Murder at Union Station - Margaret Truman [110]
Fletcher listened impassively.
“But no one was going to assassinate anybody on my watch. The administration wasn’t sanctioning assassinations, at least as far as I knew. Besides, all those bungled attempts on Castro’s life before I got there—botulism in his cigars, which didn’t work because he’d stopped smoking; depilatories in his shoes to cause his hair to fall out—made the agency the laughingstock of the intelligence world. So, no, Chet, Eliana wasn’t assassinated on my orders. Maybe the buck stopped at my desk. Maybe I should have kept a tighter rein on the cowboys within the agency. But I never gave the go-ahead, never even knew that killing Eliana was in the works.”
“I understand,” Fletcher said.
Parmele wasn’t finished.
“Congress held the obligatory hearings, and I testified. You know the result of that: ‘Constantine Eliana was assassinated by unknown persons loyal to his opposition back in Chile. Case closed.’ Until now.”
“Yes. Until now.”
Parmele ended the meeting. “You’ll let me know once those tapes are no longer a problem.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Good. We’ll ride this out, Chet. We’ll leave egg on the Alaska senator’s face and keep the country moving in the right direction. Your service to me is deeply appreciated.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. Anything else?”
“No. Grab a nap. You look like death warmed over.”
Fletcher left the Oval Office and stood just outside its door. Ordinarily, he would have gone directly to his office. He was not known within the White House as someone who mixed easily with others, who enjoyed chewing the fat or passing along the latest insider joke. But this evening he slowly walked the corridors of the nation’s house, stopping to look into offices that he customarily avoided, accepting a greeting with a wan smile and flip of his hand, file folders cradled to his chest, large, thick glasses perched on his small nose, his expression that of a man sinking beneath a massive weight.
“Anything new with the chief?” Robin Whitson asked when she almost bumped into him as he turned a corner.
“No, Robin,” he said. “Nothing new. But you have credibility with him.”
He entered the reception area of his office, where his personal secretary and an aide conversed. “No visitors,” he said.
Inside, the door closed, he settled heavily behind his desk and dropped the folders on it. The drapes were drawn; the only illumination came from a brass gooseneck lamp that spilled yellow light on the polished surface. He was overwhelmed with fatigue. His reputation with colleagues for having an unusually high level of energy was misleading. It was more a matter of will, talking himself through bouts of exhaustion that frequently threatened to consume him.
He called his wife to say he might not be home that night, told her he loved her, and settled in to review upcoming campaign plans. An aide brought him a cup of tea at nine-thirty, and a platter of small sandwiches from the White House mess. It was almost ten when a call came from Wayne Garson.
“They’re drawing in the wagons, Chet?” the AG asked.
“You could say that,” Fletcher replied.
“I need to talk with you, Chet.”
“All right.”
“Not on the phone. I’ll be freed up by eleven. I’d appreciate you heading over here to Justice.”
“Tonight.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sure the president can spare you for an hour.”
“All right. I’ll be there.”
He called the president to inform him he would be away for an hour.
“The president has retired for the evening,” he was told by a staff member. “You’ll be with the attorney general if we need you?”
“Yes,” Fletcher said. He hadn’t said where he’d be; his meeting with Garson was obviously known to the Oval Office.
He arrived at the Justice Department a few minutes before eleven and was told the attorney general was wrapping up a meeting and would see him shortly. Ten minutes later, Assistant Attorney General Gertrude Klaus emerged from the office and walked past Fletcher, a quick smile her greeting.
“You can go in now, Mr. Fletcher,” the aide