“You sure?”
“I’m sure, Seth, thanks.”
“You got it.” Frank stood up, rolled down his pants and flopped across to put on his shoes and socks.
“Hey, how about Saturday you come out to my place? We’re grilling, burgers, fries and dogs. Got tickets to Camden Yard too.”
“You got a deal on that one.”
Frank stood up and headed to the door. He looked back. “Hey, Jack, don’t think too much, okay? Sometimes that’s not real healthy.”
Jack held up his can. “Thanks for the beer.”
After Frank left, Jack lay back on the cement and stared at a sky that seemed filled with more stars than there were numbers. Sometimes he would awaken from a deep sleep and realize that he’d been dreaming about the most bizarre stuff. But what he’d been dreaming about had actually happened to him. It was not a pleasant feeling. And it only added to the confusion that, at his age, he hoped would have been long since eliminated from his life.
An hour-and-a-half plane ride due south was probably the surest answer to what ailed him. Kate Whitney may or may not come back. The only thing he felt sure about was that he could not go after her. That this time it would be her responsibility to return to his life. And it was not bitterness that made Jack feel such was imperative. Kate had to make up her own mind. About her life and how she wanted to spend it. The emotional trauma she had experienced with her father had been surpassed by the overwhelming guilt and grief she had endured at his death. The woman had a lot to think through. And she had made it very clear that she needed to undertake that exercise alone. And she was probably right.
He took off his shirt, slid into the water and did three quick laps. His arms cut powerfully through the water and then he pulled himself back up on the tiled apron. He grabbed his towel and wrapped it around his shoulders. The night air was cool and each droplet of water felt like a miniature air conditioner against his skin. He again looked at the sky. Not a mural in sight. But neither was Kate.
He was deciding whether to head back to his apartment for some sleep when he heard the door squeak open again. Frank must have forgotten something. He looked over. For a few seconds he couldn’t move. He just sat there with the towel around his shoulders afraid to make a sound. That what was happening might not be real. Another dream that would flicker out with the sun’s first rays. Finally he slowly got up, water dripping off him, and moved toward the door.
Down on the street, Seth Frank stood next to his car for a few moments admiring the simple beauty of the evening, sniffed the air that was more reminiscent of a wet spring than a humid summer. It wouldn’t be that late when he got home. Maybe Mrs. Frank would like to hit the neighborhood Dairy Queen. Just the two of them. He’d heard some good reports about the butterscotch-dipped cone. That would finish off the day just fine. He climbed in his car.
As a father of three, Seth Frank knew what a wonderful and precious commodity life was. As a homicide detective he had learned how that precious commodity could be brutally ripped away. He looked up at the roof of the apartment building and smiled as he put the car in gear. But that was the great thing about being alive, he thought. Today might not be so good. But tomorrow, you got another chance to get it right.
Author’s Note
This novel is obviously a work of fiction and intends to be nothing more. It in no way implies that members of the United States Secret Service would do any of the acts attributed to the fictional agents in the novel. The agents in Absolute Power were good, loyal men put into an impossible situation. The decisions they made were decisions any one of us might have made if confronted with the total destruction of all we have worked for.
I cannot imagine a more difficult task than the one every Secret Service agent undertakes on any given day. Weeks, months, or years of tedium may, at any moment, be shattered by the actions of those who wish to harm, to kill. Secret Service agents seem, to me, to be the counterparts of football’s unheralded offensive linemen. No one praises them when things go right, when the millions of logistical details making up their daily routines result in no assassination attempt, nothing newsworthy. But, of course, we do hear of them on the very rare occasion when something bad does happen. And Secret Service agents must live with that unfairness every day as they protect people whose political survival demands that they do things that make them, in essence, unprotectable. For this and many other reasons, the men and women of the United States Secret Service deserve the respect and admiration of every American. They certainly have mine.
David Baldacci
Washington, D.C.
January 1996