Chapter 23

It seemed like Mr. Joshua Obadiah Walsh had no other agenda than to work with us for the remainder of our crisis. He asked for a small office and an aide, so I provided a large suite, complete with receptionist, secretary, general gofer, and a couple of aides just to make my appreciation as clear as possible. His sources were forthcoming and he provided our people with reams of leads, facts, photos and other forms of evidence as to the misdeeds committed under the Minority Leader’s nose.

Our legal counsel worked for days trying to make a case for negligence that would stick in deeply difficult times. The Minority Leader was known to be tragically corrupt and disgustingly shallow. His missteps, misdeeds, and missing integrity were known far and wide. It’s just that the DOJ doesn’t run around indicting powerful members of the house.

They should. It became more and more apparent that this member of congress was a poison pill, not the bad apple I suspected. His provable crimes read like an old spy novel.

It became necessary to decide how to cause the downfall of the Minority Leader in such a way as to avoid a public trial and the accompanying political fallout.

He HAD to go.

Our people, supported by those provided by CIA Director Joshua Obadiah Walsh, pulled enough damning evidence together to crush him should I be forced to take it public. The thing left to decide was how to deliver an ultimatum sufficiently brutal as to cause the crooked dog to quit before he wound up in prison.

“We all should consider sending a neutral third party to drop the hammer,” was the advice of the Vice President. Sam Brownbock came to my subterranean vault to have this conversation.

On the day the Vice President came to the Pentagon, we had it locked down, swept continuously and guarded beyond anything we had previously seen. My people were all over the building insuring our privacy. When I handed over the written and photographic evidence of the crimes we could prove without breaking a sweat, the Vice President opened each folder, studied each paragraph and photograph, read every margin note, and absorbed it all without comment.

Maybe he had seen it all too many times.

Maybe he didn’t care what crimes the Minority Leader committed.

Maybe...

“Let’s consider sending a neutral third party to convince the Minority Leader to step aside,” were his first words since being handed the proof. “If you go, it will look like a partisan power play. If I go it looks even worse. Forget about having the President even think about confronting these crimes.

“We need someone whose pedigree puts them far above us all in terms of having a pure record. Find that person and let’s have him scare this mongrel into premature retirement.”

The Vice President had one last comment. “This proves what I wondered when the news of your breach came to me. That dirty, rotten ... DOG ... had a hand in getting some of our people killed. If it were up to me, I’d send the CIA a directive to put a bullet in his head.

“But it’s not, Thomas.

“It’s not up to me. And we have to be respectful of the government. We need to force him out and make sure he never returns to power in any position, and we need to help manage the process of electing a new minority leader by offering our thoughts on those that should be considered. It is a very delicate process, but we can let a little comment slip out that does not attack anyone. The comment could be in the form of a subtle compliment. Once the press picks it up and runs with it, those compliments come to have a life all their own, that has nothing to do with us, our party, or the office of the Vice President.”

After he took his leave, without the package of proof, so it couldn’t fall into the wrong hands, I began to concentrate on the problem. It was bafflement. Who could we cajole into carrying our water on this?