Phillip Margolin: Executive Privilege

Brad Miller woke up at 6 A.M. even though his meeting with Roy Kineer, the retired Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was scheduled for nine. He was too nervous to get back to sleep, so he went into the bathroom to get ready for the most important meeting of his life. Under normal circumstances Brad would have been anxious about being in the presence of an intellectual giant. Not so long ago, he had been reading Kineer’s landmark opinions in law school. But it wasn’t Kineer’s stature that made Brad’s hand shake as he shaved. What frightened him was the possibility that he was wrong, that he’d misinterpreted the evidence. And what if he was right?

Brad stared in the mirror at his half-shaved face. Nothing about his average looks or personal history was outstanding. He was twenty-six, with curly black hair, a straight nose, and clear blue eyes-not ugly but certainly not male model material. He was a fair athlete who was good enough to be the second best player on his college tennis team, but his athletic skills had never been championship caliber. Brad had done well enough in law school to make the Law Review, but he hadn’t won any other academic prizes, and he was employed as a junior associate in Oregon ’s largest law firm, which meant that he occupied the lowest rung on a very high ladder. Until today, he had been a fairly insignificant member of the human race. If he was right, he was about to become a key figure in the biggest political scandal in American history.

The sound of running water woke Dana Cutler, who never slept easily. It took her a moment to remember that she was in the FBI safe house and another moment to decide that there was no threat. Brad Miller was in the room next to hers, and he was probably taking a shower. While her breathing eased, Dana lost herself in the shadows that were shifting across the pale white ceiling. When she was calm she got out of bed.

Dana had been sleeping in a T-shirt and panties and she looked sexy until she took off the T-shirt, revealing the scars on her breasts and stomach. Plastic surgery and time had turned most of them into pale, oddly shaped souvenirs of something really bad. While she washed and dressed, Dana turned her thoughts to the meeting she would attend later this morning. She prayed that it would usher in a return to normalcy. She was tired of the violence, tired of being hunted; she longed for calm and quiet days.

Brad finished in the bathroom and dressed in his best suit. Before going downstairs, he pulled the shade aside and looked out the window of the safe house, which was separated from the woods by a wide field. The leaves were changing from green to vivid reds and yellows. The sky was clear, and the colors looked even more intense in the strong sunlight. Below his window, an agent was patrolling the grounds. The guard exhaled and his breath turned white in the chill fall air.

Brad turned away from the window and headed down to the kitchen. He had no appetite, but he knew he had to eat. He would need all of his energy when he met with Justice Kineer, who had come out of retirement to head up the investigation that was occupying the front page of every newspaper in the country. United States presidents had been suspected of sexual infidelities, financial schemes, and criminal activity, but no president had ever been the subject of a murder investigation while serving in office.

Brad didn’t recognize the agent who was making coffee on the kitchen counter. He must have come on duty after Brad went to sleep.

“Want some?” the agent asked, pointing at the pot.

“Yeah, thanks. What is there to eat?”

“There’s a full larder. Take your pick-eggs, bacon, cold cereal.”

Normally Brad was a pancake and omelet man, but he didn’t have much of an appetite this morning so he settled for a bowl of cold cereal and then carried a mug of coffee into the living room. He would have liked to get a breath of fresh air, but Keith Evans, the agent-in-charge, had instructed him and Dana Cutler to stay inside and away from the windows. Brad suddenly felt sick when it dawned on him that he’d made himself a perfect target for a sniper when he’d pulled aside the shade to look outside earlier.

“How’s the coffee?”

Brad turned and saw Dana descending the stairs. She was wearing a business suit, and it threw him. He had never seen her dressed up before.

“It’s good, strong,” he said. “I didn’t sleep so well last night and it’s just what I need.”

“I didn’t get much sleep either.”

“You should have something to eat before we go.”

Dana nodded and walked into the kitchen. Brad watched her. Even though they were on the same side, Dana made him nervous. He had grown up in a nice, middle-class family. Until the Clarence Little case entered his life, he had followed one of the approved middle-class routes through life-college, law school, employment in a good firm with plans for a family of his own and a house in the suburbs. There was no place in this design for acts of extreme violence, the exhumation of corpses, hanging out with serial killers, or trying to bring down the chief executive of the United States of America, things he’d been doing way too much of lately.

Brad heard the guard in the kitchen say good morning to Dana before walking toward the back of the house. Plates rattled on the kitchen table, Dana making something for breakfast. Brad knew for a fact that he wouldn’t be sitting in this house surrounded by armed guards if it weren’t for her. He would probably be in his broom closet-size office working on a memo for one of the partners concerning some minuscule aspect of a multimillion-dollar real estate closing. Of course, some would say that being bored to death was better than being dead for real.

Washington, D.C.

Two and a Half Months Earlier

Dana Cutler’s cell phone rang moments after Jake Teeny’s pickup disappeared around the corner and seconds after she closed the door of Jake’s house, where she was house-sitting while he was away on an assignment.

“Cutler?” a raspy voice asked as soon as Dana flipped open the phone.

“What’s up, Andy?” she asked.

Andy Zipay was an ex-cop who’d left the D.C. police force under a cloud a year before Dana had resigned for far different reasons. Dana had been one of the few cops who hadn’t shunned Zipay, and she’d sent business his way when he’d set up shop as a private investigator. Six months after her release from the hospital, Dana had told him that she wouldn’t mind working private if he had some overflow and the jobs were quiet. Zipay gave her assignments when he could, and she appreciated the fact that he had never asked her what had happened at the farm.

“You up for another job for Dale Perry?”

“Perry’s a pig.”

“True, but he liked the last job you did for him and he pays well.”

“What’s the deal?”

“A tail. It sounds like easy money. He needs someone right away and I have a full plate. You in or out?”

Dana’s bank account needed an infusion of cash. She sighed.

“Does he want me to come to his office?”