Suppose, he said, someone on Lake's staff had access to his stationery? Not a bad question, and one they'd kicked around for an hour. Wouldn't Al Konyers do such a thing in order to hide himself? What if he lived in the D.C. area and worked for Lake? Suppose Lake, a very busy man, trusted this assistant to write personal notes for him. Yarber couldn't remember allowing an assistant such authority back when he was Chief justice. Beech had never let anyone write his personal notes. Spicer had never fooled with such nonsense. That's what phones were for.
But Yarber and Beech had never known the stress and fury of anything remotely similar to a presidential campaign. They'd been busy men in their times, they reflected with sadness, but nothing like Lake.
Say it was an assistant to Lake. So far he had a perfect cover because he'd told them almost nothing. No photo. Only the vaguest details about career and family. He liked old movies and Chinese food, and that was about all they'd extracted. Konyers was on their list of pen pals to soon dispose of because he was too timid. Why, then, would he call off the relationship at this moment?
There was no ready answer.
And the argument was a long shot anyway. Beech and Yarber concluded that no man in Lake's position, someone with a good chance of becoming President of the United States, would allow anyone else to write and sign personal notes. Lake had a hundred staff members to type letters and memos, all of which could be signed by him at a rapid clip.
Spicer had posed a more serious question. Why would Lake run the risk of a handwritten note? His prior letters had been typed on plain white paper, and mailed in a plain white envelope. They could spot a coward by his choice of stationery, and Lake was as fainthearted as anyone who'd answered their ad. The campaign, rich as it was, had plenty of word processors and typewriters and laptops, no doubt the latest in technology.
To find the answer, they went back to the little evidence they had. The letter to Carol had been written at 1:20 A.M. According to a newspaper, the emergency landing happened around 2:15, less than an hour later.
'He wrote it on the plane,' Yarber said. 'It was late, the plane was filled with people, almost sixty according to the paper, these people were exhausted, and maybe he couldn't get his hands on a computer.'
'Then why not wait?' asked Spicer. He'd proved to be excellent at asking questions no one, especially hirn, could answer.
'He made a mistake. He thought he was being smart, and he probably was. Somehow the mail got mixed.
'Look at the big picture.' Beech said. 'The nomination is in the bag. He's just wiped out his only opponent, before a national audience, and he's finally convinced that his name will be on the ballot in November. But he's got this secret. He's got Ricky, and he's been thinking for weeks about what to do with Ricky The boy's going to be released, he wants to have a rendezvous, etc. Lake feels the pressure on both fronts-from Ricky, and from the realization that he might just be elected President. So he decides to stiff Ricky. He writes a note that has one chance in a billion of getting screwed up, then the plane catches on fire. He makes a small mistake, but it turns into a monster.'
'And he doesn't know it,' Yarber added. 'Yet.'
Beech's theory settled in. They absorbed it in the heavy stillness of their little room. The gravity of their discovery weighed down their words and thoughts. The hours passed, and it slowly sank in.
For the next great question they grappled with the baffling reality that someone was meddling with their mail. Who? And why would anyone want to? How had they intercepted the letters? The puzzle seemed hopeless.
Again, they argued the scenario that the culprit was someone very dose to Lake, perhaps an assistant with access who'd stumbled across the letters. And maybe he was trying to protect Lake from Ricky by commandeering the correspondence, with the goal of somehow, someday ending the relationship.
But there were too many unknowns to build any evidence. They scratched their heads and bit their nails, and finally admitted they would have to sleep on it.They couldn't plot the next move because the situation before them had more riddles than answers.
They slept little, and they were red-eyed and unshaved when they reconvened just after 6 A.M. with black coffee steaming from Styrofoam cups. They locked the door, pulled out the letters, placed them exactly where they'd been the night before, and began thinking.
'I think we should scope out the box in Chevy Chase,' said Spicer. 'It's easy, safe, usually quick. Trevor's been able to do it almost everywhere. If we know who's renting it, then a lot of questions will be answered.'
'It's hard to believe a man like Aaron Lake would be renting a box so he could hide letters like these,' Beech said.
'It's not the same Aaron Lake,' Yarber said. 'When he rented the box and began writing to Ricky, he was just a simple congressman, one of four hundred and thirty-five.You'd never heard of him. Now, things have changed dramatically'
'And that's exactly why he's trying to end the relationship.' Spicer said. 'Things are very different now. He has much more to lose.'
The first step would be to get Trevor to investigate the post office box in Chevy Chase.
The second step was not as clear. They were concerned that Lake, and they assumed that Lake was Al and Al was Lake, might realize his screwup with the letters. He had tens of millions of dollars (a fact they had certainly not. overlooked), and he could easily use some of it to track down Ricky. Given the enormity of the stakes, Lake, if he did realize his mistake, would do almost anything to neutralize Ricky.
So they debated whether to write him a note, in which Ricky would beg Al not to slam the door like this. Ricky needed his friendship, nothing more, etc.
The purpose would be to give the impression that everything was fine, nothing out of the ordinary. They hoped Lake would read it and scratch his head and wonder to himself just where, exactly, did that damned card to Carol get off to.
Such a note was unwise, they decided, because someone else was also reading the letters. Until they knew who, they couldn't risk any more contact with Al.
They finished their coffee and walked to the cafeteria. They ate alone, cereal and fruit and yogurt, healthy stuff because they would now live again on the outside. They walked four smoke-free laps together, at a leisurely pace, then returned to their chamber to finish the morning deep in thought.
Poor Lake. He was scrambling from one state to the next with fifty people in tow, late for three engagements at once, a dozen aides whispering in both ears. He had no time to think for himself.
And the Brethren had all day, hours upon hours to sit with their thoughts and their schemes. It was not an equal match.
TWENTY-SIX
There were two types of phones at Trumble; secured and unsecured. In theory, all calls made on unsecured lines were taped and subject to review by little elves in a booth somewhere who did nothing but listen to a million hours of useless chatter. In reality, about half the calls were actually taped, at random, and only about 5 percent were ever heard by anybody working for the prison. Not even the federal government could hire enough elves to handle all the listening.
Drug dealers had been known to direct their gangs from unsecured lines. Mafia bosses had been known to order hits on their rivals. The odds were very high against getting caught.
The secured lines were fewer in number, and by law could not be wired for surveillance. The secured calls went only to lawyers, and always with a guard posted nearby.
When Spicer's turn finally came to make a secured call, the guard had drifted away.
'Law office,' came the rude hello from the free world.
'Yes, this is Joe Roy Spicer, calling from the Trumble prison, and I need to speak with Trevor.'
'He's asleep:'
It was 1:30 P.M. 'Then wake the sonofabitch up,'
Spicer growled.
