“Never wave at chicks.”
“Oh, come on. Andie is not going to get upset over that.”
“Got nothin’ to do with Andie. Mustang Rule Number One: You don’t wave at chicks. Period.”
“But she waved at me,” said Jack.
“Don’t matter. You just look, nod kind of cool-like, and say
“How is she supposed to hear me if I’m sitting inside a car?”
“She can see your lips move.”
“She can also see me wave.”
“If she sees your lips move, her mind hears
“Got it.”
The light changed and the Mustang launched like a rocket. Jack switched on the radio.
The salesman leaned forward and said, “The sound system is obviously not original, but you’ve still got your AM dial if you want that 1960s experience.”
Jack tried to find music, but the AM band was mostly Spanish talk radio. At the left end of the dial, an English-language news station caught his attention. The reporter had a decided urgency to his tone:
“-is no official word yet, but Associated Press is reporting that Vice President Grayson was unconscious when emergency responders airlifted him from a private refuge near Everglades National Park and transported him to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.”
“Music,” said Theo.
“No, wait.”
“Mustang Rule Number Two,” said Theo, but Jack cut him off.
“I’m serious. Shut up.”
The reporter on the scene continued: “The vice president spent all day Friday in the Everglades with a special blue-ribbon commission that is studying twenty-first-century threats to the ecosystem. This morning he was on a guided hunting trip on privately owned land when, approximately thirty minutes before sunrise, something went terribly wrong. Of course, it is widely known that Vice President Grayson has a history of heart trouble. He suffered two heart attacks in his forties, and two years ago he spent his fifty-second birthday in the hospital with chest pains. We can only speculate as to whether today’s emergency was health related or some kind of accident. At this point, information is scarce. The hospital has released no comment, except to confirm that the vice president is there. And this area of western Miami-Dade County where the incident occurred is very isolated, as you might well imagine. We’re told that the other members of the vice president’s hunting party are being transported back to a private residence in Key Largo, where Vice President Grayson was staying with friends. We’re not sure how many hunters were in the party, but we hope to talk to them and bring additional details to you just as soon as we can.”
The anchorman in the studio interrupted to promise “more on this breaking story in sixty seconds,” and the station cut to a commercial.
Theo stopped at another red light.
“Wow,” said Jack. “Sounds pretty grim.”
Theo checked his sunglasses in the rearview mirror. “Your old man still buddy-buddy with the president of vice?”
“I’d say so,” said Jack. “He was on that hunting trip.”
Chapter 4
Jack was standing at his father’s side as they watched the landing of Air Force One.
Jack had just signed the papers for his new Mustang when Harry called to tell him that the hunting party-sans vice president-was being transported by yacht from Everglades National Park to Ocean Reef Club. The exclusive Key Largo resort had its own airstrip, and Jack had driven down from Miami at nearly the speed of Air Force One. Steve McQueen would have been proud.
“It was all so surreal,” said Harry, his voice barely audible over the roar of jet engines at the other end of the runway. “Phil’s boat was in another part of the channel, but I knew from the burst of spotlights and all the shouting that something had gone wrong. It was a Secret Service frenzy. My guide tried to motor us over there, but an agent jumped onto our boat, cranked up the out-board, and took us in the complete opposite direction. I felt like I was in JFK’s limo speeding off to the hospital-without Phil.”
“You think he’ll survive?”
“They won’t tell us if he’s alive, if he’s dead, if it was his heart-nothing.”
“Did the Secret Service take your statement yet?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what their agenda is, but they made me feel like I needed a lawyer.”
One thing all criminal defense lawyers knew: if you think you need one, you probably do.
The last time Jack had visited Ocean Reef, he was fifteen years old and zipping around the club’s two thousand acres with friends on a golf cart. Even back then, a vacation home there had been well beyond the financial reach of the Swyteck family. Today, it was barely within the reach of Donald Trump. Ocean Reef was a perfect place for a vice president to vacation. The club was surrounded on three sides by water, and on the fourth by protected lands under federal and state ownership. Forty-five security guards, continuous camera surveillance, and monitored water access made it an exclusive playground for people of privilege. Jack had passed a mile-long line of media vans on the entrance road, but not one got past the guardhouse. Every local station and several national networks had a microwave dish hoisted high into the air-tower after tower of modern communications systems that rose like a wintry forest from the mangroves and turquoise waters of the fragile keys environs. Helicopters were kept at bay for the landing of Air Force One, but Jack could see them hovering on the horizon, well beyond the championship golf course, the town houses that sold for over a million dollars, the new waterfront homes that sold for ten times that much, and the marina filled with yachts-many of which came at a price that made the homes seem cheap.
Two Secret Service agents pulled up in a customized golf cart that looked like a miniature Bentley. Jack said hello. They said, “Get in.”
“Where are we going?” said Jack.
“The president wants to see you in his office.”
“On the plane?”
“No, at the Tiki Bar.”
A Secret Service agent with a sense of humor-now that was something Jack hadn’t expected. The cart took them straight to the Jetway, and the door opened at the top of the stairs.
Jack felt a little rush of adrenaline, momentarily forgetting the circumstances of his first meeting with the president. It wasn’t the familiar Air Force One-the runway at Ocean Reef wasn’t long enough to accommodate a Boeing 747-but the smaller C-32 had an aura of its own. His father looked somber enough for both of them as the Secret Service led them aboard. Olivia Thompson, the president’s blond, thirty-nine-year-old chief of staff, greeted them inside. A quick turn up the corridor took them to the state room. Thompson knocked, opened the door, and announced the Swytecks’ arrival in a respectful tone.
“Welcome, Governor,” said the president, as he rose to greet him.
They shook hands firmly, and then Harry introduced his son.
Another round of handshaking and good wishes followed, but the president’s signature smile came across as a bit weary to Jack. Perhaps the news was bad about Grayson. Perhaps it was the cumulative weight of his first two years in the White House. Jack had seen photographic face progressions of past presidents, showing how the office aged them from one year to the next. By that standard, President Keyes was faring well. His skin was as youthful as could be expected for a man in his fifties, and he didn’t have Lincoln’s worry lines or Nixon’s jowls. His transformation was more subtle-with the exception of the hair, which had been steadily receding since inauguration day. He was a handsome man, nonetheless, and he might have done well to throw in the towel and shave his head,
