Extreme Measures (22 page)

S
ENATOR Lonsdale hurried down the hallway as quickly as her black leather Marc Jacobs pumps could carry her near perfectly proportioned frame. Her rail-thin chief of staff was galloping beside her, his long, lanky stride doubling his boss’s. They crossed over from the Hart Senate Office Building to Dirksen. Technically they were two buildings, but they existed as one, with every floor of the two buildings connecting. Lonsdale and Wassen went through the senator’s private door. Wassen stopped to have a word with the two executive assistants, but the senator kept moving.

She went straight into her large office and closed the door. This one was drastically different from her office in the Capitol. It was almost as big, but where the other one was ornately decorated, this one was utilitarian. There were no marble or plaster reliefs, just Sheetrock and carpeting. The furniture reflected the space. Everything was very linear and slightly modern.

Lonsdale kicked off her pumps and grabbed her pack of cigarettes and lighter from her top-left desk drawer. She flicked the switch on the special ventilation unit she’d had installed and fired up her first cigarette. The smooth, warm smoke filled her lungs and she felt herself begin to relax. It took every bit of her reserve to sit there silently for two hours while her colleagues maneuvered. There was Joe Valdez, whom she had never been impressed with, serving up one retarded question after another. She could see that, as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, he was going to try and get a piece of the action, but the way she had it figured he was fifth on the list, and she wasn’t going to give him jack shit.

A couple puffs later she looked down and scanned her call sheet. Most of the names weren’t important enough to call back today, but there were a few she would have to get to tonight when they wrapped things up. For now she wanted to get herself in the right frame of mind for her shot at the den of liars. Pretty much everyone had gone over their allotted fifteen minutes, and Lonsdale planned on doing the same. She figured as chairman of the Judiciary they would all expect her to go after them, and fifteen minutes wasn’t nearly enough to question the five of them.

An unmarked manila folder lay on the desk. She opened it and began reading the list of potential questions her staff had put together for her based on the first round of questions. By the time she’d finished reading them, she was finished with the cigarette. She stabbed it out in the crystal ashtray, where it sat there crooked and tattooed with red lipstick. Lonsdale hesitated and then decided to grab another one. She’d just finished lighting it when Wassen entered the room. As always, he closed the door behind him.

“Five minutes.”

She nodded and exhaled a cloud over her shoulder toward the ventilation machine.

“Second one?” Wassen asked with a curious eye.

“I didn’t know you were counting.”

“I’ve noticed an
uptick
lately,” he said in a disapproving voice.

Lonsdale’s pretty little nose scrunched up, and it looked for a moment like she might stick her tongue out at him. Wassen unnerved her at times, probably because no one knew her better. Since the death of her husband thirteen years ago, he had been her constant companion. He was like a father, husband, and girlfriend all rolled into one.

“Big deal,” she said as she took another drag. “I’m still only smoking a pack a week.”

Wassen knew it was closer to two, but there wasn’t time to argue about it right now. “Did you review the questions?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“They’re fine.”

“Any idea who you’re going to start with?”

“Kennedy,” she said as she turned and looked at herself in a full-length mirror on the wall. “I’m going to light her up and then go after Rapp, and if I have time I’ll take Nash apart.”

“Sound strategy.”

Lonsdale ran a hand along the front of her black Theory ‘Rory-Tailor’ jacket and matching pants. She spotted a few wrinkles and frowned.

Wassen read her mind and said, “Don’t worry about it. No cameras.”

He was right. She set the half-finished cigarette in the ashtray and grabbed a small makeup bag from the credenza behind her desk. She took a brush with powder and began dabbing her face. “Can you believe Joe Valdez is a United States senator?”

“Not the sharpest tack in the drawer.”

“And then that bitch Patty Lamb. She’s going to try and wrestle this thing away from me and get it in front of Homeland Security.”

“Let her try,” Wassen said as he checked his watch, “it’ll never happen.”

Lonsdale put the makeup brush away and plucked at the neck of her white spandex T-shirt to get some of the skin-colored powder off. She began lining her lips and said, “It’s going to come down to Ted Darby and I.”

“Yes it will, and you’ll both end up holding hearings. There’s no way you’re going to wrestle it away from him, and there’s no way he’s going to wrestle it away from you.”

She thought about the chairman of the Armed Services Committee while she finished lining her lips. “I suppose you’re right.”

“We need to get back. You don’t want them to start without you and let someone else go after them as hard as you will.”

Lonsdale put out her cigarette and said, “Right you are, Ralphy.”

She gave herself a quick spray of perfume and put on her pumps, and they left. Her personal assistants were standing when she walked through the small lobby. Both wished her luck and told her to go get them. Lonsdale kept a pleasant yet determined look on her face and shook her fist in the air as she walked past them and into the wide hallway. As they strolled back to the committee room, more people wished her luck. This was the big show on Capitol Hill today and everyone knew she would be the one to go for the throat.

Lonsdale was in fact one of the last people to make it back to the committee room. She took her seat and peered down at the CIA employees. Her face slowly transformed into a disapproving frown and then she began to sadly shake her head. Senator Safford called the meeting back to order and before turning things over to Lonsdale reminded the witnesses that they were still under oath.

“Senator Lonsdale,” Safford said as he slid his reading glasses up onto his shiny forehead, “you may begin.”

Lonsdale thanked the chairman and took a moment to look down at her notes even though what she was about to say was not written down. She deliberately removed her stylish black reading glasses and said, “Director Kennedy, I think that your performance as director of the Central Intelligence Agency has been an embarrassment to this country from the day you took over. Your tenure has been one disaster after another, and for the life of me, I can’t understand why you won’t simply resign.”

The objections erupted from the other side of the table. Even Lonsdale’s fellow party members were shaking their heads and mumbling to each other. Safford banged his gavel until silence was restored and then admonished Lonsdale. “We are here today to gather information, not to indict and convict on incomplete evidence.”

Lonsdale stayed on the offensive, saying, “I’m not even talking about illegal activities. I’ll get to that in a minute. I’m talking about gross incompetence. This is not our first go-around with Mr. Rapp. This committee has been telling Director Kennedy for some time that she needs to keep Mr. Rapp on a shorter leash. Apparently she has intentionally ignored us, or she is incapable of managing her people. You choose,” she said, looking directly at Kennedy. “Either way, she needs to go.”

The objections erupted yet again, with Senator Gayle Kendrick leading the charge, “I would like to remind my colleague from Missouri that Director Kennedy has devoted nearly twenty-five years of her life to the service of this country and she deserves to be treated with respect, regardless of one’s political beliefs.”

“So you want us to just blindly respect people because they’ve been a bureaucrat for twenty-five years without taking into account the abuses and illegal activities they’ve condoned and participated in?”

“You see,” Kendrick said to the chairman and vice chairman, “this is what she’s going to do when she gets this in front of her committee. She’s going to turn a hearing into a trial, and she’s going to act as the judge even though she already has her mind made up.”

“That’s not true,” Lonsdale said without much conviction.

“You know it is. All you want to do is crucify her in front of a nationally televised audience.”

“My committee will go where the facts take us,” Lonsdale replied with a steely look.

“You will do great harm to an organization that is trying its best to protect us from our enemies.”

“I would like to remind the senator from Virginia that we are a nation of laws. And it is our job to make sure those laws are obeyed.”

“And I would like to remind the senator from Missouri that nowhere in the Constitution does it say we should go out of our way to afford those protections to our enemies.”

The committee members erupted again with the two sides shouting at each other. Safford gaveled the room back to silence, and then without being told to proceed, Lonsdale said, “I think we can all agree that striking an officer in the United States Air Force is a crime. Now, Mr. Rapp, would you agree with that statement?”

A faint smile formed on Rapp’s lips.

“Do you find this humorous, Mr. Rapp?”

“No, ma’am. I find your directness rather refreshing.”

“I would appreciate that same directness from you when you answer my questions.”

“I’ll do my best, ma’am.”

“Crimes committed,” Lonsdale, repeated, “are you in agreement, Mr. Rapp, that you have broken several laws?”

“We are not in complete agreement, but I can respectfully see where you would think that I have committed a crime, or several crimes.”

Lonsdale was slightly surprised by Rapp’s apparent willingness to answer her. “Well, let’s just start with the first one. Striking a United States Air Force officer… is that a crime?”

Rapp had already denied striking Captain Leland but answered Lonsdale’s question anyway. “I agree that it is a crime, but I did not strike the man.”

“If I call you before the Senate Judiciary committee, will you answer that same question, or will you plead the Fifth?”

Without hesitation, Rapp said, “I will honestly answer your questions, Madam Senator.”

There was a quiet rumble of voices as Lonsdale’s colleagues shared their surprised opinions. “So,” Lonsdale pressed, “you will not take the Fifth.”

“I have no desire to take the Fifth, ma’am.”

“Let’s leave desire out of this,” Lonsdale said. She was used to working with lawyers and got the feeling the word would provide Rapp with some wiggle room. “You’re telling me right now that you will freely testify before my committee and will not invoke your Fifth Amendment rights?”

“Yes, I am.”

The shock caused by Rapp’s openness swept over all of them. Every senator took a moment to look at each other and share their surprise. No one was more astounded than Lonsdale. She’d had it in her mind for some time now that she would have to drag Rapp before her committee and beat his brains out while he stubbornly refused to incriminate himself, which in a way was just fine with her. CIA employees had a nice history of looking guilty while they pleaded the Fifth. This sudden change, however, was even better.

Lonsdale directed her glare at Kennedy and said, “How about you, Director Kennedy? Will you testify before my committee or will you be exercising your Fifth Amendment right?” Her voice dripped with disdain.

“Like any American citizen I will reserve my right to exercise the Fifth Amendment.”

Lonsdale shook her head in an overdisappointed manner. She looked back to Rapp. “So, Mr. Rapp, if I ask you about your interrogation of Abu Haggani, an Afghani in the custody of U.S. forces, you will not take the Fifth Amendment?”

“I will answer your questions, ma’am.”

Rapp’s responses were so unexpected that Lonsdale wasn’t sure where to go. Sensing this, her chief of staff leaned forward and touched her shoulder. Lonsdale turned toward Wassen, who cupped a hand over her ear.

“No sense in bringing anything up here where they can classify it. Keep your powder dry until you get them in front of your committee.”

Sound counsel as usual,
Lonsdale thought to herself. She nodded and then looked over at Bob Safford and said, “No, further questions, Mr. Chairman.”

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

N
ASH homed in on the tennis ball hanging from the rafters of the garage like an F-18 pilot focusing on a rain-swept carrier deck. The garage was designed for two cars, but not two cars, three bikes, a couple of strollers, an old trike, scooters, razors, skateboards, and every stick and ball known to mankind. The tennis ball kissed the windshield and Nash threw the gearshift into park.
Safe in my garage,
he thought.
Maybe I’ll just stay here the rest of the night.
But as much as he’d like to just check out for a few days, he wanted to see the kids.

He climbed out and went around and got the groceries out of the back. At the back door he set one bag down and checked the handle. It was unlocked. His blood started to boil. He’d told the whole damn family a hundred times that the doors were always to be locked. He opened the door and carried the groceries through the mudroom and into the kitchen, where he found his ten-year-old son sitting a mere foot from the TV eating a bowl of cereal. Nash set the groceries down and went back to the mudroom, where he closed and locked the door and then opened his pistol safe. He pulled the black paddle holster and gun off his hip and stuck it in the safe.

By the time he got back to the kitchen his fourteen-year-old daughter, Shannon, was waiting for him with Charlie in her arms. She looked just like her mother. Beautiful ivory skin with thick, shiny black hair. “Hi, Dad.”

Nash kissed her on the cheek and asked her how her day was. Rather than answer him, she extended her arms and handed him Charlie. “Mom was supposed to be home twenty minutes ago. I’m late for play practice.”

Just like that, she was gone with her backpack out the mudroom door.

Nash looked into the smiling eyes of young Charlie and from across the room heard, “I think he has a bomb in his pants.”

Nash looked over at the ten-year-old, who was glued to the TV. Reluctantly, he turned Charlie around and sniffed his backside. With a sour face, Nash said, “Oh God, that stinks.”

“I told you,” the ten-year-old said after downing another spoonful of cereal.

“Your mother teach you how to change a diaper yet?”

“Nope” – Jack shook his head – “that’s women’s work.”

Nash wanted to laugh, but resisted the urge. “You better not let your mother hear you say that.”

Jack slowly turned toward his father, his mouth half open. “Who do you think I got that line from?”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re ten. You talk like that around your mother, and you’re likely to get your butt swatted.” Then under his breath he said, “And I’ll really get in trouble.”

“I learned it from you, Dad.”

Nash carried Charlie through the kitchen and as he passed, his ten-year-old mumbled, “I’m surrounded by traitors.” He continued into the living room and set Charlie down on the floor. Kneeling next to him, he grabbed some wet wipes and a fresh diaper from the bookshelf. Charlie lay on his back with his feet up making motorboat noises with his lips. Nash laughed at his little tuft of fine blond hair. Other than that, he was pretty much bald. Nash got everything ready and then went in. He unsnapped the inseam on the kid’s bib overalls and undid the old diaper. A heinous mix of rotten vegetables and diarrhea wafted out from under the freed diaper.

Nash turned his head away and snatched a breath of fresh air. “Now, this is torture.” He looked back down at Charlie and said, “What are they feeding you, little buddy? This is horrible.” Turning his head back toward the kitchen, he yelled, “Jack, get in here.”

A moment later the sandy haired, flat-topped ten-year-old appeared. “Yeah, Dad?”

Nash finished wiping all the crevices and then rolled the old diaper up tight and sealed it. “Throw this in the diaper pail.” He saw his son’s apprehension and added a “please” for good measure. His wife claimed the kids would be more open to helping out if everyone around the house was a little more polite. Nash countered that he’d gotten a lot of shit done in the Marine Corps, and so did his men, and no one ever said please to anyone. Maggie countered that he was no longer a Marine, nor were any of their kids.

Nash held out the softball-sized diaper.

The ten-year-old held his ground. “You’re three weeks behind on my allowance.”

“Yeah… well, you’re ten years behind on rent, so unless you want to end up sleeping in the diaper pail, get your butt moving.”

The kid lifted his Boston Celtics jersey over his nose and mouth and grabbed the diaper with two fingers like it was a hunk of radioactive waste. The smell still lingered, so Nash decided to give Charlie a bath. He carried him into the mudroom and started to fill the laundry tub. Jack came back in from his trip to the garage as his father was sticking the stopper in the bottom of the tub.

“How was school today?”

“Good… how’s your back?”

“Better, thank you.”

“And your melon.” Jack pointed at his own head.

Nash smiled. Jack was the family comedian. “The melon is okay today. Not great, but okay. Did you have a test today?”

“Quiz.”

“How’d you do?”

“Twenty-five out of twenty-five.”

“Congrats,” Nash said as he added some soap to the water. “Did you finish your homework?”

“When was the last time I didn’t do my homework the minute I got home from school? It’s your other son you need to worry about… the troglodyte.”

Nash gave his third child a hard stare. “That’s a big word for a ten-year-old.” He set Charlie in the tub. “Do you even know what it means?”

Jack started dancing around like an ape. With his jaw stuck out, he said, “Caveman.”

With a fatherly look of disapproval he grabbed a washcloth for the baby. Rory, the second child, struggled in school, but excelled in sports. He was thirteen and a half and on the verge of shaving. “Jack, let me give you a little advice. Don’t say that to your brother.”

“He calls me girlie boy all the time.”

“That’s what older brothers do.”

“I don’t do it to Charlie.”

Nash looked down at the one-year-old, who was happily splashing away and sucking on the soapy washcloth. Looking back at Jack, he said, “Go ahead. Call him a girlie boy, if it’ll make you feel better.”

Jack smiled, got close to the tub, and said, “Girlie boy. Charlie, you’re a little girlie boy.”

Charlie looked up at his older brother and let loose an ear-splitting squeal. They all started laughing and Jack tried it again. Nash reached out, put his arm around Jack, and kissed him on the top of the head. “I’ll talk to him, Jack, but you have to remember, Rory’s going through a tough time right now. School isn’t as easy for him as it is for you.”

“So… I’d rather be good at sports like him.”

“Buddy, you haven’t even hit puberty yet.”

“Rory was good at everything. Even before puberty.”

“We all have our God-given gifts, son. I was a good athlete, and right now I’d rather have your brains than my brawn.”

Just then, Maggie walked in the door, her hair pulled back in a high ponytail. She looked lovingly at her husband with his arm around her third child and the soapy head of her baby just barely visible over the top edge of the laundry tub.

“Oh… isn’t this a nice picture? Look at Daddy and his little helper and my precious baby.”

Charlie had been preoccupied with something beneath the waterline, but when he heard his mother’s voice, his big brown eyes darted up to find the most important person in his world. A huge smile spread across his face and his little fingers reached out for the edge of the tub. He grabbed ahold of the lip and with considerable effort pulled himself to his full height of twenty-seven inches, and blurted out the word that he had so proudly yelled nearly twelve hours earlier while eating his breakfast.

Maggie froze, Nash tried not to laugh and Jack blurted out, “I swear I didn’t teach him that word.” Neither parent responded, so he added, “I bet it was Rory.”

“It was your mother,” Nash said with no lack of joy.

Maggie snapped at her husband, “Like you don’t walk around here swearing all the time.”

“Jack,” Nash said, “who swears more, me or Mommy?”

Jack looked back and forth between his two parents and then proved just how smart he was by darting past his father and into the kitchen. “No way am I getting in the middle of this,” he yelled over his shoulder.

Maggie defiantly folded her arms across her chest and stared at her husband. “I’m sure he’s heard you say it before.”

Nash nodded, dipped a hand into the soapy water, and came up with the washcloth. He started wiping down Charlie’s backside. “You do whatever you need to do to make yourself feel better about this one, princess.”

Charlie looked up at his mother. The happy look was gone, replaced by a look that mirrored the concerned look of his mother. In a much softer voice this time he muttered the word that was causing his mother’s distress. Nash couldn’t take it anymore and burst out laughing.

Maggie, trying to hold her neutral expression, said, “Michael, you have to ignore him.”

Charlie smiled at his dad and repeated the word two more times. Nash began laughing harder. Charlie reacted with equal vigor and started throwing the word out in quick repeated bursts. Nash completely lost it, and started howling.

“Stop it!” Maggie yelled at him. “All you’re doing is reinforcing his behavior.”

Nash tried to stop, but it only made it worse. Maggie, not thinking that any of it was funny, whacked her husband across the shoulder and yelled, “Goddammit, Michael, this isn’t funny.”

Charlie suddenly stopped saying the word. He looked up at his mother and then his father, the dark brown orbs that dominated his eyes growing seemingly larger. He zeroed in on his mother’s less-than-happy expression, and then the bottom lip started to tremble, the big brown eyes filled with tears, and then it all came pouring out.

“No, honey,” Maggie said in a soothing voice. “Mommy and Daddy love each other.”

“Most of the time,” Nash said under his breath.

Maggie craned her head around and shot him a look that caused him to cover his groin with his dry hand. Charlie was now wailing. Maggie stroked his cheek with the back of her hand and said, “Look… Mommy and Daddy love each other. Look up here, honey.”

Maggie cupped her left hand around her husband’s neck and pulled him close. Nash kept his family jewels covered on the off chance she was luring him in for a knee to the groin. Maggie laid a big exaggerated kiss on her husband replete with sound effects. She turned back to Charlie, who was still crying, and said, “See, Mommy and Daddy love each other.” He was still crying so she went back to kissing her husband.

Nash decided she wasn’t going to hurt him, so he joined in with gusto. Ten seconds later the two were still locked in a passionate kiss that was suddenly much more than acting. Nash’s hands began to wander over his wife’s body, and he pulled her in close. Charlie slowly stopped crying, but they kept going. Maggie reached her hand down below his belt and gave him a soft squeeze.

She moved her lips away from his and offered her cheek. “It appears everything is working just fine down there.”

Nash nodded enthusiastically. “Let’s go upstairs.”

“You’re going to have to wait.”

Nash let out a long groan. “I love you,” he moaned.

“I love you too.”

Charlie began to giggle and smile.

“That’s right,” Maggie said. “Mommy and Daddy love each other.”

Charlie said the word again, although this time in a soft and sensitive voice.

Nash looked down at him and said, “That’s right, buddy.”

Maggie finally broke down and started laughing. “You are horrible.”

“I know.”

“How was your day?” she asked with a touch of concern.

“It was interesting?”

“But you can’t talk about it.”

“No.”

She stiffened a little. The happy moment was gone and the stress of his job was back in the happy little home. “Just promise me you’ll tell me yourself. I don’t want to wake up one morning and read it in the paper.”

Nash kissed her forehead. “I promise.”