Conspiracy Page 3

  "Should I take it to Attorney General McDermott, then?"

  "That would be worse. Hugh is the president's closest adviser. He's his campaign manager."

  "But he's also attorney general of the United States."

  Doerr looked annoyed. "Of course I know that. All I'm saying is that at this point you can't take it to him."

  "So what do I do?"

  Doerr shrugged his shoulders. "You're on the civil service side. You should investigate this as you would any anonymous tip involving a public official. It's your case. Run with it. Follow normal procedures. Keep me posted in the same way you did in the Kuznov case."

  Cady looked down at his hands. This case was potentially explosive, and here his boss was saying he didn't want to touch it. "Suppose I tell you I won't do it?"

  Doerr glared at Cady. "Then I'll have to tell you to look for another job. You're the best I've got. I'd hate to lose you, but I wouldn't have any choice."

  "Thank you for your vote of confidence," Cady replied, not trying to conceal his sarcasm.

  It was raining as Cady walked down the steps of Doerr's house to R Street. He was clutching his briefcase with the Boyd documents so tightly that he suddenly realized his hand, damp with perspiration, was aching. He felt very much alone, angry at Doerr, but not surprised. He had learned long ago that in Washington it was SOP for political appointees to let civil servants take the fall while they pursued their own agendas. Yet even by those standards, what Doerr had done was despicable. For chrissakes, Boyd was running for president.

  Cady was too absorbed in his thoughts to notice the man in the long tan raincoat, lurking around the corner, mostly concealed by a parked SUV. The man was watching Cady carefully.

  The grim expression on the prosecutor's face told the man everything he wanted to know. When he had left the package for Cady, he had been confident that Doerr wouldn't lift a finger to get involved. Now he knew he had been right.

  Cady was on his own—precisely what the man wanted. He had snared a powerful hunter. Next, he would begin placing food in the hunter's path, leading him to a defenseless prey.

  Chapter 2

  Maria Ferrari was her real name, but since the age of twelve she had insisted that everyone call her Taylor. At the funeral of her mother, a victim of leukemia, she had told family and friends, in the grimy shadow of a steel mill in Donora, Pennsylvania, that she wanted to be called by her mother's maiden name, and she wouldn't respond to any other.

  Now, twenty-six years later, she was seated at the kitchen table in Charles Boyd's Georgetown house with the senator and Bob Kendrick, who shared the responsibilities with her for running Boyd's presidential campaign. As morning sunlight filtered in through filmy white curtains, she was drinking coffee while studying the results of the most recent presidential polls.

  A smile lit up her face, and she pushed her jet-black hair to the side. "We're in the lead," she cried. "We're finally out in front."

  Kendrick reached for the papers in her hand. "Three percentage points isn't much," he said somberly. "Barely outside the margin of error. With a month to go we have to stay in a full-court press."

  She slapped him on the back. "C'mon, Bob, a month ago nobody gave us a chance. What this proves is that the senator's message is getting through."

  Kendrick laughed. "You mean the New Age crap you packaged for him."

  "Oh, don't be such a cynic. The American people believe in the senator. They know that he wants to change the system of 'politics for politicians' and do something for the people." As both men knew, her emotion and conviction had played a large part in Boyd's surge. "They understand that he wants to build on the diversity of their country and turn it into a common purpose—a better life for all Americans."

  "It's okay with me," Kendrick said. "The main thing is for him to sound good. I've done enough of these presidential contests to know that's what it's about—not substance. You're writing the speeches. Just make him sound like he cares. Like he feels the people's pain."

  "But he does. That's the point," Taylor insisted.

  She turned toward the senator, who was amused that they had been discussing him as if he weren't there. Dressed in a lightly starched blue shirt good for television cameras, he had a broad smile on his face. Now he even looks like a winner, Taylor thought.

  Since the end of the convention, the senator had faced an uphill battle, as challengers often did against an incumbent, trailing President Webster in double digits. He had never worried but kept pressing forward. The pace had been mind-numbing, his sleep minimal, but he had managed to keep his sense of humor.

  The image he projected was an honest reflection of what he was, Taylor believed: a sincere and intelligent man who could be trusted. That was why she had joined his campaign, and when it came down to the bitter end, that was why he would be elected president. In the confines of polling booths the American people would agree with Taylor that the senator was someone who cared about them and their problems of raising children, getting adequate medical care, funding their retirement, and paying for heat and gasoline.

  "Look here," Boyd said. "You're both telling me the same thing. I'll keep pushing the New Age theme as hard as I can. Now, let's talk about energy. Taylor, when do you want me to give the speech you wrote on that topic?"

  Kendrick interjected. "If you give that speech, it'll hurt our fund-raising with corporate America and people who drive gas-guzzling SUVs."

  "I don't care," Taylor said. "The burning of fossil fuels by Americans at such a prodigious rate is destroying our environment and producing global warming." She thought with sadness about the destruction of the permafrost she had witnessed two summers ago when she had been hiking and mountain climbing in Alaska. "A radical reduction has to be a top priority for this country."

  "Most Americans aren't as smart as you are," Kendrick fired back.

  "Then we have to educate them," Taylor replied with determination.

  The senator raised his hand. "Listen, Bob, the reason I'm running is because I want to lead this country in the right direction. It's a good speech. When and where do you guys want me to give it?"

  Taylor glanced at the schedule on her laptop. "Thursday evening in Chicago. There's a dinner sponsored by the Midwest Business Council. It's ideal because the Chicago metro area has gotten a huge percentage of its power from nuclear energy for decades without an accident."

  "Good. I'll do it."

  Taylor's ebullient mood drained away as she saw the senator's wife, Sally, coming toward the kitchen. Jesus, that woman is always trouble. What does she want now?

  Sally trundled across the floor dressed in tight-fitting black stretch slacks and a red Stanford sweatshirt. She was a pathetic figure, Taylor thought. Reasonably pretty when she had been young, she had spent her days since then in an unsuccessful effort to fight off the ravages of time. She looked every bit of her fifty-seven years. Already a large-framed woman, she was bulging with flab.

  "I have to talk to you, Charles," she announced. "Alone."

  He glanced at Taylor and Kendrick. "Give me five minutes, would you, guys?"

  Taylor grabbed her laptop and retreated with Kendrick to the living room.

  "You were with them both yesterday in Pennsylvania," she said to Kendrick. "Do you have any idea what Sally's up to now?"

  "Her highness wants him to go over to St. Michaels this weekend when we do prep for the debate. She says there are fewer distractions."

  Taylor grimaced. "What's her real agenda?"

  Kendrick lowered his voice to a whisper. "What I've been able to deduce is that she's invited some hot new Italian painter to spend the weekend as a houseguest. She wants him to exhibit his work at her gallery. She figures that she can land this budding Michelangelo if he's exposed to the man who might be the next president of the United States."

  Taylor looked worried. "We can't let him do it. The final debate is next Monday night. That's five days from now. It's critical that he spend the weekend
here in Washington preparing. We'll never get him to focus over there."

  "I couldn't agree more. But it's not going to happen."

  Taylor rested her head on her hand and stared through the window, feeling glum. Outside, a light mist was falling, coating the first leaves of autumn on the ground. An expression popped into her mind: Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

  Over her shoulder she heard the senator calling them back to the kitchen. He looked harried. Under Sally's watchful gaze, he announced, "The day after that Chicago speech, I want to go to St. Michaels for the weekend."

  Pretending that Kendrick hadn't tipped her off, Taylor acted stunned and upset. "You can't do that. Friday morning you're supposed to be in Charleston, South Carolina. Friday afternoon there's a fund-raiser back here for Washington lawyers. Then Saturday and Sunday we have to closet ourselves in your house in Georgetown and get ready for the debate Monday night."

  "We don't need two full days to get ready."

  "This debate will probably decide the election. We've worked too hard and come too far to let it slip away." She was pleading with the senator with her eyes.

  "I have to agree with Taylor," Kendrick chimed in. "She's right."

  "She's always right about everything," Sally said, looking at Taylor and Kendrick and shaking her head. "I can't believe you two. I really can't. How can you be fighting against Charles's going to the country for the weekend?"

  "We're trying to run a campaign," Taylor said.

  "Oh, you certainly are. The two of you want Charles in the White House because that way you get the big jobs in government. You don't care how tired he is," she snapped.

  "That's enough," Boyd said.

  But Sally wasn't finished. "Jesus, Charles, when you wanted to come to Washington, I sold my business. Now I've got my gallery so that it's almost as good as one of the top New York places. All I'm asking from you is one weekend in the country. One lousy weekend. Is that so much? If you're around, I'll be able to land Emilio Cipriani for his new showing."

  "For God's sake," said Boyd, who had been sick of her for years, "I can't get into all of this now. Bob and I have to fly up to New York. I've got people waiting."

  "I don't care who's waiting. For the past year I was willing to take all of your stuff and theirs as well, and to be on call for your presidential campaign because at least you made an effort to be half decent to me. I figured if you won, it would be exciting for us in the White House. But ever since the convention, you don't even know I exist. I've had it. I've had enough with a capital E!"

  Sally stormed out of the room, leaving Taylor horrified. They needed her to make campaign appearances with the senator. They'd be dead without her. Moving quickly, Taylor cut her off in the living room before she could go upstairs.

  Sally's jaw was set. Her blue eyes had a glint of steel. "You don't get it. You really don't. So I'll make myself clear with a capital C. Either Charles comes to the country this weekend, or I'm leaving him. It's as simple as that. Now you decide."

  Taylor hesitated for a second. Looking at Sally, she knew this was no bluff. "He'll go to St. Michaels."

  Back in the kitchen, without signaling Kendrick, Taylor said wearily, "I'll change the schedule. We'll be able to do the debate prep in St. Michaels."

  Boyd nodded in approval. "Crane can go to Charleston for me."

  "He doesn't play well in the South," Taylor said matter-of-factly.

  "Then why'd you want him on the ticket as vice president?"

  She was taken aback by his testy tone. "Because you had no other way to get the nomination."

  "He'll have to do the best he can. And you can talk to the Washington lawyers Friday afternoon. They're your clan anyway." He looked at Kendrick. "Get our stuff together. We've got a plane to catch."

  Once Boyd was upstairs, Kendrick shared a commiserating look with Taylor. "You'd better tell me where you're going to be for the next couple of days in case I have to reach you and can't get through on your cell phone."

  "I'll be at campaign headquarters today, and tomorrow at my office at Blank, Porter, and Harrison."

  Kendrick scowled. "Why are you still spending time at the law firm? From here on out the campaign should be a full-time job for you."

  "C'mon, Bob. My deal with the senator has been fifty-fifty all along, and you know there's been no problem. Every speech and every position paper's been ready on time."

  "That may not be good enough anymore. We're down to the short strokes now."

  She could understand his frustration. It was a feeling she shared. She would have liked nothing better than to be working full-time for the campaign, but she was already in trouble at the law firm for spending so little time on firm business. Kathy, her secretary, had reported hearing partners grumble in the corridors: "Why are we paying her half her salary?" The nineties were over. Lawyers in large firms were expendable these days, and Taylor couldn't afford to sever her relationship with the firm.

  "What are you worried about?" she asked.

  "Shit happens at the end of every campaign. Things come flying out of left field at a thousand miles an hour. You've got to move fast or they'll knock your candidate out of the ballpark."

  * * *

  The furnace room at campaign headquarters was going full blast when Taylor arrived. It looked like a makeshift temporary office. Battered metal desks and chairs, hastily rented, had been tossed almost at random in the large center bull pen and a series of small offices along the outside walls of the building. The constant click, click of word processors and the humming of laser printers filled the air. Members of the brain trust, all of whom Taylor had handpicked, mostly in their twenties, hurried around with papers in their hands, composed memoranda and speeches in front of computer screens, or assembled in twos and threes to argue about an idea and how to formulate it. As Taylor made her way to her corner office, she greeted the staffers. Someone had mounted on her wall a blowup of the results of the day's Post/ABC poll that showed the senator leading Webster by three percentage points.

  Taylor worked at her desk through the noon hour, eating a yogurt while making notations in the margins of the briefing books for next Monday's debate. She had just turned a page when the sound of the intercom jarred her. "Saul Cooper from the L.A. Times on line one."

  Taylor picked up immediately. "Coop, if it's tennis, I'm sorry I can't play this evening. I'm buried here."

  "I wish it were tennis."

  She detected a grim edge in the normally jovial Cooper's voice. "What's up?"

  "We better talk in person. For certain conversations, I hate using the phone. You never know."

  "I'm tight on time today. Can we do it tomorrow morning?"

  "This can't wait."

  Cooper was not prone to exaggeration. He had something urgent to tell her. "Where and when?" she asked.

  "How about a park bench in the center of Franklin Square? I can get there in fifteen minutes."

  "It's raining, Coop."

  "It was raining this morning. It stopped. Don't you ever look out your window?"

  "I've been busy."

  "Fifteen minutes?"

  "I'll be there, Coop."

  She marked her place and grabbed her coat, taking an umbrella just in case. But Coop was right: The storm had passed.

  She arrived first, sat down, and watched him approach from K Street, cutting diagonally across the park with long strides. Cooper, a widower at forty-seven, was tall and wiry with graying black hair that was thinning in front. He was carrying a white paper bag and wearing a dark blue raincoat that was so beaten up, she'd bet it was the only one he had ever owned.

  Sitting down on the bench, he opened the bag. Inside was a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, which he pulled out along with two plastic spoons. "Cherry Garcia, your favorite."

  She smiled. "You know how I love ice cream, Coop. This is a treat. It's also the nicest thing anybody's done for me all week."

  For several minutes they ate in silence. T
aylor tuned out the campaign and watched the pigeons sturdily pacing among the golden leaves. Finally she said, "I guess you didn't drag me down here to eat ice cream."

  "Unfortunately not."

  "Okay, give."

  "I want to tell you something as a friend."

  His solemn tone set off alarm bells. "You've got my attention."

  "About half an hour ago I got a call from Ed Dawson, one of our reporters who works out of the San Francisco office."

  "And?" She was holding her breath.

  "Ed told me that there's some serious digging going on up in Napa about Senator Boyd's past. Rumors are starting to surface that there's some skeleton in Boyd's closet that could hurt him and change the election."

  Cooper's words shook Taylor to the core. A scandal at this late stage would wreak havoc on the campaign. It took her a few seconds to recover her composure. "Who's doing the digging?"

  "I asked Dawson. He said that he doesn't know."

  "Then how'd he find out about it?"

  "First he got an anonymous tip. Then he made some calls to check on what he'd been told. He's just begun his own checking."

  Taylor cried out, "C'mon, Coop. An anonymous tip?"

  "Hey, don't shoot the messenger. At this point we don't know much. I wanted you to have everything I did ASAP."

  "Skeletons in the closet," she said in an angry, bitter voice. "That type of character assassination finds its way into every presidential campaign sooner or later. You know that, Coop. You've been in this town a long time. President Webster and his distinguished attorney general and campaign manager, Hugh McDermott, must be behind it. McDermott's a sleaze, and they're getting desperate. So they'll plant stuff like this. You guys in the press always take the bait."

  The veteran newspaperman shook his head. "For your sake I hope you're right, but it's a little more complicated than that."

  Wide-eyed, Taylor stared at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  "Dawson also heard in this anonymous call that the U.S. attorney's office in Washington will be launching an investigation of the senator."

  His words rocked Taylor back on the bench. Even the existence of an investigation like that would destroy the senator's chances of winning. She tried to keep up a brave front. "Well, they won't find anything. He's a good man. That's why I'm working with him."