Paramour (25 page)

"What exactly do I have to do?"

"Your actual title will be compliance officer. You have the full responsibility, and no one will get in your way as long as the compliance requirements are met."

Powers had a sinking feeling. "Compliance? Are we talking drug testing?"

"Yes, regular supervised testing of all employees is part and parcel of the program. I take it you do agree with the concept of a drug-free workplace?"

"Of course," Powers said after a moment.

"All the equipment you need is in this file cabinet ... including the master schedule of when employees are due."

"Due?"

"Due to give you a urine sample."

"I'm in charge of seeing to it that people piss?"

"That's one way to put it," he said warily. "Any other questions?"

Powers shook his head.

Novatny winked at him insincerely and left the room.

Powers sat down at the desk. Telling himself that, as in the Secret Service, new employees were always given the most disagreeable tasks and in time he'd be promoted to a better position in the company, Powers opened the security manual and spent the next couple of hours thumbing pages. But his mind was on Marilyn, and for the life of him he couldn't concentrate. Over and over, he remembered waking in the hotel room in Kassel to find her gone. Somehow, sitting in the sterile office he had the feeling that nothing had changed and he was only on another Secret Service temporary assignment: that any minute he would be headed to Andrews Air Force Base to board
Air Force One.

Later in the day, Novatny led Powers around the office introducing him ("This is our new compliance officer Jack Powers") to the other members of the security staff, most of whom were ex-policemen or federal agents. Though mortified because he figured they knew he was the new piss monitor, Powers smiled and shook hands with everyone. Back in his office, Powers realized that out of all the people he'd met he couldn't recall a single name.

After work, Powers purchased a quart of Chivas Regal at a liquor store.

At his apartment the red light on his answering machine was blinking. He pressed REWIND, then the PLAY
button. The messages were as follows:

1. Landry telling him he'd received his letter and asking him to call.

2. Louise Fisher asking him not to believe the things Capizzi was saying about her.

3. Mrs. Hammerstrom informing him that he wouldn't be able to leave his footlockers in the storeroom during future trips because she was going to rent the storeroom itself to the Georgetown Arms cleanup crew, who were all Colombians and needed a place to stay.

4. Sharon Fantozzi, an aggressive telephone company security agent whom he dated occasionally, telling him she was horny and asking him to call.

Powers pressed the ERASE
button.

As with all Secret Service agents, his career, though unique and challenging in its own way, had not prepared him for any other occupation. Unlike others in law enforcement work who easily fit into the corporate security field upon retirement, leaving the White House was, by any and all standards, an unequivocal step down. At forty-four years old, he was now a has-been working for a never-been, Casimir Novatny-a President's man ending up as a piss monitor at Highland Oil and Gas.

In bed, he told himself he would just have to accept it. But he couldn't sleep.

The next morning, Powers showed up a few minutes late for the Highland Oil and Gas security department daily staff meeting and listened as Casimir Novatny read a security bulletin concerning the theft of six hundred and fourteen dollars in company imprest funds. Then he gave a short lecture on how to examine employee expense vouchers in order to detect cheating. When the meeting was over Powers returned to his desk to avoid chatting with the other members of the security staff.

At about 10 A.M., a paunchy, middle-aged man in horn-rimmed eyeglasses with thick lenses came into Powers's office. He was wearing slacks and a short-sleeved white shirt with a pocket sagging with pens and mechanical pencils.

"Roy Hawkins from the engineering department," he said gruffly. "I'm here for my yearly test."

"I see," Powers said. He stood up and introduced himself. Hawkins accepted his handshake reticently. Recalling the procedure as outlined in the security manual, Powers opened the file drawer and took out a small glass specimen bottle. Avoiding eye contact, he handed the bottle to Hawkins.

"How about a paper cup."

"Excuse me?"

"The last guy that had your job gave out a Dixie cup with the jar," Hawkins said. "In the bathroom, it's easier to piss into the cup, then pour the piss into the glass bottle. Otherwise you have to aim-"

"I'm sorry. I don't have any cups."

Hawkins shrugged. He moved to the door and stopped, as if waiting for Powers to follow. "Well, aren't you coming?"

"Coming where?"

"Coming in the bathroom to watch me piss. That's what the other guy always did. He said the security manual said he had to watch so if a person had been using narcotics they couldn't substitute another person's piss and beat the test."

"That's okay. I trust you," Powers said.

Hawkins gave him a puzzled expression and left the room. There was the sound of his footsteps in the hall and the door of the men's rest room opening and shutting.

Powers moved to the window. In the distance was the Washington monument and, just beyond it, the White House.

He felt like punching his fist through the glass.

Hawkins returned a few minutes later and set his urine-filled bottle on the desk. It was wet, and moisture dampened the ink blotter.

"There she be," Hawkins said, wiping his hands on his trousers. He left the room.

Powers was still standing at the window a few minutes later when Novatny came in the room.

"I just spoke with Roy Hawkins from engineering," Novatny said, ignoring the urine sample on the desk. "He mentioned that you didn't monitor the taking of the sample."

"That's right," Powers said without turning around.

"The security manual calls for monitoring. You have to stand right there when the sample is given. This is to ensure-"

"How long has Hawkins worked here?" Powers asked.

"Over twenty years."

"Do you suspect him of using narcotics?"

Novatny crossed his arms across his chest and smiled sardonically. "Of course not. But that doesn't change the fact that people have to obey rules."

Powers just shook his head.

"Does this mean you are refusing an order?" Novatny said.

Powers walked past Novatny and out the door.

"Where are you going?"

Powers headed down the hallway and descended the stairs. Novatny was behind him.

Powers reached the ground floor lobby and headed toward the front door.

"You're fired!" Novatny shouted.

****

SEVENTEEN

Landry leaned back in his chair and stretched. It had been a busy day at the White House-and any day when the President did something other than remain inside the Oval Office was a good day. Landry preferred activity, any activity, over sitting at the radio console monitoring radio transmissions as agents moved from post to post in the White House rotation.
Post thirteen requesting a push. . . . Post nine has a visitor who's
lost his pass.
. . . He heard the damn radio in his sleep.

At 8 A.M
.,
Landry had led the President from the Oval Office to the White House briefing room for a press conference: thirty-six minutes of the man evading questions about the U.S. loss of influence in the Middle
East.

Later, Landry had accompanied the President to the DC Marriott Hotel, where the President was scheduled to give a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention. Riding in the right front passenger seat of the presidential limousine, Landry bore overall Secret Service responsibility for the trip. But as Agent-in-Charge, his only required duty per the Secret Service
Manual of Protective Operations
was to stay within arm's reach of the President at all times and ceremonially open the limo door for him upon arrival and departure. Of course, in the event of an assassination attempt, Landry knew he would be required to shield the President with his own body-to "draw fire" and probably get killed.

The speech went well, Landry recognizing it as the same one he always gave to veterans' groups. The working phrase was "I stand with you; I salute you," repeated for emotional effect. The President was a relatively dull speaker, but since he'd served in the Marine Corps like Landry, Landry considered his remarks unfeigned and heartfelt-in contrast to the patriotic speeches of former Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney and former Vice President Dan Quayle, who were Vietnam-era draft dodgers.

After the speech, as the President was walking in a hallway from the convention meeting room toward the exit, Capizzi roughly frisked a hotel bellman who he said had a bulge under his coat. This caused a stir among the White House press pool reporters tagging along: Problem of the Day.

Returning to W-16, Landry was besieged by reporters wanting to know more about the incident. He told them Capizzi's action had been justified in that he saw what he believed might have been a weapon, even though he suspected Capizzi was really showing off for Chief of Staff David Morgan and a couple of other high-ranking White House staffers who were standing nearby. Capizzi was frequently good for causing the Problem of the Day.

But Landry chose to complain neither to Sullivan nor to the Director about Capizzi, realizing if he did Capizzi would probably file a complaint with the Secret Service Inspection Division. This would result in an investigation directed by Chief Inspector Elmer Cogswell, an Alabama hillbilly. Cogswell, who secretly hated blacks, had been passed over for promotion many times and was desperate to gain exposure in the Secret Service pecking order. Using his team of hand-picked incompetents, he would conduct endless interviews and reinterviews and then finally sign off on a lengthy, overwrought inspection report, finding fault not only with Capizzi but with Landry himself and everyone else assigned to the White House Detail-hoping to force Landry's removal as Agent-in-Charge and thus put Cogswell in line for the job.

Therefore, thought Landry, it was better to tolerate Capizzi's showboating.

Landry picked up the receiver and dialed Powers's number. Busy again. He'd been trying to reach Powers for days and had left numerous messages since Powers resigned, but had received no answer. It was totally out of character for Powers not to return his calls.

Leaving the White House that evening on his way home, Landry stopped by the dry cleaners on G Street and picked up some white shirts. On the way out the door he almost bumped into Ed Sneed, a tall army major in uniform-one tailored to fit his V-shaped weightlifter physique.

"Say, Ken, where've you been hiding?"

"On the day shift, my man."

"I'm still working nights. Been doing it for so many years I'm used to it. By the way, I just heard about Powers quitting. I don't believe that crap about finding a better job at Highland. There had to have been something else."

Landry shrugged. "Who knows?"

"At first I thought it had something to do with Operation Fencing Master."

Landry nodded and smiled wryly. The first thing he'd learned in the Secret Service was never to let on when you didn't know what someone was talking about. "Hard to say."