ROD FAUHOMME HAD TO HIDE the smirk he felt when he saw Tucker Lindsey nod at him and raise his glass of wine from across the ballroom. The little shit’s happy with me for now, he thought. We won—correct that, I won—and because I won, he gets to keep his job. The warm and fuzzies won’t last, but not to worry, I’ve got a nice little insurance policy.
As he glanced around the president’s election-night victory party, he received many similar looks from others whose jobs had been on the line. Along with the president, he was the man of the hour. Some knew more than others about what he’d done to ensure victory. However, all were aware that he was the mastermind who had buried the opponent under a barrage of personal attacks that had little to do with who was more qualified to run the country. At the same time he had skillfully deflected the Chechnya incident, using Allen’s “suicide” as a pretext for getting the hearings postponed until after the inauguration. Any efforts by the opposition to raise the issue and attempt to get the hearings going before the election had been met with accusations by the president’s press secretary, Rosemary Hilb, of being “inappropriate and insensitive to a fallen American hero and his family.”
It had worked like a charm. Then Fauhomme turned around and saw to it that the story about Allen’s possible affair with Jenna Blair had been leaked to reporters who could be trusted to report exactly what he told them. As expected, they’d gone along with the program; after all, what they really cared about after the election was access to the president, and if that meant submerging their journalistic ethics, then that was the price of admission to the White House. The result was that the public’s attention was diverted from a U.S. mission’s being overrun, and Americans killed, to a tawdry sex scandal.
The election results had not given the president a landslide, or a mandate, though with a little massaging and a lot of cooperation from the media, it could be made to appear as one. It didn’t really matter; for the next four years, the president and his cohorts in Congress and appointees to the Supreme Court could continue the process of moving the country to the left. Already demoralized before the election, the opposition party could be expected to devolve into assigning blame—to “low-information” voters, to their candidate, to Fauhomme, anything to avoid looking at their own lack of a message that appealed to a worried country and at the pundits who kept them trapped in believing there was no reason to adapt or change. He’d just come from watching one of the postelection news shows, and the opposition party leaders were already cannibalizing their candidate.
Fauhomme raised his glass of scotch to acknowledge Lindsey’s toast. The national security adviser had failed to catch Jenna Blair, but at least he’d secured the computer. Thinking about what was on the computer sent a shiver up his spine, though he quickly dismissed it. His own computer forensics expert had examined it and determined that the recording of Allen’s death had not been downloaded or emailed. So he had reason to believe there was only one copy, which was now in a bank safe deposit box in Arlington, Virginia. It had Lindsey’s fingerprints all over it—his insurance policy should Lindsey ever turn against him.
The other major threat to the campaign had also passed without incident. Through unofficial channels, the administration had made overtures to Amir Al-Sistani to make him believe that an exchange of his prisoners was imminent. Fauhomme could not have cared less about the threat from Al-Sistani to kill David Huff and the unidentified female hostage if Al-Sistani’s demands weren’t met. In fact, that would take care of a problem, he thought. But the danger of Al-Sistani’s going public about the attack and negotiations was very real; the American public would not have been happy to learn that they’d been lied to about the Zandaq mission’s being overrun, or David Huff’s purpose there. Nor would they be thrilled with the administration’s covert deal-making with a terrorist regarding the blind sheik.
In the meantime, Lindsey was working with the Russians to make sure that neither Al-Sistani nor the hostages survived to trouble the president’s next four years in office. But that was for another day, tonight was for celebrating.
Turning his eyes from Lindsey, Fauhomme noticed an attractive blond woman staring at him. She didn’t look away when he made eye contact but smiled invitingly. Another “politics tramp” who wouldn’t have given me a sneer if I wasn’t connected. It never ceased to amaze him that power was such an aphrodisiac, and he had taken full advantage of it over the years. The thought brought him around to remembering Connie waiting for him back at the apartment. She’d wanted to come to the party but had been irritating him lately, so he was punishing her by making her miss the victory party. He blamed her for Jenna Blair’s turning out to be such a problem. Now in the flush of victory, he was feeling that he might go home and slap her around before letting her “make it up” to him with whatever sexual act appealed to him at that moment.
I’m getting tired of the demanding bitch, he thought. Maybe it’s time to turn her out on the streets. But at the same time that the idea of moving on to the next woman interested him, he knew Connie presented a problem. She knew too much. He’d have to talk to Baum’s replacement about taking care of the problem.
Fauhomme watched as the blonde handed a note to one of the pages who was working at the party. The young man hurried over to him and handed him the folded piece of paper. He looked at it—a phone number—then glanced back at the blonde and nodded as he tucked it into his suit coat pocket. He might or might not call, but tonight Connie was the easy target.
Two hours later he was naked and snoring on the couch at his Georgetown apartment when he was awakened by Connie’s voice. The last thing he remembered was the sound of her crying in the bathroom, where she’d gone to wipe the blood off her mouth and nurse the new bruises he’d given her. He’d come home from the party and found her pouting and ignoring his demands. She tried to go to bed in a guest room but he followed her in there and violently forced himself upon her. Her protests and screams had just excited him more and he hit her a little harder than he intended and drew blood. Then he left her alone crying.
Still half-drunk, he waved her off angrily. “Fuck off,” he muttered.
“Rod . . . Rod, wake up . . . the police are here and want to talk to you.”
He opened his eyes and glared at her. “Police?” he asked, then narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Did you call the cops?”
Connie’s bruised face blanched in terror. “No . . . no, of course not,” she whimpered. “I was sleeping and heard the doorbell.”
Fauhomme felt a sudden surge of fear. “Did they say what they want?”
“Just that they need to talk to you.”
Suddenly a horrible thought occurred to him. It has to be the president. Something has happened to the president. Assassination? “Let them in. I’ll get ready right away.” He hurried into the bedroom, where he pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms and a robe.
When he emerged and entered the living room he saw two men standing near Connie, who was sitting on the couch. One of them, an average-sized white man, was leaning over talking to her as she shook her head. The other, a large black man, had been listening to the conversation but turned as Fauhomme approached and frowned.
“What can I do for you gentlemen?” Fauhomme asked.
The white man stood up and also scowled at him. “I’m Detective Kit Deger, D.C. police,” he said. “You mind telling me how those marks got on your girlfriend’s face?”
Fauhomme looked blankly at Connie, but internally he was seething. So the bitch did sic the cops on me, he thought. She’ll pay for this. He shrugged and said, “I wasn’t around, but she told me that she fell down the steps. Now I have important matters with the president in the morning so if this can wait . . .”
Deger shook his head. “I’m afraid it can’t.” He turned to the big black man. “Clay, you want to do the honors?”
Fulton smiled grimly and nodded. “You bet,” he said. “Mr. Fauhomme, my name is Clay Fulton. I’m a detective with the New York City Police Department currently assigned to the New York County District Attorney’s Office. I have two warrants here. One is to search your apartment . . .”
“What! That’s outrageous . . .” Fauhomme sputtered.
“The second is for your arrest for the murder of Samuel Allen.”
Fauhomme’s eyes bugged, then he snarled, “Do you know who you’re fucking with!”
“Are you Rod Fauhomme?” the black detective asked.
“Yes, you son of a—”
“Then I know who I’m fucking with and you’re under arrest.”
It had been a long time since Fauhomme felt real fear, but he felt it now as he looked in the hard brown eyes and impassive face of the detective. “You can’t . . .”
“Oh, but I can,” Fulton replied. “And I just did. Now I’m going to read you your rights. You have the right to remain silent . . .”
Fauhomme turned to Connie Rae Lee. “Call my attorney,” he ordered, his voice rising in fear.
The woman raised her face to look at him, one of her eyes swollen shut and her lip split and puffy. “Call him yourself, you son of a bitch,” she said. “I hope you rot in prison for the rest of your life.”