Monument to Murder - Margaret Truman [45]
His companion leaned across the table and said in almost a whisper, “I don’t appreciate being on the receiving end of the president’s wrath. Surely you can understand that.”
“Of course I do, but it really can’t be a concern of mine or my people. We do what we do, and we do it well. Political ramifications or administrations don’t interest us.”
His visitor stood and Dexter assumed he was going to the counter to order. Instead, he left and disappeared into the parking lot.
• • •
Fletcher Jamison, president of the United States, was in a foul mood. Foul moods were not the exception for this president. His temper was, as those close to him had experienced, volcanic. Jamison was a tall, angular man with a heavy five-o’clock shadow that seemed to match his frame of mind, a black, grainy beard line that accentuated his jowls, which were prominent, and his scowls, which were numerous. There were those who thought he looked something like former President Nixon, although he was considerably taller than the thirty-seventh president of the United States. Others said he was “Lincolnesque” because of his height and prominent nose. Physical comparisons failed to define Jamison, the nation’s forty-fifth president. It was his style, his demeanor that characterized him for those with whom he interacted in the White House and in Congress. “He has a mean streak,” some whispered after an especially brutal session with him. “He has a nasty gene,” others said.
Voters seldom saw that side of him, although his tough talk on a variety of issues, domestic and international, promised them a man who wouldn’t kowtow to anyone, friend or foe, just the sort of president the country needed in hard times. His hair-trigger smile and large hand that landed on the shoulders of thousands of voters endeared him to them, a stern father figure who would undo all the mistakes of the past administration, who would reestablish America as the best and most powerful nation in the world, calling the shots around the globe and putting home-grown laggards on notice that they’d better get their act together. Although it was never played—the separation of church and state was still sacrosanct—you could almost hear “Onward Christian Soldiers” played each time he left the White House and mingled with the masses.
He’d conducted a meeting earlier that day with a member of his National Security staff whose primary responsibility was as liaison with the Central Intelligence Agency. The topic was the death of the Kurdish journalist Afran Mutki. Jamison had recently expressed his unhappiness with Mutki’s postings from Iraq in which he scorched the Iraqi central government for its treatment of the Kurds, and Jamison had made his feelings known to his staff.
News of Mutki’s death had reached Jamison after he and his wife had retired for the evening to their private quarters on the second floor. The president took the call, smiled, hung up, and shot his fist into the air.
“What was that about?” the first lady asked from where she sat browsing through Washingtonian Magazine.
“That Kurdish journalist, Mutki, is dead,” Jamison answered.
“That makes you happy?” she asked absently.
“He was stirring up trouble for the Iraqi government, and that meant trouble for me. These writers who think they know so damn much give me a royal pain in the ass. They get it wrong most of the time. What the hell do they contribute except confusion?”
She continued skimming the magazine.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“Busy, as usual. I got a call from Mitzi. She sounded upset.”
Jamison snorted. “Your friend always seems upset. What’s the matter this time, her napkin supplier on strike?”
She lowered the magazine to her lap and said, “That’s cruel.”
“No, it’s accurate. She’s a hysteric, Jeanine.”
“She is not. Anyway, we’re having lunch here tomorrow.”
“What’s she upset about?”
“I don’t know. She said she’d tell me at lunch.”
“She’s so damn dramatic. Don’t forget we’re having the Israeli PM here tomorrow.”
“That’s at four. Mitzi and I are meeting at noon.”
“Are arrangements set