. Someone tried to nail him.”
“And the killer is still out there. He could try again.”
“What does the Bureau have?”
“Nothing.”
The president leaned forward and reached for his cup of coffee he’d left on the rectangular table that separated them.
Roarke drank right from the bottle and waited.
“So what can I do? It sounds lik
e you already made the right move.”
“All that does is put a blanket around him. Since we don’t have the shooter and this seems very planned, I have to assume that this is not the work of a wacko. It could be politically based.”
“Oh come on. A guy sits waiting to take a pot shot at a presidential candidate. Of course it’s all politics.”
“But whose?”
“Not my area.”
The president spoke for him. “He’s not all that liberal for a Democrat. He’s less supportive of Israel than he probably should be.”
“The Mossad?” Roarke asked. “They’d have a reason not to want Lodge in.”
“But he wasn’t going to get in. Lamden had him beat. And I’d have to fuck it up pretty good not to take Henry in November.”
“What’s Evans say?”
Jack Evans was the DCI, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
“He’s checking his assets inside Israel. It’s not out of the question, but I hope to God it’s not the Israelis. I can’t even begin to fathom….” He didn’t need to finish the thought.
“Any right wing radicals? There are dozens of extremist groups out there.”
“The Bureau’s is running that down.”
Roarke repeated his question. “So again, what can I do?”
“I want you to quietly see if Lodge has some old skeletons in the closet; some people who have it in for him.”
“Wouldn’t you do better with Mulligan. His guys are up in Hudson. They’ll find something.”
“He’s got his number one team there. And so far they’re like audience members at a Lance Burton magic show. Clueless.”
“But I’m not an investigator.”
“Yeah, but you do know how to read signs that no one else sees. You’re familiar with Lodge’s story?”
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