DUTCH AND GINA: AFTER THE FALL (3 page)

“I know you’re recovering, sir,” she said, “and I

“I know you’re recovering, sir,” she said, “and I hated to bring this kind of news to you.” She looked him dead in the eye. “But I felt this was something you had to know. Wes Logan is a very cau ous man. He would not have come to me with this unless it was exactly as big as he laid it out. The way he explained it to me, the Speaker and the Vice President aren’t going to be calling for your impeachment, they aren’t even going to go that route. But they’re going to create the condi ons for the public itself to make the call; for the public to do their dirty work. And then they, being the good public servants they purport to be, will hold a press conference and magnanimously oblige.” Dutch shook his head in disgust. There were many days when he seriously considered leaving the presidency, especially on those days when his wife was being dragged through the mud. But he wasn’t about to let two pipsqueaks like Jed Brightman and Shelton Pratt force him out. Not those two.

He looked at Liz. And his heart soared with even more love for her. “Thank-you,” he mouthed.

She smiled, her heart soaring too. Only it was a sad flight for her, a flight fraught with that ever-present feeling of what could have been rather than the reality of what actually was. She stood up.

“I’d better get back,” she said.

Dutch stood too. “You don’t have to leave so soon,” he said, although he knew it would be a ba le with Gina if she didn’t. But she may have just saved his presidency. He couldn’t simply let her walk away.

“Thank-you,” Liz said, “but I really have to get back.”

“You just got here, Liz. You’ve come a long way.”

“I know. And it was worth every second. I had a message to deliver, I’ve delivered it, you understand the stakes, so now it’s me for me to go. My job’s done.”

“A job well done,” Dutch said, meaning it.

Liz smiled, those lines of age appearing on the sides of her gorgeous hazel eyes, causing Dutch to let out a regre ull sigh. She wasn’t ge ng any younger. She was s ll as gorgeous as a woman half her age, but the years were beginning to be a harsh companion. And it ached him that she was s ll alone. She should have been married with kids long ago; she should have se led down. But she had held out some unrealis c hope for some perfect knight to come along, or even for the two of them to finally get together. Hope that should have died when he married Gina. But her hope could have sprung eternal anyway.

“Just wanted to give you the heads-up,” she said, collec ng her handbag and briefcase. Then she stood erect. “Wes says Brightman’s going to the G-8 Summit as a representative of the US Congress.”

“Yes, he’s on the manifest.”

“Wes will be in his delega on. Maybe he’ll learn more. Or, who knows, maybe I will. But as soon as any new news comes down, I’ll get it to you. But you watch your back and take care of yourself, you hear?” She extended her hand.

Dutch smiled at her southern twang, as he accepted her hand.

Now that they were toe to toe and hand in hand, Crader was shocked at what a stunningly a rac ve couple they made. Both tall, both lean, both gorgeous in a way that beggars mere descriptors. And the chemistry between them just oozed all over the place.

There was love there, Crader concluded. Given the vibes they were giving off, there had to be some serious, deep-down, unrequited, love-jones kind of love going on between them.

Dutch knew it too, as his heart hammered when Liz reached out her hand. He although he took her hand in reached out her hand. He although he took her hand in his, that wasn’t going to be enough. Their rela onship was complicated. Because he worried about her s ll, and it was suddenly a powerful concern. And that was why he reached out, and pulled her into his arms.

Liz’s breath caught when they embraced. Crader could see her eyes close ghtly at Dutch’s touch, as if regret, or wan ng more, or all kinds of contrary emo ons were coursing through her body. And when they pulled away, he kissed her on the lips.

“ Take care of yourself,” Dutch ordered and Liz smiled that smile of age again, that smile that broke Dutch’s heart. She was alone in this world and so misunderstood that it ached him. But what could he do? She was a grown woman living the life she chose to live. And she had to live with the choices, good, bad, and ugly, that she had made.

She began to leave, but in a lingering kind of way.

She, in fact, looked back at him once more before she finally walked out of the door.

Dutch walked over to the s ll open door, and watched her make her way across the grounds, a Secret Service agent now in full escort beside her, as her tall, exquisite body took her far away from him. Crader came over, and watched her too.

“I do believe,” he said, both men con nuing to stare at Liz, “that you may be the only human being that woman genuinely cares about.”

“I want you to become my new chief of staff, Cray,” Dutch said, causing Crader to look away from Liz and at the president. Talk about coming out of nowhere, he thought.

“You mean you want me to take Max’s old job?”

“Yes,” Dutch said, s ll staring at Liz’s departure.

Then he exhaled. “I need you.”

Crader swallowed hard. For a man like Dutch to admit he needed somebody had to have been a tough admission. And although Crader liked his life outside of Washington, he knew he wasn’t about to let Dutch Harber tell him that he needed him, and then turn him down. “I’ll be honored to serve as your chief of staff, sir,” he replied.

“Good,” Dutch said, s ll staring at Liz, his mind seemingly a million miles away. “I’ll have Allison announce it at her daily presser. As your first unofficial duty, however,” he added, “I want you to phone my vice president and tell him to have his ass here tomorrow morning, 9am sharp.”

“With pleasure, sir,” Crader said. And then added:

“I take it you believe Wes Logan?”

“I know Wes. If he says a scheme is in the works, a scheme is in the works. Get Shelly here tomorrow morning.”

“Yes, sir,” Crader replied.

Then Dutch le the gym, op ng to shower in the master bath instead, as he was now more anxious than ever to eyeball, and get inside of, that wife of his.

TWO

“More, Max,” Chandra Rice said with great exaspera on as she stood in the interroga on room at Quantico and drilled Max Brennan. “I need more.”

“I told you all I know,” Max replied. He was seated at a long table inside the FB I’s training academy, with the Attorney General finally getting a crack at him.

“You expect me to believe that some gotdamn Nanny masterminded that en re kidnapping?” Chandra asked.

“I don’t expect you to believe anything. I knew Penelope Riley from the me she was a pediatric nurse caring for my sister’s sick child. That was why I recommended her to the president. Don’t blame me if your people didn’t vet her properly.”

“We did vet her and you know it!” Chandra shot back, refusing to be the fall guy as some rightwing bloggers were a emp ng to make her out to be. “But the

president

hired

her

mainly

on

your

recommendation.”

“Bullshit! He hired her because his administra on ve ed her and determined her to possess the right stuff. He interviewed her on my recommenda on. He hired her on yours.”

Chandra,

as

A orney

General,

was

under

tremendous pressure to search out and bring to jus ce every one of the conspirators in that botched kidnapping of the Harber child, especially the mastermind. She was convinced Max knew who that mastermind was.

She began pacing the room, her nerves on edge.

Max looked at her, a sneer on his face. He used to like Chandra. She was a black woman who grew up in privilege as he and Dutch had, but who knew how to keep her blackness quiet. She knew how to stay in her place and not upset people with it. Unlike that Gina, he thought angrily. She was black and she was proud and she didn’t care who she upset. It was almost as if she took pleasure in upending the established order. Why Dutch would want a woman like that Gina, who wasn’t even all that good looking on top of it, was the mystery of mysteries to Max.

“I need more, Max,” she said. “You’re not telling all you know.”

you know.”

“Why don’t you ask that Nanny. She was the one who carried out the act.”

“She declares it was just her and the driver. Nobody else. The driver doesn’t know a thing, either. He was some nobody she met during her days as a nurse. She called him and he agreed to drive her. He knew nothing about the kidnapping.”

Given where the baby was hidden, Max thought, it was possible the driver didn’t know what was going on. But all Max knew for certain was that he wasn’t involved.

“ Talk to me, Max,” Chandra said, not nearly as certain.

“I am talking to you. You’re just desperate to find a scapegoat, that’s why you aren’t hearing me.” Max smiled. “But you have nothing on me. I had nothing to do with that kidnapping.”

“You’re already a proven liar,” Chandra pointed out,

“why should I believe you now?”

“I’m no liar.”

“You lied on the First Lady. Said she was doing the dip with Roman Wilkes.”

“I stand by every word I said,” Max said convincingly, although he knew he was lying.

“You’re full of it, Max.”

“So are you, Channie.”

Chandra exhaled. She needed to play hardball. She looked at the FB I agent in the room with her. He understood the
get lost
signal, and left.

She sat at the table across from Max. “Okay, what do you want?”

“Who said I want anything?”

“I don’t have all day, Max. What is it?” Max knew this was his chance, maybe his last chance. “I want a mee ng with the president,” he said to a woman he used to call his friend.

Chandra frowned. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Does it look like I’m kidding?”

“Why would the president want to meet with scum like you?”

Max was offended by that, he used to be the president’s best friend, his chief of staff for crying out loud, who did she think she was talking to? But he soldiered on. “I need to make certain that he understands I had nothing to do with that kidnapping.

I’d never hurt his son.”

“Forget it, Max.”

“I need him to understand that.”

“Not gonna happen.”

Max leaned back. Hesitated. Then he leaned forward. “All right, you get me a mee ng with Dutch and I’ll tell him and him alone who masterminded that kidnapping. But I’ll only tell it to him.” Chandra leaned back too. Making a deal with Max was like dealing with the devil, but she was in that kind of hot water. If he was straight with her, and he did give the name of the mastermind, that could bust the case wide open. But if he was bullshi ng her, and she took this bullshit to the president himself, it could decimate her reputa on in the president’s eyes, and her career right along with it.

But it was a chance, she knew, she had to take.

Regina Harber, the First Lady of the United States, was on Crader’s estate in the bedroom that had been converted into a Nursery, playing with her three-month old son. They were on a blanket on the floor, she on her knees, li le Walter Robert Harber, Jr., plump and happy, squeezing her nose and laughing at her.

“ That’s my li le man,” she said, making funny faces at him. “That’s my little darling!”

at him. “That’s my little darling!”

Lore a “LaLa” King, who took over the nanny du es in wake of the botched kidnapping, the one human being Dutch and Gina trusted uncondi onally with their child, was seated in a chair in the room reading a book. “ That baby finds you hilarious,” she said, turning a page. “Why, I do not know.”

“It’s because I am hilarious,” Gina said, grinning.

“Isn’t that the truth, my angel?”

Knocks were heard on the door, and then Chris an Bale walked in.

“Hello, Chris,” Gina said, s ll playing with Li le Walt. “My baby’s laughing at me.”

Christian smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”

Gina inwardly smiled too. Chris an always seemed so awkward in social situa ons. The best way to ease his awkwardness, according to Dutch, was to just get on with it. Keep the encounter as non-spontaneous as possible.

“I assume you didn’t come in here to partake in the pleasures of this room?”

“Yes, ma’am. I mean, no ma’am, I’m not here for pleasure.” Gina and LaLa laughed. Chris an blushed red. “I mean---”

“We know what you mean, Chris,” Gina assured him. Then she stopped playing with Li le Walt and looked at her assistant. “What’s up?”

“The president requests your presence.” Gina nodded her head. “I can honor that request,” she said, standing to her feet.

Chris an was always taken by how shapely she was, and pre y, her dark skin so smooth and unblemished-looking, her hair now in a short, bouncy style, her big brown eyes bright and intelligent. He could never understand the tabloids and internet bloggers who o en referred to her as if she was una rac ve and fat and well beneath the president’s standards. LaLa told him once that they were just envious of the First Lady, that their own lives were miserable and they were trying to make hers intolerable too.

Chris an didn’t know if that was true, but he did know that they were as wrong as they could be. Gina Harber, with her big heart and her compassion for her fellow man, with her pre y, bright white smile against her dark skin, with her caring, expressive eyes, was Christian’s idea of the ideal woman.

“Where is this husband of mine?” Gina asked him.

“He just got out of the shower, ma’am. He’s in the bedroom.”

Gina and LaLa laughed again. Chris an, as usual, blushed red again.

“Oh, ma’am,” he said, “I didn’t mean to suggest that he was waiting for you like that. I was just--”

“I know, Chris, stop worrying. Don’t mind me and La. We’re just playing with you, boy. I’ll be back, Li le Man,” she said to her son. “Daddy wants me.” And Gina got in a hurry, suddenly anxious to see this freshly scrubbed husband of hers.

When she le the room, LaLa closed her book and took Gina’s place on the blanket. Chris an sat in the chair beside LaLa, a woman everybody was saying reminded them of Phaedra from
The Real Housewives
of Atlanta
TV show. Chris an had never seen or even realized such a show existed, but decided to search it out just to see for himself. And when he did see that Phaedra woman, that lawyer, he smiled. Because it was true. She and LaLa did indeed favor.