Blowback

“You do now,” replied Anderson. “In a half hour on the steps of the Senate.”

Taking one of the seats in front of Mercer’s desk, she responded, “That’s very interesting. And what exactly is it that I’ll be a

“Your resignation,” answered the DNC chairman.

“My what?”

“You heard me. Your resignation.”

“I will do no such thing,” said Carmichael.

“You sure as hell will,” replied Mercer, “ or you’ll be going to jail for a very long time.”

“Jail? This is preposterous. Jail for what?”

Anderson looked at her and said, “Don’t play coy, Helen. It doesn’t suit you. I warned you that if you didn’t back off, this was going to bite you in the ass, and it has.”

“What is this? Some kind of intimidation tactic?” demanded Carmichael, who then faced Mercer. “What’s your role in all of this, Russ? Are you now a tool of the Republican administration? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You’ve really let the party down. You’re a disgrace.”

Russ Mercer was through being polite. “No, Helen, you’re the one who has let the party down, and to tell you the truth, I’m going to be glad to be rid of you.”

Carmichael was shocked, but had no intention of giving in. “You’re going to have to do a lot better than this if you want to get rid of me.”

The DNC chairman simply shook his head, picked up the remote control from the corner of his desk, pointed it at the entertainment center on the far wall, and pressed play.

First, Carmichael heard her voice, and then as the TV screen warmed all the way up, she saw herself along with Brian Turner in the eighth-floor suite of the Westin Embassy Row hotel. Immediately, she felt as if she was going to throw up. She sat there frozen, unable to turn away. Thankfully, Mercer turned it off before it got to the most embarrassing part.

“You’ve been under surveillance for some time,” said Anderson.

The senator’s mind was racing. There had to be a way out of this. There had to be a way to save her career and still come out on top. “I know how all of this must look,” she stammered, “but technically, I did nothing wrong. The man in that video was supplying me with information he felt was his patriotic duty to drag into the light of day.”

“Though I’m sure it comes as a total shock, your patriot cum paramour broke a pile of national security laws in obtaining that information.”

“That still doesn’t change the fact that the president is dirty, and you can’t stop me from talking. In fact, this meeting is over. I’m leaving,” said Carmichael as she rose from her chair.

“Sit down, Helen,” ordered Mercer, “and shut up. You have no idea how easy you are getting off here.”

Anderson saw the genuinely confused look on the woman’s face and said, “The information Brian Turner provided you with was planted by CIA Director Vaile. They had suspected they had a mole in their ranks and baited a trap for him. As was expected, the bait proved too tempting to pass up.”

“I don’t believe you,” the senator replied. “I don’t know how you got Russ involved in all of this, but for some reason he’s helping you cover up Rutledge’s criminal activities.”

“You ought to be a little more forgiving when it comes to Jack Rutledge. I wanted to see you tried and ridden out of town on a rail for what you’ve done, but the president thought otherwise. He decided to take the high ground and have you resign. As far as he’s concerned, there’s been enough bitterness between our parties in this country, and though nobody outside this room is ever going to know it, he wanted to try to help mend some of that divide.”

Carmichael was silent for several moments before asking, “What’s going to happen to Brian Turner?”

“Frankly, I’m surprised you care,” said Anderson, “but because you asked, I’ll tell you. Him we are throwing the book at. Brian Turner is going to prison for a very, very long time. When he gets out, I don’t think he’ll want anything to do with the worlds of intelligence or politics ever again.”

That was it then. Helen Carmichael had tried to play the game by her own set of rules and had lost. There was nothing else she could do for now but concede defeat. “If I agree to do what you’re asking, do I have your guarantee that no criminal charges will be brought against me?”

Charles Anderson nodded his head. “You have my personal guarantee, and what’s more, you have the president’s.”

“And the tape?”

“Is part of a federal investigation, but as Brian Turner made a full confession, I don’t see why it would need to be entered as evidence at his trial.”

“Will it be destroyed then?” she asked.

“No, we’re going to hang on to it as part of your personal guarantee.”

“Which is?”

“That you’ll graciously retire from politics and never mention any of this, including the name of Scot Harvath or what you believe the president may or may not have done.”

“That’s all?” said Carmichael facetiously.

“Don’t be cute, Helen,” responded Mercer. “This is a hell of a deal they’re offering you.”

“You don’t have to worry, Russ. Cute is something I have never been accused of being. “She then turned to Anderson and said, “So, what will it be? Health problems or the ever-so-popular ‘I’m leaving politics so I can spend more time with my family’?”

NINETY-FOUR

CATALINA HOTEL

ZIHUATANEJO, MEXICO

ONE WEEK LATER

After staying in DC long enough to see that the illness hadn’t spread, Harvath took off. The president had asked him to come by the White House for a visit so he could personally thank him, but Scot had politely declined. It was going to be a while before he was ready to have anything else to do with that town. In the meantime, he had plenty of vacation days he had never used and figured he was more than entitled to a nice long stretch of time off.

Lying in the hammock on his veranda with the surf pounding against the beach below, Harvath finished reading his day-old copy of the International Herald Tribune and set it down next to the ice bucket filled with cold bottles of Negro Modelo beer.

As was often the case with his line of work, the papers had picked up very little of what he had been involved with over the last couple of weeks. There was, though, the story of Senator Helen Carmichael’s resignation, which Scot read with particular satisfaction. Having been baited by Carmichael for weeks that something big was coming out of her office, the media immediately fell upon her story.

The fact that she cited wanting more time to spend with a husband who cheated on her, while she cheated on him, as well as a daughter who couldn’t stand either of her parents, as her reason for resigning only made the a

Before he left for his vacation, Gary Lawlor had filled him in on everything else.

Carmichael ’s staff was taken by surprise by the news of her resignation and immediately scrambled to find other positions. Based upon a very powerful recommendation from the Oval Office, Neal Monroe was hired on at the DNC as Chairman Russ Mercer’s personal assistant.

The “other man” in the senator’s life, Brian Turner, tried to cut a deal with the CIA, but the powers that be at Langley had no intention of showing him any leniency whatsoever. He was currently being held in solitary confinement in a federal lockup pending his trial.

Gary detailed how the FBI, CDC, USAMRIID, and DHS had been able to avoid a major outbreak of the illness in the United States by sweeping in early and confiscating the mahleb spice deliveries sent by Kaseem Najjar in Hamtramck to all the Muslim-owned cash-heavy businesses on Chip Reynolds’s Riyadh warehouse list. With the antidote recovered in the bottling plant in Mecca, all those who had been infected were treated quickly enough to save their lives.