Permanent Interests (31 page)

She managed to free one thigh and tried to knee her attacker in the crotch, but missed her mark. This drove the bear into a frenzy of rage. He lifted his head and opened his mouth wide. Some of the teeth were steel caps, betraying Russian dentistry. Again, bear-like, he gnashed at her, trying to sink his teeth into her arm.

A fierce drive to survive seized Colleen. Her face hardened into an expression of steely determination. A portion of her brain underused by humans took over. She reached over to a nightstand and plunged her hand into a box. Before he could react, the assailant found himself struggling for air. A fistful of maxipads lodged in his throat. Colleen yanked her fist from his mouth. The veins in his neck and face looked like they were about to burst.

"Hack, hack!!" The sounds emanating from him were like those of a wounded animal. The man was struggling now for his life. His face was a mask of horror, twisted, red, throbbing, soaked with sweat; saliva frothed from his gaping mouth. He was standing now with feet wide apart, his hands clutching his throat, his eyes about to burst from their sockets.

Colleen sat upright on the bed. She was fascinated by the horrific sight of this terrified, dying monster. The pre-homo sapiens part of her brain exuded satisfaction. It told her that in the constant Darwinian struggle for life, she had triumphed against a stronger foe. In this mysterious corner of her brain, there was a Cro-Magnon Colleen thumping her chest and yowling victory wails. She was oblivious to 274 JAMES

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her unconscious lover slumped on the floor, to the need to call for help, to the world around her. Survival was all she thought of.

"Hack!" He gurgled like an asthmatic. "Aaaannhh." He began to collapse, falling on one knee, and fought to stay alive.

Innes came to and looked up at the bizarre sight of his woman calmly watching a man die of asphyxiation.

"Colleen." He switched on a light.

She slowly turned her face toward him. The expression on it was like nothing that Innes had ever seen on her, as if she had been hypnotized. An eerie grin and blank eyes.

"Colleen!!"

She snapped out of it. "Oh, Bob," she cried, and rushed to him, wrapping her arms around his torso.

The dying intruder, drawing on his last reservoir of strength, clenched both fists, then slammed them against his upper chest. A huge glop of feminine napkins popped out of his gullet and went flying across the room. He fell on both knees and inhaled deeply.

Innes made a move for the phone on the dresser at the other end of the room. Regaining his strength, the intruder sprang toward it as well. Innes grasped the device with both hands and brought it full-force into the man's face. He let out a growl and raised a fist.

The wail of sirens approached. Rotating blue and red roof lights filtered through the bedroom window. The intruder froze, then grabbed his knife and bolted through the doorway and down the stairs. A door opened and slammed shut. Dimitrov fled for all his life was worth across the slick backyard grass and into a woodlot and who knows where.

Colleen and Innes threw themselves into each other's arms.

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"Are you hurt?" he asked, examining her face with both hands.

"I don't think so. And you?"

"My head hurts, but I guess I'm okay." He went to the window and opened it. He stuck his head out to see what was happening. Fire trucks arrived after the initial police car. People were gathering on their front lawns and sidewalks. Innes craned his neck to get a better view. He saw tongues of flames and billowing smoke several houses down the street.

He turned back toward Colleen. "It's a fire. Nothing to do with us."

She hugged him tightly. "Let's call the police," she said.

Innes placed his hand on the phone to prevent Colleen from lifting the receiver. "We can't. They'll know who I am. We can't risk it."

"But…Then, what do we do?"

Innes thought for a moment.

There was a knock on the front entrance door. They looked at each other. There was a another knock.

"See who it is," Innes whispered.

She put on her robe, straightened her hair, took two deep breaths and, looking back at Innes, made for the stairs.

Innes heard her open the front door. A man identifying himself as an Arlington County policeman apologized for the late-night interruption and asked her if she'd noticed any unusual activity in the neighborhood that evening, any strangers wandering about, that sort of thing. It seemed the two-alarm blaze down the street might have been the result of arson. Colleen, thinking fast, replied in the negative.

The officer bade good night.

She went quickly back up the stairs.

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"Bob, we were almost killed!" She trembled uncontrollably. She put her fingertips to her temples trying to comprehend what had happened.

"He was Russian. I heard him murmur
govno
during the struggle. It means 'shit.'"

She plopped down on a bedroom chair. "I can't deal with this." The shock was now setting in.

He put his arms around her shoulders and drew her to him. "Colleen, we're alive. We're okay."

She looked up at him. "Who was he?"

"Russian mob. Must be. The question then becomes why, and who sent him?"

"And?"

"Who wants me out of the way big time?"

Colleen made a slight shake of her head.

"I'll tell you who. Dennison and whoever else he's in cahoots with. They're using, or being used by, the Russian mob. The new twist is that they want both of us dead."

"Hoh!" Colleen gasped. She covered her mouth with her hand. "This can't be happening."

"But it is. Anything goes in their kind of power game.

One sin leads to another and before they know it, they'll kill to save their reputations and status."

"Wheeler's got to know," Colleen said.

"Yes, but first, we've got to high-tail it out of here.

Now."

It was too much for Colleen. Her eyes were wide. She was trying to piece things together. "What do you mean?"

"Like I said, we've gotta split before God knows who else comes back here to finish the job." He knelt and held Colleen by her shoulders. "Colleen, listen to me. We're in danger for our lives.
You
and me. We must run and hide.

At least until the evil is exposed. In the meantime, we PERMANENT INTERESTS

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disappear. And carry out our own form of guerrilla warfare against these guys. Come on, love. Let's go."

278 JAMES

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CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Senator Weems announced that it was high time that the position of National Security Adviser be subject to Senate confirmation, as was the case for all Cabinet-level officials and ambassadors, in order "to prevent the President from appointing another unstable individual to that sensitive position." He planned to introduce a bill to make it law.

The wise old men of the Sunday morning news talk shows tsked-tsked and, in orotund, solemn tones, questioned the wisdom of putting "Ivory Tower academicians into such a high-pressure, operational job."

The time had come, they suggested, for recruiting among

"our best company CEOs" to fill the National Security Adviser position, those "who've been tested and have succeeded in the equally Byzantine and demanding arena of business." Strangely, the need for a foreign affairs expert didn't enter into the debate.

Faced, on the one hand, with an imminent danger of losing another executive prerogative to the Congress and, on the other, mounting pressure to appoint a dilettante as his principal adviser on foreign affairs, an embattled President Corgan realized that he needed to move fast.

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Naturally, Selmur and Dennison were most eager to advise him on this matter.

"Mr. President, we can turn around the spate of bad luck we've endured of late by appearing decisive before the American people," Selmur pontificated in his best bourbon and branch water voice. "Appoint somebody now who is both a practiced foreign affairs expert, and is widely and favorably known by the public."

"Yes, Mr. President," Dennison was quick to add. "Act now by putting the right person in the job, and you stop Congress and the media pundits dead in their tracks.

Equally as important, you begin to put the Horvath affair behind you.
Decisive
is the image you want to convey."

He punched one palm with the other fist to drive home the point.

Corgan took it all in solemnly. "I agree. But who can I tap who fits those criteria, and who's already been through the confirmation wringer so that we know he's squeaky clean?"

With ponderous nods of their heads and brows furrowed, Selmur and Dennison contemplated with utmost gravity the President's pronouncement on the matter.

"Mr. President, under normal circumstances, what you suggest would be very difficult, if not impossible," Selmur said.

"Indeed, the Senate have their knives out. Our adversaries there smell blood. They're ready to devour this administration alive," Dennison added.

"Only by naming someone who's unimpeachable, beyond reproach, can we keep the jackals at bay," Selmur continued, following a carefully rehearsed script.

Corgan leaned forward. "And?"

Selmur cleared his throat and, crossing his arms before him on the conference table, said, "Roy and I have given 280 JAMES

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this considerable thought, and we think we have your man, Mr. President."

"That's right, Mr. President. It would be at great sacrifice to the State Department. He's one of our top flyers," Dennison said.

"But he meets all the criteria we've discussed. He'd be a shoo-in for confirmation."

"And he has the depth of knowledge, experience and operational savvy to be a super National Security Adviser to you," Dennison added.

"We, our staffs, would get along famously with him,"

Selmur said.

"All right already!" Corgan interjected. "Who is it?"

"Bernard J. Scher, Mr. President." Selmur replied.

"He's your man."

"No doubt about it," Dennison asserted.

A welcome silence followed. Corgan was carefully weighing in his mind their suggestion.

"He's done well as State Department legal counsel, has he?"

"None better," Dennison answered. "Hate to have to give him up."

"And with this Mortimer investigation?"

"Mr. President, it's been Bernie Scher who's straightened the mess out and gotten the effort back on track," Selmur stated with great conviction.

"Yeah. But, there have been no breaks in the investigation. And we've lost another ambassador to a killer. I'm very concerned about both of these points."

"So are we, Mr. President," Selmur said. "But look at it this way. By elevating the man who's responsible for getting to the bottom of these cases, who's been doing a cracker-jack job, who's boosted this administration's standing with the voters, you demonstrate movement in the PERMANENT INTERESTS

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right direction. We'll be sure to crank up the spokesman and our communications people to get the message across that Scher will have yet more clout to see the investigation through."

"And Scher's a fresh face. We've been talking to him about world affairs. He has a solid grasp of where this country should be going. He'll come up with new initiatives -- in tandem with me, of course -- that will underscore American leadership. Congress will be seized with our new direction in foreign policy and the media will devote a lot of attention to it. The bottom line is this: our current difficulties will be put behind us, including these dead ambassadors."

Following their script to its pre-planned conclusion, Selmur finished with a flourish. "You'll go into the election year in a much strengthened position. Roger Jalbert, or whoever they nominate, will merely be our strawman to knock down like that!" He smacked the inside of his extended forefingers with the heel of the other hand.

"I want to think carefully about this, gentlemen. I can't afford to make any more mistakes with appointments. I need to feel one-hundred percent certain in my own mind that I've selected the right person."

The white glare of the TV cams and the bursting flashes of the still cameras had the power and intensity of a dying nebula, as Innes imagined it. There was a grinning President Corgan, puffy-eyed and slightly stooped, shaking the hand of a cocky, self-proud Bernard Scher. Corgan called the press conference to announce his naming Scher as National Security Adviser. In the background were the smug faces of Dennison and Selmur. They stood behind 282 JAMES

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the President and Scher as stolid sentinels of support and political unity.

"Last waltz in the ballroom of the Titanic," Innes murmured. "You say something?" Colleen called from the opposite end of the
Motel 6
room. She was prying wedges of piping hot, gooey pizza from a large-size Pizza Hut box and placing them onto paper plates.

"What a farce. Scher's just been named NSC Adviser.

Corgan has had so much wool pulled over his eyes, he should be baa-ing." Innes popped open another Budweiser.

"You want another beer?" he asked.

"No." Colleen looked over her shoulder to Innes. "I'll tell you what I want. I want to eat homemade, healthful food in our own house where we can be cozy, near friends and relations and not worry about being murdered in our bed."

"I know." Innes stared blankly at the TV. "It's the
real
thing," cooed a bikinied beach bunny holding the perfectly chilled can of America's favorite refreshment.

"Nothing's real in this society," Innes uttered.

"Bob, how many beers have you had?"

He snapped out of his fleeting stupor. "Uh. I'm fine."

She brought the plates to the bed and placed herself beside him.

"I was just thinking," he continued as he gingerly picked up the hot pizza and took a bite. "P.T. Barnum, Andy Warhol, Paris Hilton, Bill O’Reilly, the advertising mavens of Madison Ave., Hollywood's faceless corporate moguls, overpaid, steroided baseball players, Donald Trump. These are the Greek philosophers and Renaissance humanists of the American civilization."