The Sentinel (7 page)

"Not bad."

"When I assigned you to her, you told me you didn't want to spend your career sitting in a golf cart as she played a round with the Red Cross ladies."

"Uh, I'm getting used to it now. The reason I'm here-"

"Like I told you. Working the Valentine detail for a year certainly didn't do my career any harm, Pete. To get ahead in the Service, an agent has to be versatile. It's not just about riding the running boards. It's about diplomacy. That's the word for it. Diplomacy. I understand you have something you want to discuss-"

"A threat case."

"Shoot."

Garrison recounted what he had learned from informant Frank Hightower: that an unnamed Secret Service agent assigned to the White House Detail and a hired assassin from Europe were involved in an Aryan Disciples plot to assassinate the President. Garrison handed Wintergreen copies of a code card Hightower had given him. Wintergreen licked his lips and formed an expression of concern on his face as he studied the items.

"Frank Hightower. What can you tell me about him?"

"When I was working PRD he provided reliable information - enough to make four solid convictions. He has connections with dealers of illegal weapons and other paramilitary types both here and in Canada and Europe. He likes to think of himself as a soldier of fortune. His motivation has always been money. He wants a million dollars for the case."

"I'm glad he's not greedy," Wintergreen said facetiously.

"He's not asking for cash until after the arrests are made."

Wintergreen picked up a plastic pitcher from his desk. He poured water into a glass and took a drink. "That's encouraging."

"Hightower is reliable."

"Pete, how do you see this?"

"Going by what he has done for us in the past and the fact that he turned over a Commo Card, I think he may be telling the truth."

Wintergreen coughed. "Frankly, this sounds like a case where the information and the informant sound a little too good to be true. But we have to move on the information. I want you to stay with your normal duties but continue handling Hightower. You've worked with him in the past. You know him. If there is a demand on your time from the First Lady Detail, take vacation days and I will recredit them to you later. You'll be point man on this. That way no one in the world will know what we're up to. In case the information may fit with the Meriweather murder, bring Martha Breckinridge up to speed."

"Okay."

"Keep this top secret, Pete."

"I'll open an internal investigation file-"

"I don't want a formal internal investigation opened at this point. If we have an insider working for the Disciples, he might smell a rat and pull back into his shell. Handle this off the record until something jells. Keep me informed at every step."

"Will do."

"Any questions?"

Garrison said there wasn't, then left the office.

Wintergreen felt pleased. He sensed that time was condensed. He could handle difficult situations, while others, the brown-baggers in life, sat on the steps and ate their measly stale sandwiches, whining and crying in their beer. Wintergreen remembered an incident when he'd been a junior agent. He'd been on Air Force One returning from a Presidential trip to the West Coast, and the shift leader had told the entire shift that they were continuing on duty after working twelve days straight. When he and the others had complained, a veteran shift leader had told him:
See the President sitting up there sipping whiskey, with the newsies? He doesn't give a damn about how many, hours you work. In fact, unless you get promoted to Director, you can stay twenty years and no President will ever know your name. Get used to it. And get used to the long hours. You're not the President, and in the White House you are lower than the lowliest appointed assistant, and only slightly higher than the steward who serves coffee in the Red Room. You're nothing but part of the woodwork.

Now that Wintergreen had achieved the rank, he figured he owed no one. In the paramilitary U.S. Secret Service. he had the power of an Army general. He gave orders and his White House Detail agents jumped to carry them out. The White House was a good place to be.

A sign on the wall behind his desk read, "THE PRIORITY IS PRESIDENTIAL
SECURITY."

He got up and straightened it.

****

CHAPTER 5

IN THE WHITE House private quarters dining room, President Russell Jordan sat alone at a gleaming mahogany table, sipping coffee and reading from a stack of newspapers and cables that were stacked neatly on a hand-carved maple teacart.

He glanced at a
Washington Times
headline. "President Agrees to Russian Summit Meeting." He wasn't looking forward to wrangling with the Russians at Camp David, but he had an ace up his sleeve: an aid package that had been put together by his allies in Congress. Summit meetings were always about money, and the successful ones always involved lots of Uncle Sugar's dough for the opposing sides. Jordan recognized this as a fact of political life. It had been one of many dismaying lessons he'd learned in office. No wonder that Presidents were all cynics. Previous Presidents had faced war, cold war, hostage-taking incidents, recessions, and the 9/11/01
terrorist attacks on the New York World Trade Center and the Pentagon - when terrorists of all stripes had figured out that they could gain worldwide attention by using violence for their cause.

In the Jordan Administration, the back-alley war against terror had become a fact of life. Every year of his Administration there had been federal buildings and military facilities destroyed by bombs. In the last eighteen months alone, four U.S. ambassadors had been assassinated. Nothing Jordan had ever read, no advice or counsel, had prepared him for the day-by-day stress of dealing with such violence and all its lasting ramifications while, at the same time, holding his fingers in the dikes of domestic political crises.

The door opened and Eleanor came in.

"Nice perfume," he said as she joined him at the table.

"How kind of you to notice."

Her impersonal comments had started in the last few months, but he'd chosen not to confront her. He wanted peace. He wanted to leave office with her at his side and turn the reins of government over to Vice President Cord, who was ahead of his Democratic opponent in the national polls. He wanted to give the party back what it gave him.

"How was the beach?" he asked.

She picked up a newspaper. "Sunny."

A waiter appeared to pour her coffee.

"It's good to see you taking advantage of the house," Jordan said.

"Uh-huh."

"Camp David. It would be a big help if you could come up to help entertain. The Russians are bringing their wives."

"The
wives,"
she said glibly.

After a long, annoying silence, he cleared his throat. "Have you done any more thinking about the Kennedy Center?"

"I haven't made a decision yet."

"Some of the major donors would love to see you."

"What's that play again?"

"Long Day's Journey into Night."

He'd told her a week ago. But she didn't like the party fat cats and she was playing head games again.

"Yuck," she said.

"It's an awards evening. There will be press speculation if you don't attend."

"We certainly wouldn't want to have that, would we?"

"The major money people. That guy from Texas and his wife. They need him-"

"I don't like him and I don't like his low-class wife."

"Since when do we have to be in love with people to handle our social duties?"

Here he was, cajoling his own wife into attending a function with him. It was absurd.

"Duties," she said. "White House
duties."

"Eleanor, do you have to break my balls over every little issue?"

"Sorry," she said coldly. "Okay. I'll go to the play."

"Good. And have you done any thinking about the lawyer issue?"

"I prefer to wait."

"I thought we could have someone begin the paperwork," he said. "It would be better than to wait."

"You mean the
divorce
paperwork?"

"An amicable thing and completely discreet, Eleanor. Super-secret. I feel it would be easier than just putting it off until the end of the term. Start the ball rolling by going through the negotiating and getting all the papers ready. Then later, there could be a quick court filing that would limit the press coverage of the matter."

"Could this be some advice from your trusted National Security Advisor Helen Pierpont?"

"Keeping the legal proceedings to a minimum would be easier for the both of us."

She glared at him. "How magnanimous of you to think of the
both of us."

He sat back. He wouldn't press it further with her. He didn't want to enter into an endless argument. What he really wanted was to leave the White House with his head held high, take care of the divorce, and then move on with his life. He didn't understand why she didn't want to discreetly begin the divorce process now, to help simplify things after he went out of office. It wasn't logical. But sometimes women weren't logical.

The phone buzzed. He pressed the speakerphone button.

"Yes?"

"The National Security Advisor would like to know when you'll be in the office to discuss a priority matter."

"Shortly." He released the switch. "I have to run."

"What is it?"

"You don't want to know."

"I don't?"

"It's a threat thing. The Aryan Disciples is sending threat letters to me now."

"Why wasn't I informed
about this?"

"I just didn't think you wanted to deal with all the negativity."

"Bye."

"Come on, hon," Jordan said gently taking her hand. "Let's don't do this to one another. We'll make it through this and life will be better." She looked up at him. "That's my baby."

He told her to have a nice day, and left the room carrying his cables. Moving along the hallway with an agent following close behind, Jordan felt relieved that she'd agreed to attend the Kennedy Center function. He'd been worried that the press would begin wondering why they were avoiding joint public appearances. Eleanor had never been able to resist the Jordan charm. And he believed that she would soon come around on his request to get the lawyers involved earlier rather than later. The entire matter was painful. He could tell that she still loved him. But it had to be done. How ironic, he thought, that his popularity rating with the women the pollsters called "soccer moms" was the reason he'd been able to win two national elections, but he would be the first President to divorce immediately upon leaving office. But irony was politics.

Jordan had only a few months left in his second term, and he would miss being President. He knew that his White House years would be the pinnacle of his life - that the accomplishments of an ex-President would pale in comparison to being in executive command. He didn't look forward to becoming a familiar face that provided the occasional sound bite on the evening news, a bystander rather than a participant in world events.