Act of Treason

23

Ross had flown commercial with his Secret Service detail even though a private jet had been offered to him by one of the billionaire attendees at the conference. The offer was tempting, but Ross knew the media, the vicious bloggers, and the crazy talk radio folks would light him up. Taking a private jet home from a conservation summit smacked of elitism and hypocrisy. He could wait one more week untilAir Force Two was at his disposal.

Besides, the Air France flight wasn’t bad. The stewardesses up in first class were extremely attractive and spared no effort in fawning over him. His fellow passengers wanted their photo taken with him. Ross was a man of the people. His not-so-pleasant conversation with Green in the wine cellar the night before had driven him to drink more wine than he should have, and he had boarded the plane with a head-splitting hangover. Everything after midnight was a slight blur. He remembered being in the kitchen with Speyer, and the lanky blond talking, though about what, he could not remember for the life of him. Music was playing, the blond started dancing, and the next thing Ross knew, he was pinned against the refrigerator; her ass pressed firmly against his groin. He had a glass of wine in his left hand; she had his right hand wrapped around her body and placed dangerously close to her left breast.

Ross would have had her right there in the kitchen if it hadn’t been for Speyer and the lascivious look in his eye. The president of one of the world’s most private banks, Speyer didn’t so much keep secrets as he did collect and trade in them. A prince of Europe ’s unofficial gay mafia, the banker would have loved nothing more than to be able to hold such a salacious bit of information over Ross’s head. The vice president-elect had managed to extricate himself from the situation by playfully chastising Speyer and giving the leggy blond a kiss and a promise that he’d put her on his dance card for next year’s conference.

The Secret Service had arranged to get Ross off the plane first and expedite him through customs. They’d also arranged to have his skis and bag picked up and delivered to his house. Ross walked through the terminal with a real sense of purpose and optimism. He’d miraculously banished from his mind all thought of Cy Green and the debt he owed him. His detail of agents were spread out around him, three in front, one on each side, and two more behind. The formation looked like a kickoff, which in turn reminded Ross that his New England Patriots had a playoff game this afternoon. Ross was born and raised outside Wilmington, Delaware, and had cheered for the Colts growing up. After graduating from Princeton, he worked at the CIA for a few years before getting a law degree from Yale and then moving on to Wall Street where he’d made his fortune. By thirty-five he and his wife had moved to the ultra-rich enclave of Greenwich, Connecticut, where they raised a boy and a girl, and where Ross eventually decided to jump on the Patriots’ bandwagon.

Ross’s son was out in Seattle trying to find himself. This bothered the politician more than he cared to admit, but he was too busy to obsess over the fact that his twenty-five-year-old son had gone to the nation’s best schools and still couldn’t figure out what the hell he wanted to do with his life. His daughter was a new mother and living in New York City. They were for the most part good kids. They burned through money at an alarming rate, but at least they stayed out of trouble. Their mother had done a relatively good job. Ross hadn’t been around all that much. He was too busy making money and having fun. And it had all paid off. He was now only six days and one heartbeat away from the most powerful job in the world.

Just on the other side of the security checkpoint Ross saw his chief of staff, Jonathan Gordon, waiting for him. Ross smiled and gave him a little wave. Gordon was a good man. Very loyal. The Secret Service agents all knew Gordon and made just enough room for him to enter the inner protective circle. The scrum kept moving toward the exit without missing a stride.

“Jonathan, nice of you to come all the way out here on your day off.”

“In this business there are no days off.”

“Not even the Sabbath?” Ross was joking, knowing full well Gordon’s agnostic views.

“Especially not the Sabbath.” The group passed through the large sliding doors and out into the cold January day. “I assume you haven’t bothered to turn your phone on?”

“No.” Ross smiled and patted the left breast pocket of his jacket. “I forgot all about the damn thing.”

“Well, I’ve left you a few messages, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. It’s just a bit of breaking news.”

They were midway between the door and the waiting limousine when a car came flying around the corner to their left; tires squealing and engine revving. Ross and Gordon looked toward the noise and slowed their step.

Agent Brown, who had stayed consistently one step behind Ross from the Jetway to the curb, placed his large hand in the middle of Ross’s back and grabbed a handful of fabric. He did not slow for a second. He picked up his pace, driving Ross forward, leaving Gordon behind. The scrum picked up speed, coats were thrown open, hands reached for guns, some eyes turned toward the possible threat, others turned away to make sure it wasn’t a diversion of some sort, and then it was over before it began.

The car, a black Lincoln Town Car, skidded to a halt at the end of the motorcade and the rear passenger door flew open. Agent Brown was one step away from tossing his protectee headfirst into the back of the limo, when he saw Stu Garret emerge from the back of the Town Car. Brown released Ross and straightened out his jacket before turning to find the agent who was in charge of the ground detail. The access to the upper ramp was supposed to be shut down until they had Ross out the door, buttoned up, and on his way.

Garret marched along the sidewalk, moving agents out of his way like a bowling ball through pins. He had on a puffy down jacket with a floppy fur-lined hood.

“Mark,” Garret yelled.

Even Ross was a bit miffed. The speeding car and the way the agents had reacted had caused his heart to race. “Yes, Stu?”

“I need to talk to you.”

It was classic Garret. No greetings. No niceties. No small talk, formality, or informality. The campaign manager, and head of the transition team, was forever in a rush.

“Great to see you too,” Ross quipped. “Did you get a new jacket?”

“I’m fucking freezing my ass off. If there wasn’t so much to do I’d get on a plane right now and fly back to California.”

Ross looked at the sky. It was a gray overcast afternoon with little wind. The temperature was probably somewhere in the high thirties. Not really that bad.

“You need to toughen up.”

Garret entered the inner circle and growled, “You need to pull your head out of your ass and turn on your damn cell phone.”

The smile on Ross’s face disappeared. “Excuse me?”

“Get in the limo.” Garret grabbed Ross by the elbow and pointed at the open door. “Let’s go.”

Jonathan Gordon tried to follow, but Garret put out a hand and said, “Ride in one of the other cars. I need him alone.”

Gordon was eye to eye with Garret. He had grown to detest this foul little man. Gordon had been with Ross since the beginning of his political career. It had been his job to temper Ross’s narcissistic tendencies without crushing his fragile ego. He had been fiercely loyal, even during the campaign when Garret had been brought in to shake things up.

“Jonathan,” Ross called out from inside the limo. “It’s all right. We’ll talk when we get to the house.”

Garret climbed in closing the door behind him. He sat in the seat opposite Ross and craned his neck around to make sure the privacy screen was up. It was. Garret spun back around, threw open his coat, and rattled off a series of expletives.

Ross kicked out his feet and said, “I see the holidays haven’t improved your mood.”

“Holidays…that’s a good one. Almost as good as you flying commercial.”

The limo started moving. Ross looked out the window and said, “Considering the fact that I was at an environmental conference, I think it was a rather good idea.”

“How was the conference?”

“It was nice. The skiing was great. The foot soldiers really appreciated me showing up.”

Garret leaned forward placing his hands on his knees. “He was right. You’re drunk on power.”

“What are you talking about?” Ross asked with a frown.

“Do you think I give a shit about the skiing, or how impressed the tree huggers were that you showed up?” Garret shook his head in disbelief. “I’m not kidding…you need to pull your head out of your ass.”

Ross’s face flushed with anger. “Stu, you need to watch your mouth.”

“My mouth is the least of your problems. Fuck.” He sat back and frowned. “I was on the phone with our friend for nearly thirty minutes this morning.”

“Who?”

“Our friend.” Garret tilted his head and looked at Ross to see if he was putting two and two together. “The one you had wine with last night.”

“Oh…that friend.”

“Yeah…that friend. He’s pissed. He says you’re delusional. You’ve somehow managed to rationalize this whole thing and wash your hands of it.”

“I’ve done no such thing.”

“He sounded pretty convinced.”

“He’s not exactly the most stable person I’ve ever met.”

“Do you have any idea how fucking serious he is?”

“There’s only so much I can do.”

“I get the feeling your idea of what you can do and his are miles apart.”

“I told him,” Ross pointed his finger at Garret, “that I would do everything I could to help him, but in the end it would be up to you know who.”

“No, I don’t know who.”

“The president.”

“Current or future?”

“Current.”

“I seem to remember you also telling him if Hayes balked you would get Josh to do it once he took the oath.”

“I did not.”

“You sure as hell did. I heard you. You said that between you and his father-in-law you would get him his pardon.”

“Shhhh…” Ross held his finger to his lips.

Garret glanced over his shoulder at the two agents in the front seat and then looked back at Ross. “You fucking think they have us bugged? You really are out of your mind.”

“In this town you never know.”

“Fuck…you’re paranoid.”

“And you’re a rude little bastard, Stu.”

“Yeah well guess what? We’re not in high school anymore. I’m not trying to win any popularity contests. My job was to get you elected. And I did that.”

“You weren’t the only one working on the campaign.”

Garret shook his head and said, “Our friend told me that you actually said you thought you were making up ground in the polls and that you had momentum on your side. He told me you said we may have won the thing all on our own. You didn’t really say that, did you?”

Ross looked out the window yet again. “Stu, elections are a strange business.”

“Mark, elections are my business. I’ve been running them and rigging them for over thirty years and I’m going to tell you right now you guys were dead in the water. You had about as much of a chance to win that thing as a Republican does the mayoral race in San Francisco…which is to say none.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do, Mark, and you’d better fucking snap out of it, because I’m telling you right now our friend over in Europe is not the type of man you want to fuck with.”

Ross had heard just about enough. “Next Saturday, I’m going to be sworn in as the vice president of the United States of America. I think our friend should start thinking about whohe wants to fuck with.”

“Yeah, well…he’s not your only problem, Mr. Vice President.” Garret looked out the window and said something under his breath.

“What?”

“The FBI, Department of Justice, and CIA have scheduled a joint press conference for tomorrow morning at ten.”

“Why?”

“The word on the street is that they caught the guy who was behind the attack on the motorcade.”

“The guy behind the attack,” Ross repeated with eyes as big as saucers. “You mean the guy who carried out the attack?”

“Or one of his associates. There are a lot of rumors flying around right now. I don’t know for sure who they have.”

“Does the media have the story?”

“Yeah, they’re all running it on the crawler, but they don’t have any specifics yet.”

“Shit,” Ross swore. “He told me he was going to take care of this. He told me last night when I talked to him.”

“When I spoke with him this morning, the news hadn’t broke yet, and I don’t think he knew or he would have said something.”

“Can this be traced back to us?”

“I’ve been thinking about that.” Garret hesitated and then shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so…Your lack of certainty isn’t exactly comforting me.”

“What do you want me to tell you? The only way we can be linked to this is through Cy, and he’s a very careful guy.”

“He’d sell us down the river in a heartbeat.”

“For sure, but if I know Cy, he covered his tracks.”

“Have you talked to Marty?” Ross was referring to the attorney general.

“I tried, but he’s not taking calls.”

“Well, he’ll take mine.” Ross retrieved his mobile phone and turned it on. While he stared at the small screen waiting for it to come to life a contingency plan occurred to him. He was about to float the idea with Garret and then decided at the last second that it was best to keep it to himself. He would have to first find out what the attorney general knew.