President's assassin

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ted awaited us outside, and Ted could keep waiting. Jennie and I both walked halfway down the block, out of Ted's earshot and, in my case, far away from this house of fossilized horrors. We whipped out our cell phones, she called George and I called Phyllis.

Two hours learning about the Barnes family had put me in a foul mood. According to my watch the hour was quarter past two, and I actually looked forward to rousting Phyllis. But she was already awake and apparently she had caller ID, because on the first ring she answered, a little too jovially, "I'm glad to see you've learned your lesson about checking in, Drummond. Have you learned anything interesting?"

"I think it's interesting. Jason's our man."

"You're sure?"

"As close as we can get beyond beating a confession out of him."

"Tell me about it."

So I did. And three feet away Jennie told George about it, and, interestingly, we must have been synchronized because we finished and signed off at nearly the same instant.

Jennie looked at me and said, "George agrees we now have enough to take to a federal judge for an arrest warrant."

"Right."

"Jason's picture will be distributed to the Secret Service, the Bureau, local cops, and every major network and newspaper. Within an hour, the manhunt will be on."

"Good call."

"Thoughts… observations?"

I said, "For starters, turning off the recorder was a big mistake."

"Really?"

"No doubt about it. If Jason's caught, that part of the conversation-from his own mother's lips-any competent prosecutor would have put it to devastating use."

She regarded my face for a moment. "You think?"

"Well… I don't mean to nitpick."

She reached into her purse and withdrew the recorder. Then she reached into the side pocket of her jacket and took out a second recorder. She smiled. "Every veteran agent brings along a backup."

I stared at the second recorder. "Remind me never to cross you."

"I will. Frequently."

"Now, a question." I asked, "Why did she stay with him?"

"The usual reasons. Convention and practicality."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, hers was a social class and a generation defined by a successful marriage and a successful husband. Calhoun was regarded as a prime marriageable specimen, and until the very end, he was… successful."

"He broke her back. 'Till death do you part' does not mean you part each other. Shouldn't it have occurred to her that theirs was a marriage with a few irreconcilable flaws?"

"I wouldn't expect a male to understand."

"Oh please."

"It's true. Biology dictates to women. It defines our life cycle, and it forms our choices. A divorced woman, bitter, crippled, and infertile, had no hope of attracting another mate. She had become completely dependent on Calhoun, financially and physically. Literally, she felt forced to sleep in the bed she made."

In my view, a life alone was better than the life she had. Yet Jennie was right-I probably couldn't understand. The choices of women from Margaret's generation made little sense to a male, and even less to a modern male, though maybe they made sense then. I said, "He must've been a real bastard."

"Would you like to hear the psychiatric explanation?"

"I… is there a Cliff's Notes version?"

She punched me in the stomach. "To start, these things run in families. Incest and spousal and child abuse are like inheritances. Behaviorally, they pass through the generations. Living in that house was to be inundated in the family tradition. Maybe you noticed that the heirlooms and paintings were all from his family?"

"I noticed that before Calhoun, all the Barnes men married dogs. Did you see the one with the crossed eyes and the wart on her nose?"

She rolled her eyes. "Why do I bother explaining these things to you?"

"You were saying?"

"From the sound of it, Calhoun's specific maladies were a narcissistic disorder, extreme grandiosity, and a manic compulsion for control and order."

"Are we talking about a theory or a person?"

She concluded, correctly, that simpleminded Sean needed a less complicated explanation and brought it down a peg. "If you're interested, Adolf Hitler exhibited similar neuroses and dysfunctions. Think of the things Hitler did to shape what he considered the ideal society, the ideal race. Calhoun exuded the same fury and ferocity, but on a single target, his son." After a moment, she added, "I would also bet Calhoun's father exhibited similar disorders. Sons learn behavior from their fathers, regardless of their flaws."

"And Jason?"

"You're right. It's intriguing. The chain appears to be broken."

"But he's not married. He has no children. As a result, you can't be sure, can you?"

"Oh, I am sure."

"How? Why?"

"Because we've seen how he lives. Jason's an obsessive-compulsive personality. By definition, he should never have become submissive to his father. He would… well, he would vie and tilt with him. See the point?"

"Nope."

"As a child, Jason did become submissive."

"Why?"

"A survival mechanism. A chilling measure of Calhoun's brutality and manipulative skills-but the point is, Jason chose not to compete, as a child or, later, as an adult. He did not go into law, or even stay in Richmond. He deserted his father's game and his father's playing field, geographically and figuratively." She looked at me and said, "Got it? He fled."

"I don't get it."

Clearly my ignorance was testing Jennie's patience. I had cross-examined my share of shrinks on the stand. I recognized the warning signs.

The human brain. With any other organ in the body, the functions and dysfunctions are fairly objective and readily explainable. The heart is a pump, it shoves blood and oxygen through your arteries, and when it stops working, ditto for you. As it goes with kidneys, lungs, intestines, and so on. The brain is different, endlessly complex, mysterious, even weird. Even when functioning normally, in reality it can still be totally wrong.

It was Jennie's job to assign a rational explanation to perversely irrational behavior, and she was obviously very good at it. But Jason Barnes was a little twisted, even by her standards, and by my standards he was a dark labyrinth without so much as an entrance.

After a moment, Jennie said, "Here's my point. Margaret told us that Jason admired his father. Idolized him. Does that make sense to you?"

"No."

"Focus on that incongruity, Sean. In Jason's mind his father was a towering figure, a demigod. Much as the German people elevated Hitler to an almost supernatural plateau, so Jason felt about his father. He fled because he was convinced he couldn't compete with the overwhelming figure in his head."

She looked at me to be sure I understood. "It's curious that Jason has not fulfilled the destiny biology and family behavior ordained for him. You might say Jason is a prediction that should have happened, but didn't."

"People aren't programmed into defined paths, Jennie. We make choices."

"Sean, you had a normal upbringing, whatever that means. You can't understand the monsters that inhabit a dark forest you never passed through."

"In the words of C. S. Lewis, 'evil is always man's doing, yet it is never his destiny'"

"Spoken like a true lawyer. But all right, you explain it."

"Simple. According to Jason's bosses and teammates, he was a fairly normal guy and an exemplary agent. He made a choice to be the way he was, and he's making a choice now to be something different. We have to figure out why he made that choice."

"Actually, he was a time bomb placed in cold storage. Many psychopaths exhibit the appearance of normalcy They interact socially, and even succeed professionally" She took my arm and added, "You could be sitting next to one, dating one, or even be married to one-you'd never know. Wives and neighbors are always shocked when they learn. In reality, Jason's mind has always been a cauldron of suppressed angers, confusions, and pathologies, awaiting a triggering event."

"Calhoun's suicide is that event?"

"No question about it. Recall Agent Kinney telling us that Jason's behavior became odd about six months ago. That coincides with his father's suicide, right?"

I stood a moment and thought about all this. It sounded like those Greek tragedies we were all forced to read and endure in college, where the hero always has some fatal flaw, like hubris or whatever, a brooding germ that lurks in remission until it eventually thaws and, like the Pac-Man, consumes all around it.

Jason's crimes were in the here and now, but the seeds were planted more than three decades before in a poisonous marriage, in a brutally claustrophobic household, and then richly fertilized by the hatred between two monumentally spiteful men.

I said, "Incidentally, you did a great job back there."

"As did you. Are you okay?"

"No, I feel awful."

She took my hand. "You should. You got carried away back there. That poor woman. You were really a bullying-"

"What the-"

"I mean, I hate to nitpick…" She laughed. "I'm joking. You were perfect. I couldn't have done it without you. I'll see if I can get you a merit badge."

I was just raising my eyebrow when a new thought struck me. "Holy shit!"

"What?"

I grabbed her arm and said, "Call your boss-now."

"Who do you think I was just talking to?"

"No-call Townsend."

"Why?"

"Because, probably, he's next."

She stared at me, and it took a moment before she put it together, and another moment before it registered. "Oh my God! You're right. He probably carried the news to the White House and the Attorney General."

"Right." While she called and informed Townsend that he was probably next on Jason's happy hit list, I wandered back to the car and Ted.

Ted saw me approach and said, "Get what you needed?"

It was none of Ted's business, so I diverted his attention to one of the statues and asked, "What great southern warrior is that?"

"Martin Luther King."

I must've looked a little surprised by that revelation.

He laughed. "Hey, times change, even down here."

"Right. Hey, Ted, you still single?"

"Yup."

"Good town for the ladies?"

Whereupon Ted launched into a lengthy dissertation about the quality of young women in Richmond, and apparently it was primo; he was really getting into it. I checked my watch a few times. Jennie was taking her sweet time with Townsend. The next act was about to unfold in Washington, and where I needed to be was not here but there. I mean, all Jennie had to say was, "Yo, boss, they're gunning for your ass. So, you know… think about investing in a Kevlar suit, rounding up a platoon of Army Rangers, and, incidentally, do not set foot outside your office for a week."

But eventually she finished and joined us. She said to me, "Sorry that took so long. I told the Director and George. We decided to get an authorization for surveillance and wiretaps on Mrs. Barnes. When she sobers up, I doubt shell remain cooperative."

"Have no doubts."

She nodded. "There's more. They think we can do something with this. Something proactive."

I was afraid of this. "Bad idea."

"I know, I know. I advised against it also."

"No matter how good the protection, Jason and his pals could always get lucky."

She shrugged. "Yes, and that would be a shame. He's the best Director we've had in years."

Ted looked confused and asked, "What in the hell y'all talkin' about?"

In reply, Jennie looked at her watch and stressed, "Ted, you have exactly seven minutes to have us back at the chopper or I will ship your ass to Alaska."

"Sheeit," replied Ted, predictably