Chapter One
In the waning hours of a presidency that was destined to arouse less interest
from historians than any since perhaps that of William Henry Harrison (thirty-one
days from inauguration to death), Arthur Morgan huddled in the Oval Office with
his last remaining friend and pondered his final decisions. At that moment he
felt as though he'd botched every decision in the previous four years, and he
was not overly confident that he could, somehow, so late in the game, get things
right. His friend wasn't so sure either, though, as always, he said little and
whatever he did say was what the President wanted to hear.
They were about pardons-desperate pleas from thieves and embezzlers and liars,
some still in jail and some who'd never served time but who nonetheless wanted
their good names cleared and their beloved rights restored. All claimed to be
friends, or friends of friends, or die-hard supporters, though only a few had
ever gotten the chance to proclaim their support before that eleventh hour.
How sad that after four tumultuous years of leading the free world it would
all fizzle into one miserable pile of requests from a bunch of crooks. Which
thieves should be allowed to steal again? That was the momentous question facing
the President as the hours crept by.
The last friend was Critz, an old fraternity pal from their days at Cornell
when Morgan ran the student government while Critz stuffed the ballot boxes.
In the past four years, Critz had served as press secretary, chief of staff,
national security advisor, and even secretary of state, though that appointment
lasted for only three months and was hastily rescinded when Critz's unique style
of diplomacy nearly ignited World War III. Critz's last appointment had taken
place the previous October, in the final frantic weeks of the reelection onslaught.
With the polls showing President Morgan trailing badly in at least forty states,
Critz seized control of the campaign and managed to alienate the rest of the
country, except, arguably, Alaska.
It had been a historic election; never before had an incumbent president received
so few electoral votes. Three to be exact, all from Alaska, the only state Morgan
had not visited, at Critz's advice. Five hundred and thirty-five for the challenger,
three for President Morgan. The word "landslide" did not even begin
to capture the enormity of the shellacking.
Once the votes were counted, the challenger, following bad advice, decided
to contest the results in Alaska. Why not go for all 538 electoral votes? he
reasoned. Never again would a candidate for the presidency have the opportunity
to completely whitewash his opponent, to throw the mother of all shutouts. For
six weeks the President suffered even more while lawsuits raged in Alaska. When
the Supreme Court there eventually awarded him the state's three electoral votes,
he and Critz had a very quiet bottle of champagne.
President Morgan had become enamored of Alaska, even though the certified results
gave him a scant seventeen-vote margin.
He should have avoided more states.
He even lost Delaware, his home, where the once-enlightened electorate had
allowed him to serve eight wonderful years as governor. Just as he had never
found the time to visit Alaska, his opponent had totally ignored Delaware-no
organization to speak of, no television ads, not a single campaign stop. And
his opponent still took 52 percent of the vote!
Critz sat in a thick leather chair and held a notepad with a list of a hundred
things that needed to be done immediately. He watched his President move slowly
from one window to the next, peering into the darkness, dreaming of what might
have been. The man was depressed and humiliated. At fifty-eight his life was
over, his career a wreck, his marriage crumbling. Mrs. Morgan had already moved
back to Wilmington and was openly laughing at the idea of living in a cabin
in Alaska. Critz had secret doubts about his friend's ability to hunt and fish
for the rest of his life, but the prospect of living two thousand miles from
Mrs. Morgan was very appealing. They might have carried Nebraska if the rather
blue-blooded First Lady had not referred to the football team as the "Sooners."
The Nebraska Sooners!
Overnight, Morgan fell so far in the polls in both Nebraska and Oklahoma that
he never recovered.
And in Texas she took a bite of prizewinning chili and began vomiting. As she
was rushed to the hospital a microphone captured her still-famous words: "How
can you backward people eat such a putrid mess?"
Nebraska has five electoral votes. Texas has thirty-four. Insulting the local
football team was a mistake they could have survived. But no candidate could
overcome such a belittling description of Texas chili.
What a campaign! Critz was tempted to write a book. Someone needed to record
the disaster.
Their partnership of almost forty years was ending. Critz had lined up a job
with a defense contractor for $200,000 a year, and he would hit the lecture
circuit at $50,000 a speech if anybody was desperate enough to pay it. After
dedicating his life to public service, he was broke and aging quickly and anxious
to make a buck.
The President had sold his handsome home in Georgetown for a huge profit. He'd
bought a small ranch in Alaska, where the people evidently admired him. He planned
to spend the rest of his days there, hunting, fishing, perhaps writing his memoirs.
Whatever he did in Alaska, it would have nothing to do with politics and Washington.
He would not be the senior statesman, the grand old man of anybody's party,
the sage voice of experience. No farewell tours, convention speeches, endowed
chairs of political science. No presidential library. The people had spoken
with a clear and thunderous voice. If they didn't want him, then he could certainly
live without them.
"We need to make a decision about Cuccinello," Critz said. The President
was still standing at a window, looking at nothing in the darkness, still pondering
Delaware. "Who?"
"Figgy Cuccinello, that movie director who was indicted for having sex
with a young starlet."
"How young?"
"Fifteen, I think."
"That's pretty young."
"Yes, it is. He fled to Argentina where's he's been for ten years. Now
he's homesick, wants to come back and start making dreadful movies again. He
says his art is calling him home."
"Perhaps the young girls are calling him home."
"That too."
"Seventeen wouldn't bother me. Fifteen's too young."
"His offer is up to five million."
The President turned and looked at Critz. "He's offering five million
for a pardon?"
"Yes, and he needs to move quickly. The money has to be wired out of Switzerland.
It's three in the morning over there."
"Where would it go?"
"We have accounts offshore. It's easy."
"What would the press do?"
"It would be ugly."
"It's always ugly."
"This would be especially ugly."
"I really don't care about the press," Morgan said.
Then why did you ask? Critz wanted to say.
"Can the money be traced?" the President asked and turned back to
the window.
"No."
With his right hand, the President began scratching the back of his neck, something
he always did when wrestling with a difficult decision. Ten minutes before he
almost nuked North Korea, he'd scratched until the skin broke and blood oozed
onto the collar of his white shirt. "The answer is no," he said. "Fifteen
is too young."
Without a knock, the door opened and Artie Morgan, the President's son, barged
in holding a Heineken in one hand and some papers in the other. "Just talked
to the CIA," he said casually. He wore faded jeans and no socks. "Maynard's
on the way over." He dumped the papers on the desk and left the room, slamming
the door behind him.
Artie would take the $5 million without hesitation, Critz thought to himself,
regardless of the girl's age. Fifteen was certainly not too young for Artie.
They might have carried Kansas if Artie hadn't been caught in a Topeka motel
room with three cheerleaders, the oldest of whom was seventeen. A grandstanding
prosecutor had finally dropped the charges-two days after the election-when
all three girls signed affidavits claiming they had not had sex with Artie.
They were about to, in fact had been just seconds away from all manner of frolicking,
when one of their mothers knocked on the motel room door and prevented an orgy.
The President sat in his leather rocker and pretended to flip through some
useless papers. "What's the latest on Backman?" he asked.
In his eighteen years as director of the CIA, Teddy Maynard had been to the
White House less than ten times. And never for dinner (he always declined for
health reasons), and never to say howdy to a foreign hotshot (he couldn't have
cared less). Back when he could walk, he had occasionally stopped by to confer
with whoever happened to be president, and perhaps one or two of his policy
makers. Now, since he was in a wheelchair, his conversations with the White
House were by phone. Twice, a vice president had actually been driven out to
Langley to meet with Mr. Maynard.
The only advantage of being in a wheelchair was that it provided a wonderful
excuse to go or stay or do whatever he damn well pleased. No one wanted to push
around an old crippled man.
A spy for almost fifty years, he now preferred the luxury of looking directly
behind himself when he moved about. He traveled in an unmarked white van-bulletproof
glass, lead walls, two heavily armed boys perched behind the heavily armed driver-with
his wheelchair clamped to the floor in the rear and facing back, so that Teddy
could see the traffic that could not see him. Two other vans followed at a distance,
and any misguided attempt to get near the director would be instantly terminated.
None was expected. Most of the world thought Teddy Maynard was either dead or
idling away his final days in some secret nursing home where old spies were
sent to die.
Teddy wanted it that way.
He was wrapped in a heavy gray quilt, and tended to by Hoby, his faithful aide.
As the van moved along the Beltway at a constant sixty miles an hour, Teddy
sipped green tea poured from a thermos by Hoby, and watched the cars behind
them. Hoby sat next to the wheelchair on a leather stool made especially for
him.
A sip of tea and Teddy said, "Where's Backman right now?"
"In his cell," Hoby answered.
"And our people are with the warden?"
"They're sitting in his office, waiting."
Another sip from a paper cup, one carefully guarded with both hands. The hands
were frail, veiny, the color of skim milk, as if they had already died and were
patiently waiting for the rest of the body. "How long will it take to get
him out of the country?"
"About four hours."
"And the plan is in place?"
"Everything is ready. We're waiting on the green light."
"I hope this moron can see it my way."
Critz and the moron were staring at the walls of the Oval Office, their heavy
silence broken occasionally by a comment about Joel Backman. They had to talk
about something, because neither would mention what was really on his mind.
Can this be happening?
Is this finally the end?
Forty years. From Cornell to the Oval Office. The end was so abrupt that they
had not had enough time to properly prepare for it. They had been counting on
four more years. Four years of glory as they carefully crafted a legacy, then
rode gallantly into the sunset.
Though it was late, it seemed to grow even darker outside. The windows that
overlooked the Rose Garden were black. A clock above the fireplace could almost
be heard as it ticked nonstop in its final countdown.
"What will the press do if I pardon Backman?" the President asked,
not for the first time.
"Go berserk."
"That might be fun."
"You won't be around."
"No, I won't." After the transfer of power at noon the next day,
his escape from Washington would begin with a private jet (owned by an oil company)
to an old friend's villa on the island of Barbados. At Morgan's instructions,
the televisions had been removed from the villa, no newspapers or magazines
would be delivered, and all phones had been unplugged. He would have no contact
with anyone, not even Critz, and especially not Mrs. Morgan, for at least a
month. He wouldn't care if Washington burned. In fact, he secretly hoped that
it would.
After Barbados, he would sneak up to his cabin in Alaska, and there he would
continue to ignore the world as the winter passed and he waited on spring.
"Should we pardon him?" the President asked.
"Probably," Critz said.
The President had shifted to the "we" mode now, something he invariably
did when a potentially unpopular decision was at hand. For the easy ones, it
was always "I." When he needed a crutch, and especially when he would
need someone to blame, he opened up the decision-making process and included
Critz.
Critz had been taking the blame for forty years, and though he was certainly
used to it, he was nonetheless tired of it. He said, "There's a very good
chance we wouldn't be here had it not been for Joel Backman."
"You may be right about that," the President said. He had always
maintained that he had been elected because of his brilliant campaigning, charismatic
personality, uncanny grasp of the issues, and clear vision for America. To finally
admit that he owed anything to Joel Backman was almost shocking.
But Critz was too calloused, and too tired, to be shocked.
Six years ago, the Backman scandal had engulfed much of Washington and eventually
tainted the White House. A cloud appeared over a popular president, paving the
way for Arthur Morgan to stumble his way into the White House.
Now that he was stumbling out, he relished the idea of one last arbitrary slap
in the face to the Washington establishment that had shunned him for four years.
A reprieve for Joel Backman would rattle the walls of every office building
in D.C. and shock the press into a blathering frenzy. Morgan liked the idea.
While he sunned away on Barbados the city would gridlock once again as congressmen
demanded hearings and prosecutors performed for the cameras and the insufferable
talking heads prattled nonstop on cable news.
The President smiled into the darkness.
On the Arlington Memorial Bridge, over the Potomac River, Hoby refilled the
director's paper cup with green tea. "Thank you," Teddy said softly.
"What's our boy doing tomorrow when he leaves office?" he asked.
"Fleeing the country."
"He should've left sooner."
"He plans to spend a month in the Caribbean, licking his wounds, ignoring
the world, pouting, waiting for someone to show some interest."
"And Mrs. Morgan?"
"She's already back in Delaware playing bridge."
"Are they splitting?"
"If he's smart. Who knows?"
Teddy took a careful sip of tea. "So what's our leverage if Morgan balks?"
"I don't think he'll balk. The preliminary talks have gone well. Critz
seems to be on board. He has a much better feel of things now than Morgan. Critz
knows that they would've never seen the Oval Office had it not been for the
Backman scandal."
"As I said, what's our leverage if he balks?"
"None, really. He's an idiot, but he's a clean one."
They turned off Constitution Avenue onto 18th Street and were soon entering
the east gate of the White House. Men with machine guns materialized from the
darkness, then Secret Service agents in black trench coats stopped the van.
Code words were used, radios squawked, and within minutes Teddy was being lowered
from the van. Inside, a cursory search of his wheelchair revealed nothing but
a crippled and bundled-up old man.
Artie, minus the Heineken, and again without knocking, poked his head through
the door and announced: "Maynard's here."
"So he's alive," the President said.
"Barely."
"Then roll him in."
Hoby and a deputy named Priddy followed the wheelchair into the Oval Office.
The President and Critz welcomed their guests and directed them to the sitting
area in front of the fireplace. Though Maynard avoided the White House, Priddy
practically lived there, briefing the President every morning on intelligence
matters.
As they settled in, Teddy glanced around the room, as if looking for bugs and
listening devices. He was almost certain there were none; that practice had
ended with Watergate. Nixon laid enough wire in the White House to juice a small
city, but, of course, he paid for it. Teddy, however, was wired. Carefully hidden
above the axle of his wheelchair, just inches below his seat, was a powerful
recorder that would capture every sound made during the next thirty minutes.
He tried to smile at President Morgan, but he wanted to say something like:
You are without a doubt the most limited politician I have ever encountered.
Only in America could a moron like you make it to the top.
President Morgan smiled at Teddy Maynard, but he wanted to say something like:
I should have fired you four years ago. Your agency has been a constant embarrassment
to this country.
Teddy: I was shocked when you carried a single state, albeit by seventeen votes.
Morgan: You couldn't find a terrorist if he advertised on a billboard.
Teddy: Happy fishing. You'll get even fewer trout than votes.
Morgan: Why didn't you just die, like everyone promised me you would?
Teddy: Presidents come and go, but I never leave.
Morgan: It was Critz who wanted to keep you. Thank him for your job. I wanted
to sack your ass two weeks after my inauguration.
Critz said loudly, "Coffee anyone?"
Teddy said, "No," and as soon as that was established, Hoby and Priddy
likewise declined. And because the CIA wanted no coffee, President Morgan said,
"Yes, black with two sugars." Critz nodded at a secretary who was
waiting in a half-opened side door.
He turned back to the gathering and said, "We don't have a lot of time."
Teddy said quickly, "I'm here to discuss Joel Backman."
"Yes, that's why you're here," the President said.
"As you know," Teddy continued, almost ignoring the President,
"Mr. Backman went to prison without saying a word. He still carries some
secrets that, frankly, could compromise national security."
"You can't kill him," Critz blurted.
"We cannot target American citizens, Mr. Critz. It's against the law.
We prefer that someone else do it."
"I don't follow," the President said.
"Here's the plan. If you pardon Mr. Backman, and if he accepts the pardon,
then we will have him out of the country in a matter of hours. He must agree
to spend the rest of his life in hiding. This should not be a problem because
there are several people who would like to see him dead, and he knows it. We'll
relocate him to a foreign country, probably in Europe where he'll be easier
to watch. He'll have a new identity. He'll be a free man, and with time people
will forget about Joel Backman."
"That's not the end of the story," Critz said.
"No. We'll wait, perhaps a year or so, then we'll leak the word in the
right places. They'll find Mr. Backman, and they'll kill him, and when they
do so, many of our questions will be answered."
A long pause as Teddy looked at Critz, then the President. When he was convinced
they were thoroughly confused, he continued. "It's a very simple plan,
gentlemen. It's a question of who kills him."
"So you'll be watching?" Critz asked.
"Very closely."
"Who's after him?" the President asked.
Teddy refolded his veiny hands and recoiled a bit, then he looked down his
long nose like a schoolteacher addressing his little third graders. "Perhaps
the Russians, the Chinese, maybe the Israelis. There could be others."
Of course there were others, but no one expected Teddy to reveal everything
he knew. He never had; never would, regardless of who was president and regardless
of how much time he had left in the Oval Office. They came and went, some for
four years, others for eight. Some loved the espionage, others were only concerned
with the latest polls. Morgan had been particularly inept at foreign policy,
and with a few hours remaining in his administration, Teddy certainly was not
going to divulge any more than was necessary to get the pardon.
"Why would Backman take such a deal?" Critz asked.
"He may not," Teddy answered. "But he's been in solitary confinement
for six years. That's twenty-three hours a day in a tiny cell. One hour of sunshine.
Three showers a week. Bad food-they say he's lost sixty pounds. I hear he's
not doing too well."
Two months ago, after the landslide, when Teddy Maynard conceived this pardon
scheme, he had pulled a few of his many strings and Backman's confinement had
grown much worse. The temperature in his cell was lowered ten degrees, and for
the past month he'd had a terrible cough. His food, bland at best, had been
run through the processor again and was being served cold. His toilet flushed
about half the time. The guards woke him up at all hours of the night. His phone
privileges were curtailed. The law library that he used twice a week was suddenly
off-limits. Backman, a lawyer, knew his rights, and he was threatening all manner
of litigation against the prison and the government, though he had yet to file
suit. The fight was taking its toll. He was demanding sleeping pills and Prozac.
"You want me to pardon Joel Backman so you can arrange for him to be murdered?"
the President asked.
"Yes," Teddy said bluntly. "But we won't actually arrange it."
"But it'll happen."
"Yes."
"And his death will be in the best interests of our national security?"
"I firmly believe that."
Copyright ©
2005 by Belfry Holdings, Inc.