Jim McGill 02 The Hangman's Companion Read online

  “Très bon,” McGill had told her.

  Father Clavel was waiting for McGill outside the confessional. It was the first time a priest shook hands with him before he forgave McGill’s sins. Going into the confessional, the president’s henchman bared his soul, and received his absolution and penance. Then the priest made a personal observation.

  “I am not one to involve myself in politics, m’sieur.”

  “Yes?” McGill said.

  “But I have been fascinated by your wife’s rise to power.”

  “It’s been a remarkable story.”

  “Please tell Madam la Présidente that I include her daily in my prayers.”

  “Merci, Père Clavel. I will.”

  “And, M’sieur le Henchman, never come to me with an admission you have failed her.”

  “Won’t happen, Father.”

  When McGill got back into Gabbi’s car, she asked, “You have that much to forgive or were you handing out autographs in there?”

  “Tending to my immortal soul inclines me to think about my all too mortal body,” McGill told her.

  “Meaning what?”

  “Well, what if The Undertaker has a big brother?”

  Gabbi snorted. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Hard to imagine, I know. But what if he has friends or at least minions? Somebody who can help out. If that video we saw was shot recently the big gorilla might not be at his best. But what if he’s smart enough to suspect he’s being set up and brings backup?”

  Gabbi thought about that.

  “Wouldn’t do to bring sticks to a gunfight,” she said.

  “Not at all. Pruet will have his gun, but I don’t see him coming out on top in a shootout.”

  “Me neither. You think the four of us should carry guns?”

  McGill shook his head. “Wouldn’t want Big Boy to grab one of our pieces.”

  “What are you thinking then?”

  “Who do we know locally,” McGill asked, “people who are sneaky enough to avoid easy detection and slick enough to act as lookouts for us?”

  Gabbi saw right where McGill was going. “Gypsies.”

  “Yeah, them,” he said.

  The Hideaway, Paris

  33

  Harbin was back working the door when McGill returned.

  “M’sieur,” Harbin said to McGill, “your wife called.”

  That one stopped McGill. He gave the doorman an inquiring look.

  Harbin nodded. “Oui, m’sieur. I have never spoken to my own president, but now I have spoken to yours.”

  “Did she want anything in particular?” McGill asked.

  “We chatted pleasantly for a moment; her French is exquisite. Then she asked if I am a handy fellow with my sticks. I could only guess she heard of this from you.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told her in all modesty I am very, very good.”

  It was true. Harbin had the edge over both Odo and Gabbi. While Gabbi was as quick and fluid as Harbin, he brought a lot more muscle to his game.

  “I also told her in truest modesty you are perhaps a little better than me.”

  McGill got the feeling Harbin had never admitted that to anyone before. As to the accuracy of his assessment, McGill would have said there wasn’t a ray of daylight between them.

  “You didn’t tell her what we have planned?” McGill asked.

  Harbin rolled his eyes.

  “Sorry,” McGill said. “I should have known better.”

  “Oui, m’sieur, you should. But I will be this indiscreet. If I were you, and I didn’t speak French, I know who I would ask to teach me.”

  McGill smiled.

  Patti giving him French lessons. There was an idea.

  34

  “I dismissed SAC Crogher,” Patti told McGill when he called her from his borrowed apartment.

  “Huh,” McGill said. He added, “So you found out.”

  “About his little trip to Paris? Yes.”

  “I didn’t rat Celsus out, so…” McGill came to the only logical conclusion. “Galia did.”

  The president didn’t rat out her chief of staff.

  “I won’t comment on that,” she told her husband.

  “I won’t ask you to. It’s also not my business to ask you why you canned Celsus, but I am curious.”

  “I thought you’d be pleased to see him go.”

  McGill would have thought so, too. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

  “Somebody has to take his place,” he said. “Might be someone more agreeable to me personally, but I have to tell you, Madam President, I don’t see anybody making me feel more comfortable that my beloved wife is as safe as anyone can make her.”

  “I’m not the problem,” the president said.

  “What?” McGill asked. “I stepped in it again?”

  Patti gave her husband a précis of her discussion with Celsus.

  McGill said, “You make some very good points. There will be more First Gentlemen, and undoubtedly some of them will make the Secret Service gnash their teeth more than I do. I’ve been having some thoughts of my own on that matter.”

  “Such as?” the president asked.

  “Maybe I should set a better example for those who come after me. I was thinking I could continue using Deke and Leo when we get home, but maybe someone like Crogher, if not Crogher himself, could give me a daily summary of threat assessments against me. If tensions get elevated, we could put a few more agents in play as an outer perimeter, with Deke coordinating them. If there were evidence of an actual plot against me, then I’d have to play an active part in the takedown effort.”

  “Rather than retreat to a safe place while the Secret Service does its job,” the president said.

  “Would you have married a fellow given to retreat?” McGill asked.

  “No. You’re right. I married the man who catches the bad guys.”

  “And has mastered the entire California Pizza Kitchen cookbook, too.”

  The president laughed and said, “And has certain other talents as well.”

  “Including the ability to speak candidly to the world’s most powerful woman.”

  “You’re going to tell me something I don’t want to hear?” Patti asked.

  “I’m going to tell you Celsus lied to you.”

  A long moment of silence followed. McGill would have been dumbfounded, too, if someone had told him SAC Crogher had lied to him. He would have said there wasn’t a line of code in the man’s operating system that would allow for deceit.

  “How did he lie?” Patti asked.

  “Celsus came to see me in Paris because he thought you were carrying on with the president of France. He wanted me to travel to London and give Jean-Louis Severin a boot to his backside. If only because extramarital hanky-panky upsets Celsus’s security protocols.”

  “Jim, there’s really nothing going on, I swear.”

  “I know. That’s not who you are. But we all have our histories, and that’s what Celsus saw. Someone you were close to in your past. Not being fully human, Celsus misunderstood.”

  “You’re terrible. Celsus is human enough that he felt he couldn’t confront me.”

  “Tough to tell the boss to stop fooling around. Even androids get that.”

  “Stop it … should I apologize and ask SAC Crogher to return?”

  “Skip the apology; take credit for wringing those concessions out of me.”

  “I’m very glad you’re the man I married. You will be here for dinner with the queen, won’t you? Her Majesty told me she’s very much looking forward to meeting you.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “You’ll have Glen Kinnard off the hook by then?”

  “I’m past all that. Right now, I’m trying to keep President Severin’s political enemies from doing him in. Politically, of course.”

  Patti was quiet again, before saying, “You’ll tell me all about it?”

  “Next time I see you,” McGill said.
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br />   Washington, DC

  35

  Sweetie didn’t give Putnam enough time to cater a meal. When she, Welborn, Kira, and Deke gathered in the living room at the lawyer’s townhouse, all their host could offer them were drinks and snacks. Of course, his Snickerdoodles came from the Munchies Organic Natural Store in Cumberland, Maryland, were made with quail eggs, and cost $30 a box. Putnam washed his cookies down with champagne; everybody else drank Jasmine Green Honest Tea, which Sweetie thought was good, but not a match for the ice tea coming out of the White House kitchen.

  Welborn and Kira needed a few minutes whispering to each other in a corner of the room before they joined the others, taking a love seat that had been left vacant for them.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” Welborn said.

  He’d felt the need to explain privately to Kira his role in what they were about to do. He didn’t want her to think his dinner date with Callie Bao was anything but a ruse engineered by Margaret Sweeney. He definitely wasn’t getting cold feet as their wedding day approached. Kira accepted his explanation with a sense of serenity he’d never seen in her before … and that made him wonder how much he really knew about his fiancée.

  But then she told him about her late father’s image miraculously appearing on Father Nguyen’s dust cloth. How her mother had wept when she’d seen it. How both of them were happy beyond words that the late Desmond Fahey would indeed be at their wedding in spirit.

  So, Welborn thought, the Queen of England couldn’t make their little affair, but a man dead almost twenty years would be in attendance. As would his own father, the man he’d never met. He could only wonder what other surprises might crop up.

  “Welborn,” Sweetie said, “you’re cleared for landing.”

  He snapped out of his reverie, saw everyone was looking at him.

  “You did make a date with Ms. Bao, right?” she asked.

  He nodded. Before he could go on, Putnam raised his hand.

  “Before we go any further,” he said, “I have to ask if this conversation should be privileged? Would it be worth a dollar from each of you to formally become my clients, and put anything we say here off limits to law enforcement snoops?”

  Deke Ky cleared his throat.

  Putnam said, “Yes, I know you’re Secret Service, but you’re in protection not investigation, aren’t you?”

  Welborn cleared his throat.

  “Office of Special Investigations,” he said.

  Putnam frowned. “Maybe I’m out of my depth here. Are we about to enter a conspiracy here or not? If we are, we need to give ourselves whatever cover we can. If not, I might as well call for pizza.”

  Sweetie grinned. “What we’re doing here is setting up a sting. It’s all perfectly within the bounds of the law.”

  Deke gave Sweetie a look, then handed Putnam a dollar.

  Welborn, who’d seen Deke steal a car, also forked over a buck.

  Kira, in solidarity with her betrothed, gave Putnam a dollar, and took a Snickerdoodle.

  Sweetie looked around and asked, “What’s going on here?”

  Before anyone could answer, Welborn raised a legal point.

  “What I learned about attorney-client privilege, the communication’s confidentiality is obviated by the presence of a third party. If you count noses here—”

  Putnam waved away that concern. “If you don’t tell, I won’t.” He looked at Sweetie. “Are we causing moral problems for you, Margaret?”

  “Probably, if I knew what you were all talking about.”

  “I have no idea,” Putnam said. “I’m simply operating on the principle the thought police have no right to know the content of any of my conversations.”

  Sweetie could see both Deke and Welborn had trouble with so sweeping a statement, but Kira nodded in agreement.

  “How about this, Margaret?” Putnam asked. “We’ll discuss what we can with you here, and then at a certain point you can—”

  “Go downstairs and say my rosary,” Sweetie said.

  “Exactly,” Putnam agreed. “Chances are we won’t get caught for anything anyway.”

  Famous last words, Sweetie thought. Her inner Mother Superior wanted to banish any notion of impropriety … but the cop in her understood the value of deniability.

  So all she said was, “Where’s your date with Ms. Bao going to be, Welborn?”

  “Krung Thep. Thai place on the Columbia Pike in Arlington.”

  “Time?”

  “Table’s booked for seven o’clock.”

  “Putnam,” Sweetie said. She told him what they needed.

  The lawyer nodded, accessed his iPhone and booked another table for two at the restaurant.

  “Do we have to worry the tables might be in different rooms?” Sweetie asked.

  Welborn shook his head. “I swung by the place to take a look. It’s small. One room. Every table should be in view of every other table.”

  “Good. Let’s hope we can spoil Ms. Bao’s appetite,” Sweetie said. “Make sure you get the young lady to the restaurant five minutes late. We want to have the stage set when you arrive.”

  “Okay,” Welborn said.

  Sweetie detailed the plan as she’d conceived it. “It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes before Ms. Bao asks you to excuse her, Welborn. If necessary, act offended. In any case, put her in a cab, don’t drive her home. Your job is to shadow your man and make sure he stays safe. I’ll do the same with mine.”

  Turning to Deke, she said, “Is this where the plan takes a new direction and I should excuse myself?”

  Deke nodded. Sweetie gave him a look, gave them all a look. She wanted to rap their knuckles with a wooden ruler. But she left without another word.

  Putnam sighed as the door closed behind Sweetie. “I was getting so close.”

  “She’ll be back,” Welborn told him. “The good ones have staying power.”

  Kira liked that and kissed his cheek.

  Welborn asked Deke, “So, after you stole Ricky’s car, what did you find in it?”

  Arlington, VA

  36

  “Fuckin’ LoJack,” Ricky muttered as he backed away from the Corvette.

  After spending hours looking for a cool ride to steal, he was confronted by the harsh reality that he’d never get away with stealing the kind of car he wanted. Seemed every asshole who could afford 50K or more for his ride had installed some godzilla security system that would chew Ricky up and spit him out. If he tried to get over on one of those things, the cops would grab him before he got the car out of its parking space.

  It was demoralizing to think the straight world had gotten the upper hand on an enterprising young criminal like him. Fucking yuppie scum.

  Two prime examples of which were standing on the sidewalk out in front of a coffee shop up ahead of him. Two dudes with a bicycle. Pretty cool looking bike, if he wanted to be honest about it. Black, sleek, had the name Leopard on it. One guy was showing it to the other.

  The guy with the bike was all dressed up like he was going to compete in the Tour de France, right down to his yellow jersey. Only his hair was going gray and his belly bulged. Still thought he was cool, though. Ricky was close enough now to hear him tell the other guy he’d paid three thousand for the bike.

  Shit, 3K for a bike? Ricky might brag on that himself.

  Except Ricky remembered Bao’s sneering voice tell him, “Buy a bicycle.”

  He had the money to do just that, buy himself a black Leopard. But that would only confirm what a limp dick he was. Ricky had a better idea. Steal a bicycle. He blitzed the guy in the yellow jersey, knocked him on his ass and grabbed the bike in one motion. He was on it and gone in a heartbeat.

  Three grand bike for the straight world; free for him.

  Thing was, the other guy — who it hit Ricky now — was probably twenty years younger than Yellow Jersey, started chasing him. Ran pretty damn fast, too. If he knocked Ricky off the bike, he might draw out a scuffle long enough for the
cops to come.

  Time to give the hero something to think about. Ricky pulled his Custom Chris English knife and popped the blade open. Five inches long, as sharp as a scalpel, glistening in the sunlight. Ricky held it up where the guy chasing him couldn’t miss seeing it. He continued to pedal; the footsteps behind him slowed and fell back.

  Ricky got away, but it had been a close thing. Damn, he couldn’t even steal a bike without turning it into a nail-biter. He could almost hear Bao laughing at him. And right there was the problem: He was working for the wrong fucking guy. Bao was never going to teach him anything good. He’d just use Ricky for muscle, and someday when Ricky got popped by the cops, Bao would find another young guy who’d bow to him, work for small change, drive some bargain basement sedan, and not complain because he got his giggles scaring and hurting people.

  He needed a new mentor, someone who could teach him how to get past LoJack; someone who could teach him stuff that made money, like identity theft. Teach him all sorts of ways to get over on the straight world.

  He had to move on, but not on the damn bicycle he was riding. The yuppies he’d robbed had probably called in the theft already. He doubted either of them got a good look at him, but Yellow Jersey probably knew the bike’s serial number by heart. He rode into an alley, stopped halfway down, behind a house with a high white fence. The fence looked like it was made of plastic, but it didn’t have any openings. Good for privacy. Or hiding a stolen bike.

  Ricky listened for a minute, didn’t hear any sounds coming from anywhere nearby. He heaved the bike over the fence … and heard a splash. Jesus, he must have thrown the thing into a swimming pool. Which he immediately realized was a stroke of good luck.

  Dumbass that he’d been, he probably had left fingerprints all over the bike. Now, though, sitting at the bottom of a pool, he didn’t have to worry about that.

  He did a fast walk out of the alley, feeling better now. Things were turning his way. And he had an idea of just what he should do. Split for Southern California. Yeah. Nice weather. Big Viet Kieu community out there he could slide into and do his thing. Find somebody smart, close to his own age, to work for. Someone who’d never think of asking him to bow. Someone who’d set him up with a cool ride right off.