Paramour (24 page)

"I don't understand."

"The President is well aware of how Fogarty overdoes things. He told me he didn't want to see this happen."

"You're telling me I'm...?" Powers said.

Sullivan cleared his throat sharply. "The President asked about your eligibility for retirement."

Powers felt a lump in his throat. He swallowed. "When it came right down to the wire, you bailed out on me, Pete. You hung me out to dry."

"If you were to request retirement, it's within my purview to approve-"

"No."

"Let me finish, Jack. Please. I can get David Crumpmaster or one of the President's other big money supporters to give you a good job in private industry, paying more than your government salary. Taking a higher paying job would stop speculation about why you left."

Powers felt weak in the knees.

"Hell, in the long run you'd be better off," Sullivan said. "You could buy a condo. I'm sorry. Goddam, I'm sorry..." Sullivan's voice trailed off.

A taxi, grinding its gears, sped past. Powers followed it with his eyes as it hurtled down Constitution Avenue. "Would it do any good now if I talked with the President?" he said.

"You know how the man is once he's made a decision," Sullivan said. "This whole thing is all my fault. I got you in, and now I can't get you out."

Powers's career was ended. He'd seen it happen before: agents who'd been injured on duty and were no longer able to meet the stringent physical requirements of the Secret Service, or who'd been involved in scandal of one kind or another and had displeased some member of the White House staff or the First Family: the few alcoholics, the two agents who got into a fistfight in the Lincoln Room over a bet on a Redskins game, the agent who came to believe his wristwatch was ordering him to do strange things and was committed to St. Elizabeth's in a straitjacket. Now it was his turn.

"I have no one to blame but myself," Powers said under his breath.

Sullivan unzipped the attaché case and took out a piece of paper. He set it on the flat side of the case and handed it to Powers. "This is a Form 1094 retirement request. I'll let it be known this was the reason you came to my office before you took the vacation days-you'd had a big offer from a private firm and wanted to keep it quiet." He was avoiding eye contact. "You'll be on salary for the next three months until your annual leave time is used up."

From his shirt pocket, he took out a pen and offered it to Powers.

Powers stood there, feeling slightly nauseated. "She just didn't seem like a spy," he said.

"I understand, Jack."

Powers accepted the pen. Using the attach6 case to support the printed form, he signed his name.

"You know I'd give anything to be able to change this," Sullivan said, shoving the document back into the attach6 case.

"I don't want to go to the House and lie to everyone about why I'm leaving."

"No need. I'll tell Landry. Just send him a note that you want to double your salary and had to take the position when it was offered. No one will question it."

Powers nodded.

They stood there for a moment in uncomfortable silence.

"Do you-uh-want to go have a drink?" Sullivan said weakly.

Powers shook his head. "No, thanks."

"I'll let you know tomorrow about the new job."

Powers nodded.

Sullivan suddenly reached out and gave Powers an abrazo. "I'm sorry, Jack. Sorry about everything." He picked up the case and walked across the street to his car.

Powers, overwhelmed by a feeling of profound guilt and loss, walked aimlessly for what must have been an hour or more. He'd often wondered about how the others who'd been forced to leave the spotlight of the White House had felt, and now he knew. The loss was personal: the death of self-image. Humiliation was the word-and a sense of twisted awe, perhaps, that all the years of long hours, of missing meals and standing post in the rain and snow and waiting in the follow-up car and changing shifts at midnight and working sick and dragging his suitcase all over the world to be somewhere on time ... of standing for long periods in back yards and front yards and service entrances and alleys and outside ten thousand doors in ten thousand hotel hallways throughout the world, had been for nothing. No longer, working as a team with the other members of the shift, would he lead the President through a thousand crowds made up of a million faces hoping to live if he had to take a bullet for the man. At the next inauguration a President would be in the presidential limousine, and the President's follow-up car would be manned in the running-board position, with his pals alert and ready to leap into danger, to fire accurately to save the President.

But he wouldn't be there.

His years of slogging up and down the stairs in the White House had been ended forever by one mistake. The invisible Secret Service wash-line had been stretched tight, and it was Jack Powers's turn to dangle in the wind.

****

SIXTEEN

At his apartment, Powers went to the closet and took out an empty shoebox. He placed his Secret Service badge and credential, his holstered revolver and handcuffs, and his secret identification pins into it. At the kitchen table, he wrote the following letter on government stationery:

Special-Agent-in-Charge Kenneth Landry

White House Detail, USSS

The White House

Dear Ken: I'm sorry I didn't have time to stop by the House before I left, but by now, I'm sure Sullivan has told you about the job offer I accepted. Forgive the abrupt departure, but I have a lot of things to take care of before I assume the new position and I really don't feel like going through either a retirement party or an endless round of goodbyes. You know how it is. Nevertheless, please give my best to everyone on the detail--except Capizzi, of course.

I'll drop you a line soon and fill you in on the details of my new job.

All the best,

Jack

Powers dropped the letter into the shoebox and closed it. Using tape and string, he wrapped the box securely; then, numb from the events of the evening, he sat on the sofa and, without changing channels, stared at television until about 4 A.M.

Finally, he staggered in to bed and dropped into fitful sleep.

He awoke at 6 A.M., thinking about Marilyn. Having showered and shaved, he left the apartment carrying the shoebox and took the Metro to Secret Service headquarters. In the mailroom, he used a magic marker to label the shoebox with Landry's name. Then he shoved it into a canvas classified message bin marked IMMEDIATE DELIVERY and hurried out of the building to avoid contact with anyone.

On the way back to his apartment, he stopped at Long's Cafeteria and ordered bacon and eggs. He ate a few bites of the meal, realized he wasn't hungry, and left.

He spent the rest of the day lounging about the apartment just worrying about what it was going to be like to start a new career.

Sullivan phoned him that evening and gave him instructions: a job had been arranged by David Crumpmaster, president of Highland Oil and Gas of Arlington, Virginia. Crumpmaster, the President's former law partner, was the chief political fixer and point man for the administration and, for all intents and purposes, wielded more actual power than any officer of the government. In every administration, there was always at least one Crumpmaster. During presidential campaigns, Secret Service agents, like political reporters, made a game of figuring out who would fill this secret position.

The next day Jack Powers reported to work at the security department of Highland Oil and Gas. The building was located in the heart of the Arlington business area, in a modern four-story pillar of tinted glass.

He was shown into the office of the Highland vice president in charge of security, Casimir Novatny. Novatny was in his fifties, overweight, and wore a dark, linty blue suit and an ill-fitting hairpiece.

Powers remembered him from the last presidential campaign. Novatny had been a political advance man for the President, organizing rallies in the Midwest, mostly Chicago. Though he always introduced himself as a former FBI agent, his FBI experience had been more than twenty years ago and he'd been an agent for less than a year, which Powers knew meant he was terminated before achieving probationary status. Powers disliked him immediately.

"You'll be making a salary almost twice what you were making as a Secret Service agent," Novatny said in a heavy New York accent. "That includes a company car and an expense account. How's that sound?"

"Great," Powers said, forcing a smile.

"Occasionally you'll be a trouble shooter," Novatny said. "If one of our employees steps on his dick, then we conduct an investigation. You report to me, and I decide what to do with the information. You don't do anything on your own. You understand that?"

Powers nodded, realizing the source of the faint clacking sound as Novatny spoke. Novatny had false teeth.

"And with your Secret Service experience, I plan on using you for executive protection. Now and then Mr. Crumpmaster and the Board of Directors like to have someone around when golfing or taking vacations, and you'll be in charge of seeing to it that the alarm systems on their homes are in working order." He pronounced order as
odaah.

Novatny left his chair and closed the door. "It's not so much actual security work; having body guards makes them look important to their customers and social contacts," he said, returning to his seat. "That means if you're on the golf course with one of the members of the Board and he asks you to carry golf clubs, you carry the golf clubs. But this sort of work will be only a small part of your duties. Okay so far?"

Powers nodded.

"Let's take a look at your office," Novatny said, coming to his feet.

Powers followed him down a halfway to another office. Novatny allowed him to enter first. Like Novatny's office, the facing wall was tinted glass and provided a view of a similar office building across the street. The only furnishings in the room were a blue synthetic-fabric chair and a medium-sized veneer desk. There was nothing on the desk but plastic trays labeled IN
and OUT
.
In the IN
box was a stack of printed health insurance forms.

Novatny picked up the printed forms and clacked some instructions about filling them out. Powers only half listened.

"All set to this point?" Novatny said.

"Yes, I think so."

"How do you like your office?"

"Fine."

Novatny sat down on a chair in front of the desk. He pointed to the framed emblem on the wall, an alert American eagle superimposed on an oil derrick.
"
N.H.A.H.," he
said. "This is what will take up most of your time here at Highland."

"Pardon?"

"The Never High at Highland program. This is the company drug resistance effort. It's the man's pet project." Novatny leaned back in his chair, his wig lifting slightly from his forehead. "The man-that's Mr. Crumpmaster. Those of us in Security call him the man. "

"What kind of drug program is it?"

Novatny opened a file cabinet desk drawer and removed a thick binder titled "Highland Oil and Gas Security Manual." He slid it across the desk. "Your duties are all explained in here. Mr. Crumpmaster is determined to have a drug-free environment at Highland."