The President s Assassin

by Brian Haig

  I heard a harsh laugh. A voice said, “I’ll bet you’re busy as all hell, son.” The voice was male and middle-aged, with a smoker’s rasp, the accent was Texan, and the tone sounded folksy and condescending, like he held all the cards, which wasn’t at all . The man on the other end of the line was not Tingle. But neither did he sound like Jason Barnes, which was a bit disappointing.

  I waved my arm, and in a tone as good-humored as I could manufacture, I asked, “Is this who I think it is?”

  “You ain’t got a fuckin’ clue who I am. Let’s not pretend otherwise.”

  “I do know you’ve really caused us a lot of trouble.”

  “Well, hey...this ain’t good news, I’m sure, but you ain’t seen shit yet.”

  Jennie had dashed around the table and now stood beside me, bent over, her face brushing mine, straining to overhear his words.

  “Neither have you, pal. Seriously. The President’s hidden inside a deep hole, somewhere up in, I think, Alaska. He’s at the bottom of an old missile silo surrounded by a regiment of pissed-off Army Rangers. You won’t get him, but we will get you.”

  He chuckled. “Who gives a shit where you got him hid. Never actually said we’re gonna git him, did we?”

  “I...what?”

  “Well, sheeit, boy, read the note. We never said we were gonna kill that sonuvabitch. Jus’ said he’s history. Think about it.”

  Before I could reply, he said, “Hey, tell you what. Fifty million’s the price and it ain’t open to debate. You pay...we’ll quit fuckin’ with you. You don’t...the next one’ll really suck. Simple deal. Call you back in a minute.”

  The line suddenly went dead.

  I said, “Shit.”

  Jennie said, “He’s changing cell phones. He’s using throwaways, so we can’t get a fix.”

  In fact, an agent slipped into the conference room, shook his head, and said, “Too fast,” then slipped back out.

  Jennie informed the rest of the task force, “We’ve been looking in the wrong direction. He says they may not want to kill the President.”

  Proving that all politics is local, Chuck Wardell slid back into his chair and commented, “Thank God.”

  Mrs. Hooper asked, “Then what do they have in mind?”

  I informed her, “Not what—who.”

  The phone rang and I again answered, “Drummond.”

  “Hey. Well, you got an answer for me, boy?”

  “Look, we’ve got a small problem here.”

  He laughed, “You got a lot a problems, none of which are small.”

  Asshole. “Okay, for starters...how do we know you’re the real McCoy? We’re a little deluged with assholes calling and claiming credit. How do I know you’re the right asshole?”

  “I like that.” He laughed again. “For a stupid butthead who’s run hisself silly the past two days, it’s real good you still got a sense of humor.” He stopped laughing. “But don’t fuck with me, son. Maybe I’ll put a Bouncin’ Betty up yer ass, too.”

  Jennie overheard this exchange and whispered, “Stay cool.”

  I drew a long breath. “A lot of people know Fineberg got it with a mine.”

  “Yeah? Hey, guess that’s right...news gits ’round, don’t it?” He laughed again. “Now tell me, how many of them folks know how them three jerkoffs in Belknap’s basement got it? I did the little gal at the commo console myself. Three shots straight into her right side, boom-boom-boom. You shoulda seen that gal’s body twitch and bounce, Drummond. One of my partners did the other two, the asshole who was sleepin’ and the idiot in the chair.”

  “Fuck you.”

  He laughed. “Aw hell...don’t go all pissy on me. You asked for proof, I try to be helpful, and now you go actin’ like a porky-pine with a burr up its ass. Yer hard to please. Hey...call you back in a minute.”

  The line went dead again. Everyone began chattering at once.

  Jennie said, “Don’t let him goad you, Sean. Stay cool. This is just business.”

  Mrs. Hooper ordered, “Negotiate, Drummond. Find out what they have in mind next.”

  Mr. Halderman advised, “Emphasize that all the sea- and airports are completely covered. Tell him they should give up—they’ll never make it out of this country alive.”

  I nearly got up and walked out. But I knew they had the best intentions. I tried to think. I glanced at my watch. Thirty more seconds. It was important to take away the initiative, but nothing was coming to me.

  Jennie clearly understood this and announced to all concerned, “We have to set up a deal with these people. We need to buy time.”

  Mrs. Hooper kept shaking her head.

  Jennie and I exchanged glances. Not good.

  The phone rang. I lifted it up, and the voice said, “Okay, Drummond, here’s the deal. You ain’t got the brass to make this decision, so probably you got a bunch of important assholes sittin’ ’round you. Tell ’em I got a target in my sights. All I gotta do is push this teeny button, and boom, this President’s got one less high-level asshole. Got that?”

  “Yeah, and—”

  “What’re you waitin’ for, boy? Do it.”

  I put my hand over the phone and explained our predicament.

  I put the phone back to my mouth. “Done.”

  “Okeydokey. Now, what’s the answer? Fifty million, or you gonna try playin’ dick-around with me?”

  Something in his tone sounded wrong. I slapped my hand over the phone again and yelled, “Right now—he wants an answer.”

  We all looked at Mrs. Hooper. This was developing really quickly. Mrs. Hooper kept shaking her head.

  Looking at her, I said, “He’s serious. Yes or no?”

  She stared at the tabletop for about ten seconds. She said nothing.

  Then, through the earphone, I heard a loud blast. The line went dead again.

  I put down the phone. “Shit. He just murdered somebody.”

  Mrs. Hooper avoided my eyes and asked, “Who?”

  “How the hell would I know?”

  We all looked at one another. For once, nobody said a word until the phone rang again. I picked it up and demanded, “Who did you just murder?”

  “That? Aw, jus’ the head of the Republican National Committee. Hey, you believe he’s got a mistress over by Dupont Circle? Married man, too. What’n the hell’s this world comin’ to, huh? Y’know, all this shit goin’ on...and that horny bastard jus’ had to sneak off and get a little afternoon poon.” He added, “By the way, cash, used fifties and hunnerds. Oh, and none of that sneaky shit them Treasury assholes like to try. We’ll look, we know what to look for, and if we find something, it’s gonna really suck for you.”

  I put my hand over the phone and informed everybody that the RNC just got a job opening. Mrs. Hooper’s eyes shot wide open. She said, “Danny Carter...he...oh God...he...” Then she suddenly started crying.

  I no longer needed, nor did I wait, for a consensus or permission. I said, “Deal.”

  “Well, yee-haw. Good call, boy.”

  “But murder one more person, it’s off. Understand? Kill one more soul, and you’re dead. We’ll hunt you down, and we’ll find you. I’ll personally cut out your guts.”

  He laughed. “That’s the spirit. By the by, yer gonna be the delivery boy. Hey, call you back in an hour.”

  “No, you’ll call in two hours. We have a lot of work to do to get the money.”

  There was silence for a few seconds. Eventually, he said, “Now listen up—the next asshole gets it in two hours and ten minutes. Don’t fuck nothin’ up. Keep yer phone battery charged, ’cause you and me, we gonna powwow in two hours.”

  The line went dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY - FOUR

  MRS. HOOPER SAT PERFECTLY STILL, CRYING AND SOBBING. SHE SAID, “HE killed Danny. I...what could I...” A chorus of racking sobs began belching up from her stomach.

  Jennie looked at Mrs. Hooper and said, “We warned you.”

  Mrs. Hooper bounced in her seat lik
e somebody had just shot a ten-thousand-volt bolt up her fanny. “I...I...”

  Phyllis stood up and snapped, “That’s enough!” She looked at all our faces and said, “No more finger-pointing.” She stared at Jennie. “Understood?”

  Clearly, Special Agent Jennifer Margold, who had been so compulsively rational since the start of this thing, was experiencing a rare emotional outburst. It was a human response, and I, for one, was glad to see it, glad to see that the raw pathos had gotten under her skin, and glad to see I wasn’t falling for an ice queen.

  More selfishly, I was now on the hook for agreeing to a deal, and I was out on a limb all by myself. Somebody needed to make Mrs. Hooper understand that what was happening here was far beyond the calculus of presidential vanity and the pornography of electoral politics. This was a choice with human consequences, life or death. Eventually, Jennie said to Phyllis, “You’re right.”

  She turned to Mrs. Hooper, who was slumped in her chair, staring at her knuckles, experiencing a sort of Pontius Pilate epiphany.

  Jennie said, “That was...unforgivable. Was Danny Carter a friend?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was he married?”

  “He and...well, he and Terry...have two kids, and I...I’ve known them over twenty years.” She looked around at our faces. “I got him this job. Danny was so energetic, so brilliant, so...so loyal.” Which apparently reminded her, and she looked at Jennie and asked, “Who’s going to notify Terry Carter?”

  There was an awkward stillness in the room while we jointly considered the baffling dilemma of how you inform a wife that she’s now a widow, and, by the way, her husband died in the arms of somebody other than her, and incidentally, in a few minutes, that revolting revelation was going to be all over the tube. “When we get confirmation he’s dead, I’ll assign an agent to handle it,” Jennie informed her.

  Mrs. Hooper looked more than a little relieved.

  Jennie turned to Phyllis and said, “With this bargain, the Agency no longer has any justification for involvement. It’s gone purely domestic.” As if we needed to be reminded, she cautioned us, “Everything we do is going to undergo congressional and maybe public scrutiny.”

  I won’t say Phyllis also looked relieved, but without sounding at all reluctant, she replied, “Of course.”

  Which put Jennie in the driver’s seat and in charge of this mess. She said, “Mrs. Hooper, you need to call the President for permission to proceed.”

  Mrs. Hooper returned to studying the tabletop. “He’s not going to pay them off. In any event, as his political adviser I still have to advise against it.”

  I said, “Why?”

  She looked up at me. “Because nobody in this country will vote for a man who pays off murderers. But I know him. He’ll say that’s irrelevant. He’ll say that indulging murderers is morally wrong and begets more murders and more murderers. He tends to be practical that way.”

  Jennie looked at me. I shrugged.

  Mr. Wardell chose this moment to make an interesting observation. “Incidentally, Danny Carter was not one of our suspected targets. How in the hell was he involved in this Barnes thing?”

  Jennie said, “He wasn’t. He was a message.”

  “What message?” Mrs. Hooper asked.

  “This confirms my speculation. It’s no longer about revenge. They’re now concerned only with money and making their escape. They’re telling us they’ll murder whoever they please, until their demands are met.”

  We all pondered that fresh insight a moment.

  I noted the obvious. “We’ve lost our only advantage. We can’t even guess who they’re targeting.”

  “That’s right. We can’t,” Jennie observed. She turned back to Mrs. Hooper. “Listen...I think there might be a way out of this for us and the President.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Simple. We use the money to lure Barnes and his people into a trap.”

  Everybody thought about that proposal a moment.

  Phyllis was the first to speak up. “I don’t like it.”

  “Why not?”

  “It will be expected. These are not stupid people, Jennifer. They’ll take precautions.”

  “I’m sure they will. Entrapments are always a gamble. We have to outthink them.”

  Recognizing the thought that was running through all our minds, Jennie added, “The past doesn’t always have to be a prelude to the future. Right?” She turned to Mrs. Hooper and suggested, “If this works, the President’s a bold leader who rolled the dice. If it fails, his intentions were honorable, and we screwed up the execution.”

  I still wasn’t sure this was such a good idea. On the other hand, I had really gotten myself into a box. I was the one who agreed to the deal.

  Chuck Wardell was nodding, and Mrs. Hooper also began nodding. It was dawning on them that this wasn’t a perfect solution, but there were no perfect solutions, and it satisfied everybody’s needs, egos, and moral/political equations.

  Actually, not quite everybody’s.

  Jennie knew it, too, because she turned to me and said, “Sean, the final vote is yours. They selected you as the courier.”

  “Right. Why?”

  “Who knows? Perhaps because you’re a lawyer, not a law enforcement professional. Perhaps they regard you as the least threatening option. But I doubt they’ll accept a replacement. If it were possible, believe me, I would do this myself.”

  Everybody at the table was now avoiding my eyes.

  Jennie assured me, “It won’t be as risky as it sounds. We do this all the time, usually with kidnappers. We have experts in this field. You’ll have the best professionals in the world backing you up.”

  Very persuasive. So I thought about it a little more. I thought about June Lacy and about Joan Townsend. I really wanted to get physically close to Jason Barnes. I had an almost burning need to put my hands around his throat. Also, if we didn’t take this chance, every additional death would be on my shoulders, my conscience, my watch. Could I live with that?

  Then again, I’d be an idiot to say yes. It was a desperate gamble and, like all reckless choices, was too obvious, too predictable, too transparent. Jason Barnes, a former Secret Service agent, would expect this; he would know the tricks, and as Phyllis noted, he would have safeguards and precautions. Also, up to this point, I was on the losing team, they were the winning team, and the underlying reasons for that hadn’t changed.

  When I was young and idealistic, brimming with youthful naïveté, I would have regarded this as Sean Drummond’s God-given duty in the eternal battle of good versus evil. But I had become too old and too worldly to subscribe to the facile conceit that the good guys always win, or even that the good guys always have to win. The truth is, it can be enough to just make the bad guys go away. Somewhere down in Brazil, I’m convinced, there’s a quaint ville populated by smug assholes who gather in the bars every evening and regale one another with tales about how they got away with it. Fine. As long as they weren’t still getting away with it.

  So I looked Jennie straight in the eye and I said, “Great idea.”

  Jennie squeezed my shoulder. To Mrs. Hooper she said, “Please call the White House and get authorization.” To Mr. Wardell, “Call your old bosses at Treasury. We need fifty million in clean, used bills here in one hour.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY - FIVE

  IN NO TIME, THE ROOM CLEARED, AND BUREAU EXPERTS OF VARIOUS VINtages and types began pouring in, including a heavyset Hispanic lady named Rita Sanchez. Jennie introduced us and informed me that Special Agent Sanchez was the FBI’s expert in ransom and hostage extremis situations, whatever that means. I was really hoping she was here for her expertise in the former, not the latter.

  Rita studied me a moment, then said, “So...you’re the sucker, huh?”

  I must’ve looked a little upset by that remark, because she laughed and said, “Hey, loosen up. You’re gonna be fine. Payoffs are a cakewalk. Hostages are the bitch. I’ve l
ost only”—she paused and counted her fingers—“only three couriers in my career.” She laughed. “The other guy still sends me Christmas gifts.”

  For some reason, Jennie also found this really funny.

  Personally, I thought Rita Sanchez’s bedside manner could stand a little work.

  Jennie then smoothly backed off and allowed Rita and me to chitchat about inconsequential nonsense for about five minutes. The manual calls this establishing rapport and developing a personal connection. Con men call it sizing up the mark.

  Rita was very good at this, and in no time we bonded, were exchanging home addresses, and planning a future vacation together. Not really.

  Anyway, Rita Sanchez had a slight Spanish accent, and was a bit plump for an agent, but it has been my experience that in image-conscious organizations that accentuate fitness and trimness—like the Army—exceptions get made for the prodigies. She was not particularly polished, but she struck me as street-smart and savvy.

  Agent Sanchez pointed at a chair and said, “Sit. Now we’re gonna go over a few things. Listen real close to every word. Seriously. Do everything I tell you, and the Bureau will buy you a nice steak dinner tonight.”

  Golden words. I sat.

  “Let me tell you what could happen,” she said. “Then I’ll tell you what I think’s gonna happen.”

  “Could we start with what I want to happen?”

  She glanced at Jennie and commented, “Hey, he’s funny.”

  Jennie replied, “When he’s stressed, he responds with sarcasm.” She then lifted a hand to her ear and asked, “By the way, Rita, are those your knees I hear knocking?”

  Yuck-yuck.

  “All right,” Rita informed me, “for starters, they might run you around a bit. Probably inside the city, maybe around some built-up suburbs. This way they can blend into the environment and watch for tails.”

  I nodded.

  She continued, “I’ve seen cases where they ran the courier seven or eight hours. Sometimes they’ll run you by the same site three or four times. The smarter ones are trying to draw us to that site. The dumb ones actually use that site for the drop-off. Haw-haw—you wouldn’t believe how stupid some of these people are.” She turned to Jennie and advised, “He’s gotta have a phone jack in the car for his cell phone. Two or three spare batteries, too, some sandwiches and sodas. And make sure the car tank’s topped off.”