Well, okay, the president said. If it was good enough for Lincoln and Roosevelt, it was good enough for him, so he had his special prosecutor write up an executive order saying, in flowery legal language peppered with historical precedents, that it was okay for him to toss a guy into a cell without a trial when the guy had committed extraordinary crimes and when public disclosure of those crimes could do grave harm to the United States. The president figured he might be able to convince Justice Antonelli to play along if he promised to limit his executive order to Charles Bradford and shredded it immediately thereafter. If Antonelli didn’t play along, at some point he would have to admit that he had remained silent while the president struggled with the Bradford dilemma.
Yes, the president liked the idea. There were still a few details to be ironed out, but the basic concept was solid. He’d sign the executive order and then Bradford would be whisked off to a cell by a few extremely tight-lipped folks and be kept in isolation until he died. Exactly where the cell would be and who would do the whisking were a couple of those details that needed to be nailed down. To explain why Bradford had suddenly disappeared, he would appear to die while piloting the Cessna he owned. But then-just when the president was on the cusp of discussing his plan with Justice Antonelli-something happened, something that made Dillon Crane, a lifelong agnostic, reconsider his views regarding the existence of a Divine Being: Charles Bradford was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He would be dead in less than a year.
The president summoned Bradford to the Oval Office, showed him the executive order, and gave Bradford a choice: resign immediately and agree to keep his mouth shut or he would go directly from the White House to a special facility in the Blue Ridge Mountains the CIA used for detaining certain folk. Bradford, still in shock from the news of his illness and impending death, took the deal. After he resigned, the president took the precaution of assigning people to monitor all of Bradford’s communications to make sure he didn’t e-mail his memoirs to a publisher; in a twist of irony, the organization assigned to monitor Bradford was the NSA.
So in the end, except for the fact that Dillon now resided behind bars in White Deer, Pennsylvania, things worked out. The men responsible for the deaths of Paul Russo, Robert Hansen, and several others were all dead or soon would be, and the world at large would never know what Charles Bradford had done.
Dillon’s reverie was interrupted by George Aguilera. “Dillon, for God’s sake, will you please settle this? How much did we agree the damn oysters are worth?”
Dillon sighed, opened his eyes, and stood up. “Would you gentlemen please excuse me? I’m not feeling very well.”
Actually, he’d never felt better in his life. That was one of the positive things about a prison environment: it was extraordinarily healthy. He ate a balanced diet, slept eight hours a night, exercised regularly, and ingested no alcohol. He’d even taken up yoga and was more flexible than he’d been as a teenager.
He walked out into the exercise yard, took a seat on a bench, turned his face toward the sun, closed his eyes-and recommenced designing the villa. He’d already designed the exterior, the great room, the master bedroom, and was now working on the kitchen. He’d committed none of his plans to paper, preferring to keep it all in his head as a mental exercise. Soon, however, he would actually begin constructing the villa on land he’d already purchased in Italy on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean.
He would be released as soon as Bradford died, although the government hadn’t agreed to this yet. He hadn’t been convicted of a crime; he had been jailed for contempt, for refusing to tell the special prosecutor who had helped him at the NSA. The reality was, however, that, just like Charles Bradford, no one was quite sure what to do with him, and he’d made it clear to the prosecutor-and the president-that to do anything truly harmful could have grave consequences.
Dillon just knew too much. He knew too much about too many operations and about too many people. He and Claire had acquired enough information since 2002 to blackmail a large number of very influential politicians in Washington-Justice Thomas Antonelli and the president’s special prosecutor, unfortunately, being exceptions. He also had in his possession, or so he told the prosecutor, a recording of the president having a very interesting phone conversation with a young woman in Miami. He pointed out to the president’s lawyer that with all the other problems the president currently had, he certainly didn’t need to go down the Bill Clinton trail.
But when Bradford died, he would ask, quite politely, to be released. After Bradford was dead-and after the new NSA director had completed his review to verify that the NSA was squeaky clean-there wasn’t much point in keeping Dillon in prison and risking his talking about what he knew. So he’d wait, and after Bradford’s funeral he would remind the special prosecutor it would be in everyone’s best interest if he were to be given a very quiet, under-the-table, presidential pardon for any crimes he might have committed and allowed simply to retire to Italy.
Why Italy he wasn’t really sure, but that’s where he had decided to build his villa. He could have stayed in the Untied States, but it seemed prudent to put some distance between himself and his homeland. He knew he’d enjoy the Italian climate, food, and wine; he might even be able to find a group of people who could actually play poker. But the truth was that he didn’t want to retire. He was afraid that his Italian villa would soon become just another prison and he’d be as bored there as he was now.
He missed the game so. The game the NSA played, the game he’d played all his life-the game he’d never play again.
DeMarco couldn’t figure out what to do with his cousin’s ashes.
After he finished testifying to the president’s special prosecutor about Charles Bradford and Dillon Crane, he called the young pastor at St. James, told him that Paul had a will in a safety deposit box at his bank, the will left about four grand to the church-and if the padre wanted the money, it was his problem to figure out how to get it. The only remaining task he had on his plate related to his late cousin was dealing with his ashes-and he was stumped.
He finally called Mary Albertson, the lady who had worked so closely with Paul at the church. She told him there was a spot on the Potomac that Paul always spoke of, a peaceful place shaded by old trees where the river flowed rapidly over a number of large boulders. Mary said Paul used to go there quite often to relax and pray. When she volunteered to go there with him to hold a small service for Paul, DeMarco could have kissed her.
Mary recited a couple of psalms from memory and, as she did, DeMarco thought about his cousin-a quiet, pious man, who had the courage to do something so incredibly dangerous that it cost him his life. As DeMarco released Paul’s remains into the current, Mary Albertson sang “Amazing Grace.” She had a magnificent voice and almost moved DeMarco to tears.
The president’s prosecutor had scared the hell out of DeMarco. He said that if DeMarco lied to him, he was going to throw him in jail. He told him if ever spoke to anybody about Charles Bradford, Dillon Crane, or the true circumstances surrounding the deaths of David Hopper, John Levy, and Paul Russo, he would also throw him in jail. DeMarco didn’t know if the prosecutor actually had the authority to make good on these threats, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because (a) he was terrified of the prosecutor and (b) he had no desire to talk to anyone about what he knew. He couldn’t do his job for Mahoney if he was a celebrity witness-nor could he do his job if he was in jail.
Mahoney recovered completely from the infection that almost killed him. DeMarco was relieved by this but not surprised; he had always known John Mahoney couldn’t be killed by an army of tiny germs. Mahoney would meet his end one day with a massive heart attack, or the husband of some young woman he was bedding would shoot him through the heart. DeMarco did end up telling Mahoney about Charles Bradford and Dillon Crane in spite of the prosecutor’s dire warnings. He did this because Mahoney found out through his vast network of informants that DeMarco had been to the Justice Department several times to meet with an unnamed prosecutor, and Mahoney was afraid DeMarco might be testifying against him. So to allay his boss’s concerns-and to keep his job-DeMarco eventually told Mahoney what had transpired while Mahoney had been in a coma.