Murder at Union Station

THIRTY-ONE

President Adam Parmele and his entourage of advisers and aides, accompanied by those members of the press corps privileged to travel with him-and whose boredom at being on yet another campaign trip was evident-sat in the massive 747 waiting for it to touch down in Miami.

The president was not his usual gregarious and available self this day. On previous campaign flights, he’d ingratiated himself with reporters, making frequent forays from his private airborne quarters and office to the press section of the aircraft, joking, replying to questions, playing his practiced ability to schmooze with them to good effect. This day, however, he kept to himself, disappearing inside the president’s space with his political adviser, Chet Fletcher, and congressional liaison Walter Brown. His wife, Cathleen, who had been scheduled to accompany her husband, canceled at the last moment: “The first lady regrets that she will be unable to accompany the president to Miami,” read the short, bland press release from her office.

The reporters in the rear did what they usually do on these flights, filled up on food served by White House stewards assigned to the plane and swapped the latest political jokes and D.C. rumors. Those who’d covered previous presidents had learned to be circumspect when the jokes involved chiefs of state. Parmele was different. He laughed heartily at humor in which he was the target, and often repeated what late-night talk-show hosts had quipped about him during their opening monologues.

“Must be something heavy-duty going on up front, huh?” a wire service reporter said.

“Maybe he’s planning to invade Mississippi, punish them for not voting for him.”

“He doesn’t want to answer questions about his wife,” someone else offered.

“ Mississippi, hell. If he’s going to use the military to get anybody, it’ll be Senator Widmer.”

“What’ve you got on those hearings coming up?”

“Nada. Zip. I’ve seen a tight clamp on hearings before, but nothing like this. Even the best leaks aren’t talking. What are we coming to?”

The press representative from the Washington Post had chosen a seat apart from his colleagues. One called to him: “Hey, Milton, you pick up anything new on the Widmer hearings?”

“No,” Milton said, and went back to a magazine he’d been reading.

The reporter who’d asked the question leaned close to the ear of a correspondent from CNN. “Widmer’s got some surprise witness,” he said.

“Yeah, I heard that, too.”

“Got something to do with that murder at Union Station.”

“Get outta here! Where’d you hear that?”

“I’ve got a source who-”

Robin Whitson’s sudden entry into the press section from where she’d been sitting midships brought the conversation to a halt.

“Hey, Robin, come sit here,” someone suggested.

“In a minute,” the press secretary said, plucking a sandwich from a tray being passed by a steward and bantering with reporters nearby. A few minutes later, she slipped into an empty seat next to Milton from the Post.

“What’ve they got, a thing going?” someone whispered to a colleague.

“ Milton? Come on.” Now he lowered his voice so that it could barely be heard over the jet’s four engines. “”He’s got something on the Widmer story.”

“How do you know?”

“I hear things.”

Robin sensed the undercurrent of talk and came to the front of the section. “Okay,” she announced, “here’s the drill in Miami. The president will be talking about his new initiative on education and the escalating tension in North Korea, and he’ll float some ideas on strengthening the crime bill currently under discussion in Congress.” She motioned for her assistant press secretary to distribute advance copies of the speech Parmele would deliver in Miami.

“What’s with his wife canceling, Robin?”

“A scheduling conflict.”

“Hours before she’s due to make the trip?”

“That’s what happened. Hey, get off this nonsense about the president and first lady. Okay? You’ve got better things to think about.”

The first lady and her absence was the last thing on the minds of Parmele, Fletcher, and Brown as they sat in a tight circle of club chairs in the president’s office compartment.

Brown, who had just briefed Parmele and Fletcher on new information concerning the pending Widmer hearings, had learned over the months to leave the president and his political adviser alone after delivering sobering news. “Nobody in until the chief says so,” he told a uniformed Marine lance corporal, who stood at rigid attention outside the president’s flying office.

Parmele swiveled in his leather chair to look through the window at towering cumulus clouds on the eastern horizon.

“See those anvil-shaped formations on top?” Parmele said, his eyes not straying from the vista outside the aircraft.

Fletcher came to another window and crouched. “Yes,” he said.

“Thunderstorms,” said the president. “Violent thunderstorms inside those clouds. They could tear this aircraft into bits.”

“Not a pleasant thought,” Fletcher said.

Parmele turned to Fletcher. “Neither is what Walter just told us,” he said, grim-faced.

The president left his chair and paced the thickly carpeted area. As usual, he’d removed his shoes immediately after takeoff and was in his stocking feet. The incessant whine of the 747’s engines provided white noise to fill the silence between the men.

Fletcher had taken a seat, crossed his legs, and watched his leader- America ’s leader-walk, as though it would force clarity into his thinking. Fletcher had seen Parmele do this numerous times before. Being in motion seemed to energize the man when he was grappling with particularly thorny problems. The briefing Walter Brown had delivered certainly qualified.

Parmele went behind his desk, sat, leaned forward to prop his elbows on it, and said, “Nobody will believe it, Chet.”

Fletcher cleared his throat. “Mr. President, those who wish to believe it will. Those who don’t won’t. But it isn’t that simple, sir. These charges are serious. Widmer will shape it for maximum impact.”

“It’s all hearsay,” Parmele said. He’d been an attorney before entering politics.

“But this isn’t a court of law,” Fletcher countered. “You aren’t considered innocent until proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The court of public and political opinion doesn’t deal in such niceties.”

Parmele leaned back and threw up his hands. “He doesn’t have anything, damn it! You heard Walter. The old Italian who was going to testify is dead. What does Widmer have? The word of someone trying to make a fast buck, that’s all.”

Fletcher sighed as he added, “And notes and taped interviews with Louis Russo. That’s what I’m told.”

“Secondhand stuff.”

“Mr. President,” Fletcher said, “the Widmer hearings will be televised. They will be front page on every paper in America, and overseas, too. If there are tape recordings and they contain Russo’s allegations about you, hearing them will be riveting to the American people. They-”

“How do you know? Have you heard the tapes?”

“No, sir, but I assume they contain Russo’s charges in his own voice.”

“What about this guy’s book? What’s his name? Marienthal?”

“Richard Marienthal. His book is being published by Hobbes House.”

Parmele guffawed. “Hobbes House! Why am I not surprised?”

“I’ve had the editor and publisher queried, Mr. President. They’ll say nothing more than it’s a novel.”

“A novel? Widmer’s going to base his hearings on a goddamn piece of fiction?”

“I don’t believe it is a novel, Mr. President. Chances are they’re calling it a novel at this juncture to keep its true nature under wraps. It has to be a nonfiction recounting of what Mr. Russo claims happened and his role in it.”

Parmele stood again. “This is nothing but a goddamn political hatchet job to derail a second term.”

“Of course it is,” agreed Fletcher, not adding that it represented considerably more than that. The word impeachment never passed his lips.

Congressional liaison Walter Brown’s breaking the news about the substance of the Widmer hearings hadn’t come as a surprise to Fletcher. Far from it. As tight as security had been surrounding the hearings, tidbits about the genesis of them had begun to ripple around official Washington as early as two weeks ago. Light on specifics, the rumors had been brought to Fletcher’s attention by well-placed sources inside Congress, members of Parmele’s political party.

This posed a dilemma for the political adviser. He considered going to the president soon after learning of it, but decided against it. It was all too vague at that juncture, too grounded in innuendo and half-truths. Too, there were the sources of the information, those unnamed men and women whose own agendas had to be questioned.

Instead, Fletcher made the decision to pursue it through his own contacts, keeping the president out of the loop, at least in the short run.

His first step had been to confer with the attorney general of the United States, Wayne Garson. That meeting had taken place in the west wing of the White House, a room not much in demand because it was not much bigger than a closet.

Of all Parmele’s Cabinet appointments, Wayne Garson had been the most controversial. Before being tapped by the newly elected president to be his attorney general, the tall, rawboned former Louisiana attorney general had the reputation of being a tough prosecutor, an advocate of the death penalty and a champion of the unborn, a deeply religious man who seemed to ride above the rough-and-tumble politics of the Bayou State. Parmele had spoken against the death penalty during his campaign, and was an advocate of a woman’s choice when it came to ending a pregnancy.

So, the pundits asked, why choose Wayne Garson as your attorney general?

Although political adviser Chet Fletcher wasn’t the one asked publicly for an answer, it had been his choice when asked by the president for recommendations. The polls had indicated that Parmele, even though he’d won the election, was perceived by many in the country as being too liberal, too soft, particularly with social issues. Garson would add muscle to the administration. Of course, there was the hurdle of Garson’s confirmation hearings, which became more contentious than most other such hearings in recent memory. Garson’s gruff personality and impressive knowledge of the law and the Constitution carried the day. It was almost as though senators on the panel were reluctant to challenge Garson’s views and experience. He couched responses to questions about his views on abortion and capital punishment, was confirmed, and lost little time in shaping Justice in his own image.

Garson and Fletcher’s meeting wasn’t on the White House schedule, by design. Each man had been involved in earlier official meetings; their entry into the small office seemed to just happen, accidental and unplanned. Garson arrived first, preceding Fletcher by barely a minute. The AG, his broad shoulders seeming to fill the room-“You forgot to remove the hanger, Mr. Attorney General,” was a favored line around Washington -was admiring a painting on the wall when Fletcher entered. Fletcher closed the door and lost his hand in Garson’s meaty fist.

“What’s on your mind, Chet?” Garson asked, folding himself into a chair and narrowing his eyes.

Fletcher told him what he’d heard, that Alaska senator Karl Widmer was planning to hold hearings into the period when President Parmele headed the CIA.

“Ancient history,” Garson muttered.

“Not so ancient, Wayne,” Fletcher countered. “And possibly damaging to the president beyond repair.”

Garson grunted. “Go on, tell me more.”

“Details are sketchy at best,” Fletcher said, taking a chair across from the AG. “I have people trying to come up with more. Private sources, very discreet.” If he was looking for a nod of approval at pursuing the matter with discretion, he didn’t get it from Garson. He continued: “What we know at this juncture is that Senator Widmer has made contact with a man named Louis Russo.”

“Who’s he?”

“Mafia in New York. He lives in Israel now.”

“ Israel? A former New York mafioso?”

“He was placed in the federal witness protection program a number of years ago.”

“He turned?”

“That’s what I’m told.”

“What the hell does Widmer want from a Mafia turncoat?”

“His testimony about the president.”

“When he headed the CIA.”

“Yes.” Fletcher lowered his voice to a whisper. He leaned close to Garson and said, “The Eliana matter.”

Garson’s expression said that he either hadn’t heard Fletcher or hadn’t registered what he had heard. Then his face changed from puzzlement to recognition. “I understand,” he said, his whisper more gravelly than Fletcher’s.

“This Russo, I’m told, claims to have been hired to kill Eliana.”

“By the CIA?”

An affirmative nod from Fletcher.

“Back when-”

“Yes.”

“Is he claiming that the president ordered it? When he was at the Company?”

“I’m not sure. I just know that the potential ramifications are immense.”

“Are you sure of what you’re saying?” Garson asked.

“No. But we must find out, and do it fast.”

“How did Widmer end up with this Mafia type?”

“I don’t know.”

Garson grimaced and hunched his shoulders, running a hand through his thicket of unruly gray hair. “Know what I think?” he said.

“What?”

“I think you’re right-if this Russo is who you say he is, and if he’s willing to lie in front of a Senate committee.”

Garson’s assumption that Russo would be lying if he testified might have provided a modicum of comfort to Fletcher. It didn’t. If this thing progressed to the point of a former member of the Mafia testifying that the president of the United States had, while head of the CIA, in fact, ordered the assassination of a Central American leader, one of the many spins put on it would be that he was lying, seeking his day in the sun, his fifteen minutes of fame, demented, ailing and losing his faculties, a criminal, a lifetime liar and cheat, all the usual, the dupe of a vindictive senator out to destroy a presidency.

Better not to have it happen in the first place.

“Can you find out more about Russo and what he intends to say in front of the committee?” Fletcher asked.

“I’ll get on it,” Garson replied gruffly.

“It has to be kept away from the White House.”

“You damn well bet it does,” said Garson, standing. “And from Justice, too. Does he know?”

“The president? No.”

“Better he doesn’t until we have a better handle on it.”

“I agree.”

“I’ll get back to you.”

The 747’s PA system came to life from the cockpit: “We’ll be landing in twenty-two minutes.”

Parmele put on his shoes and laced them. Fletcher waited for the president to speak. He’d laid out everything he knew about the Widmer hearings, which was considerably more than Walter Brown had known. Parmele remained silent during Fletcher’s briefing. Shoes tied, he turned to his political adviser, smiled, and said, “I think I owe the Mafia a debt of gratitude, Chet.”

“Sir?”

“For getting rid of this turncoat. What’s his name? Louis Russo? They did me a favor.”

“But there are the tapes and notes, sir. And I expect that the writer will be called to testify, too.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky with him, too. What do you know about him?”

Fletcher started to respond, but Parmele cut him off. “I’m sure he didn’t vote for me,” he said with a small chuckle. “Do what you can, Chet. I’ll be damned if some hack writer and a lying mafioso are going to deny me a second term.”

The president slapped Fletcher on the back, left the office, and went to the press section, where he told reporters, “Sorry I couldn’t be with you earlier. I’m sure Robin has taken good care of you.”

“Sir, any comment about why Mrs. Parmele decided at the last minute to not make this trip?” he was asked.

Parmele flashed a big smile and said, “She’s probably gotten bored of hearing me extol her virtues on the stump. Needed a day off from me-and you. See you on the ground.”