The White House July 1
Addis was at his desk, bouncing a pencil against a yellow pad—no notes, he told himself—and considering options: try Palmer again, visit Dunne in the hospital, locate the CIA shrink, go to the Post.
He felt water, cold water, moving up his leg.
He saw her face, eyes closed.
He held his breath. He squeezed his eyes shut. He pressed his feet against the floor. His lungs began to hurt. He grabbed the arms of the chair. His body started to writhe. The pain moved to his throat.
One more second, one more second …
He saw her face and gasped for air. There were tears on his cheeks.
A Secret Service officer knocked and entered the office. He wiped his face with his hand.
“Excuse me, sir.” It was one of the few women officers. “A Ms. Holly Rudd at the Seventeenth Street entrance says you’re expecting her. But you didn’t answer the call from the desk.”
She was the redheaded officer, one of the first to reach Hanover in the briefing room. Addis recalled that her head had looked like an explosion flash in the color photographs on the newsmagazine covers.
The officer noticed that Addis had disconnected the line to his phone. “Ms. Rudd was adamant that someone look for you. One of the officers at the desk did recognize her. From a photograph in the paper. So … I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, that’s fine,” Addis said.
“Shall I have someone escort her here?”
“No, I’ll go. Get some air.”
Rudd was sitting on the wooden bench by the guard’s desk, her hair pulled back. She stood as Addis passed through the security turnstiles.
“How are you?” she asked.
“I wasn’t hurt,” he said.
“Good. I didn’t want to disturb you, but—”
“Let’s go outside.” He knew people—the guards, the employees coming and going, the visitors waiting to be cleared into the White House—were watching, listening for a clue that could be fed into the city’s gossip machine. Rudd must have realized that by merely trying to see him she would be in the newspapers tomorrow.
“Okay,” she said. “There’s somebody I want you to meet.”
Your boyfriend? What else can happen now?
They walked two blocks before either said anything.
“Not hurt at all?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
Haven’t we already covered that?
The people they passed on the sidewalk gawked at him. A red-faced man wearing shorts and a U.S.A. T-shirt handed a young child to a woman with frosted hair and grabbed his videocamera. Addis maintained his thousand-mile stare. How much could the fellow get for the footage? Enough to cover this family vacation? I don’t mind, Addis told himself. Today, he was selling newspapers and drawing people to TV shows and radio programs. Helping the economy, he thought. So was Julia Lancette.
“Was she special?” Rudd asked.
“She would have been,” he replied.
“I wish I could say more than ‘I’m sorry,’ but …”
“Yes.” He acknowledged the sentiment without helping.
She guided Addis into a sandwich shop, and they walked to the back. A young black man, wearing a white shirt and a blue tie, was sitting at a table. She introduced him to Twayne Starrell. He looked uncomfortable. His eyes were … . Addis could not decide. Hard? Edgy? Mean? He was not a lawyer, not a student, not a congressional aide, not a reporter. A canvas knapsack was on his lap.
“A messenger from Clarence Dunne,” Rudd said.
Starrell placed the knapsack on the table.
“What’s in it?” Addis asked.
“I don’t know,” Rudd said. “But he”—she nodded toward Starrell—“insisted I—”
Addis raised an eyebrow; Starrell frowned at the show of suspicion.
“Requested, and politely so,” she corrected herself, “that I arrange for you two to meet.” She explained she had received a call from a woman who claimed she had papers that Dunne had wanted to get to Addis.
“Tamika,” Starrell said. “Tamika Timmons.”
Timmons, Rudd told Addis, had followed Addis’s social life in the
newspapers and tabloids. She had seen an item about Addis’s recent trip to New Orleans with Rudd.
“She don’t forget nothing,” Starrell remarked. “Makes it hard.”
“I’ll bet,” Addis said. He and Rudd sat down.
Rudd continued the explanation. Timmons remembered the name of Rudd’s law firm and called it this morning. She told the receptionist that she was with the Secret Service and needed to speak with Rudd immediately.
“She watches lots of old TV shows,” Starrell said. “With detectives and all that.”
When Rudd came to the phone, Timmons confessed the ruse and said she had a friend who had been working with Dunne. She told Rudd about her friend’s visit to the Gauntlet bar, about her friend’s rescue of a lady from the CIA, about her friend’s conversation with Dunne in the car.
Julia had not told him everything, Addis thought. Not about this rescue at the bar. Not about Starrell. Had that been oversight or prudence? Mistrust or the natural reticence of her profession? Dunne, too, had not mentioned Starrell to Addis.
I’ve been compartmentalized. By him and by her.
“You?” Addis asked. “The friend?”
Starrell almost smiled. “Man, you looked right at me, at that burnedup diner. I was in the car. Guess you don’t remember.”
“Guess not.”
Timmons, Rudd went on, also told her about the notes Dunne had taken during his conversation with the man from the Gauntlet, about the break-in at the house in Arlington, about Starrell’s visit to the hospital.
The man from the Gauntlet? That must be Dawkins. The man whom Grayton said was Morrison’s accomplice. Dunne had found Dawkins before he was killed in the raid. More proof Julia was right. The Agency was hooked into this.
Starrell peered around the room. Students—even in the summer. They kept looking at his table. He wondered if any had seen him the day before when they ditched the ambulance.
Timmons had told Rudd the knapsack contained papers that Dunne wanted Addis to see. She asked Rudd for help.
“But,” Rudd told Addis, “she said that I couldn’t see what was in the bag. Only you could.”
Starrell sat erect. He watched Addis absorb the information. He also kept an eye on the students. Was anyone heading to the phone? No way anyone would recognize him from that sketch. His lips were not as big, his face not as square.
“And all this is true?” Addis asked Starrell.
“Yes—” He thought about saying “sir,” but did not.
“And does anyone else know what Clarence was up to?”
“Don’t think so.” Starrell saw Dunne in the car. A bullet passing through the neck. The red spray.
“There was this one thing,” Starrell added. “Mr. Dunne was flicked. Said he had tried to talk to somebody.”
“Who?” Addis asked.
“His boss. Said all he fuckin’ cared about was some Chinese shit.”
That made sense to Addis: Dunne went to the Treasury Secretary, and Alter wasn’t interested. Just like Palmer wasn’t interested.
“May I?” Addis said and pointed to the bag.
“Yup,” Starrell said. He slid it across the table. “The notebook’s there, too.”
Addis unzipped the knapsack. Rudd moved her chair so she could gain a better view. The notebook was on top. The writing was neat and tight—the product of an organized mind—distinctive enough to determine if it belonged to Dunne. That lessened the odds someone was running a hoax. He skimmed the pages.
Action team formed. Deep cover. Outside CIA.
Terr. targets. Hong Kong, Germany, Mid East.
inc. assassination
An undercover government hit team? Addis wondered. Is that what Dunne’s notes meant?
Tangiers car blast.
3 dead/3 left; T. L.
Disbanded. No-trace pensions.
DCI/some in Cong. knew.
Addis remembered an explosion in Tangiers that had killed a dozen—or more?—civilians, including three American aid workers. Shit, the same event? Had these Americans been killed by … a U.S. operation?
Mattie to Raymond
One mting/Crystal City.
Man on TV in charge?/JG?
J. G.? Jake Grayton? Did Dunne suspect that Grayton had run this outfit? Had pulled together a small squad to assassinate suspected terrorists? Addis thought about the timing. The Tangiers blast had occurred during the administration of Hanover’s predecessor. Before Wenner was DCI. When Mumfries chaired the Senate intelligence committee. “3 left.” Who did that refer to? “Mattie” must be Matthew Levon Morrison, the
man identified as Hanover’s killer. Was he part of this team? With Dawkins? That made two. Who or what was “T. L.”? Shit, think of a worse nightmare. A presidential assassin from a covert government hit squad. Had he taken his government-provided skills and used them against Hanover? … And why?
No wonder Grayton was freaked. Kelly, too. Fuck, had Mumfries been in on the creation of this god-damn off-the-books outfit? Signed off on an operation that eventually led to the murder of a President? This couldn’t be. No, it couldn’t. And who was the third? Where the hell was he?
A bad movie. A fucking bad movie. Who could believe such shit really happens? It sure gives the fuckers plenty of reason to kill. But why kill Hanover?
Addis looked up from the notebook.
“And the rest of the stuff was in the bag when you found it at Dawkins’s apartment?” Addis asked Starrell.
Starrell nodded. “We didn’t know what to look for. Just scoped around. Looked like evidence or somethin’. Took it and booked.”
“We?”
“Had two buds helping. Shit, I thought Dunne was deader than dick. So I ain’t goin’ to be walkin’ into no crook without backup.”
“That’s okay,” Addis said. “I just want to know who knows what.”
“Don’t worry about no others,” Starrell said.
Addis removed the other papers from the knapsack. Xeroxed articles about the Tangiers explosion. Stories about the Hanovers, mainly profiles from the presidential campaign. One headline read, “The Hanover Legend: More Truth Than Not.” There were three passports in different names. Each photograph was the same: close enough to Morrison. A passbook for a numbered bank account in Geneva. Photographs cut out of magazines of the presidential briefing room. An article about the bartender at the Mayflower; the name of Brady Sandlin, the reporter Morrison had impersonated, was circled. Pages of handwritten notes on graph paper. The writing was small, difficult to read. Phrases, not sentences. “Cleared money.” “Semtech source burned.” “Bird-man at the emb.” “Car dealer bribe.” An envelope of travelers’ checks—several thousand dollars—with signatures matching the name on one of the passports. There were pages torn out of Soldier of Fortune magazine. Four bottles of pills, the labels in German. A short newspaper death notice: “Reginald Morrison, Alexandria”—
Louisiana? Alexandria, Louisiana? That would be too fucking a coincidence.
—“72-years-old, pneumonia.” Farmer. Electrician. Husband of Helen Alice Morrison, deceased. It was dated seven weeks before the assassination. And letters, handwritten in a wobbly scrawl. The top of the first page of each letter had been torn to remove the name of the addressee.
The bottom of the last pages were similarly torn so Addis could find no signature.
Addis read one:
Went to Mother’s grave yesterday. Been long time now. She never got used to being in that home. Doctors say I’m pretty sick. Maybe you can make it back, tho’ I dont know if you get these letters at that address you gave me. One thing I guess you got a rite to know. You know how we lost the spread at Blue Ridge. Sold it stupid’cause they told us a judge was going to swipe it for iminet domain. There’s more than that. Some years on—when we was living at Uncle Pete’s—I heard from this real estate guy how the Ridge was sold again to Govnor Hanover and then sold again to some other folks … .
Blue Ridge? At the Mayflower, he had checked in under the name of Max Bridge. B-ridge. Was that the message?
… And the Govnor made like a prince. So when I hear this, I was ready to be beat. Should have been ours. So I tried to see the govnor to complain. Drove to Baton Rouge. Guess I caused a stir at the office there. This lady won’t let me see him or no one else. Then this fellar comes to pull me out of there. He’s rough at first. But he asks me to explain why I’m so agitated. I tell him I see what’s been done and it ain’t fair. So he says that he’ll take a look and get on back to me. Talks like your momma did. I ain’t no fool so I say what if you don’t. He writes down his telephone number for me. And a week later he comes by Uncle Pete’s. Says what’s done is done and all that. But says some folks want to make it up. Big folks, he says. This is when you got your troubles at training. So I tell him you punched out this sergeant and they going to bust you out. He says, he’ll talk to the big folks. A week later you called me to say your on to something big and secret and all’s OK. So I figured they done kept their word. So I don’t fuss no more about what’s been done. Cause maybe I figured it’s a good thing cause it got you something. But if things ain’t turn out good, then I don’t know what. Anyhow, I hope you ain’t got no twitches yet. Your momma fought them for a long time. She always prayed and smiled, and made everybody feel good. Just like her name. And the docs always said they may pass you. I am praying for you. More for you than for me.
Addis let the page drop on the tapletop. He stared at the wall. A Redskins calendar.
This can’t be. It’s not a bad movie. It’s a bad joke. The worst fucking joke of all time. The worst in the fucking history of the U.S. and the entire fucking universe. Who could believe this? This guy’s—he’s like Oswald—every-fucking-where. Worse than Oswald. Not the biggest damn coincidence ever. The two biggest. One on top of another. Son of the hick ripped off by Chasie Mason to help the Hanovers, and, then, to keep that deal quiet, he’s bounced to some scum squad of government assassins. And then he …
Addis’s heart pounded. Might he be reading this wrong? The Blue Ridge property had been owned by a Helen Peters. He looked again at the death notice. Helen A. Morrison had been the wife. Two Helens. Could they be the same? Had Matthew Morrison’s mother once been Helen Peters?
“ … and made everybody feel good. Just like her name.”
Or Helen A. Peters? Addis had cut short his phone conversation with the clerk in the Rapides Parish records office. Had there been a middle name? One that began with an A? Helen A. Peters? Initials: H. A. P. That’s damn close to HAPPY.
“Oh fuck,” Addis said.
“What is it?” Rudd asked.
“Nothing,” Addis replied. “And everything. Every fucking thing.”