Chapter Twenty-One
J. P. Sunderland closed his phone and sighed, then cut a covert glance at Vice President Bill Collins, who was sitting at his desk with his head in his hands.
Sunderland cleared his throat. “That was Mike Denniger, my man inside the Secret Service.”
That made the Vice President jerk his head up. “Did anything happen to the President?”
“That hopeful look on your face doesn’t speak well of the depth of your compassion,” Sunderland drawled. When Collins’s only response was a glare, he said, “Denniger said that there’s been a lot of quiet conversations between Linden Brierly and the doctors. He wasn’t privy to the conversations, but he got the impression the doctors were arguing with Brierly. My guess is that someone got to Brierly to try and hurry up the process of waking up the President.”
“That’s got to be Church.”
“Not through official channels.”
“He doesn’t use official channels.”
“No, I guess he doesn’t.”
They sat in silence as seconds fell from the clock in handfuls. Finally Collins said, “So, what’s our move? Wait until the President is awake and pissed off and then throw him the scapegoat, or should we play it like we figured out that we were duped and go to the Attorney General first? Lay out the story for him, keep him on our side.”
Sunderland considered. Despite the calm expression on his face, he was sweating heavily. He absently patted his pocket to make sure the bottle of nitro tablets was there.
“There’s still a chance — an outside chance of course — that we’ll still nab MindReader before the President is awake and in power,” said Sunderland. “Even if Brierly bullies the docs into doing something, we probably still have six, seven hours. So… let’s use the time.”
“To do what? Cross our fingers?”
“Might help.”
Collins almost laughed. “Christ.”
“Denniger will give me a heads-up if things start happening at Walter Reed. If it looks like this is totally played out, then you can call the AG. It’s the best way, Bill. If you move too soon you look weak, if you let the President slap you down you look criminal, but if you save the day in the eleventh hour you’re a goddamn hero.”
“And if we snag MindReader in the meantime?”
“Then you’ll very quietly become the richest Vice President in history.” Sunderland mopped his smiling face. “Either way, you can’t lose.”
“Christ, don’t say that,” Collins snapped. “… You’ll jinx me.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The car pulled to the curb and I bent down to peer through the passenger window at the man behind the wheel.
Dr. Rudy Sanchez grinned nervously at me. “Hey, sailor, new in town?”
“Hilarious,” I said as I climbed in.
Rudy is shorter and rounder than me and usually drives a roomy Cadillac DTS, but now I was crammed into a twenty-year-old Geo Prizm with no legroom.
“What the hell’s this?”
“Mr. Church told me to be nondescript, so I borrowed it from my secretary, Kittie. I told her I had an emergency and that my car was in the shop. I gave her cab fare home.”
The car was a patchwork of dusty gold and primer gray. The interior smelled of cigarettes. A pine-tree-shaped deodorizer hung in total defeat from the rearview mirror.
“Jeez, Rude, you gotta pay that gal better. My grandmother wouldn’t drive this.”
“Your grandmother’s dead.”
“And she still wouldn’t drive anything this crappy.”
“It’s a good car, and it’s nondescript as ordered. Besides, being a prima donna isn’t becoming to a fugitive.”
“Shut up and drive,” I grumbled.
He said something inappropriate in gutter Spanish as he went up the ramp to I-83. Rudy seemed to know where he was going. For the first few minutes he said nothing, but even with the air-conditioning at full blast he was still perspiring.
“How’d you get roped into playing chauffeur?”
“I wasn’t at the Warehouse when all this started happening. El Jefe called and said to come and pick you up.”
“How much do you know?”
“Enough to scare me half to death.” A minute later he said, “I hate politicians.”
There was nothing to argue with, so we kept driving.
Later he said, “I can’t believe I’m aiding and abetting someone wanted by the National Security Agency. I can’t believe that someone is my best friend. And I can’t believe that the Vice President of the United States of America would trump up charges just to further his own political aims.” Half a mile later he added, “No, I can believe that… I just hate that it’s true.”
“Not happy about it myself. Of course, the charges aren’t entirely groundless, Rude.”
Rudy breathed in and out through his nose. “I hate that, too. I mean… we both believe that Church is a good guy, maybe even the good guy. If there is anyone with the strength of will and the solidity of moral compass to not misuse something like MindReader, then it’s him. I’m not sure I’d be able to resist the temptation. That said, how screwed up is our world that it takes blackmailing the President and members of Congress to allow us to do our jobs, considering that our jobs involve stopping terrorists of the most extreme kind. Tell me, Joe, how does that sound like a sane world?”
“You’re the shrink, brother; you tell me.”
“If I could figure out the logic behind the way the political mind thinks, I’d write a bestseller and spend the next two years on the talk show circuit.”
“Beats driving fugitives around in a hooptie.”
“Most things do. So… how are you, Cowboy?”
“Not happy about the way things are spinning. And worried about Big Bob.”
“Can we call the hospital to check on him?”
“We shouldn’t. He’s registered under a false name so the NSA can’t find him. Church is fielding the info about him. He’ll update us.”
Rudy’s knuckles were white where he gripped the wheel and every few blocks he cut a look my way.
Before he could ask, I said, “Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I’m feeling it. Big Bob. The NSA. I’m feeling it.”
“It’s okay to show it, to let it out.”
I nodded. “In the right place and at the right time.”
“Which isn’t now?”
“No.”
“Even with me?”
“Rude,” I said, “you’re my best friend and you’re my shrink, so you get a lot of leeway most folks don’t get. You can ask me anything, and probably eventually I’ll tell you everything. But not right now.”
“You’ve had a lot of stress today, Cowboy. Are you the best person to make that call?”
I nodded. “When the soldier comes home from the war the shrinks call all the shots. They poke and prod and ask and ponder to separate the soldier from the stress of combat, to free him from the thunder of the battlefield.”
“Ah,” he said, his eyebrows arching, “but we’re still on the battlefield.”
“Yep.”