Дэвид Балдаччи - Absolute Power

The President’s eyes came in and out of focus. Collin rubbed his neck. He was coming around. Russell glanced at her watch. Two o’clock in the morning. They had to get back. She slapped his face, not hard, but enough to get his attention. She felt Collin stiffen. God these guys had tunnel vision.

“Alan, did you have sex with her?”

“Wha...”

“Did you have sex with her?”

“Wha... No. Don’t think so. Don’t remem...”

“Give him some more coffee, pour it down his damned throat if you have to, but get him sober.” Collin nodded and went to work. Russell walked over to Burton, whose gloved hands were dexterously examining every inch of the late Mrs. Sullivan.

Burton had been involved in numerous police investigations. He knew exactly what detectives looked for and where they looked for it. He never imagined himself using that specialized knowledge to inhibit an investigation, but then he had never imagined anything like this ever happening either.

He looked around the room, his mind calculating which areas would need to be gone over, what other rooms they had used. They could do nothing about the marks on the woman’s throat and other microscopic physical evidence that was no doubt imbedded in her skin. The medical examiner would pick those up regardless of what they tried to do. However, none of those things could be realistically traced to the President unless the police identified the President as a suspect, which was pretty much beyond the realm of possibility.

The incongruity of attempted strangulation of a small woman with death caused by gunshot was something they would have to leave to the police’s imagination.

Burton turned his attention back to the deceased and started to carefully slide her underwear up her legs. He felt a tap on his shoulder.

“Check her.”

Burton looked up. He started to say something.

“Check her!” Russell’s eyebrows were arched. Burton had seen her do that a million times with the White House staff. They were all terrified of her. He wasn’t afraid of her, but he was smart enough to cover his ass whenever she was around. He slowly did as he was told. Then he positioned the body exactly as it had fallen. He reported back with a single shake of his head.

“Are you sure?” Russell looked unconvinced, although she knew from her interlude with the President that chances were he had not entered the woman, or that if he had he hadn’t finished. But there might be traces. It was scary as hell, the things they could determine these days from the tiniest specimens.

“I’m not a goddamned ob-gyn. I didn’t see anything and I think I would have, but I don’t carry a microscope around with me.”

Russell would have to let that one go. There was still a lot to do and not much time.

“Did Johnson and Varney say anything?”

Collin looked over from where the President was ingesting his fourth cup of coffee. “They’re wondering what the hell’s going on, if that’s what you mean.”

“You didn’t te—”

“I told them what you said to tell them and that’s all, ma’am.” He looked at her. “They’re good men, Ms. Russell. They’ve been with the President since the campaign. They’re not going to do anything to mess things up, okay?”

Russell rewarded Collin with a smile. A good-looking kid and, more important, a loyal member of the President’s personal guard; he would he very useful to her. Burton might be a problem. But she had a strong trump card: he and Collin had pulled the trigger, maybe in the line of duty, but who really knew? Bottom line: they too were in this all the way.

Luther watched the activity with an appreciation that he felt guilty about under the circumstances. These men were good: methodical, careful, thought things through, and didn’t miss anything. Dedicated lawmen and professional criminals were not so different. The skills, the techniques were much the same, just the focus was different, but then the focus made all the difference, didn’t it?

The woman was now completely dressed, lying exactly where she had fallen. Collin was finishing with her fingernails. A solution had been injected under each, and a small suction device had cleaned away traces of skin and other incriminating remnants.

The bed had been stripped and remade; the evidence-laden sheets were already packed in a duffel bag for their ultimate destination in a furnace. Collin had already scoped the downstairs area.

Everything any of them had touched, except for one item, had been wiped clean. Burton was now vacuuming parts of the carpet and he would be the last one to leave, backing out, as he painstakingly extinguished their trail.

Earlier Luther had watched the agents ransack the room. Their obvious goal made him smile in spite of himself. Burglary. The necklace had been deposited in a bag along with her plethora of rings. They would make it appear as if the woman had surprised a burglar in her house and he had killed her, not knowing that six feet away a real-life burglar was watching and listening to everything they were doing.

An eyewitness!

Luther had never been an eyewitness to a burglary other than those he had committed. Criminals hated eyewitnesses. These people would kill Luther if they knew he was there; there was no question about that. An elderly criminal, a three-time loser, was not much to sacrifice for the Man of the People.

The President, still groggy but with Burton’s aid, slowly made his way out of the room. Russell watched them go. She did not notice Collin frantically searching the room. Finally, his sharp eyes fixed on Russell’s purse on the nightstand. Poking out from the bag was about an inch of the letter opener’s handle. Using a plastic bag, Collin quickly pulled out the letter opener and prepared to wipe it off. Luther involuntarily jerked as he watched Russell race over and grab Collin’s hand.

“Don’t do that, Collin.”

Collin wasn’t as sharp as Burton, and certainly wasn’t in Russell’s league. He looked puzzled.

“This has his prints all over it, ma’am. Hers too, plus some other stuff if you know what I mean — it’s leather, it’s soaked right in.”

“Agent Collin, I was retained by the President as his strategic and tactical planner. What appears to you an obvious choice appears to me to require much more thought and deliberation. Until that analysis has been completed you will not wipe that object down. You will put it in a proper container, and then you will give it to me.”

Collin started to protest but Russell’s menacing stare cut him off. He dutifully bagged the letter opener and handed it to her.

“Please be careful with that, Ms. Russell.”

“Tim, I am always careful.”

She rewarded him with another smile. He smiled back. She had never called him by his first name before; he had been unsure if she even knew it. He also observed, and not for the first time, that the Chief of Staff was a very good-looking woman.

“Yes, ma’am.” He began to pack up the equipment.

“Tim?”

He looked back at her. She moved toward him, looked down, and then her eyes caught his. She spoke in low tones; she almost seemed embarrassed, Collin felt.

“Tim, this is a very unique situation we’re faced with. I need to feel my way a little bit. Do you understand?”

Collin nodded. “I’d call this a unique situation. Scared the hell out of me when I saw that blade about to go into the President’s chest.”

She touched his arm. Her fingernails were long and perfectly manicured. She held up the letter opener. “We need to keep this between us, Tim. Okay? Not the President. Not even Burton.”

“I don’t know—”

She gripped his hand. “Tim, I really need your support on this. The President has no idea what happened and I don’t think Burton is looking at this too rationally right now. I need someone I can depend on. I need you, Tim. This is too important. You know that, don’t you? I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think you could handle it.”