Executive Actions

by Gary Grossman

  Lodge stepped forward like a conquering rock idol. At the proper tympani crescendo in the music, also perfectly timed, the spotlight hit him full front. Lodge shot his arms into the air in a majestic wave, stealing a scene from a Paul McCartney concert. He wore a blue pin strip suit with a powder blue shirt and the same hand-crafted red tie he had on the day Jenny Lodge died. Some eagle-eyed reporters would note it.

  Teddy looked tanned and rested. Slimmer than he’d appeared last on camera. He had let his hair grow out and fans from backstage blew air frontward, giving more life to the moment. Amid all the lighting and effects Teddy Lodge appeared absolutely triumphant.

  For fourteen minutes the cheering continued at an ear-shattering pitch. His speech would be secondary. These were the images that would lead the news for days and run on the front pages of newspapers coast to coast.

  Like everything else in politics, it came down to who you were and what you believed.

  Roarke viewed it as a circus. President Taylor’s staff laughed at the ridiculousness of the staging. But the average viewer couldn’t help but be drawn into the drama and emotion.

  “Ted-dy! Ted-dy! Ted-dy!” reverberated throughout the room, cascading into a pounding rhythm.

  “Thank you. Thank you. This is all so overwhelming,” Lodge said motioning the conventioneers to quiet down. “Thank you.”

  The cheers continued unabated for another two minutes and the congressman cried. He took a handkerchief out and dried his eyes. A news photogrpher for Time with a 200mm telephoto lens on his Canon camera pushed in for a close up.

  “Please. It’s getting late on the East Coast. People have to get to work tomorrow,” Lodge said playfully. “You’re so wonderful. Thank you.”

  At last the convention hall hushed and Teddy Lodge nodded.

  Looking to his right where the previous speaker stood, he blew a kiss and said, “I love Alma!” To everyone else he added, “Don’t you?”

  The cheers began again. This time for Alma Franklin. The statuesque woman came forward and Teddy Lodge kissed her, held her hand high, kissed her again showing his thanks and gratitude, and then kissed her hand and bid her goodbye. It was great theater, fully choreographed and rehearsed. Alma threw kisses to the crowd and left taking a seat behind Teddy. She’d be in all of the head to toe camera shots of the congressman; an intended reminder of what she brought to the ticket and a focal point where Jenny would have sat.

  Teddy gestured a last “thank you” to Alma and then stepped up to the microphones. It was time to begin.

  “I…,” he looked around. The move commanded attention. “I…have an idea,” he whispered. The television, radio and Internet audiences caught the words, but the convention audience didn’t. Newman’s perfect staging.

  “I have,” he forced his voice louder, “an idea.” He said it a little louder getting attention from the crowd. The media’s microphones picked up the “Shssssses” and the congressman repeated, even louder, “I have an idea.”

  “I have an idea how we should live. Now let me share it with you.”

  A blanket of silence fell over the room.

  “It’s not a radical idea. But it’s different. It’s not a hard idea to grasp, but it will be difficult to achieve. It’s not an idea for some, it has to work for us all.”

  From the wings, Newman smiled to himself. Alma’s speech recalled Kennedy. Lodge now spoke to Martin Luther King. He bet the significance would not be lost on the commentators in their analysis.

  “I,” he paused with greater emphasis, “have an idea that will succeed. Not just because I want it to, but because we have to.”

  “America is at a crossroads. We can choose to live in the world we are given, or make the world we deserve. No longer can we shrink from accepting our responsibility as leader. We must lead. No more can we take from foreign markets. We must give back. And no more can we ignore reality. We must face up to it.”

  Roarke dismissed it all as rhetoric, but realized how effectively Lodge was coming off. He’d be impossible to beat, which wouldn’t be so bad. He was already thinking of moving up to Boston.

  “I have an idea,” he paused. “I have an idea that we must demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are prepared to enforce the law of society on those who would dare do us harm. Yet, we must show that the way out of the shadows is by illuminating those things we don’t understand. The differences between women and men, black from white, rich and poor, and religion from religion, Arabs from Jews, Democrats from Republicans.” He let the last words echo.

  Haywood Marcus downed the last of his drink at the bar and slapped a fifty on the counter.

  “You leaving, Mr. Marcus?” the bartender asked him.

  “Yeah.”

  “But Teddy is still speaking.” He tossed his head to the TV screen above.

  “I’ll catch it on the news tonight.”

  “I wasn’t sure about it before, but he’s gonna make it,” the bartender added.

  “He’s been counting on being president for a long, long time,” Marcus said as he folded his jacket over his arm. “See ya soon, Timothy.”

  The bartender didn’t hear him. Like everyone else at the bar, his attention was on the TV.

  Marcus closed the door to Locke-Ober as Lodge continued to mesmerize his audience.

  “For only in the light will we see the path to tomorrow…”

  Marcus was up for a satisfying walk. He quickly crossed from Boston’s financial district into the North End and heard Lodge’s speech as he passed the open windows.

  Normally in August, the North End was crowded with tourists or kids playing between the closely parked cars. Normally, people were on the streets celebrating festivals devoted to Madonna Della Cava, Madonna Del Soccorso, St. Grippini, and St. Anthony. Normally there was music filling the air and old women leaning out the windows. Normally it was safe to walk along the narrow cobblestone streets that intersected Hanover. Tonight most people were inside watching the convention and their candidate, Teddy Lodge.

  “Make no mistake, the swords of the United States will stand at the ready. But so will the pen to sign new declarations of peace.”

  He heard the thunderous applause echo off the buildings. And he smiled.

  “We are a tolerant people, but intolerant of others who conspire against us. To those people and countries, I guarantee, you will fail if you attack America. But to those who want to join in a new age of reason, give us the reason to help you.”

  Marcus wondered, as he often did, how he would personally benefit. A Federal Court judgeship? No, better. Three seats on the Supreme Court should come up in the next four years. That’s where he believed he belonged.

  He was so absorbed in his own future that he didn’t see a young man step out of the shadows. It could have been broad daylight and he wouldn’t have noticed. The Supreme Court was such an awesome dream. It would be his greatest achievement as a lawyer.

  The sound of Congressman Lodge’s voice accompanied Marcus down Battery, Fleet, and North Streets. He caught phrases like “the greater need to build nations up rather than beating people down,” and “finding the courage to fight isn’t enough, being brave enough to fonge lasting peace is….”

  He didn’t sense the danger coming toward him. He didn’t see the cruelty in the man’s eyes. Now, even the words blaring out of TV and radio speakers in the apartments above didn’t reach him. Haywood Marcus, self-absorbed, focused on his own destiny; the Supreme Court seat, the prestigious black robe, the austere bench, and his place in history.

  “I have an idea,” Lodge’s voice boomed out.

  The man approaching Marcus raised his arm. A glint of something shiny caught the street light. Then a compressed pop and a puff of smoke. It was over before Marcus was even aware that he was about to die.

  The man, dressed in faded jeans, baggy boxers hanging over his belt loops, and an oversized sweatshirt, now held Marcus’ lifeless body. He quickly slid him by the heels into a doorw
ay and rummaged through his jacket and pants pockets extracting his wallet, credit cards and cash.

  He’d use the credit card at a liquor store, then dump everything except the cash in the gutter. He’d done this before. This time he wore beaten up sneakers, not his usual boots. They didn’t work with his outfit. This time he was a gang member. The next time, well, he just wasn’t sure.

  “…and my idea includes every living person on the face of the earth.”

  CHAPTER

  36

  Washington, D.C

  Friday 22 August

  Coverage of Congressman Lodge dominated Boston’s morning papers and early news. Nothing about Haywood Marcus made air until 11 A.M. Once it was out, word spread quickly through the office. The law firm issued a statement puncutating Marcus’ esteemed accomplishments and his skill as a lawyer. Colleagues gathered in the halls, stunned by the senseless robbery and murder.

  Katie Kessler believed robbery had nothing to do with it and the murder was anything but senseless. She reached Roarke on his cell phone.

  “What?” the Secret Service agent shouted. “Say that again.”

  “Marcus is dead. Shot and robbed walking in the North End.”

  “Robbed my ass,” Roarke interrupted.

  “That’s what I figured, too. Scott what’s this mean?

  “I’ll get back to you, sweetheart. Gotta go.” He hadn’t answered her question.

  Roarke called Shannon Davis’ office at the FBI. “I need everything you can get on a shooting last night in Boston,” he demanded. “Murder victim. The name is Haywood Marcus.”

  “Marcus? Like in the Boston law firm?”

  “Same one.”

  “That’s a coincidence,” the FBI man said, not believing it.

  “Yeah, right,” Roarke said, agreeing.

  On another floor, Roy Bessolo opened an e-mail on his computer. An agent working on a case in Idaho had a footprint match he wanted to discuss. Bessolo worked on so many cases he didn’t give it much attention until a second e-mail popped up.

  “Re: Latent print Sun Valley, ID—Hudson, NY 2nd analysis.”

  This time Bessolo went right to the phone.

  “Bessolo. You e-mailed me.”

  “Yes, thanks,” said Jake Messenger, the Denver field officer. “Figured you might be interested in this. I was running the evidence analysis on a possible heart attack that one of our people lifted nearby.” He hadn’t been privy to the news it wasn’t a heart attack. “Well, I’ve been away on vacation and I just got back. After going through all of my messages, I saw the results of a routine search I put out to the bureau. A case in Hudson, New York came up. Hudson was where the guy took a pot shot at Congressman Lodge, right?”

  “In a matter of speaking.”

  “Well, 97 percent likelihood the footprint you pulled is a match to the one I got. A right Frey boot, basic signatures are the same, except a few more on mine. Probably for the wear and tear since.”

  “Holy shit!” Bessolo shouted into his phone. “I want everything you have and every way to reach you. Cell phone, home phone. Your pager. Christ, I want to know that I can reach you if even when you’re banging your wife.”

  Forty-five minutes later, Bessolo had what he needed. He read through the file. Maybe this case will finally break. Of course, one boot print didn’t mean he had a suspect. But it was a start. He read on. Now who the hell was this Nunes guy? He read further and saw that another agent had his hand on the file, too. Shannon Davis.

  “All right, Davis. What the fuck is this all about?”

  Shannon Davis recognized Bessolo’s voice. He closed his eyes and imagined Bessolo towering over him; his head as bald as a bowling ball, his body wound tighter than an eight-day clock. He was an asshole, but a great agent.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ve been asking about a guy named Nunes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, seems that a footprint lifted near the recently departed Nunes comes up as a match for a little case I’m working on.”

  “That’s nice,” he said without trying to give away his interest.

  “Cut the shit you son of a bitch. This links back to the assassin in Hudson. And I want to know your involvement in this.”

  “Well, now that the pleasantries are out of the way, why don’t you come down and we’ll talk about it,” Davis offered.

  “No. I’ll see you in the director’s office.”

  Davis gulped. This was escalating fast. “I’ll be there.”

  Bessolo ignored the elevator and ran for the stairs. He beat Davis to Robert Mulligan’s office where he treated the FBI Director’s secretary to the same soft sell.

  “Get me in to see Mulligan now,” he stated. “Shannon Davis will be down, too.”

  She notified the director. Bessolo’s name carried weight. He got his meeting.

  By the time Davis walked in, Bessolo was already standing over Mulligan’s desk, pointing to some papers. He looked pissed.

  “Shannon.”

  “Bob, good to see you.”

  “I take it you know Roy.”

  “Yes. We met about three years ago. November. The Mystic Seaport security breach.”

  “The Al-Qaeda break-in,” Bessolo shot back.

  “You did a good job.”

  “You got in the way,” Bessolo answered.

  “Enough, gentlemen,” the FBI Director said. “Now that we’ve established you have a little history between you, let’s talk about this.”

  Mulligan pulled a picture of Alfred Nunes. He tossed it in front of Davis.

  “Both of you, take seats. Shannon, you’re on.”

  Davis began. “Alfred Nunes. Healthy until a few weeks ago. Apparent heart attack. Now suspected sodium morphate induced murder.”

  “Come again?” Bessolo asked.

  “Wait. Who is Nunes?” Mulligan asked.

  “You’ll find this interesting. Former family attorney for the Lodges. Congressman Teddy Lodge’s family.”

  “This isn’t your case, Shannon. Mind telling me why you’re so expert in this?”

  “Scott Roarke asked me for some help a few weeks ago.”

  “Roarke?” Bessolo boomed.

  “Who the hell is—”

  “Secret Service,” Mulligan explained. “Special detail.”

  The director made a quick decision. “Roy, will you excuse us for a few moments.”

  “What?”

  Bessolo showed his displeasure, but left without complaint when Mulligan tapped his watch and held up five fingers.

  “I’ll be just outside,” Bessolo said.

  Mulligan waited until they had privacy then simply asked, “Roarke.”

  “Yes, sir. But…”

  “No ‘but’s.’ You work for me. Not Roarke. Not his boss.” The latter could be debated.

  “Now think about this very hard before you answer. Do you believe he has any political motives? That he’s acting on behalf of Taylor for any political reason?”

  “None, sir.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.” I hope.

  The FBI chief thought about it through a deep sigh.

  “Let’s hope so. Because this whole thing is suddenly getting more complicated.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, and now that you volunteered to join this goddamned party, let me tell you about a man named Dolan.”

  Davis packed everything relevant into his attaché case and headed to Roarke’s White House basement office. On his way he called. “You got yourself a partner, so clear off your grease board, buddy. We need to sort out a bunch of stuff.”

  Roarke met Davis with a red marker in hand. He had already started writing after the FBI man’s urgent call. At the top was Teddy Lodge and beside his name, Jenny Lodge.

  “I have a few for you to add,” Davis said when he got settled. He leafed through a note pad and began to dictate names that Roarke wrote down in block letters.


  “Good, I need to see how this all lays out.”

  Then below Teddy Lodge add, Sidney McAlister, the assassin. then further down, Frank Dolan.

  This was a new name that Davis threw out to Roarke; a man known to have been in the St. Charles Hotel and involved in the death of a Connecticut commuter, Steven Hoag. Mulligan had offered it up to Davis during their earlier conversation and Roarke added it to the right side.

  “Tell me about this Dolan character.”

  “I don’t have much. But I do have a nagging suspicion that your boss can find out more from my boss. Or vice versa. The file is sealed. What I have gathered is this guy Dolan occupied the room that McAlister ultimately needed to get his direct shot. He checked out. McAlister conveniently checked in. Now it appears that Dolan can’t be found. The number and address he gave to the hotel desk were fake.”

  Roarke put a question mark after Dolan.

  “And Hoag?”

  “A guy on a train. Killed two days after the assassination attempt on Teddy Lodge. Business manager at a publishing company. Beyond that, I can’t tell you.”

  “And he’s dead.”

  “Deader than a door nail. Now add Alfred Nunes, then Haywood Marcus. Do it above Hoag.

  “Three dead guys on one side,” Roarke said. “Let me move Jenny Lodge to the middle. And see what connections we can make.” He drew his first line, the obvious one, between McAlister and Jenny.

  “One.”

  Roarke then connected McAlister and Nunes.

  “Two,” Davis said. “Now here’s another new one for you”

  “Oh?” Roarke raised his eyebrow.

  “Hot off the wires. But not for publication. Courtesy of Roy Bessolo, who’s heading up the Hudson investigation. He called to find out why I was snooping around Nunes.”

  “Why would he….”

  “Wait, it gets better. He got my name because the Denver office called him about a footprint they lifted upriver from our friend Alfred Nunes. Matched one his team had found. Guess whose?”