The Devil's Banker

Chapter 55

His name was Michael Fitzgerald, and as special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s White House Division, it was his job to vet all guests gaining proximity to the President of the United States during visits to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Fitzgerald’s immediate concern this muggy Saturday morning was to run through the guest list for the State Dinner being given Sunday night in honor of the newly crowned King of Saudi Arabia.

One hundred thirty-three names stood on the list. Twenty-five belonged to members of the administration: the secretary of state and his wife, the attorney general, the secretary of commerce and his partner. Most were regular visitors to the Oval Office and merited no further examination.

Another twenty names belonged to members of the Saudi King’s retinue: the minister of finance, minister of defense, chief of the armed forces, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, as well as five of the King’s wives. Mike Fitzgerald shook his head, smirking. He didn’t approve of queerbaits and polygamists in general, and the thought of them rubbing elbows with the most powerful man on the planet turned his stomach. Sometimes he doubted whether civilization would survive much longer. But what did he know? He was just a crusty old Catholic from Southie who liked his bottle of sour mash after Saturday mass, his French fries with mustard, and was still madly in love with the only woman he’d slept with, his wife of thirty-seven years, Bea.

The approximately eighty names that remained on the list were a diverse group: governors, senators, civic leaders, academicians, sports stars, actors, and big-money “friends of the President.” All had already been nominally cleared. Their names had been run through the National Crime Information Center and come back clean. Not a felon, crook, or convict among them. In theory, Fitzgerald’s brief was completed. To the best of his knowledge, there was no one on the guest list who might wish to physically harm the President. But the commander-in-chief had asked him to do a little extra digging. He didn’t want any Johnny Chungs sneaking on the guest list, snake-oil salesmen eager to get their two minutes with the President. “Buckskin,” the Secret Service’s designation for the President of the United States, did not sell coffee klatches in the Oval Office to finance his reelection, or seats to a state dinner. If there was dirt, it was Mike Fitzgerald’s job to find it. Already, Fitzgerald had had to scratch a prominent Arab-American actor who, unbeknownst to Hollywood, not to mention his wife, was keeping an underage party boy on the side.

Fitzgerald skimmed over the last few names. One in particular caught his suspicious eye. Picking up the phone, he called Blake Godsey, who’d done the actual case-by-case grunt work. “Charisse, Claire M.,” he said. “What the hell’s a Frenchie doing attached to Owen Glendenning?”

“She’s his girlfriend,” answered Godsey. “Whatdya think, Fitz?”

“What happened to Mrs. Glendenning?”

“Divorce. Pretty acrimonious, from what I gather. This is Glen’s first public soirée with his new squeeze.”

“What’s her story?”

“Mid-level bureaucrat at the WHO. Works out of Geneva. A real do-gooder. In charge of the Drug Action Program. Don’t worry, Fitz. I checked her out. Nothing recorded against. Oh, yeah, one thing… she’s sick. Cancer.”

“Cancer?” Fitzgerald rocked in his chair, watching the fan turn slowly above his head. He’d made his bones as a homicide detective working out of the Ninth Precinct in Boston. Suspicion was as much a part of him as the lingering limp from a childhood bout of polio. “How bad?”

“That I can’t tell you. Admiral Glendenning made a point of informing me that she’s taking chemotherapy.” Godsey read off the drugs. “Didn’t want any embarrassing moments. I think he was present when Mrs. Hersh had her… um, you know, her thing.”

“Yeah, I know.” Fitzgerald would never forget Mrs. Hersh’s “thing.”

Mrs. Hersh was, in fact, Mrs. Sidney M. Hersh, wife of the chairman of Hersh Industries, and the single largest contributor to the Republican party. Three months earlier, the Hershes had been the President’s guests at a state dinner given in honor of the Israeli prime minister. Mrs. Hersh was being treated for cancer, too-Stage III non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, as it turned out-but Mr. Hersh had forgotten to inform the Secret Service of her illness. Passing through the doorway to the Blue Room, where predinner cocktails were being served, the radioactive isotopes present in the drugs in her bloodstream set off one of several Geiger counters that were hidden in key locations around the White House. The alarm was hellacious. Bells clanging, lights flashing, agents beating it like hell to her location. Naturally, one of the younger guys got a little overzealous and took down Mrs. Hersh, all five-foot-nothing, ninety-one pounds of her, like she was a tackling dummy for the Ohio State football team. Worse, her wig came off in the fall. When she stood up, the first thing she saw in the mirror was her bald scalp and about fifty guests staring at her in horror. Not only was she a suspected nuclear terrorist, she was a bald nuclear terrorist. That was that. Good-bye, Mr. and Mrs. Hersh. Good-bye to all future donations to the Republican party.

“Get her oncologist’s number,” said Fitzgerald. “Call him up and verify. Otherwise, she’s good to go. Who’s handling the door tomorrow?”

“Cappelletti and Malloy.”

“I’ll have a word with them to make certain we don’t unnecessarily embarrass Miss Charisse.”

“You bet, Fitz.”

But Mike Fitzgerald made a mental note to greet Miss Charisse personally. He had a motto that had gotten him through ’Nam, homicide, and for the last twenty-some-odd years, the Secret Service. Take nothing for granted.

“Let’s move on, then,” he said, dreaming of French fries and mustard and a glass of sour mash. “What do we know about this L.A. lawyer, Amir something-or-other? Looks like he’s been consorting with some pretty flaky types…”