during the shooting, he almost took my head off. He was telling the truth when he said he’d die to protect the President.”
“Yes,” Emma said, “but he’s involved and I would certainly like to know how. And I’ll tell you something else, Joe: I don’t think the FBI or anyone else has really questioned that lad very hard. I think Donnelly’s been shielding him, somehow, from the FBI’s interrogators.”
“That fuckin’ Donnelly. I’m gonna go see Banks. Right now. I’ve gotta convince that stubborn shit to talk to the Bureau.”
Emma looked at DeMarco in surprise. “I thought the Speaker said to wait and see what Donnelly does next.”
“Screw the Speaker,” DeMarco said with more conviction than he felt.
Emma smiled, the first sign of humor he’d see from her all day. “So what would you like me to do, sweetie, while you’re talking to the good secretary?”
“Can you stick with Billy?”
“No, but I’ll call someone.”
AS WOULD BE expected, the secretary of Homeland Security was not sitting in his office, twiddling his big thumbs, just waiting for lowly Joe DeMarco to pay him a visit. DeMarco sat in Banks’s waiting room for two and a half hours watching important folk come and go. He noticed during that time that all who entered Banks’s office were happier when they arrived than when they left, and by five o’clock DeMarco was becoming quite unhappy himself. He’d missed lunch and his stomach was beginning to rumble.
At five thirty he was finally allowed in to see Banks. Taped around the walls of Banks’s office were poster-board organizational charts. The general was moving from chart to chart with a red felt-tipped marker making big X ’s through rectangles representing divisions or departments. Every time he crossed out a box he would say “Gotcha” like a man swatting a fly. Now DeMarco could see why those who had visited him had left not smiling.
While continuing to study the charts, Banks said to DeMarco, “When they formed Homeland Security they jammed twenty-two different agencies together, one hundred eighty thousand people, and each agency already had its own support structure. You know, overhead guys, financial people, admin staff, personnel departments, that sorta thing. But do you think the people that run these agencies would volunteer to combine some of these functions to reduce costs? Hell no, not them. Goddamn rice bowls, they’re costing—”
“You need to tell the FBI what you know.”
Banks stopped studying the charts and fixed his hard eyes on DeMarco. “You found something, didn’t you?” he said. It wasn’t really a question.
“Maybe,” DeMarco said and proceeded to tell Banks how he had confronted Billy Mattis on the Mall and how the agent had reacted when he had quoted from the note.
Banks threw his red marker at the wall. “Goddamnit, DeMarco!” he yelled. “I didn’t tell you to question the man. You’re about as subtle as an elephant’s dick!”
DeMarco couldn’t tell Banks about the Speaker’s order, so instead he said, “I was wasting my time, General. I couldn’t find a link between Mattis and Edwards, or anything else that incriminates him. I thought the best thing to do was to put some pressure on him and see how he reacted—and I got one hell of a reaction, sir. If you’d been there you’d understand what I’m saying.”
Before Banks could have him flogged for insubordination, DeMarco hurried on to say, “And the other thing is, Billy denied being given a polygraph. Donnelly could be lying about that too, just like he lied to you about analyzing the warning note.”
Banks started to say something then stopped. He realized that it was possible that his worst fear had come true: the note had been genuine and he’d failed to act on it.
“It’s time to talk to the FBI, General. You need to get them looking at Mattis.”
Banks ignored DeMarco and instead bent to pick up the marking pen he had thrown, and then
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