THE PLAN IS NOT YET FINISHED, Ruth Hazel. There are still things we can do.” Gordon Gates IV had lost none of his silkiness, none of his controlled modulation. He might well have been discussing a high school football game.
Senator Reed did not see it that way. “It is for me, Gordon. It is not every day that I, me, myself, personally am threatened by the President of the United States of America. It was not pleasant.”
They were in the privacy of the manicured flower garden behind Gates’s holiday home in Aspen, Colorado. He talked while scraping the honed blade of a fighting knife back and forth across a sharpening stone. “He’s bluffing. If he had anything, you would be in custody by now and not making this visit.”
“Why do you think the game isn’t over?”
“You don’t need to know that.” Stroke, stroke the blade, a comforting feel in the routine for a man very familiar with how to use a knife. “Just remember that Middleton and the sniper have not yet been rescued. A fatal accident may befall them before they are.”
“What do I do, then? Gerald Buchanan will name both of us as accomplices when he is subpoenaed, just to save his own skin. He is a stupid man and we were mistaken to bring him in on this.”
“Leave Gerald up to me. He poses neither of us any threat, although he may think otherwise. He really was stupid, wasn’t he? An arrogant and stupid man. We should have found someone else.”
Reed’s voice had a quaver in it as she recalled the chewing-out on Air Force One. “The President was absolutely thunderous. He yelled at me! I never saw him show anger like that.”
“What did he say?”
“The short version is that there will be a full investigation by the attorney general, and the President does not care who gets taken down. Also, the privatization bill is dead because they figure the Middleton kidnapping was part of a plan to keep him from testifying. The President swore that he would hold a national press conference to veto it should the bill come before him.”
That stopped Gates in his tracks. “Interesting.” He sharpened his knife and decided to abort Operation Premier. The kiddies could go safely to the latest animated blockbuster this weekend. No use pissing off the Prez even more by blowing up a couple of multiplexes. The guy had brains, but he would also leave office someday, and Gates Global would still be around, bigger than ever. “Well, that just means we put it off for a couple of years and try again. Try to get someone in the Oval Office who will be friendlier to the business community and private enterprise. Someone like you, Senator. It’s the job you wanted, isn’t it?”
Ruth Hazel closed her political career in that beautiful yard filled with blooming flowers. “No longer. I’ll leave at the end of the year when my term is up, go home to California, and undertake a very low-profile life. The choice between my house in Del Mar and prison is a pretty easy one.”
“Have you left any loose ends, anything with my name attached?”
“Not a one, Gordon. There is nothing in my files or notes or on my computer that mentions you in any questionable fashion whatsoever. I never had a whispered conversation with a lover, nor a private chat with an aide about our plans.” She looked him directly in the eyes. “Even if I have to go on trial for something, I would never mention you. I’ve always understood that you would have me killed by a Shark Team if I put you in jeopardy.”
“Now that’s where you are wrong, my dear.” Gates grinned at her, then whirled and threw the knife with force; it spun, end over end, and the point stuck deep into the trunk of a tree ten feet away. “It would not be a Shark Team. I would do it myself.” He walked to the tree, pulled the blade free, and resumed sharpening it. “We do understand each other, then?”
“Oh, yes. Quite,” she said. She reached into her shoulder bag for a tissue, and let her hand brush against the 9 mm pistol she had begun to carry. I’ll be waiting.