DUTCH AND GINA: AFTER THE FALL (23 page)

Caroline was shocked.

“But wait a minute,” she said. “Aren’t you forge ng something, Dutch? You said you would let me go if I admi ed that it was my idea. I admi ed it, just like you wanted. You said all I had to do was tell the truth and you would make them set me free, that you would make them get me back to France. How can you just leave? Aren’t you forge ng something? You told me you’d tell them to set me free.”

Dutch looked at her. “I lied,” he said, and he said it gleefully. “But I am forgetting something,” he added.

Gina looked at him. Forge ng something? What did he forget?

He walked up to Caroline, to the woman he once actually loved, a woman who he was convinced masterminded the kidnapping of his son, and knocked her as hard as he could hit her, over the chair.

Gina was astounded. “Oops,” she said to Caroline.

“You slipped.”

“Damn you!” Caroline screamed, as she scurried to get up, blood pouring from her mouth and nose. “And damn you, Dutch Harber!”

But he and Gina had already le the room and were heading back along those long, winding corridors that would take them back to life.

would take them back to life.

The Secret Service agent was where he was supposed to be when Chris an made it to the third floor. The agent escorted him to the door, and they knocked.

“Bust it down,” a now anxious Chris an said when no one immediately answered.

The agent ignored him and knocked again. Jade and her beau could be otherwise engaged inside that hotel room and he wasn’t about to lose his job by following the orders of some nervous White House aide.

“Why don’t you just kick it in,” Chris an said when there was again no response to the knocks. Something was off. He could feel it. Something was wrong.

When the agent knocked for the third me, and Chris an was about ready to knock the door down himself, it was finally opened by Henry. In a terrycloth robe.

“This had better be important,” he said to the agent.

When Chris an saw the robe, and its implica on, a li le of the fight le him. But he s ll didn’t believe it.

Jade didn’t want Henry Osgood. She wouldn’t sleep with him like that.

“I need to see Jade,” he said. Nothing short of eyeballing her would satisfy him.

Henry smiled. “We just had what you could call a marathon session, and she’s asleep now.” Chris an rushed him, anger flaring in his deep blue eyes, but the agent pulled him back. “ That’s enough, Bale!” he warned him.

“ Tell him to wake her up,” Chris an said to the agent. “ Tell him you won’t leave un ll you see her for yourself.”

“I don’t know what your problem is, kid,” Henry said,

“but I would strongly suggest you leave and leave now before you make a bigger fool out of yourself than you already have.”

“I’m not going anywhere un ll I see Jade, un ll I see the president’s daughter!”

Henry stared at Chris an when he said those words, as if, in his blind rage, he lost sight of the fact that Jade no longer was that easy target under his thumb, but was the daughter of a president. He hadn’t forgo en the fact, he realized, but his rage had kept him from factoring it in.

He had not considered his exit strategy.

“Sir,” Chris an said to the agent, “as an assistant to the First Lady of the United States I am demanding that you eyeball the president’s daughter now. Something is wrong. I know something is wrong.”

The agent at first hesitated, but he knew Chris an Bale and he knew the young man’s close rela onship with the First Family.

“Step aside, Dr. Osgood,” the agent said.

“I told you she was asleep,” Henry replied.

“Step aside, Dr. Osgood,” the agent repeated.

At first it appeared as if Henry would comply. He didn’t exactly have a choice. But then he moved quickly to slam the door. Chris an saw it and just as quickly dragged his feet between the gap, thwar ng Henry’s plan.

“Bravo Four,” the agent was yelling into his earpiece as he and Chris an a empted to stave off Henry.

“Bravo Four!”

Within seconds addi onal agents materialized, seemingly out of nowhere, and they easily overpowered Henry and handcuffed him.

Chris an, however, ran past Henry toward the back of the suite. He found no one in the first bedroom. But when he fran cally opened the door of the second bedroom, with agents on his tail, he found her.

bedroom, with agents on his tail, he found her.

His heart slammed against his chest when he saw her. The agents, too, were amazed and angry and terrified that this could happen right under their noses.

But it was true. Because right in front of them was the president’s daughter, beaten so badly that her eyes were swollen shut. She was naked, spread eagle, and bleeding from her vagina, a bloody iron rod discarded on the floor.

Chris an immediately removed his jacket and covered her as the agents moved to un e her. He worked feverishly to remove the pillow case from her mouth. As soon as he did, she let out a painful sob, and jumped into Christian’s arms.

Marine One landed on the helipad on the south lawn of the White House and the president and First Lady could hardly un-board fast enough. Crader McKenzie, along with his na onal security advisor, escorted them across the lawn and into the White House. They had been told of the bea ng while en route, but the details were sketchy. Now they didn’t care about the details.

They wanted to see her for themselves.

She was asleep when they hurried into her room.

Chris an was seated beside her, holding her hand as she slept, and LaLa was standing on the opposite side of the bed. Dutch’s personal physician was also in the room, putting medicines back into his medical bag.

“Bill, how is she?” Dutch asked as he stood at the foot of the bed watching, in horror, the condi on of his daughter. Gina moved to the side of the bed, horrified too.

“I’ve sedated her,” the doctor told Dutch. “She’ll live. But she has a long road ahead.”

“How could he do this to her?” Gina asked, her heart crying for Jade. “What kind of monster would do something like this?”

Dutch was so distraught he could hardly speak.

“What about her eyes?” he asked the doctor. They were s ll swollen shut and puffy. “Is her sight damaged?”

“No. She looks awful, but the wounds are more superficial than deep.”

“Shouldn’t she be in a hospital, Dutch?” Gina asked her husband. “This looks too serious.” Dutch looked at Bill. “She could be hospitalized, sure,” he said. “But it won’t make any difference in her recovery. They can’t do any more for her than I’ve already done. And, besides, if she’s in the hospital there’s no guarantee that her photo won’t get out to the media. And, knowing the media, they’d declare you did this to her.”

“ That’s why I ordered them to bring her here,” Christian said without looking away from Jade.

“If it wasn’t for Chris,” LaLa said, “there’s no telling what that bastard would have done to her.” Dutch looked at Chris an. “Good man,” he said.

“Thank-you, son.”

Chris an looked at the president, his eyes glistening with worry. And all he could do was nod his head.

Gina placed her hand on his back.

Dutch looked at the doctor. “Did he rape her?” When he asked this every eye in the room looked at the doctor.

“No” he said, and they all sighed relief.

“Thank-you, Jesus,” Gina said.

“He was trying more to, I don’t know, toy with her.

He used a pipe.”

Dutch’s heart dropped. Gina placed a hand over her heart, and looked at Dutch.

“Did he?” Dutch clumsily asked. “Did he damage her?”

her?”

Again the doctor shook his head. “No, he didn’t. He could have, severely, but he was a surgeon and he knew what he was doing. As I said, the wounds are all superficial. There should be no permanent damage.” Again they sighed relief. And then all eyes, once again, fell on Jade.

He was standing in a room in the White House basement, pacing the floor like the terrified animal he was. They threw some blanket over him, threw him into a van like discarded rubble, and then dumped him here. He didn’t even know where he was. Just in some room somewhere. Why didn’t they just arrest him so he could pay the bail and get back to North Carolina?

Why did they have to bring him here?

When the door to the room opened, and the president, along with Crader walked in, he began to understand why. But he couldn’t deal with that reality.

Not now. Not after what he’d done.

He smiled.

Dutch stopped in his tracks when that rep le smiled at him. And when he thought about what this esteemed pile of shit did to his daughter, he removed his coat, tossing it. Crader caught it.

“You want to hit somebody,” he said, walking toward Henry, “hit me.”

“Oh, right,” Henry said, s ll smiling as if he could charm his way out of this. “Like I’m going to hit the President of the United States.”

The president, however, hit him. Cold cocked him.

And he hit him repeatedly. It wasn’t a fair fight, Henry had quickly surrendered and was cowering in the corner, but that didn’t mean Dutch was surrendering. It wasn’t a fair fight when he brutalized his daughter, either. He beat Henry down, fair or not, legal or not, ethical or not. He beat him with his fists, kicked him like the dog he was, stomped on his face and then twisted the sole of his shoe, determined to leave his mark.

And then he reached out his hand to Crader.

Crader reached inside his suit coat and pulled out an iron pipe. And Dutch, without hesita on, slammed down the pants of the barely conscious surgeon, and rammed that rod as hard as he could up his ass. Henry, suddenly and completely alert, screamed in pain.

Dutch stood up, his chest heaving up and down, as he watched the man curl up like a baby and beg for mercy.

And then he le . He took his coat from Crader, put it on, and left. Sometimes he hated his job.

This was not one of those times.

The Rose Garden was in full bloom as the guests and every conceivable dignitary laughed and danced and enjoyed the perfect Spring day. The First Lady was beau fully a red in a gorgeous blue laced gown, and the president wore a powdered blue Hugo Boss tux, and they walked around, hand in hand, as if they were kids in a candy store. Everybody commented on the glow of joy that cloaked them both.

And they danced, with lowly staffers and mighty heads of state, and then they danced with each other.

Slow and deliberate, to the beau full music of Whitney Houston’s
I Will Always Love You
. And nobody, not even the president’s greatest cri cs, would deny their love.

Crader danced too, with a certain blonde bombshell and an African princess he seemed smitten with. There was a me when his womanizing ways would have bothered LaLa to her core, sleepless nights even. But now he didn’t even register on her radar screen.

She drank more champagne and laughed at how the prime minister of Italy a empted to do a split, only to get stuck and have to be pulled back to his feet by other dignitaries. No one had asked her to dance, which wasn’t exactly unusual for her, but not even that reality could spoil her joy. Dutch and Gina were ecsta c today, and this was about them. Her friends for life. Not about her dismal love life.

She thought about going to check on Li le Walt, even though she knew Gina had hired a wonderful lady, but old habits were sometimes hard to die.

“May I have this dance?”

She heard the ques on, but two different people were asking it, and asking it almost simultaneously.

When she turned, she saw that Roman Wilkes had come over and asked her to dance and Crader, not to be outdone, had apparently seen the approach and cut him off at the path.

“May I have this dance?” Crader asked again.

LaLa smiled, accepted Roman’s offered hand, and followed him to the sec on of the garden reserved for dancing. Crader watched her, and a large part of him knew he was watching the best chance at pure happiness he was ever going to get slip completely happiness he was ever going to get slip completely from his grasp. But then he swallowed down the last of his champagne, smoothed down his hair, and searched out the latest eye candy that had already caught his attention.

“May I have this dance?” Dutch asked Jade when she completed her dance with Chris an. Christian handed her to her father and stepped aside. He saw some of his college friends over by the colonnade, and headed in that direction.

Jade, stunning in her beau full bridal gown, had tears in her eyes as her father took her for a twirl in the garden, dancing in sweeping movements, making her feel as if she was the most beautiful girl in the world.

And when the music ended, and was about to begin again, Dutch took Gina’s hand, pulled her over, and danced with both of his ladies in his arms. Gina and Jade laughed, this wasn’t in the script, but it didn’t matter. Dutch was having the time of his life.

“You can’t do anything without Gina,” Jade chided him as they danced.

“Don’t want to, either,” Dutch said.

“I hope Chris an and I will love each other the way you love Gina,” Jade con nued her joking around,

“when we’re old and gray, too.”

“Oh, the comedian, honey,” Gina said. “ The jokes just keep coming and coming.”

“Want to hear another one?” Jade asked.

“No!” both Dutch and Gina replied at the same time.

Jade laughed. “It’s a good thing Chris and I got married,” she said.

“And why is that?” Gina asked, feeling as if she was about to be the brunt of a punch line.

“Because, just so the two of you will know, we’re going to have a baby.”

Dutch stopped dancing, his heart soaring. Gina’s had already soared.

“Oh, baby!” he said, pulling Jade into his arms.

But then he thought about it. And pulled back.

“But you two haven’t had a chance to . . . How could you be pregnant already?”

And that was when it hit him. Jade and Gina were grinning.

But Dutch was anything but.

“
Chris-tian
!” he roared, and hurried to strangle, to kill with his bare hands, that slick son-in-law of his.