Home Free - Fern Michaels [74]
“We were just a bunch of guys trying to get whole again. We’d try to bolster each other up if one of us was having a bad day. What I’m trying to say here is, I overheard quite a few conversations that I probably shouldn’t have listened to but at the time didn’t mean anything. I also heard private cell-phone conversations.
“The general and the senator still come in for therapy twice a week, and most times they look me up and we chat a bit. When they found out I was invited to Camp David, they were a little . . . nonplussed . . . for want of a better word. Then, when they heard that you, the editor in chief of the Post, was going, they actually looked . . . I wouldn’t say worried but more like concerned. Any questions?”
Maggie set her beer bottle down on the hearth and stretched her arms over her head. “But why?”
“I don’t know, Maggie. I can tell you one thing, though. Both those guys hate the CIA. They aren’t fond of the FBI, and they think Homeland Security sucks. As for the Department of Justice, they said those guys don’t know their asses from their elbows.”
Maggie shrugged. “A lot of people in this town don’t trust any of the alphabet agencies. So where does that leave us?”
“With a problem. I’m unbiased, a freethinker, at least at the moment. I’m not a politician, thank you, God. That’s just another way of saying I don’t have a dog in this race. No pun intended. Cleo is not part of this. Just off the top of my head I’d say those guys are having trouble with their respective slush funds. If you think for one minute that an agency that suddenly needs money for something or other goes to the Treasury Department and they just hand it over, then you are out of your mind. But there has to be one major person, I’m thinking, who oversees it all, and I think because the CIA is the most powerful, it has to be someone there. Hey, like I said, that’s just my opinion. I’m probably so off base, you could hit a slam dunk and still have room to drive an eighteen-wheeler through the hole.”
“Any idea who that could be?” Maggie asked.
“Nope. Do you?”
Maggie shook her head.
“I can try and find out tomorrow. Both the senator and the general will be at rehab, even though it’s Sunday. The two of them like to do the weekends so they don’t eat into their office time. I sense a little self-importance there, like the Senate and the Pentagon can’t run effectively unless they’re in their respective offices. They might open up or let something slip. It’s worth a try if you want me to go for it.”
Maggie grimaced. “Show me a politician who doesn’t think like that. Sure, see what, if anything, you can find out.”
“Your turn, Maggie,” Gus said quietly.
“You were right. I guess you could say I’m an honorary member of the vigilantes. I believe in them, and when we reported anything, it was true and accurate because we had the inside track. Have I myself broken any laws? Not really. But I have skirted the edges and danced away in the nick of time. I’d do it all over again if I had to. Thanks to all of those women, I have the job that I have, and I do have a fierce loyalty to them. Today they are ordinary citizens with full pardons. Or, as Annie likes to say, today they are on the side of the angels.”
“Do you ever see them going back to their . . . original line of work?”
Maggie laughed. “Never say never.” She wondered what Gus would do or say if she showed him her gold shield. She was tempted to follow Nikki’s advice but squelched the thought as soon as it popped into her head. “If you’re hungry, I think we can eat now.”
“I’ve been ready since I got here. Even though the food is okay at the hospital, it’s not the same as home cooking. My mouth is watering. So, we’re okay, Maggie. I mean me and you.”
Maggie thought about it for a few seconds. “We’re okay, Gus. Oh, oh, wait. We have to make a wish. You know, on the