The Patriots' Club

10

The man who had taken the name of Nathaniel Pendleton sat at his desk, his eyes glued to the ship. “Marvelous,” he whispered to himself. “A goddamned masterpiece.”

Housed in a custom-built glass case rested a 1:300 scale model of a United States second-class battleship originally constructed by the New York Naval Ship Yard and launched in 1890. The hull was shaped from wood and painted white, with an armored belt below the waterline to protect it against torpedoes. The ship boasted four 10-inch guns in revolving armored turrets. The secondary armament consisted of six 6-inch guns, fifteen small rapid-fire guns, and four 14-inch torpedo tubes. Even the pennants were authentic, and according to Pendleton’s painstaking research, the same that were flying that fateful February eve just over a hundred years ago.

He closed his eyes, and for a moment caught the smell of the harbor fresh in his nostrils: frangipani and diesel oil, the scent of fried chicken wafting from the officers’ mess, and from far away the acrid hint of a fire burning in the cane fields. The boat rocked gently, moaning as she tugged at her mooring lines. From land drifted the merry sounds of a mariachi band. Laughter. Catcalls. Closer, a sailor called out, “Lieutenant. Vessel off the starboard bow!”

And then the explosion.

Pendleton jerked in his chair, eyes wide open. But in his mind, he saw the blinding flash, felt the deck buckle beneath him, the boat pitch hideously to starboard on her journey to the bottom of Havana Harbor. He shook himself and the room came back into focus.

He’d been there. By God, he was sure of it.

Standing, he walked to the model, letting a hand graze the glass enclosure. The reason for her sinking was still officially a mystery. He knew better. A limpet mine attached to the forward bow had ripped through the ship’s hull and detonated the ammunition bunker.

He felt a presence stir behind him. “Well,” he asked. “How did he find out? It was Stillman, wasn’t it? They’d recruited him.”

“No,” said Guilfoyle. “He’s a blank slate.”

“Come again.”

“Bolden didn’t know a thing.”

Pendleton turned. “But he had to know. His tracks were all over our reports. He was a Class Four offender. You said so yourself.”

“My guess is no.”

“I take it you questioned him?”

“That’s what you bring me in for.”

“And?” demanded Pendleton.

“I’ve never had a more innocent responder. He was forthcoming. Didn’t play any games. Wasn’t afraid to get steamed. I gave him the test. Genuine all the way.”

“What about Stillman?”

“The name meant nothing to him.”

“It’s in the reports. There’s a trail… a nexus.”

“We have to examine the possibility that Cerberus kicked out a false positive.”

Pendleton returned to his desk and sorted through a sheaf of papers. Suddenly, he slapped his hand against them. “There! Look! Phone calls. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Don’t tell me Cerberus made a mistake. The system’s cost the government eight hundred million dollars and counting. It doesn’t make mistakes.”

Guilfoyle held his position. He stood placidly, hands clasped behind his back. “It could be a question of faulty data. You know, ‘garbage in, garbage out.’ We’ve only been fully operational for a few months. There’s plenty of-”

“Faulty data?” Pendleton shook his head. “Cerberus took the information directly from Ma Bell. We didn’t tell the damn thing where to look. It found it by itself. A Class Four offender. That means four indications of hostile intent. Cerberus didn’t make a mistake. It can’t.” He took a breath, rubbing a finger across his lips, studying Guilfoyle. “Maybe it’s time to admit that a machine knows better than you.”

Guilfoyle said nothing.

Sometimes he stood so still, Pendleton thought he’d been embalmed.

Pendleton walked to the floor-to-ceiling window. Looking north he gazed down upon the Potomac, a dark, steely snake, and beyond it, stretching toward the horizon, the Lincoln Memorial, the Reflecting Pool, the Washington Monument, and at the far end of the Mall, its dome nearly obscured by cloud, the Capitol. The view stirred him. The seat of the greatest empire in history. A reach that would have made the Romans envious. Pendleton was here, at its center. A player. A force, even.

Arms crossed over his chest, attired in a three-piece charcoal suit, his lace-ups spit shined, he was the model of the patrician class. He was sixty-seven years old, tall and lean, with the stern, skeptical face that in films belonged to diplomats and spies. He had been both in his time, as had his father, and his father before that, all the way back to the Revolution. He would have been handsome, except for his eyebrows, which were gnarled and unruly as a briar thicket, and gave him a wild, unpredictable air. His hair was thinning, its once dictatorial black yielding to gray. Slick with Brylcreem, it was meticulously parted, and combed to the right. It was the same haircut he’d kept since 1966 and he was a young marine infantry lieutenant in the Republic of Vietnam. He’d seen no reason to alter it since. Good memories.

He swung around and looked at Guilfoyle. “What seems to be the problem?”

“There’s been a glitch.”

“I should have known it. You’re the only man on my payroll who prefers to give me good news on the phone and bad news face-to-face. And so?”

“Extraction went perfectly. Solutions got messy.”

“Elaborate, please.”

“Bolden messed up one of my men pretty badly. As soon as he’s fixed up, he’ll be transferred downtown to Police Plaza.”

“You mean he’s in jail?” Pendleton blinked quickly, feeling his heart jump a beat. “That’s no glitch. It’s a nuclear meltdown.”

“We have a team on it. Our man will be clear by noon.”

“You’re telling me a banker from Harrington Weiss got the better of a Scanlon contractor graded ‘Solutions capable’?”

“That’s correct.”

“But we’re talking trained killers. Special Forces. Green Berets.”

Guilfoyle nodded and lowered his eyes. It was as close as he ever came to offering an apology. “All the same, I’d advise you to let it go,” he said. “Bolden’s a busy man, as you well know. Like I said, he’s a blank slate.”

“Not anymore, he’s not,” said Pendleton. Shock had given way to fury. He couldn’t allow this kind of cock-up. Not on his watch. The others wouldn’t stand for it. “I’d say he knows everything.”

“A few words, that’s all. They’re meaningless to him. In a week, he won’t give it two thoughts.”

“I’m not concerned with a week. I’m more interested in two days from now. We can’t have someone snooping after the fact.”

“It’s more complicated than that.” Guilfoyle explained once more about the Scanlon employee sitting in a New York City jail, and the fact that both Bolden and his girlfriend had filed police reports that included descriptions of two other Scanlon men, Walter “Wolf” Ramirez and Eamonn “Irish” Jamison. “Should anything happen to Bolden, the police might be suspicious. It would be difficult to control a homicide investigation. I imagine Bolden’s given the police a fairly sharp description of me, too.”

“There’s a girl mixed up in this, too?” Pendleton frowned.

“She’s a nobody,” said Guilfoyle.

Pendleton rocked in his chair. It was a problem, but one that could be contained.

“Freeze him out. Discredit him. Take his life away. You know what to do. If we can’t kill Bolden, we can do the next best thing. We can make him wish he were dead. Oh, and the girl… let’s take her out of the equation. It’ll be a lesson to Bolden to keep his mouth shut.”

Guilfoyle stared at him, not saying anything. Finally, he nodded.

“All right, then,” said Pendleton. “It’s decided.” He banged on the desk, then stood and walked toward the model battleship. “See this?”

Guilfoyle joined him alongside the glass case. “Very sharp.”

“Take a closer look. She’s perfect. Made by a Dutchman in Curaçao. A real master. Cost me ten thousand dollars.” Pendleton raised a hand toward the model, as if wanting not only to reach into the case but into the very past itself. “Went down with two hundred fifty souls. They were good boys: well-trained, enthusiastic, ready to fight. They gave their lives so America could take her place on the world stage. Hawaii, Panama, the Philippines, Haiti. Five years after she went to the bottom, they were ours. Sometimes, the only way to get something done is to spill a little blood. Damned shame, really.”

Guilfoyle bent lower to read the name off the battleship’s bow. “Remember the Maine!” he whispered.