Allan Folsom - The Machiavelli Covenant

Immediately afterward he placed calls to Vice President Hamilton Rogers, Secretary of State David Chaplin, Secretary of Defense Terrence Langdon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chester Keaton, and Presidential Chief of Staff Tom Curran. The conversations had been terse and exceedingly brief. In them he demanded that each man present his resignation to the speaker of the house by fax within the hour. Failing that, he would be fired immediately. Further, he demanded they present themselves at the U.S. embassy in London no later than noon tomorrow to be taken into custody and charged with high treason against the government and people of the United States. Last, he called the director of the FBI in Washington to inform him of what had happened and direct him to take United States Congresswoman Jane Dee Baker, who was traveling with the vice president in Europe, and expatriate U.S. citizen Evan Byrd, residing in Madrid, quietly into custody and charge them with the same crime, urging precaution against suicide.

After that he had walked the length of the Chinook to confer with the doctors on the condition of both José and Demi, then spent a few moments with them both and come back to share a cup of coffee with Hap and Marten before moving off to a bunk, a medical litter really, to sleep. As he left he touched briefly on the speech he would give at Auschwitz. What he would say, what it would entail, he hadn't yet decided but it was something he hoped would be as fitting to what had happened and to what they had uncovered, as the hallowed ground on which he had chosen to deliver it. He had retired to his room to work on the speech almost immediately after their arrival at Spangdahlem.

Marten rolled over again. In the distance he could hear the roar and rumble of fighter jets taking off, which he gathered was an on-going situation that one got used to. Spangdahlem was the home of the 52nd Fighter Wing, which oversaw twenty-four-hour deployments of U.S. fighter aircraft around the world.

Demi.

She had come to him little more than an hour into their flight in the Chinook. The doctors had treated her burns and mildly sedated her, then put her in a hospital gown and suggested she sleep. Instead she had asked to sit with him and the doctors had let her. For a long time she had simply stared off at nothing. Her crying had stopped but her eyes were still filled with tears. Tears, he felt, that were no longer born out of fear and horror but rather out of sheer relief, maybe even disbelief, that it was over.

Why she had wanted to sit with him he didn't know, nor did she say. His sense was that she wanted to talk to him but didn't quite know what to say or how to put it, or that maybe at this point the physical effort itself was too great. Finally she turned and her eyes locked on his.

"It was my mother, not my sister. She disappeared from the streets of Paris when I was eight years old and my father died very soon afterward," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. "I have been trying to find out what happened to her ever since. Now I know I loved her very much and I know… she… loved… me…" The tears welled up and ran down her cheeks. He started to say something but she stopped him. "Are you alright?"

"Yes."

She tried to smile. "I'm very sorry for what I did to you. To you and to the president."

He put a hand to her face and gently wiped the tears away. "It's alright," he whispered, "it's alright. We're okay now. We're all okay."

At that moment she reached up and took his hand in hers and held it. Still holding it she leaned back, and he saw exhaustion overtake her. A moment later she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

Marten watched her for a moment and then turned away, certain that if he didn't he would start weeping himself. The feeling was not just a release of emotion from what they had been through but for something else.

Over cava and lunch at the Four Cats in Barcelona Demi had asked him about Caroline and why he had followed Foxx, first to Malta and then to Spain. When he'd told her she'd half smiled and said, "Then you are here because of love."

Now he realized she had been talking as much about herself and her mother as she was referring to himself and Caroline. They had both done what they had because of love.

That was the thing here as she slept beside him, physically and emotionally wounded, dressed in a hospital gown and holding his hand. The closeness, the intimacy, was an all-but-unbearable reminder of Caroline at the hospital in Washington as she slept with her hand in his during the last hours of her life.

Demi he had known for little more than a week. Caroline he had loved most all of his life.

And still did.

• 6:10 A.M.

A knock on Marten's door woke him from deep sleep. A second knock brought him around.

"Yes," he said with no idea where he was.

The door opened and the president came in alone and closed the door behind him. "Sorry to wake you," he said quietly.

"What is it?" Marten got up on an elbow. "Cousin Jack" was still without his hairpiece and still wore the nonprescription eyeglasses he'd bought in Madrid to help change his appearance. To this moment no one, unless they had been alerted and were looking, would recognize him as John Henry Harris, president of the United States. That he wore a pair of borrowed, ill-fitting light blue pajamas wouldn't have done much to clue them in either.

"We're leaving for the NATO meeting at Auschwitz in an hour. Taking the Chinook."

Marten threw back the covers and got out of bed. "Then this is it, the formal good-bye."

"Not good-bye at all. I want you to come with me, to be there when I give my speech."

"Me?"

"Yes."

"Mr. President, that's your stage not mine. I was planning to go home to Manchester. I've got a lot of work to catch up on. That is, if I haven't been fired."

The president smiled. "I'll write you a note. 'Nicholas Marten couldn't come to work last week because he was saving the world.'"

"Mr. President, I…" He hesitated, uncomfortable with what he had to say and unsure not only how to put it, but how it would be taken. "I can't be seen with you in public. There will be too many people, too many cameras. It's not just me. I have a sister living in Switzerland, I can't risk putting her in… danger…" his voice trailed off.

The president studied him. "Someone's trying to find you."

"Yes."

"What Foxx said about you once being a policeman. Were you?"

Marten hesitated; almost no one knew who he really was, but if he couldn't trust this man now, there was no one anywhere he could trust. "Yes," he said finally, "Los Angeles Police Department. I was a homicide investigator. I was involved in a situation where most of my squad were killed."

"Why?"

"I was asked to kill a prisoner in custody. I refused. It went against the credo of the squad. A few veteran detectives wanted to even the score. I changed my name, my identity and the name and identity of my sister. I wanted nothing more to do with law enforcement or violence. We left the U.S. and started another life."

"This would have been about six years ago."

Marten was amazed. "How would you know that?"

"The time frame fits. Red McClatchy."

"What?" Marten suddenly perked.

"Commander of the legendary 5-2 Squad. Half the population of California knew what it was and who he was. I met him once when I was a senator. The mayor invited me to his funeral."

"I was his partner when he was killed."

"The detectives blame you."

"For that and the rest of it. The 5-2 was disbanded afterward."

"So at this point none of them know your name or where you live or what you do."

"They keep trying to find me on the Internet. They have their own Web site for cops around the world. At least once a month they put out a query asking if anyone's seen me, playing it as if I were a lost friend and they want to know where I can be found. Nobody knows what they're really up to except me and them. It's bad enough for me but I don't want them going after my sister."