The Next President (19 page)

The surprising thing was, if he didn’t have to kill the candidate she was working so hard to elect, if he didn’t wind up dead himself, he would have liked to :ee her.

But J. D.‘s story made Jenny far too angry to focus on the personal note;

she was not about to let some maverick agent screw up her campaign plans.

“I’m going to put that bastard DeVito back in his box and lock him inside.

You’re more valuable to Del than he is, and it’s high time he knew it.”

J. D. left the campaign office saying a silent prayer Del Rawley would get out of the race. It would make no sense for the blackmailer to want him to kill a noncandidate. He’d be off the hook then, and just as important, Rawley

would get to live. He only wished he could do something to help force the senator out of the race.

He got on an elevator to the lobby with two Secret Service agents. This pair held no grudge against him. They simply gave him a discreet once-over and went back to discussing what they were going to eat during their morning break. J. D. picked up on the fact that the agents would be going to a snack shop in the building.

J. D. let the two feds exit the elevator ahead of him, and he watched them cross the lobby and take an escalator to the lower level. He glanced around to see if DeVito was still lurking nearby, and the old gent behind the information desk correctly guessed what he was doing.

“You looking for that fella you were talking to?”

“Yes.”

“He’s gone.”

“Downstairs?”

“No, he left the building.”

“Can I get a soft drink at the place downstairs?” J. D. asked.

“Sure. Food’s not half bad, either. Lotta these government johnnies like it, anyway.”

That’s what J. D. had hoped, that the federal agents working the campaign had established a hangout in the building. A place where his minders conceivably might relax. If so, he thought it was time to rattle their cage a little.

Give them some extra incentive to stay close for a while.

Follow him right up the coast highway that night.

He was in luck and spotted both crew cuts the moment he entered the snack shop. The blonde was seated at a table against the wall to J. D.‘s right.

He was intent on the newspaper in front of him. The dark-haired minder had his back to J. D. as he picked up a saucer and a cup to fill from a selfservice coffee urn.

J. D. walked over to an adjacent cooler and helped himself to a bottle of fruit juice. He turned to go to the cashier just as the dark-haired minder stepped away from the urn holding a cup of hot coffee. The collision sent the scalding liquid all over the crewcut’s hand, causing him to drop the cup and saucer, J. D.‘s slacks and shoes were caught in the splash and that was reason enough for him to let go of his bottle of juice.

Amidst the clatter of breaking ceramic and glass, the dark-haired crewcut turned to confront J. D.” holding his scalded hand, his face twisted in pain and anger.

“Jesus Christ, why the hell don’t you watch where—” When he recognized J. D. his tirade hit a brick wall.

But now it was J. D.‘s turn.

“Me? I’m not the one who spilled hot coffee on someone. Look at my slacks and shoes.”

“You think I’m to blame?” The dark-haired minder looked like he wanted to get into it. He clenched his hands into fists, and when he did, J. D. noticed the ring he was wearing.

Before things could escalate, the blonde crewcut materialized to play the peacemaker. He put his hands on his buddy’s shoulders.

“Hey, hey, hey. Accidents happen, right? Nobody’s to blame. Let’s just get all this straightened out, okay?” He turned to J. D. “You all right, mister?”

“Yeah,” J. D. allowed. Then he added, “No thanks to your friend.”

The blonde had to restrain his partner once more.

J. D. gave the dark-haired crewcut a look that said he was totally unimpressed and unafraid. Then he turned and saw a wary snack shop manager looking on. J. D. took out a twenty-dollar bill and gave it to him, saying, “Damages are on me. I’m the one to blame.”

Walking out, he muttered in a voice loud enough for the minders to hear, “Asshole.”

As J. D. strolled away, he listened for the sounds of pursuit. He didn’t hear any. For the moment, the blonde minder must have prevailed. But J. D. was certain he’d lit a fire. He rode the escalator back up to the ground floor and thought how many times during his hitch in the army he’d seen a ring like the one the dark-haired crewcut wore. It was a graduation ring from the United States Military Academy at West Point. With his marksman’s eyes, J. D. had even been able to spot the year that the prick had become an officer and a gentleman.

When he got to the lobby he heard a cool voice ask, “Have yourself a little accident?”

Donnel Timmons was standing there, an amused smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

J. D. glanced at his stained slacks and spotted shoes.

“Must have.”

“I was thinking we could have lunch today. Catch up on old times. But you probably want a change of threads.”

The irony ofDonnel’s presence struck J. D. once again. He could under stand now why it was said that cops always hated a coincidence. He didn’t care much for Donnel’s smirk, either.

“Lunch sounds good,” J. D. told him.

“Give me thirty minutes. I’ll meet you somewhere.”

J. D. changed into jeans, a polo shirt, and sneakers at the Refuge, then got into his car to drive to Gladstone’s 4 Fish, on the beach just off Sunset, where he’d agreed to meet Donnel for lunch.

As J. D. guided the Lexus up PCH to the restaurant, his mind went back to his army days. He’d always gotten along well with Donnel. They’d been the odd men out in the PANIC unit. The only ones who hadn’t been gung-ho covert warriors. Donnel had been the sole black officer in the unit, and J. D. had been the only white enlisted man who hadn’t resented Donnel’s superior rank.

Despite their past camaraderie, J. D. couldn’t accept that mere circum stance had brought the two of them back together in the context of the Rawley campaign. Two trained assassins didn’t just happen to show up in a situation like that. He certainly hadn’t and…

And what if someone had found a way to blackmail Donnel, too?

Pulling into the restaurant’s parking lot and handing his car over to the valet, J. D. saw that his former comrade in arms occupied a corner table on the patio overlooking the beach. A moment later J. D. sat down with Donnel, appreciating his choice of tables. Their conversation wouldn’t carry above the sound of the waves crashing on the sand.

A waitress promptly brought drinks and took their lunch orders.

Donnel raised his glass to J. D.” who tapped his against it to complete the toast.

“So, you kill anybody lately?” Donnel asked.

“No,” J. D. answered.

“How about you? You still working for the Revolution

Donnel laughed.

“Naw, man, I’m a capitalist-reader all the way now. Own a company that makes auto parts for Ford and GM. Got six hundred people working for me and they all call me boss. What kind of revolution could improve on that?”

J. D. had an insight as to what Donnel had used as the start-up money for his business.

“So that safe you cleaned out at that ARVN officers’ club turned out to be a bigger bonanza than you ever would have believed.”

Donnel’s eyes narrowed and his smile faded.

“Gave you ten K of that money, as I recall.”

Yeah, J. D. thought, but I’m being blackmailed for something else. What if someone had found out about Donnel’s heist? Had come to him a long time after he thought he’d gotten away clean? Had threatened to reveal his criminal past and ruin his respectable present?

How’d that work as blackmail on you, old buddy? J. D. wondered.

Not wanting to give away his thoughts, J. D. only owned up to his part in the crime.

“I made my money blossom, too. Not long ago I owned almost half of L-A-B Fashions. Sold my share and got rich. We’re just a couple of grunts who made good.”

“You know the first thing I thought when I saw you the other night?”

“What?”

“Thought maybe it was you who took the shot at Del Rawley.”

“Me? I was always the reluctant warrior.”

“You were reluctant, all right. But you always knocked ‘em dead.”

“Then it couldn’t have been me. The guy you’re talking about missed his shot.”

Donnel stared at J. D.” who met and held his gaze.

“You know,” J. D. said, “I thought the same thing. It could have been you.”

Donnel blinked.

“Me? I’m black!”

“Yeah, I noticed that right off.”

“You think I don’t want to see a black president?”

“Donnel, you always talk a good game when it comes to race. But your actions always prove that your favorite color is money green. And let’s not forget you knocked even more people dead than I did.”

Donnel sipped his drink and looked out at the ocean while he gathered his thoughts. Turning back to J. D.” he said, “Thing is, we’re both fucked if anyone finds out what we did.”

“Yes, we are.”

“Wouldn’t look good for either of us to be around a candidate for president who almost got shot. People’d be suspicious no matter how innocent we are.”

“Yes, they would.”

“And we are both innocent, aren’t we?”

“Of course.”

Donnel’s smile returned.

“That’s what I always liked about you, J. D. We always saw eye to eye.”

“Pretty much,” J. D. admitted.

“Only thing that’s different now is, we’re not in the army anymore.”

Donnel laughed.

“You mean I don’t get to give you orders?”

“You don’t give them and I don’t take them,” J. D. agreed.

After returning to the Refuge, J. D. took Pickpocket’s laptop out of the safe in the den and booted it up. He didn’t want to use his own

machine so no record of what he was about to do would be on his hard disk. J. D. was sure Pickpocket had booby-trapped his computer to guard against outside snoopers who tried to use it without the proper password.

It took him only a few minutes to find out that his two minders were named Arnold Roth—the dark-haired crewcut—and Bill Danby—the blonde.

Making that discovery hadn’t been hard once he’d seen Roth’s ring. The U.S. Military Academy had an extensive Web site on the Net, just like every other university in the country. One feature of the site was a link to pictures of graduating classes. Having seen the year Roth had graduated, J. D. didn’t need long to find his picture and name and, playing a hunch, those of his classmate Danby. Both cadets were noted as “hard-hitting” safeties on the academy’s football team.

Soldiers and jocks. Neither would be the kind of guy who’d take kindly to someone spilling hot coffee on him and then calling him an asshole. Especially not Roth, whom J. D. had pegged as the lead dog. He thought the odds were good that Roth and Danby would be crowding him for the near future.

He surfed over to stickyfingers.com and left a message for Red asking her to find out everything she could about the two minders, using West Point as the place to start.

He then closed down the laptop and returned it to his safe.

He called home to see how Evan was doing, but his mother told him that his son was out, that he’d withdrawn from classes… that he was with Blair McCray. Then she spent the next fifteen minutes reassuring him that Evan would be all right. The family would see to that.

J, D. pretended to take comfort in his mother’s words so that he wouldn’t upset her.

But he was far from reassured.

After leaving the office tower where the Rawley campaign headquarters was located, Special Agent Dante DeVito drove to the federal building in Westwood where the Secret Service had its field office in Eos Angeles.

DeVito found an empty office with a computer and helped himself to it.

He organized his thoughts by reviewing what he’d learned so far about J. D. Cade. Which only forced him to admit he hadn’t found anything suspicious in the man’s background. Cade had been in the army, but he’d had an innocuous, noncombatant job. He had money, but he’d made it honestly. He had no criminal record, not even a driving violation. He was divorced, but so was DeVito He had a son—and that was the one

moment when DeVito knew he’d gotten a rise out of Cade, when he’d brought up his kid—but if Cade was everything he seemed to be, he had reason to get pissed at the idea that DeVito might go messing with his family.

If it wasn’t for the guy’s cool, cocksure attitude, which DeVito took pretty much as a challenge, the special agent might have gone on to other concerns.

But now that he’d learned those two new snoops were following Cade, he thought he’d better look into that situation a little further.

He woke up the computer and it asked him for his password. He flipped the keyboard up and saw the password was taped to the bottom of it. Same place he kept his.

He pulled up a current table of organization for the Treasury Department…

and there it was, meekly tucked away in a corner. Departmental Internal Management and Oversight (DEIMOS). He clicked on its link and found it had been added to the bureaucracy at the beginning of the year.

A listing of its personnel included the names Arnold Roth and William Danby.

Next he checked the list of agents on the expanded protection detail for Orpheus. Neither Roth’s nor Danby’s name appeared there. So the two snoops were with but not officially part of the Rawley campaign. That gave DeVito a very uneasy feeling.

Who the hell were these guys? he wondered.

If they were on hand to be looking over the Secret Service’s shoulder, why would they be interested in J. D. Cade? He was just a campaign contributor.

Or was he? Maybe, DeVito thought, he should look harder into the life and times of J. D. Cade.

Look into Roth and Danby some more, too.

Evan Cade and Blair McCray agreed that Deena Nokes was no early riser, so it was early afternoon before they set off for her trailer. They followed her directions south on state Highway 51 to an unmarked dirt road that lay halfway between Carbondale and Anna. The lane led directly into the Shawnee National Forest and was barely wide enough for Blair’s truck, but a half mile along the path they came to a small clearing containing two dwellings.