The Inside Ring Read online

  No kiddin’, DeMarco had thought.

  “But that’s all they’d tell me, Joe,” Mahoney said. “Whatever she used to do for them is something they wanna keep buried until the Potomac dries up.”

  But that was enough for DeMarco: to know the one thing about Emma that explained why Emma never explained.

  The sound of a dump truck landing on the bar next to DeMarco’s right elbow startled him from his reverie. It turned out not to be a dump truck but Alice’s purse, fifteen cubic feet of a fake leather filled, apparently, with everything she owned.

  Without acknowledging DeMarco, Alice signaled to Mr. William. He approached tentatively. Mr. William was a gregarious person who enjoyed his patrons; Alice was the rare exception.

  “Black Jack on the rocks, string bean, and make it snappy,” Alice said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Mr. William said. It’s difficult for a man six foot six to cower but Mr. William managed.

  “You know,” Alice said to DeMarco, “since you knew I was coming and you know what I drink, you coulda had my drink waitin’ for me.”

  “Like your liver would shut down if you got your evening booster shot five minutes late.”

  “Don’t be a smart ass.”

  Mr. William delivered her drink then backed away like Michael Jackson doing his moonwalk.

  “Hey,” Alice yelled at him. “No peanuts? None of them little goldfish things?”

  “I’ll get you some, ma’am,” Mr. William said, his face wooden, his eyes bright buttons that warned of impending homicide.

  Alice was fifty, with dyed blond big hair, too much makeup, and twenty pounds she didn’t need. She had a husband she referred to as “that asshole” and a son she called “that little jerk.” Alice lived for only one thing: the slot machines in Atlantic City, a mecca she pilgrimaged to every weekend. She worked for AT&T.

  Alice slugged down half her drink and then began to rummage through her bottomless purse. “Here,” she said dropping six wrinkled pages on the bar in front of DeMarco: Billy Mattis’s phone records for the last three months.

  Assuming Billy was actually involved in the shooting, he had at least one accomplice—the guy who pulled the trigger. And if you have an accomplice, DeMarco reasoned, you have to communicate with him. Ergo, one looks at phone bills to see who Billy has been blabbing with lately.

  DeMarco realized that if Billy Ray was a professional hit man or an undercover agent for a foreign government, his methods of communication would be more sophisticated than the kitchen telephone. But just looking at Billy Ray’s file, DeMarco was positive the man was not a mole the Russians had trained from birth, then parachuted into rural Georgia to work his way into the confidences of the American elite.

  “You know, it was a lot of work to get those records,” Alice said to DeMarco as she stuffed peanuts in her mouth. To Mr. William she yelled, “Hey, stilts! If it ain’t too much trouble, how ’bout another one here.”

  “Alice,” DeMarco said, “who are you kidding? You hit maybe three keys on your keyboard to get this stuff.”

  “How would you know?” Alice said. “You work for the phone company too, Mr. Big Shot? Anyway, I’m a little short this month.”

  Alice was a little short every month. DeMarco suspected the only thing keeping the loan shark’s bat from her wrinkled kneecaps was the monthly retainer he paid her.

  As Alice droned on about the state of the economy in general and her personal finances in particular, DeMarco looked at Billy Mattis’s phone records. Alice’s computer had provided names and addresses of people and businesses Billy had called from his home phone and using his calling card. DeMarco would have Emma’s people check out the names to see if anyone was noteworthy, but nothing leaped out at him: no calls to businesses that made spotting scopes or sniper rifles—and most important, no calls to the late Harold Edwards.

  The only strange thing he did find was that in June Billy had called a Jillian Mattis twenty times in a two-week period. Jillian Mattis, DeMarco remembered from Billy’s personnel file, was Billy’s mother. He looked at the previous month’s bill and saw that Billy had only called his mother four times. The high number of calls began two weeks after he had been assigned to the President’s security detail. DeMarco realized that Billy’s increased phone calls to his mother during this period could have a number of mundane explanations. Maybe she’d been sick around that time and he was just checking on her. Or maybe Billy was planning to visit her and was finalizing his plans. Or maybe Billy was a closet mama’s boy.

  “Well,” Alice said.

  “Well what?” DeMarco said. He hadn’t heard a word she’d said for the last five minutes.

  “Can you give me an advance?”

  “Yeah,” DeMarco said. Giving in to Alice was easier than haggling with Alice. And Lord knows Trump could use the money.

  9

  Middleburg, Virginia, was fifty miles west of the capital, a picture-postcard of a town surrounded by rolling green hills that were once Civil War battlefields. The battlefields were now white-fenced pastures where well-bred horses pranced. Wealthy Washingtonians bought land near Middleburg, and on weekends attended steeplechases and pretended they were country squires.

  Frank Engles was not a country squire; he owned a bed-and-breakfast. His establishment was a multihued Victorian with leaded-glass windows and sun-catching dormers and was as romantic as a bouquet of roses. It was the sort of place DeMarco might have chosen to take a girlfriend to spend a fall weekend—if he had a girlfriend.

  DeMarco had told General Banks he needed to talk to someone who knew Billy and understood the Secret Service’s promotion practices. Banks had his people contact the Service’s human resources department and they very fortunately came up with Frank Engles. The very fortunate part was that just before he retired Engles had supervised Billy.

  A plump, white-haired woman wearing an apron dusted with flour answered the doorbell. She told DeMarco he would find Engles behind the house doing some chores. He walked around the house as directed and saw a man in the backyard splitting wood. The man’s back was to DeMarco. Lying on the ground near the man was a dog.

  DeMarco liked dogs that were cuddly and came only to his knee. The dog he was now looking at was a German shepherd the size of a Shetland pony and as cuddly as a polar bear. The beast’s head swiveled toward DeMarco like a gun turret, and then it gave a single yelp and charged. DeMarco, in turn, did what he always did when confronted by a hundred-and-twenty-pound canine moving in his direction with its teeth exposed: he stood completely still, tried to look unthreatening, and wished like hell he was armed.

  Engles finally noticed the tableau behind him: DeMarco frozen in mid-stride, trying not to quiver like a flushed quail, and his four-legged monster in a ready-to-lunge position. The retired agent came trotting over to DeMarco and with a little chuckle said what dog owners always say: “Hey, don’t worry about Ol’ Bullet. He’s just bein’ friendly.”

  Engles was in his early sixties. He wore faded jeans and a yellow T-shirt with I ♥ VIRGINIA on it. He had wary-looking gray eyes, a nose that had been broken more than once, and there was a bald spot on the back of his head that looked like a monk’s tonsure. The tonsure, combined with his broken nose, gave him the appearance of a priest who didn’t turn the other cheek.

  Since DeMarco wanted Engles’s cooperation he didn’t tell him he should keep his pet wolf shackled to a short chain and muzzled. Instead he said, “Yeah, looks like a really friendly pooch.” The dog was now sniffing DeMarco’s groin.

  “Mr. Engles,” DeMarco said, trying to ignore the damn dog, “I’m Joe DeMarco. I work for Congress.” DeMarco flipped open a leather half wallet and showed Engles his congressional security pass.

  “Congress?” Engles said, glancing down at DeMarco’s credentials then back up at DeMarco’s face. DeMarco was willing to bet that Engles had just memorized every word on his security pass.

  “Yes, sir,” DeMarco said. “I’m here concerning the
recent assassination attempt on the President. As you may have heard, there’s a committee taking a hard look at the President’s security. I’d just like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Seems to me Congress oughta do their own damn job,” Engles grumbled, “and let the experts take care of security.”

  DeMarco gave him an embarrassed half smile, and said, “Confidentially, I agree with you, sir, but when my boss says ride, I hop on my horse.”

  The I’m-just-a-working-stiff routine worked.

  “Yeah, sure,” Engles said. “Come on up to the house. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee and you can ask your questions. Bullet! Get off that man’s suit. Dog’s so darn friendly he’d just lick a robber to death.”

  Dog owners always say that too.

  Engles took DeMarco to a kitchen that smelled of apples and cinnamon and had a fireplace big enough for a Yule log. It was a comfortable, cheery room and he could imagine generations of grandkids licking the spoon from the icing bowl. Engles poured coffee into two large mugs and they took seats at a sturdy wooden table. Ol’ Bullet flopped down on the floor near Engles’s chair.

  “So what do you need from me?” Engles asked as he added cream to his coffee. “I’m retired, you know.”

  “We’re taking a look at agent-selection procedures, Mr. Engles. We’re particularly interested in how the inside ring is picked. You know: experience requirements, qualification criteria, that sort of thing.”

  The “we’s” were for Engles’s benefit. DeMarco was hoping he’d imagine an army of marching gray bureaucrats, the full and ponderous weight of government behind his mission.

  “What’s goin’ on here?” Engles said. “You can get all that stuff right from the department’s personnel office. They have write-ups about training programs, selection guidelines, qualification criteria, all that crap. You didn’t drive down here for that. Why are you really here?”

  So much for the ponderous weight of government.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” DeMarco said, feeling like he’d been caught trying to hold up Santa Claus. “We’re curious about one agent who was at Chattooga River. A man you supervised before you retired.”

  “Who is it?” asked Engles.

  “Billy Ray Mattis.”

  “You think Mattis shouldn’t have been assigned to that detail? Is that what this is all about?”

  “Not necessarily, but he was the youngest and least-experienced agent on duty that morning.”

  DeMarco knew Billy was the youngest agent based on the video; he was guessing he was the least experienced.

  “You guys know Mattis took a bullet for the President in Indiana?” Engles asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen his record. Is that why you selected him, because of Indiana?”

  Engles went silent, his hands betraying his nervousness as they squeezed the coffee mug in front of him. Ol’ Bullet sensed the change in his master’s mood. The mutt’s eyes locked onto DeMarco’s jugular and from his throat came a low, rumbling sound. Engles reached down and ruffled the fur on the dog’s thick neck, calming it, while he thought about DeMarco’s question.

  When Engles still didn’t respond, DeMarco said, “Look, I’m not trying to pin a rose on Billy Mattis. I just want to know why he was picked for the most sensitive assignment in the Service.”

  “Maybe it’s me you’re trying to pin the rose on,” Engles said.

  “Mr. Engles, you retired before the assassination attempt. There’s no way you can be held culpable for anything.”

  “Yeah, right,” he said.

  His voice oozing false sincerity, DeMarco said, “All we want to do, sir, is make sure the President continues to have the best security in the world—the kind of security men like you have always provided.” He hoped Ol’ Bullet couldn’t smell the bullshit in the air.

  Engles looked at DeMarco, looked away, and then looked back. He cleared his throat.

  “I didn’t select Mattis,” he said. “Every other man who worked for me, I handpicked. But with Mattis, one day I just get word he’s being moved into my unit. When I asked why, I was told not to make waves. Somebody doing a favor for somebody. Happens all the time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the Secret Service is like any other big company. People get transferred around. Bosses make deals with other bosses to help their fair-haired boys. Or a guy’s having problems in one division so they move him somewhere else to see if he’ll do better.”

  “Is that what happened in this case?”

  Engles shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “So who moved him into your unit?”

  Engles hesitated. “Well, I heard it was Little Pat, hisself. Now I don’t know that for a fact; it’s just what I heard.”

  “Patrick Donnelly personally moved him into your unit?” DeMarco was unable to keep the shock from registering in his voice.

  “Like I said, that’s what came out of the rumor mill.”

  “Why would the director of the Secret Service take an interest in the career of Billy Mattis?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. I also don’t see what the big deal is here. Mattis passed all the qualification boards, and when I got to know him, I liked him. Quiet guy. Serious about his work. Mind always on the job. Not one of those guys who gets bored and starts watching skirts in the crowd.”

  “So you didn’t complain about the assignment?”

  “No. I was pissed because I didn’t have a say in it, but there was no reason to make a stink. I would have, had he been a fuckup, but he wasn’t.” Shaking his head, he added, “Poor Reynolds.”

  “Reynolds?”

  “Guy who replaced me. He must be catching hell right now, lettin’ that guy Edwards get into position that morning. I saw him the other day leaving his house, fuckin’ newsies shovin’ microphones in his face.”

  “Yeah,” DeMarco said, feigning sympathy for poor Reynolds. “But what about Mattis? How much hell do you think he’s catching right now?”

  “For what?” Engles asked.

  “You must have seen the video of the shooting. How Mattis dropped his sunglasses right before the first shot was fired.”

  “Is that what this is all about?” Engles said, eyes blazing. “Look, any man in that unit could have dropped something, or tripped, or moved the wrong way. Just because Mattis did doesn’t have a damn thing to do with his experience or the selection procedures or who assigned him or any other fuckin’ thing.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” DeMarco said, sounding unconvinced. “But tell me, how did you rate Mattis’s performance when he worked for you, Mr. Engles?”

  Engles, still fuming, took a breath to regain his composure.

  “Let me put it this way,” he said. “I had two kinds of good people who worked for me. I also had a few bad ones over the years but we won’t waste our time talking about those. The first kind, the kind who eventually move up through the ranks, were the guys who figured things out on their own. They didn’t always do exactly what you told them, but they did what you really wanted done. You understand what I’m sayin’ here?”

  DeMarco nodded.

  “The second kind of good guy,” Engles said, “was Billy Mattis. He just plain followed orders. Every organization needs people like him, people you can always rely on to do what they’re told, but Billy’s rank and file, a frontline grunt, and he always will be.”

  “What about his personality?”

  “I already told you: quiet, easygoin’. Raised proper, taught to respect his mama and love his country. He didn’t have any close friends in the unit but he got along with everybody. He was a likable guy. I liked him.”

  “How ’bout his politics?”

  “I honest to God don’t remember him ever expressing a political opinion about anything. I couldn’t tell you if he voted Republican or Democrat, or if he voted at all.” Engles frowned. “Why are you asking about Mattis’s politics? You people think he actually had something to do with the shooting?”r />
  Yikes. “Of course not,” DeMarco said.

  “I sure as hell hope not. That boy would no more be involved in something like that than Ol’ Bullet here would turn himself into a cat. Ain’t that right, Bullet,” Engles said, tugging on the dog’s collar.

  DeMarco thought he saw Ol’ Bullet smile but the dog may have been choking.

  DeMarco schmoozed around with Frank Engles another fifteen minutes trying to get him to remember nasty things about Billy Mattis. Nada. Billy Ray was the Muffin Man, Mr. Goodwrench, sugar and spice and everything nice. And he probably was.

  As DeMarco was driving back to Washington, picking dog hairs off his trousers, his cell phone rang. It was Banks.

  “Be in my office at one,” Banks said. “The FBI has something new on the assassination attempt and they’re sending someone over to brief me.”

  10

  The FBI briefing consisted of a single agent equipped with a spiral-bound notebook, and DeMarco could see that Banks was disappointed. The retired general had obviously been expecting a Pentagon PowerPoint with multicolored charts showing maps, shooting angles, and enlarged copies of lab reports.

  The agent, one Gregory Prudom, was a man of medium height with regular features. His hair was short and brown. His blue suit, white shirt, and red-and-gold striped tie were bureaucratic camouflage. He was so nondescript that his own mother couldn’t have picked him out of a lineup. At the same time, he had the air of a man who would hold the line if commanded, never giving an inch until directed to retreat. A titanium cookie cutter down at Quantico stamped out men like Agent Prudom.

  Prudom started the briefing by glancing at DeMarco and saying, “General Banks, I was told to extend to you the courtesy of a progress report but I was of the understanding you would be alone. May I ask who this gentleman is?”