“Too late,” Matt told him. “Her parents are here and I heard she got a furlough for the weekend.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m pissed. Let’s go talk to Pelton and see if he wants to help.”
“Help with what?”
“Nailing the dean.”
Early Sunday morning, the two Secret Service agents followed the pickup truck out of Roswell. “Shit,” the driver muttered. “The little bastards almost got away from us. Whose truck is it anyway?”
Chuck Sanford made a call on his cell phone and within moments had the answer. “It belongs to a cadet, Rick Pelton. He’s the regimental executive officer.”
“Should I let them know we’re here?” the driver asked.
Sanford thought for a moment. The boys had gotten a last-minute permit to leave the post for Sunday and had taken off with Pelton. For Sanford, there was only one question. Was Brian safe? The circumstances, the evidence, and current intelligence said yes. But more important, Sanford’s situational awareness confirmed it. But did he want to intervene? Brian was showing signs of growing up and boys did need some wiggle room. “Observation only,” Sanford said.
But to be on the safe side, he called for a backup unit.
“I’ll be,” the driver said. “I think they’re going to Donaldson’s sheep ranch.” The dean of the Washington press corps had attended NMMI and had never lost his ties with New Mexico.
“What the hell are they doing?” Sanford wondered.
Richard Parrish had been a sound sleeper until he became Maddy Turner’s chief of staff. After that, his subconscious kicked in and the faintest telephone ring, even in his neighbor’s townhouse, snapped him fully awake. It was a rare week when the night duty officer didn’t call him at least twice. Usually, he took care of the matter over the phone and seldom went to the White House where some sharp-eyed reporter would inevitably see him drive in. That report would be good for at least one interruption on the cable news channels and endless inquiries for Joe Litton to handle.
The phone call that woke him early Sunday morning on Groundhog Day had nothing to do with the rodent seeing his shadow, and Parrish was in his office in less than twenty minutes. The duty officer and Joe Litton were waiting for him. “Et tu, Joseph?” Parrish muttered, not trying to be funny in the least.
Litton handed Parrish the news story and the photo taken off the Internet. “This one has potential.”
Parrish gritted his teeth as he read the news article from the British tabloid. “Where did they get the photo?”
“It had to come from the U.S.,” Litton answered. “It crosses the line and there is no way any of our rags would break the story, not even N.T.” N.T. was the National Tattler, the most salacious of the rumor-mongering tabloids in the United States. “So the backdoor British gambit.”
Parrish had seen it before. If an unsubstantiated story was too libelous to publish, but too delicious to ignore, a newspaper in the U.S. would leak it to a British tabloid. Then the same newspaper reported what the British were reporting, making it a legitimate story. “Is it her?” Parrish asked.
Litton shrugged. “We better ask before we wake the president.” He thought for a moment. “We’re running out of time. The talking heads will be all over this one.” The talking heads were the political commentators on the Sunday morning TV talk shows.
“Any chance we can kill it?” Parrish asked.
Litton shook his head. “Like pouring kerosene on a fire.”
“Appeal to their sense of decency?”
“Is this a sanity check?”
Parrish shifted his weight from foot to foot as he stood in the family room waiting for Maura O’Keith. He loved her for what she was: short, plump, grayheaded, and earthly. She was the perfect grandmother and the press adored her. But nothing could protect her from what was coming, if the story were true. He felt like crying when she came through the door. “Sorry to wake you,” he said. “But we have a problem.”
Maura adjusted her robe and sat on a couch. She patted the spot next to her for him to join her. He sat and handed her the news article and photo. She glanced at it, put it aside, looked at it again, and sighed. “That’s me.”
“Who’s the man?”
“I’ve never seen him in my life.”
Parrish felt like shouting. “Then it’s a fake.”
“Of course.” Maura studied the picture. “I was a looker.”
“No doubt about it. You still are.”
“I had great boobs in those days,” she said with a nostalgic smile.
“Mother!” Maddy said. She bit her lip, not trusting herself to say any more. Her hands trembled slightly as she looked at the picture. A young and very shapely nude woman sat on a chair. She was gazing down, the look on her face worthy of the Madonna. An equally nude man stood beside her, his hand on her shoulder. The man’s penis was crudely blurred out in a way that suggested he had an erection.
“Your father had taken off with some floozie,” Maura explained. “One of my customers at the hair salon was a photographer and said she’d pay me to model. The only photo I posed for was of me nursing you. It won third place in a contest.”
“Was I in it? Nude?”
“Maddy, you were two months old. I needed the money.”
The phone rang and Parrish answered. He handed it to Litton. “The barracudas in the press room are in a feeding frenzy.”
Litton listened for a few moments and said, “Tell them I’ll have a statement as soon as possible.” He broke the connection.
“Get Patrick,” Maddy said.
Parrish made the call summoning Shaw. “We don’t have a lot of time, Madame President.” He studied the picture. “If we can get the photo from the British, we can prove it’s a fake and turn the FBI loose.”
“It would help if we had the original photo Maura posed for,” Maddy said.
“All of which takes time,” Litton muttered. “Which we haven’t got.”
The phone rang and Parrish answered. He listened for a moment and said, “They can’t find Shaw.”
Maddy rested her head against the back of her chair, her eyes closed. For a few moments, silence ruled. Then, “Joe, go down there and be angry.”
“Is that all, Madame President?”
“That’s all.”
Litton took his place behind the lectern in the press briefing room and fixed the reporters with a stony look. He waited for the room to quiet. “The president has seen the news article and has no comment at this time.” His words were calm and measured. “Needless to say, she is concerned and we need time to check it out.” He stopped for a deep breath, leaned forward, and folded his hands in front of him. “Since you’re here at this ungodly hour, I’m assuming you’ve done your homework and this item is reliably sourced.” He showed his anger. “Now, I’m going to get personal. I’m not speaking for the president. This is just me. I know Maura O’Keith. She’s a wonderful, kind, decent woman who’s worked hard all her life. Since when have our families become fair game? This stinks. It’s a fake, pure and simple.” He straightened up and set the challenge. “You people know fakes are done all the time with modern technology. It’s your job to find out where it came from and who’s behind it. Do your homework. Then come in here and ask us to respond.”
Litton spun around and marched out of the room, leaving a wake of silence. Parrish waited for him in the hall. “Perfect. You sounded like you were furious.”
“I am.” They walked into Litton’s office and closed the door. “How’s the president taking it?”