Permanent Interests (42 page)

"Frederick Douglass. He was talking about a rotten system of governance and the need for those of conscience to challenge it. He said this over one-hundred-fifty years ago. My question is this: are you ready to face up to your crimes against the American people?"

Painfully aware of the cameras boring in on him, Selmur harrumphed; then drawing on his deepest reservoirs of snake oil, said, "Our distinguished colleague from the PERMANENT INTERESTS

373

Washington Post
evidently has some problems with this administration's policies, as is clear from his consistently harsh reporting on us since inauguration day. And since we are quoting great men from the Civil War days, I remind him of what President Lincoln said, 'You can fool all of the people some of the time; some of the people all of the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.' If this administration were as bad as Mr. Wheeler claims, we would have been out of office long ago."

Jane Silva attempted to cool things down. "Well, so the sparks fly as we get nearer to election day--"

"Now is the Day of Judgment, gentlemen," Wheeler interrupted. "Now you must atone for the murders of two United States ambassadors, the derangement of the last National Security Adviser, an attempted plot on the life of Roger Jalbert, and…the paralysis of my legs."

Dennison rose. "Why, I never!" Selmur caught him and forced him back into his seat.

The program director, fascinated with the drama, ordered the crew to continue and a commercial to be postponed. Kennerly gleefully obliged.

"I've invited here today two subordinates of the Secretary who can prove what I say," Wheeler said.

Innes and Colleen joined the panel. Innes held a videotape. "I'm Robert Innes. This is Colleen McCoy. We are Foreign Service officers whom the Secretary and Chief of Staff here have tried to frame as spies as well as to have killed."

The panelists looked at each other in amazement. A murmur rose from the crew. The network's phone lines became jammed.

"You're out of order, young man!" Dennison shouted.

374 JAMES

BRUNO

"No, you're out of order, Mr. Secretary!" Innes shot back with his finger pointed at Dennison's face. He handed the videocassette to a technician. "Please watch the monitors."

The screen flickered. Then came the FBI film of Dennison meeting with Yakov. "This is the Secretary meeting with a Russian mafia kingpin named Yakov."

Dennison's voice came on. "In return for…information, I demand cash."

"Here's Mr. Dennison and Mr. Selmur discussing some interesting things over lunch." It was their last meal at Les Nigauds.

Selmur: "If we didn't have to contend with pretty boy Jalbert, we'd clinch this election."

Dennison: "What are you saying Howard?"

Selmur: "I'm saying what I'm saying, that's all. …I'm suggesting that you might want to talk to some of your contacts about possibilities. …There's Mortimer, Wheeler, Wells. Hell, even Horvath. Who else? I'm losing track.

…Do what you have to do."

Dennison: "Jalbert to be out of the picture."

Selmur jumped up. "I disavow any responsibility for Dennison's actions!" he bellowed. "This man is a disgrace to the government of the Uni--"

Dennison, summoning genuine courage for the first time in his life, sprang forward and socked Selmur in the jaw.

"Liar! Liar!" he shouted.

Above the pandemonium, the sound track continued.

Selmur: "…You get our Cuban friends onto that case.

They're the best in the business."

As Wimberly and a soundman restrained Dennison, Selmur spluttered, "Why, he's a crook. It's outrageous!

Had I known…"

PERMANENT INTERESTS

375

The monitor, continuing the videotape, showed Selmur smirking at Dennison while chugging a double vodka: "I got plausible denial. You don't."

The director cut to a commercial. From the wings appeared Berlucci and several FBI agents.

"Roy Dennison, Howard Selmur. You are under arrest for conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to commit grievous bodily harm, money laundering, espionage and about two dozen other charges we can read you later." The agents handcuffed the pair. As they were being led away, Dennison paused before Innes and Colleen and said, "You don't know what you're getting yourselves into."

Innes had a look of deep satisfaction. "See you in court, Mr. Secretary."

Speedy knew where to find Wentworth. He was at Lydia's side every available hour at Columbia Presbyterian to see to her recovery from the wound made by Dimitrov's bullet. Speedy lucked out. Bob Innes and Colleen were visiting as well. Though the two had been extensively debriefed following Selmur's and Dennison's arrests, he'd wanted to see his old buddy informally as well as to tie up loose ends with Wentworth.

Lydia's complexion was pink and she was beaming. She and Wentworth were holding hands. They welcomed Speedy as if he were a long lost friend. The TV was tuned in to CNN, with the volume low.

"Speedy, we want to invite you to our wedding," Lydia said.

"Wonderful. I accept. But only if there'll be good food."

"We will marry as soon as I am released next week."

376 JAMES

BRUNO

"My family's putting on one of those old-time southern

'ya'll come down' affairs. There will be ribs, corn bread, okra stew, baked ham, hush puppies…"

"Okay, I confirm even before I get the invitation."

"Just leave some for the rest of us," Innes joked.

"Then you'll have to return for the baptism," Wentworth added.

"They've asked Bob and me to be godparents," Colleen said.

Speedy laughed and extended his congratulations. He asked if he could ask some follow-up questions, then produced a folder with enlarged photos and papers.

He showed a photo to Wentworth. "Does this face look familiar?" It was of a sixtyish, dour-looking man with a broad face, bald pate and a moustache.

"That's the guy at the Hyatt. He's the one who took Yakov away. He seemed to be in charge."

"He's Semion Mogilevich. The top dog in the Russian mob, the so-called Red Mafia, now," Speedy noted.

"He kept me from finishing Yakov," Wentworth said bitterly.

"It's more like he saved you the trouble -- and legal problems. Yakov challenged him as tsar of Russian gangsterdom in America. They had a blood feud going back years in Russia. Seems Yakov had knocked off some of his business cohorts, then had to flee here to get away from the heat. Then Mogilevich follows him here. They both discover in America green pastures for their nefarious affairs. Next thing you know, they're at it again. Rival Russian gangs battling it out in New York and other North American cities. Trouble is, Yakov bit off more than he could chew when he took on the Italian-American mafia."

"You think Malandrino made a deal with Mogilevich, as well as with you FBI guys?" Innes asked.

PERMANENT INTERESTS

377

"We strongly believe it, but have no evidence to back it up. In any case, word on the street in Brighton Beach is that they had drugged Yakov in the Hyatt, dragged him away and took him to some location nearby New York.

People say that his captors waited for him to regain consciousness, fed him, let him rest. Then, after he was alert and healthy, they bound him naked and dipped him slowly into a vat of acid."

Everybody winced, except Lydia, who stared coldly out the hospital window.

"We'll never find the body. He could be sharing quarters with Jimmy Hoffa in some bridge foundation, or his bones could be at the bottom of the East River."

"What went wrong with Yakov's execution of the Selmur/Dennison plot to kill Jalbert and 50,000 other people?" Colleen inquired.

"Seems Mogilevich got to the chopper crew and bought them off. They cut and ran without doing the job."

"And Mogilevich?" Innes asked. "Sounds like you're saying this Mogilevich character is going to be around for quite a while."

"Or the next guy after he gets his. Whether Mogilevich succeeds or fails, the Russians are here to stay," Speedy said.

"Then what's this -- the risk, the blood, all the effort --

all about?"

Speedy shrugged. "It's the flip side of the American Dream, I guess."

CNN announced that President Corgan was making a special appearance to address the nation. The President came on. He sat at an ersatz oak desk in a mock study with facade bookcases and an artificial fire in a faux fire place.

"Turn the volume up. This should be interesting," Innes said.

378 JAMES

BRUNO

Laying on thick the wise old great uncle routine, Corgan began with a homily his father used to tell him when he was "knee-high to a Holstein calf."

Colleen histrionically put an index finger into her open mouth to indicate she was ready to puke.

"Papa Corgan was an infantryman in France during the Second World War. By the way, he returned to his farm after seeing 'Gay Paree.' And he raised seven wonderful children, each of whom did their patriotic duty in defending this country." Corgan riveted his sympathetic eyes on the viewers. "He learned about life from living on a farm. He said that when you have aggressive or other deviant cattle among the herd, you separated them out for the greater good of the herd. It wasn't the farmer's fault that some cattle turned out bad. It was just part of nature's imperfections. So it was with troops in war, he'd say. For the greater good of the unit, you set the bad apples apart and got rid of them."

Wentworth began to hum "Old MacDonald Had a Farm."

Corgan got up from his Hollywood set desk, stepped to the front and sat on the edge. He crossed his arms, glanced at the floor briefly in feigned concentration, then again looked directly into the camera with liquid, cheerful eyes.

"Hold on to your wallets everyone!" Innes warned.

"As you know, two senior officials recently were taken into custody for violating the trust of the American people."

"That's another way of saying, 'Two of my closest advisers were arrested on felony charges," Colleen interjected.

"And how fast we forget about poor Horvath,"

Wentworth added.

"These men, for whatever reasons, turned out to be bad apples. They contravened their oath of office and to me as PERMANENT INTERESTS

379

your President. But I have taken vigorous action and have instituted a shake-up in the White House staff and at the State Department."

Speedy grimaced. "I'm afraid to hear the punch line."

"I am taking the unprecedented step of appointing concurrently as my Chief of Staff and as National Security Adviser a man who has demonstrated the brilliance, integrity and trust to take on such weighty duties simultaneously. I am naming Bernard Scher, a man whose character and dogged commitment to seeking the truth has won the respect of Congress as well as the Executive Branch and the American people."

Innes's and Colleen's jaws went slack. "He can't be serious," she gasped.

Scher joined the President. They shook hands. Scher was his usual, smug, puffed-up self. Both grinned into the camera as it panned off.

There was stunned silence in the room. Finally, Lydia spoke.

"This country is just like the Soviet Union. I'm sorry, but Brezhnev and the other incompetent mediocrities would feel very comfortable here." She shook her head.

"One difference," Innes rejoined. "The election."

Innes and Colleen left the hospital. Innes walked with his hands in his pockets and his head low. Colleen sensed that something was bothering him.

"Bob. Don't let all that get you down. As you said, there will be payback time in November. Jalbert's bound to win by a landslide. Thing's will definitely look up."

Innes looked at her without saying a thing. He was about to speak, but held back.

380 JAMES

BRUNO

Colleen sensed that Innes was struggling with himself.

She looked deeply into his eyes. Her lips trembled. "What is it, Bob? Is it…is it…us?"

He gave a short nod.

The dilemma of their relationship would finally be resolved. But it could go either way and the mere possibility that it might end panicked her. Tears welled in her eyes and fell down her cheeks, but she did not avert her gaze.

Innes reached out and gripped both hands on her shoulders. "Colleen. I, uh…"

"Is this it? Bob… Are we…? The knuckles of her clenched fists whitened.

"Carolyn came to see me. She brought the kids. She wants me back. The kids miss me, and I them."

She broke from his grip, turned away from him and covered her mouth with both hands. The noise and commotion of the city faded from her consciousness.

There was only Innes and she, and he was fast receding from the picture.

He placed a hand on the back of her neck. "Colleen, I…"

She broke free from him, stepped away and just looked at her lover horrified.

"Colleen." He approached her again, shaking his head.

"Colleen. I'm not going back. I want to be with you. I'm divorcing Carolyn. But I'll still be close to my children. I love them too much."

"Ohh, Bob!" She ran into his arms. Their kiss sent the pain away. After a minute, she drew her head back and searched his face.

"Bob, promise me something?"

"You name it."

PERMANENT INTERESTS

381

"That wonderful life we've talked about. Let's do it.

Make it happen."

"You mean leave Washington?"

She

nodded.

"'And may you be safe from every harm,' milady." They kissed and embraced in the glory of the radiant midday sun.

At that moment, they existed only for one another.

382 JAMES

BRUNO

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The victorious prince stood on the steps outside the Federal Building in Brooklyn. The crowd of hardhatters, blue-collar youths and housewives bellowed, "Atta way, Al! Show 'em Al!" Local reporters jostled to ask questions.

Big Al Malandrino, clad in a blue-gray, perfectly fitted Brioni suit, drank it all in. He held his arms up for calm.

As the crowd obliged, Al held up a sheet of paper.