Mike Lawson - House Divided

That was the last thing I did for Charles Bradford. Thomas, I don’t have the strength to tell you about all the soul-searching I’ve been through. I don’t have the strength or the time. I don’t regret most of the things I did for Charles, but he’s becoming more aggressive, more impatient. He’s not giving the government sufficient time to deal with problems before he takes action, and I’m afraid he’s going to make more mistakes like he did with Piccard.

I met with Charles two days ago and told him he had to resign before I died. I felt I had to give him the opportunity. I still admire him and I don’t want to see him disgraced, but I told him if he didn’t resign he’d be exposed. The truth is, I don’t want to expose him, because I sincerely believe that doing so would be bad for the country. I also don’t want him exposed for frankly selfish reasons. I don’t want my wife and girls to know what I’ve done. Thomas, I know you have the courage to stop him and if you must go public with this information, so be it, but I’m hoping you won’t. And God forgive me for what I’ve done.

When the recording finished, Dillon just sat there, rubbing his chin, looking at the Picasso on the wall as if waiting for Pablo to comment.

“So what do we do with this?” Claire said.

Dillon looked away from the painting. “I don’t know, but I agree with General Breed. It’s not in the nation’s best interest to go public with this information. Even though Bradford may have acted on his own, the fact that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in collusion with another American general, took it upon himself to kill a number of prestigious foreigners is not something we want the world to know.”

“So what do we do?” Claire asked again.

“I’ve been in meetings with Charles Bradford a number of times. He’s arrogant, caustic, impatient, ruthless-and brilliant. After Saddam Hussein was overthrown, he wanted to do what MacArthur did in Japan after World War II and run Iraq as its de facto president until he was able to place the right Iraqi politicians in power and restructure their government. I think if the White House had listened to him, we wouldn’t be mired down in the country the way we are today.”

“Well, MacArthur may have been his role model, but even MacArthur didn’t do the kind of things Bradford’s done,” Claire said.

“I don’t know what General MacArthur did,” Dillon said. “All I know is that Charles Bradford is one of those soldiers-and I’m sure he’s not alone-who believes that civilians, including Congress and the president, should have no say in matters of national defense. He thinks the Pakistanis got it right, when Musharraf was both the president and the chief of the army over there.”

“We need to make a decision, Dillon.”

“And the way he uses the tomb guards. As I’m sure you know, before Bradford got his first star, he briefly commanded the Third Infantry Regiment. He must have realized at the time what an asset those soldiers could be. It was like you said, Claire, they’re the sort of zealots-or patriots-Bradford could use as assassins, and those young men would have no idea that what they were doing was illegal.”

Before Claire could ask him again what they should do, Dillon said, “How many incidents were mentioned on that recording?”

“Thirteen. It sounded like the first one happened in February 2002.”

“So nine/eleven was probably the catalyst, the same as it was for us, but Bradford took a more direct approach than we did. If an individual appeared to be a significant national security threat, and if he could penetrate that person’s security, he eliminated him. He wasn’t going to stand by and let the politicians fail to deal with the next Osama.”

“One of those people he killed was a Chinese politician!” Claire said. “He could have started a damn war. Is he insane?”

“The Chinese politician was a financial terrorist,” Dillon said. “He was bent on destroying our economy. But to answer your question, I believe Charles Bradford is completely sane. He did nothing for personal gain, and he doesn’t appear to have some mad delusion like overthrowing the president and becoming absolute ruler of the country. He obviously doesn’t want credit for what he’s doing, so he’s not doing this for glory or to go down in the history books as the country’s savior. As misguided as he may be, Bradford considers himself a patriot. Throughout his career, he’s seen soldiers’ lives wasted because politicians didn’t have the courage or the foresight to deal directly and quickly with obvious threats to the country, and he finally decided he had to act-just as we did.”

“Yeah, but still-” Claire started to say.

“And, unfortunately, that recording is not enough to remove Charles Bradford from his position, much less send him to jail.”

“You’ve gotta be-”

“There’s no proof that Bradford ever ordered Breed to do anything.” Pointing at the recorder on his desk, Dillon added, “What you have there are the ramblings of a dying man, a man with cancer eating away his brain, his blood full of morphine and God knows what else. Not exactly an iron-clad case.”

“So, for the third damn time, Dillon, what do you want to do?” Claire said.

Dillon walked over to the window and stared down at the street below. There was some sort of security drill in progress, or at least he thought it was a drill. A group of men in SWAT gear had surrounded a delivery van and were aiming their weapons at it. But maybe it wasn’t a drill. These were dangerous times.

“About Charles Bradford, I don’t know,” Dillon said. “I need some time to think about that. What I want to do right now is figure out who directed the hit against Russo. If we can identify that man we may be able to use him against Bradford.”

“That’s what I was planning to do with DeMarco,” Claire said.

“Yes. Mr. DeMarco,” Dillon said. He paused a moment, then added, “Here’s what I want you to do, Claire. Make a copy of that recording but then modify it, just a bit. I want…”

When he finished speaking, Claire said, “I’m not too sure how smart this is, Dillon.”

“Nor am I, my dear, nor am I.”

“Mr. DeMarco, this is Anthony McGuire. Uh, Paul’s friend.”

“Yeah?” DeMarco said. “What can I do for you?” The last thing he was in the mood for was dealing with McGuire.

“Well, I remembered something,” McGuire said. “Something that may-uh, tell you where Paul hid whatever he hid.”

Claire patted the impersonator on the shoulder. “Good job,” she said. “You got that perfect. I particularly liked the little catch in your voice when you said Paul.”

“Uh, thanks,” the impersonator said. Claire Whiting scared the hell out of him.

“Now go work on the DeMarco voice some more. I don’t think we’re gonna need it now, but I want you to be ready, which you’re not quite yet.”

DeMarco was seated in a pew near the stained-glass window depicting St. John of God. McGuire had called him while a guy from Home Depot was installing his new back door, but after the guy finished he decided to go to the church, because the contractor he’d called to give him an estimate on the cost to repair his kitchen couldn’t come until tomorrow. The reason he’d asked the contractor to give him an estimate was because the insurance company claims adjuster was offering to settle for about one half of what DeMarco figured it would take to make things right.

McGuire had said that Paul always made a big deal out of the St. John of God window because St. John was the patron saint of nurses and Paul, being a nurse, always mentioned it whenever he and McGuire attended mass together. McGuire wasn’t sure Paul had hidden anything near the window, but he said that might be a good place for DeMarco to look.