Capitol Punishment (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 3) (16 page)

“Did someone get him some help?” Bud asked.

Ellis nodded. “The person giving the seminar, a psychiatrist from UCLA, I think, is going to do whatever she can...free of charge.”

“Thank God there is still some altruism out there,” Coventry commented.

“Mr. President,” Casey began, “this is the kind of thing that will make or break you in the eyes of the voters. This man and how others perceive the future.”

Bud felt that his point had just been completely superseded by emotion, and he had a hard time arguing with that reality. One couldn’t help but be moved by that story and the people involved.

But there were other stories yet to be revealed that could have a greater impact on a larger number of people. It wasn’t a thought meant to minimize the tragedy of a horrid event, just a statement of fact.

“Mr. President, a great many things external to this nation can have an impact on events internal,” Bud posited. “We are living with that now. A former Russian scientist was involved in the manufacture of chemical weapons on our soil. The event itself may be a domestic issue, but at least part of it began an ocean and half a continent away.”

He was the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. Millions, arguably billions of people depended on his steady hand to keep them free, and he was sitting among his advisers discussing how best to keep his job. On the hierarchy of things vital to the nation it seemed very mundane to the president, but he had jumped willingly into the political arena many years before. From this vantage, though, with nowhere left to go but down, the hoop jumping and spin doctoring, farcical as it sometimes seemed, was life. It was reality.

“Earl, you said the State of the Union speech is going to be the jumping-off point,” the president recalled, letting the debate of the previous moments take a backseat. “Why?”

“It’s your strong point,” Casey answered. “You convey ideas and feeling through words better than any president since FDR. We have to seize on that strength to get a running start. Remember, you’ll have an audience of a hundred million that will be watching you in a setting that is very presidential. That’s something Paul Collins and Moe Stone don’t even have as a campaign tool.” Collins, the Republican senator from Florida, was practically pre-anointed as his party’s nominee some eight months before their convention. Moe Stone, on the other hand, had only to anoint himself. The former Republican congressman, seizing on a populist groundswell, was almost certainly going to run as an independent, and polls indicated there was enough support for his message of traditionalism and values to put him on the ballot from Hawaii to Maine. “Between next week when you formally announce and the State of the Union in January we’ll be running a slow court press, building anticipation of the speech.”

“The pressure is appreciated,” the president said half-jokingly.

Casey saw no humor in the plan. “Mr. President, with all due respect, this plan may be the only way to get you reelected. You are in office at a very anxious time in our nation’s history. When people are anxious they get nervous about the future, and when they are nervous they start to consider change a very attractive alternative to an unknown path they are already on. And, believe it or not, the easiest change to make is in the man at the top. NFL coaches get fired all the time because the players aren’t performing. That can happen to you, too.”

“I get your point,” the president said, pausing for a moment and looking to Bud. “But I will not portray myself as a god of domestic policy at the expense of other important matters.” The president saw his NSA smile slightly, then turned back to Casey. “I will do what is needed to get reelected, Earl, as long as it is also right. And right is not convincing the American people that, for the purpose of one day in November, we are an island. I want you to broaden your plans for this campaign. This is not a one-issue world, and I am not a one-issue president.”

Let’s just hope you’re not a one-term president
, Casey thought, drawing a long breath in. “Okay. I’ll work on it. But the speech remains as the starting point. Say what you want in it, but make it good. Make it the best one you’ve ever given.”

“Or it may be my last?” the president asked as an addition to the statement.

Casey didn’t answer the president directly. “Just make it good.”

*  *  *

There would be no body to bury, just an empty plot of earth next to his mother and a drab marker bearing the name of Luis Hidalgo, Jr. That hollow ceremony would be played out come Monday, privately, for the family of the dead firefighter. This day, first of two usually reserved for rest, was for the extended families of Hidalgo and his fallen comrades.

“And I thought cops did it up nice,” Art commented as he exited St. John’s Catholic Church and saw the endless line of fire engines jamming the street in the foothills above Pasadena. Red, yellow, white, green...all colors of rigs had come from across three states to honor the memories of their brethren killed at 1212 Riverside.

“They will,” Frankie said. That memorial service, in remembrance of the sheriffs deputies killed, would be on Monday, about the same time Luis Hidalgo, Jr., would be laid to rest...at least in spirit. “I can’t imagine having a funeral with nothing to put in the ground.”

Art pressed his way through the side of the moving crowd and stopped on the church’s front lawn. “I know that’s bothering Lou. It can’t be helped, though.”

“I know.” Frankie and her partner waited as the stream of firefighters filed past. At the end of the procession exiting St. John’s were the families of the men, being led out by the priest who had officiated at the service. “There’s Lou.”

Art watched as Hidalgo thanked the pastor and moved down the walkway with his children toward a waiting car. The A-SAC ushered his children into the vehicle with one of their aunts, then came over to speak with his agents.

“How are you, Lou?” Art asked, no verbal answer needed. The dark glasses and the puffy cheeks said all that was required.

Hidalgo nodded a bit. “Hanging in there.”

“Is there anything you need?” Frankie offered.

I need you to find the bastards that made this happen.
“Thanks, no. How is it coming along?”

“Slow,” Art answered honestly.

“Royce?”

“Pretty much a wash on the surface,” Frankie said.

“We’ve got three teams working him and his company exclusively,” Art informed his grieving friend. “Looking for any link other than the job. Anything that smells bad.”

Again Hidalgo nodded. “What’s on the schedule for today?”

“Everything,” Art answered. “Everybody is in. Frankie and I are going back straight from here.”

“Good. You call me if you get anything,” Hidalgo directed. “Anything. All right?”

“We will, Lou,” Art promised. “Go home now.”

The A-SAC went to the waiting car and climbed in. It pulled away behind an escort of fire department battalion chiefs.

“What are we going to do, Art?” Frankie wondered. “Three days and this thing is going nowhere. No one knows Allen, or where he’s been, or who he’s been with, or anything. King is Kostin. Royce hasn’t done anything other than ‘try to help the country.’ We’re at a wall, partner.”

“You want to go around, over, or through?” Art asked, lightening the moment as much as possible. “ ‘Cause we’re getting to the other side one way or another.”

Art was a bull, Frankie knew. Through the wall it would be. “Back to work, partner?”

“That’s the only way.”

*  *  *

“I’m not doing it, Dad,” Moises Griggs yelled defiantly, wisely standing across the living room from his father. “I’m not going to some shrink just to make you feel better.”

“Lower your voice,” Darren insisted, looking toward the closed bedroom door. “Your mother is asleep.”

“She’s always asleep, Dad. Don’t you see that? There’s nothing left of her.”

“Shut up,” Darren said, his eyes going as wide as his son had ever seen them.

“She never comes out of that room, and you just tiptoe around her like she’s dead. You know why? Because she is. And so are you.”

“I said shut up!”

“You both are dead because some damn crackers killed Tanya,” Moises yelled, his face contorted as he challenged his father, the man he had once revered but now felt only contempt for. “And you’re afraid to do anything about it.”

Darren advanced toward Moises, backing him up. “You shut that foolish mouth before I—”

The right hook took Darren completely by surprise, knocking him back and sending him tumbling against the couch and end table, knocking a ceramic lamp to the floor in pieces.

“You sorry little fuck!”

“Come on, Dad,” Moises said, motioning like a bully for his father to rise up again. “I’m not afraid to fight. Not afraid of no one!”

Darren eased himself to a crouch, testing his jaw with one hand as the other struck like a coiled snake at his son’s midsection.

“Oooh!” Moises doubled over and gasped for air. His father had hit him!

Darren followed his strike with an open-hand slap across the face that spun Moises into the buffet. Pictures and the other family treasures cascaded off the heavy wood object.

“Mother fuck—”

This time the fist was closed, catching Moises from above and slightly behind. It hit him on the cheek like a sledge and drove him to the floor.

“You never talk like that in this house,” Darren screamed, his fist coming back again. “Do you hear—”

“STOP IT!”

Darren’s head swung left, toward the scream, his son’s coming up from a cower.

“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” Felicia Griggs stood in the opening to the hallway, a worn nightgown hanging from her wasting form like a burial shroud.

“Felicia...”

Darren’s wife looked at him with eyes that asked
why?
, and to her son with the same...
The pictures!

“Mom...”

Felicia ran to the spot where her son was doubled over and pushed him away, her hands frantically searching the pile of broken glass and mangled photos for... “Tanya.”

Darren watched his wife pull the picture of their little girl to her chest as she rocked back and forth on her knees. “My baby. Tanya, my baby.”

Moises slid backward away from his mother, blood trickling from his lip and leaving a trail of red splotches on the hardwood floor.

“Honey,” Darren said softly as he knelt down next to his wife. He placed a hand on her shoulder, which she recoiled from instantly.

“How dare you two do this!” Felicia practically spat out the words. “How dare you!”

Moises continued sliding away, the venom in his mother’s stare hastening his withdrawal toward the door.

“Sweetheart, please, I’m sorry,” Darren begged.

“This family is half dead already, and you two are trying to kill the rest.” She looked to her son, his eyes fearful yet unflinching. He rose up from the floor and opened the front door without looking, disappearing into the night with only the sound of running feet across the porch as an explanation.

Darren, his eyes now brimming, felt weak and small as his wife’s stare focused entirely on him. “I’m so sorry. Please...”

“I’ve lost just about everything, Darren,” Felicia said with a sorrow so profound it seemed almost too much for one person to bear. It almost had been. “I don’t want to lose you and Moises. That just can’t happen. It can’t.”

Darren pulled his wife gently into his arms, the picture of their little girl between them. “I won’t let it, sweetheart,” he promised, knowing that would be easier said than done. But it had to be said, for Felicia’s sake. “I won’t let it.”

*  *  *

Mile four. A month before this was the point when that steely fist would start socking him in the gut, but Art Jefferson now felt that reminder of his distance ability around mile six.

But he was able to run, to make it this far, which was a miracle to some considering his physical and emotional state just two years earlier. His daily eight-mile jogs had strengthened him in both respects. Muscles were leaner and more powerful. The heart was as good as it had ever been. And his mind, free to wander during the hour-long workout, was crisp, recharged by the solitude and the accomplishment of simply being alive.

He moved through the nearly deserted residential streets near his town house, the occasional face peering at him from behind the large bay windows common to homes in the upscale neighborhood.
A black man running at night? Here?
Art didn’t let the ignorance bother him as much as it had the first time he’d been stopped by a police car after a “concerned” citizen had reported “suspicious activity.” The cops were apologetic. They were only responding to a call, after all, and they had quite forcefully informed that concerned citizen that the man running past her half-million-dollar home was an FBI agent. End of the problem with her. But there would be others. There would always be others.

Still, he cherished his runs, which he sometimes took early in the morning. The present situation, though, dictated longer days, and he and Frankie had worked out a semi split schedule so that one of them would be on duty during most of every day. She took late mornings mostly, which gave her the time to see her little girl and drop her at kindergarten before hitting the office at ten. Her mother would then pick Cassie up and sit with her until Frankie got home between midnight and one. Art usually took the six A.M. to eight P.M. part of the day, leaving time for his runs in the evening, and some for Anne.

But, being honest with himself, it was the running he was thinking of at the moment. Not Anne. Not the investigation. Just running. He was even thinking of entering a charity ten-mile run in a couple of months. The competition interested him somewhat, but it was the thought of
finishing
a ten-mile run that was his motivation. Crossing that line as everyone watched, whether he was in first place or last.

Mile seven. Still feeling strong. Not winded yet. The sound of the Eagles’ “Peaceful Easy Feeling” soothing him through the headphones. A little more than five thousand feet to—
Shit!