I nodded. Now came the really difficult part of our little talk. “I have to broach a tough subject, sir. We need to talk about some of the other people around you, the people closest to you.”
Thomas Byrnes sat forward in his chair. I could tell that he didn’t like this at all.
“Mr. President, we have reason to suspect that someone with access into the White House, or possibly with power and influence here, might be involved in all of this. Jack and Jill are certainly getting into high places with the greatest of ease. The people close to you have to be checked, and checked very closely.”
Both of us were suddenly quiet. I could almost visualize Don Hamerman waiting outside, chewing on his silk tie.
I broke the awkward silence.
“I know that we’re talking about things you would rather not,” I said.
The President sighed. “That’s why you’re here. That’s why you’re here.”
“Thank you,” I told him. “Sir, you have no reason not to trust me on this. As you said yourself, I’m an outsider. I have nothing to gain.”
Thomas Byrnes sighed a second time. I sensed that I had reached him, at least for the moment. “I trust many of these people with my life. Don Hamerman is one of them, my bulldog, as you correctly surmised. Whom don’t I trust? I’m not completely comfortable with Sullivan or Thompson at the Joint Chiefs. I’m not even sure about Bowen at the FBI. I’ve made serious enemies on Wall Street already. Their reach inside Washington is very deep and very powerful. I understand that organized crime is none too pleased with my programs, and they are much more organized now than they’ve ever been. I’m challenging an old, powerful, very fucked-up system—and the fucked-up system doesn’t like it. The Kennedys did that—especially Robert Kennedy.”
I was having trouble catching my breath all of a sudden. “Who else, Mr. President? I need to know all your enemies.”
“Helene Glass in the Senate is an enemy…. Some of the reactionary conservatives in the Senate and House are enemies…. I believe… that Vice President Mahoney is an enemy, or close to one. I made a compromise before the convention to put him on the ticket. Mahoney was supposed to deliver Florida and other parts of the South. He did deliver. I was supposed to deliver certain considerations to patrons of his. I haven’t delivered. I’m screwing with the system, and that isn’t done, Alex.”
I listened to Thomas Byrnes without moving a muscle. The effect of talking to the President like this was numbing and disturbing. I could see by the look on his face what it cost Thomas Byrnes to admit some of what he had to me.
“We should put surveillance on these people,” I said.
The President shook his head. “No, I can’t allow it. Not at this time. I can’t do that, Alex.” The President rose from his chair. “How did your kids like the keepsakes?” he asked me.
I shook my head. I wouldn’t be held off like that. “Think about the vice president, and about Senator Glass, too. This is a murder investigation. Please don’t protect someone who might be involved. Please, Mr. President, help us… whoever it is.”
“Goodnight, Alex,” the President said in a strong, clear voice. His eyes were unflinching.
“Goodnight, Mr. President.”
“Keep at it,” he said. Then he turned away from me and walked out of the solarium.
Don Hamerman entered the room. “I’ll see you out,” he said stiffly. He was cold—unfriendly.
Perhaps I also had an enemy in the White House.
CHAPTER
63
NO WAY, JOSE! Couldn’t be. Could not be. This just could not be happening. Welcome to the X-Files meets The Twilight Zone meets the Information Superhighway.
At five one and two hundred ten pounds, Maryann Maggio was a powerhouse. She thought of herself as a “censor of the obscene and dangerous” on the Prodigy interactive network. Her job with Prodigy was to protect travelers on the Information Superhighway. An emergency was developing before her eyes right now. There was an intruder on the network.
This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t take her eyes off her IBM desktop screen. “This is the interactive age, all right. Well, people, get ready for it,” she muttered at the screen. “There’s a train wreck a-comin’.”
Maryann Maggio had been a censor with IBM-owned Prodigy for nearly six years. By far, the most popular service on Prodigy was the billboards. The billboards were used by members to broadcast personal messages for other members to react to, learn from, plan their vacations, find out about a new restaurant, that sort of thing.
Usuall
y the messages were pretty harmless, covering topical subjects, questions and answers on anything from welfare reform to the ongoing murder trial of the month.
But not the messages that she was staring at right now. This called for Infante the Censor, the protector of young minds, as she sometimes thought of herself. “Big Sister,” according to her bearded, three-hundred-pound husband, Terry the Pirate.
She had been monitoring messages from a particular subscriber in Washington, D.C., since around eleven that night. In the beginning, the quirky messages were borderline judgment calls for her to make. Should she censor or hold back? After all, Prodigy now had to compete with the Internet, which could get pretty damn wild and wacky.