William Krueger - The Devil's bed

Not for him, that responsibility. Better, he told himself, to be alone.

The phone rang.

“Bo, it’s Kate.” Her voice on the other end was feathery and sad.

“Hi.”

“I’m sorry about this afternoon. I know I rushed away.”

“That’s okay. Understandable. Are you going out to D.C.?”

“Just for the funeral. I’m coming back the same day. I want to stay here until I’m sure my father’s out of the woods.” She breathed a heavy sigh. “Know what Dad wants to do first thing when he comes home, Bo? He wants us to watch the moon rise over the St. Croix, all of us together. Isn’t that just like him? You’re welcome to be there, you know.”

“Thanks. I’ll think about it.”

The line fell silent. Bo desperately grabbed at something to say.

“Maybe I’ll see you in D.C.”

“Honestly, I doubt it, Bo.”

He’d said all the inane things he could think of. It was time to say good-bye, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go of the sound of her voice, couldn’t stop hoping that he could make himself say something that was true.

“I’d better go,” she said.

“Take care,” he said.

“You, too.”

She hung up and left Bo still searching for words that never seemed to come to him when he needed them most.

Just after 10:00A.M., Bo checked into his hotel room in Washington, D.C. As he hung his slacks and blazer in the closet, someone knocked on his door. He opened up to find a tall, attractive woman with long chestnut hair. She stood in the hallway outside his room holding a brown, leather briefcase. It took him a moment to place the face.

“Ms. Channing,” he said, unable to hide completely his surprise.

“Good morning, Agent Thorsen. May I come in?”

Bo stood away from the door and allowed her to enter. They shook hands, and she glanced around the room. Her gaze settled on one of the two chairs bathed in the sunlight pouring through the window.

“May I sit down?”

“Please do.”

Channing sat, then indicated with a look and a nod that Bo should take the other chair.

“I’m surprised you knew who I am,” she said.

“Good memory for faces. Something I work at. Yours isn’t hard to remember.”

She leaned forward. “Bo Harold Thorsen. You’ve been with Secret Service fourteen years. Postings in New York, D.C., London, San Francisco, Miami, and Minneapolis. One citation for merit and another in the works. Expectations that you would go places. Four years ago you put in for a transfer to a small field office in the Midwest, a move most observers of your career considered a dead end.”

She paused here expectantly, as if awaiting an explanation.

Bo said, “I didn’t see it as an end. I still don’t. I just wanted to come home.”

Channing reached down to the briefcase she’d settled at his feet and took from it a rolled newspaper that she dropped on the floor between them. Bo saw that it was theNational Enquirerwith the photograph of him and the First Lady on the front.

“When you saved Kate Dixon’s life, was it duty?”

“Does it matter?”

“It may.”

“It was my job, but I’d have done it even if it weren’t.”

Channing studied him. “You impressed the president when he met you at the hospital after the incident.”

“We spoke only a few minutes.”

“Sometimes the measure of a man takes only a handshake. Or so the president believes.” Channing picked up the tabloid and put it back in her briefcase. “You’re going to have lunch with him in a couple of hours. But lunch isn’t the reason you’re here, Agent Thorsen. The president is going to ask a favor of you. A rather large favor. He’d like you to know what it is in advance so that you have time to consider before giving him an answer. Before I go any further, however, I need your word that whatever we discuss here, regardless of your decision, will remain between us. You must say nothing to anyone.”

“You have my word.”

To Bo, what he’d just given was the most important measure of who he was and, with the exception of his heart, was as near to sacred as anything he could offer. Nonetheless, Lorna Channing spent a long moment considering him before she went on.

“The president believes that Robert Lee’s death wasn’t an accident. He’d like you to look into it.”

“That’s the FBI’s jurisdiction.”

“Normally, yes. But the president feels there’s reason to believe his own security may be at risk.”

“Rich Thielman is in charge of the president’s security.”

“Technically, this investigation falls outside Agent Thielman’s purview. In fact, the president wants no one to know about his suspicions except you.”

“With all the media coverage since the Wildwood incident, I’m not exactly an ideal candidate for undercover work right now.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you do have a forgettable face.” Channing paused a moment to see if Bo might object. When he made no comment, she went on. “The president’s less concerned with the public nature of your profile than he is with your integrity and ability. He wants very much for you to accept this assignment.”

“Assignment? This isn’t exactly occurring through official channels.”

“You’re on medical leave. Your time is your own, is it not?”

“I know D.C.,” Bo said. “It won’t be long after I’ve asked a few questions that anyone who cares will be on to me.”

“Then you’ll have to come up with answers quickly.”

“I’d like to think it over.”

“Of course. That’s why the President sent me.” Channing stood, took up her briefcase, and went to the door. “I hardly need to remind you, Agent Thorsen, that if the President is correct, one man has already been killed in his service. Think about it carefully. We’ll see you at lunch.”

This was not Bo’s first visit to the White House. He’d been there many times when he was assigned to the Dignitary Protective Division during his years in Washington. Nor was Clay Dixon the first president to shake his hand. However, dining with the president was a first.

He was ushered into the Oval Office. As Bo came in, the president stood up, stepped from behind his desk, and extended his hand.

“Thank you for coming, Agent Thorsen. Is it all right if I call you Bo?”

“That would be fine, sir.”

Dixon’s hand was huge and strong. Bo could easily imagine a football nestled firmly in that grasp.

“How are you feeling? Recovered from your wounds?”

“A little sore now and then.”

The president smiled and nodded his head. “Every morning when I get out of bed I have to pop things back into place that got knocked out playing ball. I know about sore.” He indicated a door to Bo’s left.

“Lunch is ready. Shall we eat?”

They were served by a navy steward in the president’s private dining room just off the Oval Office.

“I hope you like fish,” Clay Dixon said. “It’s Chilean sea bass.”

“I understand the White House kitchen staff works miracles with everything.”

The president laughed. “So you don’t like fish. Honest but diplomatic. An admirable combination for D.C. I wish there were more of it here, especially the honest part.”

“I lived and worked in the capital for a lot of years. I know men and women here honest to a fault. On the other hand, not one of them is a politician. The sea bass is excellent, by the way.”

The president sipped from a glass of mineral water. “I understand the First Lady and my daughter had a wonderful time playing football with you yesterday.”

“You have a fine family, sir.”

“Thank you. I think so, too. If I recall correctly, you were adopted, yes?”