by Tim Green
He was jolted from his reverie by a sharp crack. He had ground his teeth so hard that he snapped off the corner of a molar. He rolled the sharp little chip around the inside of his mouth so he could get at it with his fingers. The thought came to him—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life—straight from Gracie’s Bible. The boat bumped gently up against the judge’s pier. Kurt cast the piece of tooth away. With his tongue, he toyed with the remaining jagged edge for a moment before hopping from the boat. Quietly he tied up his skiff, then crept past the boathouse and up the gently sloping back lawn.
He flitted from tree to tree, less comfortable than he had been a few weeks ago in the dark rain. The moonlight now cast clear shadows beneath the trees and Kurt darted about, his heart racing, reinforcing his mental model of the layout. After noticing a few extra cars in the front drive, he made for the walk-through gate to the north. There was a cluster of camps on that side of the property that would make his initial approach less obvious, and he figured while he was here he should scope it out one more time.
As he reached for the cold handle of the decorative iron gate, he heard the voices of two men on the other side of the wall. He froze and panic crept down his spine. They were coming toward him. Frantically, he scanned the immediate area. He silently chastised himself for taking the chance on coming back.
Twenty feet back down the path was a large sycamore tree with one branch that was low enough for him to reach. He dashed for the tree and took a running leap at the branch. In midair, he heard the screech of the gate as it was opened from the other side of the wall.
After scrambling up four more branches, Kurt stopped. The hammering in his chest forced him to suck in air like a deep-sea diver breaking the water’s surface. As the two men made their way up the path, he fought to quiet his gasping breath. He could hear the murmur of their voices, but could see next to nothing in the shadows of the trees. Then they stepped into a swatch of moonlight and Kurt stopped breathing altogether.
He was nearly certain that the shorter of the two was David Claiborne. Then his old friend lit a cigarette, casting a brief but vivid patch of orange light against his face and confirming his identity. Kurt’s stomach turned sour. Why was Claiborne here? The president wasn’t due for two more weeks. It was early for an advance agent to be surveying a property. It was also unusual for an ASAIC to be that agent. It did happen on occasion: Sometimes, an agent with some seniority would request a rotation that took him near to home. But Claiborne was from Seattle. It concerned and puzzled Kurt that his old friend had put himself in charge of the advance work for the visit to Skaneateles.
The last words Claiborne had spoken to him rang out in his mind. “The next time I guarantee I won’t be there to bail you out.”
But here he was.
“Wall makes it easy, doesn’t it?” Claiborne said through a cloud of smoke to the other man. “All we’re missing is a moat. You couldn’t get into this place with a Trojan horse.”
“I just think you might want to let some of the locals on the inside,” the taller man said. He was Sean Fullingmore, the agent in charge from the nearby Syracuse office. His role in the visit was to act as liaison between the Washington agents and the local officials. “If they get a little close it keeps the whole bunch on their toes.”
Claiborne looked at him blandly for a moment before muttering something into a handheld radio.
White light pierced the night suddenly with the shock of an explosion. Kurt started and almost lost his grip on the tree’s branches. He hugged the trunk tightly and saw with horror that the two men below him were scanning the area, now flooded by a brilliant spotlight that had been mounted somewhere on the roof of the house.
“That’s good,” Claiborne said sharply into his radio, and the night was instantly dark again.
Kurt could see nothing until his eyes readjusted to the blackness. By the time he could discern one shadow from another, he realized the two men had proceeded up the path. With his heart racing wildly, he quickly scrambled down the tree and followed the inside of the stone wall all the way to the water’s edge. After carefully scanning up and down the shore, he eased into the water and swam straight out. There were several swim buoys about a hundred feet out, and he swam underwater from one to the other until he was back by the dock, clinging tightly to the nearest buoy and searching the shore for movement.
His cautiousness was rewarded when he saw the dark figures of Claiborne and Fullingmore approaching the boathouse from the lawn. Kurt sank as far as he could down into the water and watched in horror as they proceeded out onto the pier. They would see his boat.
But instead of pausing to investigate, the two men went right on past, stopping only when they had reached the very end of the dock. The night breeze prevented him from hearing exactly what they were saying, but he could tell by the way they pointed that they were discussing the security arrangements for the waterfront. Then Claiborne pointed to the roof of the boathouse, where Kurt imagined the agents would post more lights, plus a counter-sniper team from the Uniformed Division. If someone were to come up out of the water in a diving suit late at night, they would very likely be greeted with a bullet.
Again Claiborne spoke into his radio, and again the night was shattered by a burning bank of white lights from the roof of the main house. Less startled, but still shaken by the intensity of the brightness, Kurt dove to the bottom and waited desperately for the lights to be switched off. If he stayed on the surface and they were looking, the piercing glare would enable the two men to clearly see him clinging to the buoy. After what seemed like a lifetime, the lake went black again. Kurt raced for the surface and did his best not to make noise, but his intake of air was so sharp that it cut dangerously through the sound of the water’s gentle lapping. Fortunately, the two men were already at the boathouse and heading for the lawn.
Kurt shut his eyes and tried in vain to quell his gasping breaths. His body shook from nerves and he wondered for the first time if what he was doing had any foundation in sanity. The beast in the corner of his mind stirred restlessly, threatening to undo him completely. Against his will, images of Collin and then Annie filled his consciousness. Tears streamed down his face and he heard a sob escape his throat. He felt an uncontrollable urge to shriek Annie’s name and then his son’s as well, but he fought it back.
He focused on taking long slow breaths and concentrating on his plan. He knew if he broke down now, it would be over. He had to maintain his composure. He had to stay sharp. This would be the best chance he’d ever have to avenge Collin’s death and he needed to take it.
Rest, that’s what he needed. It had been a foolish thing for him to come back to the judge’s. He had nearly compromised everything tonight, and for what? He was no closer now to a solution than he’d have been if he had pondered it from his study. The president’s visit was only two weeks away, and what had Claiborne said? The place was like a fortress, impenetrable even to a Trojan horse.
The men were gone from sight now. After several minutes of deep breathing Kurt swam quietly toward his skiff. He untied it quickly and wrapped its bowline around his chest before slipping back into the water and towing it well out into the lake. By the time he was far enough out to where he felt comfortable starting the motor, he had drifted downwind to the north so far that the judge’s house wasn’t even in sight. Wearily, he climbed into the skiff, fired up the little outboard, and headed for home.
When he arrived back at his own mansion, he fell into bed exhausted, his hair still wet. When he woke, his head was dry, Jill was gone, and the image of a Trojan horse again sprang into his mind. A giddy smile broke out across his face as he considered the false gift. He sprang from his bed and began to pace the room, heedless of the beautiful summer day spilling in through the French doors that led out onto the balcony. His trip across the lake hadn’t been for nothing. It had given him his own Mobius strip. Like the German engineers with their fan belt, all he had to do was give
the problem half a turn and it would work.
All along, he’d been trying to solve the wrong puzzle. For weeks now he had tormented himself over how to penetrate the fourth perimeter in the middle of the night, how to commandeer the Service’s communications, break into the president’s bedroom, kill him, and escape unscathed in the confusion. Now the answer was so clear to him that he felt foolish. He should have known all along. Kurt Ford didn’t have to go to the president. Bearing the appropriate gift, he could bring the president to him.
CHAPTER 22
During the first week of his presidency, Calvin Parkes had only to mention the idea that it would be a fine thing to have a putting green on the patch of grass in the trees behind the Oval Office. In early March the White House staff exultantly led him around the corner and back into that very cluster of trees to present to him a beautiful seamless green. That moment—the moment he realized that even his wishes were commands—had filled the president with great pride.
So, like Huck Finn sneaking off to his favorite fishing hole, the president would slip out back to chip and putt whenever the slightest opportunity presented itself. And it was quite typical for him, when his secretary, Margie, finally told him his schedule was clean, to whip off his coat and head straight across to the green with plenty of time before his wife expected him in the mansion for dinner at seven. This was also the only time that those who knew him well could be certain he would be relaxed, in a relatively good mood, and at the same time willing to talk extemporaneously.
When Butch Reynolds, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, entered the trees along the trim gravel path with Marty Mulligan, he was delighted to see the president sink a chip from fifty feet away. Parkes howled and pumped his fist into the air amid the polite clapping of two young staffers and Mack Taylor as well as the Secret Service agents who were dispersed throughout the circumference of trees. The president’s sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his red face was flushed nearly purple from the heat of the late afternoon sun that filtered through the canopy of trees.
“Ah!” he cried on seeing Mulligan and Reynolds. “Marty! Did you see that! Butch, what are you doing? I don’t need a mulligan after a shot like that!”
The president’s light blue eyes twinkled mirthfully at his own wit and his large frame shook with delight. His wrinkled white shirt bore liberal sweat stains under his arms and his upper lip was beaded as well. He chortled.
Reynolds broke out in his own toothy grin. He too was sweating like only a fat man can in the summer heat of the South. The lenses of his silver-framed glasses were fogged over from the humidity, but he shook the president’s hand with enthusiasm. Even the SAIC had allowed himself a crooked smile at the president’s jest. Only Mulligan’s face remained impassive. He sniffed noncommittally at the rich smell of cut grass that wafted up from the carefully manicured turf and took the president’s hand in his own iron grip.
“Cal,” he said, acknowledging the president’s grin by inclining his head.
The president turned excitedly and began chipping away at the cluster of balls at his feet, talking as he played. “What brings you two out?” he asked. “Oh! Did you see that! I almost did it again!”
“You play a pretty game, Mr. President,” Reynolds said in his heavy southern drawl as his eyes followed the ball’s loop around the edge of the cup. He was from an old family in the great state of North Carolina, and to prove it he strode around Washington in seersucker suits.
“We found some of that ten million dollars we talked about a few weeks ago,” Mulligan said bluntly.
This brought the president to a standstill. He stood up straight and rested the head of his club on top of his shoe, eyeing the two men warily. “You got the money, Butch?”
“I’m going to get it, Mr. President.” Reynolds beamed. “All you have to do is fish for it.”
The president puckered his mouth and sourly said, “So I’m the one who has to get it. You have the idea, but I’m the one that has to pull the bull out of the barn. Well, that’s great. That’s just what I need.”
“No,” Reynolds said pleasantly, waving off the idea. “I meant what I said in the literal sense. All you have to do is go fishing, on a fishing trip—not even a trip, just for an afternoon—and we’ve got ourselves a five-million-dollar contribution!”
“Five million?” the president said softly and whistled. His eyes narrowed. “Not the Chinese . . .”
“No,” Mulligan said with a sneer. “His name is Kurt Ford. He’s the founder of a company called Safe Tech. He’s about as American as you can get. He’s worth about a billion dollars.”
“And,” the president said in disgust, “he wants to talk to me about the Internet initiative, wants to give me five million to talk me out of it.”
“He did say he wants to jaw at you about it some,” Reynolds broke in, “but I made it right clear, Mr. President, there’ll be no quid pro quo, none a’ tall. He understood. Told me he didn’t expect to change your mind, but that he supported your other ideas and would like to have the chance to at least give you some ideas on the limitations you might want to think about before signing the bill.”
The president eyed the chairman skeptically. “How about a game of golf? Why can’t I play golf with this guy? Why do I have to ruin an afternoon when I’m supposedly on vacation?”
Reynolds shrugged. “I don’t know. He was pretty ornery on that point though, I can tell you that for sure. I mentioned a game of golf, but he said he thought it would be a shame for you to be right there where they have some of the finest fishing in the United States and not get out on a boat. Besides, he apparently doesn’t golf.”
“You’ll be there anyway, Cal,” Mulligan said in a surly tone. “He lives right there in Skaneateles, for Christ’s sake. You’re the one who wants us to figure ways to help raise the money we need and now we’ve got it. If the guy wanted to sit around and do needlepoint, it would be worth it. Just think about how many speeches you’d have to make and dinners you’d have to eat to take in five million dollars. This will be the biggest single contribution in the history of politics and all you have to do is reel in some damn halibut or something.”
“Halibut is an ocean fish,” Reynolds said confusedly as he took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket to wipe the fat on his neck.
“You know what I mean,” Mulligan growled. “Fish to me comes inside breadsticks you take out of the freezer. Anyway, it’ll be good for the upstate vote. Those people are nuts about fishing. You should see the money the state spends raising fish just so they can let them go and people can catch them again. It’s fucking ridiculous. Someone told me they do the same thing with pheasants, for Christ’s sake. But I wouldn’t mind seeing a nice shot of you reeling in a goddamn fish on the front page of the New York Times . . .
“And fishing is okay with the greens too,” he continued in a low mutter. “They don’t mind fishing.”
“So I go out on this guy’s boat for an hour or two, catch some fish, and he dumps five million into the party and then you put it right into my campaign, Butch?” asked the president.
“Of course,” Reynolds said.
“Yeah, every cent of it too,” the president said a little more harshly than was necessary.
“Of course, Mr. President,” Reynolds said defensively. “You know the party’s priority this fall is your reelection.”
“I didn’t see the money flooding in when Marty said we needed another ten million to spend in the Northeast,” Parkes said bitterly.
“Mr. President,” Reynolds explained, “it wouldn’t help your administration if we lost the Senate. We’ve got some tough battles out west that need funding.”
“Yeah,” the president said, turning his back on the chairman and taking a whack at one of the remaining golf balls, “and they don’t have my kind of money. I know—well, what the hell. We’ve been through this enough. Fine, I’ll play golf with this guy—”
“You mean go fis
hing,” Mulligan interjected.
“Yes, that’s what I meant,” the president said sourly. “It was a Freudian slip or whatever you call it. Yeah, I’ll fish with this guy, but just don’t make it an all-day thing, will you, Marty? Can you do that, anyway?”
“I’m sure Mr. Ford will understand that despite his generous contribution to the party,” Mulligan said, “the president of the United States only has so much time—”
“Because I do want to golf while I’m up there,” the president snapped as he took another shot.
Mulligan turned to Mack Taylor and said, “Any trouble for your people to clear this guy?”
It was short notice and they all knew it. The president’s trip was less than two weeks away. Normally, the people he would be interacting with on a trip like this would have had background checks already completed.
“It shouldn’t be a problem at all,” Taylor said. To the apparent surprise of everyone, he added, “He used to be one of us.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” the president said sharply.
“Kurt Ford used to be a Secret Service agent during Reagan,” Taylor replied. “And his son was with us . . .”
The president stood up straight and his grip on the club went slack. “His son?” he said, his face aghast.
