Lewis Cole: Primary Storm Part 26

"So far, you haven't threatened me with arrest. Or anything else. We're having an adult, intelligent conversation. No mention of Harmon and the senator's wife conspiring either to have him killed or to lose the election. All the while using me as their handy-dandy nut with a grudge."

Reynolds held his hands together in his lap. "That's sheer speculation and idle chitchat, Mr. Cole, and you know it. If Harmon and his friend do face the music, it will be on violating federal firearms and explosives statutes, and probably homicide, if we're lucky and we find the right evidence."

"Homicide?"

"Of course. Mr. Jewett's companion, Carla, claims that Mr. Jewett killed his cousin, one William Spenser Harrison, aka Spenser Harris, just a few days ago. Carla wants a deal before saying anything else about the circ.u.mstances or location of his death, and right now, it's in the lawyers' hands. Which is fine. We don't like people pretending to be Secret Service agents, and since it looks like this fake Secret Service agent met a demise that he so richly deserved, I'm quite content to let others take care of matters."

"I see."

Reynolds said, "You wouldn't happen to know where Mr. Harris is currently located, would you?"

I said carefully, "I've not spoken to him since that day before the attempted a.s.sa.s.sination."

"So you say."

I changed the subject and said, "What about Barbara Hale?"

"The senator's wife?" he said. "I imagine that she will be traveling apart from the senator during the rest of this campaign ... and I also imagine that her movements, conversations, phone calls, and e-mails will be strictly observed just to make sure that any future unpleasantness doesn't occur."

"The senator ... he knows?"

"Of course."

"And ... "

"What do you think?" Reynolds asked. "At this moment, do you think he's going to dump everything to try to have her arrested? Be real, Mr. Cole. He's within a few months of getting his party's nomination. If that means believing that his wife is slightly unbalanced, and that she and her troubles can be kept under wraps and control ... well, that's what's going to happen."

The room seemed to vibrate just a bit, as if something were about to spin free and shatter, and I guess it was just a reaction to my deep-January swim. I shivered suddenly and pulled the thick blankets closer to me.

"So it's a cover-up. Why's that?"

Now Reynolds smiled. "Cover-up is such a loaded phrase. We prefer ... we prefer a reality check."

"A what?"

"Reality check. And the reality is ... well, I know a bit about your background, Mr. Cole, which is why we're having this kind of conversation. In your previous life you had a very high security clearance. That's why I think I can trust you with what you said earlier, about having an adult conversation."

"Go on," I said.

"For the past several years and campaign cycles, the Secret Service has become a modern-day Praetorian Guard. We've been putting our elected officials in a safe, quiet bubble, where never is there a disquieting word to be heard. We've been on our way to losing our professionalism, and becoming just another part of the political process. You know, the sane, non-corrupted, non-cynical political process that makes this country so great and admired."

"I see," I said.

He shook his head. "We got a new administrator two years ago. And he put the word down. We were going back to our roots, as a protective force. We weren't going to be adjuncts of an administration or a campaign. We were going to serve and protect. That's it. Mr. Cole, you served some time in government. What's the worst thing that any government agency fears?"

I thought about that for a moment, and was going to say budget cutbacks, when something else came to mind. "Public humiliation or embarra.s.sment."

He gently clapped his hands together. "Exactly. Embarra.s.sment, which leads to headlines and news stories and the death of a thousand cuts from the news media and the Internet."

I thought it over and said, "So ... the public release of information from the Secret Service that the wife of a leading presidential candidate is having an affair with a political operative in the campaign, and who may have a role in the shooting attempt on the senator himself ... that's not going to happen, is it?"

"Not from us," he said. "You're a bright fellow. Imagine the uproar that would cause. The day before the New Hampshire primary, having a story like that make the front pages of all the newspapers and every minute of every cable show. We'd be accused of trying to influence the election. Of favoring one candidate over another. Of being the power behind the throne of whoever might become the next president." Reynolds shook his head. "Not going to happen, not this time."

I said, "By keeping quiet, you can be accused of the same thing."

"Maybe so. But we keep quiet about a lot of things. About which presidential candidate's spouse has a drinking problem. Which presidential candidate has a fondness for bis.e.xual p.o.r.nography. Or which child of which candidate has a problem of a.s.saulting women. Not our job to make that stuff public. So here we are."

I was feeling warmer, though my right knee was throbbing like the proverbial son of a b.i.t.c.h. "So here we are," I said. "Is this the point in time when you tell me to keep my mouth shut, or else?"

Reynolds smiled and said, "No. It isn't the time. Not sure if that moment will ever come, no matter how many bad movies you've seen or bad books you've read. But it is the time when I tell you it's your choice to do what you will about what happened to you. And that you should think carefully about the choice you make."

"How's that?"

He said, "In a manner of minutes, I'm going to leave this room, Mr. Cole. A doctor is going to come in to give you a final check-over. The room is yours for the night, if you'd like. And after I leave, you can do whatever you want. Stay here. Depart. Call up CNN and tell them everything you know ... However ... "

"Yes?"

"What you need to think about is this," Reynolds said. "You have it in your power to destroy or damage the candidacy of Senator Jackson Hale. You. And it's up to you to decide if it's worth it ... for some sense of justice or getting back at a woman who apparently used you and betrayed you. For what it's worth, a fair number of people want Hale in the White House. Do you want to keep that away from them?"

"I don't know," I said. "But if I do talk, it'll make things h.e.l.l for you, won't it."

"We've been through h.e.l.l before. Like November 1963. We'd survive. Question for you ... I know you like your privacy. Would you survive?"

I looked at that professional face, the face of a man sworn to throw his body in front of an a.s.sa.s.sin's bullet for a man or woman who might not even be worth it. Some sort of man, some sort of dedication.

I burrowed back into my blankets.

"Sure, I'd survive," I said. "But there's more to everything than survival."

Reynolds stood up. "Ain't that the truth." He reached inside his coat pocket, took out a business card and pa.s.sed it over. "Here you go. My card. Business and cell phone and home phone numbers ... call me if I can do you a favor, or something."

I looked at the card and said, "How about now?"

He shrugged. "Sure. Go ahead."

"My ... my friend Annie. She's involved with the Hale campaign. I want to make sure that ... well, if Barbara Hale can't get at her husband, I want to make sure that nothing bad happens to Annie."

A quick nod. "Sure. I'll make sure it happens. Anything else?"

"Not at the moment."

He started for the door. "If that's the case, Mr. Cole, well, it's been a bit of an adventure getting to know you. Look forward to the adventure ending tonight."

"Back to Boston?"

"I wish. Off to South Carolina, for the next stop on this crazy trip we call choosing a president."

d.a.m.n. I turned and looked at a small digital clock on the nightstand and the coldness returned and I said, "That time right? Is it really that late?"

"Sure is," he said, now at the door, "and I've got to get going." So he left and I looked at the clock again. It was just past 9 P.M. I was supposed to have met Annie Wynn, in Room 110, more than four hours earlier.

I picked up the phone at my side --- and, by the way, confirmed that I was at the Lafayette House ---- and called her cell phone. Went directly into voice mail. I left a long and heartfelt message, and then I called home to check messages on my answering machine. Eight messages, all reminding me to vote tomorrow.

None from Annie.

I called her cell phone again.

And went straight to voice mail again.

d.a.m.n.

There was a knock on the door and I called out, "Coming!" thinking that maybe some magic had been worked, that Annie was here to see me, but no, no such luck on this cursed day. I went to the door and opened it and a sour-looking man in an ill-fitting brown suit said, "Mr. Cole? Frank Higgins, on contract with the Secret Service. I'm here to see that you're breathing and all that."

He looked me up and down. "And I can tell that you're at least doing that."

I went back inside the room. "Nice diagnosis, so far."

"Yeah, well, the night's still young."

About a half hour later, I was hobbling my way through the lobby of the Lafayette House, my right knee in a brace, leaning on a metal cane, the metal cold and uncomfortable in my stiff fingers. The lobby was crowded with all sorts of campaign people, press types and the usual hangers-on, some pa.s.sing out press kits or leaflets, grabbing almost everyone and anyone trying to get his or her message out before the big day tomorrow.

I went past the gift shop and then made my way in, looking for a familiar or friendly face, and found neither. There was a young woman I didn't recognize behind the counter, dressed in black and with a hoop through her left nostril, leafing through a copy of Rolling Stone magazine that had a nightmarish cover depicting all of the candidates currently traipsing through my home state.

I went up to her and said, "Is Stephanie off tonight?"

She looked at me and said, "Hunh?"

"Stephanie Suss.e.x. The gift shop manager. Where is she?"

"Oh," the young woman said, flipping through another page.

"She don't work here no more."

It was like I was back in the ocean again. "What?"

"She don't work here no more. I guess she got fired."

"Fired? Why?"

She shrugged. "Heard she p.i.s.sed off the boss. Which isn't hard to do, if you know what I mean."

I said, "I do. I really do."

d.a.m.n. I turned around. What a perfect way to end a perfectly miserable day.

Chapter Nineteen.

Getting home was challenging, with my b.u.m knee and the rubber-tipped metal cane slipping on the snow and ice. Usually, the sight of my home at night is welcoming. Seeing that small place of refuge and comfort by the water's edge after the past forty-eight hours I had just experienced should have cheered me up, but it didn't. It looked dark and brooding and I thought that if it wasn't for my hurting knee, I would have turned around and gone back up to the hotel, to take Agent Reynolds up on his offer for the free stay.

But instead I made my way inside, checked again for messages --- none --- and turned up the heat. I poured myself a big gla.s.s of Bordeaux and stretched out on the couch, wincing at the pain, pulling a down comforter over myself. I called Annie three more times on her cell phone. The phone wasn't picked up, not once.

I drank my wine and if I had had the energy, I would have built a fire, but the energy just wasn't there. To torture myself, I guess, I turned on the television and went through the various cable channels, catching the headlines of the evening, a few hours before the start of the New Hampshire primary. The campaigners were scrambling and the polls were in disarray --- not one of them agreeing with another --- and I saw just one thing that made me smile, a story that Senator Nash Pomeroy was trying hard to kill: the junior senator from Ma.s.sachusetts was about to drop out of the race over the next several weeks. The spokesmen and spokeswomen for Senator Pomeroy seemed halfhearted in their denials of the story, which had been first reported in a small newspaper based in Tyler, New Hampshire, and later broadcast across the world.

Good job, Paula, I thought, thinking that here at least was one place where I hadn't carpet -bombed to dust my relationship with someone dear to me.

I finished off the wine and pulled the comforter up and watched television until I fell asleep.

The phone call from a woman came late that night, just before midnight.

I scrambled some in the darkness on the couch, reached the phone and put it on my chest and said, "h.e.l.lo?"

"Lewis?"

A woman's voice, but one I didn't recognize. "Yeah. Who's this?"

"Lewis, my name is Angie Hawley. I'm an a.s.sistant for Barbara Hale, Senator Jackson Hale's wife."

I rubbed my eyes in the darkness. "Good for you. Must be a h.e.l.l of a job."

She ignored my little editorial comment and said, "I have something I need to pa.s.s along to you."

"You do? What's that?"

"Mrs. Hale wants to --- "

"Wait."

I sat up, rubbed my eyes again.

Sir?" she asked. "Are you there?"

"Yeah. Hold on. Are you telling me that you have a statement for me? From Barbara Hale?"

"Well, it's not really a statement, it's more like a --- "Wait, just one more time. Is she there?"

"No, it's just me."

"So she doesn't want to talk to me one-on-one. She wants you to read a statement to me. Am I right?"

She stopped, like she was trying to figure out how to appease me, and she said, "Partially right, sir. But-"

I said, "Sorry, not interested," and I hung up.