THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

From the journal of John 'Jack' Quincy Adams, Chief Secret Service Special Agent in Charge, The White House. Code Name: One.

Part 42. Coffee and No Sympathy

Jack Adams, the Secret Service agent charged with assassinating President George W. Bush and being held for psychiatric evaluation, has told the psychiatrist the 'public' story. In a computer file secretly delivered to his children, he now reveals the 'real story'. Here he tells about his friend and boss figuring out what happened.

'What coffee?'

'The coffee on the tray, Jack. Someone had a glass of iced coffee and the bottom of the glass was wet. It must have spilled when the person poured it, so when it was set on the tray it left a ring. Did one of you start to have coffee that night then change his mind?'

'Yes,' I said after waiting way too long, but if Raife was going to give me my alibi, then I was going to take it. 'I didn't like the soda. It was diet and tasted bitter. So I decided to have iced coffee. But then I changed my mind so I took the iced coffee back and got a soda. The kitchen was empty when I got the soda, so I guessed there was no one in the house except me and Trailblazer,' I said.

'Besides Tempo, that is.'

This is where he had been headed all along. 'Right. Except for Tempo. But I think by that time she was asleep.'

Raife went silent then the way a submarine goes silent when an enemy destroyer is spotted on the surface by the radar man.

'What's the matter?' I said, now speaking too fast. He was cornering me, slowly but surely.

'Remember last August? The trip to Crawford? When Mrs. Sheehan was doing her own personal anti-war protest down the road?'

'Sure. How could I forget?'

'Do you remember the extra measures we took for that trip? The additional agents, the undercover Pinschers at Camp Casey, the added vehicles on the premises?'

'Yeah, sure.'

Raife sat quietly for a moment, allowing me to follow the ball of string he had begun to unravel for little Kitty. It didn't take long.

'Really? Termites? At the ranch? In Tempo's home? Without her knowing?'

'National security, Jack. Times of crisis, that way of thinking.'

'Wow.'

'Come on, Jack. If we'd give you that pin to wear in Diadem, is there any place sacred?'

'So tell me what you know. Or what you don't know. Better yet, Raife, just ask me.'

'That's one approach.'

'That's the only approach, Raife. Here anyway. Here and now. I'm exhausted, really. So just ask and make it easy on both of us. I'll give you long answers if you like. Just don't force me into 'Once upon a time.' It's too late in the day for that.'

'There's one question that I want to ask personally. Professionally, too, I suppose, but personally it's of interest to me.'

'What's that, Raife?'

'Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you just say there were three of you having a little goodnight drink? That was sloppy, Jack.'

'You know why.'

'Jack, that was thirty years ago.'

'Time doesn't exist in the heart, Raife.'

Raife thought for a moment as he sipped the brandy.

'Can I see your Medic Alert, Jack?'

Fuck all!

I don't know what I expected. I mean I played this out a hundred times. Sooner or later they were going to check the medallions and mine was going to be the one they were looking for. The empty one. What I should have realized was that they were marked. I don't know how and I don't know in what way they could tell them apart. My guess is there was a chip in the medallion itself.

I took the Medic Alert medallion from around my neck and held it. There was absolutely nothing I could do. I suppose I could have swallowed it. That would have been the supreme irony. The joke would have been on me then as things turned out.

I handed it to Raife and he took a plastic evidence bag out of his jacket pocket and slipped it in. 'I guess that's all,' he said. He was sad and it came out in his voice more than in his body language or his eyes.

'I guess you want me to come with you,' I said.

'That would be preferable, I think.'