Read Online The President's Henchman by Joseph Flynn - Free Book Online Page B

times — and the man was nothing if not serious about doing his job.
    But this was the first time he’d approached McGill personally since he’d lost the battle over how many of his minions would ensure that McGill didn’t go toes up.
    “Morning, Celsus,” McGill said. “Galia’s got donuts if you’re hungry.”
    Not that McGill thought Crogher ate. He suspected that somewhere beneath the SAC’s clothing, there was a pair of electrodes he used to recharge his batteries for an hour or two each night. Eyes wide open, of course.
    Crogher, as he always did, got straight to the point. “Mr. McGill, I’m not getting the cooperation I need.”
    “From whom?” McGill asked.
    “From Captain Sullivan of the Evanston PD.” Barbara Sullivan was the Evanston copper who coordinated the protection of McGill’s children.
    Normally, the president’s children were provided with Secret Service protection. But McGill’s children were the president’s stepchildren, who also had a mother and a stepfather. Such a blended family was new to the presidential scheme of things.
    Everybody agreed that Abbie, Kenny, and Caitie had to be protected. Andy Grant’s tragic death was an example of the jeopardy that could attach to anyone the president loved, and Patti Grant had come to love McGill’s children dearly. So the federal government thought to extend Secret Service protection to them.
    But not to their mother and stepfather.
    Then the kids had met Celsus Crogher and said no way.
    The president settled the matter. Patti insisted that since she was the reason the children needed protection in the first place, she would be the one to pick up the tab. She was the only one, other than the government, who had the means to afford around-the-clock security for the children, their mother, and their stepfather, who, like McGill, were Evanston residents.
    Barbara Sullivan, who might have been Sweetie’s older, kinder, no-less-tough sister, ran the security detail, using off-duty Evanston patrol and detective personnel. Strictly as a courtesy, Barbara had agreed to keep Celsus Crogher informed with semimonthly reports.
    Now Crogher told McGill, “I asked Captain Sullivan to switch to a weekly reporting basis.”
    McGill frowned. “Why?”
    Crogher was silent, and that was all the answer McGill needed.
    “Are my children at increased risk, Crogher? Sonofabitch, did you tell Barbara?”
    Of course, he hadn’t. Feds never told local cops anything. And a local cop was how Crogher would always see McGill. No, now he was even worse in the SAC’s eyes. He was a private cop. Holmes.
    McGill didn’t know if he could coldcock Crogher, but he was sorely tempted to try. It wasn’t the uncertainty that stopped him; it was his promise to Patti not to do anything to embarrass her. But Crogher must have recognized the threat of violence in McGill’s eyes because he took a sudden step backward. Even that gave McGill no satisfaction.
    He strode back through Galia’s doorway, and told Crogher, “Get in here.”
    Galia had left by the back door, the one to the Oval Office, leaving the donuts behind. McGill picked up her phone, got an outside line, and called Barbara Sullivan.
    “Barbara? Jim McGill. I’m going to put SAC Celsus Crogher on the line.” McGill handed the phone to Crogher. “Every last thing you know. Don’t hold back a word.”
    Crogher began a terse recitation, never acknowledging Barbara Sullivan. A machine who’d had his PLAY button pushed, he was nevertheless effective in bringing McGill to a cold sweat.
    Federal government monitoring of right-wing Web sites and chat rooms, as well as classified intercepts of other communications, had picked up increased and increasingly threatening mentions of the president’s illegitimate bastard offspring. Stories were circulating that the president and her current husband had been longtime secret lovers. Abbie, Kenny, and Caitie were really the president’s out-of-wedlock whelps. She’d