Conspiracy

144

There were many more Secret Service agents at the Paley house than Chief Ball thought there would be. They were a humorless bunch, for the most part not given to chitchat, but that was just as well — Ball worried that saying too much to the wrong person might inadvertently give him away. He spent most of his time sitting in the den with one of the liaisons to the federal marshal detail — brought in for extra coverage and mostly assigned to the grounds — watching a soccer match on television. Ball had no interest in soccer, but the marshal was far and away the most amiable of the feds inside the house.

An agent stuck his head through the door.

“Hey, emergency ser vices briefings. Let’s go.” Chief Ball got up, then fell in behind the marshal as they walked to the kitchen. Two ambulances from a local company had been retained to provide coverage if any guests or staff members got sick. The Ser vice itself would handle getting the senator to the hospital if necessary, using a special SUV and following a pre-scouted route.

“Who’s Stevens?” asked a pug-nosed, light-skinned black Secret Service agent, entering the room at full gallop.

“That would be me,” said Ball.

The agent looked at him as if he’d just ruined his day.

“Call your office. Now.”

“All right.” Ball started toward the nearby wall phone.

“Not on that line,” hissed the man.

A titter of barely suppressed laughter ran through the room.

Ball went outside and found a sympathetic sheriff’s deputy to lend him a phone.

“I’m supposed to call in,” he told the woman who answered at campaign headquarters.

“Bruce Chazin wants to talk to you.” Chazin was O’Rourke’s nominal supervisor.

“This is Stevens,” said Ball when he came on the line.

“You wanted to talk to me?”

“Where the hell is O’Rourke?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I kind of assumed he was there.”

“When did you last talk to him?”

“Well, he called around noon to check on me,” said Ball.

“Sounded like he was having lunch.” He answered the rest of Chazin’s questions as vaguely as possible. The deputy campaign manager needed someone to review the arrangements at the next day’s events.

“I’d be glad to do that for you, but they have us in a lock-down situation here,” said Ball. “Can’t go in or out.”

“I don’t want you. I want O’Rourke. I need someone at the meeting.”

Chazin fumed some more, and seemed on the verge of ordering Ball to check on O’Rourke’s hotel — and the bar in the lobby. But finally Chazin just hung up.

Ball realized as he went back into the kitchen that being yelled at had transformed his status. Before, everyone had stared at him, trying to figure out who he was. Now, they smirked.

That was a lot better. Having a role to play — even as the butt of everyone’s jokes — meant he belonged. He took a bottle of water from the cooler on the floor, opened it, and leaned against the sink.

The nearby clock said it was ten minutes past five. Guests wouldn’t be arriving until seven; the senator was expected around nine.

Just a few hours to go, Ball told himself, taking a long slug from the bottle.