Absolute Power by David Baldacci Read Free Book Online Page B

of the room.
    The agents looked at each other. They had heard many sounds emanating from bedrooms where their boss happened to be. Some might be construed as violent, some not. But everybody had always come out okay before.
    “Nothing unusual,” Burton replied. “Then we heard the President scream and we went in. That knife was maybe three inches from going into his chest. Only thing fast enough was a bullet.”
    He stood as erect as he could and looked her right in the eye. He and Collin had done their job, and this woman wasn’t going to tell them otherwise. No blame would be put on his shoulders.
    “There was a goddamned knife in the room?” She looked at Burton incredulously.
    “If it was up to me, the President wouldn’t go out on these, these little excursions. Half the time he won’t let us check anything out beforehand. We didn’t get a chance to scope the room.” He looked at her. “He’s the President, ma’am,” he added, for good measure, as if that justified everything. And for Russell it usually did, a fact Burton was well aware of.
    Russell looked around the room, taking in everything. She had been a tenured professor of political science at Stanford with a national reputation before answering the call in Alan Richmond’s quest for the presidency. He was such a powerful force, everybody wanted to jump on his bandwagon.
    Currently Chief of Staff, with serious talk of becoming Secretary of State if Richmond won reelection, which everyone expected him to do with ease. Who knew? Maybe a Richmond-Russell ticket might be in the making. They made a brilliant combination. She was the strategist, he was the consummate campaigner. Their future grew brighter every day. But now? Now she had a corpse and a drunken President inside a home that was supposed to be vacant.
    She felt the express train coming to a halt. Then her mind snapped back. Not over this little piece of human garbage. Not ever!
    Burton stirred. “You want me to call the police now, ma’am?”
    Russell looked at him like he had lost his mind. “Burton, let me remind you that our job is to protect the President’s interests at all times and nothing—absolutely nothing—takes precedence over that. Is that clear?”
    “Ma’am, the lady’s dead. I think we—”
    “That’s right. You and Collin shot the woman, and she’s dead.” After exploding from Russell’s mouth, the words hung in the air. Collin rubbed his fingers together; a hand went instinctively to his holstered weapon. He stared at the late Mrs. Sullivan as if he could will her back to life.
    Burton flexed his burly shoulders, moved an inch closer to Russell so that the significant height difference was at its maximum.
    “If we hadn’t fired, the President would be dead. That’s our job. To keep the President safe and sound.”
    “Right again, Burton. And now that you have prevented his death, how do you intend to explain to the police and the President’s wife and your superiors, and the lawyers and the media and the Congress and the financial markets and the country and the rest of the goddamned world, why the President was here? What he was doing while he was here? And the circumstances that led up to you and Agent Collin having to shoot the wife of one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the United States? Because if you call the police, if you call anybody, that is exactly what you will have to do. Now if you are prepared to accept full responsibility for that undertaking, then pick up that phone over there and make that call.”
    Burton’s face changed color. He backed up a step, his superior size useless to him now. Collin was frozen, watching the two square off. He had never seen anyone talk that way to Bill Burton. The big man could have snapped Russell’s neck with a lazy thrust of his arm.
    Burton looked down at the corpse one more time. How could you explain that so that everybody came out all right? The answer was simple: you