7

When I was fifteen years old, I received first place at my high school science fair for an experiment showing the effect of X-rays on memory. I timed ten mice going through a homemade maze several times; then I exposed half of them to X-rays at my dentist’s office and ran them through the maze again. My prize was an invitation to a VFW dinner honoring astronaut Pete Conrad. The original Mercury and Apollo astronauts were my childhood heroes. These were American men risking their lives aboard American technology for the greater good of America. That was several years before Nixon turned patriotism into a political statement.

At that dinner Conrad told one of my favorite stories. “The night before they put you on top of a billion-dollar candle and light it up,” he admitted, “no matter how much confidence you have in the men and equipment, you still don’t sleep very well. I was scheduled to be awakened at four A.M. to suit up. I finally fell into a restless sleep about two o’clock. When I woke up, the sun was shining and the birds were singing. Great, and then I realized that the sun is not supposed to be shining at four A.M. I looked at my clock; it was after six. I’d spent years as part of the most complex engineering program in history; I’d been chosen from thousands of applicants and been in training for a decade. None of that mattered as I looked out into the morning sunshine and thought, Oh my god, they’ve left without me.”

That feeling of discombobulation in the pit of your stomach, of being late for something important, was exactly what I felt when my phone rang at eight-fifteen several mornings later. Jenny had worked late and stayed in her apartment. Shit, I’d completely missed my workout. “Thanks a lot, Cher,” I said sarcastically. “You were supposed to wake me. What is wrong with you?”

Cher did not respond. “Cher, remind me to call Y.” He’d figure out her problem.

Frankie B. was on the phone. “Working from home this morning, are we?”

“That’s how I earn those big bucks.”

“Then you don’t know?”

“What don’t I know?”

“Turn on the TV.”

I clicked on the big screen and lay in bed. I was pretty sure I knew what was going on. I’d posted my interview with Mustafa’s mother a day earlier: The mother of one of the alleged terrorists killed in Detroit by an elite antiterrorism unit claimed that her son, 23-year-old Mustafa Haddad, had no connection to the recent attacks. While admitting that Haddad was involved in the local drug trade, as police had reported, she insisted … My assumption was that my story had caused a ripple.

I was wrong. I couldn’t have been more wrong. During the night three known terrorist groups had released a joint statement claiming credit for “the first unified attack on the American homeland.” What made it believable was the inclusion of the names and photographs of the “martyrs of New York,” as well as previously undisclosed details about the bombing at Pearl Harbor and the cyber-destruction of the Old River Control Structure.

The fact that this statement did not praise the so-called terrorists killed in the Detroit raid was a strong indication they were not involved. Kaufman had made some vague statement that American intelligence agencies had not confirmed these claims, but I could just imagine the panic inside the White House as they searched for a link, any link, between these terrorists and Detroit.

This had the makings of a supersize colonoscopy for Wrightman. A lot of people were going to be looking way up the administration’s derriere to see if it had committed convenient killings. Blowing up that house in Detroit might be blowing up in their face. If it could be proved that the president had acted to turn down the political heat, he was cooked.

“Cher,” I commanded, “come here, please.” Mighty Chair rolled over to the side of my bed. I maneuvered myself into it, then felt a need to apologize. “Cher, I’m sorry I snapped at you. I guess I forgot to give you a wake-up time.”

Cher did not respond. But I felt better.

A large Dunkin’ was sitting in my place when I walked into the conference room about an hour later. “Come on in, Rollie, take a seat,” Howie said pleasantly, our little joke. “Cher, good morning to you.”

Cher recognized his voice. “Good morning, Howie,” she replied.

Stephanie Ruhle was reporting soundlessly on the monitor in the front of the room. The chyron running at the bottom of the screen summed it up: MULTIPLE TERRORIST GROUPS CLAIM ALLIANCE FOR ATTACKS: NO INDICATION DETROIT INVOLVEMENT.

“So what do you think?” Howie asked.

Nodding toward me, Frankie B. said, “I think I’d like to be that mother’s lawyer right now.”

Howie ignored him. “The president is lying to the American people. Quel surprise.”

I sipped my cold coffee. “Why bother this time?” I wondered. “What’s the gain?”

“You’re the reporter,” Howie pointed out. “I’m the boss. You figure it out.”

Throughout the day additional reports from foreign intelligence services confirmed the initial claims. Three different terrorist organizations, under the banner Brotherhood United for Freedom, had planned and financed the operations and put their people in the field. Not surprisingly, several previously unknown terrorist organizations also tried to grab some credit. Whether or not they actually were involved, this was an attention-getting, fundraising, volunteer-building opportunity. Which of course is precisely what our politicians would have done.

Kaufman issued another vague statement. Standing on Conway’s Corner, the same spot on the White House front lawn where several years earlier Kellyanne Conway had given us the Orwellian concept of “alternative facts,” she said, “We need to show these terrorists that they can’t terrorize us. The president urges all Americans to show their courage by doing the normal things.” (Historical aside: A reporter named Tom Robbins had dubbed that place Conway’s Corner. It was an expansive grass-covered area. Referring to it as a corner, Robbins had explained, was simply “an example of an alternative fact.”)

The problem was that America had been terrorized. Weeks after the attacks, body parts were still being dug out of the Louisiana mud. New York hadn’t cleared all the burnt hulks out of the tunnel. In Hawaii, forensic anthropologists were collecting DNA samples from the descendants of sailors who had died on the Arizona eight decades ago to enable them to identify the recovered bones.

Unless you were living in one of the repurposed cold war bomb shelters featured on Flip This House, the fact that the government apparently had mistaken a minor-league drug dealer for the people who had launched the most successful terrorist attack in our history had to shake your confidence in any claims.

The first antigovernment demonstration consisted of an estimated twenty people. (Only the Times would “estimate” twenty people.) On a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, New Yorkers began venturing out to Central Park. Most of them were happy to just be outside, but typically those estimated twenty people were carrying hand-drawn political signs attacking the administration. The roads were a mess. Traffic patterns throughout the city had been changed to deal with the massive problems caused by the loss of the tunnel. Wooden barriers had been set up to funnel all downtown traffic onto Broadway. It worked for vehicles, but less so for pedestrians. Mounted cops tried to stop the jaywalkers from interfering with the flow of traffic, which resulted in a big crowd backed up behind the wooden horses. Additional NYPD officers rushed to the scene to maintain control.

Imagine this scene: Traffic is at a total standstill. A large crowd has been herded into a small area, and more people are showing up with essentially no place to go. Did anybody really think New Yorkers were going to stand there? It took less than a minute for the barriers to be pushed over. With one great cheer pedestrians took over the streets, bringing traffic to a complete stop. Making a confusing situation even worse, an Uber attempting to make a right turn off Central Park West onto 83rd Street collided with a Lubavitch Mitzvah Tank (I can’t make this stuff up!), adding to the gridlock. Emergency vehicles and ambulances from every hospital in the city were trapped racing to get to the accident, their endlessly bleating sirens creating even more panic.

New Yorkers being New Yorkers, the wailing and whooping sirens drew even more curious pedestrians into the area. With fire department and EMS vehicles stalled in traffic, mounted cops began weaving through the cars. They attempted to use their horses to gently force people back onto the sidewalk or into the park, opening a traffic lane for the emergency vehicles. Unfortunately one of the twenty protesters, later identified as an NYU sociology professor, was caught between a horse and a wooden barrier and panicked. He slashed at the animal with his poster, a caricature of Wrightman gleefully blowing up a birdhouse, captioned “Bird Brains!” The horse, being a horse, responded by backing up, unintentionally knocking over the professor. An unidentified person, seeing this, shouted, “Watch out! The cops!”

The fear, the anxiety, the frustration that had been pent up for more than two weeks was suddenly let loose. People trying to get out of the area knocked down other people moving into the area. Fights broke out, forcing NYPD officers to wade into the crowd, waving their batons, to restore order. Dozens of people were arrested and hundreds more were temporarily detained.

The first photographs of the “West Side Uprising!” to spread virally showed a man holding an anti-Wrightman sign falling under the hooves of a large police horse. Videos posted on YouTube were equally confusing; it was impossible to determine if the cops were attacking or protecting people. Within hours, demonstrations in support of the “New York Twenty” had popped up in more than a dozen cities. Other rallies were planned. The general anxiety people were feeling was suddenly channeled into an anti-Wrightman fervor.

Somebody inside the White House decided that these demonstrations had to be stopped while they were still small. Having learned the lessons taught by the Trump administration during the Black Lives Matter protests, the administration set out its legal case. Two nights later, the president made the first of what were to become regular fireside chats. It was broadcast from his suitably rustic cabin. He was sitting in a rocking chair in front of a gray-stone walk-in fireplace, a portrait of a rippling tattered flag hanging above the mantel. Although it was late July, a fire was crackling in the hearth and Wrightman was wearing a friendly sweater. It was a beautiful setting, obviously carefully planned to reinforce those basic American values designed by Ralph Lauren. I had no doubt there had been long discussions in the press office whether he should rock or sit still.

He sat still. After the patriotic introductions he asked patriotic Americans for their understanding, pointing out, “It would be a grave injustice to the sacred memories of those brave Americans who perished in the attacks if we allowed a small number of rabble-rousers to desecrate their sacrifice to further their own political agenda.”

Of course not, thought your humble Mr. Cynic. What type of man would use dead Americans for political gain? Wait a second … I was with several staff members watching this speech at Lucille’s Ballroom. Lucille, all of her, was sitting directly across from me.

Wrightman continued: “In previous administrations we saw the terrible damage that could be done by dividing us. On Inauguration Day I gave you my solemn word that I would bring us together as the truly…”

Here he paused for dramatic effect, then enunciated carefully: “… United States of America. In this, our most vulnerable hour, we must prevent our enemies from ripping us asunder. To prevent that from happening, I have asked the Justice Department to issue a directive to all state and local law enforcement reminding them that they are our first defenders and asking them to continue playing a vital role in protecting and preserving our freedoms.”

“Uh-oh,” Lucille said. She was so rattled that she had actually sprung for drinks for the whole table. This was, I realized, the first direct benefit I’d received from the Wrightman administration.

After the boilerplate God blesses, and as the first strains of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s a cappella version of “America the Beautiful” rose softly in the background, President Wrightman turned and stared meaningfully into the fire as the camera slowly faded out.

A legal directive was issued to all law enforcement agencies by Attorney General Langsam several minutes later, while the talking heads were still marveling over Wrightman’s “courageous effort to unite the country.” It read:

Under our constitutional obligation to promote and ensure the general welfare, we are hereby requiring that all public assemblies involving or likely to bring together a substantial number of people who have not applied for and received a permit be temporarily suspended. While this administration will fiercely defend the fundamental First Amendment right of every American to gather peacefully to petition the government, under the existing circumstances these so-called pop-up rallies constitute a clear and present danger to the public safety. We do not want to repeat the errors made during the BLM protests. To enable law enforcement to continue to protect the lives and property of the American people, we request you take action to prevent such large or uncontrollable gatherings. We strongly urge you to do so without the use of force, but should such actions become necessary, the Justice Department will provide appropriate legal support.

The response was immediate and predictable. Led by the American Civil Liberties Union, numerous organizations protested this directive. The ACLU filed a legal challenge, causing Louisiana senator John Kennedy to refer to it as “the pro-riot organization.”

The administration was considerably less forgiving, suggesting that any “person, institution, or organization who opposed defending American lives at this crucial moment in our nation’s history is providing aid and comfort to the enemy.”

A massive social media campaign supporting the president erupted instantly. Almost as if it had been planned, prepared, and ready to launch as soon as he finished his speech. There’s nothing wrong with that, I guess; in some form every president—indeed, every politician—makes an effort to shape public opinion. One man’s propaganda is another man’s Fox News. A significant difference between this situation and the escalating violence of the BLM protests was that while Trump had already lost the trust of a majority of Americans, Wrightman remained popular and people still supported him. It worked; this strategy was as effective as it was heavy-handed: I’ll bet you knew that at some point in this book I was going to dig up that appropriate H. L. Mencken quote, “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

Twitter reported a record-shattering 10 million tweets and retweets had been sent within a day, the majority of them from accounts including #IsupportAmerica, #stopterroristrallies, #Istandwiththepresident; even the old saw #Americaloveitorleaveit. Videos showing riots intercut with funerals of Americans killed in the initial attacks, as well as American flags being burned, were posted on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Hundreds of patriotic-themed boards popped up on Pinterest.

Several rallies were announced for the following weekend to test this policy. Law enforcement (and local militias) responded by issuing riot gear (with shields), tear gas canisters, and rubber bullets. Joseph Heller would have loved the administration’s logic: In an effort to prevent people from being hurt, the police were going to have to hurt people.

Rather than trying to calm the situation, the broadcast media was promoting it. Instead of urging people to let the legal process proceed, they treated it like Wrestlemania, promising complete coverage of the confrontation: (Theme music up, then) “Watch what happens when determined protesters go head-to-head with America’s fiercest defenders!”

The whole thing was mind-bogglingly insane, and there was absolutely nothing that would stop it. As I look back, this was the first time I seriously began to wonder if American democracy could survive. Even during the Trump riots I was comforted by my belief that Trump simply was reacting to events, that his response was not part of a plan. He didn’t use that uprising as part of a long-term strategy to fundamentally change the country. I had real faith that he wasn’t smart enough to pull that off.

But Wrightman? It was sort of like looking at a bruise on the skin of an apple and wondering how deep it went. How far was Wrightman willing to go to “restore order”? I had been brought up to believe this type of government takeover happened in the old eastern bloc or in banana republics. Not here. Not in America.

One thing I do know, I wanted to get out and cover the Washington rally myself. Howie refused, insisting I work the desk. He wanted me to write the national story. I never found out for certain, but I was pretty confident Jenny had talked him into it.

Instead of riots, Wrightman got incredibly lucky. Several years ago I’d done a story with a Boulder, Colorado, district attorney who’d had to prosecute a highly incendiary race case. A group of white kids had chased two Black kids onto a highway, where one of them had been hit by a car and killed. Whichever side won, the other side was threatening to riot. He prevented that from happening by scheduling the case for the following February. “Nobody riots in February,” he told me. “It’s much too cold.”

Instead of frigid temperatures, just about the entire country was blanketed by an oppressive heat wave. In many cities, temperatures soared above 100 degrees, which combined with an inversion that resulted in unusually poor air quality created unsafe conditions that forced people to stay safely inside. Rather than tempers boiling over, they were air-conditioned. The rallies fizzled out, forcing the organizers to reschedule the demonstrations for September.

The administration was also fortunate that millions of Americans were distracted by the historic three-day The Voice vs. American Idol: Battle of the Champions competition. The newly legalized betting on reality TV outcomes, which had just been approved by several states, turned this into a huge attraction—further dissipating a lot of the anger. The “final showdown” pitted a nine-year-old suffering from a collapsed immune system that forced her to compete from inside a sealed-plastic bubble against an eighty-seven-year-old man with Alzheimer’s who could remember only the words to love songs he’d crooned to his recently deceased wife. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. (The man was lying about his age.) But the combination of climate change and wagering on entertainment greatly reduced the level of anger.

Members of Congress expressed outrage on every TV show that would invite them, and within days both the Senate and the House, by voice vote, approved a “Sense of the Congress” resolution calling on President Wrightman “to respect all rights granted by the Constitution upon which this great nation was founded and has long endured,” and warning him that if the administration insisted on following “this dangerous course it would face the possibility of congressional censure!”

Leaders of both parties promised additional votes, threatening “even harsher language” if this policy was implemented.

I couldn’t blame them for their cowardice. As Republican senators had demonstrated during the Trump impeachment, the first job of an American politician is to get reelected. Standing up to a popular president preaching security is a direct path to spending more time with your family. The polls continued to show that Americans were willing to “compromise” on constitutional protections in exchange for an increased sense of personal safety. It was not surprising that Wrightman’s approval numbers, which had wavered, finally stabilized and even began rising again.

In mid-August the president made a surprise appearance at the annual convention of the National Association of Chiefs of Police being held at the Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta. Without any introduction he dramatically walked out of the wings onto the giant bare stage, as an American flag waved proudly in 3-D on the screen behind him. Apparently, his appearance was no surprise to the cable networks that covered the event. I was having a quick burger at the ballroom with Jenny, and we watched it on the row of TVs over the bar.

When the cheering subsided, an appropriately subdued Wrightman began his brief remarks by thanking the gathered chiefs for their service to America, as well as their individual “cities, towns, villages and hamlets.” Calling their departments “our first line of defense against those who would do this nation harm,” he specifically cited the work of the several police officers who had distinguished themselves on 7/11, as well as “Lieutenant Martin Shaw, Detroit PD, and the men of his anti-crime unit.” During the raid on the safe house, he continued, “Working side by side with elite Special Operators, Lt. Shaw and his men identified, located, and eventually disrupted this terrorist network.”

That’s interesting, I thought. He’s doubling down on that lie.

The president shaded his eyes from the spotlights as he looked out upon a sea of uniformed police officers. “Is Marty here? You here, Marty? Please stand up.” Marty did not stand up. Marty was not there. The problem with having an active curiosity is that you’re always curious. I wondered why he was singling out a Detroit cop involved in that raid rather than the military.

The president finished to raucous cheers, promising that his administration would continue to provide law enforcement with all the tools needed to meet “both small and large threats, today or in the future. We have your backs!” he shouted as the arena erupted, almost drowning him out. “We will defend you! We will protect you! We will honor you!” The walls rocked from the ovation. “And together, together! We will make this nation a safe place for democracy to flourish and grow!”

Eighteen thousand police officers from all around the country leaped to their feet, shouting in unison, “Wright-man! Wright-man! Wright-man…”

The man knew how to work a crowd, that was obvious. After quieting the audience, he announced that congressional leaders were ready to assist local law enforcement in purchasing technologically advanced bulletproof vests, strong enough to deflect even the powerful steel-jacketed bullets recently made legal by Congress. He took a moment to thank the manufacturer of both those bullets and the bulletproof vests that could safely absorb them, the Khyber Munitions Corporation, for its generous offer to provide both ammunition and those vests to the departments at a significant reduction.

I actually smiled when he said that. I had read about Khyber; it was the first company to sell advertising space on the jackets of its bullets.

Admittedly, it was a bravura performance, a masterpiece of political theater. It locked down the support of every law enforcement officer in the country, while at the same time reassuring anxious Americans that he was taking the steps necessary to keep them safe.

“He’s good,” I said to Jenny as the cheering faded and the networks returned to their anchors. “You know, he reminds me of something Will Rogers said.” Will Rogers was a major star of vaudeville and early movies, a comedian who appeared onstage twirling a lasso while he lamented about current events. Jenny knew all about him. I raised my index finger in the air and said, in a voice I made up that might have sounded like him, “The single most important trait any politician can possess is sincerity.” Then I slipped into my best Groucho, tapped my imaginary cigar with my fingers, and concluded, “And if he can fake that…”

She frowned. She was so cute when she frowned. She looked like my first-grade teacher disapproving my lurid finger painting. “Maybe you should give the guy a little break,” she said, raising her beer stein toward the TVs. “C’mon, Rol, look what the guy inherited. It’s going to take a long time to clean up this mess. So far he’s doing all right.”

There was a time I thought of people as diamonds, whose facets changed with reflected light. But Jenny was more like a Rubik’s Cube, a complex array of vivid colors spinning on an axis that I could never quite figure out. Maybe that was her appeal, that and her great figure. “How about your boss?” I asked. “What does she think?” Officially McDonnell was a liberal Democrat; in reality she was a hard-nosed realist who had become adroit at tweaking the system to benefit her constituents. A lot of people gave her credit for saving those shards of Obamacare that had eluded the Trumpsters’ efforts to wipe it out completely.

“Oh, you know Martha,” she responded. “She always wants more for…”—here she did her own impersonation of McDonnell’s raspy voice—“real Americans who go to work every morning to keep this country running.”

I raised my glass and clinked it against her empty stein. “To sincerity.”

“Skoal!” she agreed, clinking back, her smile brightening the room.

I stared at her.

“What?” she wondered.

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head in wonder. In this case, of course, nothing meant everything.

She blushed.

I was smitten. If you’ve been really lucky, you know what I was feeling. You might even be able to close your eyes and re-create it. If you haven’t experienced it, all I can say is, I hope it happens for you. There had been a good run of women in my life since I rolled off the reassembly line, but not one of them had shown any staying power. Maybe that was my fault. It didn’t really matter, because that’s what it had taken me to get to this place. I didn’t know where we were going, neither of us did, so we lived happily in the present. Occasionally she would refer to her ex, “perfectly proper Peter,” without expressing any anger or regret. I was naturally curious why their marriage had failed, amazed that any man could let her go, but whatever had happened, she didn’t want to talk about it or repeat it. Unlike a lot of people, she was perfectly happy simply being perfectly happy.

I was still basking in her smile as I was on my way to the gym the next morning. An early morning rainstorm had temporarily broken the heat wave. Along the way I stopped at all my regulars, and after a few mumbled words dropped my usual buck in a cup.

There was no place I felt more at home than in a gym; the clacking of weights, the occasional grunts, the friendly banter had been the background music of my life. The smell of sweat was my perfume. Obviously, I couldn’t do everything I’d once done, so I compensated by doing more of what I could do. The Light Brigade had been with me the whole trip.

Wrightman’s speech was the only thing anybody wanted to talk about. There was a general uneasiness about his over-the-top patriotism. Wayne Chang, a D.C. detective, compared it to Dubya’s use of 9/11 to launch the war against Saddam Hussein. Everybody had an opinion about exactly what it meant, about how far he might be willing to go. No one could figure out his real intentions. He wasn’t banging the war drums, there was no screaming about political enemies, there weren’t even any obvious legislative goals. For me, I piped up, it was like an itch on your back that was just out of your reach; it was real and it wasn’t going away.

What was clear was that the White House was struggling to regain its solid footing. The doubts about the administration’s competence had provided an opening for us to publish Inside the Beltway stories that otherwise would have attracted little interest. I had published two additional stories pretty much demolishing the links between the attacks and the Detroit raid. The Hill ran a piece revealing that the Department of Labor had quietly changed the method used to compile economic statistics, making the economy appear significantly more resilient than it actually was performing. A Politico piece exposed the confusion inside the Defense Department about how to respond to the attacks. A Washington Post feature criticized the National Security Council for not taking stronger steps to restore the nation’s intelligence capabilities, which had been decimated by Trump and obviously insufficiently repaired by the Dems.

All of those stories, including mine, had required information from “knowledgeable” sources. The White House had sprung a leak, and steps were being taken to prevent it from sinking. Which is why the phone call I received didn’t much surprise me.

“Mr. Stone?” She had a pleasantly officious voice. “Secretary McCord would…”

“Rollie!” Rip interrupted, picking up the phone. “Thank you, Michele, I got it.” He waited a beat as his assistant hung up. “I’ve been reading your stories this week.”

I couldn’t tell if that was supposed to be a compliment or a threat.

“You guys are doing a great job there.” I was waiting for some kind of busting-balls comment, but it didn’t come. “So I was hoping you might be able to help me out.”

Here’s another dirty secret from the wonderful world of journalism. We respected quid pro quos even before Trump made them popular. If we owe favors and we can repay them without compromising ethics or personal integrity, we do. Rip was somewhere on my list.

“If I can. What do you need?” I heard a soft whir as Mighty Chair began recording.

“A little patriotism, actually. Off the record, I need you to help us protect America.” I looked at the phone and grimaced. That was not the McCord I’d known. Even he had to be embarrassed hearing those words coming out of his mouth. I had no doubt he was taking one for the team.

I didn’t say a word. I waited for him to fill the uncomfortable silence.

“Listen, man,” he finally said in a whispered, conspiratorial tone. “There are things going on here that I can’t tell you about. But you’d be doing both of us a big favor if you believed us on this one.”

There. I finally figured it out. My stories about the Detroit debacle had touched some Very Important President’s nerve. “I’d be happy to quote you, Rip,” I offered. “Just put this conversation on record.”

McCord laughed. “Right. C’mon, Stoney, gimme a break here. You know I can’t do that.”

Stoney? Stoney? Are you frigging kidding me? He’d been spending far too much time with the same glad-handers we used to laugh at. “Just between you and me and the NSA, Rip, give me a hint. What’s really going on here? We both know Detroit is bullshit. Those people didn’t have dick to do with 7/11.”

For the first time I heard a hint of desperation in his voice. “If I could tell you, I would. You know I’ve always been straight with you. I can tell you that there are a lot of moving pieces, but I promise you, if you stick with us on this one, I’ll make it up to you big-time.” Ping went one of the strings of my heart. I actually felt a little sorry for him, at least until he added, “And by the way, you’re wrong. We’ve got money transfers, plane tickets.” His voice actually got strained as he lied, “It was no coincidence Hassan was in the tunnel, I promise you that. Just do us both a favor and get on board this train. You really don’t want it leaving the station without you.”

I could almost taste the desert grit in my mouth when I hung up. McCord had always been a stand-up guy; he was a legitimate hero. It hurt a little seeing him made small. Whatever was taking place inside the White House, they were getting ready to play rough.

Howie had plunked down in my dining room chair. “Well, that was weird,” I said. “That was McCord trying to get me off the story. They’re trying to protect something.”

“Or someone,” Howie corrected. “It’s all the same. This is the eighth administration I’ve covered, starting with Reagan. I’ve been flattered and promised and threatened and lied to, I’ve been offered bribes, I’ve been accused of treason. Once I was even seduced.” He smiled at that memory and tapped his index finger on his chest. “Yeah, that’s right, I was seduced.”

“Hey,” I agreed, tossing my hands palms up, “why not?”

“Damn straight. But I always knew what they wanted. This one…” He frowned. “The first thing any reporter wants to know is why have I earned this attention? What does this person want from me?”

“Except the sex,” I pointed out.

“Except the sex,” he agreed. “You’ve written some good pieces about this, but we both know there have been more damaging stories out there. What is it about your stories that’s got the White House so upset?”

My incredible insight, perhaps? “No idea,” I said. And at that moment I didn’t.

Howie pushed himself up and adjusted his glasses. “Keep pecking away,” he said.