By Order of the President

by Kilian, Michael;

“How do you know about that?”

  “I’m vice president of the United States, that’s how! Look, Bushy. I don’t care if it’s the president, or you, or me, or Winnie the Pooh. But someone has to be running this government! And not from some treehouse in Maryland!”

  There was a long pause.

  “All right, Mr. Vice President. I’ll be down today to give you a briefing, a full briefing, on Central America.”

  “When?”

  “This afternoon. After lunch. No, for lunch. We’ll have lunch in my White House office. At twelve-thirty sharp.”

  “What about the president? When do I get to talk to him?”

  “I’ll make sure he calls you. At one-thirty. Sharp.”

  After hanging up, Atherton leaned far back in his leather chair, exhausted. In a perverse fantasy, he was back on the Capitol steps at the inaugural, being asked by Justice June Standish of the United States Supreme Court to take the oath of office as vice president. In his fantasy, he refused.

  He groaned, and leaned forward far enough to flick a switch on his telephone intercom, summoning Shawcross, Howard, and Mrs. Hildebrand again. Except for his wife and daughter, whom he’d shipped off to Williamsburg for the duration, they were about the only human beings in Washington in whom he had any trust left.

  They filed in as might errant pupils entering a principal’s office. Mrs. Hildebrand sat the closest to him, as she considered her due.

  “Bushy Ambrose is coming down to have lunch with me at twelve-thirty,” Atherton said, his hand over his eyes. “He’s going to brief me on Tegucigalpa and such like. At one-thirty, the president is going to call.”

  “About Central America?” Howard asked. “We’re going to get questions at the press briefing.”

  “About everything. Nothing.” Atherton dropped his hand, blinking. “Who knows? For God’s sake, Neil. What matters is that I’m finally going to get to talk to Hampton. What matters is that he’s alive.”

  “Did Ambrose explain what the hell they’re doing making Meathead Dubarry president pro tem?”

  “I let that subject pass. Whatever they’re doing, I don’t want to be seen opposing it. Which reminds me. Mrs. H., get me Senator Goode on the phone.”

  She went quickly to a telephone on a side table near the fireplace.

  “Well,” said Howard, hunching forward. “I had the radio interview taped and I’ve listened to it three times. It sure sounds like the president. A little hoarse, maybe, but that Virginia gentleman drawl comes right through.”

  “Thirty years in Colorado and he still says ‘oot’ for ‘out,’” said Shawcross.

  “I’ve no doubt it’s the president,” Atherton said. “And you have no idea what a relief that is to me at this juncture. There was never a time in my life when I wanted so very much not to be president of the United States.”

  Howard smiled, and glanced at Shawcross.

  “If you mean that, which I doubt, don’t ever say it in front of a reporter,” he said.

  Atherton darkened. “Don’t patronize me like that, Neil. I’ll say what I damn please.” He was interrupted by Mrs. Hildebrand, who motioned to a telephone on his desk. “Hello, Mose?” he said, after picking it up. “This is Larry Atherton.”

  “Yes, Mr. Vice President. How are you, sir?”

  “Fine. I understand that there’s been a change of minds and that now you’re a candidate for whip. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir. I thought you were aware of it.”

  “Well, there’s been a lot of confusion around here. I just want to make sure this is what you want, Mose.”

  “It is, Mr. Vice President.”

  “In that case, I want you to know I’m behind you and behind the president on this one hundred percent. And I want you to make that clear all over the Hill.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you. It sure was good to hear the president on the radio this morning.”

  “You’ve no idea, Mose. Good luck in the caucus. Not that you’ll need it.”

  Atherton hung up and covered his eyes again. “Any new developments in the investigation? The way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if they found one of those little La Puño flags on top of the Empire State Building. Or in the Sistine Chapel.”

  “Nothing new,” said Shawcross. “It would help if Steve Copley or someone could produce a confession.”

  “Precisely,” said Atherton. “But it’s too late to get one from Manuel Huerta.”

  Walt Kreski was in his office, a room he’d not visited much in the last few days. On his stereo, soloist Peter Serkin was in the midst of an electrifying recorded performance of Ravel’s Concerto in G, the only work the composer had produced that he couldn’t play himself, because of its complexity and speed. On Kreski’s desk was a computer printout his secretary had just brought him.

  He read it through twice, then sat staring at it, thinking hard. The record had just ended when there came a knock at the door and Dick Hammond entered, on time and as requested. He carried a briefcase. Kreski had his own waiting at the side of his desk. They were shortly to ride out to National for a flight to New York in a Treasury Department Lear jet.

  “What’s that?” Hammond said.

  “A list of agents in the Washington office with a proficiency in Spanish,” Kreski said.

  “I could get you three out of the White House detail right now. Hernandez. Garcia. Maria O’Brien.”

  “The list includes Evans, Ballard, Storch, Perkins, and three others who were at Gettysburg, including Al Berger. And you.” Kreski folded the printout into a careful square and put it in his desk drawer, locking it. “I’m going to use some DEA people in New York to do the interrogating. In fact, this whole thing is supposed to look like a DEA show, which is all right with them, because they’ve been wanting to talk to these Hondurans, anyway.”

  “You’re not bringing in Steve Copley?”

  “Steven is having the time of his life rummaging through La Puño artifacts in Philadelphia. And anyway, I can do without Bureau help. They’d only start taking aerial photographs of Manhattan.”

  He rose, and reached for his raincoat and briefcase. “We’re late. I’ve got to be back to testify for the Judiciary Committee this afternoon. I don’t dare be late for anything anymore.”

  “The president was very high on you and Al Berger and the Service in his interview this morning.”

  “Yes, he certainly was.”

  “It helps.”

  “I hope.”

  The jet’s engines had already been started by the time they reached National. They received special clearance from the tower and were wheels up within two minutes of the aircraft door’s closing. Kreski watched the familiar landmarks and buildings slip by his porthole of a window, then looked away. It would be a short trip to Manhattan, but he had a feeling the journey still before him was going to be very, very long.

  The two companies of reinforcements from Fort Bragg arrived at Camp David in a long, dusty convoy of large “deuce and a half” trucks hauling disassembled Quonset huts in trailers along with a great deal of electronic equipment. One of the companies was a long-lines signal unit that would shortly be setting up a microwave tower and satellite dish, connecting with the worldwide STARCOM network. It suggested a sort of permanence and military-only communications.

  The convoy had been on the road all night and was several hours late, owing to breakdowns of two of the new “Hummer” command vehicles with which the Pentagon, in one of its more idiotic decisions, was replacing the tried and trusty Jeep. The men were tired, hungry, and irritable—and put to work at once. They were all “volunteers,” in that the commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division assumed that anyone who joined the airborne had perforce volunteered for whatever the military might ask of them, but two of the men had made a particular point of coming when they didn’t have to. The division commander delighted in leaving units behind during important operations as a form of punishment and disgraceful example. He had
done this for three of the “exercises” in Central America and the second Grenadan invasion. This time he had selected the 59th Signal Long Lines Company to set up a STARCOM hookup and had pointedly left the hardcase 58th Signal back at Fort Bragg to pull dirty details. The outfit contained too high a percentage for his liking of alcoholic sergeants near retirement, short-timers who had failed to reenlist, ROTC officers, and transferees with funny 201 files. Yet, two men of the latter category, PFC Corboy and Sp/4 Macchi, had gone to the first sergeant to ask for transfers to the 59th just so they could take part in the protection of the president. They’d already just transferred to the 82nd from a unit at Fort Meade.

  SFC Albert Benney, who ran 2nd Platoon for the 59th, neither liked nor trusted such enthusiasm. He rewarded it appropriately, with the nastiest jobs he could dream up until the enthusiasts began griping and grousing and shirking like normal grunts. Upon arriving at Camp David, his choice for Corboy and Macchi was between helping to erect the 204-foot microwave tower and digging a platoon latrine. Not wanting to trust new men to tower construction, he assigned them the latrine detail. When they were a third of the way through he had them relocate the site a hundred feet or so for better drainage. Then, when they were close to finishing the job, he told them they were on permanent garbage detail for the duration of the Camp David operation. Not once did they complain.

  At Kreski’s request, the questioning of the three Hispanics took place in a holding room of an annex to the main city jail, a grubby, shabby chamber smelling, like most jails, of urine, sweat, vomit, and disinfectant. It was Kreski’s notion that the suspects would feel more at home and relaxed here than in the startlingly pristine and architectually bizarre surroundings of the new Federal Detention Center where they’d been kept since the night of the Gettysburg shooting. However aesthetically pleasing, the Federal Center was imbued with all the mighty presence, authority, and mystery of the national government. Seated at a stained, greasy table surrounded by federal drug agents and, at Kreski’s request, a couple of NYPD narcs, they were among their own kind—if Kreski’s suspicions about them were right. Kreski and Hammond remained quiet in a far corner of the room, simply observing, perhaps mistaken for people from the local prosecutor’s office.

  Kreski quite literally understood much more Greek and Latin than Spanish, but was able to follow the conversation as it proceeded both in that language and English. Despite efforts to get all three to respond to questions, two of the Hispanics deferred to the third, a somewhat older and much larger man who was the only one of them who had admitted to being Honduran. His answers followed a pattern. Anything to do with the assassination attempt drew either monosyllabic replies or sullen silences, with anger, frustration, and not a little paranoia evident in the man’s gleaming dark eyes. Questions concerning narcotics produced voluble exchanges that ultimately seemed to follow the rules or at least understandings of an oft-played game. Finally, in Spanish, the Honduran asked to speak with the chief DEA agent in private. Kreski nodded.

  Afterward, the agent gave Kreski and Hammond a full report and his best assessment of the interrogation in an office borrowed from one of the NYPD narcotics detectives. It was almost as foul-smelling and looking as the holding room. Kreski assumed it was also frequently used for conversations with suspects. He lighted his pipe. It had warded off many evil vapors in its time.

  “On the Gettysburg shooting, on the ambush setup for the vice president’s motorcade, we get the same shit as in their initial statements,” said the agent, a thin, weary man with a scar and thick mustache named Jackman.

  “They know nothing, nothing about Huerta, nothing about the vice president’s visit to New York, nothing about the rifles on the rooftop. They say they were holed up in the building waiting for a big delivery of cocaine due in from Colombia.” He shifted in his chair, planting his elbows on the filthy desktop. “We were waiting for it too. Still are.”

  The agent looked from Kreski to Hammond and back again. There were all kinds of cops in the federal service, and Kreski and Hammond didn’t seem to be his kind.

  “These people are from the Charo family,” the agent continued. “I know them. By ‘family’ I don’t mean they are all related. The leaders are Colombian, father and son, but there are all kinds, Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran. Madeiro, the one who did most of the talking, offered a deal. Pull them off the assassination rap and he’ll give us the name of the ship. I told him to give us the ship, and then I’d see what we could do. If we connect, well, hell, like I told your people in the beginning, I don’t think these are politicals. I think the only presidents they’re interested in are the ones on fifty- and hundred-dollar bills.”

  Kreski puffed his pipe, a signal to the others to wait. “I agree with you,” he said, finally, quietly. “If I had prosecutorial jurisdiction, I’d recommend reducing this to a narcotics case. At least for now. But we’re just Treasury, not Justice.” He smoked some more, waiting as much as they were for his next words to come. “Still, I work for the president. I report every day to his chief of staff and the vice president. I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, be as encouraging as you can with that Madeiro about the drug shipment. If there’s a score, I would be very interested in knowing.”

  They left New York in more than sufficient time to make the congressional hearing as scheduled, but then something unscheduled happened. As the Lear jet was climbing to altitude above the smoky smear that was northern New Jersey, a call came in from the National Park Service at Gettysburg. This was the treasury secretary’s personal plane, and it had its own radio telephone.

  It was the superintendent of the National Battlefield Park. “Director Kreski? We’ve just had a musketball man—you know, one of those scavenger hunters with metal detectors? Well, he just brought in something interesting, something that I think has to do with the shooting of the president.”

  “What’s that, Superintendent? A weapon?”

  “Yeah, there’s a pistol in here. But a lot of other stuff too. He found a small toolbox. Brand-new from the looks of it. He dug it up in the woods north of the Trostle farm, you know, over by Cemetery Ridge?”

  “I don’t have a map of the battlefield with me, superintendent.”

  “Well, it’s in woods and all but not far down the road from where the president was shot. It was locked, but we broke it open. There’s a revolver in it, some letters, in Spanish. Some other papers. And ten thousand dollars in U.S. currency. Hundred-dollar bills.”

  Kreski lowered the receiver to his lap and sighed. Richard Lawrence, the first to attempt a presidential assassination, tried to kill Andrew Jackson because he thought he was the king of England. John Wilkes Booth murdered Lincoln as an act of war. Lee Harvey Oswald was a misfit trying to make a mark on history, or anything. Sirhan Sirhan was a Palestinian fanatic who was convinced Bobby Kennedy was going to become president and that Bobby Kennedy had sold out to Israel. Now there was Manuel Huerta, “Honduran patriot.”

  “Do you know what a president of the United States is worth now?” Kreski said to Hammond, wearily. “He’s worth ten thousand dollars.” The director lifted the phone.

  “Sorry, Superintendent. I was passing on the news. Was there anything else in there? A small flag that said La Puño?’”

  “No, sir. Just the things I said.”

  “Well, lock that box up somewhere and don’t let anyone touch it. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Uh, sir. It’s against federal law to bring those metal detectors onto park grounds. Should I have the rangers arrest this guy?”

  “No! You’d only scare the hell out of him. Just keep him there for questioning.”

  “I called the State Police. Is there anyone else I should notify?”

  “Certainly. You should notify the FBI. You should have done that immediately.”

  After hanging up the phone Kreski rubbed his eyes, then looked to the younger man across from him who’d been waiting so patiently.

  “One of th
ose souvenir hunters with a metal detector dug up a toolbox that appears to be Huerta’s,” Kreski said. “It has a handgun in it, some letters in Spanish, and money.”

  “Ten thousand dollars.”

  “Ten people dead. That’s a thousand dollars apiece.”

  “Huerta’s dead too.”

  “Yeah. Go up and tell the pilot he’ll have to divert to the closest field he can find to Gettysburg. If there isn’t one at York I know there is at Harrisburg. And tell him to radio ahead for some ground transport.”

  “But what about the Judiciary Committee hearing? Technically, you’re under subpoena.”

  “You go ahead and be my stand-in. If the honorable chairman makes a fuss, tell him that at this juncture I consider his subpoena an obstruction of justice.”

  The vice president lunched on avocado stuffed with shrimp and iced tea—except for the lack of a glass of chilled white wine, a very California meal. Bushy Ambrose had a small steak and cottage cheese, followed by coffee. They ate at a small table near the windows of Ambrose’s office. The chief of staff had had an easel set up next to them bearing a large map of Central America. From time to time, he would set down his fork and wave a pointer about to better identify a location or emphasize a point.

  It was a very military briefing—exact, detailed, boring, and totally useless to Atherton. He didn’t want to hear about how many right-wing guerrillas the d’Aubisson movement had amassed around Acajutla or that loyalist forces had pushed all leftist insurgents back across the Patuca River. His only interest concerning the region was the nature of the Cuernavaca talks with the Sandinistas and how far they had progressed. Ambrose would say, tersely, only that they had progressed not at all. The president had merely opened an avenue of communication that might prove helpful in the future, he said. Ambrose would not discuss the president’s condition in any more detail than he already had by telephone. In response to Atherton’s inquiry as to Mrs. Hampton’s well-being, he stated only that she was holding up better than expected, and expressed her thanks to Atherton for his kindly attentions the night of the shooting. From there, the conversation degenerated into idle pleasantries and from there into silence. Atherton and Ambrose had had more informative conversations when they had lunched simply for social reasons.