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As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Clete had been buried in meetings over the reconciliation budget. His presence was mandatory, but he had difficulty concentrating on the country’s finances when worrying about his daughter. The doctor was dodging his calls. David hadn’t deigned even to call and speak with him personally. It was beginning to stink. To high heaven. And part of the stench was Clete’s own rising panic.
“Do they know it’s me who’s calling?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Then I wish to speak to the President immediately.”
While she was putting the call through, Clete left his desk and moved to the large window. He’d had the same view for more than thirty years, but he never tired of it. The automobiles on Washington’s broad avenues changed. Clothing styles came and went. Seasons rotated. But the stalwart edifices of the United States government endured.
The emotional surge he derived from gazing at them couldn’t be described as patriotism. It was more base than a love for his country. It was a passion for the power circulating within those buildings that gave him a rush of excitement not unlike an erection. He adhered to the adage that power was the strongest aphrodisiac. There was nothing to equal it. Nothing else even came close.
Any man worth his salt struggled to attain power. Then, once he had it, he fought like hell to keep it. It was inevitable that someone younger than he would seize the power he now wielded in Washington. But not today, and not tomorrow. He would choose the time to pass the baton.
And it wasn’t going to go to David Merritt.
His secretary buzzed him again. “I’m sorry, Senator. The President’s calendar is completely full today, and tonight he’s scheduled to fly to Atlanta. He’s not due back until midafternoon tomorrow.”
Clete mulled that over for several seconds. “Thanks, Carol. Keep trying to reach that quack Allan. And get rid of Bondurant.”
“Yes, sir.”
Returning to his desk, he placed his feet up on it and swiveled back and forth in his well-worn leather chair as he contemplated his next move. David had acted faster than Clete had expected. He had figured David would let the heat cool down before trying again to eliminate the only witness to his child-killing.
Yes, Clete believed everything Bondurant and Barrie Travis had told him that night in the coffee shop. He’d taken whacks at Travis’s credibility, but what choice had she given him? He’d been forced to create a ruckus over her gaffe in the hospital, or risk looking like a damn fool himself. He’d railed at her, but his wrath had been directed to his treacherous son-in-law.
Barrie Travis was a flake, but Bondurant wasn’t. Clete might have doubted their story had she been the only one telling it, but he didn’t doubt Bondurant. He’d never particularly liked the former Marine-cum-presidential aide. The man was taciturn to a fault. He wore his integrity on his sleeve. Clete mistrusted anybody that honest and straightforward.
Clete had never known Bondurant to lie. He’d evaded questions about his affair with Vanessa, which could be construed as lying by omission, but Clete regarded his silence as a gallant attempt to protect Vanessa from scandal, not to shield himself.
Knowing David’s personality as he did, knowing of the incident involving a young woman named Becky Sturgis, Clete had no doubt that David could smother a child he knew wasn’t his.
Clete chastened himself for not suspecting it earlier. The son of a bitch had tricked both him and Vanessa into believing that he wanted children. For years, she had tried all the remedies for infertility. David had refused to seek medical advice. Now Clete knew why. The bastard was firing blanks and didn’t want anyone to know. Furthermore, he had subtly laid the blame of their childlessness on Vanessa, feeding her sense of inadequacy, which was a fundamental symptom of her illness.
Of course, Clete’s conscience wasn’t entirely clear. He had to assume partial responsibility for the spousal abuse his daughter had suffered. Where had he been all those years? Why hadn’t he seen what was now so glaringly apparent? He’d been too busy putting David in the White House to see that David had cruelly rejected Vanessa’s love.
As long as she did as she was told, didn’t cross him, and appeared to be everything she was supposed to be, David was content. He had a long-suffering, beautiful wife who tolerated his casual affairs. But when Vanessa turned the tables and became pregnant with another man’s child, David felt the death penalty was justified.
Yes, Barrie Travis and Gray Bondurant were telling the truth. They had forced him to open his eyes to what he hadn’t wanted to see: David Merritt had put his daughter through hell; David Merritt had murdered his grandson; David Merritt had betrayed him; David Merritt must be destroyed.
But slinging unsubstantiated accusations at him on the evening news wasn’t the way to go about it. Clete would have to defeat David surreptitiously, not by advertising that he was plotting against him. Anything other than a covert approach would result in failure.
Bondurant might have a chance of succeeding and getting away with it, but not while he was in cahoots with a journalist, any journalist, but particularly Barrie Travis. Clete knew that he had to operate independent of them, and he had to act quickly because David apparently had.
First, he had to find Vanessa. Second, he had to get her away from David. Third, he had to annihilate the bastard.
There were obstacles. One of them was Clete’s own conflicting emotions. He felt his son-in-law’s betrayal like a stake through his heart, but he couldn’t afford to be sentimental about what might—and should—have been.
He also had to be extremely careful. While exposing David, he couldn’t leave himself vulnerable to close scrutiny. Destroying an administration completely but cleanly would take deft maneuvering.
The problem with maneuvering was that it required time, and that, Clete feared, was in short supply.
* * *
“Howie, isn’t it?”
Howie nearly choked on his salted beer. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before extending it to the mustachioed man wearing a baseball cap over his ponytail. “Hey! I’d about given up on you coming back.”
The man gave a thin, stiff smile. “I’ve been tied up.”
