Hellbent

61 Unacceptable

Charles Van Sciver stood on his Alabama porch as the remaining freelancers loaded out of the plantation house behind him, hauling Hardigg Storm Cases filled with gear and ammo. Their work on this coast was done. It was time to reposition the pawns on the chessboard and stake out key positions so they’d be fast-strike-ready the instant Orphan X reared his head.

Van Sciver had his phone out, the number cued up, but was reluctant to press the button.

He gathered his will.

And he pressed.

Jonathan Bennett had a number of remarkable skills as you would expect from a man of the Office. The most valuable one the public saw almost every day without even noticing.

Impeccable body control.

He’d once slogged through a Louisiana heat wave for a four-day swing — twenty-seven stops from stump speeches to union rallies in humidity so high it felt like wading through a swamp. He’d flipped the state as promised, and never once had he broken a sweat. Not beneath the hot light of the campaign trail, not during the nine debates, not in the situation room contemplating an aerial bombardment to unfuck the rugged north of Iraq.

That’s what had killed Nixon. The sweating.

But Bennett was different.

He was the un-Nixon.

Before law school in his early days as a special agent for the Department of Defense, he’d learned to exert control over functions of his body he’d previously thought uncontrollable. This skill had served him well, then and now. He’d never been photographed with a sheen across his forehead or sweat stains darkening a dress shirt. He didn’t stammer or make quick, darting movements with his eyes.

Most telling, his hands never shook.

The American people required that in this day and age. A leader with a steady hand. A leader who knew how to sell image, his and theirs. They never noticed the minutiae that projected this competence, at least not consciously, but they registered it somewhere deep in their lizard brains.

That’s what you appealed to. What you targeted. What you ruled.

The lizard brains.

Instinct. Survival. Fear.

He studied his staff through the wire-frame eyeglasses he’d selected to convey authority and a certain remoteness. Right now his people were at odds over a housing bill that was threatening to blow up in the Senate and, more importantly, on CNN. For the last five minutes, he’d listened with predatory repose, but now it was time to strike.

He cleared his throat pointedly.

The debate ceased.

Before he could render his judgment, one of three heavy black phones rang on his desk. When he noted which one, he rose from the couch, crossed the rug featuring his seal in monochromatic sculpting, and picked up the receiver with his notably steady hand.

He put his back to the room, a signal, and the murmured discussion resumed behind him.

“Is it done?” he asked.

Orphan Y replied, “No.”

Bennett waited two seconds before replying. Two seconds was a long time in the life of a conversation, particularly when one half of that conversation was emanating from the Oval Office.

Bennett was out of earshot of the others, but he lowered his voice anyway. “This cannot get to NSA, CIA, or State. That’s why I assigned you my own personally vetted men. It gets out of your hands, it could get out of mine. And that is unacceptable.”

Van Sciver said, “I completely—”

Bennett took off his eyeglasses and set them on the blotter. “When I ran the DoD, we had a saying. ‘It takes wet work to do a clean job.’ I need this to be watertight. I cannot have him out there. He may not know why, but he’s the only remaining connective tissue. Someone can connect the dots, and those dots lead through X. Without him they’re just dots.” Bennett allowed another two-second pause. “Clean out the connective tissue or I’ll consider you part of it.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

Bennett set the receiver down gently on the cradle that sat on the weighty Resolute desk. A quick internal inventory showed his pulse to be normal, his breathing as calm as ever.

He turned around to face his staff. “Now, where were we?”