She asked about that. “I was told not to discuss certain things on cell phones because they’re actually radios, that other people listen to,” Henderson told her, glancing over at Lucas.
He gave her Lucas’s room number. When he hung up, he said, “She’ll be here in an hour. Let’s go downstairs and get something to eat. I could use something stronger than a beer.”
They adjourned to the dining room, got hamburgers, and Henderson got a vodka tonic and then a second one while Lucas settled on a Diet Coke. They talked for a few minutes about wives and family, then Lucas yawned, and said, “I’m getting tight about talking with Coil. It’s giving me the yawns.”
“So am I. I don’t know her well, but she has the reputation of a woman with sharp edges,” Henderson said. “This will not make her happy.”
“She gonna get me fired?”
“No, that won’t happen. You’ve got way too much protection and from both parties. But if she quits, or is forced out, then you’re right—Georgia has a Republican governor who’ll appoint her replacement and we’ll lose the seat.”
“I get nervous when I’m tangled up with these political considerations,” Lucas said. “It feels . . . corrupt.”
“Yeah? Welcome to the big time.”
* * *
—
AS THEY FINISHED EATING, a bearded guy, wearing an ill-fitting tweed sport coat and black jeans, came by and said, “Senator Henderson. How are you?”
“Dave. Trolling the Watergate, huh?” He said it with a smile. “Hoping for a repeat?”
“I wish. I’m told your Obamacare enhancement bill won’t be going anywhere,” the man said. “It’s deader than Elvis.”
“It’s a work in progress. It may not go anywhere this session, but I’ve got commitments from several Republicans now and it’ll rise out of the grave next year. It’s gonna pass,” Henderson said.
“Maybe,” the man said. He didn’t sound interested. He looked at Lucas. “Who are you?”
“A friend of the senator’s from Minnesota,” Lucas said. “Who are you?”
“Works for the Post,” Henderson said, before the man could reply. “He wrote a story a couple of years ago that got turned into an HBO movie, so he’s probably rich now.”
“Right. My total take was about the same as your daily income,” the man said. He took a step away and asked Lucas, “You sure you’re from Minnesota?”
Lucas said, “Yah, you betcha.”
“You’re not here to soak the federal government for huge sums of money? You’re not selling hammers for four hundred dollars each?”
“Go away, Dave,” Henderson said. “Lucas is a school pal and there’s no government business going on here. At all. We’re talking about old high school girlfriends and whatever happened to them.”
“Had to ask,” the guy said, and he drifted away, eye-checking the other tables in the restaurant.
* * *
—
“HE’S SMARTER THAN HE SEEMS,” Henderson said in a low voice. “Given what we’re talking about here, I want to get under cover. I hope to hell he doesn’t spot Coil coming in.”
They went back up to Lucas’s room, Henderson carrying a third vodka tonic in a plastic tumbler, switched through CNN, Fox, MSNBC, talked about how, exactly, they’d tell Coil about her daughter, and didn’t quite jump when Coil knocked. Henderson answered the door, said, “Come in,” and Lucas saw her face tighten when she spotted him sitting on the bed.
“What happened?”
“We have a problem,” Henderson said. “You have a problem. Actually, everybody has a problem and we’ve got to figure out what to do about it.”
When Coil was sitting down, Henderson said to Lucas, “Go ahead.”
Lucas: “I can’t tell you my sources for the information I’m going to give you. I cannot do that. We’ve learned, and this is beyond question, I’ve checked and double-checked . . . I’m afraid Audrey is the one who set up the 1919 website.”
Coil gaped, turned to Henderson and demanded, “Is this a joke?”
Henderson: “This is no joke, I can assure you. The question is, what to do about it?”
She turned back to Lucas: “How do you know this?”