Hillary

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Bobby pushed open the iron gate at the head of the drive and then stood there, taking in the view, the endless horizon of the blue Pacific gleaming in the late day sun, remembering how much Laura liked it here, how much he liked it here, away from all the glamour and glitter, the half-truths and lies, of politics and Washington. It was paradise, the Garden of Eden, and in what now seemed a singular act of stupidity, he had left it of his own accord, tempted by ambition. He was home, a place they both loved, but instead of telling Laura that they could stay here forever, that after everything that had happened, all the treachery and murder, all the hurtful false accusations, they could finally live a quiet, private life, he had to tell her something else. As he saw Laura open the door and start running up the drive, laughing and crying at the same time, he wished more than anything that he could tell her that, that things were now going to be the way they were at the beginning when every day was perfect and they knew nothing would ever change.

Laura threw herself into his arms and for a long time they just held each other and did not say a thing. With his arm around her shoulder they walked in silence to the house, lost in the simple irreplaceable comfort of being together again.

“I should have met you at the airport.”

“All I’ve wanted to do is see you here, alone, no one else around; no crowds, no reporters-just us.”

They went inside and Bobby laughed a little, surprised that everything was just the way he remembered it. He felt as if he had been gone for years, half a lifetime, nothing that could be calculated by the normal measurements of time. Things had moved at too quick a pace for that.

“You must be exhausted,” said Laura as she made him sit down. They were in a sitting room just off the living room, where they often spent their evenings watching the sun slip out of the sky and set the sea on fire. “I’ll get us something to drink.”

Content to breathe the familiar air of home, Bobby watched her walk away, and, watching, could feel what it felt like at night when she was lying next to him and there was nothing else he wanted to do and nowhere else he wanted to be. He was grateful that he had found her, grateful that he had never lost her.

“I watched it all on television,” said Laura after she gave him a cool drink in an ice-filled glass. “It was very dramatic, the way Charlie did that, opening the door and you stepped out. I started to cry, and then, when I saw the stunned looks on the faces of those reporters, I started to laugh.”

She had started talking, and now she could not stop. Her excitement grew with every word, as she recounted what she had seen.

“And the coverage has been non-stop, everyone with an opinion about what is going to happen and, as usual, no one knows what they’re talking about. Except of course that Russell has to go, that Hillary Constable is finished, and that one or both of them may have had her husband killed. Everyone knows now that Atwood had it done; everyone knows-” Suddenly, she stopped. “I’m sorry; I forgot. He really killed himself while he was talking to you on the phone? How awful! Why did he do that, though? Why did he want you to know that he was doing that? Was it his way of getting back at you for finding out what he had done?”

Bobby tapped the edge of his glass.

“He wanted to let me know that I wasn’t even close to the truth. That’s what he said, but I’m still not sure what he meant. He didn’t kill himself because he was innocent. Unless he was just angry and deranged, lashing out at the world the way people about to kill themselves sometimes do, unless he just wanted to make me wonder if I had made some kind of tragic mistake, it has to have something to do with Hillary and Russell, something about why they did what they did. I don’t know. But Atwood’s dead and his secret, whatever it was, died with him. And so has any chance of proving that Hillary and Russell are responsible for Robert Constable’s death and the deaths of all the others.”

“But they’ll still face charges, won’t they, for what they did with The Four Sisters?”

“Maybe not.”

“But why? They have all the evidence.”

“Hillary can claim that she did not know anything about what her husband was doing. And as for Russell, he’s trying to make a deal.”

There was a look in Bobby’s eyes that told her that this had something to do with them, that whatever deal the president was trying to make might have serious consequences for how they lived their lives.

“A delegation from the House and Senate, led by Charlie Finnegan, met last night with Russell in the White House. They were there until almost three in the morning. They told him that his only choice was resignation or impeachment, that if he chose to fight, if they had to impeach, they would gather all the evidence from every source they could find and that not only would the vote for impeachment be unanimous but he would then certainly face criminal charges in a court of law.”

Laura summed it up neatly.

“If he is impeached, he goes to prison, but if he resigns…?”

“That’s the question. Russell wants a promise of immunity, or the promise of a pardon from his successor. Charlie was furious. He told Russell that no one was going to promise him anything, certainly not a pardon for crimes that-and Charlie said this to his face-might include conspiracy to murder. Russell looked like he had been hit by a truck. Charlie told him that the best he could hope for was that the fact he chose to resign instead of putting the country through the ordeal of a trial of impeachment would be taken into account in whatever deal he made with prosecutors. It might be enough to keep him out of prison.”

Laura caught the omission, the thing that had not been said. She felt a catch in her throat at what she had begun to foresee.

“There is no vice president. If Russell resigns, who…?”

Bobby got up and, forcing a smile, held out his hand, beckoning her to come outside. He led her through the rose-covered yard, out to the far side of the pool. The air was sweet with the scent of the bougainvillea and the distant, salt-water sea.

“Remember when we came here, remember how we said that whatever happened we would always have this place? I know how difficult I’ve made things for you, how hard you’ve tried to make things easier for me. But something has happened-”

“Just tell me, Bobby. Whatever it is, it’s all right. Whatever you think you need to do, that’s what I want you to do. It’s something about Charlie and that meeting with the president last night and the fact that there isn’t a vice president and-”

“Russell had to promise to nominate a new vice president, someone they would name, someone who would be confirmed immediately and would take over the moment Russell left.”

“It’s you, isn’t it?” she asked with a smile that surprised him with its eager confidence. “It should be you. It had to be you. You’re the one who saved the country from that band of murderers and thieves. Who else could it be?”

“But what about you?” he asked. “I know how much you hate that life, all the nonsense that is involved. Everything we do, everything we say-the only privacy we’ll ever have is late at night. It wasn’t a week ago that nearly everyone in Washington thought I was a murderer and that you were…”

“A whore?” she laughed. A sly, knowing grin tripped across her fine, lovely mouth. “There are worse things than being married to a man other people think would kill the man who took advantage of her. No, Bobby, I’m stronger than I was. Don’t worry about me; think only about what you have to do. When it’s all over, when you’re finished, we’ll come back here. Think about all the things we’ll have to talk about.”

They went inside and Bobby noticed a package on the table in the entryway.

“It just came this morning,” explained Laura. “I was so excited to see you, I forgot all about it. It’s from some place in France.”

She waited while he opened it. There was a thick manuscript inside with a few lines scribbled on the cover.

“It’s Jean Valette, the book he has been working on, a book he wanted me to read.”

Bobby thumbed through the pages. He looked again at the cover. Jean Valette had written in a flamboyant hand: “Read it, study it; do it slowly, take your time. That is all I ask.”

“I looked at it briefly while I was there: four hundred tightly reasoned pages, full of historical and philosophical analysis. The crisis of the West,” said Bobby, shaking his head at the enormity of the task. “It took him twenty years to write it; it will probably take me that long to work my way through it.”

Laura noticed the time.

“It’s almost six. He said he would come back. He does every day.”

Bobby was confused.

“Who is coming back? Every day?”

Starting four or five days ago, six o’clock. He’s very polite. He calls from the gate, asks if you’re here and when I tell him you’re not, he thanks me and says he’ll try again tomorrow.”

“Maybe you should have called the police,” said Bobby, a little worried.

“No, he’s fine. The second time he came, I went out and spoke to him through the gate. He told me he had met you once and-”

“Met me once? That could be anyone, some crank; or worse, some-”

“No, I told you, it isn’t like that at all. He said he had met you once and that Quentin Burdick told him he could trust you.”

“What did he look like?” asked Bobby with a sudden sense of urgency. “Middle-aged, medium height, medium weight, someone you wouldn’t notice in a crowd?”

A sad smile crossed her mouth as she nodded.

“I think that you might not notice him if you passed him on an empty street. He’s very nice, painfully polite.”

“And he’s coming at six, five minutes from now?” asked Bobby, just to be sure. “I better go meet him.”

Bobby walked up the long driveway to the iron gate that stretched between the vine-covered white stucco walls that kept the house, and the two people who lived in it, safe from the prying eyes of the world. At six o’clock an aging beige automobile that no one would ever notice much less want to buy pulled up and the driver got out. Hart pushed the button that opened the gate and Richard Bauman quickly slipped inside.

Bobby had not seen the former Secret Service agent since the night he met with Clarence Atwood at the Watergate. Bauman had not changed in any obvious way, but there was still a difference: He seemed more certain of himself; all the guilt he had felt that night was gone.

“Come inside,” said Hart as they shook hands.

“No, I don’t want to be a bother.”

“What can I do for you then? My wife told me that you had been here every day.”

“She’s been very nice about it. Yes, every day. I knew you would come back here. I could not stay in Washington. I would have been dead by now.”

“Come in,” said Bobby. “We can talk.”

“Can you come with me?” asked Bauman politely, but with insistence. “There’s something I have to show you. It’s what I gave Quentin Burdick, what probably got him killed. It’s in my room, at the motel where I’m staying. I didn’t want to carry it around with me, in case I was being followed.”

“Sure, all right. Tell me where it is. I’ll just grab my keys and tell Laura where I’m going.”

The motel was one of the cheaper places, where tourists on a budget liked to stay, rooms with a view of the parking lot and a long walk, a mile or more, to the beach. Bobby sat on one of the two plastic chairs, Bauman sat in the other. A tattered leather briefcase lay on a wooden table next to them. Bauman removed a large manila envelope and handed it to Bobby.

“It’s all here, everything I got from Atwood’s office. I made copies and put the originals back. I gave one to Burdick-decent man, told me there might not be anyone else around to trust, but that I could trust you. They were all involved, you know; one way or the other, all of them: Constable, his wife, Russell, the others. Whether they knew what was going to happen, whether they had any part in the decisions that got made-doesn’t matter, they were all responsible.”

Bobby bent toward him. Bauman was a completely honest man. He knew that, but he still was not sure what Bauman was trying to tell him. He tapped his finger on the envelope.

“You got this from Atwood’s office, and you gave it-a copy of it-to Quentin Burdick?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” said Bauman with a slight, embarrassed smile. He would try to be clearer. “Atwood hired the girl. All the records of payment are in there. But the girl wasn’t just some paid assassin; she was one of ours, someone who did things that no one is supposed to know. Atwood knew everything about all of them, what they had done, the money they had taken-all of it. That was the leverage he had, that and the fact that he didn’t have any reservations about doing whatever seemed to be necessary.”

“But he wouldn’t have had any reason to have Constable killed,” objected Bobby. “Russell and Hillary Constable had a lot to lose if Constable lived, and a lot to gain if he died. Atwood had to be working for them, didn’t he?”

“That’s right. Atwood didn’t do this on his own-have the president murdered, I mean. Because the rest of what happened: Burdick, what happened to those two in Paris, the attempt to make it seem like you were the one responsible-I’m pretty sure Atwood did that on his own; did it, as far as I can tell, with the consent of both Russell and Mrs. Constable. Once the president was killed, all they cared about was protecting themselves and getting what they wanted. They depended on Atwood for that. Do what’s necessary, that’s what they would have told him, and no one needed to tell him what that meant.”

Bobby was on the edge of his chair.

“But then, if it wasn’t Atwood on his own, and if it wasn’t Russell or Constable’s wife, who told Atwood to kill the president?”

Richard Bauman nodded toward the heavy envelope.

“There, on the last page, I think you’ll find the answer. It’s how the whole thing started, isn’t it?” he asked as Bobby dug through the documents.

Bobby pulled out the last page, read it through quickly, and then, scarcely believing what he had seen, read it through again.

Bauman nodded.

“Atwood wasn’t working for the president, or the president’s wife. He wasn’t working for Irwin Russell. He was always working for The Four Sisters. He was working for Jean Valette.”

“Jean Valette, who helped save my life, helped restore my reputation, provided the evidence to destroy both Hillary Constable and Irwin Russell – Jean Valette ordered the murder of Robert Constable?” asked Hart, as angry as he had ever been.

“There is no proof,” said Bauman, with a helpless shrug. “Nothing that would ever get a conviction. Atwood was paid a lot of money – millions – by The Four Sisters; but there is nothing to link Jean Valette directly to murder. Atwood could have done it on his own, done it for the same reason the others had: to keep Constable from talking about what he knew.”

When he got home, an hour later, and told Laura what had happened, what Roger Bauman had discovered, he could only marvel at how easily he had let himself be deceived.

“I should have known,” he said, shaking his head. “It was right there in front of me. Everything with Jean Valette – everything! – has a double meaning. He told me I was going to be president. What he meant was that it had already been arranged. He set everything in motion, moved everyone around like pieces on a chess board. He them – all of them! – in situations where they thought they had only one choice – the choice that led to their own destruction. It was in that speech of his: the call to recapture former greatness; it was there, right in front of me, when he showed me the portrait gallery of his ancestors, the line that goes back a thousand years. He thinks himself the last Grand Master, destined, like his namesake five hundred years ago, to save Europe and the West, save western civilization, from a danger no one else knows exists.” Hart’s eyes lit up as he remembered something more. “Ten men, acting together, disciplined, devoted to a cause, can change the world. That is what he said, and that is what he believes: Ten men, willing to follow where he wants to lead them; ten men everyone else will follow.”

“But you’re not one of them, Bobby,” insisted Laura, reaching out to touch him on the sleeve. “He may have controlled everything that happened, manipulated everyone the way you say he did, and he may have wanted it to end like this, with you as president, but he doesn’t control you. He never could, he never will. You’re not like the Constables: there is nothing you want that he can give you.”

Hart shook his head and with a rueful smile got up from the kitchen table where they were sitting and walked over to the window. He watched the sun slide down from heaven and set the sea on fire, watched as the stars came out to watch what the day had made them miss.

“What is it, Bobby? What are you thinking?”

“I told Charlie Finnegan that Jean Valette was either the most intelligent or the craziest man I had ever me,” he said, as he turned to face her. “Everything he said – about the meaning of the past, what has to happen in the future – made perfect sense when I was there, listening. And now he has sent me that,” he said, nodding toward Jean Valette’s thick manuscript with its brief, but urgent, plea that he read it, and read it slowly. “Doesn’t control me? Not by force, not by buying me with money, but what other effect his use of words? He held me captive when he spoke. What happens now, if I read what he has written?”