Exclusive (39 page)

"Well of course he was," David said smoothly. "I too have become increasingly disturbed by Mr. Martin's absence. What I don't understand is why Mr. Yancey is looking for Mr. Bondurant."

"Sir, Bondurant recently told Senator Armbruster that Mr. Martin had been to his place in Wyoming. As far as anyone can tell, that was the last report on Mr. Martin's whereabouts."

"Has Mr. Bondurant been apprehended?"

"Not yet, sir."

"Keep me posted."

"Of course, Mr. President."

"And track down Mr. Yancey. I wish to speak to him immediately."

"Certainly, sir. I'll convey the message right away."

David disconnected. "Well, do you want to suddenly reappear and put a stop to this nonsense?"

Spence paced for a moment. "No. I can operate better if I'm not visible.

But I'll order my men to look the other way

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if they spot Gray. We sure as hell don't want him questioned by the FBI or Yancey."

"Yancey," David repeated with rank dislike.

William Yancey had seemed the perfect man for the position of attorney general in the Merritt administration. Ten years David's junior, he was as young and aggressive as Robert Kennedy had been when his older brother appointed him to that job. Like Kennedy, Yancey had distinguished himself in criminal prosecution, both in state and federal jurisdictions. He was charismatic, attractive, and articulate. So David had asked him to sign on, and he'd regretted it ever since. Yancey was too sharp, too industrious, too honest. Yancey and Bondurant would be a dangerous pairing of like minds.

"As soon as Gray sees this news story, what's to stop him from strolling into Yancey's office and volunteering that you're buried in his root cellar?"

"He won't do that."

"Why not?"

"First, because it would put him out of commission. At least temporarily.

He'd have to explain why he shot me and imprisoned me in his cellar. It would take time to get to the bottom of that, time that Gray doesn't want to spend. Second, when he saw Howie Fripp's body, it was a good as a calling card. Gray knows I'm no longer in that cellar."

David frowned. "Timing's suddenly become critical, hasn't it?"

"Very."

"Dammit, we don't need this," he said angrily. "What the hell was Clete thinking?"

Spence indicated the telephone. "I suggest you ask him."

"I really don't understand why you're so upset, David,"

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Clete said, flicking his cigar ashes into a china ashtray bearing the presidential seal.

The senator had responded immediately to the President's summons. With the complete understanding that an enraged David Merritt was waiting for him, he'd approached the meeting in an upbeat frame of mind. Pulling off a tricky double-cross always put him in a good mood.

David was shitting bricks over this matter of Spence and Bondurant, just as Clete had known he would. David certainly didn't want Bondurant to go on record as saying that Spence had been dispatched to assassinate him.

Naturally, he would deny any such claims and turn the tables on Bondurant by calling him a traitor and a murderer.

But the damage would already be done, and it would be irreparable. Seeds of doubt would already have been planted in the public's mind. Prior to an election year, this was sticky business for an incumbent. The opposition party would have a field day pointing out to an impressionable public the shady kind of characters their president surrounded himself with. By betraying Gray Bondurant, Clete had made an enemy, but the man was expendable. Barrie Travis certainly was. He'd sliced-and-diced her credibility all to hell after that scene in the hospital morgue.

Even though they had David Merritt dead to rights, Clete had no qualms about stymieing their efforts. He couldn't have those two loose cannons running around causing mishaps, jeopardizing his own plans to destroy David.

There was also the outside chance that, in their bumbling fashion, they would stumble across the Becky Sturgis affair. That would unquestionably ruin the President. But it would also ruin Clete Armbruster. In the line-up of his priorities, self-preservation was second only to power. So, to keep Bondurant and the reporter occupied, he'd clued Attorney General Yancey to the fact that the former

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recon was the last person known to have seen Spencer Martin alive. Now that they'd been derailed, Clete's aim was straight. He had to get Vanessa healthy and away from David permanently, then destroy him.

Meanwhile, David was on a verbal rampage. "Without discussing it with me first-"

"I've been trying for days to discuss it with you," Clete interrupted.

"You haven't taken my calls. You were in Georgia yesterday. This afternoon you had that meeting-"

"I know what my agenda was, Clete. You could have waited until I was free before calling Yancey."

"On the contrary, David. I did not feel that this could wait any longer.

People have been asking about Spence."

"What people?"

"People on your own staff. People to whom his absence is noticeable.

You've been distracted, so they've come to me."

"Why you?"

"Because you and I are so close." Clete let the statement lie there like a gauntlet, daring David to pick it up. "Everyone assumes that you share your thoughts and concerns with me. If you discussed Spence's unexplained absence with anyone, it would be with me." He puffed contentedly on his cigar.

"Gray told you that Spence had come to see him?"

"That's right. The night I met him and the Travis broad in Shinlin."

"There was so much going on that night, how did Spence's name even enter into the conversation?"

Clete frowned as though trying to remember. "I can't exactly recall. Best as I remember, it was a casual reference. I probably wouldn't have thought of it again if Spence had reappeared. But he hasn't, and it doesn't look like he's going to. I did some snooping. His mail's backed up. Nobody in his apartment building has seen him in weeks. He hasn't EXCLUSIVE 351

returned phone calls. Looks like he went to Wyoming and got swallowed by a Teton, doesn't it? Appears that Bondurant was the last person to see him."

David laughed. "That language has such sinister overtones, Clete. Are you suggesting that Gray killed Spence?"

"Do you have another explanation?"

"That's ridiculous."

"Is it?"

"Yes," David replied testily.

"Yancey doesn't seem to think so."

"Yancey. I had reservations about appointing him. I wish now I'd heeded them."

Clete chuckled. "Because he's much like Bondurant. Always in your face over something. He doesn't kowtow like the rest of them. In any event, he talked to somebody over in the FBI criminal division, who agreed that a little chat with Mr. Bondurant is in order."

Clete stuck the cigar in the corner of his mouth, moved to the liquor cabinet, and poured himself a straight scotch. He held the cut crystal tumbler in front of a lamp and studied the play of light through the facets. "When they question Bondurant, I wonder how much he'll tell them about Spence's visit to Wyoming."

He turned and looked pointedly at his son-in-law. The two men exchanged a long stare. David was the first to smile, in grudging respect for his shrewd mentor. "So you know. Gray told you."

"That you sent Spence there to kill him? Yes, he told me. Makes one wonder what else he knows---or thinks he knows'-that you'd rather keep quiet."

David sat down on a divan and crossed one ankle over the opposite knee.

Clete wasn't fooled by David's seeming insouciance. He wasn't nearly as relaxed as he wished to appear.

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"What do you want, Clete? I know you too well. You didn't orchestrate this bullshit FBI investigation on a whim. You for damn sure didn't do it out of concern for Spence. Then why? What is it you want?"

"My daughter."

"My wife, you mean."

"You're ruining Vanessa's life. I won't let it happen."

"Where Vanessa is concerned, my wishes as her husband take precedence over yours, Clete. Let me assure you that she is in excellent hands."

"Where? Allan's lake house again?"

"Her condition became much too serious to be treated there. She flipped out one morning. George had no choice. He had to remove her to a nursing facility."

"Which facility?"

"Tabor House."

"The detox hospital?"

"He knew her privacy would be guaranteed there." David got up, crossed to his desk, and retrieved a slip of paper from the middle drawer. "Here's the number. Call it if you don't believe me."

Clete snatched the paper from him and asked the White House operator to place the call. While he waited, he slammed back the scotch. Finally a mellifluous voice answered. "Tabor House."

"This is Senator Clete Armbruster. Let me speak to whoever's in charge."

"One moment, please."

Soft music played in his ear as he waited for the call to be directed. He wondered if this really was a telephone line to the exclusive substance-abuse hospital or if David was tricking him.

"Clete? I've been expecting to hear from you. The President told me you'd be calling."

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He recognized the voice. Dr. Dexter Leopold, former surgeon general, now administrator of Tabor House. "Hello, Dex. How's my daughter?"

"I'll be perfectly honest with you, Clete. She was in bad shape when Dr.

Allan brought her here. Her medication wasn't working because she was drinking so heavily. But we've got it stabilized now, and she's much improved."

"Give her the best treatment available, Dex."

"That goes without saying."

"I want other doctors on her case, not just Allan."

There was a slight pause on the other end. "That would be awkward, Clete."

"I don't care how awkward it is."

"Dr. Allan is her physician of record. Until Mrs. Merritt herself--or President Merritt if she's incapable of making the decision-replaces him, I must recognize him as the physician in charge of her case."

Dex Leopold was reputed to be an honorable man, but David could have gotten to him somehow. If George Allan was slowly killing Vanessa, would Dr. Leopold look the other way? "Exactly where is Tabor House?" Clete asked. "I'd like to come see her tomorrow."

"I'm afraid I can't allow that, Clete," the doctor said gently. "You know the policy here. Absolutely no one except the patients and the staff are allowed on the premises. That's the only way we can protect our patients'

privacy and maintain the hospital's integrity. Seeing family can cause a setback, especially once the patient is medically healed and we're working on the psychological phase of recovery."

"But surely, Dex-"

"I'm sorry, Clete, no exceptions. Not even the President has been allowed to visit Mrs. Merritt, although he's asked to each time he's called. If I turn him down, I must say no to you too. It's what's best for Mrs.

Merritt, I assure you."

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Clete's eyes cut to David, who was watching him, his expression unperturbed.

"All right," Clete conceded. "I want Vanessa to be well again. She's had it rough ever since the baby died."

"So President Merritt informed me. He regrets not getting her into therapy following the baby's death. If she'd had counseling then, this crisis might have been avoided. But don't worry. We'll return her to you fully restored."

"You will if you know what's good for you," Clete said just before hanging up.

"Satisfied?" David asked.

"Not by a long shot." Clete strode to the door of the Oval Office. "Be very careful, David. I don't care how many people you've lined up to lie for you and do your dirty work, I'll have my daughter back, or else. A few weeks ago I reminded you that I put you here, and I can take you out." He snapped his fingers an inch from the President's nose. "Like that."

Chapter

ell before daylight, Clete headed downstairs to pour himself a cup of coffee. Before going to bed each night, he set the timer on the coffeemaker.

That first steaming cup always brought back cherished memories of his boyhood, before he knew how to spell politics or even what the word meant, before he learned that some men placed ambition and greed above honor, before he had become one of those men.

His father had been a tall, strong, quiet man to whom committing one crime to cover another would have been unthinkable. He'd had only a third-grade education, but he knew all the constellations and could calculate in record time the number of dots on the dominoes just played. He was slow to anger, but quick to defend an underdog in a fight.

He had served under General Patton in Germany. That's where he'd been killed and buried. But before the war he'd lived and worked as a wrangler on a cattle ranch in south Texas. During spring roundups, he would sometimes let young Clete ride along with him and the other cowboys.

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The most dangerous animals on the range weren't other men from whom you had to protect your back, but rattlers, spooked horses, and cranky longhorns. The days in the saddle were long, hard, and dusty. The nights were star-studded. At dawn every morning, before the workday began, the cowboys gathered around the campfire and drank cups of scalding, stout coffee.

After the war, his widowed mother moved them to Mississippi to live with her family. Clete had spent the remainder of his youth far from the cattle ranch, and the majority of his adult life in Washington, but sixty years later, he could still recapture the mingled smells of frying pork, and manure, and leather, and his father's cigarettes, handrolled as he hunkered down over breakfast under the sky. No coffee in the world had tasted as rotten as that camp coffee. None since had tasted as good. Clete had loved those mornings. He'd loved his father too. He remembered how glad he'd been to ride along beside him, and how the other men, no matter how tough, had treated his father with earned respect. How proud Clete-theboy had been to be his father's son.