Glass Tiger

42

Memorial Day. Gus Wallberg sat in the old easy chair that had been his father’s, staring out of his study window at the blue and sparkling water of Lake Minnetonka. The kids were up for the weekend and had the sailboat out, heeled over with the wind, slicing through the waves. He could almost hear their shouts and laughter through the thermopaned glass. Edith was supervising in the kitchen: in two hours they would have a backyard barbecue under the big oak trees that would go on until well after dark.

Just six months ago, he and Edith had sat here together on New Year’s Eve, looking out over the frozen lake from this very window, discussing his upcoming presidency. What a difference those six months had made! Corwin’s inaugural-day letter had not yet been written. Thorne had not been brought in from Africa at Kurt’s urging to try and find Corwin and stop him. There was no hint that Kurt would die by Corwin’s hand, no hint that Corwin would die by Hatfield’s hand.

No hint at all that Wallberg’s poll numbers would soar as a result. The American people thought their President had almost been assassinated by some Muslim fundamentalist terrorist or some right-wing survivalist fanatic, and had rallied around. What would they think if they knew that countless millions of their tax dollars had been wasted by the Justice Department to find an assassin who didn’t exist? Well, they would never find out.

Only Wallberg and a tiny handful of his most trusted aides knew that it had been someone from the President’s past. Terrill Hatfield had killed the killer, thus freeing their President of the dark burden he had carried for forty years.

Almost freeing him. He sighed. Even here, even for just a weekend, he could not escape the pressures of his job. A hardcopy of the first draft of his Fourth of July speech was lying unedited on his lap. Looking at the clock on the mantel above the huge stone fireplace, he felt a tightening in his chest. In one minute, Hatfield would be calling on the secure scrambler phone with his final report on the search for Thorne and that woman, Janet Kestrel. Depending on what Hatfield had to say, Wallberg might truly be free of that dark burden.

The phone buzzed discreetly. Wallberg lifted the receiver from its cradle with no visible tremor in his hand.

‘Terrill, happy Memorial Day.’

‘Thank you, Mr. President,’ came Hatfield’s unmistakable tones. ‘I hope you are being allowed to relax with your family.’

‘I’m on my way to a backyard barbecue right now. You have news for me?’

‘I have closure for you, Mr. President. Janet Kestrel is in custody. A week of sleep deprivation, no privacy, and interrogations around the clock. We have wrung her dry. I can assure you that Corwin did not pass on to her any dangerous knowledge of any sort.’

‘Outstanding!’ But Wallberg still had concerns. ‘When you release her, Terrill, won’t that leave us with a new problem? If she goes to the media—’

‘I am arranging for her permanent commitment to a mental institution as an incurable psychotic. She will have daily psychiatric counselling sessions that will be taped without the doctor’s knowledge. The more she insists on her story, the more apparent her psychosis will seem. If anything does surface...’

Wallberg’s burden was lifting, lifting.

‘How soon will you be able to get it done, Terrill?’

‘Within the week. Both parents dead, her father was an alcoholic, so I ordered the Los Angeles AIC, Sammy Spaulding, to work up a psychiatric history starting in her pre-teen years, fabricating a pattern of sexual abuse from age two on into her teens. I went through Quantico with Sammy, he’s a solid company man, and I’ve instructed him to make sure that the paperwork is bulletproof.’

Wallberg nodded his unseen approval as he listened to Hatfield giving him his life back. The man was worthy of his trust. But even with any threat from Kestrel neutralized, he still had to ask. Thorne was surely dead, had never met Corwin, but still he had been digging into the past.

‘Did the Kestrel woman have any information about Thorne?’

‘None. We know he was looking for her, but we found her before he could. She had never even heard his name until I questioned her.’

‘Any old Ranger friends he might have contacted? Those elite military types tend to stick together.’

‘His only Stateside contact was Victor Blackburn, that Ranger stationed at Fort Benning. We have been clandestinely monitoring his phone calls, letters, e-mails and faxes, twenty-four/seven. Nothing. Since Thorne disappeared into the Tuolemne River, he has reached out to no one, I mean no one. No contacts, no sightings. Mr. President, Brendan Thorne is dead.’

The final weight fell from Wallberg’s shoulders. All possible vestiges of anything Corwin might have known or recalled was gone from the face of the earth. Anyone he might have passed anything on to was dead. Or incarcerated as insane. He cleared his throat sententiously. He loved this part of being President: the chance to reward the loyal service of his underlings.