Flight of the Green Bird
a novelBy Myra S. ShapiroAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2009 Myra S. Shapiro
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4490-0379-1Chapter One
The day began like most steamy summer days begin. In the pastoral setting of Laurelwood, the red-hot sun sat on the landscape as if an accomplished painter had thoughtfully placed it just behind the hilly knoll. Its early morning rays touched down on the broad green lawns that surrounded this country estate, swept along the wooded drive, grazed past the underbrush of rhododendron and mountain laurel and moved on to brush the corner of Senator Winston Ainsley's second floor bedroom balcony. The estate, marked by a familiar signpost along the winding rural road, lay nestled in the midst of a grassy valley of Potomac horse country, thirty minutes yet a thousand worlds away from the shrill noise and hectic pace of the nation's Capitol, a quiet sanctuary that gave Winn shelter from the maddening crowds.
As he did most summer mornings, the Senator stepped onto his balcony for his morning ritual. He was a striking figure, his mane of snow-white hair and piercing pale blue eyes set in a sun-bronzed face, his tall, athletic build impeccably dressed in a well-tailored Brooks Brothers suit, an immaculate white Hugo Boss shirt and his signature polka-dotted bow tie. He read his text messages, scanned the Web, and then glanced in the usual order through the three newspapers neatly placed on a round marble topped table. If he missed anything important he knew that on any typical morning, when he arrived promptly at 8 o'clock at his high-ceilinged walnut-paneled office in Suite 203 of the Old Senate Office Building, his alter ego, Griff Foster, legal counsel to Winn's Senate Intelligence Committee, would provide an executive summary of all the hot news he needed to know. The summary, double-spaced and never more than two pages long would be placed precisely in the center of an enormous antique table, a family heirloom that served as his desk. Winn knew this day would be different.
As usual, Charles, the faithful family houseman who had looked after him from the time he was a teenager and had come along to tend him after he married and moved into his wife's childhood home, brought Winn's breakfast to him. It was always the same - two cups of strong coffee in a Sheffield silver pot, a small pitcher of whole milk, two slices of buttered whole grain toast, two selections of marmalade and six-ounces of fresh-squeezed orange juice in a sparkling Waterford tumbler. Each item was placed on a well-polished silver gallery tray covered with a starched Irish linen placemat and napkin. Winn still longed for a cigarette and restlessly reached for one, forgetting for the moment that he had abandoned that habit years ago.
A lot of newsprint on the new intelligence estimate but no mention of a security breach, and on this morning he was grateful for that. The press conference was scheduled for 4 o'clock. That would give Griff the time he needed to set up his end, and then Winn could blow the lid. He steeled himself for the chaos that would surely follow.
With the methodical mind of a cautious man, he reviewed in his mind's eye the events of the past two days just to make sure they were not a figment of his imagination, a manifestation of a very bad dream. He relived with some satisfaction the pleasures he had enjoyed two nights ago, the same sensual pleasures he enjoyed every Tuesday night at the well-secreted white palace that existed mainly to satisfy the sexual desires and fantasies of the powerful men who controlled the nation's Capitol. It was just something he did for the past fifteen years, a standing appointment every Tuesday at seven to safely and anonymously take care of his carnal needs for the week. As always, his mind drifted to Celeste. He would have preferred to make love to her, but he could barely remember how it felt to hold her close, to inhale her fragrance and caress her well-cared-for body.
Fifteen years had passed but the memory of that last time still seared his brain when he thought of it. In the first aftermath of that terrible night, he agonized that she would never forgive him. So many years later with so many lost opportunities to bury the incident and move on, he worried that he could never forgive her. He suffered bouts of profound loneliness, painful times that came late at night after they had spent an enjoyable social evening together. In those dark hours he was often struck by a strong urge to escape the emptiness of his room, and he would wander onto his bedroom balcony to seek comfort in the stars. But these moods were stubborn, and he learned to wait it out, knowing that eventually the mood would pass. Still, he was grateful that he and Celeste maintained a careful, polite and even affectionate demeanor around others, and this cordial public face would have to do for now.
When they first met, Celeste was a popular debutante, once described on the society pages as "a beautiful brunette with the willowy figure of a cover girl and the graceful stride of a gazelle." Greatly admired in privileged Washington circles not only for her beauty, but also for her sharp mind and her Ambassador father's valuable political connections, she was courted by an endless procession of suitors. She chose Winn, and they were married within six months of their meeting. Now, when he reflected on their brief courtship, he wondered if her gently probing questions were more about the political partnership he could provide than about him. Yet there were times when he glimpsed real affection in those expressive eyes of hers, green catlike eyes that drew him to her from the very beginning.
They met at an exclusive party for the Maryland Hunt Cup steeplechase races, held annually in the valley of the aristocrats, Winn's home turf in up-country Baltimore County. The gathering was set up for a small group of favored and fashionable elites in a special enclosure separated from the casual observers who lined the wooden fences of the participating farms. Celeste and Winn knew a lot about this time-honored timber race, a risky sport across the rough terrain of field and stream with twenty-two formidable jumps, some up to five feet high, a grueling course where it was rare for an entire field of horses to finish. For reasons that neither of them could explain, they hadn't attended this big event before and their rookie enthusiasm for the local horseflesh and the amateur blue-blooded jockeys who dared to take up the challenge, kept the early conversation going.
The party was located at the difficult 13th jump, named the Union Memorial, after the Baltimore hospital where riders who fall and injure themselves were often taken. Their host, a friend of Winn's who knew them both and thought they would be ideal together, introduced them. Winn was running for public office, Celeste was comfortable in the public arena, and in the beginning, they were as their host suspected they would be, a perfect pair.
In some respects, Celeste was her father's daughter and like him, her political instincts were impeccable. Until now, Winn had made no important public move without running it by her. But this one was dicey, and he had carefully avoided any hint of it. He wanted to insulate her from any nasty repercussions, and he was sure that so far he had succeeded.
This past Tuesday night was like no other. On this night, the usually unseen Madam X sought him out. The Madam, an Asian with an exquisite round face and a tiny graceful figure, was wearing her customary outfit, a long pencil-slim dress of gold silk damask adorned only by an enormous pear shaped diamond fixed to a nearly invisible neck chain. On his way out, she asked that the Senator come to her office. With the easy familiarity that spoke of their once intimate relationship, she took his hand and led him down a dim back passageway and up a narrow staircase, motioned for him to enter the door that was directly at the head of the stairs, and she slid away.
The room was softly lit with wall lanterns hung at appropriate places on heavily textured grass cloth walls. It was expensively furnished in muted shades of cream and gold with an antique Chinese rug, a six-panel incised Asian floor screen, an elegant seating area and a small desk. A young man, who Winn had seen tinkering around the place, stood swiftly from the low-slung sofa and extended a clammy hand but did not introduce himself.
In a hushed voice, the man claimed he had stumbled upon stunning information while he was engaging in his nasty business, his nepharious pursuit of "black hat" computer hacking. He did not disclose that even in his tender years he had already earned a notorious reputation in the burgeoning underworld of computer hackers where he was called the "locksmith," the undeniable master of computer-intrusion tactics. He justifiably claimed that his decision to disclose the data he had unlocked put him in serious personal jeopardy, so immediately after this conversation he was returning to the soft bosom of a far-off hideaway, far, far away from trouble. As he told an astonishing story, the evidence of his nervousness came in rivulets of sweat that dripped from his oily pockmarked face and in big wet patches that spread from his armpits down the sides of his denim shirt. With permission, the Senator taped the conversation, and for the next 30 minutes he listened in disbelief and suddenly realized that he was barely breathing.
There are those awful life-changing moments; ugly drops of time when you know that nothing can ever be the same, when you wish you could turn back the clock and erase the horror. For Winn this was the moment, and he knew he had better play this hand carefully and with all the skill he could summon up. If the informant was on the mark, he had less than seventy-two hours to shut down the coup.
By Thursday morning, with expert planning and secrecy, Griff had laid the groundwork and Winn was ready. He glanced at his watch and saw that he had just enough time for a second cup of coffee before his driver came by for him. Then, abruptly emerging from the quiet blue sky, he heard the loud sound of a small plane or helicopter. In this posh neighborhood this was not a foreign sound but the engine noise sounded too loud and too low. Winn turned to scan the horizon and was shocked to see a helicopter swooping towards him. He stood swiftly to escape to the safety of his bedroom, but his last thoughts were that he wouldn't make it. It was up to Griff now.
At exactly eight minutes before seven o'clock on the morning of Thursday, August 13th, 2026, the praiseworthy public life of United States Senator Winston Ainsley, the scion and the last survivor of a long line of prominent and privileged Ainsleys, was done. The strafing from the helicopter sliced him almost in two, splintered the balcony doors, shattered the powdered brick and splattered blood everywhere. The remnants of his final breakfast lay on the fractured marble table and his future lay butchered on the marble floor.
The helicopter spun away, climbed above the hilly knoll and blew up in a fireball brighter than the risen sun. Finger on the trigger, wide grin on his face and fervent prayer on his lips, the triumphant pilot believed with every fiber of his being that he was about to enter the Gates of Paradise.
Chapter Two
Still groggy from only two hours of solid sleep, Griff rolled off Senator Ainsley's worn brown leather sofa and headed for the Senator's private washroom, which was conveniently tucked away just inside his office. He splashed cold water on his face and borrowed the Senator's electric razor to shave the prickly stubble that covered it. He had pulled many all-nighters in his twenty years on the Hill but the last two nights were the toughest he could remember. Since it was critical to keep his work under wraps, he had prepared the statement, the press handout, and the subpoenas in solitary confinement. As far as he knew, other than the conspirators and the disappeared informant, only he and the Senator knew the details, and they needed to keep it that way. Now, they were ready to push the buttons and disrupt the plan.
Griff's cell phone rang. At 7:05, Griff answered and the Senator's driver delivered the news. He was shocked but some corner of his brain told him that he had almost expected something terrible to happen. He stumbled onto the sofa, leaned his forehead into his cupped hands and thought hard. Then he got up, went to his computer, made a hard copy, wiped the hard drive clean, destroyed the backup copy, put the hard copy, the memory chip, the subpoenas and three handouts into a manila envelope and left for the staff parking lot where he had stashed his yellow Volkswagen beetle. He placed the envelop in his glove compartment and locked it, headed back to the office, half walking, half jogging, and primed himself to face the staff.
By 8 o'clock, most of the staff had arrived. They were huddled in clusters looking like frightened deer caught in the headlights. Some were sobbing, others stoical, teary-eyed or too dazed to speak. The phones were ringing and no one was answering them. No one was sitting at his or her desks. The computers were on but no one was paying any attention to them.
Griff knew that he had to get through this day with a semblance of calm. He had to bury his pain and close his mind to the heavy lump in his throat until he could think this through. Was he safer blending into the disorder or should he just hightail it out of there. He decided it was smarter to go underground, but he would make an effort to provide a cover story to pave the way. He put a new message on the answering machine and brought the staff into the Senator's office. Mitch, the administrative assistant was missing. Griff found him tucked away in his office with the door shut, working away at his computer as if this was a normal day, and Griff asked him to join the staff meeting.
Speaking to the assembled group, Griff directed Mitch to take charge, turn all press inquiries over to the FBI, contact the Governor's office for guidance on how he wanted them to handle inquiries related to succession, refer constituent inquiries to the junior senator's office and suspend other ordinary activity until further instructions. He didn't mention who would give the instructions because he didn't know. Mitch insisted that he wasn't up to the task, but Griff refused to take no for an answer.
With his heart pounding so hard that he thought everyone could hear it, Griff said, "Listen guys, I don't know what the hell happened but I've got to get out to the Senator's place. Mitch, I know this is hard, but you will just have to rise to the occasion and handle things here. It's important that all of you stay put until you've been interviewed." Not likely, but if any insiders were involved, he hoped he had bought some time. If they had tagged Winn, he could be next. Who had known that Winn was about to reveal a nightmare; that he was about to expose a secret network buried so deep in the bowels of the faceless bureaucracy that it could remain unmasked forever? Did they know that Griff had been in the loop all the way?
Griff could feel the sweat rolling off his neck but he also knew that if he succumbed to the fear that gripped him, if he took off in panicked flight, if he reached for that first drink, he could be a dead man. He told himself that he had to stay cool; that he was the only one left who could stop these people from wreaking the havoc they intended. He walked briskly to the parking lot and slid behind the wheel of his car. If only he hadn't chosen the flamboyant yellow bug that was so out of character for his conventional persona. It was a fleeting thought. He knew he had to ditch the car in any case.
For the past few months, his elderly parents had abandoned their Federal style Georgetown house for their contemporary villa in the south of France, taking cooking lessons of all things. In his memory his mother had never cooked, and his father didn't even know where the kitchen was, but he supposed this was as harmless an activity as any for these septuagenarians, and he smiled in spite of his state of fear. He headed for their garage, which housed only an aged Mercedes reserved for the unlikely chance that their driver failed to come by for them. He would stash his car there. At least it would be out of sight. He drove up Wisconsin to the alley behind P Street, got out, opened the heavy wooden doors and pulled into the space next to the Mercedes. Then he closed the garage doors, bolted them and exited through the garden door.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Flight of the Green Birdby Myra S. Shapiro Copyright © 2009 by Myra S. Shapiro. Excerpted by permission.
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