The documents could now be gone.
* * *
Kim allowed the woman with the satchel to pass, never giving her a look of interest. He kept walking ahead and watched as the woman who’d fallen into the water climbed aboard one of the boats. He stopped and glanced back, seeing Hana pursuing their target.
He retreated deeper into the crowd and made his way from the busy dock, back toward the bus and land taxi station, where Hana and the woman were headed. He hadn’t seen what happened with the person who’d fallen into the water, but it would have been easy to do. No railing protected the outer edge and there were far too many people around than there should be. Beyond the cruise terminal, their target with the satchel ignored any form of land transportation and kept walking, leaving the premises. The sidewalk was sparse, so following her could be a problem.
He found Hana, who was standing near a group of people.
“Where is she going?” he whispered in Korean, keeping his eyes on the woman as she walked away.
There were a few options. Certainly heading into town was one. The beginnings of the pedestrian-only portion of the island, which was 99 percent of the real estate, started just past the cruise terminal. The causeway leading to the mainland also began a few hundred meters away, so a car that way was possible. Then there was the train station, maybe half a kilometer to the north.
The woman crossed the street and turned left.
Now he knew. The ocean ferries. The terminal was in sight, a hundred meters away.
“We have no choice,” he quietly said. “Stay with her.”
Hana’s brown eyes stared back. He often wondered what that troubled mind really thought, her words so sparse and carefully chosen there was no way ever to know exactly what she was thinking. Did she hate him? Love him? Fear him? He never raised his voice or was sharp to her, assuming postures and expressions that indicated only heartfelt feelings. All she ever did was please him, never failing, always eager.
Like a good daughter.
He nodded.
And she left.
TWENTY-TWO
WASHINGTON, DC
Stephanie was amazed at the president’s computer efficiency. Danny Daniels was not noted for being tech-savvy.
“Have you been taking lessons?” she asked.
He’d booted the laptop and worked the trackpad, opening the programs he wanted and enabling a flash drive that he’d found in his pocket and snapped into the machine.
“I’m not helpless,” he said. “Soon I’m going to be an ex-president. And no one gives a hoot about one of those. I’ll need to take care of myself.”
“What about all those Secret Service agents you get for life,” Harriett asked. “I’m sure they’ll be able to help.”
Harriett had stood to leave, but Danny had asked her to stay for a few minutes longer.
“I won’t be taking those along with me,” he said. “I’m following Bush 41’s lead and refusin’ them. I’m lookin’ forward to some peace and quiet.”
Stephanie doubted that. This man was not one to sit around. His entire life had been framed in the limelight. He’d started at the local level in rural Tennessee, then moved to the governor’s mansion, the U.S. Senate, and finally the White House. Decades of public service, one crisis after another. He was great under pressure—she’d seen that many times. And he also could make a decision. Right or wrong. Good or bad. He made the call.
“Everybody knows about the Nixon White House tape recordings,” he said. “But by the time Nixon did it, the trick was old hat. It all started with FDR.”
He explained about the presidential campaign of 1940. Roosevelt wanted an unprecedented third term, but his popularity had waned and the Republican candidate, Wendell Willkie, seemed to be gaining ground. There’d been problems with misquotes in the newspapers, mainly from people present at the countless meetings held in the Oval Office. So a White House stenographer came up with an idea. Wire the place for sound. That way there’d be no debate about what was said. At the time RCA was experimenting with a new device, a Continuous-Film Recording Machine that fed noise onto ribbons of motion-picture film, which could memorialize an entire day’s worth of conversations, available for immediate playback.
“The grandfather of today’s recording devices,” he said. “RCA donated one of the machines and they set it up in a padlocked room beneath the Oval Office. The microphone was hidden inside a lamp on FDR’s desk. Over four months he used the system, from August to November 1940. He recorded press conferences, private meetings, random conversations. The public didn’t know these existed until the 1970s.”
She caught the qualification. The public. “But others knew?”
He nodded. “The recordings were stored at the FDR Library in Hyde Park. I had someone pay them a visit and they found an interesting one. So I had the information digitized onto a flash drive.”
“And why would you do that?” Harriett asked.
“’Cause one and one always makes two. That dollar bill there got me started, so I went lookin’. Call me inquisitive, and thank goodness. That trait has saved my hide more times than I can count.”
The three of them remained alone, the Treasury secretary still with the judge obtaining the surveillance warrants.
“On September 23, 1940, FDR had a chat in the Oval Office with one of his Secret Service agents. A guy named Mark Tipton. He was one of three agents who stayed with FDR over the course of a day, eight-hour shifts each. He and the president became especially close. So close, Roosevelt trusted him with a mission.”
Danny tapped the trackpad.
“Listen to this.”
FDR: “I need your help. If I could do it myself I would, but I can’t.”
TIPTON: “Of course, Mr. President. I’d be glad to do whatever you require.”
FDR: “It’s something that godforsaken Andrew Mellon left me on New Year’s Eve in ’36. I’d forgotten about it, but Missy reminded me the other day about the paper he gave me. I crumpled it up and tossed it away, but she retrieved it, along with this.”
Short pause.
TIPTON: “Who drew the lines on this dollar bill?”
FDR: “Mr. Mellon saw fit to do that. Right in front of me. See the lines across the pyramid? They form a six-pointed star. The letters at the corners, they’re an anagram for the word Mason. I want you find out what that means.”
TIPTON: “I can do that.”
FDR: “Mellon told me that the word refers to a clue from history. He said men from the past knew that a man like me—a tyrannical aristocrat—would come along one day. Damn riddles. I hate them. I should ignore this, but I can’t. And Mellon knew that. He left it to drive me crazy. I ordered an investigation at Treasury about that symbol and the letters on the Great Seal, but no one had an explanation. I asked if they were intentionally placed there when the seal was created in 1789. No one could tell me that, either. You know what I think? Mellon just noticed the letters and used them to his advantage. He made it fit whatever he was doing. He was like that. ‘The mastermind among the malefactors of great wealth.’ That’s what they called him. And they were right.”
TIPTON: “Is it some sort of danger to you, sir?”
FDR: “My initial thought, precisely. Bu
t it’s been four years and nothing has come of it. So I wonder if Mellon was just running a bluff.”
TIPTON: “Why even waste time on it?”
FDR: “Missy says I should not ignore it. Mellon was never one to bluff. She could be right. Most times she is, you know, but let’s not let her hear us say that. She has that other piece of paper, the one I crumpled. She came in that day, after Mellon left, and retrieved it from the floor. God bless her. She’s an efficient secretary. Take a look at it, Mark, and see what you think. It supposedly has something to do with two secrets from the country’s past. The end of me. That’s what Mellon said they were. The last thing that aging SOB said was that he’d be waiting for me. Can you imagine the arrogance? He told the president of the United States that he’d be waiting for me.”
“Waiting for what?”
“I think that’s want we’re supposed to find out.”
A few moments of silence passed.
“He also quoted Lord Byron,” Roosevelt said. “A strange coincidence, to use a phrase, by which such things are settled nowadays. It’s from Don Juan. I want you to find out what all that means, too.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will. And Mark, I want this kept between the two of us. Check it out, but report back everything you learn solely to me.”
Danny switched off the drive. “There are other conversations, from other days, like this one. Random talks with aides, nothing of any historical significance, no reason to record any of them. The library curators tell me that just prior to all those, this one included, a press conference had occurred in the Oval Office. Those were definitely recorded. Their guess is that the staff just sometimes forgot to turn the machine off and this conversation, along with others, was inadvertently memorialized.”