The President's Henchman (35 page)

McGill’s kids met him at Camp David; Carolyn and Lars stayed home.

“The Secret Service has gone,” Carolyn had told him when he’d called her after Abbie, Kenny, and Caitie had arrived safely. “But the FBI is investigating the note that was left in Abbie’s school locker. Captain Sullivan’s people are still watching us … and Lars feels a little better about my gun now.”

“Helluva situation,” McGill told her.

“Yes, it is. Jim, this is all going to be over soon, isn’t it? Please tell me it is.”

“I’m going to take care of it,” he said, “one way or another.”

“I’d like to see Camp David, too, under other circumstances.”

“We’ll work something out. Make it festive.”

“The kids will be safe there?”

“Navy people run the place, and Marines guard it. Then there’s the Secret Service. And, of course, yours truly, Quick Draw McGill.”

“Well, okay. But I’m still going to worry.”

McGill called Sweetie next. He was pleased to find her at their office. It was nice to know the rent he was paying on that space wasn’t entirely going to waste. Sweetie told him about Putnam Shady overhearing the locker-room threats of the Merriman brothers.

“Yeah, yeah.” McGill said. He couldn’t get too excited about the idea of
political
retribution at the moment. “What else are they going to say?”

Then it occurred to him that he’d seen the name Merriman before.

“I’m helping Patti out with this Air Force case, did I mention that?”

“The woman colonel accused of adultery? The story that’s been in the papers?”

“Yeah.”

“No, you didn’t tell me.”

“Well, I am now. It’s all confidential.” McGill felt his parish priest would spill the beans on his confessions before Sweetie would ever betray his confidence. “I’m backstopping this junior investigator the Pentagon has assigned to the case. I read the reports he submits to Patti. I remember him mentioning the name Merriman in one of them. It had to do with … something in connection to the Air Force chief of staff, a guy named Warren Altman, a general of the four-star persuasion.”

“Putnam said the Merriman brother who lobbies for American Aviation has a lot of retired generals working with him,” Sweetie told him.

“I’ll put that word into the kid’s ear. But right now you and I have a more urgent problem to handle.”

Sweetie knew what it was from the tone of his voice. “Your kids?”

McGill told her about the implicit threat to Abbie and how all three McGill children had been taken to Camp David, how Carolyn and Lars had stayed behind in Evanston.

“If the loonies can’t get at the kids,” Sweetie said, “they might switch targets. Go after Carolyn and Lars.”

“Barbara Sullivan still has her coppers watching them. Carolyn’s still armed, and Lars is feeling better about it. Other than that, we can only pray.”

“Amen.”

“That’s only for the moment, however,” McGill told her. “We’ve got to put an end to this horseshit. My kids can’t stay holed up in Camp David forever. We’ve got to do something that will make the other side see there’s too high a price to pay here.”

“You have any ideas?”

“Other than confronting Burke Godfrey publicly in Lafayette Square? Strangling him with my own two hands? Not at the moment.”

“Godfrey’s out there marching with the others?” Sweetie asked.

“The Secret Service has pictures.” There were more than snipers on the roof of the White House. There were people who shot pictures, too. Hang around outside the Executive Mansion on a regular basis, a file got started on you. Celsus had shown Godfrey’s pictures to McGill.

In the silence that followed this tidbit of information, McGill could almost hear Sweetie thinking. He asked, “You got something?”

“Couple of ideas. You don’t have to choke Godfrey in the public square. Just give him a little of what Michaelson got. A guy like Godfrey shouldn’t be too hard to provoke into throwing the first punch.”

“That might satisfy me, but it’d only piss off his toadies worse than they are already. Plus, I’ve been warned about not beating up anyone else for a while.”

“Oh, yeah? Patti tell you that?”

“No, she said thanks for thumping Michaelson. But Galia warned me.”

“She’s probably right,” Sweetie said. “That brings me to my other idea. If you don’t mind,
I
could have a little chat with the Reverend Godfrey. Do it in front of his flock. Confront him and by extension his whole hypocritical crew on a theological basis.”

Sweetie was Abbie’s godmother. She loved all of McGill’s children, but he knew she felt a special affinity for his eldest. McGill also remembered that things had gone very well indeed when Sweetie debated articles of faith with Lindell Ricker. But that was one-on-one.

Facing off with Godfrey in Lafayette Square, Sweetie might have to confront a mob. She was as formidable a woman as he’d ever known, but he wasn’t sure he liked those odds.

“I don’t know, Margaret. You couldn’t go armed, and if things started to go wrong …”

“Jim, you’ve got to have faith. I can do this.”

“You can’t go alone,” he said.

“But you can’t come with me.”

“No. It’d get out of control fast if we both showed up.”

“Maybe I’ll bring Putnam for company.”

“Your landlord?”

“He’s a lawyer: a good witness if I need someone to testify in court.”

McGill grunted.

“Jim, do you have a better idea?”

He didn’t.

There was a knock at the door of the room McGill was using in Aspen Lodge — the presidential quarters — and Caitie entered. She had a calculating smile on her face. McGill knew from experience that his youngest was entertaining an idea that appealed to her not-inconsiderable ego. That surmise was confirmed when she came over and sat on his lap.

“This is a pretty cool place, Dad. It’s got its own swimming pool.”

“Glad you like it.”

“Are we gonna be here long?”

“A while. Not too long.”

“It’s all because of those creeps who scared Abbie, right? Why we’re here, I mean.”

“Uh-huh.” He knew Abbie had shared the note’s content with her younger siblings.

“I’d like to go out and get those jerks.”

“All by yourself?” McGill asked.

“No. You, me, and Sweetie. We could take ’em.”

McGill grinned. This one, he thought, would be a natural for Dark Alley.

“But that’s not why you’re here right now, is it?”

Caitie shook her head.

“A man on the plane that brought us here was telling us some things about this place. Did you know it wasn’t always called Camp David?”

“I seem to have a vague recollection. But I don’t remember the earlier name.”

“It was called Shangri-La,” Caitie told him. “That’s what President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who they built this place for, named it.”

“Roosevelt being a good Democrat,” McGill added.

“The best. He was reelected about a million times. But then President Eisenhower came along and changed the name to Camp David for his grandson.”

“Eisenhower being a Republican.”

“Yeah! He had a lot of nerve, don’t you think?”

“Does seem a bit presumptuous.”

“So, I was thinking, if the name can be changed once, why not twice?”

“Let me guess,” McGill said. “Camp Caitie?”

His daughter nodded vigorously.

“And you think I might be able to arrange this because I know the president.”

“You’re
married
to her, Dad.”

“So I am, but there’s one problem. Just like Eisenhower, Patti is a —”

“Republican.”

“And you’re a —”

“Democrat!”

“So?”

“So it’s
our
turn. The Republicans have had the name long enough.”

“I’ll talk with the president, Toots, but don’t get your hopes up.”

Caitie’s expression was so hangdog, McGill had to repress a laugh.

“How are your sister and brother settling in?” he asked.

“Abbie’s glad to be safe. I peeked at what she’s writing in her diary. Kenny’s talking to sailors and Marines and Secret Service guys. He’s happy.”

“And you could go swimming,” McGill suggested.

“Yeah.” Big whoop, her tone said.

At that moment, McGill had an idea so reckless it sent a shudder through him.

Which scared Caitie enough to make her jump off his lap and stare at him.

“What was
that?”
she asked. “Are you okay, Dad?”

McGill was too wrapped up in his lunatic notion to respond. He only stared at his daughter. No … no, he couldn’t do it. The risk would be too great. Carolyn had a gun; she’d shoot him just for what he was thinking.

And yet … it might be just the thing that could make the difference.

Really turn things around on the Reverend Burke Godfrey.

Let him and all his zealots see how monstrously evil their plans were.

There had to be a way to do it so Caitie would be safe. Not commit her until the last minute. Not reveal her presence at all if things looked too dangerous.

“Dad, come on, you’re getting spooky,” Caitie said.

“Honey,” he said softly, “how would you like to help Sweetie with something?”

McGill trod Camp David’s walking and cycling path alone. It was a perfect summer evening in the Catoctin Mountains. The air was balmy. Birds were chirping. Cicadas were warming up for their evening chorus. Trees of more types than he could name rose all around him. But he had his hands clasped behind his back and his gaze firmly fixed on the ground ahead, noticing none of it.

Caitie had been ecstatic at the idea of going on an adventure with Sweetie, especially when she realized she’d be in Washington while her older brother and sister were stuck in the named-for-an-evil-Republican Camp David. The thought of flying to the capital on a Marine helicopter only made the proposition that much more delicious. Kenny would be
so
jealous.

McGill had firmly warned Caitie not to gloat, or even say a word about the idea to Abbie or Kenny. If she did, the whole thing would be off. That dampened some of Caitie’s fun, but she agreed to go along with her father’s admonitions. She was gung ho to take part in whatever he and Sweetie had planned.

Only Sweetie didn’t know a thing about it yet. Neither did Carolyn or Patti. And McGill was having such serious second thoughts he didn’t know if he’d ever tell any of them. Pulling the plug on Caitie would be hard; he’d never intentionally disappointed her in his life. But this time he might have to do it — and risk the wrath his youngest child might direct at him.

Still … still, he thought it was a good idea. One that could ultimately work to all of his children’s benefit if only he could guarantee Caitie’s safety.

The sound of a throat being cleared made McGill’s head whip around. Celsus was approaching him from behind and soon fell into step with McGill. “Just wanted to check something with you,” the SAC said.

“What’s that?”

“Do you intend to remain here with your children until the FBI finds whoever it was that left that threatening note?”

“You think they will?”

The FBI was Justice Department; the Secret Service was Treasury Department. The two agencies didn’t always play well together. But Celsus nodded.

“They will. Nobody wants to disappoint the president — or you — on this one.”

McGill didn’t respond to Celsus’s original question. He was still mulling things over. The two men continued their trek through the woods.

Celsus filled McGill in on his interrogation of Laurel Rembert. He concluded with, “There’s no way she just showed up at Chana Lochlan’s house while we were watching.”

“No way at all,” McGill agreed.

“But there’s also no way to dispute what she told us. She agreed to take the lie-detector test without blinking an eye.”

“You didn’t administer one, however.”

“No. You think we should?”

McGill shook his head. “You are watching her residence?”

“Yeah. She’s got her own Georgetown town house. Not far from Ms. Lochlan’s house. Walking distance. I mean, it’s possible she could have gone there for exactly the reason she said.”

“But you don’t believe that for a minute.”

“No.” Crogher hesitated a moment as if he had to reprogram the software by which he operated. “The president got the CIA to come through with the information they had about Damon Todd. He’s trying to sell them on the idea that he can make their covert agents interrogation-proof.”