The President's Henchman Read Online Free PDF

wife the night before; the press of business had kept her away until he was already asleep. Now, he had two bottles, each in a silver ice bucket, waiting for her. Poland Springs Sparkling Mineral Water. Leapfrog California Chardonnay. Patti sat next to her husband on the drawing room sofa and opted for the water.
    “I’m gainfully employed again,” McGill told her. “My first client.”
    “I know,” Patti said.
    “You know?”
    “I’m the president. I know everything.”
    McGill wasn’t omniscient, but he was pretty quick. “Galia told you. And no way Sweetie, Deke, or Leo told her. So she’s either got my office bugged or somebody on the client’s side ratted her out.”
    “Chana Lochlan. I stopped by the pressroom today to take a good look at her.”
    Patti wasn’t the jealous type, McGill knew, but her curiosity was relentless.
    “If Galia has my office bugged, are you going to fire her?”
    “I’ll slap her wrist. Tell her not to do it again.”
    “Good to know where I stand in the pecking order.”
    Patti kissed McGill. As always, he could imagine a thousand violins starting to play as the closing credits of a movie rolled. “You know where you stand,” she said. “But I do need Galia.”
    “Your pacification effort is working, don’t stop now.”
    “Jim, I need a favor.”
    The nice thing about being married to a trained communicator, it was easy to pick right up on her tone. McGill stopped joking and sat back. He opened his hands wide.
    “Whatever I can do.”
    She told him about Colonel Carina Linberg and Lieutenant Welborn Yates.
    “Welborn?” McGill asked.
    “A lovely young man. Dedicated to the service of his country.”
    “Working his first case. Likely susceptible to pressure from above, if I’m reading between the lines right.”
    Patti nodded. “That’s why I moved him to the White House. To shelter him. I’ve taken quite a liking to him.”
    McGill only nodded. He wasn’t the jealous type either.
    “Lieutenant Yates and three friends, all Air Force, were on their way back to California after another buddy got married in Las Vegas. It was the wee small hours of the morning, they were a block away from the freeway entrance when a car ran a red light and broadsided them.”
    “Welborn was the sole survivor,” McGill said, knowing immediately.
    “Four fighter jocks. Only one thought himself mortal enough to need a seat belt, and Welborn, despite his seat belt, sustained damage to his right inner ear. Doesn’t keep him from doing most things, but he can’t take the multi-G forces of flying fighter jets.”
    McGill poured a glass of wine for each of them.
    “Gets worse, doesn’t it?” he asked.
    “The driver of the other car walked away, was never found, and the car had been stolen the night before. No identification has ever been made.”
    McGill sipped his wine. “So Welborn stays in the military and learns the skills he figures he’ll need to track the SOB down someday.”
    “I’m told an OSI posting is the second-most-popular career choice in the Air Force, but, yes, that’s my assumption, too. Which tells me he has a strong sense of justice.”
    “Or vengeance.”
    “You haven’t met him.”
    McGill shrugged and drank some more wine.
    “So you think the kid will play it straight on the Linberg case,” he asked, “with you giving him political cover?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you’d like me to do what, tutor him? Let him know the kinds of things that don’t get covered in the textbooks and the lectures.”
    “Exactly. Only he’ll never see you. I’ll be your go-between.”
    “Our little secret?”
    Patti nodded.
    “Unless Galia has the residence bugged, too,” McGill said.
    “That would be cause for termination.”
    McGill smiled. “Like I said, whatever I can do.” He kissed his wife and excused himself to take a shower.
    Patti took her wineglass and went to a window looking out on Lafayette Square. Using her free hand, she pulled back a curtain