Djali raised an eyebrow.
“‘Carry out your agreements and you won’t be talked to like that.’”
Morgan put his glasses back on and re-addressed Djaili. “So, Mr. President, why not start over and explain what’s really going on in your country.”
Djali had been quite unprepared for Taylor’s direct assault, which effectively stripped away all diplomatic formality. With the niceties off the table, Taylor went one very American step further. He added, “This time without the bullshit.”
The Indonesian reached for his glass of water and took a sip. His hands shook. All eyes were on President Djali as he cleared his throat. “Chairman Foss, members of the committee, I need your help.”
Robby Pearlman got the girl out of his life by changing hotels. Even if they bumped into one another later, she wouldn’t recognize him. Pearlman was going to morph into another character.
A new offer had come in. It was high-paying and risky. The contract was just shy of the amount he received for the business he did in Hudson, New York, a little over a year ago. At first, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to take it. Something about it. He’d have to take more chances than normal, work with shoulder-fired missiles, and there would be multiple deaths.
He considered the dangers while he dyed his hair. Where’s the optimum strike zone? Close-in or far away? Certainly not in full view. A roof? Not a car. He weighed the job against the report he read in The International Herald Tribune. Although not specific, the story about the army investigation reminded him that he could never be too careful or too conservative.
Roarke’s behind this. He thought about finding and killing the Secret Service agent. He knew where he lived and who he slept with. But, he asked himself, Why take the chance? If he did take the agent out, there’d be others like him. They’d keep coming.
Another thought about the article nagged at him. It felt more and more like a plant. If it is… He made some adjustments to his latest identity and pulled away from the mirror. He sharpened his focus, looking straight into the eyes of his latest creation. He was moody, quick-thinking, and guarded. The talkative Canadian real estate developer was gone. A critical California psychologist stood in his place. The new guise gave him renewed perspective. An idea slowly formed. It would take some doing, he said to himself. But this job definitely provided an interesting opportunity.
He pulled his hair extensions back into a ponytail, peered at his reflection again, and decided where he had to go. Belgrade. He had unique contacts in Belgrade. There, he could get meetings with certain people willing to do anything for money. There, he could make his payday and solve his personal problem at the same time.
Richard Cooper smiled into the mirror, but someone else entirely new looked back.
It was their second meeting. This one was at Duke Patrick’s Georgetown brownstone.
“General,” Patrick said answering the door.
“Mr. Speaker, so good to see you again. Thank you for having me.”
“Well, I figured if we’re going to go down this road together, we sure as hell have to open our homes to one another.”
“Yes, quite so. I’ve already told Lily that I want to get you down for a good old Texas barbeque after the speech. She’s cleaning the grill right now,” Bridgeman laughed.
“I’d be delighted. But first things first. Shall we?” Patrick motioned to his study where their conversation would continue. The speaker invited the general to sit down. “What’s your pleasure?”
“I’m a scotch man. On the rocks.”
Patrick poured a glass of an average supermarket scotch.
He handed Bridgeman the glass. “To the future.”
“To the future together,” he replied.
Over the next two hours the men discussed how the next administration would take shape and how soon that might actually occur.
“Hi Elliott, you’ve been talking about it for a while now, but what’s the chance we can get Taylor out? These amendment things take a long time. You gotta go state by state. It could take forever, or at least until the next election.”
“Good question,” Elliott Strong said to the caller. It took him right where he wanted to go tonight. But that wasn’t a coincidence. The caller was another plant, “…and after re-reading my American history, I’ve come up with some fascinating points. Are you ready for a lesson that will make your head spin?” he asked rhetorically. “Pay attention now.” He could imagine listeners turning up the volume or telling their spouses to be quiet. “Revelations like this don’t come down the pike every day.”
He rustled some papers unnecessarily. “Here it is. Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers, was way ahead of his time. You have to admire the old boy, he really had a sense of what’s going on right now. What is it? Well, Jefferson was worried about the power of the dead over the living. He feared that an unchanged Constitution was the last thing we needed.” He left room for a wow. “Now I’m getting to the good part. He proposed that each generation have a real say in what they needed and that the Constitution should expire after nineteen or twenty years. Twenty years, people! Boy are we overdue. Jefferson wanted us to draft a new one, not just once, but every twenty years!”
Strong’s voice boomed over the airwaves. He slapped his hand on the table and argued, “By my count, we’re ten Constitutions behind!” The talk-show host failed to point out that the notion was dismissed by Jefferson’s contemporary, James Madison, who contended that the mechanism for change was implicit in the way the Constitution was drafted.
“Ten Constitutions behind, my friends. Would we have such an unbelievable situation today if the Constitution had been updated? Would a defeated president be serving as commander in chief? Would he be holding the nation’s highest office?”
Strong raised his hand in the air, conducting himself. As he lowered it, he brought his voice down. “I don’t think so.” Listeners heard him take a deep sigh: one of his trademarks. “Now I’m a realist. My critics might take exception with that, but it’s true. You come to me for the truth. Well, here it is. We’re not going to change the Constitution overnight. I was wrong to suggest it. It was naive, and yes, you heard me right, I was wrong.”
The host fell silent for five seconds. He watched the second hand on the wall clock tick by. “Okay. So what now? We’re days away from the biggest march on the Capitol in the history of the Republic and suddenly I tell you it’s unlikely we can get an amendment through. You’ve booked your planes, you made arrangements to give your kids to the grandparents, the hotel has your credit card number, and crazy Elliott Strong says it ain’t gonna happen? Well, hold on. I started by telling you that I’ve been reading up on my American history, folks. You know I started that when I was just a kid doing the farm reports on the radio outside of Fresno. But I missed something. And this one is going to make you very happy.”