Troy shook his head. “No.”
“No, I have not, and I never will.”
“I know, Dad.”
“I never met Lisa. You’ve never even shown me a picture of her.”
Suddenly Troy felt bad. “I’m sorry, Dad, I just never—”
“But judging by Little Jack, she must have been a very beautiful girl. And from what you and Jack have told me, she was wonderful.”
“She was.”
“And that’s what America should be about at its core. Ethnic, religious, and economic diversity coming together to form the greatest union this world has ever known. It’s beautiful and amazing when it works like it did for you two.” Bill spread his arms wide. “Unfortunately, the reality of every individual having a vote gets complex very fast when that ethnic and religious diversity broadens as dramatically as it has in our country. We’re more diverse than any other meaningful country in the world ever has been, and that’s remarkable in and of itself. It’s our single greatest achievement. It’s also our single greatest problem. It slows our progress to a crawl because we all want what’s best for our immediate families and the people we know and care about. It creates that gridlock, which makes us vulnerable to external enemies, and ourselves. And it creates a scenario where the opportunists within our society thrive.
“Sometimes some of us have to take extraordinary measures to make certain that our vulnerability doesn’t turn into a situation in which we find ourselves utterly defenseless. Roger and I believed that President Dorn was leading us directly down that path.”
The room went still as Bill finished his speech.
As Troy gazed at his father, he realized that Bill had never looked older. He suddenly seemed like an elderly man, a man who’d been carrying around too many secrets for too long. The pressure of it all had finally worn him down. It was sad, and Troy felt heat at the corners of his eyes. For the first time he could remember, Bill Jensen looked weak.
Troy gestured at the bars. “Was that cell ever used for anything other than just to hold people?”
“What do you think, son?”
Troy glanced down. He had his answer. While he’d been sleeping upstairs as a kid, men had been interrogated here in the basement. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got to catch up with Travers, and then we’re headed to Virginia, to Manassas, to see if we can get anything out of Jacob Gadanz.”
“Good. I hope you find something out. We need a break.”
“Bye, Dad,” Troy said quietly as he turned to go. He wanted to hug his father, but he couldn’t. The emotional divide was too wide.
“Son.”
Troy stopped and turned back. “Yes?”
“Did Karen tell you everything?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did she tell you who helped her get Maddux in here?”
“No, Dad, she kept the secret. But I think I still know. It was Charlie Banks.”
Bill pursed his lips. “Of course you knew,” he whispered.
Baxter reached across the desk and handed a manila envelope to the president after waiting for Connie to shut the Oval Office door behind her. She’d given him a nasty look when he’d ordered her out with a gruff “get lost.” Two, actually, the second being even more obvious. Well, screw her. She’d better watch herself. He had the ability to punish people now — harshly. And he’d use it again if he felt like it.
Baxter had been nervous about sending the ex-con out after Nancy Carlson. It was the first time in his career he’d ever ordered anything violent like that. But the guy had executed the job perfectly — except for initially wanting to let the old woman go free when she’d given him what he wanted — and Baxter had to admit the power was intoxicating. And he felt no remorse whatsoever for ordering the guy to finish the job because they couldn’t risk having any loose ends on this. He’d been a little worried about that guilt thing rearing its ugly head. But it hadn’t, not at all.
“Is this what I think it is?” Dorn asked excitedly, grabbing the envelope from his chief of staff and pulling out the contents. “My God, it is,” he whispered in awe. “It’s an original of the Executive Order Nixon signed back in 1973.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I hate what it stands for, Stewart, but I’m a sucker for history. This is amazing,” he murmured, tapping Nixon’s neat, flowing signature at the bottom of the page. “Truly amazing,” he repeated.
“More amazing than we’d anticipated,” Baxter muttered regretfully.
“What do you mean?” Dorn asked as the enthusiasm drained from his expression. He’d recognized that concerned tone of Baxter’s.
“I took the document to two people to confirm its authenticity and to try to determine its potential impact. The first person absolutely confirmed Nixon’s signature. He said it was quite extraordinary, too.”
“Why?”
“By late 1973, Nixon’s signature was illegible, for all intents and purposes. In fact, his signature on his letter of resignation in 1974 is basically nothing but a horizontal straight line. The guy I took the order to showed me that signature. It’s as if Nixon didn’t want anyone recognizing it, as if he was ashamed and completely exhausted from being president and wished he’d never even considered running. Which is understandable, I suppose, given everything that happened to him.” Baxter gestured at the paper Dorn was holding. “But the signature on that document is bold and flowing. It’s what his signature looked like back in ’68 when he was first elected. The expert showed me that signature as well, and it was very different. You could tell he was excited about being president back then.” Baxter pointed at the page again. “He wanted people to know he’d signed that order. He was proud of signing that order, maybe the last thing he was truly proud of.”
“Who else did you take this to?” Dorn asked, dropping the page on the desk.
“A man who is a recognized expert on constitutional law as well as on the current Supreme Court justices as individuals. He knows them all very well, and he knows how they would react to something like this.”
“And?”
Baxter took a deep breath. He knew how Dorn was going to react, and he wasn’t looking forward to it now that the man was feeling like himself again. “And we need to get the other original of Executive Order 1973 One-E. Only then will we feel completely confident of our ability to crush Red Cell Seven,” he said, glancing at his watch.
He had a meeting he had to get to, and he didn’t want to hang around here. He could see Dorn already starting to boil over.
Bill hung up the landline in his home office. It was the third time he’d tried to reach Nancy Carlson, but the ring had just gone on and on. She was a sweet woman, and he hoped she hadn’t gotten caught up in all of this. But it made sense that she would. She was the only person Roger had ever completely trusted. He hoped like hell she hadn’t paid the ultimate price just for being a good wife.
CHAPTER 31
Five-thirty A.M. and bitter cold in Manassas, Virginia. During the last few hours another Arctic blast had invaded the Lower Forty-Eight from Canada on the wings of an icy northwest wind. The mercury was plummeting in the Mid-Atlantic.
So far, the three men had been waiting thirty minutes for their fourth team member, and Troy was tempted to go in without him. They had to take advantage of the darkness cover going in — and coming out. If they waited much longer, they’d be risking a dawn exit from the townhouse, which was completely unacceptable.