Cold Glory

by B. Kent Anderson

  His mind still churning, and thinking of the way Sandra’s earrings had glinted in the sunlight, he logged on to his computer and checked his e-mail. He deleted a few pieces of junk, skipped over two from students and one from his old advisor at Virginia, then stopped on the one with the subject Incident at South Central College.

  The sender was Tolman, Margaret I.

  Journey opened the e-mail and read it quickly. He’d never heard of RIO, but evidently the stakes were rising. The local authorities had bumped it up to Washington to look for answers, and Washington had circled back around to him.

  He did an online search for the Research and Investigations Office. It appeared legit, a strange little arm of three different Cabinet-level departments. The Web sources he read included phrases like “evaluation and oversight” and “review of cases referred from state and local jurisdictions.” One blog, from a man who had apparently worked for the office, referred to it as “the place cases go to die.”

  The place where cases go to die is going to help me? he wondered.

  He thought for a moment, typed I have nothing to say at this time, then turned away from the computer. “Come on, Andrew,” he called. A few seconds later, Andrew wandered into the room, a vague smile on his face, dragging an empty paper grocery sack. Journey let him keep the sack—he fixated on it less than he did the straw and pencil.

  They climbed into the van and pulled out of the driveway. It was time to search for G.W.

  * * *

  Taylor Drive ran outward from the SCCO campus and wound toward the US 70 intersection. One more turn led to Texoma Plaza, an old-style town square with a small park instead of a courthouse at its center. A bronze plaque in the park honored Carpenter Center’s war dead. The earliest were from World War I. The most recent bore last year’s dates, from Iraq and Afghanistan.

  At the corner of the square nearest the highway junction stood Colbert’s Fine Jewelers. SINCE 1900, the storefront said, which placed it in Indian Territory days, seven years before Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory united into the state of Oklahoma. Journey knew the name Colbert. The Colberts were one of the most prominent Chickasaw families in the area.

  The jewelry store was a tiny place, with a bell over the door—an old-fashioned silver bell, not an electronic chime—and two wooden-framed display cases. One case contained watches, while the other held rings, earrings, and other jewelry.

  He pointed Andrew to an old wooden chair by the door and the boy sat, rattling his paper sack. A young man in his late teens, with blue eyes but the high cheekbones and bone structure of a mixed-blood, looked up. “Help you, sir?”

  Journey put the two pins on the glass top of the case. “What can you tell me about these?”

  The boy looked at the pins, then at Journey, then at the pins again. He turned around and walked through a doorway into the dark background of the shop. “Uncle!” he yelled, then said something else Journey couldn’t make out.

  There was a shuffling step, and a minute later, an old man with much more Native blood than the boy stepped through the door. His long dark hair—so black, it looked almost blue—hung in a single braid to the middle of his back. It held only a handful of silver threads. “Jimmy said you had some pieces,” he said, his voice carrying the soft lilt of the Chickasaw people.

  “Are you Mr. Colbert?” Journey asked. “Can you tell anything about these?”

  “I’m Mr. Colbert, but then, so’s Jimmy. I’m Marvin.” The old man took a pair of rimless glasses out of his shirt pocket and carefully put them on. “What do you want to know about them?”

  “Anything. Where they came from, who made them.”

  “I think I saw you on TV. You were talking about all those guns out at Fort Washita.”

  “That’s right.”

  “These come from out there, too?”

  “One of them,” Journey said.

  “Uh-huh.” Colbert poked at the pins. He picked up the older one and paid special attention to the clasp on its back. He ran a finger along it, looked up at Journey with a stony expression for a very long moment, then looked down again. “Old. Mid–nineteenth century. These kinds of clasps haven’t been used in jewelry since the States War. Great-grandmother had a brooch with that kind of clasp, and it was from 1850.”

  Andrew hooted suddenly, kicking at his sack. Colbert looked long and hard at Andrew, and Journey was ready to give his “my son has autism and here is why he does some of the things he does” speech. But Colbert said nothing. He turned and opened a dusty file cabinet behind the display case. Much to Journey’s surprise, he came up with a small round plastic yellow ball with soft protrusions that looked a bit like the quills on a porcupine. He ambled around the counter and handed the ball to Andrew, who immediately squeezed it. There was a little hole in the center, and when he squeezed it, air rushed out into his face. Andrew smiled.

  “Porcupine ball,” Journey said as Colbert came back around the case. “Thanks.”

  “I keep it around for the great-grandbaby,” Colbert said. He waved his hand toward Andrew. “Needs to do things with his hands, doesn’t he?”

  Journey nodded and the two men looked at each other for a moment.

  “What about the engraving on the pin?” Journey finally said.

  “Nice work. Custom job, I’m sure.”

  Colbert hefted the newer pin. “Uh-huh. Newer, pretty recent, I’d say. You can tell because it’s not as heavy. These kinds of pieces are lighter now, and the engraving’s a little different. Letters are just a bit off-center, too. Tenth of an inch, maybe.”

  Journey looked at the two pins. He hadn’t discerned the difference in placement, only the change in font. But with Colbert holding both pins, he could see it. “You can tell a tenth of an inch just by looking?”

  Colbert smiled. He turned over the new pin. He tapped it, then flipped on a round jeweler’s lamp and swung it down so Journey could see. “See this here?”

  Journey looked. “What?”

  Colbert angled the pin in a different direction, running his thumb along the edge of it. “This little notch on the back. See it now?”

  Journey squinted. “I guess.”

  “That’s AAJE work.”

  “AAJE?”

  “American Academy of Jewelry Engravers. This means it’s high-dollar work. AAJE has only about a hundred members in the whole country. They’re like a big-city country club. Don’t let the riffraff in.”

  “Are you a member?”

  Colbert gave the little smile again, glanced at Andrew with the ball, then back to Journey. “I’m riffraff. Don’t want to be in.” He handed both pieces back to Journey. “But that little notch is the AAJE signature. Those’ll be worth a lot.”

  “Thanks,” Journey said.

  He motioned to Andrew and the boy stood up, leaving the paper sack, still squeezing the ball, enjoying the little breath of wind on his face. “Here, son, let’s give this back.”

  “He can keep it,” Colbert said. “Got six more for the great-grandbaby. Your boy might get more good out of it. Don’t you think so?”

  “He might,” Journey said.

  As Journey got into the van and pulled away from the store, Marvin Colbert was still watching him, a strange look on his face.

  * * *

  When Journey pulled into his driveway, the Carpenter Center police officer assigned to watch him drove by and waved to him.

  “Are you going to protect me?” Journey muttered as he unlocked the house.

  He changed Andrew and popped in a CD for him. It was approaching five o’clock, and he needed to start thinking about dinner. It was strange, he thought, how in the midst of secret societies and weapons caches and thoughts about running down that gunman, life could still be rooted in the ordinary, in things every other parent did—finding something their child would eat.

  Journey thawed ground beef and began to boil water to make something he called “poor man’s Stroganoff.” It resembled real beef Stroganoff
about as much as he resembled a real chef, but Andrew would eat it, and it made abundant leftovers. While waiting for the water to boil, he flipped on the little portable TV he kept on a corner of the kitchen counter.

  It settled onto CNN, the reporters and anchors talking in urgent tones, but Journey didn’t catch any of it at first. He opened a package of egg noodles and started to dump them in the boiling pot when he heard the reporter say, “… the assassination this afternoon of the Speaker of the U.S. House, Representative Jefferson Vandermeer.”

  Journey dropped the package of pasta, noodles rolling at his feet. He turned toward the TV.

  “… no claims of responsibility thus far,” the reporter said. Behind him was Lake Michigan and yards of yellow crime-scene tape. “The Speaker was scheduled to return to Washington tomorrow from the Labor Day recess, and was out for his daily walk in North Point Park. Since the death of his wife, Speaker Vandermeer lived alone, splitting time between his homes here in Sheboygan and in McLean, Virginia, just outside Washington.”

  Journey took a step.

  “The nation is in a state of shock. Never before in the history of the United States has a Speaker of the House been assassinated. The House Sergeant-at-Arms, who is responsible for security for members of the House, said today that the Speaker had not requested a security detail and that no threats had been made against Vandermeer. Security details are not normally provided to members of Congress while they are in their home districts, unless they specifically request it.”

  The pot of water on the stove boiled over, hot water splashing. A little of it caught Journey’s sleeve, and he pulled up his arm in pain at the scalding water. Without turning off the pot, he ran for the living room, crunching pasta under his feet.

  Andrew was still squeezing the yellow ball. He hummed occasionally. He’d taken off one sock and shoe. Journey reached for the document on his desk and read it again.

  Conspiratorial means … to destabilize the American Federal Government …

  The Speaker of the Legislative Branch.

  The removal of the Speaker of the House was first in the list of events that would trigger the activation of the unnamed “clause.”

  “No,” Journey said.

  Andrew looked up at him.

  G.W. wasn’t just trying to get this document—and the missing pieces of it, no doubt—as a historical curiosity in the here and now. They weren’t just planning for a contingency of stepping into a power vacuum in Washington; they were creating the power vacuum.

  Journey felt his heartbeat in his ears, his neck, his arms—it was everywhere, one gigantic beat, pounding faster and faster. He reached out and steadied himself against the desk.

  He swiveled around to the computer, bumping against the mouse. His screen saver vanished, and the search results for RIO were still on the screen. He hadn’t closed the window before heading to Colbert’s.

  He stabbed at the keyboard, logged back in to e-mail, and found the note from Margaret I. Tolman.

  At the bottom of her e-mail was her electronic signature:

  MEG TOLMAN

  RESEARCH/INVESTIGATIONS SPECIALIST II

  RESEARCH AND INVESTIGATIONS OFFICE

  A JOINTLY ADMINISTERED AGENCY OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENTS OF HOMELAND SECURITY, JUSTICE, AND TREASURY

  202-207-2811—VOICE DIRECT

  MTOLMAN@RIO.GOV

  Now he had no choice. Sandra had been right, after all.

  Journey picked his cell phone off the desk, but his hands were shaking so badly it slid off onto the hardwood floor. Andrew heard the clatter, looked over, stood up, and walked to him. He bent down next to his father and put a hand between their faces.

  “I know, son,” Journey said. “I know, I love you, too. I know.” His stomach lurched.

  He grabbed the phone and, his hands still shaking, punched in the number.

  CHAPTER

  13

  The Judge rose before six on Sunday, as he did every morning. He made a simple breakfast of toast, fruit, and juice, then took a walk along the winding road around his property. He appreciated the fact that he and Jefferson Vandermeer had apparently shared a fondness for quiet walks. The Judge enjoyed the rustling in the trees, the sounds of the birds, the smell of fresh honeysuckle.

  After half an hour, he headed back to the house and wandered into his study. He read for two hours, part of a new Thomas Jefferson biography, then turned on the television to catch the Sunday-morning talk circuit.

  Out of habit, he checked all four of his cable networks, including the flagship HNC, then settled in to watch what the competition was doing. On NBC, announcements had been running all week promoting Meet the Press, in which David Gregory would spend a full hour with the president. Gregory had already given his introduction, and the camera pulled back to a long shot of the two men sitting in the Oval Office.

  President James Harwell looked presidential. He was tall and broad-shouldered in his mid-fifties, with pure silver hair and brown eyes that could be by turns empathetic and unwavering. A Connecticut native with roots dating back to before the American Revolution, he was a self-made millionaire, a skilled politician, and by all accounts, a terrible leader. Halfway through his second term, his administration had been a series of missteps almost from day one. But he looked the part, which crystallized for the Judge one of the most critical shortfalls of today’s America: politicians with no substance and who refused to govern. Further proof of the need for the Glory Warriors

  “Mr. President,” Gregory said, “there are those who say America is in a time of national crisis. Our Middle East problems continue to be unstable, with no end in sight. The economy is still feeling the effects of the deepest recession in nearly thirty years. Health care costs continue to rise unchecked, despite the reforms that have been put into place. Terrorism is everywhere—a pipe bomb on a train in Atlanta, a carload of explosives at a mall in Minneapolis, snipers on the freeway in Los Angeles. And now the Speaker of the House has been shot and killed.”

  Harwell waited a moment, then saw that Gregory was finished. “Was there a question in there, David?”

  “I could go on. Even the federal judiciary has been rocked with scandal in recent months, allegations of judges taking bribes from powerful corporate interests. Sir, the America we know is changing right before our eyes, and a great many Americans don’t seem to like it. Our latest NBC News poll shows that seventy-six percent of the people disapprove of your job performance. There have been calls for you to resign, some from leaders in your own party. What do you say to them?”

  Harwell crossed his legs. “Look, David, I say to them what I’ve been saying all along. We don’t run this nation based on poll numbers. This administration is committed to doing what’s right in sensible and bipartisan ways, to best serve the American people. Our economic-stimulus package is working through Congress now, and I’m confident the Congressional leadership will do what’s right. But progress takes time, David. The American people know that. They elected me twice, and I’ll take that vote of confidence over the poll of the day any time. We’re attacking every problem on every possible front, and yes, it seems like we’ve taken a lot of hits in recent months. But the American people are strong, and their spirit shines through. I take comfort in the words of Euripides—‘Somewhere human misery must have a stop. There is no wind that always blows a storm.’”

  “Euripides notwithstanding, Speaker Vandermeer was assassinated when out for his daily walk yesterday. After the vice president, he was next in line for the presidency. What do you say to the American people when the Speaker of the House is assassinated?”

  “My thoughts are with Jeff’s family, his daughter Alice, his grandchildren. I knew Jeff Vandermeer for many years and worked with him on a lot of legislation. We didn’t always agree on issues, but he served this country honorably for a long time. I’m holding his family and the people of Wisconsin in my prayers, and I know those who committed the crime will be caught. We will see justice don
e.”

  Gregory leaned forward. “But isn’t the Speaker’s killing just symptomatic of the larger problem in America today?”

  Harwell mimicked the host’s motion. “No, David, the Speaker’s killing is symptomatic of some maniac who thought he could make his point through the barrel of a gun.”

  “So you believe the Speaker’s assassination was a terrorist act.”

  “I believe all violence is a terrorist act. Look, the motivations may be different, but the results are the same. Someone believes they are above the rule of law, and they take matters into their own hands.”

  “What do you say to Senator Brenson, third-ranking Senator in your own party? On Wednesday, he said in a New York Times op-ed piece, ‘The president has proven he is incapable of managing the affairs of state, and our country is spiraling out of control under this administration. The president cannot even control his own affairs, it seems. If he truly loves his country, he will step aside while he can still do so honorably.’”

  Harwell sat back against the chair. He gave a loose smile. “Dane Brenson is a good man and a good Senator. But if he thinks I am going to walk away from the job the American people hired me to do, then he is sadly mistaken.”

  “What about the reference to your own affairs? The Justice Department is continuing its inquiry into fund-raising irregularities from your reelection campaign.”

  “The campaign legal team is dealing with it. I broke no state or federal laws, and I’m not going to let it be a distraction to the business of governing.”

  The Judge tuned out the rest. He’d heard what he needed to hear. Harwell was responding predictably, and all the good looks and personal charm and wealth in the world couldn’t change the fact that his administration was crashing around him. His Secretary of the Interior had resigned six weeks ago when allegations came to light about his activities when he’d been national co-chair of the reelection campaign. Congress was in open revolt, refusing to deal with any of the president’s programs. Harwell was stuck in political quicksand, and the entire country knew it.