DUTCH AND GINA: AFTER THE FALL (5 page)

A long me passed as they lay silently, hugging, clinging to each other. Un ll Gina exhaled and looked up at Dutch.

“Have you spoken to anybody about the case?” she asked him. “About what’s going on? Surely they don’t believe Nurse Riley cooked that whole scheme up all by herself.”

He lay back on his back. “I spoke to Chandra a few days ago,” he said. “She said Riley con nues to claim that it was all on her, that there are no accomplices besides the man driving the getaway car.”

“What’s the driver saying?”

“He claims to know nada, nothing. According to him, Riley was the one who got in contact with him and paid him to be her driver. He claims to know nothing about the kidnapping or if anyone else is involved.”

“Does Chandra believe him?”

“Yes.”

“But how did Riley know this character? Didn’t they say he was an ex-con?”

“During her nursing days she treated his child once, and knew he had an extensive record. Nothing murderous, but certainly a lot of pe y crimes. And he was always hard-up for cash. She paid him the cash to come and pick her up, at least that was the line she fed him. He claims to have no clue a baby was with her.”

“ That’s possible,” Gina said. “Riley had drugged Walter to where he was lifeless. That man may not have heard a sound from our child. But I s ll don’t believe Riley was the mastermind.”

“Chandra doesn’t either. They’re still investigating.”

“And there’s s ll nothing in Nurse Riley’s background?”

“Nothing at all. They did a thorough background on her when we hired her, and there was nothing there.

She worked as a nursing supervisor un ll she re red, she lived below her means, and she didn’t associate with anyone. She had one sister, a drug addict, who died over thirty years ago, no other rela ves that anybody could connect her to, and that’s all there is about Nurse Riley. She didn’t cavort with criminals or anybody else from what has been uncovered, the neighbors didn’t know her at all, she was a lonely old spinster living a very quiet life.”

Gina shook her head. “ Then maybe the connec on is with terrorists like the Marjamed. I know the Jus ce Department just wrapped that inves ga on and put all of them in jail. But maybe there were other members of that homegrown terrorist group that they missed.

And this me, instead of bombing a caravan of SUVs the way they bombed my convoy last year, they plo ed this kidnapping?”

But Dutch shook his head. “Not possible. A er that a ack on your convoy the en re na onal security apparatus went to work and sniffed out that group and other groups like it. It took them a while, but they made sure that every member, and even every person loosely associated with that group, was thrown in jail.

There’s no way the Marjamed or any group like it could There’s no way the Marjamed or any group like it could have had anything to do with this. They were enemy number one at the Jus ce Department. They were being watched like hawks until their recent arrest.”

“ Then what about Max?” Gina asked, although she knew Max Brennan was s ll a sore spot with Dutch.

But she had to know the facts. “He’s all that’s le it seems to me. And he was the one who so highly recommended Riley to us. How did he know Riley if Riley was this quiet little spinster?”

“I agree. There’s s ll a lot of unanswered questions.”

“You think Max could be the mastermind?”

“No,” Dutch said empha cally. “He’s an asshole, but I don’t think he’s that heartless. But I think he knows who is.”

Gina shook her head. “We keep talking about our enemies, thinking them to be some faceless cowards on the DC circuit, only to find out that our real enemies were right under our noses. That’s scary.”

“Yes,” Dutch said, pulling her ghter against him.

“Very.”

THREE

She never expected it to become this emotional. She had come to Ruth Island to speak with the president about Max’s offer, but also, while she was there, to speak to Chris an Bale about his radical brother and if that brother of his was being fed inside information.

“I don’t talk to my brother about the First Lady’s schedule,” Chris an made clear. They were in the Library at Crader’s home, as the president was unable to meet with Chandra right away, so she decided, while she waited her turn, to speak with Christian, instead.

“But you talk to him regularly, don’t you?” Chandra asked.

“Yes, of course,” Chris an replied. “He’s my brother.”

“He’s a radical journalist who seems to have an uncanny ability to know what’s going on before any other journalists does.”

This didn’t surprise Chris an. His big brother had once won a Pulitzer. “He’s a good reporter,” he said proudly.

“Don’t get cute with me, Bale,” Chandra said firmly.

Chris an looked at her. “What’s this all about?” he asked, ge ng flustered, realizing that this wasn’t the informal sit down she had led him to believe it would be. “Why are you asking me all of these questions?”

“Because, frankly, I believe you’ve been feeding your brother informa on, damning informa on, about this president’s White House.”

Christian was floored. “But that’s not true,” he said, his eyes wide with fear. “I would never do anything to harm the president or the First Lady.”

“Fact: the First Lady takes an unannounced trip to a Texas prison to meet with her stepbrother Marcus Rance. That same day, while the clandes ne trip was s ll materializing, your brother writes a blog about Marcus Rance and how he wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the First Lady intervened on his behalf.” Christian frowned. “Every blogger was wri ng about that. Not just my brother.”

But Chandra con nued. “Fact: The president kicks Max Brennan out of the White House. Your brother blogs the day before that the president should fire Max Brennan.”

Brennan.”

Chris an smiled. “But I didn’t know what the president was going to do, and my brother was just specula ng, same as every other journalist. How could I be blamed for that?”

“Oh, something ’s up with you,” Chandra made clear. “Because I’m not buying it. I’m not buying that
golly gee, woe is me
act of yours. Not for a second.” Chris an was astounded. This woman actually believed he was commi ng high treason or something; that he was giving away presiden all secrets or something. And it wasn’t true. None of it was true.

But once that seed of doubt was planted, how was he going to stop it from growing? Would the president and First Lady look at him differently? Would they force him to resign? In poli cs it didn’t ma er if you were innocent. The appearance mattered more.

“I want to see the president,” Chris an said, tears staining his eyes.

Shelton Pra , the Vice President of the United States, stood at the bay window inside the library at Crader McKenzie’s home. He was a tall, razor-thin man with an overdone reddish tan and thinning gray hair.

He wore expensive suits, and cologne that was infamous for its unfashionably loud smell, and whenever he smiled his face creased and sagged into an almost caricatured, Grinch-like grin.

Although he was nearly fi een years the president’s senior, and had impeccable creden als, including a s nt in the Clinton administra on, few in the Democra c leadership found him a worthy successor to Dutch Harber. His unrelen ng inten on, which he wasn’t about to reveal now, was to change that impression.

“Shelly, good morning,” Dutch said as he entered the library, hand extended, smile on thick, and approached his VP. “Good to see you, my friend.”

“Good to see you, Mr. President,” Shelly said, shaking the offered hand. Crader had entered with Dutch and now stood beside him, but Shelly chose to ignore him.

“You know Senator McKenzie,” Dutch said.

“Of course,” Shelly said, now shaking Crader’s hand.

He knew him, all right, Shelly thought as he shook.

Used to call him
Manic Mac
when he was in the Senate and Shelly was in the Clinton Defense Department. He couldn’t stand the man. Every hearing he had to a end on Capitol Hill and Crader was a commi ee member, would be filled with hyperbole and all kinds of wild asser ons as Crader would never go along to get along but would ask such pointed ques ons that it always exposed what Shelly and his colleagues didn’t want exposed.

But right now, Shelly was smiling his wide, Grinch-like grand smile as if Crader was his long lost bud.

“How are you, Cray?”

Crader, who couldn’t be a hypocrite even if he tried, didn’t even crack a smile, let alone a grand one. “I’m okay,” Crader said blandly. “You?”

“Couldn’t be be er,” Shelly replied, a poli cian from way back who knew how to keep appearances up. His smile never wavered.

Dutch stood there, staring at Shelly, at the man who so desperately wanted to be king. “Had a comfortable trip, I take it?” he asked him.

“Very. Thank-you.” Shelly wasn’t as easy on his feet around Dutch as he was around others. He always sensed, for reasons he couldn’t even fathom, that Dutch had a way of seeing through his bullshit.

“What about your trip?” he asked the president. “This

“What about your trip?” he asked the president. “This needed vaca on in sunny Florida, I mean. How are you holding up?”

“Marvelously, thank-you.”

“So,” Shelly said, anxious to get on with it, “I take it this summons is all about the G-8?”

“Why would you think it’s about the G-8?” Shelly didn’t expect that comeback. He looked from Dutch to Crader and then back at Dutch again. “I just assumed, when Crader phoned and asked me to come, I thought for certain that had to be it. I assumed that you, given your family drama, wouldn’t be able to make it and you wanted me to represent you instead.” Crader wanted to shake his head. If there was ever a more ambitious snake alive, he never met him.

“No,” Dutch said, considering his VP, “I’m more than able to make it.”

“Oh,”

Shelly

replied,

unable

to

hide

his

disappointment. But when he realized his slip, he rallied. “ That’s a good thing then. I’m glad to hear it.

Just a couple weeks ago you had fallen to your knees, and now you’re able to go to the most important summit of the year. That’s good.” He cleared his throat. Probably to clear out the bile, Crader thought.

“But it doesn’t quite explain,” Shelly went on, “why you summoned me here, sir.”

“You want my job,” Dutch said pointblank. Crader smiled. Dutch Harber never mixed words.

Shelly, however, was thrown. He hadn’t expected
those
words. And he knew, given Dutch’s intelligence, he had to finesse it.

He cleared his throat again. “If you’re sugges ng that I intend to seek the presidency at the end of your second term, since terms limits dictate you can’t run again, then you’re correct. I don’t think I’ve made a secret of that fact.”

“But have you made a secret of the fact that you want to secure my job now, before my term ends?” Shelly’s heart dropped. How in the world, he thought, could he have found out about that? He didn’t know what to say, or to do, so he just smiled. “Now that’s funny,” he said, grinning. “I want to be president,” he added, “but not that badly.”

“Yeah, right,” Crader said before he realized he had said it.

Shelly’s smile left. “What is that supposed to mean, Cray?”

“Let’s cut the bullshit, all right?” Crader suggested.

“You know and I know and Dutch sure as hell knows that you want his job so badly you can taste it. You thought you was going to get it by default two weeks ago, that the widow-maker, a heart a ack, would end his life and begin yours, at least the kind of power you want your life to be about. But the good Lord didn’t quite go along with your plans--”

“How dare you talk to me that way!” Shelly snapped, his anger a shield against his exposure. “I’m the Vice President of the United States and don’t you forget it!”

“You’re vice president because Dutch allowed you to remain on the cket. I would have dumped your ass a er South Carolina, personally, and don’t you forget that!”

During the Democra c primaries when Dutch first ran for president, Shelly had gone into South Carolina appeasing the more conserva ve Democrats by promising that a Harber administra on would offer welfare reform and “clean up the food stamps scams” and other red meat nonsense.

Dutch had publicly scolded Shelly at the me, and Shelly had apologized for offending anyone who took offense, but Dutch didn’t dump him from the cket. To Crader and many of Dutch’s friends, his fatal flaw had Crader and many of Dutch’s friends, his fatal flaw had always been and probably always would be his loyalty.

“No-one’s perfect,” he loved to say. And would therefore forgive them their transgressions and move on. Which was fine in private rela onships, but in the game of poli cs, as Crader saw it, loyalty could be deadly.

Oddly enough, Crader also mused, when Dutch did see the light and realized his loyalty was vastly misplaced, he held grudges unlike any man he ever knew and would be out for blood if he could extract it.

It was a personality quirk of Dutch’s that had always confounded Crader, and fascinated him as well.

“If there is a plot afoot,” Dutch said to his VP, “I would suggest, in the strongest terms I know how, that you reconsider it. Your scheme may blow me off of my stride a li le, just a li le, but the blowback on you is going to knock you off of yours. And I mean forevermore. I’ll personally see to it, Shelly. Do we understand each other?”

Shelly’s heart fell through his shoe. “Sir,” he said, despera on in his voice, “I don’t know what Crader has been feeding you, but it’s not coming from my table.

There’s no shenanigans afoot involving me, I assure you of that. Yes, there’s talk around town that you, given all that’s transpired since your marriage, may become a drag on the Democrats running for office in the midterms, but I’m not in that conversation.” Crader wanted to puke at his ding at the president.

“That’s nice-nasty of you,” he said to the VP.

Shelly immediately took umbrage, if his chest swelling in an angry inhale was any indica on. “Sir,” he said to Dutch, “I will not stand idly by and let this former backbench junior senator speak to a man of my rank and creden als this way. He may be your friend, but he’s no friend of mine!”