Hour of the Assassin

by Matthew Quirk

  “I never told you to do anything like this, anything this . . . severe.” He shook his head.

  David cast his eyes down, disappointed. He took a few paces and picked up a framing square, let it balance on one finger. The tool looked odd in his hand, so comfortable, so out of place with his slim-cut blue jacket and open-collared shirt.

  “This all started with something ugly, Sam. I got my hands dirty for you. You never had to. Maybe you convinced yourself it never happened, but it did. And you can walk down to the police right now, get a good lawyer, try to make some kind of deal. Tell the truth. That’s the right thing to do. It’s a hard thing to do. I could never. You know me.” He held the square in his fist, rubbed his thumb against the worn aluminum. “Whatever it takes to get by. I’d admire you for it, but there’s no easy way out of this.”

  He put one foot up on a putty bucket and looked out the window.

  “Are you ready for that? A six-month round-the-clock news cycle about who you really are. How you got here. What you did that night. Who knows—it would probably be a relief. But remember that the violence started with you. You made your choice that night when you asked for my help. Everything else—what happened to Malcolm Widener, what happens to Nick Averose—is just the necessary consequence of that moment.”

  Sam took a step toward the window. “How close are we with the donors?”

  “I talked to Ambler this morning. He thinks we can seal it up tonight. The deal you made yesterday put you over the top. They can line up the whole primary, and they’re coming together around you, Sam. We need to meet him one more time, tonight. We’re close.”

  He walked in a circle, looking around the space. “This could make a nice campaign headquarters,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”

  Sam turned, took in the floor from one end to the other.

  “I can get my arms around this, take care of Averose,” David said. “I have ways to control him. It won’t be pretty, but it needs to get done today. I can keep the past buried. But I need to know if you’re still in, Sam. If you’re strong enough to go all the way with this.”

  He pointed at the window down Pennsylvania Avenue. “That’s yours if you want it, and once you’re in that house, you’re above the law.”

  “Tonight?” Sam asked, and brought his fist to his lips.

  “Tonight.”

  Sam took a deep breath. David watched him. He knew who Sam really was. He knew how he had come this far, even as he disappeared into the mask he wore, the man he played before the cameras, even as he pretended none of it was happening. It was time for him to stop lying to himself. He wanted it. He wanted everything. Who was he kidding? He could never stop.

  “Then make it go away. By tonight. And we’ll meet with Ambler and I’ll fucking close this thing.”

  59

  Nick felt a drop of blood run down his arm as he drove. He glanced at his sleeve, then pulled into a strip mall, an oddly low-rent patch of asphalt at the edge of Bethesda’s affluence. To their left, a red-brick apartment block made a half-hearted attempt to look colonial.

  He eased the jacket off and checked the compress, trying to tighten it with one hand.

  “Here,” Ali said, and leaned over to help with the makeshift bandage.

  They were far from the house where he’d been attacked, clear of anyone following. The time and distance had put them both more at ease.

  “All right,” he said, “cards on the table. I can help you find a way out of this, but we need to put together what we know. What do you do for David Blakely?”

  “I work for one of his dark-money groups. Technically it’s a foundation, a nonprofit, but it’s really a front, part of a big political slush fund.”

  “And what do you do?”

  “Whatever he wants.” She raised her shoulders. “Up to a point. Listen. I knew David wasn’t a Boy Scout, that he played hardball, did anything it took to get a win. I helped him spy on people, get information. It wasn’t the most ethical stuff in the world, but I wasn’t breaking any major laws. I thought I was learning the Washington game, how the city really works. I was okay with it. But what happened to Malcolm Widener? Whatever they were doing back at that house? I didn’t sign up for any of that shit.”

  Nick didn’t say anything. He was beginning to fully appreciate what she had done: gone against her superiors. She hadn’t simply been at the house where he was drugged and had an attack of conscience. She had gone out of her way to find out what was happening. She’d put her life at risk to save his.

  “And Blakely sent you to spy on Emma Blair?”

  She nodded.

  “What were they trying to find out?”

  “I had a whole script. I was supposed to get close to her, get her to trust me. Start talking about how I survived being attacked by a guy back in college. How traumatic it was. I said I always wanted to come forward, but I was afraid that no one would believe me. I told her I wished I’d written something down after it happened, or told somebody, kept some kind of evidence. I figured they were looking for dirt on someone, one of Sam’s opponents, and that Emma had it. This is standard campaign stuff, digging up oppo.”

  Nick knew the term. Opposition research.

  “That wasn’t it,” he said. “She had dirt on Sam. They were trying to find out what she knew about him and who she told about it. They must have been studying her so they could get rid of her cleanly and destroy any evidence of what she knew.”

  Ali rested her hands on the dashboard. “Did they kill her?” she asked softly, looking straight ahead.

  “I don’t know,” Nick said. “They were specifically looking for some kind of evidence she had? Are you sure?”

  “Yes. That was the target. What she knew. And if there was a record anywhere. They wanted me to steer her toward talking about any diaries or journals she kept.”

  “Did they tell you what happened to her? What she knew about? This incident they were digging into?”

  “No.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “Nothing. I couldn’t get anything out of her. She started to seem suspicious when I pressed, then stopped returning my calls, so I dropped it. It was one of a dozen jobs I did for David Blakely that month. I didn’t think about it again until I saw the clusterfuck that the Widener thing turned into. I started going over everything I had done. I found out she was missing. I realized what I was in the middle of. That’s why I went to that house where I found you. I didn’t know it would go this far . . . I didn’t know people were going to die. I don’t need another murder on my head.”

  She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, holding her forehead, eyes closed. He didn’t push her. She was starting to fully grasp that she was an accessory in two killings, maybe three, that her life as she knew it was over.

  Sam MacDonough and David Blakely had gone after Emma because of what she knew. She must have been able to connect MacDonough to that woman’s death twenty-five years ago.

  He had suspected as much, but his mind kept going back to the diary. What if Emma had some kind of evidence?

  It offered up a sliver of hope that she might still be alive. What if they had threatened her, and she had given them whatever proof she had? And then what? She ran, hid somewhere? There was a chance—a small chance, but he wanted to hold on to something—that Emma was still out there, that she might even be able to bring this all out into the light.

  Ali sat up and looked out the window, her fingers worrying her temple.

  “You okay?”

  “‘Okay’ is a stretch. I’m dealing with it.”

  “Did you ever hear them talking about what happened to Emma? Hear them talk about a diary again?”

  “No,” Ali said.

  “Did David Blakely have a place where he might have taken Emma or kept her? Brought her to ask her questions?”

  “He has a country house. I don’t know exactly where, but it’s on the way to Camp David, near Catoctin Mountain I think.”


  “Do you remember him talking about it a month ago? That’s when Emma disappeared.”

  “No. He could have brought her there. He doesn’t use it often, mostly for VIP events.”

  Nick’s eyes went to the mirror. A cop drove into the lot and pulled up in front of a bank.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He raised his hand. She turned and saw the patrol car. The cop stepped out and looked across the lot, then said something into his mic.

  Nick started the engine and rolled toward the north exit from the lot, watching behind him.

  He believed what Ali had told him. But right now, he had to get to a phone. They had taken his at the house and he didn’t trust Ali’s. Delia and Karen both knew Jeff and trusted him. Nick needed to warn them.

  60

  Nick pulled into an Exxon with a mini-mart, went inside, and bought two prepaid phones. He walked out, keeping his eye on Ali in the car. He tried his wife first, pressing the cell against his ear as it rang so he could hear over the noise of the trucks going uphill on the highway.

  “Hi, you’ve reached Karen. Please leave a message.”

  He was surprised how much just the sound of her voice affected him, that singsong greeting he’d heard a thousand times. It led him to pause a moment before he spoke.

  “It’s Nick. Call me back as soon as you can. It’s important. And . . . I don’t know how to say this, but watch out for Jeff Turner. Don’t talk to him. Don’t trust him and don’t let him near you. I know it sounds crazy, but he’s part of this. I’m sorry for leaving like I did yesterday. Just call me, okay?”

  He gave her the number for the prepaid cell, then disconnected. His fist closed around the phone, and he pushed out a breath through tight lips. He had done everything he could to keep his voice even during the call. He didn’t want to scare her off or sound like he had lost control, but just mentioning Turner’s name sent rage pouring down his back. He couldn’t stop picturing Jeff’s face in that house as he wrapped his hand around Nick’s and so placidly raised the pistol to his throat.

  That man had sat across from him at so many dinners in his own home, had smiled along with everyone else as Nick and Karen walked down the aisle. His friend. His brother in arms. A fucking Judas.

  The hate felt like something rotting inside him. He longed to give in, let it consume him, turn him into a tool of pure revenge. His hand ached for a weapon. He wanted to put Jeff on the wrong end of a gun. Going after him would be a true test. Jeff knew him so well, how Nick thought and how he hunted down a target. But Nick would find a way. Ali might be able to help him get close to the people behind this. He had to be careful, methodical. He couldn’t let the fury get the best of him and warp his judgment.

  There was only one consolation in finding out that Jeff had betrayed him. It relieved him of the suspicion that Karen was part of the conspiracy against him. It was Jeff who had led him to those doubts about her—someone close—when Jeff was their inside man.

  A gas truck pulled in, beeping as it reversed past the open pumps. Nick waited for it to stop, then called Delia.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, why?”

  “Is your phone secure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jeff Turner is part of this.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I’ll explain it all later, but stay away from him. Don’t trust a word he says. We were right about MacDonough. He’s behind this, he and a man named David Blakely.”

  “The donor?”

  “Yeah. He’s the money behind MacDonough.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I might have a way to get to them. I’ll call you back.”

  “Be careful.”

  61

  Nick walked back to Ali’s car, parked by the air pumps on the side of the gas station. She was sitting inside the Toyota and stepped out as he approached.

  Ali shut the door and leaned back against the car. “So the evidence you put together, is it enough?” she asked.

  “To take them down?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not yet,” Nick said. “And no one will believe it coming from a murder suspect. MacDonough and Blakely have the whole town wired. I was trying to do this the right way this morning, and I was nearly executed in that house. I have no idea who I can trust. What about you? It sounds like you know more than your boss thinks you do. How does that work?”

  “I didn’t want to be just some errand girl, always in the dark and easily discarded. I kept David’s secrets. Over time, he used me for more and more sensitive tasks. I paid attention.”

  “You spied on him, too,” Nick said, shaking his head. “Were you going to blackmail him?”

  “No . . . I don’t know. I wanted to understand what I was involved in. I knew information was valuable. He showed me that. I might need it to protect myself. I might need it for leverage. It was cash in the bank. That’s David’s real power, knowing people’s secrets.”

  “And he used you to get them?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “How close were you to Sam MacDonough?” he asked.

  She looked at him warily, her eyes upturned. Nick saw he had struck a nerve. “Very.”

  “You got him to trust you?”

  “As much as he trusts anyone.”

  “Did David put you up to that?”

  “It was a way to keep tabs on him, to get leverage.”

  “Do you have anything solid we could use against them?” Nick asked.

  “I could tell my story. They’d probably kill me before I could get anyone to believe it, though. That’s what Emma was doing, right? Trying to tell the truth. To get the word out. And at least she seemed to have some kind of evidence.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No. Blakely’s careful. There’s nothing written down. Everything is in person or over a secure phone line.”

  “Why would they take such a risk now? Going after me and Malcolm Widener this way?”

  “They don’t have a lot of time. Sam MacDonough is about to kick off his public campaign. They need anything that might hurt him gone before that. A clean slate.”

  “When does he announce?”

  “Once he locks up support for his nomination. That could happen as soon as tonight. They can’t have any loose ends, anyone who knows about what happened to Widener. Like us.”

  It wasn’t just them. Delia knew. Karen knew part of it.

  Ali held her right hand with her left. Nick noticed it was shaking. She shut her eyes.

  “Jesus. What was I thinking? I’m going to fucking die.”

  “I won’t let that happen.”

  “We’re not going to get away from these people. They’re too powerful.”

  “I don’t want to get away from them. I want to get them in a room and lock the door.”

  She looked up at him. “You’re just going to get yourself killed.”

  “They’re going to kill me anyway.”

  “You’re out of your mind. The police are looking for you. You think you can just get to anyone, anywhere?”

  “That’s what I do.”

  Nick could use her help, everything she knew. He didn’t think the people back at the house had seen her as she and Nick escaped. They didn’t know she was there. The men she worked for still might not suspect her. She and Nick could turn that against Sam MacDonough and David Blakely.

  He glanced at the bruise on her wrist. He wouldn’t push her into danger, and he wasn’t going in on anything with her until he was sure he could trust her. He would offer her an out and see what she did.

  “They didn’t see you at the house,” he said. “They may not even know you crossed them. You said you convinced them you were still on their side.”

  “Yeah. I did a whole performance last night to make it seem like I was all in. Reliable. I thought they were going to kill me in David’s fucking man cave. It was terrifying, but I
sold them on it.”

  “You’re a hell of an actor. I should know. I need your help, but I’m not going to force you into anything. You can get in that car and go back to them, right now. You can pretend none of this happened. You’ll have to live with yourself, but you might live.”

  He had his wallet, plenty of cash to make it into the city. He was going after them with or without her.

  “It’s your choice,” he said.

  She opened the driver’s door and looked inside.

  Ali was probably right. Going straight at them was madness. He wouldn’t blame her if she walked, if she went back to Blakely and MacDonough. It could be the right choice. Maybe Emma should never have tried anything as dangerous as telling the truth. Maybe that was the only way to survive in this town, by giving in to power.

  Ali climbed into the driver’s seat, shut the door, and started the car. Her hand closed on the wheel, squeezing into a fist.

  She leaned over and threw open the passenger door.

  Nick got in.

  “What’s the plan?” she asked.

  “I need to make a few stops.”

  62

  Jeff Turner sat behind the wheel of his Range Rover down the block from Nick and Karen’s house. Two kids on BMX bikes rolled by. He watched her through the kitchen window above her sink.

  Steam built and ebbed on the glass. She was cooking something and had earphones in, hooked up to her phone.

  Nick had tried to call her. Jeff knew that, but her phone never rang. Nick’s voicemail never arrived.

  Jeff opened a laptop on the passenger seat and scanned the screen. He had been set up on her phone for days. All it took was sitting out here with a stingray, a device that let him spoof a cell phone tower, and he was able to plant malware on her device. After that he had full control, could screen any calls going to her, delete voicemails, and even use the phone’s camera and microphone to spy on her.

  Listening in on her communications would help him find Nick. It would also allow Jeff to keep her in the dark, unsuspecting, or stop her from calling for help.