“As sure as I can be at this point …. Last night, after Arthur was kidnapped and before his body was discovered, I went to the White House to brief the National Security
Council. When I told them that Arthur had ‘been abducted, Garret became noticeably agitated. So much so that I had to stop in mid-sentence and ask him if he knew Arthur personally.
Garret said no … that he had only heard of him through Mike Nance.”
Stansfield frowned. “You know as well as I do, Stu Garret doesn’t show concern for anyone unless he stands to lose something. Later, when I told them that Arthur’s body had been discovered on Garret’s lawn, he almost had a nervous breakdown.”
“Did he admit to any involvement with Higgins?”
“No, he still denied it.”
“What did Nance say?”
“He wasn’t at the meeting. He was tied up somewhere else. I left the White House a little more than suspicious. Garret was hiding something, and my suspicion was soon backed up by two disturbing facts.
Arthur’s autopsy revealed sodium pentothal in his blood. He was interrogated, but whoever did it must have only wanted a specific piece of information; there wouldn’t have been time for more. We also have a surveillance video from Arthur’s security room
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with Garret and Nance on it. They visited him last Saturday, and Nance also came alone on Thursday—which means Garret lied to me about not knowing Arthur.”
“So what role would you like me to play?”
“I need you to threaten a full-scale investigation. We’ll give them two options. They can either sit down with my people and tell them everything they know under the protection of the national secrecy act, or they can give a deposition to you and your agents and risk prosecution.” Roach thought about it for a minute. “As you said earlier, this case is under the jurisdiction of the FBI. What if at some point I decide to pursue the investigation regardless of any deal you may have struck with Nance and Garret?”
“That’s entirely up to you.” Stu Garret paced frantically behind his desk with a cigarette in hand. Mike Nance sat stiff and upright on the couch. He’d been watching
Garret for the last ten minutes, waiting for the Valium to kick in, straining to control the urge to bash Garret over the head with a lamp. He had to stay calm … above everything he had to stay calm. Garret stopped and pointed his cigarette at Nance. “I can’t believe I
let you talk me into this. I must have been out of my fucking mind when I agreed to get into bed with Arthur.”
Nance bit down on his lip and said, “Stu, do you think your emotional tirades are doing us any good?”
“Hey, don’t give me that cool-as-ice attitude. You deal with it your way, and I’ll deal with it my way …. Fuck!” Garret took a vacuum-like pull off his cigarette and his face turned bright red.
Nance stood abruptly and raised his voice.
“All right, I’ll do things your way! Sit down and shut up! We have a meeting with
Stansfield in ten minutes, and we are going to have to come up with some answers as to why Arthur’s body ended up on your lawn …
and if you don’t get control of your emotions, Stansfield will tear you to shreds!”
Nance stared hard at Garret. Garret exhaled and his shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry, Mike, I just can’t believe all of this is happening so fast. What in the hell are we going to do?
Stansfield is going to want to know why Arthur was found at my house. He knows I was lying to him last night when I told him I’d never met Arthur. What in the fuck am I going to tell him? What am I going to tell the press?
What am I going to tell the cops? They’re gonna want to talk to me, too.”
Nance put a hand on his shoulder. “Stu, one problem at a time. Don’t worry about the cops and don’t worry about the press. For the next hour, I need you to stay calm and keep your mouth shut. Stansfield is our main problem. Now just sit down and relax while I tell
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you what we’re going to do.” Garret sank into the couch and stuck a cigarette in his mouth.
Nance paced slowly across the room. “I have a good idea for damage control.” With his hands on his hips, he turned and said, “We tell Stansfield the truth.” Garret blurted out a loud cackle. “Have you lost your fucking mind! … Yeah… sure … let’s tell him the truth…”
Nance stuck his finger in Garret’s face. “Stu, this is the last time I’m going to tell you to stay quiet and get control of yourself. Don’t forget, Arthur put a price tag on your head before he was killed, and I’m the only one who can rescind the order.” Nance stared as hard and as deep as he could into Garret’s eyes, making sure there was no doubt that he was serious. Garret tried to speak, but Nance cut him off.
“Shut up, Stu. Just shut up for the next five minutes!” Garret bit down on his tongue and nodded. “We are going to tell Stansfield about our recruitment of Arthur to help get the President’s budget passed.
We’ll tell him that Arthur helped blackmail Congressman Moore. It is simple, it is the truth, and Stansfield will buy it because we can prove it. We admit to some wrongdoing and Stansfield goes away satisfied.”
“What about the press? I can’t tell them that.”
“Stu, I’m not going to say it again! We are talking about Stansfield right now! We’ll talk about the press later.”
