there. What brings you back here?”
Alex shrugged. “You know, once you get POTUS duty inside you, you can’t get it out.”
“Right! I’m counting the days till I see my family more than once a year.”
“You on the campaign travel team?”
Bobby nodded. “We leave day after tomorrow to shake some more hands and make some more speeches from Iowa to Mississippi. Because of all the campaign stuff, we were shorthanded and had to pull in some WFOs on twenty-one-day rotations to post POTUS’ and the VP’s families.”
“I know. The halls at work are pretty empty.”
“Brennan did a fund-raiser tonight. Kiss-up for dollars. Lucky me, I got to stay here.”
“Yeah, lucky you.”
Bobby laughed. “I don’t know if you heard, but the man’s hometown in Pennsylvania changed its name to Brennan. He’s going up there during the campaign to attend the dedication. Talk about your ego trips.” Bobby drew closer and said in a low voice, “He’s not a bad guy. Hell, I voted for him. But he’s a slick one. Some of the stuff he’s done on the side . . .”
“He’s not the first.”
“If John Q. Public knew what we did, huh?”
As he headed off, Alex glanced over at Lafayette Park where the remaining “White House protesters” were located, or at least that’s how Alex and other Secret Service agents politely referred to them. The signs and tents and odd-looking folks had always held a fascination for him. There used to be far more of them, with elaborate signs erected everywhere. Yet even before 9/11 a crackdown had been enforced, and when the area in front of the White House was redone, this created a good excuse to shove these people away. Yet even the powerless in America had rights, and a few of them hooked up with the ACLU and sued in court for the right to return and the Supreme Court eventually sided with them. However, only two of the protesters had elected to come back.
During his stint at the White House Alex got to know some of the protesters. Most were certifiably crazy and therefore closely watched by the Secret Service. There was one fellow he remembered who dressed only in neckties, strategically placing them over his body. Yet not all of the protesters were asylum candidates, including the man he’d come to visit.
Alex stopped by one tent and called out, “Oliver? It’s Alex Ford. You there?”
“He no here,” a female voice said contemptuously.
Alex glanced over at the woman as she walked up with a paper cup of coffee in hand. “How’s it going, Adelphia?”
“Doctors are immorally killing babies all over this country, that’s how it goes.”
The woman was nothing if not passionate, Alex thought. Adelphia might’ve carried her passion somewhat to an extreme, but Alex still respected her for at least having one.
“Yeah, that’s what I hear.” He paused respectfully. “Uh, where’s Oliver?”
“I tell you, he no here. He have somewhere to go!”
“Where?” Alex knew where both Stone and Adelphia lived but didn’t want to let on to the woman that he had this information. Adelphia, he’d come to learn, was paranoid enough.
“Not am I his keeper.” She turned away.
Alex smiled. When he’d been on presidential protection detail, he’d always suspected that the lady had a thing for Mr. Stone. Most of the agents who knew Oliver Stone had written him off as a harmless crackpot who adopted the name of a famous film director for some ridiculous reason. Alex had taken the time to get to know the man, however, finding Stone erudite and thoughtful, and more in touch with the political and economic complexities of the world than some wonks who worked across the street. In particular, the man knew by heart every detail of seemingly every conspiracy ever reported on. Some of the agents called him King Con for this attribute. And Stone played one hell of a game of chess.
Alex called out to Adelphia, “If you see Oliver, tell him Agent Ford was looking for him; you remember me, right?” Adelphia made no sign that she’d heard him, but then again, that was just Adelphia.
He headed back on foot to where his car was parked. Along the way Alex passed something that made him stop. On the far corner two men, one black and one white, were working on a freestanding ATM housed in a sliver between two buildings. They were dressed in overalls that had “Service Staff” printed across the back. Their van was parked at the curb. It had a company name and phone number printed on the side.
Alex slipped into the shadows, pulled out his cell phone and called the number shown on the van. An official-sounding recording answered, giving the business hours for the company and so on. Alex did a quick look-see in the van, then pulled out his Secret Service badge and walked over to the men.
“Hey, fellows, you servicing the machine?”
The short man eyed the badge and nodded. “Yeah. Lucky us.”
Alex looked at the ATM, and his very experienced eye saw what he thought he would see. “Hope you guys are union.”
“Proud members of Local 453,” the smaller man said with a laugh. “At least we’re getting double time to do this crap.”
Okay, here we go again.
Alex drew his pistol and pointed it at them. “Pop the machine open.”
The black guy said irately, “You Secret Service, what business you got checking out an ATM?”
“Not that I need to give you a reason, but the Secret Service was originally formed to protect the official currency of the United States.” Alex pointed the gun directly at the black man’s head. “Open it!”
Stuffed inside the ATM were no fewer than a hundred cards.
Alex gave the pair their Miranda speech while he put PlastiCuffs on them. Then he called the arrest in. As they were waiting, the black guy looked over at him.
“We been doing this a long time and had no trouble. How the hell you figure it?”
“There’s a skimmer reader attached to the card slot. It captures the PIN so you can clone the card. And on top of that banks are cheap. So there’s no way one’s going to pay some union guys double overtime to schlep down here in the middle of the night to service this thing.”
After the police took the men away, Alex walked down the street to his car. Even after the successful if unexpected bust, all he could think about was one Kate Adams, who fought for justice by day and poured out highballs by night and seemed very close to the big-knuckled Tom Hemingway of the undisclosed supersecret agency.
Alex could only hope tomorrow would start on a better note.
CHAPTER
8
STONE, MILTON, REUBEN AND Caleb walked along the main trail on Theodore Roosevelt Island, a ninety-acre memorial to the former president and Rough Rider that sat in the middle of the Potomac River. They soon reached a clearing where an immense statue of Teddy Roosevelt stood with his right arm raised to the heavens as though he were about to retake the oath of office nearly ninety years after his death. The area was elaborately laid out with brick pavers, two curved stone bridges over man-made canals of water, and a pair of huge fountains that flanked the statue.