Phillip Margolin - Executive Privilege

Dana had lost her interest in current affairs during her stay in the mental hospital and had not rekindled it when she became an outpatient. She hadn’t voted in any election for some time, so a lot of the information that was common knowledge to the average voter was news to her. Dana read about Farrington’s rags-to-riches story and a biography of the first lady. After learning that Charles Hawkins had been with the president since his early days in Oregon politics she read his biography, too. The article about Hawkins contained a paragraph about his role as a witness in the trial of Clarence Little, who was accused of murdering the Farringtons’ teenage babysitter when the president was the governor of Oregon. She was just starting to read an account of the case when she heard the name of another teenager on the television.

“Miss Walsh is believed to be the latest victim of the D.C. Ripper, who has been terrorizing women in the D.C. area for over a year,” a newscaster was saying as the picture on the screen showed an alley filled with police personnel.

Dana was too stunned to work on the computer. As soon as she reentered her room she began pacing back and forth across the short strip of floor that ran between the bed and the dresser. She felt sick to her stomach and racked with guilt. Would Walsh still be alive if she had continued to follow her? Would she have been able to foil the attack by the Ripper?

When she was in the hospital, some of her fellow cops who visited had told her that they couldn’t imagine what she’d been through. Dana didn’t have to imagine what Charlotte Walsh had gone through. She’d been to the far side of terror and despair herself. The only difference between Walsh and herself was that Dana had survived the journey.

Another thought occurred to her, and she felt a chill. What if Walsh wasn’t a victim of the D.C. Ripper? Dana trembled, and she sat on the bed. She thought about everything that had happened to her and to Walsh and decided that there was no way this was a simple coincidence. Dana wasn’t buying Walsh as the random victim of a serial killer. Not when Dana had just escaped being the victim of a random burglary-rape-murder. Maybe the men in her apartment had been federal agents following orders from Farrington to get rid of anyone who knew about his affair. Not only did Dana know that the president had been with Walsh, but she also had photos that could prove it.

Dana took a deep breath and tried to calm down. The president couldn’t kill her as long as she had the pictures, but she knew his agents would stop at nothing to get her-or anyone who was helping her-to tell them where they were. The pictures were her only way out of this mess, and she could think of only one person who could negotiate her safety with the president. Dale Perry had gotten her into this mess, and he was going to get her out of it.

The chambers of the United States Senate were impressive but they were also small because only one hundred citizens of the United States were entitled to hold the office. Maureen Gaylord was one of them. Everyone who watched her stride across the Senate floor toward the podium was impressed by her poise and air of command. This impression had not been left to chance. Gaylord’s hairdresser had worked on her at home early this morning and a makeup artist had come to her office. The outrageously expensive suit she was wearing made her look businesslike but approachable. She knew this because this suit and several others had been paraded in front of a focus group earlier in the week, as had several versions of the speech she was about to deliver.

Senator Gaylord, a former Miss Ohio, was a wholesome-looking brunette who had used the scholarship money from several beauty pageants to finance a degree in business at Ohio State and a law degree from Penn. She’d grown up as trailer trash, which gave her credibility with the common folk, her years as an attorney for a major corporation worked for conservatives, and her Ivy League credentials played well with intellectuals. Gaylord was a political everywoman who was wily enough to avoid committing to the right or the left but duplicitous enough to make those who approached her believe she was on their side.

The president pro tempore of the Senate gaveled the chamber to order, and Maureen stared into the television cameras. There weren’t many people in the gallery that hung over the Senate floor but there were plenty of media representatives in attendance, and that was all that counted.

“I am standing today in the most august deliberative chamber in the world thanks to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Six months ago, a homegrown group of radical Islamists calling themselves the Army of the Holy Jihad conceived a despicable plan to attack the office buildings of the United States Senate with enough explosives to inflict massive casualties. One of the offices that would have been destroyed was mine. If it had not been for the brilliant work on the part of the Bureau these evil men might have succeeded. The fact that these deluded maniacs were willing to attempt such a brazen act highlights the absolute necessity of giving as much support as possible to the gallant men and women who risk their lives daily so that we may live our lives in freedom.

“I am proud to be a cosponsor of the American Protection Act, which will greatly add to the weapons the Bureau, Homeland Security, the CIA, and other groups on the frontlines of the war on terror presently possess. Some people have carped about various provisions of this act. One complaint I find especially galling is that which has to do with the profiling, investigation, and possible internment of Arabs living in or visiting the United States, including citizens of Arab descent. Those who complain about these important provisions of the act have let political correctness blind them to reality. With few exceptions the perpetrators worldwide of acts of atrocity have been Arabs, and some of these Arabs, like the Army of the Holy Jihad, have been the homegrown variety. They have reaped the benefits of democracy and capitalism while spitting in the face of those who educated and protected them and gave them opportunities few other countries give to their citizens.

“Yes, a few may suffer unjustly if this act is passed, but if we are going to protect our citizens, sacrifices must be made in this age of suicide bombers and terrorists unfettered by the laws of common decency. Our wonderful justice system can be counted on to correct most of these injustices, but our great American political and judicial systems must be protected so they may continue to help the United States remain the greatest country on Earth.”

Senator Gaylord spoke about various sections of the bill for forty more minutes then held a press conference before walking back to the Russell Senate Office Building through one of the underground passages that connected the Capitol to her office. She could have taken the subway, whose small, open-top cars reminded her of a Disneyland ride, but Gaylord preferred to walk so she could have some quiet time. Some supplicant for some special interest took up almost every minute of her day, and her greatest gift to herself was her rare moments of solitude.

Gaylord knew that the American Protection Act had no chance of passing, but her defense of the act had solidified her support among the conservatives in her party. She was also certain that Christopher Farrington was going to condemn the bill, which would give her a chance to paint him as soft on terrorism. The president was so wishy-washy on so many issues that the label had a chance of sticking. Incumbent presidents were usually hard to defeat, but Farrington hadn’t won his position. She didn’t even think of him as a president. He was a political hack who was merely saving her place in the line of succession. Without the mantle of the presidency, Maureen knew that Farrington wouldn’t stand a chance against her, and she was convinced that she could strip away the cloak that was concealing his true worth from his shoulders and expose his inadequacy to the world. By the time Senator Gaylord walked through the door of her office she was feeling righteous and self-confident and ready to do whatever was necessary to pound Christopher Farrington into dog meat.