Captive-in-Chief (2 page)

President Clay Caldwell ended the call with Joe and placed the cell phone out of sight on the floor behind the toilet bowl before opening the restroom door. Mike Laing, his recently promoted Secret Service Lead Agent, awaited his exit.

“Apologies, Mr. President,” Mike said.

The president waved his hand dismissively, walking over to wash his hands.

“It’s just that we didn’t have time to check these restrooms before you used them.”

Exactly the reason I used them,
Clay thought. His trip to the local high school couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. He had waited until they were leaving before announcing his need to use the restroom. “If they’re good enough for the students, they’re good enough for me!” he had said, dismissing suggestions he should return to the principal’s office to use the ones prepared for him.

“We ready?” he asked, walking towards the exit doors.

“POTUS coming out,” Mike announced into his mic.

After a final handshake with the school’s principal, the president exited the building to a cacophony of press. The news had broken. The FBI director had been found dead that morning.

“Is this administration cursed?” came a shout from the gathered press. “That’s the third death in a week of people close to you.”

President Clay Caldwell faced the cameras.

“FBI Director Schwartz and his wife were close friends of mine, and will be sorely missed. My heart goes out to their children, family, and friends at this sad time.”

“Is this administration cursed?” came the shout again. The president caught the reporter’s eye and shook his head in disappointment before ducking into Cadillac One.

Cursed
. To the outside world, it certainly looked like it. His Chief of Staff, his lead Secret Service Agent, and the Director of the FBI were all dead within a week. The brutal slaying of the FBI director, his wife, and his detail had been the final straw. To everyone except President Caldwell, all unconnected. Clay, however, knew otherwise. They had been his three most trusted confidants, the three people he had told, and all dead within hours of his telling them. He knew who he could trust, that was clear. The problem was who
they
had told thereafter. He thanked God he hadn’t told his wife. Her death on his hands would have been too much. There was nobody in the White House he could turn to. He was commander of the most powerful armed forces ever assembled, yet he had no one he could trust to protect his nearest and dearest.

The sight of Joe Kelly in the soup kitchen line had hit him hard the previous evening. The news feature of the plight of veterans struggling to integrate into society long after their service to their country was harrowing enough for a president to stomach, without seeing a man who had been your best friend many years earlier. He didn’t know why, but as he watched with his wife, he remained silent. Was it shame? Guilt? Whatever it was, it had meant Joe remained nameless. One word of recognition and his wife would have swooped down to Texas and made a cause of the man. He’d have been the poster boy for the forgotten veterans.

Following the assassination of the FBI director, Clay was thankful he hadn’t said a word. The phone number of the shelter had been displayed on a banner strung behind the server, requesting donations. He had memorized it with a view to making a significant anonymous donation, the least he could do. However, that had all changed. He needed help from someone on the outside, a place the president had long since departed. Someone so far on the outside that nobody would know they were there or even existed, and certainly posed no threat. Joe Kelly. You couldn’t get much further on the outside than him.

The president couldn’t make any calls from the White House. They watched and listened to everything he did. Their messages and warnings to him made that abundantly clear. The school had been perfect, along with the timing. He had remembered the clock in Texas had read 12.30 during the news piece. 1.30 in D.C. Dropping by a group of students during lunch, he had managed to acquire one of the many cell phones that littered the tables at which he’d sat. A quick restroom break, and the call to Joe had been made.

The president waved to the assembled crowd as they pulled away, back to the seat of power in the United States and where, as president, he was powerless. They had him in their control. All around him were pawns waiting to be executed should he say the wrong thing. That wasn’t their only hold. His daughter, one that, despite his position, he had managed to keep a secret, was in their control. He had been issued with a final warning. The FBI director had been his last attempt at reaching out. Next time, his daughter would die too. His daughter, his family, the republic, the constitution of the United States— all were at risk. Their only hope was a down and out drunk loser some fifteen hundred miles away on the Texas coast. Joe Kelly was a man he could trust, a man who had never let him down, and a man the president had played a part in destroying.

Joe watched the president walk off the stage. He was perfectly presented, not a hair out of place, his suit tailored to perfection. Everything about him oozed class, in total contrast to Joe. The television screen went black and afforded Joe a reflection of himself. “Unkempt” would have been a kind description. He rubbed his beard and ran his fingers through his unruly gray hair. It had been some time since he had seen a razor or a barber. His clothes were equally as ragged.

“Everything okay?” asked the woman.

As a drunk, manipulation was something with which he had become well accustomed. “My mother, she’s dying. They need me to get to her as soon as I can.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, that’s terrible. Where is she?”

“D.C.,” said Joe, a tear welling in his eye.

The woman looked at him carefully. She had worked the center long enough to know when she was being played. “Have you any way of getting there?”

Joe shook his head. “Hitchhike, I suppose.” He shrugged. “I’ll have lunch and get going on a full stomach,” he said, walking towards the door.

The woman didn’t stop him. She waited for him to ask for help. He didn’t. He walked over to the door and took his seat on the steps outside with his dog, who waited obediently, as it did every day. He opened the can of dog food he had been given and tipped its contents onto a paper plate he had taken. The dog, like Joe, wolfed down the food.

“Okay, I can’t give you money,” the woman said, “although I can give you a ticket. There’s a flight this afternoon that will get you to Washington this evening.”

Joe shook his head. “That’s very kind but I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“I’ll take you to the airport and give you the ticket,” she said, not sure he understood her offer.

“I’m afraid I can’t fly,” said Joe.

“I can look after your dog if that’s the problem.”

“No, it’s not that. I have no ID, no documents, there’s no way they’ll let me on a plane,” Joe explained.

“So you can’t hire a car then?”

Joe shook his head. His blood alcohol level would be illegal for the best part of the year, even if he stopped drinking there and then, never mind his lack of a license.

“Which leaves the bus,” he said.

“Can you get a bus to Washington?” she asked with genuine surprise.

“All the way from here,” confirmed Joe.

“Let me grab my jacket and bag and I’ll take you to the station.”

The nameless woman, whom Joe had seen every day for the last two years, walked back into the church hall. She smiled and thanked the volunteers for their help. She hadn’t once come out of the office in all the time Joe had visited, spending her time on the computer and phone while lunch was served. He assumed she had felt she was too good to deal with the drunks and down and outs. Perhaps he had misjudged her.

She returned a moment later with her purse and car keys.

“This is kind of you…” he paused to allow her to give him her name.

“Jane,” she replied. “Not at all, every mother should get to see their son one last time.”

A wave of shame hit Joe. The lie had come too easily, a by-product of a life spent on the street. Jane pointed to her car and let Joe in the passenger seat, the dog happily jumped in the back.

“We don’t see you out in the hall much,” Joe remarked.

“It costs about two thousand dollars a month to run the lunches, and I spend every second I’ve got fundraising. If I don’t do it, you guys would go hungry. I’d love to be out helping and chatting but I can only afford so much a month myself.”

“You pay for some of the lunches yourself?”

“When there’s a shortfall somebody has to make it up.”

“And my bus ticket?”

“I’m happy to help.”

“It’s not the church that’s paying?”

She shook her head. “It’s not the church that gives the lunches either. I hire the hall for a couple of hours each day.”

“You have to hire the hall and pay the church for its use?!” exclaimed Joe.

“Yesterday when the cameras came, it was the first time the church got involved, insisting we use their crockery, and they provided the beef for the roast.”

“In the two years I’ve been coming the church hasn’t paid for a meal?”

“They ask for their parishioners to volunteer, which is helpful,” she said, defending the church.

Joe shook his head in anger. He had picked the church due to its wealth. One of the best funded and supported churches in the area. If he had known it had fallen on one woman to provide his meals he’d have…

What would you have done?

He was hungry and there was free food on offer. He’d still have gone. Although it still didn’t make it right. The impression given to the world was that the church was doing its bit for the poor. The minister had even done his rounds on numerous occasions during the lunches, perpetuating the myth.

“Why?”

She looked away. “Because somewhere out there I hope someone is doing the same for my son. A veteran, I assume like yourself, who struggled to reintegrate and ended up on the streets.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I’ll see him again one day,” she said with conviction, pulling up in front of the bus station.

She got out and went inside, returning a few minutes later with a ticket in her hand.

“Bus leaves at seven, I’m afraid dogs aren’t allowed,” she said. “He can stay with me while you’re gone.”

“
She
can travel,” Joe said, pulling a vest from his inside pocket, on the side of which ‘Service Dog, Full Access’ was written. “She helps keep me calm,” he said, patting the dog with a wink.

Joe had sponged and taken advantage of situations many times over the years, always satisfied that in some way he had deserved what he received, given his sacrifices for his country. He had led a simple, selfish life. He didn’t need much and received it without much effort. “Life’s a beach” was his motto and thanks to the temperate southern climate, he could sleep under the stars on the beach nearly the entire year. Only during the coldest days of winter did he seek shelter.

He bathed each day in the warm waters of the Gulf, afterwards drinking himself into oblivion as night fell. Each day was the same, awakening to the dull thud of a hangover, a punishing swim in the sea, lunch at the church, followed by whatever he needed to do to earn enough to help him once again have a restful night. Begging, yard work, manual labor, whatever got him the few dollars for a bottle each day, that was all he needed.

Guilt was not something he had felt, certainly not for some time. However, looking at Jane, guilt raced through him. The woman was a saint and there he was, taking advantage of her and had been for years.

“She’s lovely,” said Jane, reaching over and patting the dog.

“I’d be lost without her,” Joe said wistfully, realizing how true that was.

“Does she have a name?”

“Sandy.”

“Why Sandy?” asked Jane, stroking the black and white Border Collie.

“We live on the beach and she’s always covered in sand,” he shrugged. There was no greater meaning. Life was simple.

“As good a reason as any.” Sandy groaned her satisfaction at being petted, leaning into Jane’s hand.

“I will repay you for this,” said Joe, holding out his ticket.

“It’s not necessary, I only hope you get to say goodbye to your mother.”

“I promise you’ll get the money back.”

It was the first promise he had made to anyone in many years. Joe felt a wave of nostalgia. In his past life, his promises meant something. A Joe Kelly promise was worth its weight in gold. It was a Joe Kelly promise that the president of the United States was calling in and he was answering all these years later, despite what had happened between them. His mood suddenly darkened, his thoughts drifting back to events and places he drank to forget.

“We’ve got a few hours until your coach leaves. Why don’t we—”

“We’ll be fine here,” Joe cut in, climbing out of the car. A short whistle had Sandy jumping to his heel. Joe waved Jane goodbye and without a second look, he walked across the street to the bar, its neon light suggesting it was “OP_N” for business. Sandy knew the routine, laying down in the doorway as Joe pushed the door open.

Jane was left bemused as to what had just happened. A pleasant conversation had simply ended without warning. Joe’s mood had changed in an instant. She had worked with street people for years and knew the reasons they lived on the street were many and varied. However, Joe had never really fit into any of the normal categories. A tall, powerful figure, he hadn’t lost any of his stature. Stalking across the road in his Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, and flip flops, he looked like any tourist enjoying the sunshine with his dutiful dog. Sandy stuck to his leg like glue as they walked. It was uncomfortable to witness, as at any moment you thought he might trip over her, but they made it across with ease. Jane turned the ignition. She didn’t know why, she had received many broken promises in the past, but something about Joe made her believe he’d be back, if nothing else to make sure he kept his promise to reimburse her for the ticket.