Executive Order (Reeder and Rogers Thriller) Page 3

  “They’re married . . . just not to each other.”

  She goggled at him. “Where do you get that?”

  “She has a lot of money, he has none.”

  “That still doesn’t mean they’re not husband and wife.”

  The waitress brought the couple coffee—probably all they ordered.

  He shrugged. “Professional manicure, expensive hairdo. But she’s not wearing makeup. He’s wearing a worn, wrinkled suit. Been at work all day, right?”

  “Okay . . .”

  “Everything about her says ‘perfect’—yet she left the house without makeup.”

  “Which means,” Rogers said, “she left in a hurry.”

  “Yup,” Reeder said.

  Rogers sat forward, gesturing with an open hand. “He called her. Needed to talk to her and they met here because no one knows them. Just to be safe, they took a booth near the kitchen, away from the windows.”

  “Right. Mrs. America normally would never be caught dead in a place like this, but if she did, she sure as hell wouldn’t sit near the kitchen.”

  “So I was way off about the divorce,” Rogers said.

  “Not entirely. Married man has finally told Mrs.-Somebody-Else he’s going to leave his wife . . . so the star-crossed couple can finally be together.”

  Rogers shook a fist. “And she’s pissed, because that isn’t what she wants at all! She’s got the money she wants in her current setup. This guy is strictly recreational.”

  Reeder nodded. “If he had any smarts he would go home to his wife.”

  “Does he? Will he?”

  “Naw. When he slips the ring off? His eyes narrow for a split second, a micro-expression that says he’s determined to act. He’s made his decision.”

  She glanced at them again—discreetly—and this time she caught it. “. . . Poor SOB.”

  When she sent her eyes back to Reeder, his weren’t on hers, rather on the TV in the opposite corner. She looked over her shoulder at what had caught her friend’s attention. A red Breaking News banner flashed across the screen and quietly ominous words scrolled across: Russia invades Azbekistan.

  “Well, hell,” Reeder muttered.

  One of the other customers said, “Hey, Pinky, turn up the sound, will ya?”

  Behind the register, Pinky picked up the remote, pointed it, and did as she was asked.

  A blonde newsreader was saying, “. . . have overwhelmed the Azbekistani army. The United Nations is making vigorous protests, but at this point, the Russians remain in control of the beleaguered country. In a related story, unconfirmed by CNN, four American citizens are said to be missing from the Azbekistani capital of Troyanda.”

  Reeder and Rogers traded a look.

  The newsreader said, “Further updates as this story develops.”

  “CIA?” Rogers asked.

  Shrugging, Reeder said, “I hope not. If the four are Company, and alive, we’re going to want them back. If they’re dead, then someone, probably the Russians, will be blamed . . . and the hawks will smell blood in the water.”

  She sighed. “Why does the world have to be such a shitty place?”

  “World’s fine. It’s people that’s the problem.”

  That made her laugh, but it caught in her throat. “You can be one cynical son of a bitch sometimes, Joe Reeder. Me, I prefer to cling to the hope that things can be better. Naive, I know.”

  He shook his head. “You’re not naive, Patti. Don’t sell yourself short. We’ve seen enough bad shit go down, both of us, that you have to cling to whatever hope you can. Be greedy about it. You’ve seen what happens when cynicism takes over.”

  She’d never heard this kind of thing from him before. “You have hope, Joe?”

  He stared into his coffee for a moment, then brought his eyes up, locked on hers. “Don’t tell anybody.”

  “Your secret’s safe with me.”

  His grin was disarming and for once not at all guarded. “You know what John Philpot Curran said?”

  “What, to Mama whozit?”

  “Different eras—like us. John Philpot Curran, Irish judge and orator?”

  She just stared at him.

  “I’m paraphrasing,” Reeder said, “but in essence, Curran said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.”

  “I hear you,” she said.

  “Eternal vigilance is our job, and because I have a high opinion of you and me, I’m hopeful. We do our job, then maybe, end of the day, some liberty will be left.”

  “Pretty deep, Joe.”

  He shrugged. “I get reflective every time Russia invades someplace. Dessert?”

  “My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

  John F. Kennedy, thirty-fifth President of the United States of America. Served 1961–1963. Assassinated on a presidential visit to Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963. Section 45, Grid U-35, Arlington National Cemetery

  THREE

  Joe Reeder sat up in bed, pillows propped behind him, Nero Wolfe novel propped before him (Might As Well Be Dead), but he wasn’t reading, despite Archie Goodwin’s compelling narrative voice. Instead, Amanda Yellich dominated his thoughts—a petite redhead, as sunny and funny and fun as she was intellectually above him.

  And she had liked Reeder a lot.

  He had liked her, too. They had a number of nice nights together and a few afternoons, but after a promising easygoing start, she came to want more than he was prepared to give right now. Not that he’d broken it off—Amanda did that, when she realized Reeder was still in love with his ex-wife, Melanie.

  Amanda hadn’t been wrong about that, and he’d hurt her, if unintentionally. He still regretted that he couldn’t give the woman what she needed emotionally, and the physical side, however rewarding, hadn’t been enough. In recent weeks, though, there’d been many times he wondered if he should call Amanda and try again. He’d never quite done that. And now—now she was gone.

  On the nightstand, his cell chirped. So few people had the number—and once he’d paid dearly for ignoring a call—that he’d made a point of answering, or at least checking out, every one. When it rang the second time, he eyeballed the caller ID—UNKNOWN.

  With a sigh, he put Rex Stout down and picked up the phone. “Reeder.”

  A female voice on the other end said, “Please hold for the President of the United States.”

  There was a time when Reeder might have clicked off, chalking this up to a crank call. But in the past several years, the President was someone he’d actually spoken to on occasion—and one of those few people who had this number.

  “Joe? Dev Harrison.” The casualness of that liquid, self-assured voice coming over the line was at once disarming and intimidating.

  President Devlin Harrison, the second African American leader to be elected in the country’s history, was no crank-caller.

  “Good evening, Mr. President.”

  “Apologies for the late hour, Joe.”

  “Not necessary, sir. I’m pretty much open for presidential calls any time.”

  A soft chuckle preceded a change in tone: “Obviously you’ve seen the news.”

  The President wasn’t much for small talk. No president was.

  “The Russian invasion, sir? Of course.”

  The surprise of receiving a phone call from the President was amplified by the apparent subject. The moment felt surreal.

  The President’s voice was deceptively casual. “What strikes you about our role in this incident?”

  “The four missing US citizens.”

  Obviously.

  “I’d like to talk to you about them, Joe. Tomorrow morning, my office . . .”

  Right. That oval one.

  “. . . six a.m. Can you make that, Joe?”

  “Of course, Mr. President.”

  “Our, uh, people weren’t just regular citizens.”

  That was more than Reeder expected to hear over an open phone line. But he ri
sked, “I didn’t think so, sir. I can come now, sir, if . . . ?”

  “No. I have things to do. Six a.m. Thanks, Joe.”

  A click in his ear signaled the end of the call. Good-byes were unnecessary.

  He settled back in bed, trading the phone for the Nero Wolfe. So the President wanted to talk to him about missing citizens overseas, caught up in a Russian invasion, and who “weren’t just regular citizens.” CIA agents, clearly, as he’d assumed—not a big leap, as CNN and the other outlets had raised the same possibility, or anyway their talking heads had.

  Reeder tried to get back to the book but instead fell asleep wondering how the hell he fit into this scenario. He dreamed a variation on the Situation Room scene in Dr. Strangelove, and woke up sweating, finding nothing funny about it at all.

  The next morning, a few minutes before six a.m., Joe Reeder—wearing the dark gray Savile Row suit he saved for the special clients of ABC Security (and who was more special than his friend “Dev”?)—sat in a comfortable chair outside the Oval Office, warmed by the smile of the President’s head secretary, Emily Curtis. The gray-haired woman, who might have been your maiden aunt, had been the gatekeeper for three presidents, and was as much a fixture here as the Marine guard at the West Wing entrance or the floating presence of Secret Service agents. She had, in fact, met Reeder during his own SS tenure here.

  “The President should be with you shortly,” she said, in her cheery yet businesslike way. “He’s been up all night, so do take it easy on him.”

  “See what I can do,” he said, and barely got it out before the Oval Office door opened and the President’s chief of staff, Timothy Vinson, strode out, his mustache twitching like a caterpillar trying to crawl off his face, his stocky frame lumbering past Reeder without hello. The bureaucrat, in his fifties and balding, as cold as Emily Curtis was warm, seemed a man on a mission.

  Vinson was already well down the corridor when half a dozen others, some in uniform, came out quickly, with President Harrison next, as if he’d shooed them out. Maybe he had.

  Pausing to give Reeder a quick handshake and a tight smile, the President said, “Joe, good to see you. Walk with me, will you?”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” Reeder said, falling into step next to Harrison.

  Typically, the tall, slender African American—whose physical resemblance to former President Obama had not hurt him with a majority of voters—was impeccably dressed in a charcoal suit with lighter gray pinstripes, his tie with muted red and blue stripes perfectly knotted. Yet somehow something seemed slightly off—maybe it was just the puffy dark circles hugging Harrison’s eyes. The presidential gatekeeper had not been exaggerating: the man hadn’t slept in some while.

  On the march down the hall, Reeder found himself needing to slow, so as not to pull away from Harrison. He knew the President to be a fast mover, but today the man seemed a half-step behind. Exhaustion or worry? Could be either—could be both.

  They reached the elevator near the offices of the Chief of Staff and Vice President. Vinson, already there, revealed his mission to be holding the elevator door for the President and his contingent. Reeder knew almost certainly where they were heading—the Situation Room.

  With Russia invading Azbekistan, that destination would seem inevitable . . . if it weren’t for Reeder’s presence. Even when he’d been assigned to protect various presidents, he had not set foot within that space when it was actively in use. Reeder had been in there before, on security sweeps mostly, but never during an actual situation.

  As the doors closed, Vinson—who obviously hadn’t noticed Reeder on his way out of the Oval Office—asked the President, “What’s he doing here?” The disdain in his voice—the nasty emphasis on “he”—undisguised.

  Icily, Harrison said, “I invited him.”

  Vinson’s mouth opened as if it had decided on its own to speak, but its owner fed it no words. The Chief of Staff’s lips pressed back together and he swallowed, but his eyes remained narrowed on Reeder, with whom he’d had a run-in or two.

  The rest of the ride passed in brief if uncomfortable silence. The doors slid open and the President was the first one out, Reeder falling in behind him, an old Secret Service habit. Vinson got held back by the other exiting staffers, and by the time the Chief of Staff caught up, the President and Reeder were approaching the two Marine guards stationed at the Situation Room entry.

  Both Marines snapped to attention and saluted.

  Harrison returned the salute, then one of the guards opened the door and held it for them.

  They entered to find most of the seats at the vast conference table already filled. The faces had changed over the years, but the room itself stayed the same, a fairly nondescript, rather narrow conference room distinguished only by its many wall-mounted video screens. Certainly the art direction on Strangelove had been more impressive.

  Seven chairs lined each side of the long dark oak table. They were now filled by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Advisor, the Director of the CIA, and—at the far end on the right side (both literally and figuratively)—Senator Wilson Blount of Tennessee.

  Everyone had risen, of course, upon the President’s entry. In the chair immediately to the right of him was a slender bespectacled brunette, Vice President Erin Mitchell, a progressive added to the ticket to court the women’s vote. Chairs for staffers and assistants lined the two long walls, each graced with a pair of monitors that were only slightly smaller than the one opposite the President’s end of the table.

  The President took his seat and then so did everyone else, including Reeder, who moved to one of the chairs along the wall. He could feel eyes on him. Some here may have wondered if he was back with the Secret Service. Even so, SS agents invariably waited outside.

  Back in the day, even the powerful Senator Blount would have been on the outside. But in this era of increasingly tighter budgets, having in attendance the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense only made sense . . . and Blount now held that chair.

  Last year, the venerable Senator had been instrumental in pushing through a law lowering the minimum age for the presidency to thirty, an obvious attempt to clear a path for a new era of strong young conservatives. The President had supported that, as part of an effort to bridge the right and left, including a peace offering that saw the Senator’s son Nicholas appointed to the cabinet as Secretary of Agriculture. The young Blount’s predecessor had been assassinated last year in the plot to bring down the government, a coup that Reeder and Rogers had helped quash.

  Admiral David Canby, the shaved-headed chairman of the Joint Chiefs—a politically savvy, by-the-book Navy man—trained his battleship-gray eyes on Reeder and said, “He doesn’t have clearance to be here.”

  “He does now,” Harrison said.

  “By whose authority?” Canby asked. Demanded.

  “Mine.” The President’s eyes were fixed on the admiral. For a long moment no one said a word, as everyone in the room decided not to further challenge Reeder’s presence.

  Vinson, seated at the President’s left hand, gave Canby a patronizing thing that was technically a smile. He said, “Now that we’ve established that the President of the United States is in charge here, could we get down to business and find out what the hell happened to our people?”

  Canby gave Vinson a quick glare, but he and everyone else here knew the power the Chief of Staff wielded in this administration. Reeder could see the admiral clenching and unclenching his fists, no doubt wishing he could deck the man. Harrison himself had probably considered doing that a time or two. But the truth was, Vinson made things happen.

  The President indicated the screen that swallowed the wall opposite him. “What exactly are we looking at, Admiral?”

  “You might say,” Canby said somewhat wryly, “the crime scene.”

  The satellite view of scrubby, trampled ground included a handful of bodies, scattered carelessly; no massacre by any means. A few abandon
ed vehicles, jeeps possibly, some wrecked, and wisping smoke. The Azbekistani resistance, such as it was, had clearly been minimal.

  President Harrison swung his attention to the Director of the CIA. With his wreath of white hair and wire-framed glasses, Richard Shaley—despite a grandfatherly look—was every inch the veteran spy, beginning as a field agent in the first Iraqi war. But it was his political skills that made him really dangerous—like J. Edgar Hoover before him, Shaley was said to hold the keys to every DC closet holding a skeleton, and that was a lot of bones.

  “The CIA Director and I spoke last night,” Harrison informed the group, “and I frankly was not pleased with what I heard. Director Shaley, have you had an opportunity to learn anything more about our dead people?”

  Reeder stiffened—this was the first time anyone had said it out loud, and it was the President doing so: our people are dead.

  Everyone at the table turned toward the CIA Director. The collective blankness of their expressions was like a witness considering the options at a suspect lineup. Shaley leaned forward, eyes meeting the President’s. His shrug was a slow-motion affair. “What can I say? A mission went wrong, Mr. President.”

  “I was hoping for a little more,” the President said.

  “Well, it’s a tragedy, of course.”

  Platitudes, Reeder thought. The President’s reaction would not be pretty.

  It wasn’t.

  His gaze unblinking and accusing, Harrison said to the CIA Director, “You were to find me answers, Dick. What are they? Where are they?”

  “Mr. President . . .”

  “Why were our people there in the first place, and against my direct orders, since we knew a Russian attack was imminent! Who in the hell signed off on sending them over there? Was it you, Dick?”

  Shaley sat very still for a second. He spoke so softly that some at the table may not have heard, as if he wanted only the man who’d queried him to be privy.

  “Mr. President,” he said, “I was not the one to sign the order to send the team in there for what appears to have been a routine assessment of the situation.”