Max Collins - Executive Order

“Gentlemen,” he said, with a hint of Southern drawl, “if you’ll excuse us?”

Parker said, “Sir, I wouldn’t advise that.”

“I must insist.”

Holmberg and Parker exchanged glances that seemed to say nothing but spoke volumes to Reeder.

The younger agent said, “I’ll just step into the living room, Mr. Secretary.”

Holmberg left, but Reeder had no doubt he’d just stepped outside the room, and would stay nearby. But at least a closed door would separate their conversation from the agent.

Parker gave Reeder a hard sideways look, then said, “I’ll be just outside, if I’m needed.”

Where you can catch another smoke , Reeder thought, almost letting a smile slip, though blocking the exit did make sense.

The two men faced each other across the island.

“We know each other well enough, I think,” Nicky said, the drawl still lightly in evidence, “for first names... don’t we, Joe? You did me a favor once, being discreet when you could have embarrassed me.”

Nicky Blount had been in the Verdict Bar when Justice Venter was shot and killed; at the time Venter’s law clerk, Nicky had (to put it bluntly) pissed himself.

“And you were very helpful in the investigation,” Reeder said. “So we aren’t adversaries... unless you’re part of the sub-rosa organization we’re about to discuss.”

“I’m not,” Nicky said with a single head shake. “I’m aware of the Alliance, of course, though the vast majority of Americans either haven’t heard of it, or write it off as an urban legend... Coffee? Or iced tea maybe? I have a pitcher, if—”

“Thank you, no. We have limited time.”

That simple statement was loaded a lot of ways.

Nicky sat at the island and Reeder took the stool across from him.

“I love my father,” Nicky said.

What might have seemed a non sequitur was a remark — an opening salvo — that Reeder did grasp. For one thing, it confirmed that Senator Blount was a key player in the Alliance; so did the concern for his father that Nicky’s words underscored.

“When we first met, Mr. Reeder... Joe... I was just a green kid, new to DC and its ways.”

“We’re only talking two years, Nicky.”

He nodded. “I don’t claim I’m on top of every twist and turn in this town. But I’m not naive — I’m not who you met, even if it wasn’t so very long ago.”

“Okay. How many twists and turns are you on top of?”

Nicky’s shrug was casual but his eyes were grave. “Well, I know what kind of murky waters I’m swimming in. I’ve seen deals made, favors traded.”

“Politics,” Reeder said.

“The President assigned you,” Nicky said, “to look into who sent those four CIA agents to their deaths, isn’t that right?”

Reeder didn’t answer.

His host’s smile was not without charm. “Joe, I am in the cabinet. I do know things. You really think you can deliver on that mission, when you’re running from your own people?”

“Kind of a challenge,” Reeder admitted.

“Anyway, there are more pressin’ matters.” Nicky shrugged again. “As I say, I love my father. And in his way, I know he loves me. But my father’s two greatest loves are power and heritage. And those two loves come together in the obsession to see one of his sons in the White House.” A sigh. “Nathaniel, of course, was the chosen one. And he might well have been president by now, Governor of Mississippi and all, beautiful wife and three lovely kiddies, but then... well, you know the story.”

As former Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards had once proclaimed, “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with a dead girl or live boy.” In Nathaniel Blount’s case, it had been the latter — two at once.

And while Nathaniel’s governorship had somehow survived, his presidential plans were deceased.

Nicky said, “What you may not know, Joe, is that one of those young men was underage, and required my father making quite the series of deals with various and sundry devils. Nothing new for him, of course.”

“One such deal being,” Reeder commented, “the lowering of the age to serve as president.”

Nicky slid off his stool. “All this talk has me dry. I’m gonna have some of that iced tea. Join me?”

“Sure.”

“It’s sweetened. I know you Yankees don’t like it that way.”

“I’ll survive.”

Nicky got them glasses of tea on ice, talking all the while. “Another devil of a deal was having the right people whisper in President Harrison’s ear gettin’ me on the cabinet when that openin’ came up last year. Papa made it clear these things had cost him dearly, and made it crystal clear I was to keep my pecker in my pants and there would be no more weed, either, else there’d be hell to pay.”

“The end game is to get you into the White House.”

Nicky, seated again, nodded. “But not necessarily by the will of the people.”

Something cold crawled up Reeder’s spine. “By the will of the Alliance, you mean?”

Another nod, a glum one. “Havin’ a Southern boy like myself as Secretary of Agriculture is certainly helpful, and it’s an impressive item on my résumé, but it’s not the kind of power my Papa wants... needs . He assumes if I were president, he could control me. That the Alliance would have their man in the most important chair in the world.”

“He’s admitted this to you?”

Nicky sipped his tea, gestured with his free hand. “In so many words. It was only this past year that he revealed the Alliance itself to me... making it clear I was not to be in any way affiliated with the group, not on the board or for that matter even just a member in good standin’. I had to be my own man, he said.”

“Meaning his man.”

“Oh, yes, and of course, when the time comes, the Alliance’s man.”

Reeder sipped his tea, hating the sweetness. “Knowing what you know, Nicky, you could be your own man.”

“Possibly. There are moments where I think that’s a distinct possibility, Joe. But I also know the power my father wields over me. My weakness is that I do love him, and that I want him to love me... laugh at that if you like.”

“Not laughing.”

A loose-limbed shrug. “I hope I could resist his influence. But right now, I’m worried. Worried that I’m Secretary of Agriculture not because Tennessee is a farm state, but to get me into the line of succession.”

“You’re way down that list,” Reeder said, “but that has occurred to us. We think we’re looking at a plan to take out the President and Vice President at the Camp David meeting.”

“What if it’s more than that? Everyone’s there , Joe, but me — everyone but me! If a bomb drops on Camp David... you’re looking at the President.”

The silence in the kitchen was like the terrible stillness after a bomb blast itself.

Calmly, Reeder said, “We realize that. And if Harrison and the VP are taken out, the rest of the Cabinet would be targets in the fleeing motorcade. That’s how we read it.”

Nicky’s smile was a terrible thing. “But what if people from within staged a coup? Some of us know that that almost did go down last year.”

Reeder shook his head. “At Camp David? The Secret Service would never let that happen.”

But hadn’t he fought an SS agent in that alley?

Nicky was saying, “The Alliance has people marbled through the government like fat in a rib-eye steak. Men and women in government service with their own take on patriotism — almost certainly including certain members of the Secret Service!”

Reeder fought back nausea.