Edge of Honor Read Free Page B

events. Then she would change into formal attire to speak at a “Save the Children” banquet. She would finally return to the White House at 10:00 P.M. But her day was not finished. She always read for another two hours before retiring. Andsometime in between, she would have to call Maura and her son.
    All told, an easy day.
    The three men who made up Turner’s Policy Review Committee and Mazie Hazelton were waiting for her. Since the attorney general had asked for the meeting, he sat on the end of the couch closest to Turner’s rocking chair. He nervously fingered his notes as she sat down. Madeline Turner was famous, or infamous, depending on the point of view, for galloping through meetings.
    The attorney general cleared his throat and began. “Special Services claims Yaponets is a bigger problem in prison than on the outside,” he said. Special Services was the Department of Justice’s spy system inside the federal prison system and Yaponets, Russian for Japanese, was a senior godfather from eastern Russia and the leading member of the Russian Mafiya currently in an American jail. He was a burly, sixty-four-year-old man and anything but Japanese.
    “What’s the problem?” Turner asked.
    “He’s organizing crime on the outside from the inside,” the attorney general answered. “He’s using our prisons as a command center, a recruiting ground, and as a graduate school for criminals.”
    “Isolate him,” Turner said. “Take his telephone away. Throw him in solitary.”
    “We would if we could,” the attorney general said. “But the ACLU and prisoners-rights organizations would be on our case in a flash. Not to mention some of the highest-priced legal assassins in the country.” Silence. A fact of life in the United States was that ROC, or Russian organized crime, had bought access into every aspect of American life through large charitable donations, political campaign contributions, and astronomical retainer fees paid to some of the craftiest lawyers in the United States.
    “What happened to deportation?” the president asked.
    “That’s what I was going to recommend,” the attorney general replied.
    Now it was Richard Parrish’s turn. As Turner’s chief of staff and primary political advisor, he was always looking for hazards. “That’s political suicide. Senator Lelandwill beat us silly claiming we’re soft on crime and that we caved in to ROC.”
    “So by being tough on crime and throwing the bastards in jail,” the attorney general added, “we actually help ROC achieve its ends.”
    “It makes you long for the Cosa Nostra, doesn’t it?” Sam Kennett, the vice president, said. “At least the ‘men of honor’ were American.”
    “And not too bright,” the attorney general said.
    “Don’t sell them short,” Mazie Kamigami Hazelton said. She sat motionless in her chair, a petite beauty whose dainty feet didn’t quite reach the floor. Her words were so soft and low that it was hard to hear her. But they all fell silent when she spoke. “I agree with DOJ.” The attorney general beamed. Too often, the national security advisor was on the other side of the fence from the Department of Justice and time had a perverse way of proving her right. “We need to export our problems, not warehouse them. Exchange him.”
    “For who?” This from the attorney general.
    “Not for a who,” Mazie said. “For a what.”
    “What do you have in mind?” Turner asked.
    “Exchange him for a nuke,” Mazie answered.
    The Hill
    The immaculately restored blue-and-white T-34 Mentor approached from the north. It was flying at exactly 500 feet above the ground and 140 knots indicated airspeed as it crossed the green fairways of New Mexico Military Institute’s golf course. Pontowski rocked the wings of the old Air Force trainer he and Little Matt had lovingly rebuilt as he pulled up and headed for the airport to the south of town. The few golfers, all alumni and their guests, looked up. “Jet