The Broker
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Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive—there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?
ISBN-13: 9780345532008
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication Date: 03-27-2012
Pages: 432
Product Dimensions: 4.20(w) x 7.50(h) x 1.02(d)
John Grisham is the author of twenty-three novels, including, most recently, The Litigators; one work of nonfiction, a collection of stories, and a novel for young readers. He is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mississippi Innocence Project at the University of Mississippi School of Law. He lives in Virginia and Mississippi.
Chapter 1
They were about pardons—desperate pleas from thieves and
embezzlers and liars, some still in jail and some who’d never
served time but who nonetheless wanted their good names cleared and
their beloved rights restored. All claimed to be friends, or friends
of friends, or die-hard supporters, though only a few had ever gotten
the chance to proclaim their support before that eleventh hour. How
sad that after four tumultuous years of leading the free world it
would all fizzle into one miserable pile of requests from a bunch of
crooks. Which thieves should be allowed to steal again? That was the
momentous question facing the President as the hours crept by.
The last friend was Critz, an old fraternity pal from their days at
Cornell when Morgan ran the student government while Critz stuffed the
ballot boxes. In the past four years, Critz had served as press
secretary, chief of staff, national security advisor, and even
secretary of state, though that appointment lasted for only three
months and was hastily rescinded when Critz’s unique style of
diplomacy nearly ignited World War III. Critz’s last appointment
had taken place the previous October, in the final frantic weeks of
the reelection onslaught. With the polls showing President Morgan
trailing badly in at least forty states, Critz seized control of the
campaign and managed to alienate the rest of the country, except,
arguably, Alaska.
It had been a historic election; never before had an incumbent
president received so few electoral votes. Three to be exact, all from
Alaska, the only state Morgan had not visited, at Critz’s
advice. Five hundred and thirty-five for the challenger, three for
President Morgan. The word “landslide” did not even begin
to capture the enormity of the shellacking.
Once the votes were counted, the challenger, following bad advice,
decided to contest the results in Alaska. Why not go for all 538
electoral votes? he reasoned. Never again would a candidate for the
presidency have the opportunity to completely whitewash his opponent,
to throw the mother of all shutouts. For six weeks the President
suffered even more while lawsuits raged in Alaska. When the supreme
court there eventually awarded him the state’s three electoral
votes, he and Critz had a very quiet bottle of champagne.
President Morgan had become enamored of Alaska, even though the
certified results gave him a scant seventeen-vote margin.
He should have avoided more states.
He even lost Delaware, his home, where the once-enlightened electorate
had allowed him to serve eight wonderful years as governor. Just as he
had never found the time to visit Alaska, his opponent had totally
ignored Delaware—no organization to speak of, no television ads,
not a single campaign stop. And his opponent still took 52 percent of
the vote!
Critz sat in a thick leather chair and held a notepad with a list of a
hundred things that needed to be done immediately. He watched his
President move slowly from one window to the next, peering into the
darkness, dreaming of what might have been. The man was depressed and
humiliated. At fifty-eight his life was over, his career a wreck, his
marriage crumbling. Mrs. Morgan had already moved back to Wilmington
and was openly laughing at the idea of living in a cabin in Alaska.
Critz had secret doubts about his friend’s ability to hunt and
fish for the rest of his life, but the prospect of living two thousand
miles from Mrs. Morgan was very appealing. They might have carried
Nebraska if the rather blue-blooded First Lady had not referred to the
football team as the “Sooners.”
The Nebraska Sooners!
Overnight, Morgan fell so far in the polls in both Nebraska and
Oklahoma that he never recovered.
And in Texas she took a bite of prizewinning chili and began vomiting.
As she was rushed to the hospital a microphone captured her
still-famous words: “How can you backward people eat such a
putrid mess?”
Nebraska has five electoral votes. Texas has thirty-four. Insulting
the local football team was a mistake they could have survived. But no
candidate could overcome such a belittling description of Texas chili.
What a campaign! Critz was tempted to write a book. Someone needed to
record the disaster.
Their partnership of almost forty years was ending. Critz had lined up
a job with a defense contractor for $200,000 a year, and he would hit
the lecture circuit at $50,000 a speech if anybody was desperate
enough to pay it. After dedicating his life to public service, he was
broke and aging quickly and anxious to make a buck.
The President had sold his handsome home in Georgetown for a huge
profit. He’d bought a small ranch in Alaska, where the people
evidently admired him. He planned to spend the rest of his days there,
hunting, fishing, perhaps writing his memoirs. Whatever he did in
Alaska, it would have nothing to do with politics and Washington. He
would not be the senior statesman, the grand old man of
anybody’s party, the sage voice of experience. No farewell
tours, convention speeches, endowed chairs of political science. No
presidential library. The people had spoken with a clear and
thunderous voice. If they didn’t want him, then he could
certainly live without them.
“We need to make a decision about Cuccinello,” Critz said.
The President was still standing at a window, looking at nothing in
the darkness, still pondering Delaware. “Who?”
“Figgy Cuccinello, that movie director who was indicted for
having sex with a young starlet.”
“How young?”
“Fifteen, I think.”
“That’s pretty young.”
“Yes, it is. He fled to Argentina where’s he’s been
for ten years. Now he’s homesick, wants to come back and start
making dreadful movies again. He says his art is calling him
home.”
“Perhaps the young girls are calling him home.”
“That too.”
“Seventeen wouldn’t bother me. Fifteen’s too
young.”
“His offer is up to five million.”
The President turned and looked at Critz. “He’s offering
five million for a pardon?”
“Yes, and he needs to move quickly. The money has to be wired
out of Switzerland. It’s three in the morning over there.”
“Where would it go?”
“We have accounts offshore. It’s easy.”
“What would the press do?”
“It would be ugly.”
“It’s always ugly.”
“This would be especially ugly.”
“I really don’t care about the press,” Morgan said.
Then why did you ask? Critz wanted to say.
“Can the money be traced?” the President asked and turned
back to the window.
“No.”
With his right hand, the President began scratching the back of his
neck, something he always did when wrestling with a difficult
decision. Ten minutes before he almost nuked North Korea, he’d
scratched until the skin broke and blood oozed onto the collar of his
white shirt. “The answer is no,” he said. “Fifteen
is too young.”
Without a knock, the door opened and Artie Morgan, the
President’s son, barged in holding a Heineken in one hand and
some papers in the other. “Just talked to the CIA,” he
said casually. He wore faded jeans and no socks.
“Maynard’s on the way over.” He dumped the papers on
the desk and left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Artie would take the $5 million without hesitation, Critz thought to
himself, regardless of the girl’s age. Fifteen was certainly not
too young for Artie. They might have carried Kansas if Artie
hadn’t been caught in a Topeka motel room with three
cheerleaders, the oldest of whom was seventeen. A grandstanding
prosecutor had finally dropped the charges—two days after the
election—when all three girls signed affidavits claiming they
had not had sex with Artie. They were about to, in fact had been just
seconds away from all manner of frolicking, when one of their mothers
knocked on the motel room door and prevented an orgy.
The President sat in his leather rocker and pretended to flip through
some useless papers. “What’s the latest on Backman?”
he asked.
In his eighteen years as director of the CIA, Teddy Maynard had been
to the White House less than ten times. And never for dinner (he
always declined for health reasons), and never to say howdy to a
foreign hotshot (he couldn’t have cared less). Back when he
could walk, he had occasionally stopped by to confer with whoever
happened to be president, and perhaps one or two of his policy makers.
Now, since he was in a wheelchair, his conversations with the White
House were by phone. Twice, a vice president had actually been driven
out to Langley to meet with Mr. Maynard.
The only advantage of being in a wheelchair was that it provided a
wonderful excuse to go or stay or do whatever he damn well pleased. No
one wanted to push around an old crippled man.
A spy for almost fifty years, he now preferred the luxury of looking
directly behind himself when he moved about. He traveled in an
unmarked white van—bulletproof glass, lead walls, two heavily
armed boys perched behind the heavily armed driver—with his
wheelchair clamped to the floor in the rear and facing back, so that
Teddy could see the traffic that could not see him. Two other vans
followed at a distance, and any misguided attempt to get near the
director would be instantly terminated. None was expected. Most of the
world thought Teddy Maynard was either dead or idling away his final
days in some secret nursing home where old spies were sent to die.
Teddy wanted it that way.
He was wrapped in a heavy gray quilt, and tended to by Hoby, his
faithful aide. As the van moved along the Beltway at a constant sixty
miles an hour, Teddy sipped green tea poured from a thermos by Hoby,
and watched the cars behind them. Hoby sat next to the wheelchair on a
leather stool made especially for him.
A sip of tea and Teddy said, “Where’s Backman right
now?”
“In his cell,” Hoby answered.
“And our people are with the warden?”
“They’re sitting in his office, waiting.”
Another sip from a paper cup, one carefully guarded with both hands.
The hands were frail, veiny, the color of skim milk, as if they had
already died and were patiently waiting for the rest of the body.
“How long will it take to get him out of the country?”
“About four hours.”
“And the plan is in place?”
“Everything is ready. We’re waiting on the green
light.”
“I hope this moron can see it my way.”
Critz and the moron were staring at the walls of the Oval Office,
their heavy silence broken occasionally by a comment about Joel
Backman. They had to talk about something, because neither would
mention what was really on his mind.
Can this be happening?
Is this finally the end?
Forty years. From Cornell to the Oval Office. The end was so abrupt
that they had not had enough time to properly prepare for it. They had
been counting on four more years. Four years of glory as they
carefully crafted a legacy, then rode gallantly into the sunset.
Though it was late, it seemed to grow even darker outside. The windows
that overlooked the Rose Garden were black. A clock above the
fireplace could almost be heard as it ticked nonstop in its final
countdown.
“What will the press do if I pardon Backman?” the
President asked, not for the first time.
“Go berserk.”
“That might be fun.”
“You won’t be around.”
“No, I won’t.” After the transfer of power at noon
the next day, his escape from Washington would begin with a private
jet (owned by an oil company) to an old friend’s villa on the
island of Barbados. At Morgan’s instructions, the televisions
had been removed from the villa, no newspapers or magazines would be
delivered, and all phones had been unplugged. He would have no contact
with anyone, not even Critz, and especially not Mrs. Morgan, for at
least a month. He wouldn’t care if Washington burned. In fact,
he secretly hoped that it would.
After Barbados, he would sneak up to his cabin in Alaska, and there he
would continue to ignore the world as the winter passed and he waited
on spring.
“Should we pardon him?” the President asked.
“Probably,” Critz said.
The President had shifted to the “we” mode now, something
he invariably did when a potentially unpopular decision was at hand.
For the easy ones, it was always “I.” When he needed a
crutch, and especially when he would need someone to blame, he opened
up the decision-making process and included Critz.
Critz had been taking the blame for forty years, and though he was
certainly used to it, he was nonetheless tired of it. He said,
“There’s a very good chance we wouldn’t be here had
it not been for Joel Backman.”
“You may be right about that,” the President said. He had
always maintained that he had been elected because of his brilliant
campaigning, charismatic personality, uncanny grasp of the issues, and
clear vision for America. To finally admit that he owed anything to
Joel Backman was almost shocking.
But Critz was too calloused, and too tired, to be shocked.
Six years ago, the Backman scandal had engulfed much of Washington and
eventually tainted the White House. A cloud appeared over a popular
president, paving the way for Arthur Morgan to stumble his way into
the White House.
Now that he was stumbling out, he relished the idea of one last
arbitrary slap in the face to the Washington establishment that had
shunned him for four years. A reprieve for Joel Backman would rattle
the walls of every office building in D.C. and shock the press into a
blathering frenzy. Morgan liked the idea. While he sunned away on
Barbados the city would gridlock once again as congressmen demanded
hearings and prosecutors performed for the cameras and the
insufferable talking heads prattled nonstop on cable news.
The President smiled into the darkness.
On the Arlington Memorial Bridge, over the Potomac River, Hoby
refilled the director’s paper cup with green tea. “Thank
you,” Teddy said softly. “What’s our boy doing
tomorrow when he leaves office?” he asked.
“Fleeing the country.”
“He should’ve left sooner.”
“He plans to spend a month in the Caribbean, licking his wounds,
ignoring the world, pouting, waiting for someone to show some
interest.”
“And Mrs. Morgan?”
“She’s already back in Delaware playing bridge.”
“Are they splitting?”
“If he’s smart. Who knows?”
Teddy took a careful sip of tea. “So what’s our leverage
if Morgan balks?”
“I don’t think he’ll balk. The preliminary talks
have gone well. Critz seems to be on board. He has a much better feel
of things now than Morgan. Critz knows that they would’ve never
seen the Oval Office had it not been for the Backman scandal.”
“As I said, what’s our leverage if he balks?”
“None, really. He’s an idiot, but he’s a clean
one.”
They turned off Constitution Avenue onto 18th Street and were soon
entering the east gate of the White House. Men with machine guns
materialized from the darkness, then Secret Service agents in black
trench coats stopped the van. Code words were used, radios squawked,
and within minutes Teddy was being lowered from the van. Inside, a
cursory search of his wheelchair revealed nothing but a crippled and
bundled-up old man.
Artie, minus the Heineken, and again without knocking, poked his head
through the door and announced: “Maynard’s here.”
“So he’s alive,” the President said.
“Barely.”
“Then roll him in.”
Hoby and a deputy named Priddy followed the wheelchair into the Oval
Office. The President and Critz welcomed their guests and directed
them to the sitting area in front of the fireplace. Though Maynard
avoided the White House, Priddy practically lived there, briefing the
President every morning on intelligence matters.
As they settled in, Teddy glanced around the room, as if looking for
bugs and listening devices. He was almost certain there were none;
that practice had ended with Watergate. Nixon laid enough wire in the
White House to juice a small city, but, of course, he paid for it.
Teddy, however, was wired. Carefully hidden above the axle of his
wheelchair, just inches below his seat, was a powerful recorder that
would capture every sound made during the next thirty minutes.
He tried to smile at President Morgan, but he wanted to say something
like: You are without a doubt the most limited politician I have ever
encountered. Only in America could a moron like you make it to the
top.
President Morgan smiled at Teddy Maynard, but he wanted to say
something like: I should have fired you four years ago. Your agency
has been a constant embarrassment to this country.
Teddy: I was shocked when you carried a single state, albeit by
seventeen votes.
Morgan: You couldn’t find a terrorist if he advertised on a
billboard.
Teddy: Happy fishing. You’ll get even fewer trout than votes.
Morgan: Why didn’t you just die, like everyone promised me you
would?
Teddy: Presidents come and go, but I never leave.
Morgan: It was Critz who wanted to keep you. Thank him for your job. I
wanted to sack your ass two weeks after my inauguration.
Critz said loudly, “Coffee anyone?”
Teddy said, “No,” and as soon as that was established,
Hoby and Priddy likewise declined. And because the CIA wanted no
coffee, President Morgan said, “Yes, black with two
sugars.” Critz nodded at a secretary who was waiting in a
half-opened side door.
He turned back to the gathering and said, “We don’t have a
lot of time.”
Teddy said quickly, “I’m here to discuss Joel
Backman.”
“Yes, that’s why you’re here,” the President
said.
“As you know,” Teddy continued, almost ignoring the
President, “Mr. Backman went to prison without saying a word. He
still carries some secrets that, frankly, could compromise national
security.”
“You can’t kill him,” Critz blurted.
“We cannot target American citizens, Mr. Critz. It’s
against the law. We prefer that someone else do it.”
“I don’t follow,” the President said.
“Here’s the plan. If you pardon Mr. Backman, and if he
accepts the pardon, then we will have him out of the country in a
matter of hours. He must agree to spend the rest of his life in
hiding. This should not be a problem because there are several people
who would like to see him dead, and he knows it. We’ll relocate
him to a foreign country, probably in Europe where he’ll be
easier to watch. He’ll have a new identity. He’ll be a
free man, and with time people will forget about Joel Backman.”
“That’s not the end of the story,” Critz said.
“No. We’ll wait, perhaps a year or so, then we’ll
leak the word in the right places. They’ll find Mr. Backman, and
they’ll kill him, and when they do so, many of our questions
will be answered.”
A long pause as Teddy looked at Critz, then the President. When he was
convinced they were thoroughly confused, he continued.
“It’s a very simple plan, gentlemen. It’s a question
of who kills him.”
“So you’ll be watching?” Critz asked.
“Very closely.”
“Who’s after him?” the President asked.
Teddy refolded his veiny hands and recoiled a bit, then he looked down
his long nose like a schoolteacher addressing his little third
graders. “Perhaps the Russians, the Chinese, maybe the Israelis.
There could be others.”
Of course there were others, but no one expected Teddy to reveal
everything he knew. He never had; never would, regardless of who was
president and regardless of how much time he had left in the Oval
Office. They came and went, some for four years, others for eight.
Some loved the espionage, others were only concerned with the latest
polls. Morgan had been particularly inept at foreign policy, and with
a few hours remaining in his administration, Teddy certainly was not
going to divulge any more than was necessary to get the pardon.
“Why would Backman take such a deal?” Critz asked.
“He may not,” Teddy answered. “But he’s been
in solitary confinement for six years. That’s twenty-three hours
a day in a tiny cell. One hour of sunshine. Three showers a week. Bad
food—they say he’s lost sixty pounds. I hear he’s
not doing too well.”
Two months ago, after the landslide, when Teddy Maynard conceived this
pardon scheme, he had pulled a few of his many strings and
Backman’s confinement had grown much worse. The temperature in
his cell was lowered ten degrees, and for the past month he’d
had a terrible cough. His food, bland at best, had been run through
the processor again and was being served cold. His toilet flushed
about half the time. The guards woke him up at all hours of the night.
His phone privileges were curtailed. The law library that he used
twice a week was suddenly off-limits. Backman, a lawyer, knew his
rights, and he was threatening all manner of litigation against the
prison and the government, though he had yet to file suit. The fight
was taking its toll. He was demanding sleeping pills and Prozac.
“You want me to pardon Joel Backman so you can arrange for him
to be murdered?” the President asked.
“Yes,” Teddy said bluntly. “But we won’t
actually arrange it.”
“But it’ll happen.”
“Yes.”
“And his death will be in the best interests of our national
security?”
“I firmly believe that.”
Copyright © 2005 by Belfry Holdings,
Inc.
Read an Excerpt
THE BROKER
In the waning hours of a presidency that was destined to arouse less
interest from historians than any since perhaps that of William Henry
Harrison (thirty-one days from inauguration to death), Arthur Morgan
huddled in the Oval Office with his last remaining friend and pondered
his final decisions. At that moment he felt as though he’d
botched every decision in the previous four years, and he was not
overly confident that he could, somehow, so late in the game, get
things right. His friend wasn’t so sure either, though, as
always, he said little and whatever he did say was what the President
wanted to hear.
Excerpted from THE BROKER by John Grisham. Excerpted by permission of
Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No
part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission
in writing from the publisher.