The Rose Conspiracy (16 page)

“Well?”

“So I've got a name for you—Senator Bo Collings. You know him?”

Now he had Blackstone's full attention.

“Senator from Arkansas?” Blackstone said.

“That's him. He's on his fourth term, something like that. Permanent fixture in Congress. Like the statues in the Rotunda. Approval ratings in his home state around 70 percent, so the guy's got permanent job security.”

“How is he involved in this thing?”

“I know somebody who knows somebody who works in Hartz's office,”
Tully said. “They tell me that there was a call that came to Henry Hartz from Senator Collings
personally.
Right before Hartz filed his motion to keep you from sharing the contents of the Langley note with anyone else on the face of the earth.”

“Wow—that's pretty thin, Tully.”

“Hey, stay with me here,” Tully blurted out. “It turns out that the good senator sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. From what I hear, he leaned real heavy on prosecutor Hartz, basically telling him that if Hartz didn't file his motion then Senator Collings would make sure that his legal career would end up like something you'd scrape off the bottom of your shoe.”

“Okay, now the fog clears.”

“One more thing,” Tully announced proudly.

“Let me guess,” Blackstone said. “Bo Collings, senator from Arkansas, is a Confederate sympathizer?”

“Oh, way better than that. The guy's a Freemason. Finding that out was the toughest part of the assignment, by the way.”

“Any connection between Senator Collings and Lord Dee over in England?” Blackstone asked.

“I checked that—nothing came up yet.”

“Can you use your source to get me a meeting with Collings?”

“Sorry,” Tully said with a tone of finality. “The well's completely dry on this one.”

Blackstone thanked Tully, and after he hung up the phone he buzzed Julia to come in. After they talked over a few of her cases, he got to the point.

“Do you know anybody in Senator Bo Collings' office?”

“J.D., why are you asking me? You're the one with all the connections on the Hill. You've represented how many of them over the years? At least one U.S. senator and two congressmen by my count.”

“Yeah, but no one close to Collings. Besides, the senators I know are all on the opposite side of the political aisle, including the ones I know on Judiciary, where Collings is ranking member.”

“Well, I do know a woman lawyer on Judiciary. She and I were fairly tight back when I was in the Office of Legal Counsel for the Agency. Not exactly gal-pals, but the two of us worked together on some common
issues that came up during Judiciary Committee hearings. Besides that, her dad and mine knew each other while serving in Vietnam.”

“Call her ASAP,” Blackstone said. “I need a face-to-face with Collings.”

“Tall order. Hard to do, as you know.”

“Then tell her I'd even settle for a polite ambush. I just need to courteously get into Senator Collings face somehow.”

Three hours later, when it was early evening, Julia swept into Blackstone's office.

“Done,” she announced with a little tilt to her head, the same way she'd do when she was telling Blackstone about her latest victory in court.

“Great—when, where?”

“Not a regular meeting,” she explained. “This is going to be a stand-up deal, on the run. Collings has a vote on the floor tomorrow. You will meet him on his way to the Senate chambers.”

“What's the vote on?”

“The farm bill,” she said.

“Tell me more.”

“Oh, gee, what else did she tell me?” Julia was thinking out loud. “I think there's a nongermane rider some senator attached to the bill, a bill for protecting horses from abuse during rodeos. Somebody's pet issue. But it kicked up a little dust during floor debate, I guess. Anyway, that's all I know.”

Julia was still standing in the doorway of his office. She leaned against the door frame, crossing her legs a little nervously, then brushed something off her skirt and glanced down, trying to look nonchalant.

After a few seconds of silence Blackstone smiled and asked her a question.

“How's life?”

“Is that a professional or a personal question?”

“Oh, I don't know. Let's not try to cubbyhole it. Just want to know how you are doing.”

“I'm doing fine,” she said.

“
Fine.
That's one of those words, a kind of idiom that is perfectly meaningless,” Blackstone said. “Spoken by people who don't want to commit to really telling you something.”

“Okay, I am
exceptionally
fine. There, how's that?”

“Alright,” Blackstone said, “you win. I won't pursue it.”

But as Julia stood there, looking at him, she knew she had just been lied to. She hadn't won. Blackstone never just let someone else win. That wasn't part of who he was. He had said enough now to make her struggle over what his intentions really were. And she had told herself that she wouldn't play that game with him anymore.

She was about to leave, but then turned her head, swept some hair from her eyes, and adjusted her designer horn-rim glasses. And she asked him a question of her own.

“And how's life with you?”

Blackstone didn't look up from his computer. But he took a deep breath before he answered.

“Messy,” he said.

Julia was tempted to follow up on that. She wanted to, so much so that she had to fight the powerful urge to keep talking. To get J.D. Blackstone to open up. To connect. Like the two of them had once, in the past, deeply. Intimately. But she fought back against the urge.

Instead of talking, she pushed herself off the door frame and quietly walked away.

CHAPTER 23

T
he next day Blackstone took a cab over to the Hill. He passed through security in the Capitol Building, and then inside, on the lower level, met a staffer from Senator Collings's office who had been given the word from Julia's contact. The staffer had been given the impression that Blackstone was a lobbyist for an agricultural association.

He greeted Blackstone warmly and led him to the underground tram that ran to just below the Senate chambers. As they whizzed through the tunnel connecting the two houses of Congress and the central Capitol building, the staffer asked a few polite questions about agriculture. Blackstone smiled a lot, but pretended not to hear most of his questions over the noise of the speeding tram car.

When they came to a halt, the two of them climbed out, along with a few other senators and congressional aides who had been riding with them. Then Blackstone and the staffer headed up the marble stairs.

At the top of the stairway there was a corridor jammed with middle-aged men in dark suits, pressed white shirts, and moderately pricey silk ties. Most of them had aides standing dutifully by.

The staffer walked Blackstone through the crowd and approached a large, pear-shaped man in his early sixties wearing a dark blue suit. He had a shock of white hair that was carefully combed and moussed. Next to him was a young aide with a folder.

“Senator Collings,” the staffer began, “this is—”

“Blackstone—J.D.—so very glad to meet you,” Blackstone said warmly and shook his hand.

Senator Collings smiled broadly, but as he did, Blackstone could see something in his eyes that said that he had some vague recognition of the name. And it wasn't good. But that didn't stop Collings from keeping the smile firmly fixed on his face as they began talking.

“Farm bill, important to the USA,” Blackstone began.

“Yes, of course,” Collings replied. “We'll get it passed as soon as we get rid of this ‘horse rider' attached to it…no pun intended.”

“None taken,” Blackstone said wryly. “Now, I am a horse lover myself.”

“And you are with?” Collings's aide chirped out, happy to do the dirty work for his boss by asking the uncomfortable but all too necessary initial questions about constituency and power and lobby connections.

“Oh, I didn't say, did I?” Blackstone responded with a smile. “Now, Senator, I was saying that, myself, I am a horse lover.”

“I am not opposed to laws protecting animals from cruelty or abuse,” Collings said in a rich baritone voice. “I am real proud of my record on animal experimentation. But this horse and rodeo protection bill simply doesn't belong on this farm legislation. It needs to be voted on as a stand-alone bill.”

“And of course, Arkansas, your home state, has its share of rodeos too,” Blackstone added. “Now as for me, I own a six-year-old Arabian. Black as night and as strong a horse as I've ever seen. Great endurance-racing animal. You, Senator—I know you are a fan of quarterhorses and thoroughbreds. And you own several of each, I understand.”

“Yes. Well,” the Senator said looking around and edging himself away. “I've enjoyed this chat with y'all, but we've got a vote coming up.”

But Blackstone walked right behind him and kept talking.

“Now if your best thoroughbred and my Arabian were to face off in a race, I'm sure on the short course you'd win hands down. But on the long stretch, a couple miles or more, my Arabian would leave your horse panting and foaming at the mouth. You see, Senator, I'm in this for the long haul—the long race.”

Then Blackstone moved up right next to Senator Collings and lowered his voice.

“I want to know why you are meddling in the Smithsonian murder case, Senator. And why you are making calls to the AUSA who is
prosecuting that case, pressuring him to make things harder for me to defend my client. And I intend to ride those questions to the very end until I get some answers.”

“I don't know who you think you are,” Collings snapped back. Then the lights came on.

“Of course, Blackstone,” the Senator said. He moved away from his aide and took Blackstone by the arm until the two of them were up against a wall, alone, below an oil painting.

“Now, y'all listen up,” Collings said with a deep Southern growl, all the senatorial niceties evaporating. “With this little stunt today, you talking to me like you did here, I could have you before a lawyer ethics panel in no time flat. Intimidation of a witness. Obstruction of justice. I could have your law license in my pocket, boy. Or something even worse. You need to know that.”

“You didn't answer my question, Senator,” Blackstone replied calmly. “On the other hand, maybe you did. Intimidation of a witness—does that mean that you are a potential witness in the Smithsonian case?”

“Just remember what I just told you,” Collings snapped and took a step back from the lawyer.

Blackstone stepped away from the wall and noticed the large oil painting over their heads, one of General George Washington yielding up his sword as he retired from command of the Continental Army after the victory over the British Empire.

“Interesting thing about Mr. Washington,” Blackstone said to Collings. “His men wanted to make him a king. But he refused. Some in the first Congress wanted to give him the right to run for president without limitation. But he stopped at two terms.”

Then Blackstone added, in an even louder voice.

“There is something to be said about limiting the power of one man—wouldn't you agree, Senator?”

But Collings kept walking until he met up with his aide again and then joined the crush of senators who were making their way into the chambers.

CHAPTER 24