Max Collins - Executive Order

Sunday afternoon, after an Army transport had taken them to Nashville International Airport, Reeder and Rogers rented a Chevy Tahoe from National. They were about to call on a United States Senator in Franklin, Tennessee, twenty minutes south of Nashville — one of the safest and least-taxed cities in America.

This enclave of top CEOs of multinational corporations, with scores of golf courses and dozens of museums in a historic Civil War city, included the Brandon Park Downs gated community, just outside the center of town. Here Senator Wilson Blount lived on a beautiful lakefront estate in a magnificent country manor house in the antebellum manner.

With Rogers at the wheel, they pulled through a high front gate in a stone wall onto a cement drive that wound through an expansive, perfectly maintained, tree-flung front lawn. No other FBI or police accompanied them — no major security force would be awaiting them, according to Miggie, so no SWAT would be necessary. Still, they had little doubt that Blount would know they, or at least someone, would be coming today, so caution was the watchword.

The antebellum mansion had been the Blount family home since the early 1800s, very Tara-like with its stately white columns and neoclassical style. As they’d driven up, however, Reeder noted at the rear a massive array of antennas and satellite dishes — the old homestead was twenty-first-century — connected.

They left the Tahoe near the front and went up four steps to a white door where Reeder used a traditional brass knocker, Rogers at his side. Both wore dark suits cut to conceal their shoulder-holstered weapons.

Almost immediately a rather distinguished-looking, fifty-ish African American butler, in traditional livery, responded. His hair was peppery and his features were as blank as Reeder at his most guarded.

“Joe Reeder to see the Senator,” Reeder said.

Rogers held up her FBI ID and said, “Special Agent Patti Rogers here to see Senator Blount.”

The butler nodded with formal disdain. He seemed to taste the words and didn’t enjoy the flavor as he said, “You are expected, sir. Madam.”

Reeder and Rogers shared a glance. What century was this again?

They were led into the grand foyer — marble floor, marble stairway, pocket doors at right and left, with more down a corridor beside the stairs, a two-story ceiling wearing a crystal chandelier like one ostentatious earring.

The butler knocked at the pocket doors to the left. “Your guests have arrived, Senator.”

“Thank you, Mathers,” a muffled voice drawled, smooth as honey. “Show them in, please.”

The butler slid open a door, gestured with an upturned palm, bowing slightly, a human lawn jockey. Reeder and Rogers went in and the butler stepped in after them.

They were in a library as high-ceilinged as the foyer, and library was the appropriate term, because three of the walls were filled with volumes whose mostly leather bindings gave the room a scent of age and scholarship, several sliding ladders allowing access to upper shelves. The wall to the right had a connecting door and an array of framed, vintage oil paintings of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and a few others that Reeder didn’t recognize, though he felt sure they were Civil War — era figures. Sprinkled among the Confederates were portraits of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and John Adams. Somehow he was not surprised by Lincoln’s absence.

The room included an ancient massive desk inserted into the left-side wall of shelves, and some tables with antique lamps, but center stage was an Oriental rug where two overstuffed brown-leather sofas faced each other across a glass-topped coffee table. Senator Blount was sitting on the sofa at right. He stood and smiled in welcome, gesturing to the seating opposite.

The Senator wore a gray suit with a white shirt and a black string tie. He looked immaculate, every hair of his silver-blond mane in place, his eyes blue and rather twinkling behind his wire-frame bifocals. Only his creped neck gave away his age.

“Please join me, Mr. Reeder, Agent Rogers. I expected someone, of course, but I rather hoped it might be you.”

Something about the way Blount handled words reminded Reeder of a cat lapping up cream.

“Mathers, would you kindly fetch us a mint julep?” As Reeder and Rogers took their places, Blount settled back on his sofa and added, “I hope you will forgive your host for so predictable and even stereotypical a drink of choice. But my man Mathers makes a wicked julep. Would you please join me?”

“No thank you,” Reeder said.

Rogers shook her head.

“Sure?”

They nodded.

“Pity,” Blount said, with your favorite uncle’s smile, then leaned back, tenting his fingers at his chest. “You don’t know what you’re missin’.”

Reeder said, “Your hospitality embarrasses us, Senator. You see, we’re here to arrest you.”

Blount smiled as if that were a mildly amusing joke. “Is that right? And what charge would that be?”

“Well, for now, conspiracy to commit murder.”

The smile twitched. “Did I help murder anyone in particular?”

Rogers said, “The initial charge will be for the murders of Jerome Bohannon and Trevor Ivanek, both FBI agents. Law enforcement rather frowns upon the killing of their own.”

“Don’t believe either name is familiar to me.”

She said, “That doesn’t exactly make it better.”

Reeder said, “To that list will be added the names of Amanda Yellich, Leonard Chamberlain, Anthony J. Wooten, oh, and uh... four CIA agents killed in Azbekistan, Jake McMann, William Meeks, Vitor Gorianov, and Elizabeth Gillis.”

“That’s quite an impressive list, Mr. Reeder.”

The butler arrived with the mint julep on a tray, transferred it to a coaster on the glass-topped coffee table, nodded to his employer, and left, shutting them back in. Reeder noted that the glass case contained what were most likely first editions of The Red Badge of Courage, Uncle Tom’s Cabin , and Gone with the Wind .

“Well, Senator,” Reeder said, “conspiracy to commit murder is probably the best you can hope for. You’ll more likely be facing treason charges, and the President considers you an enemy combatant, like that rogue’s gallery on the wall over there.”

Blount’s smile disappeared. His face was a cold clay bust that hadn’t hardened yet, but was on its way.

He said, “You would consider the likes of those great men to be ‘rogues,’ I take it. Do you include Washington, Jefferson, and the other foundin’ fathers in that way?”

“What do you think?”

“Well, I don’t really know. They believed in liberty. They believed men should be free to pursue happiness. And that men are created equal, although people like you get that wrong.”

“We do?”

Blount sat forward; the eyes were not twinkling now. “Men are created with equal rights, but they are anythin’ but equal. Their intelligence varies, their gender, their races, their station. A country so widely varied needs a firm hand, it requires leadership. We have a weak, pampered populace that doesn’t even bother to vote, most of ’em. We can’t afford to wait for the rabble to wake up, or — if a miracle happened and they did rouse from their collective stupor — trust that they’d do the right thing.”

Rogers asked, “What do you consider the right thing?”

His hands were on his knees. “Well, for one, to reinstate the ideals that made this country great — rebuild our military, stand up to our enemies, protect this nation from within and without. And, meanin’ no offense, it takes more fuckin’ finesse than the kind of civil service mentality the two of you represent.”