The Inside Ring Read Free

family thing: one of his kids was in trouble or his wife was having an affair with someone human.
    “Okay,” Banks said again, and he took in a lungful of air through his big nose as if preparing to dive into deep waters. “I want you to investigate a Secret Service agent named Billy Ray Mattis.”
    “An agent?”
    “Yeah.”
    The name rang a bell.
    “Investigate how?” DeMarco said.
    “I want you to . . .” Banks stopped.
    “Yes,” DeMarco said. It was like trying to get a virgin’s knickers off, getting this guy to say whatever was on his mind. Finally the dam broke.
    “I want you to see if Mattis was an accomplice in the assassination attempt on the President.”
    “Whoa!” DeMarco said, half rising out of his chair. “Stop right there. Do not say another word.” DeMarco shook his head in disbelief at what he had just heard. “And anyway,” he said, “I thought the guy who shot the President acted alone.”
    “Yeah,” Banks said, “he probably did.”
    This was ridiculous, DeMarco was thinking. “Look, General,” he said, “you wanted to know about my background. Well, I’ll tell you. I’m a lawyer who does odd jobs for Congress. That’s it. If a constituent turns into a stalker, I make him go sit in a corner. If a congressman thinks his kid is doing drugs, I find out before the kid becomes a liability. If a politician thinks his wife is cheating on him, I make sure she’s not screwing a journalist. That’s the kind of stuff I do, sir. Little stuff. Small stuff. Assassinations are out of my league. Way out of my league. So if you really believe this agent was involved in the assassination attempt, you need to talk to the FBI.”
    “I don’t want to do that,” Banks said. “At least not yet.”
    “But why not?”
    Banks didn’t answer him. He just stood there looking simultaneously guilty, stubborn, and annoyed.
    In the four days since the assassination attempt Banks and Patrick Donnelly, head of the Secret Service, had been interviewed by the FBI. The press had camped out on their doorsteps screaming questions at them, and Congress, in a rare and rapid bipartisan gesture, had slapped together a nosy panel that had grilled both men for hours on how the President’s security had been so disastrously penetrated. Banks had had multiple opportunities to tell people he suspected a Secret Service agent of involvement in the assassination attempt—yet here he was, telling DeMarco he couldn’t.
    DeMarco knew he should leave. Just get his ass out of this fuckin’ chair, walk out, and never look back. He also knew if he left before finding out what was going on, Mahoney would flay him.
    Before DeMarco could decide one way or the other, Banks picked up an index card lying on the blotter in the center of his desk. He held it gingerly, by one corner, as if it was coated with anthrax, and handed it to DeMarco.
    “This is what started it all,” Banks said. “That’s not the original but that’s what it said, verbatim. I sent the original to . . . Never mind. Just read it.”
    DeMarco read: “Eagle One is in danger. Cancel Chattooga River. The inside ring has been compromised. This is not a joke.” The note was signed: “An agent in the wrong place.”

3
    The Speaker had recently taken to walking at lunchtime in a futile attempt to prevent the heart attack that was certain to kill him. He had told DeMarco to meet him at the Taft Memorial at noon. DeMarco had arrived at twelve fifteen and it was now twelve thirty.
    At the Taft Memorial stands a ten-foot bronze statue of Senator Robert A. Taft and behind his statue is a carillon made from white Tennessee marble that rises one hundred feet into the air. The twenty-seven bells in the carillon were cast in Annecy, France, and the largest bell weighed seven tons. What Senator Taft had done to deserve such tribute had faded from memory—at least from DeMarco’s memory—but he was grateful that the memorial was located in a pleasant urban park