Murder at Union Station (40 page)

“They’re drawing in the wagons, Chet?” the AG asked.

“You could say that,” Fletcher replied.

“I need to talk with you, Chet.”

“All right.”

“Not on the phone. I’ll be freed up by eleven. I’d appreciate you heading over here to Justice.”

“Tonight.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sure the president can spare you for an hour.”

“All right. I’ll be there.”

He called the president to inform him he would be away for an hour.

“The president has retired for the evening,” he was told by a staff member. “You’ll be with the attorney general if we need you?”

“Yes,” Fletcher said. He hadn’t said where he’d be; his meeting with Garson was obviously known to the Oval Office.

He arrived at the Justice Department a few minutes before eleven and was told the attorney general was wrapping up a meeting and would see him shortly. Ten minutes later, Assistant Attorney General Gertrude Klaus emerged from the office and walked past Fletcher, a quick smile her greeting.

“You can go in now, Mr. Fletcher,” the aide said.

Garson’s white shirt was open at the collar, a colorful flowered tie pulled loose from his neck. He wore black suspenders. Fletcher felt physically consumed by the big, strapping former Louisiana attorney general as he shook Fletcher’s hand and invited him to take one of two high-back red-leather chairs in a corner of the spacious office, at a glass-topped Chippendale table.

“Something to drink, Chet?” Garson, a teetotaler, kept an assortment of soft drinks on hand to offer guests.

“No, thank you, Wayne,” Fletcher said, adjusting himself to the chair’s contour.

“Hell of a day, huh?” said Garson, taking the other chair. His voice was deep and resonant, tinged with New Orleans.

“Yes.”

“Sorry to ask you here so late, Chet.”

“I understand.”

“I’m sure you’re aware, Chet, of how highly the president values your contributions and service to him and to the nation. I have to admit that even though I’ve been around politics most of my life, the subtleties escape me now and then. Good thing the president has people like you who understand what’s goin’ on.”

Garson sounded as though he was speaking off the cuff, saying what came to mind at the moment. Fletcher doubted it. The AG had decided what he would say long before Fletcher’s arrival, and had the ability to make predetermined speeches sound spontaneous, a useful talent for a politician. And Garson was a politician, regardless of claims or titles to the contrary.

“I appreciate the kind words, Wayne.”

“No kindness intended. Just speakin’ the truth. Look, Chet, to the chase. I’m sure you’ll appreciate that.”

Yes, please,
Fletcher thought. His fatigue was causing his mind to wander, to think of Gail home in bed and wanting to be with her.

“Know what I could never figure, Chet?”

“What?”

“Why somebody like you—I mean, hell, let’s be honest, you’re a brilliant man, got your Ph.D., written books, had a nice, cushy, relaxed job at a big university, married to a real nice woman, got a fine daughter, all of it—why somebody with all that would toss it over to get in the political rat race.”

Does he expect an explanation?

“None a my business, of course,” Garson said. “The important thing is that the president found himself someone of your caliber to help him advance his vision for this great country of ours.”

“It’s my pleasure to serve him.” It seemed the thing to say.

“And I want you to know, Chet, that the president and I are aware of the extraordinary steps you had to take to protect him against these scurrilous charges by this writer, Marienthal, and that liar, Russo.”

“. . . the president and I are aware . . .”

Translation: Whatever I say here has the blessing of the head man.

“Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.” Churchill’s words drifted through his consciousness.
How true,
he thought.

“You ever think about goin’ back to teaching, Chet?”

“Of course. One day—”

“I don’t mean four or five years down the road.” He laughed. “Hell, not one of us can see down that road very far, now can we? You’ve always struck me, Chet, as somebody who believed in sacrifice, willing to fall on the sword for the greater good. I admire that in a man.”

Fletcher felt light-headed. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes, put them on again. He hoped the attorney general wouldn’t say more. But he did.

“So much of what we have to do in government involves weighing one thing against the other, doesn’t it, Chet? I get a lot of flak for beefing up security to keep the terrorists from hitting us again, for keeping prisoners of war locked up, and such, even looking at library cards, see what people are readin’ or researching. They say I’m trampling on civil liberties. But what’s the alternative? Let the bastards kill more Americans? The American people put us in office to make those sort of tough decisions. If we’re not up to the task, we shouldn’t be here. Agree?”

“Yes.”

“Still, I was personally appalled to see Mr. Russo gunned down like that in our Union Station. I suppose he asked for it, ratting out his buddies the way he did and going underground or to Israel. Same thing. But when I view it in the larger scheme of things, there’s only one conclusion to come to: The life of a bottom-feeder like Russo doesn’t mean much when you compare it to the damage he might have done to a great president. That’s what I mean by having to weigh things. That’s what you had to do, Chet, and you made the right decision.”

The right decision.

How many meetings had there been on that subject of Russo and the Widmer hearings once there was a whiff of information about the allegation against the president? Four? Five? They’d taken place around Washington, away from the White House or major agencies, in hotel rooms and private homes, small groups, the lid on tight, the agenda secret until those from the administration or agency representatives with unquestioned loyalty to the White House were behind secure doors.

Strategies had been offered on how to derail the Widmer hearings and Russo’s testimony. They ranged from launching an aggressive public relations campaign to digging into the pasts of Republicans on the subcommittee in the hope of turning up damaging dirt on them; smearing the writer of the book and his subject, Russo, to more aggressive solutions, including buying Russo and the writer off or letting Russo’s former criminal colleagues know of his plan to travel to the United States and stoking the need for revenge.

During this intense period of meetings, he’d received a call from someone at the CIA, Mark Roper, who said it was urgent that they meet. A call to Garson confirmed for Fletcher that a meeting with Roper might be useful.

They met just after dark one evening in a cutout on the Washington Memorial Parkway, across from Theodore Roosevelt Island. Clandestine after-dark meetings with members of the nation’s lead intelligence agency were not something with which Fletcher was comfortable. Roper, who struck Fletcher as surprisingly young, climbed into the passenger seat of Fletcher’s Oldsmobile sedan, introduced himself, and said, “I know you’re busy, Mr. Fletcher, and I’ll take as little of your time as possible. We’ve analyzed the situation with this Russo and the Widmer hearings and have come to the conclusion that extreme steps might have to be taken. We’re also aware that you, above all others, are responsible for the president’s political life. I’m certain you agree that a second term is vitally important for the nation.”

“Extreme steps?”

“The details aren’t important, but time is. We know Russo plans to travel to Washington to testify. No matter how untrustworthy his testimony might be, its impact could be, in our opinion—and after careful analysis—severely damaging.”

Fletcher agreed with the CIA man’s statement. The potential political fallout for the man he served in the White House had caused sleepless nights and bouts of stomach distress. He nodded.

Roper looked out his window at a car that pulled into the same cutout, and saw it contained a young couple, probably looking for a place to neck. He turned to Fletcher. “We need your permission to take whatever action we deem necessary to protect the president.”

“
My
permission?”

“As the man most involved in preserving this presidency for the future.”

“Yes, I understand,” Fletcher said. “Yes, I—it must be stopped.”

Roper looked at him intently. “Your reputation isn’t exaggerated, Mr. Fletcher,” he said. “The president is in good hands.”

He left Fletcher’s car without saying another word, got into his own, and drove off. Fletcher stayed there for a few minutes until he felt he was intruding on what was going on behind the steamed-up windows of the other vehicle. As he drove home, he was tormented by what had transpired.
Extreme steps!
Did Roper mean something as extreme as doing physical harm to Russo? The thought was wrenching; it assaulted him physically, and he feared he might not be able to continue driving. But after sitting up alone and late in his home office and sipping a brandy from a seldom opened bottle, he’d calmed down and had a less dramatic perception of what Roper had meant. More comforting was the realization that it was out of his hands.

Initial reports that Russo had been killed by mobsters seeking revenge salved any pangs of conscience he might have suffered, allowing him to focus on his responsibility of guiding Adam Parmele to a deserved second term. The meeting with the CIA’s Roper had never happened.

The attorney general stood and came around behind Fletcher, placing large hands on the political adviser’s shoulders and kneading them. “Russo and Widmer and his hearings will die their natural death, Chet. Business as usual, which is what the country needs to go forward.” He released his grip on Fletcher and stood silently behind him. Fletcher didn’t move, feet planted on the floor, waiting to hear what was inevitable.

“The best way to put this behind the president, Chet, is for us to put some distance between you and the administration. The president will accept your resignation—for personal reasons. He’ll respect your wishes to spend more time with your family and to get back to the thing you love most, shaping the young minds of our future leaders. I’m sure you’ll have no problem lining up a job at a top university. And there’ll be the lecture circuit, Chet, after this dies down and blows away like dry seed in a gale.”

“I didn’t realize what would happen,” Fletcher said, realizing how feeble he sounded. “When I agreed to extreme measures, I—”

Garson came around to the front of the chair and loomed over Fletcher. “You’re a brave man, Chet Fletcher, and I admire brave men.”

Fletcher looked up and swallowed against bile in his throat. “In the same honor are held both the coward and the brave man,” he said. “The idle man and he who has done much meet death alike.”

Garson’s expression was quizzical. He smiled. “That’s true,” he said, although Fletcher doubted that the attorney general truly understood what he’d said.

Fletcher slowly got up and went to the door. He stopped, turned, and said, “The president knows?”

He was met with stony silence.

Fletcher returned to his office in the West Wing, closed the door behind him, sat behind his desk and reached into a drawer, withdrawing a sheet of paper carrying his letterhead. He uncapped a favorite Montblanc pen, and slowly, carefully, methodically wrote a letter of resignation, which he placed in an envelope, sealed, and wrote on it:
The President of the United States.
He locked the envelope in a drawer, pocketed the key, and drove home.