The Patriot Threat (15 page)

“Have you been taking lessons?” she asked.

He’d booted the laptop and worked the trackpad, opening the programs he wanted and enabling a flash drive that he’d found in his pocket and snapped into the machine.

“I’m not helpless,” he said. “Soon I’m going to be an ex-president. And no one gives a hoot about one of those. I’ll need to take care of myself.”

“What about all those Secret Service agents you get for life,” Harriett asked. “I’m sure they’ll be able to help.”

Harriett had stood to leave, but Danny had asked her to stay for a few minutes longer.

“I won’t be taking those along with me,” he said. “I’m following Bush 41’s lead and refusin’ them. I’m lookin’ forward to some peace and quiet.”

Stephanie doubted that. This man was not one to sit around. His entire life had been framed in the limelight. He’d started at the local level in rural Tennessee, then moved to the governor’s mansion, the U.S. Senate, and finally the White House. Decades of public service, one crisis after another. He was great under pressure—she’d seen that many times. And he also could make a decision. Right or wrong. Good or bad. He made the call.

“Everybody knows about the Nixon White House tape recordings,” he said. “But by the time Nixon did it, the trick was old hat. It all started with FDR.”

He explained about the presidential campaign of 1940. Roosevelt wanted an unprecedented third term, but his popularity had waned and the Republican candidate, Wendell Willkie, seemed to be gaining ground. There’d been problems with misquotes in the newspapers, mainly from people present at the countless meetings held in the Oval Office. So a White House stenographer came up with an idea. Wire the place for sound. That way there’d be no debate about what was said. At the time RCA was experimenting with a new device, a Continuous-Film Recording Machine that fed noise onto ribbons of motion-picture film, which could memorialize an entire day’s worth of conversations, available for immediate playback.

“The grandfather of today’s recording devices,” he said. “RCA donated one of the machines and they set it up in a padlocked room beneath the Oval Office. The microphone was hidden inside a lamp on FDR’s desk. Over four months he used the system, from August to November 1940. He recorded press conferences, private meetings, random conversations. The public didn’t know these existed until the 1970s.”

She caught the qualification.
The public.
“But others knew?”

He nodded. “The recordings were stored at the FDR Library in Hyde Park. I had someone pay them a visit and they found an interesting one. So I had the information digitized onto a flash drive.”

“And why would you do that?” Harriett asked.

“’Cause one and one always makes two. That dollar bill there got me started, so I went lookin’. Call me inquisitive, and thank goodness. That trait has saved my hide more times than I can count.”

The three of them remained alone, the Treasury secretary still with the judge obtaining the surveillance warrants.

“On September 23, 1940, FDR had a chat in the Oval Office with one of his Secret Service agents. A guy named Mark Tipton. He was one of three agents who stayed with FDR over the course of a day, eight-hour shifts each. He and the president became especially close. So close, Roosevelt trusted him with a mission.”

Danny tapped the trackpad.

“Listen to this.”

FDR:
“I need your help. If I could do it myself I would, but I can’t.”

T
IPTON:
“Of course, Mr. President. I’d be glad to do whatever you require.”

FDR:
“It’s something that godforsaken Andrew Mellon left me on New Year’s Eve in ’36. I’d forgotten about it, but Missy reminded me the other day about the paper he gave me. I crumpled it up and tossed it away, but she retrieved it, along with this.”

Short pause.

T
IPTON:
“Who drew the lines on this dollar bill?”

FDR:
“Mr. Mellon saw fit to do that. Right in front of me. See the lines across the pyramid? They form a six-pointed star. The letters at the corners, they’re an anagram for the word
Mason.
I want you find out what that means.”

T
IPTON:
“I can do that.”

FDR:
“Mellon told me that the word refers to a clue from history. He said men from the past knew that a man like me—a tyrannical aristocrat—would come along one day. Damn riddles. I hate them. I should ignore this, but I can’t. And Mellon knew that. He left it to drive me crazy. I ordered an investigation at Treasury about that symbol and the letters on the Great Seal, but no one had an explanation. I asked if they were intentionally placed there when the seal was created in 1789. No one could tell me that, either. You know what I think? Mellon just noticed the letters and used them to his advantage. He made it fit whatever he was doing. He was like that. ‘The mastermind among the malefactors of great wealth.’ That’s what they called him. And they were right.”

T
IPTON:
“Is it some sort of danger to you, sir?”

FDR:
“My initial thought, precisely. But it’s been four years and nothing has come of it. So I wonder if Mellon was just running a bluff.”

T
IPTON:
“Why even waste time on it?”

FDR:
“Missy says I should not ignore it. Mellon was never one to bluff. She could be right. Most times she is, you know, but let’s not let her hear us say that. She has that other piece of paper, the one I crumpled. She came in that day, after Mellon left, and retrieved it from the floor. God bless her. She’s an efficient secretary. Take a look at it, Mark, and see what you think. It supposedly has something to do with two secrets from the country’s past. The end of me. That’s what Mellon said they were. The last thing that aging SOB said was that he’d be waiting for me. Can you imagine the arrogance? He told the president of the United States that he’d be waiting for me.”

“Waiting for what?”

“I think that’s want we’re supposed to find out.”

A few moments of silence passed.

“He also quoted Lord Byron,” Roosevelt said.
“A strange coincidence, to use a phrase, by which such things are settled nowadays.
It’s from
Don Juan.
I want you to find out what all that means, too.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will. And Mark, I want this kept between the two of us. Check it out, but report back everything you learn solely to me.”

Danny switched off the drive. “There are other conversations, from other days, like this one. Random talks with aides, nothing of any historical significance, no reason to record any of them. The library curators tell me that just prior to all those, this one included, a press conference had occurred in the Oval Office. Those were definitely recorded. Their guess is that the staff just sometimes forgot to turn the machine off and this conversation, along with others, was inadvertently memorialized.”

“So why hide it away?” Harriett asked.

“It really wasn’t hidden. The recordings were found at the FDR Library by accident in 1978. They keep them in their restricted archives, not available for public inspection. This one is fairly meaningless, unless you know what we know.”

Stephanie had listened in fascination. FDR’s tone was rich and resonant, his enunciation perfect. Little about the private voice differed from the public one. What she heard was a casual, unbuttoned exchange with a close staff member. But there was a definite conspiratorial air.

Her mind tried to assess everything.

“This started out,” Danny said, “as me tryin’ to reverse a wrong. The whole Salomon thing fascinates me. Paul Larks was assigned to do some basic research. He was career civil servant, no reason not to trust him. But he went over the edge. Claimed some elaborate cover-up and how Salomon had been cheated. Then he said the taxpayers had been cheated. He became so insubordinate, Joe finally asked him to retire. Next thing we know he’s talking with Kim Yong Jin and Pyongyang is going nuts. Then you two enter the picture going after Howell, who also has a connection to Larks. It’s a friggin’ three-ring circus.”

“Which has commanded the attention of the president of the United States.” Stephanie said.

“That it has. But we’re not entirely in the dark. Piecing together this tape with what Howell wrote, we know that Mellon left FDR a dollar bill and a crumpled piece of paper on New Year’s Eve 1936. We also know that shortly after that Treasury investigated the whole 1935 dollar-bill redesign. Prior to that time the Great Seal of the United States was not on the dollar bill. That was added in ’35 by Roosevelt himself. Apparently, though, Mellon took advantage of that presidential decision. It’s a fact that the lines drawn on the bill form the word
Mason.
”

There was something else. Stephanie could hear it in his voice. Her gaze caught his and, with his eyes, which she’d learned to read, he said,
Not now.

Not here.

So she kept silent.

But he said, “I’m anxious to know how things play out in Venice. In the meantime, though, we’ve caught a minor break. On the recording you just heard, the man FDR was talking to, Mark Tipton, he’s long dead. But his son is alive. He’s seventy-four years old and yesterday we found him. His name is Edward, and that’s where you and I are going. To talk to him.”

Stephanie had to ask, “Where?”

“At his home.”

“Why would you agree to that?”

“Because it’s the only way we can find out what he has to say.”

TWENTY-THREE

V
ENICE

Malone stood beside Luke as they powered across the lagoon, following the boat Howell had taken. He’d called Luke earlier from his room and reported Larks’ death, Isabella Schaefer’s presence, and what he had in mind to possibly find the satchel.

“They planned this escape good,” Luke said. “Took Treasury out solid.”

“Did you find out anything about Schaefer?”

“You and her have somethin’ in common. You both have a bit of a reputation. Seems Isabella is a by-the-book girl. Never breaks a rule. Everything for her is right or wrong. Not much gray in her black-and-white life. One of those all-American-Mom’s-apple-pie kind of agents that really get on your nerves. We had some in the Rangers. Pain in the ass. They’ll end up gettin’ you killed.”

“And Schaefer?”

“I was told not many want to partner with her. She has a bit of a personality problem.”

“It was Howell who shoved her in the water,” he said.

“I caught a glimpse as he ran away, too. Bold little sucker. Apparently he knew all about Wonder Woman.”

“You’re quick with the nicknames, aren’t you?”

“That one’s not mine. That’s what they call her back in DC. Behind her back, of course.”

“You realize Howell knew more than we knew.”

“Yeah, I get that. But the cool thing is, he seems to not know about us.”

“Let’s keep it that way. Don’t get too close.”

They were a couple of hundred yards back among a cluster of boats rounding Venice’s southern flank heading toward the Grand Canal and Piazza di San Marco. A rocky channel separated Venice from Giudecca, a banana-shaped strip only a few hundred yards south of the main island. Traffic was heavy. Boats and slow-moving
vaporetti
cruised everywhere, his ears flooded by the sounds of engines and hulls slapping water. Ten days ago the cruise ship had passed this way, headed south, offering passengers breathtaking views. Then, eight days later, it had returned the same way. To his left, the bulging baroque hulk of the Santa Maria della Salute dominated the entrance to the Grand Canal. But Howell’s boat did not make the sharp turn that way. Instead its course stayed due east, paralleling Venice’s impressive array of towers and spires. He squinted in the bright glare and saw the Doge’s Palace, along with the two iconic red-and-gray granite columns. One was topped by the winged lion of St. Mark, the city’s current patron, the other by St. Theodore, its predecessor. Piazza di San Marco, just beyond, throbbed with visitors. More people milled back and forth along the waterfront in a steady parade. Another busy day at tourist central.

Howell’s boat veered left and slowed.

Luke matched the maneuver, keeping his distance.

“They’re headed into a canal,” he said.

One that opened just past the Doge’s Palace, beneath the Bridge of Sighs, forming a path north into the city bowels.

“Careful in there,” he said. “We can get spotted.”

The canal was only thirty feet wide, lined on both sides with tiers of old buildings, the stone mellowed by time. Once privileged palaces, they were now apartments, hotels, museums, and shops, some of the most expensive real estate on the planet. Venice was not thick with cranes, skyscrapers, overpasses, and tunnels. Time and history ruled here.

“I know you don’t like to talk about things,” Luke said as they slowly cruised the canal. “But I have to ask. What about Cassiopeia? Did she cool down?”

No, he didn’t like to talk about that. But Luke had been there in Utah, and knew it all, so he answered him with the truth. “She’s gone.”

“Sorry about that. I know it hurts.”

He appreciated the sentiment. About the only good thing that happened from the whole experience had been a realization that his emotions were not so dead. He’d felt attraction, intimacy, even love. And now? Regret and longing had settled over him.

“Why don’t we just take this guy?” Luke asked, pointing ahead. “And be done with it.”

“We will. But first I want to watch.”

“Is Pappy on to somethin’?”

“Larks was killed for a reason. That robbery last night happened for a reason. Something tells me they’re related.”

“And how did you make that leap in logic?”

“Years of dealing with this crap.”

“Our mission is only concerned with getting Howell.”