Presidential Deal (11 page)

Chapter 17

When Deal awoke, his head was slapping something hard, a regular, unfamiliar rhythm that sent a white jag of pain with its every beat. Everything was still dark, and he worried—
blindness, blindness
—until he felt the tight band of cloth wrapped around his head, and realized he’d been blindfolded.

He rolled his eyes upward, straining, could make out nothing. Then down. Little crescents of light there. Vague light. Nothing else.

He smelled gasoline, saltwater, realized the roaring in his head was coming from somewhere else. Engines. Big ones. Chevy blocks, most likely, and he could guess where he was.

Donzi, he thought. Or Cigarette. High on plane, the rhythm that of the hull slamming the waves every fifty feet or so. The kind of boat that did exactly one thing well: go fast at sea. And all the things that went with that, he thought. Even the man who had invented the things had been killed, shotgunned by mobsters outside his own fast boat factory.

Deal struggled to raise his cheek off the rough decking of the hold, felt a pain that turned his stomach over. He eased his head back down, aware now of the rope that circled his throat, that ran down the line of his spine to his knotted hands, then on to bind up his feet, his heels pressed deep in the flesh of his ass.
Trussed like a pig for slaughter
, he thought. And wondered why it hadn’t happened already.

He ran his tongue over his dry lips. They hadn’t gagged him. Whoever’d tied him knew that much, knew he might drown in his own vomit.

“Are you there?” he tried. He kept his voice low, which was absurd. He could shout at the top of his lungs, no one on deck could ever hear him. You could be standing up top, right beside whoever was at the wheel, you’d have to shout into his ear in order to be heard.

He tried shifting his legs cautiously, an inch at a time. The rope dug into his throat, but he could still breathe. He figured he’d moved himself about a foot along the thudding, vibrating floor when he felt something brush his hands.

He worked his numb wrists carefully inside the ropes, waited for sensation to return, found a lock of hair pressed between one thumb and forefinger. He held tight and leaned away. The cry that came bathed him in relief.
She’s alive
, he thought. And then he could see his old man nodding.
Of course you’re happy. Misery loves company. Everybody knows that
.

It took him at least twenty minutes to twist himself around without choking himself to death, get his head arranged by hers, swipe the side of his face about the decking until he managed to get a corner of the blindfold lifted enough to see. Her beige suit was a ruin of blood, bilgewater, soot. Her hair was a tangle, her face puffy beneath the tightly drawn band of her blindfold.

“Can you hear me?” he said, speaking more normally now, his lips a foot from her ear.

He repeated the question more forcefully, finally saw her chin bob down a fraction.

“I’m going to try to get your blindfold loose,” he said. “Bear with me, my hands are tied.”

There was no response, but he assumed she had heard.

He levered himself closer, was judging the angle to use, when the boat hit a heavy swell and flung him down. He heard her groan with his weight, and tried to ease himself onto an elbow, but he was awkward with his hands tied and only ended up falling on her again.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she said. Her cheeks were pale, and slick with sweat.

“Go ahead,” he said, “you’ll feel better.” He tried not to internalize how she must feel: the stifling air, the smells, the constant pounding. Add to that the disorientation of being blindfolded. He’d never been prone to seasickness himself, but if it was ever going to happen, then this might be the time.

She lay quietly for a few moments, the color gradually returning to her cheeks. “It’s okay,” she said at last. “I’m feeling better. You said you could do something about this blindfold.”

“I’m going to try,” he said. “Lie still now.”

He lowered his head then, until his chin was on her cheek.

“What are you doing?” she said. He felt her start to squirm away, felt the workings of her jaw against his cheek.

“Try not to move,” he said.

He felt her sigh, then used his lips to locate the blindfold, took its edge by his teeth.

He clamped down and jerked upward. The cloth began to slide, and he rolled back until he’d pulled the blindfold clear altogether.

She blinked, glanced vacantly around the dim recess of the hold.

“You want to try the same thing on me?” he asked, staring at her one-eyed. “I got it started, but I think I rubbed most of my cheek off on the deck boards.”

She stared at him, her expression turning quickly to concern.

“Come on,” he said, and bent close to her again.

He felt her bend tentatively toward him, felt her breath on his forehead. “I’m not sure I can do this,” she said. “You’re bleeding. What if I pull your hair…”

“Honest to God, Mrs. Sheldon, I don’t care if you pull my hair.”
Keep everything calm
, he told himself.
Just pretend it’s a game. Couple more minutes, the Secret Service agents will open the hold, tell them it’s all been a drill. Sure
.

He could still feel her breathing inches from his cheek.

“My name is Linda,” she said finally. “I think you could call me that.”

“Linda,” he repeated. “I’m John Deal.”

“Pleased to meet you, John.” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to do this now.”

He felt her lips brush his cheek, felt her teeth graze his skin, a moment’s pinching pain as she clamped down on the blindfold. “Just hold it in your teeth and roll away,” he told her.

He felt her move, felt the cloth sliding away. A monumental achievement, he was thinking. Maybe this was how he’d feel if he’d lost the use of his limbs. Blow into a straw, make your computer type your name. He figured it was a roughly equivalent task they’d accomplished. He tried not to think of the million problems that remained. Go at it that way, you’d flatten yourself.

“Thanks,” he said. They were staring at each other now, nearly nose to nose.

“I’m feeling a little sick again,” she said.

“Just let me know,” he said. “I’ll try and get out of the way.”

It brought a kind of grateful smile, which she held for a moment. Then she closed her eyes tightly, and he saw the tears begin to squeeze out.

“It’s awful,” she said. “I’m trying not to think about what’s happening, but I’m so frightened…”

He drew a breath. “I’m scared too. But if they wanted to hurt us, I think they’d have done it already.”

Her eyes were open again, the tears flowing freely now. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” she said. “I hate guns, I hate violence. I don’t even like football. Frank wanted to invite the Super Bowl team to the White House once, and I told him he’d have to do it without me…”

She trailed off, starting to shake her head until the rope dug into her throat and she began a strangling cough. After a moment, she glanced back at him, her eyes still teary. “Isn’t that a crock? The Super Bowl? The goddamned Super Bowl…”

She’d begun to bang the side of her head against the hull flooring, maybe not hard enough to do physical damage, but that wasn’t what concerned him.

He could picture it in his mind: the numbness inside her beginning to wear off, whatever wall she’d erected between her feelings and the things they’d already experienced beginning to crumble, first one mental brick popping loose, then another, and another…a few more seconds and she’d be buried under that wall.

“Stop it,” he said, his voice almost a shout above the roaring engines. “Now!”

Surprisingly enough, she pulled her head up steady, something like uncertainty on her haggard features. Maybe the First Lady didn’t get yelled at a whole lot.

“That’s just what they want,” he said more evenly. “Whoever they are. They want us turned to jelly. That’s what they expect.”

She stared back at him. “I
am
jelly,” she said defiantly. “That’s exactly what I feel like.”

He shook his head steadily. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But you’re not. Not even close.”

The boat launched itself airborne for what seemed an extraordinarily long time then. When it came down, the impact nearly jolted his breath from him. He saw her lift off the flooring momentarily, her eyes widening. When she came back down, she was biting her lip, fighting to keep herself under control. That tough lady at the podium, he thought, it hadn’t been all show.

“We’re out in the Gulf Stream now,” he told her. “Or else the weather’s turning.”

She closed her eyes momentarily, but when she opened them again, the determined expression was back. “You’re the contractor from Miami, right?”

He nodded. “Born there, lived there all my life.”

“I didn’t have time to read much about…everyone,” she said. She bit her lip, then forced herself to keep talking. “It all developed at the last minute, me standing in for Frank…it happens all the time.”

“If you say so,” Deal said.

She stared at him for a moment while the boat continued its steady pounding.
Thud, thud, skee. Thud, thud, skee
. Maybe it was fun up there with your face in the spray, he thought.

“That’s part of the job, things come up.”

Deal could only nod.

“Are you married?” she asked after a moment.

The question startled him until he realized why she’d asked. “Who’s going to be worrying about
you
?” she might have said. And what the hell, he’d pull out family pictures if that’s what would keep her calm…if he had them, if his hands were untied.

“We’re separated,” he said. “She’s living in St. Pete.”

“You have children?” she asked.

“One,” he said. Mental picture of a curly-haired little girl who didn’t know what meanness was. What would happen when she learned where her father was?

Correction, he thought: When she learned that no one knew where her father was. How would Janice handle this one? he thought. Concern number one billion and one.

“She’s seven. Her name’s Isabel.”

“She’s with her mom?”

He nodded again. “In Disney World right about now, I’d guess. She was going to come with me to Washington, see her daddy get his medal…”

She watched him carefully as he trailed off. Probably wondering if his own wall was beginning to crumble, he thought.

“We never had children,” she said, as if she were simply filling the silence, as if it were something he wouldn’t know, as if the tabloid press hadn’t had a field day speculating on the reasons why there were none, what the effect of it might have been on domestic policies, on foreign policy, on funding of the space program and the phases of the moon, how it might explain the uncharacteristic and apparently frightening political involvement of the “Barrenness,” as one of the more mean-spirited writers had dubbed her.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I think I’m glad about that now,” she said. She turned away from him. “I don’t mean to be unkind,” she added after a moment.

“I’m just glad she wasn’t there,” Deal said.

She nodded, and there was silence. After a moment, she turned back. “How could this happen, that’s what I’ve been asking myself. How could they pull it off?”

Deal shook his head. “You know a lot more about the security detail than I do,” he said.

“Not a lot,” she said. “We’re drilled on this and that and Frank tells me some things, but I don’t get caught up in the details.” She looked away for a moment, then came back to him. “I always felt that if you got too wound up in what might happen that you’d go strange, go paranoid, become a different person, you know? The day Frank announced, I told myself, I’ll do this because we’re probably not going to win and even if we do, I’m not going to let it change me…” She drifted off again.

“Still, I never thought anything like
this
could happen,” she said after a moment. Then she laughed bitterly. “As soon as I get home, we’re hiring a new security service.”

Deal wanted to laugh himself. The opening of Vernon Driscoll’s dreams. “
For God’s sake, man, give her one of our cards
.”

“You saw the cops,” he said finally. “The guys who were supposed to be cops?”

She nodded, her face still averted. “I saw. I thought they were firing at someone else at first and I couldn’t believe they’d be so careless and then I realized…” She closed her eyes, reliving whatever ghastly moments, he thought.

“I thought the same thing,” he said.

She shook her head sadly. “So many innocent people…” she said, and he saw the tears coming again, wanted to lose a few himself, though he would stop at that—just wanting to weep, he thought, that was enough, wasn’t it?

After a moment she turned back to him. “What in God’s name is happening?” she asked him. “What could these people be thinking? What do they want? They must have been after Frank, and then when I showed up for the ceremony…”

Deal shook his head. All those questions and more. He’d been running some of the possible answers through his mind, of course, but it was all wild speculation.

Some group of crazies, he wanted to say, thought doesn’t enter into it. But that was wrong, that was only his anger working, clouding things. Maybe these people didn’t think the same way he or Linda Sheldon did, but they had some logical purpose for what they were doing, from their own standpoint anyway.

They’d taken the wife of the President of the United States hostage for some reason. Which led to the next matter. There was going to be some kind of exchange proposed, obviously. For what, however, he had no idea. And whether it would actually take place and where he might figure in the bargain, well, he had no idea about that either.

A sudden flood of light washed over him then, and he was blinking, his eyes burning like some cave fish who’d found himself dumped out in the sun. A hatch cover had flipped open, and salt spray showered him as the boat cleaved another giant wave. The draft of fresh air that came with it felt like the breath of heaven. It might have seemed like a miracle, except for the shadowy form that he saw looming there.