“Let me assemble a team under the DEA umbrella to go after him. Give me carte blanche for a period of time and reasonable funds. Reactivate me as a special-team leader. If anyone fails, it can be me.”
T.C.’s eyes went cold as old steel. He crossed his arms. Paul was losing him. “You don’t want to return? Doesn’t sound that way from here.”
“One shot, T.C. You’ll get one hundred percent of the credit when we find him. He won’t be alive to remember the past. Anyone’s past.”
T.C. seemed to be weighing the proposition. “We’re not talking about a sanction here? Breaking and entering, shooting things up, rampant muscle? Keeping the man healthy was your calling in life.”
“We both know the DEA doesn’t plan deaths. Even planning the deaths of monsters like Martin Fletcher would have been illegal.”
T.C. looked uncomfortable. “Of course. I’d like to help you. But I really can’t see any advantage. And our budget is limited. Bastard senators on the Appropriations Committee have clipped my wings. They’re destroying this country, Paul. Drugs pouring in from everywhere. They don’t want them stopped because it would be bad for the law-enforcement business.”
“You don’t see a political advantage to letting me get Martin?”
“I’ll be frank. If Martin Fletcher is fool enough to be back in the country, we can find him without you. The FBI can deal with him, it’s their job. If you are back in the administrative saddle, you pose a political threat because people liked you-hell, they probably still do. There are a few people in high places who would do anything to help you.”
“Physically, T.C.”-Paul pulled the wounded hand from the pocket, and it trembled visibly until he returned it to the pocket-“I can’t do what I could.”
“Your apparent handicaps aren’t enough to keep you inactive. I’ve read your meds. The hand’ll get better. Besides, look at Bob Dole. Never one hundred percent, but who the hell is? A little plastic surgery and you’ll be good as new. And with Jack McMillan behind you-”
“I told you, Jack isn’t.”
“There are people who’d help you on the off chance it might please Jack McMillan. Frankly, Paul, I can see nothing but a downside for me, politically speaking, and I’m a political animal. Maybe if you could get Jack to help me be appointed director once and for all? That isn’t much for the man to do. One phone call to the right cigar- chomping dinosaur, and I’m a shoo-in.”
Paul sat up on the edge of his chair. “Jack McMillan is a friend of mine, and I don’t use my friends. If I did, he wouldn’t be a friend.”
“Jack McMillan is probably the most powerful man in this town.” He smiled. “If you’ll talk to him about me and swear you won’t come back into the DEA, I’ll give you my American Express card and my wife, and you can cut Martin Fletcher’s throat at high noon on the White House lawn with Robert E. Lee’s sword.”
Paul shrugged,
“You can do that, Masterson. McMillan owes you a life. Surely you haven’t used up that favor. Favorite son. I’m sure a word from you and-”
“I wouldn’t ask him for that.”
“Because he wouldn’t do it?”
“No, T.C. He would do it. Fact is I don’t need his help for this. You are going to do what I’m asking.”
“Why do you imagine that? You need to have the rocks in your head changed. Why would I?”
“It’s the only thing you can do.”
T.C.’s face grew red as his anger built. “You wouldn’t have him drop weight on me? I have my friends, too, Paul.”
Paul leaned in toward T.C.’s chair. “Normally I wouldn’t see him or speak to him for any favor, and neither would I ask him to use his power against anyone on my behalf. But don’t forget that we’re talking about my family’s safety. This is one hundred percent personal. If anything, and I do mean anything, happens to my family, you won’t have to worry about what Jack McMillan does. There won’t be enough of you left to do anything to.”
T.C. stood, his face ablaze in vein-popping fury. “You’re threatening me? You fuckin’ asshole. Don’t you dare threaten me, you one-eyed, hobbling son of a bitch!”
“You’re right. Don’t give it to me because Jack can have you sweeping the Capitol steps with a toothbrush. Do it because you owe me this much as an ex-agent. Do it because you owe your agents loyalty and retribution for this loss. And do it because you can’t let any man hold your agency hostage. Think up your own reason-you’re creative. But you will do it.”
T.C. exhaled slowly and cracked his knuckles thoughtfully. “I’m sorry, Paul, but I can’t. I will promise you that I’ll deal with Martin-with assistance from the Bureau.” T.C. smoothed his jacket and turned toward the door. “Enjoy your visit, Paul. See some monuments. Get yourself laid.” T.C. winked at Paul. “Must have quite a load built up after living on that mountain all this time.”
“Just a second, T.C.,” Paul said as he crossed over to the door to the second bedroom and opened it wider. A distinguished-looking man in his seventies entered the living room and took a seat on the couch. T.C. Robertson’s face went as white as his teeth. “I’m sure you know Senator Stanton.”
“Well, this is a surprise.” T.C. was fighting to recover, but the realization that the man had been listening to the conversation was devastating.
“I bet,” Senator Abe Stanton said as he lit a cigar the size of a small log and exhaled a plume of smoke that covered the well-known face from T.C.’s view. “Now, we’re here to discuss what Paul wants,” the head of the Senate Appropriations Committee said. “And if it’s all the same to you, Thackery, we’ll just keep this between the three of us. It’s my opinion that mentioning this to Mr. McMillan, or anyone else, would be completely unnecessary and might have unpleasant consequences for one of us. Sit,” the senator commanded.
T.C. sat and smiled nervously, his face hardly darker than a sheet of typing paper.
“Interesting conversation you were having,” Senator Stanton said. “I for one am thrilled you’ve agreed to help Paul.”
“Paul makes a lot of sense, as usual,” T.C. said, nervously wiping at his brow with a napkin he lifted from the coffee table.
The senator blew a spinning smoke ring toward the television set and fixed his eaglelike eyes on T.C. “Have one of mine. It’s Cuban. What Castro smoked before his bout of throat cancer, I understand.” He reached into his pocket and removed a case, opened it, and held it out to T.C. T.C. took a cigar, sniffed it, and chewed the tip off, picked it from his tongue and placed it into the ashtray beside him. He lit the cigar using a lighter that was beside Paul’s cigarettes and inhaled the first puff.
“God, that’s excellent!” he said grandly. “I love a good cigar.” He was beginning to recover.
“I like to imagine I’m putting the torch to Castro’s crops.” Senator Stanton laughed and winked at T.C. “I bet I could get ten years for lighting this outside the room here.”
T.C. puffed on the cigar and listened to the inevitable.
8
Paul had spent the following day meeting with members of the DEA and poring over the files of agents whom T.C.’s personnel manager had deemed fit for the team and available. He had finally narrowed it to ten possibles. That evening he had dined at La Cote d’Or again, this time with the owner of the restaurant. They had sat and sampled wines for several hours, and a taxi had delivered a rubber-legged Paul to the Willard at one A.M. Paul staggered to the elevator, maneuvering among the ghosts of U. S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Abe Lincoln, and George Armstrong Custer, all of whom had walked through this same lobby. Paul opened his door and dropped his clothes, like a trail of bread crumbs, as he meandered to the bedroom and fell headlong toward the mattress, asleep almost before he hit the bed.
Paul awoke certain that he was not alone in the suite’s master bedroom. There was the faint scent of cologne in the air, a difference in the patterns of air flow. Just enough that a man who had slept alone, and in the absence of commercial fragrances, for several years would pick it up. Just enough for an alarm as he fought toward consciousness. He didn’t move but lay still and let his eye take in the fact that the door was open and he had closed
