Alix felt closer to Ben after what they’d just been through. They hadn’t mentioned his son, Chris, again, but Alix was touched that he had confided in her, and she noticed a framed photograph of a little boy on his bookshelf that she hadn’t paid attention to before, and she felt certain it was him but didn’t ask. She didn’t want to reopen the painful subject. Isabelle had called them earlier from France, to see how they were.
The doctor had told Faye to take it easy for a few days, and after that she could do whatever she wanted, and get the wound checked in a week. Alix was changing the dressings for her, and it was very clean and already healing. But the coverage on TV of the aftermath of the shooting was heartbreaking. They ran photographs of the victims and their families again and again, and the funerals in various cities where they had lived would begin on Tuesday. Alix and Ben were off till Monday, with the blessing of their boss.
They had dinner at his kitchen table that night, a big salad Alix had prepared, some Chinese food Faye had requested, and a roast chicken from a nearby deli, and her friends arrived to visit her just as they finished. The girls retired to the guest room with Faye, to lie on her bed and talk, while Ben and Alix had a glass of wine in the kitchen. The atmosphere was festive, but subdued, and it felt like home, even to Alix. Ben was warm and hospitable to both of them.
“Thank you again for having us,” she said as he poured her another glass of the wine he’d found in a cupboard. It was Spanish and inexpensive, but surprisingly good, and the impromptu meal had been too.
“You make my apartment a happy place,” he said, smiling at her. “It’s too quiet most of the time, but I’m hardly ever here, except to sleep.” Her presence and her daughter’s changed it all.
“I feel like that about my place too when Faye isn’t home. That’s what makes the difference, although her friends coming and going at all hours drives me crazy at times. But it’s too depressing now that she’s at school, I hate going home.” He nodded agreement but didn’t comment for a minute.
“At first, when I left the SEALs, I loved the peace and solitude. Now it’s a little too quiet at times. I’ve been thinking about moving into the city. But we’re gone so much, I’m not sure it matters. I never have the time to go anywhere anyway. I keep thinking I’d go to museums and the theater if I move to Manhattan, but maybe I wouldn’t.”
She smiled, thinking the same thing. “It’s hard to plan anything when you work as much as we do, and travel all the time.”
“I had a great time when we took those few days off in France,” he said, remembering the châteaux he’d visited and the time in Provence with her and her mother. “I should do more of that here.” She nodded agreement, but it seemed like all she ever had time to do was laundry and pack, and read the research on her next story, which made her think of Olympia having dinner with the Vice President that night, and wonder how it was going.
—
As he always did, Tony had arrived precisely on time, and Olympia was waiting for him in the library, wearing a simple black dress and a string of pearls, with high heels, and her dark hair neatly done. She had a hairdresser who came to the house now and had been there that afternoon, in anticipation of his visit. She was always impeccable when he came to see her, she was a beautiful woman, with style and grace.
“You look terrific,” he complimented her, and opened the bottle of champagne waiting for him in a silver ice bucket on the coffee table, with two flutes. She was nervous with the wire taped under her dress, but he didn’t notice how tense she was. A female CIA agent had come two hours earlier and attached the wire while she dressed. It was barely more than a thread on her skin, and a very efficient device. And three of the officers from the National Clandestine Service were in a van outside, parked halfway down the block, listening to every word from the moment he walked in.
Tony asked what she’d been doing that day, and she said working on the book. They sipped the champagne, and she asked politely about Megan and the kids, as she always did, and he said the little one had the flu, and Megan was excited to be pregnant again.
“Three kids will probably look better than two during the campaign,” he said with a grin. “Family man.” It was one thing Megan had been able to offer him that Olympia wouldn’t have, children of their own, and her father’s money to pour into his campaign. But other than that, he still thought Olympia would have been the better choice by far. She had a mystique that a girl Megan’s age couldn’t match, political history, and the whole country loved her. He never pretended to Olympia to be madly in love with his wife. Olympia always wondered if it would last. He had been unfaithful to his first wife repeatedly, and she had tired of it and divorced him shortly before Bill died. He hadn’t been devastated by it, and had admitted to them for a long time, in order to justify his infidelities, that the marriage had been dead for years and hadn’t been the right fit for either of them since the beginning, and she couldn’t have children, and he didn’t want to adopt. Politically, for his image, Megan was a better choice than his first wife. She was intelligent and educated, good looking, and had given him kids. But Olympia would have made him a legend, like Bill. He said as much over dinner, and made it very clear to the three CIA agents in the van that whatever he did had a political motive behind it, even who he married. It told them instantly who he was, and they made no comment as they listened, but one of them raised an eyebrow. Tony couldn’t have heard what they were saying, but they didn’t want to miss a word. All three of them had earphones on, so as to hear him more clearly.
They were halfway through the excellent dinner she’d had prepared for him, when she brought up the subject that interested the CIA. Until then, they had commented on the campus shooting at Duke, a conversation she’d had the day before with Darcy about her doctor boyfriend, and some of Tony’s activities in Washington that week, all of which sounded relatively banal to the agents in the van.
Finally, they heard Olympia mention offhandedly that she’d gone through some more of Bill’s papers that week, trying to beef up several of the chapters in her new book with his own words to bring him to life again for her readers. He’d been gone for a long time, and she was afraid that some people might not remember how vital he had been and how deeply committed to a variety of causes.
“I came across some notes I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, in his own handwriting, and a journal. None of it was very exciting. He talked about how well liked you are, and how popular, and that you have lobbyist friends, and people you know in every sector,” she said blandly, and glanced at Tony with innocent eyes. She would have seemed almost stupid and naïve to anyone who didn’t know her. Tony frowned at what she said.
“I didn’t get involved with the lobbies. I never did,” he said, sounding curt and dismissive. “I played golf with a few of them once, and Bill got hot under the collar about it. He was a little too sensitive on the subject, and a purist, as we both know. Anything else you unearthed in his notes? Where did you come across all this?”
“In a bunch of boxes they sent over from his office afterward. They never looked very important to me, so I didn’t go through them for the first book.” None of what she was saying was true. She had read every scrap of paper he’d written on, and there were no boxes she hadn’t gone through in the last six years, but she made it sound entirely plausible and the agents were impressed. She had done it with just the right light touch. “But I’m a little short of material for this book, so I’m having to dig deeper.” It would have sounded ominous to anyone who was concealing something, and inane to someone who wasn’t, and standard procedure for a book, especially six years after her husband’s death, when the material she had for it had begun to seem a little dry.
“Was there anything else of interest in his notes?” You could hear the faintest increase of tension in his voice if you listened carefully, and the agents thought it would have been interesting to see the expression on his face that went with it.
“Not
really,” she said, sounding vague, and smiled at him. “Something about a trip you made to Saudi Arabia, which didn’t make any sense either. Did you ever go? I thought Bill must have been confused. It was more in the form of notes, with some dates, than a proper journal entry. It sounded like a couple of trips, maybe three of them, and a mention of one to Iran. Maybe you wanted him to go with you, and he wrote down possible dates. I don’t think you ever went, and I know Bill didn’t.” Her eyes opened wide again, and she smiled at him. “Bill was always talking about trips he never went on. He was too busy at home, and the Middle East was never a high priority to him, or to you. I think I’m down to some pretty meaningless stuff in the boxes now. I still have a few to go through, but it looks like they sent me everything including what was in his wastebasket. A lot of it makes no sense,” she said again, “like the dates for trips to Jedda and Riyadh. Have you ever been there?” she asked politely and as though she didn’t really care.
“No, of course not,” he flat-out lied to her. “I went on a senatorial junket to Tehran once. I didn’t like it. I’d never go back. The Arab world is not for me, except in the context of a presidency, of course. But in civilian life, I’d avoid it. I don’t like countries or people who treat women badly,” he said, to impress her. “And the Saudis were nomads in the desert a generation ago. There’s nothing there.”
“Except oil,” she said, smiling. “I saw a group of Saudi women at Bergdorf’s a long time ago. They were each buying about ten alligator bags, they must have left the store with a hundred of them between them. It’s hard to imagine that kind of money.” She tried to sound naïve and easily fooled. It was everything he wanted to believe about her, and she realized now that that must be how he saw her, and it was far from the truth. “I didn’t think you’d ever been there,” she concluded. “Maybe you could look at this last batch of papers sometime, and tell me if there’s anything relevant to his policies and ideologies that I’m missing. That’s really what this book is about, what he believed in and lived for. I know he was much more interested in using our own natural resources and not importing oil, so Arab oil tycoons were of no interest to him.”
“Or to me,” Tony said firmly, lying to her again. “We were in complete agreement on that score, and I think his policies, promoting our own resources, were the right ones.” She couldn’t believe he was lying to her through the entire conversation. She wondered how many times he had done that before. He clearly thought she was an innocent and a fool. It was a blow to realize it now.
She changed the subject then, and he came back to it a few minutes later. “Where are you keeping all these boxes of Bill’s notes that you haven’t gone through yet? Maybe I should just have them sent to my office and go through them for you. I could do it some weekend when I’m not busy.”
“I’d hate to bore you with it,” she said gently. “It looked like mostly junk to me, and it takes time to sift through it. I have about a dozen boxes left, but I think I used all the good stuff in the first book. I don’t think there’s much there I want to use. And it’s so tedious reading it. I found some sweet photographs of the children I want to frame, a nice one of him, and the two of you, but so far that’s about it. I’ll probably archive the rest. I haven’t thrown any of his papers away.” Tony was quiet for a minute after she said it, and he sounded irritated when he spoke again.
“God knows I loved the man, almost as much as you did, but he was such a purist, and such an extremist in his own way. Everything was black or white to him, you were right or wrong, good or bad. There were no gray areas with Bill, no shadings, no compromises, no understanding of the nuances of politics and the adjustments you make in order to have something work. I tried to explain that to him, but he was stubborn as a mule about it.” Tony continued, sounding fierce for a minute. “Something was right or wrong because he believed that. The world just doesn’t work that way.”
“His world did,” Olympia said, almost in a whisper. “He would never do something he thought was wrong, or let us do that. He was such a good person.” Her voice drifted off. “I think that’s why people loved him so much, because he had so much integrity,” she added a moment later. “You have to admire someone like that. He didn’t compromise what he believed in, and he had so much compassion for everyone. That’s why you loved him too,” she reminded his closest friend, who didn’t look as though he loved him at that instant. He was remembering the arguments they had had when he couldn’t sway Bill to his point of view. And now he was worried about the boxes Olympia had mentioned. God only knew what was in them. And he was relieved that she didn’t seem to know what was in them either. “He was everyone’s hero,” Olympia reminded him and Tony nodded.
“Certainly…yes, he was…In a way, it’s not surprising that someone killed him. Throughout history, men of high ideals and inflexible standards have been martyred, like Jesus and countless others, right down to modern times. The man who killed him didn’t know him, but men like Bill, who are lit from within, almost draw tragedy to them.” It was an odd thing to say, and the first time he had said it to her. It almost sounded as though he thought that her husband had been destined to be assassinated, and the thought of it made her shudder.
Her housekeeper cleared away the plates then, and brought in a tarte tatin for dessert. It was a fancy apple tart made at home, with whipped cream to go with it. She knew it was one of Tony’s favorites. As the housekeeper served it, Olympia thought of everything Tony had said about his friend. Some of it was very startling, and it struck her that it was almost as though he accepted Bill’s death as inevitable. To Tony, she saw now, the end justified the means, even if that meant lying to her, which she realized now he had, probably many times.
She looked tired by the end of the meal. It had been a strain for her to appear casual and lighthearted, and guide him into the subjects that interested the CIA. But she could also see now how easily he would have sold Bill out, portraying him as unreasonable and rigid, and pretending that Bill had agreed with him when he hadn’t. It was frightening thinking about what he might say to save his own skin. She thought him capable of anything now, any lie that was useful to him. He was completely self-serving. And the CIA agents in the van understood it too. Olympia saw now, all too clearly, that Tony was not the man she had thought him, and she knew more than ever that Bill had been right in the decision to separate himself from his old friend. And six years later, he was dirtier than ever, just as Bill had feared.
Tony sat with her for a few more minutes after dinner, over coffee, and then left early to catch his flight to Washington. He had a plane waiting at the airport. And he reminded her again before he left to send him Bill’s last boxes so he could go through them and spare her the trouble.
“I hate to do that to you,” she said, sounding embarrassed. “You’ve got more important things to do.”
“I’d love to, it will be like a visit with him to read his notes.” It was how she felt about going through her husband’s papers, but Tony had other motives, and didn’t realize she knew it. The boxes she had spoken of were mythical anyway, they didn’t exist, and she had invented them in order to introduce the pertinent subjects, and the ruse had worked well. She would have been proud of herself, if what she had discovered hadn’t been so disappointing. Suddenly everything he had said to her in the six years since Bill died sounded hollow and false. She wanted to cry when she closed the door behind him, after he kissed her on the forehead and told her again that he loved her. She saw now that he didn’t love anyone but himself.
The agents from the van rang her doorbell fifteen minutes later, to be sure that he didn’t return for some reason. They relieved her of the wire and were pleased with what they’d heard. He had lied to her again and again, about the lobbyists he knew, his involvement with them, his trips to Saudi Arabia and Iran and the men he knew there, even his beliefs about buying foreign oil. And he was clearly worried about his late friend’s notes and had done everything to convince her
to send them to him.
Olympia knew when the agents left that she had seen Tony in her home for the last time. Even if he wanted to come back, she couldn’t let him. She had the same black-and-white perception of the truth as her late husband. And Tony Clark was a liar. It was only a matter of time before the CIA would close in on him and he’d go to jail. She hoped they wouldn’t ask her to be a decoy for him again.
She went upstairs to her bedroom with a heavy heart, and all she could think now was that she wanted to get away from her house and get some air. She wanted to see people, her children and old friends. She was tired of the book, and carrying Bill’s message into the world. She needed a break from it, and she wanted to get as far away as she could from Tony Clark. She realized that what she wanted to do now was see her children. Her son was close by in Iowa, but he never came to New York anymore, she hadn’t seen him in months. Darcy lived so much farther away, in Zimbabwe, and would have to wait.
She sent an email to Jennifer before she went to bed, asking her to book her on a flight to Chicago the next day, and she sent Josh a text asking him if she could come to visit him for a few days, if he had time. She wanted to put her arms around him and give him a hug. She was tired of mourning as a way of life. And somewhere amidst all of Tony’s lies that night, the spell had been broken, along with her heart. She had lost a friend, if he had ever truly been one to either of them, which she now doubted. But she had finally started on the long journey back from Bill’s death. It was time. Discovering the truth about Tony had freed her.
Chapter 11
Jennifer managed to get Olympia on a flight to Chicago the next morning. She wanted to spend a day visiting old haunts. It was where she and Bill had spent the early years of their marriage, while he laid the groundwork for his political career. In time, they had moved to Washington, but kept an apartment in Chicago on the lake for several years, and Bill’s father still lived there. He was ninety-two years old, and Olympia hadn’t seen him in a year, since he last visited her in New York, although they spoke on the phone from time to time. She was extremely fond of him and had missed seeing him more frequently. She was excited to see him now. She called him before she left New York, and she was having dinner with him in Chicago that night.
Dangerous Games Page 15
