“Can you make sure he doesn’t get shot?” asked Huey.
Three pairs of dog eyes stared at me intently and pleadingly, and finally, I sighed. “Okay, fine. I’ll do whatever I can to make sure he doesn’t get shot at again. But I can’t make any promises, you hear. Basically it’s out of my paws.”
“In whose paws is it, then?” asked Dewey.
“This is a matter that can only be handled at the highest level of diplomacy,” I said.
“The highest level?” asked Louie. “What’s the highest level? The ambassador?”
“Higher,” I said.
“The Secretary of State?”
“Higher.”
They exchanged a look of surprise. “You mean… the President?”
I nodded sagely. “Only the President can exert the kind of pressure that is needed to make sure that Rogelio survives this ordeal.”
“Gosh,” said Huey, and that summed things up pretty well.
CHAPTER 35
It was a strange scene that played out in the Oval Office of the White House that day. The President sat on the couch, listening carefully to the argument as presented by Uncle Alec, Charlene Butterwick, Odelia, and Chase. Along with our humans, we had also been allowed to travel along. But even though our presence had been found acceptable, we had been relegated to the corner of the office, where we were being kept company by Mac and Cheese, the President’s Dobermanns whom we had met on a previous occasion. The fact that our Hampton Cove delegation had been granted an audience with the President was thanks to the fact that we had saved the man’s life not that long ago, and he still remembered.
“So how’s life been treating you, fellas?” asked Mac. Once upon a time, he and his canine friend hadn’t been pleased to make our acquaintance, but their initial hostility had quickly been replaced with gratitude for saving their human, and the old kinship still remained.
“Oh, we can’t complain,” I said.
“I have been poisoned with bug spray,” said Harriet apropos of nothing. “But I survived. And now I’m Santa’s little helper, saving pets from being abused by their pet parents.”
“Is that a fact?” asked Cheese with an indulgent smile. “Well, you don’t have to bother about saving us. We’re being treated very well by the President and his family. In fact, life couldn’t be better for us, isn’t that right, Mac?”
“Yeah, things are going swimmingly,” said his friend. I hadn’t been able to determine whether they were brothers or merely looked similar, and I was afraid to ask. They towered over us, and even though they were predisposed to be friendly to us, there was still an innate sense of danger that lurked underneath the surface and could be unleashed at any time.
The President leaned forward. “Okay, so what you’re saying is that this man, this…”
“Rogelio Hartshorn,” said Uncle Alec helpfully.
“That his life is effectively in danger and that these people will keep on coming until he’s dead?”
“That’s right,” said the chief.
“But why? Why do they want him dead so much?”
“Well, the Abou-Yamens feel that he’s been instrumental in assisting Prince Abdullah make certain claims that they have denied him.”
“You see, Prince Abdullah fell out of favor with his grandfather, the king of Abou-Yamen,” said Odelia, “when he imported a bug spray that didn’t have the effect that it should have had. Instead of killing the bugs that were attacking their crops, the bugs proliferated, and the harvest failed, leading to a very difficult period and even what can only be called a famine. And so Prince Abdullah was deemed responsible and considered persona non grata. He was exiled and disinherited. If he had stayed in the country he would have been imprisoned.”
“Prince Abdullah is the man that was killed in your town, isn’t he?” asked the President.
“He is,” said Odelia. “We believe that he was murdered on behalf of the Abou-Yamen government after he had begun a procedure to have his disinheritance retracted. He had hired Rogelio Hartshorn to plead his case and had also restarted negotiations with the same people who had provided the flawed bug spray and was going to have more of the stuff imported into Abou-Yamen to prove that he was right and his grandfather was wrong. This angered the king so much that he ordered to have his grandson killed and the murder pinned on the people selling the bug spray, Carlos Perks and Mindy Horsefield. He also ordered to have Rogelio Hartshorn killed as well. But in the end, only Prince Abdullah died.”
“And you think they’ll keep coming back to get rid of the lawyer and also the bug spray people?”
“Yes, once the king has issued an order it cannot be revoked. It has to be carried out, so they will keep trying to get rid of these people—all three of them American citizens, Mr. President.”
“Hmm,” said the president. “Tough case.”
“So we were hoping that you could put some pressure on the Abou-Yamen government to have the kill order revoked,” said Chase. “And save the lives of Rogelio Hartshorn, Carlos Perks and Mindy Horsefield.”
“They’re in hiding at the moment?”
“Carlos Perks and Mindy Horsefield are in prison right now awaiting trial,” said Uncle Alec. “Not only did they make false claims about their bug spray and sold the stuff without FDA approval, but they recently launched themselves in the pet food business as well and there have been some complaints about their line of products.”
“Carlos Perks is a chemist,” said Odelia. “And he likes to experiment. Unfortunately his experiments have a habit of going south. He’s like a sorcerer’s apprentice in that sense.”
“They’re selling bad pet food?” asked the President, darting a worried glance at his dogs.
“They sell one type of kibble but package it in different bags and sell it at different price points. But basically it’s the exact same stuff—and pretty low quality, too. Junk food for pets.”
“I see,” said the president, rubbing his square chin. “Well, I will certainly talk to the Secretary of State. He’ll have to lead the negotiations with his Abou-Yamen counterpart. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll pick up the phone and talk to the king of Abou-Yamen myself and tell him in no uncertain terms how I feel about him assassinating Americans on American soil.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” said Charlene. “Mr. Hartshorn has been staying at my house for the time being, but he’s eager to return home and go on with his life. He didn’t ask for this.”
“No, I certainly appreciate that. And I want to thank you for having the courage to come all the way to Washington to bring this matter to my attention. Not everyone would have gone to these lengths to help these people. It just shows that you all have your hearts in the right place and want to do the right thing. And I can tell you right now that I will do the same.” He got up and buttoned up his jacket. “I will keep you posted, of course.” He then saw that Mac and Cheese were engaged in pleasant conversation with the four of us and smiled. “So nice to see those kitties get along so well with my boys. They seem to remember each other from last time.”
