The Gun Runner's Daughter Read Online Free Page A

assets.”
    “That’s just it. It
is
about foreign policy. And it
worries
me that you don’t understand.”
    “Marty.” Alley lowered her voice, as if explaining something embarrassingly simple. “Foreign policy is conducted by the Executive. Criminal prosecutions are the business of the
Justice Department. Come off it.”
    “That’s exactly my point.” Calm and methodical, like a doctor administering unwelcome medicine, Martha counted off on her fingers. “McCarthyism. The destruction of the
Black Panther Party. Watergate. The Iran-contra pardons. Paula Jones’s tax audit. I got an example for every decade since the war of an administration abrogating to itself the tools of the
Justice Department, Alley girl. Now, what exactly do you have to prove this administration’s different?”
    For a moment, Alley thought. Then: “Have they appointed a prosecutor?”
    Martha nodded. That, to someone trying to gauge the seriousness of the government’s intentions, was exactly the right question. “Not yet.”
    “Then don’t worry about it. Okay?”
    “Alley, I heard that Dee Dennis is under consideration.”
    She didn’t answer that, but raised her eyebrows at her friend, who went on nearly unwillingly, her voice lowered.
    “Christ sake, Alley girl. Ed Dennis is White House counsel. And his son is just looking for a job after five years on the Walsh prosecutions. Dee’s probably as well qualified as
anybody in the country to argue this. And he’s a damn sight better connected.”
    For a moment, the two stared at each other, and the expression between them was one that had first been there over fifteen years before. Then Alley wiped her hands over her eyes.
    “Let me alone, Marty, okay? I’m already like a goddamn pariah. You know what it’s gonna be like going to DG&B tomorrow? I can’t help what they’re doing to my
father.”
    But Martha was not calmed. “I don’t give a fuck about your father, Alley. I’m worrying about what they’re going to do to you.”
    7.
    Still, she simply did not see. Nothing was happening to her: a couple reporters, so what. Nor could she see that her father risked much. A very great portion of his business
took place in Israel and Europe, and those things left in America had earned their keep long ago. All through the month since his arrest, his checks had continued to arrive from his secretaries at
his offices abroad, checks in bizarre amounts—$4,562.17; $12,603.50; $2,998.89—yielded by that day’s exchange from deutsche marks, shekels, pounds sterling, checks drawn on Bank
Leumi, Barclay’s, Crédit Lyonnais.
    By day, she went to work at Dykeman, Goldfarb & Barney; by night she went out with Martha, or read, or slept. True, it surprised her how increasingly many people, at work, now avoided her as
the extent of the government’s determination to prosecute her father came clear. Surprised her, but did not otherwise affect her. She had always been solitary. And she knew that soon the
story would fade.
    But as July passed into August, it became clearer and clearer that her father’s affairs were far from disappearing from the media. She could judge the story’s prominence by the
treatment she received at work. And Martha, over drinks each night at the Corner Bistro, continued to feed her the most important points, like medicine to an unwilling child.
    Allison was grateful, in her way. Sidney Ohlinger had told Martha to stay away from Allison after her father’s arrest, and Martha had told him to take his regular chair in the Oval Office
and shove it. Watching her friend one such evening at the bistro, Allison smiled at the memory, with gratitude, with affection. When Martha had woken one morning a few years back to see a
front-page picture of Ronald Rosenthal testifying in front of the joint committee on Iran-contra, all she had said was: “You see? It’s like I always told you, we both got crooks for old
men.”
    Then the smile faded. Martha was the