“We have no choice,” he quietly said. “Stay with her.”
Hana’s brown eyes stared back. He often wondered what that troubled mind really thought, her words so sparse and carefully chosen there was no way ever to know exactly what she was thinking. Did she hate him? Love him? Fear him? He never raised his voice or was sharp to her, assuming postures and expressions that indicated only heartfelt feelings. All she ever did was please him, never failing, always eager.
Like a good daughter.
He nodded.
And she left.
TWENTY-TWO
WASHINGTON, DC
Stephanie was amazed at the president’s computer efficiency. Danny Daniels was not noted for being tech-savvy.
“Have you been taking lessons?” she asked.
He’d booted the laptop and worked the trackpad, opening the programs he wanted and enabling a flash drive that he’d found in his pocket and snapped into the machine.
“I’m not helpless,” he said. “Soon I’m going to be an ex-president. And no one gives a hoot about one of those. I’ll need to take care of myself.”
“What about all those Secret Service agents you get for life,” Harriett asked. “I’m sure they’ll be able to help.”
Harriett had stood to leave, but Danny had asked her to stay for a few minutes longer.
“I won’t be taking those along with me,” he said. “I’m following Bush 41’s lead and refusin’ them. I’m lookin’ forward to some peace and quiet.”
Stephanie doubted that. This man was not one to sit around. His entire life had been framed in the limelight. He’d started at the local level in rural Tennessee, then moved to the governor’s mansion, the U.S. Senate, and finally the White House. Decades of public service, one crisis after another. He was great under pressure—she’d seen that many times. And he also could make a decision. Right or wrong. Good or bad. He made the call.
“Everybody knows about the Nixon White House tape recordings,” he said. “But by the time Nixon did it, the trick was old hat. It all started with FDR.”
He explained about the presidential campaign of 1940. Roosevelt wanted an unprecedented third term, but his popularity had waned and the Republican candidate, Wendell Willkie, seemed to be gaining ground. There’d been problems with misquotes in the newspapers, mainly from people present at the countless meetings held in the Oval Office. So a White House stenographer came up with an idea. Wire the place for sound. That way there’d be no debate about what was said. At the time RCA was experimenting with a new device, a Continuous-Film Recording Machine that fed noise onto ribbons of motion-picture film, which could memorialize an entire day’s worth of conversations, available for immediate playback.
“The grandfather of today’s recording devices,” he said. “RCA donated one of the machines and they set it up in a padlocked room beneath the Oval Office. The microphone was hidden inside a lamp on FDR’s desk. Over four months he used the system, from August to November 1940. He recorded press conferences, private meetings, random conversations. The public didn’t know these existed until the 1970s.”
She caught the qualification. The public. “But others knew?”
He nodded. “The recordings were stored at the FDR Library in Hyde Park. I had someone pay them a visit and they found an interesting one. So I had the information digitized onto a flash drive.”
“And why would you do that?” Harriett asked.
“’Cause one and one always makes two. That dollar bill there got me started, so I went lookin’. Call me inquisitive, and thank goodness. That trait has saved my hide more times than I can count.”
The three of them remained alone, the Treasury secretary still with the judge obtaining the surveillance warrants.
“On September 23, 1940, FDR had a chat in the Oval Office with one of his Secret Service agents. A guy named Mark Tipton. He was one of three agents who stayed with FDR over the course of a day, eight-hour shifts each. He and the president became especially close. So close, Roosevelt trusted him with a mission.”
Danny tapped the trackpad.
“Listen to this.”
FDR: “I need your help. If I could do it myself I would, but I can’t.”
TIPTON: “Of course, Mr. President. I’d be glad to do whatever you require.”
FDR: “It’s something that godforsaken Andrew Mellon left me on New Year’s Eve in ’36. I’d forgotten about it, but Missy reminded me the other day about the paper he gave me. I crumpled it up and tossed it away, but she retrieved it, along with this.”
Short pause.
TIPTON: “Who drew the lines on this dollar bill?”
FDR: “Mr. Mellon saw fit to do that. Right in front of me. See the lines across the pyramid? They form a six-pointed star. The letters at the corners, they’re an anagram for the word Mason. I want you find out what that means.”
TIPTON: “I can do that.”
FDR: “Mellon told me that the word refers to a clue from history. He said men from the past knew that a man like me—a tyrannical aristocrat—would come along one day. Damn riddles. I hate them. I should ignore this, but I can’t. And Mellon knew that. He left it to drive me crazy. I ordered an investigation at Treasury about that symbol and the letters on the Great Seal, but no one had an explanation. I asked if they were intentionally placed there when the seal was created in 1789. No one could tell me that, either. You know what I think? Mellon just noticed the letters and used them to his advantage. He made it fit whatever he was doing. He was like that. ‘The mastermind among the malefactors of great wealth.’ That’s what they called him. And they were right.”
TIPTON: “Is it some sort of danger to you, sir?”
FDR: “My initial thought, precisely. But it’s been four years and nothing has come of it. So I wonder if Mellon was just running a bluff.”