Having got nowhere with his naughty schoolboy routine, the Governor’s right-hand man opted for remorse and sincerity. Or at least a reasonable imitation.
‘Okay, okay, I get it,’ he replied. ‘You had to take the detour to get here today. Okay. I apologise for that. And I tell you what, as soon as I’m done here I will personally call the relevant people and make it right by you. My promise.’
Colonel Murdoch cocked one eyebrow at him. ‘I’d have thought you were the relevant people, but I’ll take you on trust. For now.’
McCutcheon nodded slowly, as if he’d just been dealt a hand of cards he didn’t much like, but knew he could play.
‘Well, that wasn’t at all uncomfortable,’ rumbled Musso, feeling like a third wheel.
Caitlin softened her features and allowed some of the tension to run out of her posture. She had made her point.
‘Oh, Mr McCutcheon is a big boy, General. I’m sure a bit of rough play won’t put him off his game.’ She favoured McCutcheon with a smile of such beatific innocence that after the performance of the previous few minutes he could have doubted her sanity.
‘Why don’t you call me Ty,’ he suggested. ‘And you, Colonel, were you born with that rank?’ He managed to inflect his voice with an acknowledgment that he was pushing the boundaries, but he was still playing.
‘I’m sometimes known as Kate,’ she conceded. ‘When I’m off duty, and around friends like General Musso here.’
‘Welcome to Texas then, Kate.’
‘Thank you, Ty, it’s nice to be here,’ she replied, finally giving him something.
Musso blew out his cheeks. ‘Lucky thing we make everyone check their personal weapons at the front desk,’ he said. ‘Now, Mr McCutcheon …’
‘You too, General,’ he said, teasing. ‘We’re all new best friends now. How about you call me Ty, and I freshen up these drinks?’
The President’s official representative in Texas didn’t look wary so much as calculating. ‘I’m always happy to be friendly over a couple of beers … Ty. But Colonel Murdoch does have a point. It’s a lot easier to be friends with someone when they’re not trying to ass-fuck you on a daily basis.’
Tusk’s voice sounded reasonable enough, friendly even, but there was no mistaking the steel underlying his tone. It seemed to have no effect on McCutcheon. He caught the female soldier’s attention with a backward tilt of his head and signalled for another round before answering the general.
‘Look,’ he said, showing them his open, honest palms. ‘We got us a face-facts moment here. I can’t pretend relations between my boss and yours have been good. I can’t even pretend I’ve done anything to make that better until now. The two men have their history, and there’s probably no forgetting it. Hell, I was with General Blackstone in Seattle and I’ve been with him ever since. I can guarantee you there’s no forgetting what happened up there for him. And to be honest? There’s no forgiving either.’
Caitlin accepted the second drink when it arrived, but she put it aside. The background buzz in the room had come up again, but she was aware that their group was still the centre of attention. McCutcheon seemed to be aware of it too. She was certain he was playing to the audience, in fact.
‘But this isn’t 2003. Those days are gone, thank God, and we recognise there’s a whole new set of problems down here. Problems that are a hell of a lot bigger than any personal disagreements between the President and the Governor of Texas. We are willing to put all of that behind us, to admit we made mistakes. More than our fair share of them. And to move on with making up for those mistakes.’
Caitlin said nothing. She agreed with Musso that Morales simply wasn’t a major threat. On the other hand, that didn’t mean Blackstone didn’t see him as one. He might be a raging ego monster, but in some ways Mad Jack was also a very delicate soul. Ego monsters were often like that: hard but brittle. If she wanted to gain the former Ranger’s trust, appealing to his fears and indulging his delusions might just pay off. Across from her, however, leaning back deep into the embrace of a black leather club chair, with one foot propped up on the coffee table, General Tusk Musso appeared to be less inclined to let bygones be bygones. Perhaps he’d been inspired by Colonel Murdoch, the castrating bitch from central casting. Or perhaps he just felt like getting his own back for all the hours he’d spent trapped at McCutcheon’s roadblocks.
‘I would hope, Ty,’ he said, carefully enunciating each word, ‘that if you’re not just feeding us a line, if your boss is serious about a rapprochement, then it would extend to a lot more than simply coordinating deployments between your militia and the real military.’
If the old Marine Corps lawyer was trying to be elaborately offensive, McCutcheon wasn’t rising to the bait. He absorbed any insult and waited for Musso to continue.
‘Because, Ty, I don’t think I need to list my grievances with your administration. You would be well aware of them. Even disregarding the way you run things in the Hood, there is the matter of the security situation within the Mandate, which we very foolishly handed over to you. There’s the matter of the federal-state accords, the revenue-sharing deals, the contracts and treaties you’ve been signing ultra vires with foreign corporations and powers, and … Well, I’m sorry - I said I wasn’t going to list my grievances, but there, I went and did it anyway. Because they are grievances, Ty. Real and legitimate grievances. And I’m disinclined to trade favours over them, just because Blackstone has his pantaloons in a twist over Roberto.’
McCutcheon made an effort to interject but Musso waved him off.
‘The President takes the security of the nation very seriously. If he thinks there’s a threat from Morales, he will crush him like a bug. I guarantee that. But security doesn’t come from guns alone. The only thing that comes from the barrel of a gun is a fucking bullet, not security. If this country is ever to be secure again, it won’t be because of a president tossing a couple of regiments here and there, or moving the Lincoln out of the Pacific and into the Caribbean and the Atlantic. It will be because we all decide to work together to make ourselves strong again. Do you think we can do that, Ty? Do you think we can get past everything that happened in the last few years and work together?’
Caitlin took a sip from her single malt and regarded McCutcheon with a neutral expression. There was a reason why Blackstone had sent him into the enemy camp. He didn’t disappoint.
‘Can we kiss and make up? Fuck yes! We might have differences of opinion, but our interests are the same at heart. We just want the best for the country. Honest Injun now - if you can take just a couple of steps towards us, I know Jackson Blackstone will meet you halfway, sir.’
The moment hung suspended while everybody waited on Tusk Musso’s response. Caitlin could feel the sense of relief through her pores when he nodded and growled, ‘Okay then. Let’s try.’
Maintaining her cover, Echelon’s senior field agent displayed no reaction beyond taking another drink and watching McCutcheon like a hunter from the hide. Her stone face covered her own feelings of uncertainty. Had Musso planned to go off like that? Or had he been inspired by McCutcheon’s response to the uncompromising Colonel Murdoch? Even more intriguing, why had Tusk spoken in the anodyne euphemism about the security situation in the Federal Mandate? The question was at the forefront of her mind, she realised, thanks to the recent murder of Miguel Pieraro.
Lower-level bureaucratic harassment was one thing, amateur-hour genocide quite another. And from her reading of the Blackstone administration, they had some hard questions to answer about what had been happening to people like the Pieraro clan. She doubted that Blackstone possessed the means or even the base-level competence to have reached out and touched Pieraro in Missouri. But she had no doubt that the road agents had been able to run wild in Texas through an act of omission on his part, if not commission.
She placed McCutcheon’s new-best-friend routine firmly within the context of the listening devices she’d turned over in her room. To have
planted them successfully, Blackstone must have turned at least one member of Musso’s staff, or somehow planted an agent here. Either operation would require a significant commitment of intelligence resources to the task of subverting Musso’s command. Tyrone and his boss were overreaching, but that just made them more dangerous.
Special Agent Monroe resolved then that although she would maintain her mission focus on establishing the meaning of the link between Blackstone and Ozal, and through him to Bilal Baumer, she would not lose sight of any opportunity to nail the motherfucker for the fate of anybody in the Mandate who may have lost their life on his say-so.
‘I think this calls for a real drink,’ she said to McCutcheon. ‘Are you a bourbon man, Ty?’
37
DEARBORN HOUSE, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
Sunday night was pork chop night. The President of the United States of America said so. On Sunday nights, there were to be no formal state dinners, no working suppers shared with staff, no late-night pizzas, no Chinese takeaways scarfed down at the desk. Because Sunday night was pork chop night. And President James Kipper was working the grill, because on pork chop night he got to be a regular guy again. The staff were excused. Suzie was packed off to bed with a book, for lights out at 1930 hours. And the First Lady was banished to a hot, deep tub with a glass of wine, while Kip worked his barbecue magic.
Manning the grill during the wintertime didn’t normally faze Seattle’s former chief engineer in the least. He actually enjoyed standing in the cold with a brew in one hand, tongs in the other. The smoky flavour of brats, burgers and (every so often) strip steak seemed that much more intense in the brisk cold air. Unfortunately, this evening, the blizzard conditions outside meant he was restricted to using a little hibachi unit on the kitchen bench, rather than being able to work the tongs on the big, honking eight-burner beast that sat, forlorn and neglected now, under a huge loaf of snow.
Not to worry. His thick boneless pork chops had been marinated to within an inch of their lives in a generous measure of Arthur Bryant’s special KC barbecue rub. During his last visit to Kansas City, he’d managed to slip away long enough to visit the site of the famous restaurant, at 1727 Brooklyn, near the city’s old Jazz District. The meat in the pit had long since turned to dust, yet the smell - that delicious, greasy smell of well-prepared pork, burnt rinds, ham and turkey - it was still there.
Although it was getting harder and harder to find these days, the wonder-rub had survived the years of neglect well enough. The sauce, that special vinegary creation that old Arthur himself used to mix up in five-gallon glass bottles, not so well. A small clique comprising expatriate KC folk and other barbecue aficionados from the South and the Midwest had been trying to reformulate the sauce. The President had a bottle of their concoction in the cabinet, but it never tasted quite right. On the other hand, it didn’t taste like curry either, and for that he was grateful.
Someone’s gonna get that sauce right someday, he thought. Maybe after I get out of this job, it’ll be me.
Barbara once accused him of resettling Kansas City simply so he could get production restarted on this old favourite, which he’d first discovered during an engineering convention back in the pre-Wave years. Not that she didn’t have her own personal indulgences - such as raiding the stocks of Williams-Sonoma and the Pottery Barn to refurbish Dearborn House.
Looking around the well-equipped, painfully clean and modern kitchen, Kip marvelled at the tongs in his hands. They cost enough to buy a whole set of utensils from Walmart back in his college days. He was still getting used to the amount of space here, since he only used the kitchen on Sundays. It smelled of coffee, baked sweet potato and, now, slow-cooking pork.
He was halfway through his first growler of the local Elliott Bay Demolition Ale, although, it had to be said, the main reason he drunk the stuff was because no one could reproduce a decent Boulevard Pale Ale. Another of KC’s former delicacies. A fridge dedicated to his favourite beers stood in the kitchen’s small anteroom - not that he ever had enough time to really sample them. Tonight was different, though. Tonight the President of the United States would make time for beer. It was an executive decision.
The country was not at war, he had a late start tomorrow and he was gonna get absolutely shit-faced tonight. Perhaps, if Barb had another glass of pinot noir, he might be getting lucky too. And if not, he was going to attack the beer fridge and soak in the tub while reading a growing backlog of L.L. Bean catalogues. He had a post-presidential canoe trip to plan, after all.
It was at that very moment, as the first chop began to sizzle and smoke and fill up the kitchen with its heady smell of porktastic goodness, that Jed Culver appeared at the kitchen door to put the zap on his mellow.
‘If I could, Mr President - just a minute before I head out home?’
Oh, fuck this for a joke …
‘Really, Jed? Working late on a Sunday? You sure you wouldn’t like to forget about it and have a beer instead? I just tapped a new keg.’
The Chief of Staff looked as though he was tempted, although it could have been the smell of the pork chops, of course. Culver was a fool for the barbecue arts, and definitely more of a Texas man than Kipper. In fact, they’d had many debates over the relative merits of Kansas City barbecue versus Texas or Memphis style. Seattle had a barbecue culture of its own but Kip didn’t take it very seriously. General Murphy, a reluctant Missourian himself, had remarked at his retirement ceremony the previous month: ‘My boots should stick to the grease on the floors of a good barbecue joint. I never get that feeling here in Eeyore-land; it feels too squeaky clean, like eating in a surgical suite.’
Jed cocked his head one way, looking at the beer keg, then another as he checked his watch. Satisfied, he bobbed his head in a nod. He seemed grim, more so than usual. It had been days since he’d even mentioned the looming election campaign. Kip wondered what was bugging him. So he could make a note to do it more often. He loved not thinking about electoral bullshit.
‘Well, maybe just one beer,’ Jed muttered. ‘But I’ll still need a minute of your time.’
‘Pork chop night, Jed,’ said Kipper, as if that might save him.
Culver fetched a glass from the draining rack over the sink and poured himself an ale with a practised hand. Kip remembered him saying once that he tended bar while at college. It seemed there was very little that the Louisianan didn’t have some working knowledge of.
‘I’d offer you dinner, Jed,’ he said. ‘But Barbara only picked up enough for two. And I’m not good at sharing.’
Culver set his glass down on the galaxy-black granite benchtop and held up both hands. ‘I wouldn’t want to interrupt pork chop night, Mr President.’
Kipper resisted the temptation to start turning the meat. In his humble opinion, too-frequent turning made the meat tough and dry and was a crime against humanity. There should probably be a law against it. He’d have to look into that. After another beer.
‘So, what was it you wanted to bug me about? Your minute starts now.’
‘Just an update, Mr President. Secretary Humboldt just sent over a briefing note from her department on how we might handle dispersing the women and children out of the camps in the east. I’ve read the executive summary, and I’ll try to digest the whole thing later tonight. But from a practical point of view, it looks okay. We’re going to keep the families together, but break up the tribal groups and scatter them like chaff. Most will be going out to the frontier, to work on government farms, so they’ll be under supervision. And working plenty hard with it.’
Kip found he could work his spatula under the chops without having to push too hard. A sure sign they were ready to flip. He was about to call Barb down when she appeared at the door in her dressing gown and slippers, looking rested and even a little flushed from the hot water and the alcohol.
‘Hi Jed,’ she said. ‘You staying for dinner?’
‘No,’ both men answered at the same time. Culver found a weary smil
e somewhere and added, ‘I’m picking up Marilyn at the apartment and we’re going out to dinner. Although I have to say, my mouth is watering right now and I could be talked out of it - except that your husband and my wife wouldn’t approve.’
He emptied his beer in two long pulls before rinsing out the glass and replacing it on the draining rack. ‘And anyway, I really was just dropping in on my way through. We can discuss how we handle Sarah’s plan tomorrow,’ he added, turning back to his boss. ‘And I’ll need to have a word with you about Texas as well.’
‘Okay then,’ agreed Kip. ‘Right now I have perfectly cooked pork, cold beer and a smoking-hot wife. I’m afraid I don’t intend to be distracted from that by affairs of state.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. But I did speak to the Bureau, as you instructed, about the Texas matter. They’re going to do what they can, but it will take time. I just -‘
Kipper held up his free hand like a nightclub doorman. ‘Nope, Jed. Not tonight. There’s nothing I can do about it tonight. And even if there was, I wouldn’t. Because it’s pork chop night. You want me to ring Director Naoum first thing in the morning and lean on him, that’s fine. But it’s not happening tonight.’
He expected a fight, and was preparing himself for one, getting a rein on his temper before it got away from him, but the Chief of Staff merely sighed and shook his head. Almost as if he was trying to shake off a wearisome thought or mood.
‘No, sir. That won’t be necessary. You said you wanted the FBI on this. They’re on it, in their own methodical, dilatory fashion. I’m sure they’ll do a thorough job. But I just want you to know it will take time. And there are alternatives that I could set in play before I have my first martini tonight.’
‘Only if you really want to go to jail, Jed,’ the President said, half in jest. But with a tone to his voice that, he hoped, implied he was serious also.
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