The Sentinel by Gerald Petievich Read Free Book Online

accepting and distributing awards. Wintergreen relished being Director, and still got a thrill when seeing his photograph on the cover of Time or Newsweek standing near the President.
    After cleverly managing to avoid being identified with the two Secret Service Directors who'd resigned during the scandal-ridden Clinton years, Wintergreen had volunteered for the campaign protection detail of leading Presidential contender Russell Jordan. Shortly after Jordan's inauguration, Jordan had promoted him to the Directorship. Wintergreen knew that being Secret Service Director was a unique position, earned by years of balancing on the White House tightrope.
    Being Secret Service Director was an unusual job in an unusual agency. Created in 1865 as a Federal law enforcement agency, the Secret Service's mission until 1901 had been to investigate and arrest counterfeiters. Presidential protection operations began only after the assassination of President McKinley. Only since the 1950's had the Vice President and the First Lady been included as protectees. The Service was still relatively small and close-knit in those days, when every agent in the Service was a Roman Catholic and the entire upper echelon staff consisted of heavy-drinking New York Irishmen. The agency grew rapidly after the assassination of President Kennedy, and then expanded exponentially after the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy and the wounding of President Reagan. Wintergreen believed himself overqualified as an agent - a routine post-stander - a cigar-store Indian. He'd been destined to be Director, and he thrived in the White House Secret Service. The gold-braided hallways were finally his. It was his time.
    Gilbert Flanagan leaned in the doorway.
    "Pete Garrison is here."
    Thirty-eight years old Adjutant to the Director Flanagan was a lanky, six-foot Alabamian whose sideburns were slightly too long. He was Wintergreen's personal envoy to the rest of the Secret Service, his right-hand man, his most trusted minion and commander of the Secret Services' Special Operations Team (SOT) that Wintergreen used in sensitive Presidential threat cases. SOT had recently flown to Ethiopia to apprehend the leader of a Sudanese terrorist cell whose mission had been to kill President Jordan.
    Though Wintergreen had an ample staff that included seven assistant directors, Flanagan was the one he trusted with delicate issues. Most importantly, Wintergreen used him as an executive assistant and gave him special, confidential tasks to carry out discreetly. In the Secret Service, the most political of security agencies, a man of unquestioned loyalty was indispensable.
    Flanagan owed Wintergreen his allegiance. Years earlier, Flanagan had inadvertently mishandled a confidential-informant fund while working on a terrorist task force. He'd been in danger of being relieved of command by a Secret Service inspection team, but Wintergreen had whitewashed the incident and rescued Flanagan's career. And to insure Wintergreen's loyalty, Wintergreen had promised to reward him with a promotion to Assistant Director some day.
    Wintergreen winked. "Send him in."
    He stood in front of the trophy case, believing that being on one's feet was the best way to communicate, particularly in the White House.
    "Sorry to break into your schedule," Garrison said.
    "Close the door."
    Garrison complied.
    "How are things on the Valentine detail, Pete?" Valentine was the Secret Service radio code name for First Lady. The President's designation was Victory. The members of the Jordan Administration were all Vs.
    "Not bad."
    "When I assigned you to her, you told me you didn't want to spend your career sitting in a golf cart as she played a round with the Red Cross ladies."
    "Uh, I'm getting used to it now. The reason I'm here-"
    "Like I told you. Working the Valentine detail for a year certainly didn't do my career any harm, Pete. To get ahead in the Service, an agent has to be versatile. It's not just about