The Echo of the Whip Read online

  The Grant administration had to be destroyed, never to rise from its ashes.

  Of course, after True South had been founded and had become a viable third party, many a conservative had moved on from the GOP, exiting stage right. Those defectors didn’t think of themselves as traitors. They were simply drawing closer to the flame of the true faith.

  After the new party opened shop, it made life considerably harder for Carter Coleman. He couldn’t impose party discipline on his most conservative members. If he pushed too hard, they could simply tell him to take a hike and move over to True South. If anything, their voters would applaud the change.

  As the big brain behind the tandem of Peter Profitt and Carter Coleman, the pressure was on Ed Whelan to save the day. Ideally, he’d subvert and destroy True South. There wasn’t room for two right-wing parties in Washington. It wouldn’t be long before open warfare broke out between them. Each would attack the other for either insufficient purity or boneheaded extremism.

  Leaving the Democrats to look on and giggle into their white wine.

  As they continued to win one presidential election after another.

  Good God, Ed Whelan thought, two terms of Jean Morrissey following the same number for Patti Grant and the new nanny state might last a century. He wanted no part of that or of the downfall of the GOP.

  It was time for him to get out of government and into a think tank. Work from outside of the party structure. Lock up a long-term position with a fat paycheck and start planning the resurgence of a sane political right. The New Republican Party? That was why it was so important for him to get his original thesis back. He had to hide his own errors to secure his future. He couldn’t let anyone see how many times he’d been wrong. He’d definitely learned from his mistakes, and he felt certain he knew what to do next.

  Well, he knew what to do until a heavy hand fell upon his shoulder just as he put his key into the door of the whip’s office suite. He jumped in fright, and a squeak of alarm escaped him. Turning, he saw Capitol Police Captain John Creedy staring at him.

  Like he was someone who’d sneaked in off the street.

  “Mr. Whelan, sir, haven’t you been told?” Creedy asked, his voice cold.

  “Been told what?” Whelan asked.

  The big cop stared at Whelan, as if he was only playing innocent.

  Whelan held his hands out to his sides, showing he had nothing to hide.

  Creedy’s expression changed to one of disgust. He thought it was a shitty thing to do, the speaker and the whip leaving their dirty work to him. Nonetheless, he sucked it up and delivered the bad news to Whelan.

  “Your services here are no longer required, sir.”

  Whelan blinked and his ears began to ring.

  As if he knew he had to compensate, Creedy raised his voice. “You’ve been fired.”

  “Who … who told you that?”

  “Representative Coleman. The speaker was with him at the time I was informed. Your personal belongings have been packed up and will be delivered to your residence. I was told to ask for your office keys the next time I saw you.”

  He held out a large, calloused palm.

  Whelan was dazed but didn’t hesitate. He handed over a ring of keys.

  “Would you like me to escort you out, sir?”

  The former echo of the whip found enough self-respect to straighten his spine.

  “I know the way,” he said.

  Creedy watched him go, followed, but allowed a buffer of several feet.

  The chill March air should have cleared Whelan’s head as he stepped outside but all it did was make him shiver. He started down the steps of the Capitol, needing a moment when he reached the sidewalk to recall how to get home. He’d arrived in a taxi, but he decided to walk back. The distance was almost four miles; he hoped inspiration might strike somewhere along the way. As things stood, he saw his publishing contract and any chance for a major think tank job vanishing. The phrase, “Don’t back no losers,” may have originated in Chicago politics, but as a point of view it was also held dear in Washington.

  Nobody in town liked a loser much less rewarded one, and he’d just been fired from his job by two of the most powerful men in Congress.

  The thought popped into Whelan’s head that Union Station was nearby.

  Maybe he should go step in front of a train.

  He didn’t have the resolve to do that. Instead, he mentally catalogued the bars that lay between him and his front door. Drinking himself into oblivion would be a better choice. He headed off, his eyes glazed and his gait wobbling.

  He never noticed Eugene Beck following him.

  The White House — Washington, DC

  Tall Wolf thought the president seemed pretty chipper for someone who might be booted out of office in the coming week. He took the hand Patricia Grant extended to him and shook it gently and looked at her closely. She smiled at him with a gleam in her eye.

  “What’s the matter, Mr. Co-director, do I have some spinach stuck between my teeth?”

  “No, ma’am, your teeth are perfect.”

  “Didn’t start out that way. A fair piece of money from my parents and the dedicated work of an orthodontist who knew his stuff got things moving in the right direction. A little more work in Hollywood put the polish on, so to speak.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  With his substantial height advantage, Tall Wolf didn’t have any problem seeing he was alone with the president. He hadn’t expected that. She noticed him checking out his surroundings.

  “You were expecting someone else to be here?”

  “I was told Mr. McGill also wanted to see me, ma’am.”

  “He does. He’s upstairs in the residence waiting for you. I just wanted a few minutes of your time, before you see Jim. Is that all right?”

  “Whatever you want, ma’am.”

  “Good. Please take a seat.” She gestured to the guest chairs placed in front of her desk. Tall Wolf waited until she sat before he did the same.

  “How may I help, Madam President?”

  Patricia Grant asked Tall Wolf if he’d seen or read about her Committed Capital announcement.

  “Both, ma’am.”

  “Good. As a spin-off, the board of CC has decided to award a hundred scholarships to incoming college freshmen who choose to major in math, science and technology. These will be full-ride funding: tuition, fees, room and board and education-related travel and lodging. The quid pro quo will be that each recipient will promise to work in the United States for ten years. If they start a company, it must be based here and the people they hire must be their fellow Americans.”

  “I like it,” Tall Wolf said with a smile. “Who else knows about this, ma’am?”

  “Other than the people directly involved, you’re the first.”

  Tall Wolf didn’t hide his surprise.

  “I hope you don’t mind, John. I wanted a candid reaction.”

  Tall Wolf told the president about the idea he and his cousin had to start a major Native American university on the Northern Apache reservation.

  Patricia Grant beamed. “I think that’s brilliant. I hope you’ll let me be part of your fundraising effort.”

  Tall Wolf allowed that they might find room for her.

  The president laughed. “The particular reason I asked you to see me is I want to make sure every American student will be eligible for Committed Capital scholarships. I want you to help me reach out to the children of the people who got to this country first.”

  “Before there even was a country, as such,” Tall Wolf said.

  “Exactly. I know you have your own job to do, but if you could put together a list of people for me to contact, individuals you hold in high esteem, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Of course, but if I may ask, why me?”

  “I told Jim what I needed. He recommended you as a starting point. Now that I’ve heard about your plans, I’m glad he did.”

  Tall Wolf was pretty happy
himself.

  McGill met Tall Wolf at the door to his hideaway. The White House head butler, Blessing, was on hand to take the visitor’s drink order. McGill recommended the White House ice tea and Tall Wolf went with the suggestion. The two men chatted for a few minutes, McGill hearing about Tall Wolf’s meeting with the president, before Blessing returned with the drinks.

  Once they were alone, McGill said, “How do you feel about the way things went in California?”

  Tall Wolf told him about his follow-up visit with Mira and the fact that one embryo was still missing.

  “Damn,” McGill said. “I hate loose ends.”

  “Ms. Kersten indicated the embryo she doesn’t have is the one she wants most.”

  McGill made the correct assumption who the male contributor was.

  Tall Wolf confirmed his guess.

  McGill said, “So it’s not just a loose end, it’s the grand prize. All those other potential kids are just orphans in the storm. I’m thinking less and less of this client as time goes by.”

  Tall Wolf replied, “A peril of the private sector. You don’t always get to work for the righteous.”

  “Yeah, I seem to remember things being the same way when I was a cop. How about you? Everything copacetic at the Office of Justice Services?”

  “I had to lock up an old man I truly admire not too long ago. There’s a chance he might even be my grandfather. The woman who was my estranged grandmother tried to have me killed and came to a bad end.”

  McGill gave a soft whistle. “Other than that, everything’s okay?”

  Tall Wolf laughed and took a hit of his ice tea. “Yeah, pretty much, once my fiancée and I figure out how we can get married and be together while living and working in two different countries.”

  “Sounds like someone will have to relocate, but I’m sure you’ve already thought of that. Meanwhile, back here in DC, I’m tied up for the immediate future. I’m going to be at the president’s side for the duration of her trial in the Senate. Some of the prominent pundits suggest that this is going to be the quickest case in U.S. history, but once something like this gets started, things have a way of setting their own pace.”

  Tall Wolf nodded. “You never know who’s going to want his or her moment in the spotlight.”

  “Right. Being a footnote in history isn’t much fun if you can manage a paragraph or even a whole page you can call your own. Anyway, my hope is you can take time away from your other duties and catch the SOB who grabbed the embryos in the first place, find the missing one as well. Even if we don’t like the client, the bad guy shouldn’t get away clean. We need to discourage him from continuing his wicked ways.”

  Tall Wolf said, “That was my plan, too. I told Ms. Kersten I’d keep on, but not as someone working for her.”

  “Right, if she benefits, it will be incidental to our main goal. Please keep in close touch. I want this one to turn out right. If anyone gets in your way, let me know about that, too. I have certain connections.”

  Tall Wolf smiled. “I’ll bet you do.”

  The two men stood and shook hands.

  “May I ask a question?” Tall Wolf said.

  “Sure.”

  “Why didn’t you turn to your partner, Ms. Sweeney, for help with this?”

  A sad smile formed on McGill’s face. “She gave me the news when we touched down on our flight from L.A. As far as police work goes, public or private, she is now officially retired.”

  Tall Wolf thought about that for a moment.

  “But if you weren’t available and I needed to speak with someone?”

  McGill nodded. “Sure, if you need to know something, give Sweetie a call.”

  He gave Tall Wolf the phone number.

  Washington, DC

  Edmond Whelan had plodded across the better part of the National Mall and veered toward Foggy Bottom on his way to Georgetown when a thought struck him that both organized his mind and energized his body. As bleak as things may have looked for him, he still had one last opportunity of which he might avail himself.

  He could get even with the SOB who had stolen the original version of his masterwork.

  He’d been wrong in thinking Mira had taken the document. It was only natural, he supposed, to suspect a former spouse who was a political strategist for the other side. The current state of politics in Washington practically demanded that he think of her first as someone who would want to bring him down. You threw in the fact that they’d both decided that living together had become a waste of time and, bingo, who else could have robbed him but Mira?

  She’d told him who else and, brother, did that name make sense.

  Thomas Winston Rangel, his mentor. The man who had made the introductions and greased the way for him to become a power behind the scenes in Congress. His patron, in effect.

  All of the old hands who’d held seats in the House and Senate when Rangel had given him his start had long since retired or lost their jobs in subsequent elections. The institutional memory of who had sponsored Ed Whelan’s rise to prominence had vanished. Now that the time had come for Whelan to suffer for his failings, Rangel didn’t want anyone to recall who had launched the one-time golden boy.

  Only there remained documentary evidence of the Rangel-Whelan connection: Ed Whelan’s treatise. With Thomas Winston Rangel’s fingerprints literally all over it. Worse than that, so were Winston’s marginal notes. He’d both praised Ed’s ideas and taken a number of them several steps farther. Some of their combined notions had worked brilliantly. Others had been unmitigated disasters, all the more so for the tactical flourishes Winston had added.

  The old man must have felt for some time that Whelan was going to get the axe, and so he had to distance himself from his one-time protégé. Whelan didn’t think T.W. was still active in the troughs of political skulduggery; the guy had to be older than Original Sin, but as long as he was still breathing, he would want to protect his legacy.

  That would mean he had to retrieve the laudatory notes he’d made on Ed’s treatise.

  He’d have had to hire out to get the job done. If he’d been careful about it, he would have had his thief simply destroy the document, turn it to ashes. But Ed would bet he’d want to read the comments he’d written all those years ago. Find a way to rationalize all his mistakes so he could continue to think he was still the smartest guy in town.

  Looking to his left, Ed Whelan saw a taxi pull to a stop at a red light. On impulse, he pulled a back door open and jumped in. He gave the cabbie Winston’s address in Virginia, and as the light turned green away they went.

  Leaving Eugene Beck, trailing half a block behind, completely taken by surprise.

  But not without being able to see the name of the cab company and the number of the vehicle.

  The White House — Washington, DC

  The Co-director of Office of Justice Services was also caught off guard.

  As John Tall Wolf left McGill’s Hideaway and the door closed behind him, he heard a jazz tune start to play. McGill must have turned it on. The music sounded familiar to Tall Wolf, but he couldn’t place the name.

  Blessing was waiting in the corridor to see Tall Wolf out of the building.

  Tall Wolf asked the head butler if he knew what the piece of music was.

  “It’s ‘Take Five,’ sir, commonly attributed to Dave Brubeck but actually written by Paul Desmond. I do believe that is The Brubeck Quartet playing, though.”

  Tall Wolf smiled. It was clear you didn’t get to be head butler at the White House by letting any grass grow under your feet. As an impish test, he thought he’d see if he could push things just a step further.

  “You know when that recording was made?”

  The butler cocked an ear; Tall Wolf listened with him.

  “Definitely The Brubeck Quartet. So I can only think it’s from their Time Out album which was recorded in 1959.” They started walking down the hallway and the head butler added as a bonus tidbit, “‘Take Five’ is the
biggest-selling jazz single ever.”

  Tall Wolf smiled and asked Blessing if he had any plans for his retirement.

  That brought the head butler up short. After a moment, he admitted, “I try not to think of that, sir.”

  “Sure, after working for the president, what could compare?”

  Blessing gave Tall Wolf a look, not as a polished professional but as a man.

  “You have something in mind?”

  “My cousin and I are thinking of starting a university. It occurs to me we’re going to need a first-rate faculty. What would you think about teaching a bunch of kids on an Indian reservation in New Mexico?”

  For just a moment, Blessing looked stuck for an answer. He could only ask, “What would I teach?”

  Tall Wolf said, “Understanding and committing to excellence. How about that?”

  A twinkle appeared in Blessing’s eyes. Before he could answer, though, a beep sounded. The head butler took a smart phone out of a pocket and read a text message.

  Back in professional mode, he looked at Tall Wolf and told him, “If you have the time, sir, the White House chief of staff would like to speak with you.”

  “I’ve just spoken to Mira Kersten,” Galia told Tall Wolf once he was seated in her office with the door closed behind him.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Ms. Kersten told you about the embryo that’s still missing, I understand.”

  “She did.”

  “But did she tell you whom she feels sure stole Edmond Whelan’s dissertation?”

  Tall Wolf said. “She did, Thomas W. Rangel. I have to admit I’m not familiar with the man. I thought about asking Ms. Kersten for a briefing, but I decided doing my own research would provide a more objective picture.”

  Galia said, “I can tell you what you need to know. Rangel was Whelan’s mentor, his introduction to the conservative leadership in Congress. Mira is sure Rangel stole Whelan’s precious pile of political misjudgments.”

  “Whelan isn’t the hotshot he thinks he is?” Tall Wolf asked.