by Skylar Cross
“Yes. I copied them. They’re on a flash drive. It isn’t here. It’s in a secret location which I won’t tell you until I know I’m protected.”
“Gotcha. Now tell me, what’s on the flash drive?”
“Proof! That’s what. Proof!”
“Proof of what?”
He begins to shake, then buries his chin in his hand while staring out the window. His eyes are full of tears.
Then he turns to me.
“Proof that the Vice President murdered the President and First Lady.”
My breath leaves me. I can’t seem to move. Did I just hear what I think I just heard? My brain fires on all cylinders, trying to detect any sort of deception. But it comes up blank.
“You have evidence, physical hard evidence, that Harrison Pierce, the current President of the United States, ordered the car bombing that killed President Davis Mitchell and the First Lady six months ago. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes,” he says. “He ordered the bomb. He wanted Mitchell dead.”
Shit. Dreynauld may really be a dead man walking.
“We need that flash drive,” I say.
“Well, you can’t have it!” he stammers, his jaw moving left and right. “It’s my bargaining chip, the only thing keeping me alive.”
“We are your attorneys, Mr…sir. Judith Brand and Associates is the best in town. And you also have Senator Fremont on your side. You must have called him for a reason.”
Dreynauld takes a tissue and wipes his forehead. “Yes, I respect Senator Fremont. An honest man who fights for people’s rights. Probably the only good man left in Washington.”
“We’re going to get you out of this, I promise. You’re doing the right thing. You’re a very brave man, a true patriot. The next step is to have you meet with Judith and Senator Fremont in a safe place. But before that, we’re going to need that flash drive to prove that you really do have something. You must understand that. You seem like an honest man, but we need to know you really have something. I promise you’ll be protected. We’ll make sure of it. Okay?”
He stares at me with bloodshot eyes. “Let me think! I need to think!”
“All right,” I say, putting out my hand. “I’m going to go back and talk to Judith. I just want you to know that you’re in good hands.”
“Thank you,” he says, taking my hand.
Then he does something completely unexpected. He pulls me to him and hugs me tight, breaking out into loud sobs. Then more loud sobs.
Well, this is awkward.
I pat his back and say, “There, there” until he gets some of it out. Apparently there’s a lot of it to get out because he sobs for almost a full minute. I know because I look at my watch behind his back.
Then he pulls back and says, “Sorry.” He reaches for a tissue and blows his nose again. “I just have nobody to talk to.”
I genuinely feel sorry for him.
“It’s okay,” I say. “You’re going to be okay. We’ll make sure of it.”
He just nods and blows his nose again. Then he puts his hands in his pockets and says, “Meet me tomorrow morning at the corner of 5th and H. There’s a little Chinese restaurant on the corner. I’ll be inside.”
“Okay,” I say. “Nine-thirty?”
“Fine.”
I walk to the door, but before I open it I turn back around to face him.
“You’re going to be okay, I promise.”
He keeps nodding and blowing his nose.
I open the door and walk out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Terissa
I’m on Landover Road heading west through suburbia.
The city bustle has given way to rolling hills and brick houses with big lawns. Churches. Supermarket plazas. Kids playing in the late spring heat with big bubble makers.
After meeting with Dreynauld, I couldn’t go back to the office. Something is wrong, eating away at me. Alarm bells are going off in my brain. Loud ones.
Before facing Judith, I need to respond to the bells. It’s urgent.
And there’s only one person I trust enough to talk to when I get into this state.
So I took the Metro back to my place, got my SUV, and here I am on my way to the nice quiet town of Kettering.
I turn off into a development and pull up to the big brick house with white shutters. Stately and impressive behind a lawn with diagonal lines mowed through the grass.
I take a deep breath, get out of my SUV, walk to the door, and ring the bell.
The door opens and I’m greeted by a stern face with a frown and folded arms.
“Well,” she says, “there must be a national emergency if you’re here.”
“Auntie O,” I say, “can’t a girl just come by to visit her aunt who she hasn’t seen in a while?”
“A while? Try six months, girl. I only live thirty minutes away.” The frown breaks and she puts out her arms.
I move in and we hug.
“I know, I know,” I say. “I don’t make it out here very often.”
“All right, come on in then and let me make you a sandwich.”
“I’m not hungry, but thanks.”
“You come by my house, you’re going to eat, girl! Those are the rules.”
I step into the elegant living room. I picture Uncle Ted sitting in the armchair complaining about what’s on television. Can’t believe it’s been four years he’s been gone.
“So what is it?” says my aunt as she leads me to the kitchen. “Do you need me to set up a meeting at the Pentagon with someone? Not that I could. Everybody I knew is probably retired or dead.”
“Auntie, stop! Look, I know I’ve been bad. It’s just my job—”
“Your job?” She takes a roast chicken out of the refrigerator along with some marble rye bread. Did she know I was coming? “Girl, a job isn’t everything.”
I sit on one of the stools at the counter. “Your job was everything.”
“And look what it got me! A nice quiet house to die alone in! No children. Nobody to take care of.”
“Hm, as I recall, you had some adventures.”
She smiles as she puts the bread on a plate. “I sure did. I saw it all. Too much, in fact. But it ain’t everything, girl. There’s more to life than power and adventure. I learned the hard way. I wish you’d find yourself a nice man, a man who doesn’t live or work in Washington, and settle down. Raise a family.”
I try not to roll my eyes.
“Auntie O, please don’t go down that road again. How are you doing?”
She slices some chicken onto the marble rye. “I like it out here. It’s quiet. People don’t bother you. I go to church, I sing in the choir, I pray, and I talk with my friends.”
“Do you ever go back into the city?”
She slices some red onion onto the chicken. “Why would I want to go back into that shitpile of lying scumbags?”
I laugh.
She slices some tomato on top of the onion, then layers some Swiss cheese. She spreads some spicy mayo on the bread and then puts the whole sandwich onto a panini griddle.
There is a ceramic duck on the kitchen counter that I never saw before. It’s staring at me.
“This is new,” I say.
“I made that in my ceramics class. Caecilia and I went.”
“Oh, how is Caecilia?”
“She’s doing fine.”
She takes the panini sandwich out and puts it on the same plate I ate from when I was five years old. Then she pours two glasses of lemonade, placing one next to my plate.
I take a bite.
“Mmmm,” I say.
My aunt leans on the counter like a bartender. “Girl-child, what is it?”
“What is what?”
“You didn’t come here for a chicken sandwich…nor to say hello to your lonely old aunt. I can see in your face you got something to ask me, so go on, girl, just get it out!”
I wipe my mouth with a napkin. “God, am I that obvious?”
/> “No, but remember I was the NSA’s top face-reader.”
“Well, fine…that’s kind of what I wanted to ask you about. You worked with Senator Fremont, didn’t you?”
“That lying sonofabitch. Is he still alive?”
“No, I’m talking about Senator Fremont, the Vietnam war veteran who ran against President Mitchell in the last election.”
“That’s the same asshole I’m talking about. You deaf, girl?”
“Um…no, I just figured that…”
“You just figured that there is no way in high heaven that I could be talking about the great hero James Henry Fremont, that stalwart figure with his bone white hair flippin’ this way and that in the wind…no, I know him, child. I know him better than you think I do. He’s a pissant, fuckface, deceptive beast of a lying scumhole.”
I laugh. “Wow. He doesn’t have that reputation in my circles.”
“That’s cause he’s a very good pissant, fuckface, deceptive beast of a lying scumhole. Why in tarnation are you asking me this, girl?”
I swallow a piece of my sandwich, then take a sip of lemonade.
“I’m involved in a situation that he’s...involved in. He told me he knew Granddad.”
“That’s a lie. He never knew your grandfather. Your grandfather died in Hanoi.”
“Well, that’s where Senator Fremont says he met him.”
She squints and stares at me. “Maybe, but I’d say still a lie.”
“Auntie O, let me ask you. Who was the worst man you ever knew in Washington?”
“All of them. That’s what they call an oxymoron. Ain’t no good man in Washington. Trust me, I know.”
“Okay…let me rephrase the question. I may have some evidence that a politician…not Senator Fremont…did something very bad.”
“Whoever he is, he did it. He’s guilty.”
“Will you just listen to me?”
She sips her lemonade and rolls her eyes. “Go on, then.”
“It’s credible, but something is bothering me about it. The man in question just…doesn’t fit the profile.”
Her eyebrows raise. “You said he was a politician.”
“Yes.”
“Then he fits the profile. They’re all guilty. All of them. Once you get over that and get out of that cesspool, you’ll be happier. I know you’re smart. It runs in the family. Why not use what you got to get a job at a corporate firm and process easy mergers all day long? Why do you want to play with these snakes?”
I get a flash of myself in a house like this when I’m seventy, looking back on years of accomplishment. Oddly, it’s just as quiet as this house today.
“I…like…to do good,” I say.
“Oh, please! You like power, honey, that’s what you like. It excites you. All those good-looking men in uniforms walking around while those other men make all those important decisions. All that authority. It turns you on.”
The muscles in my neck tense up. “Auntie!”
“Sugar, be honest with yourself. It’s why I was there, too. I could have been so many things, but I took a job at the Pentagon because the energy of the place got my juices all a-flowin’.”
I feel my face flush. I stand. “Look, never mind. I’m going. I have to get back to the office. Thanks for the sandwich. It was delicious.”
“You only ate half, child.”
“I’m on a diet.” I walk to the door. “So, look, Auntie O, I promise…I’m going to come out more often. Not just to pry you for information, either.”
I put my hand on the knob. Then I feel her touch me on my back. I turn around and she pulls me in for a hug.
“You didn’t come here to pry me for information,” she says. “You came here to ask my advice. And let me tell you, child, there is no greater feeling than knowing you trust my opinion. You’re always welcome. You know that.”
“Oh, Auntie O, thank you! And I didn’t really ask you anything.”
She breaks the hug and grabs my shoulders, looking me square in the eyes. “You may not think you did, but you did. I will tell you one thing, honey-child…and you can take this to the bank. Trust your gut. Your gut knows. It always knows. Even when we doing something bad, it knows.”
“Thanks, Auntie,” I say with tears in my eyes.
I turn and open the door, walk to my SUV, and drive back into D.C.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Harrison
It smells like acetone and human sweat down here.
As Chase and Mike accompany me down the corridor, three levels below the Pentagon in a top secret area more sealed and secure than anything in the United States, I chuckle silently to myself.
Can’t help but think of those beautiful brown eyes, those luscious lips wrapped around my cock, the wet heat of her mouth.
Goddamn, I’m getting hard now.
Steady, Harry.
The door is open. Eversol the warden is standing to the left of it, nodding in respect to me and waving me in.
I turn the corner and walk in the room.
Valdovar sits facing the door at a metal table.
He’s a little heavier than when I last saw him in Afghanistan. A few more lines. But the straggly black hair and beard is the same. He looks ridiculous in the orange prison pajamas.
Even though he’s held to the chair by metal cuffs and chain link, which itself is bolted down, Valdovar’s dangerousness shines through. He could kill me with his fingertips in half a second if I got close enough.
“Close the door,” I say.
“Mr. President,” says Eversol. “I would advise that—”
“Close the door.”
Eversol grits his teeth. “Fine. Just don’t walk into his space. Even with the shackles—”
“Close the goddamned door!”
“Yes, sir.”
The door clangs shut.
Our eyes lock in a fiery stare as I sit facing Valdovar at the table.
We stay like that for a good solid minute. Like I always did when I was with Special Ops, I look for any sign of weakness.
You can tell a man’s true depth by the way he wields eye contact. Valdovar is unflinching, resolute, willing to die.
He breaks the silence with a laugh and a big smile.
“President of the United States Harrison Pierce, hm?” he says. “Commander-in-Chief. You’ve come a long way, my friend.”
“I am not your friend, Valdovar. The only reason I missed you is because an RPG went off behind me. Half a second more and you’d be dead, even though I was a mile away.”
“Maybe.” He leans forward, the iron shackles banging hard onto the table. “But I know something the world doesn’t know. The leader of the free world is nothing but a coward who hides in dark spaces and shoots women and children.”
“Valdovar, you need to work on your Abu Nazir impersonation. I’m not Sergeant Brody. And, for the record, anyone I killed was a confirmed terrorist. None of them were children.”
“Zegram? There were no children there?”
“I didn’t order that, Valdovar, and you know it.”
“Big hero. Big fucking hero sniper, you are.” He spits on the table. “That’s what I think of you, Mr. President of the United States.”
“Well, luckily for you, the feeling is quite mutual. Valdovar, where is Unit Ten?”
“Fuck you.”
“Valdovar, you’re never getting out of here. Nobody even knows we have you. Haranth thinks you’re dead. The world has moved on from you.” I lean forward and smile. “But if you tell me where Unit Ten is, I can make life easier on you.”
Valdovar laughs, shaking his head. “Let me guess. A flat-screen TV and gourmet food.”
“Better than what we’ve been feeding you, I hear.”
He spits on the table again.
Then he smiles and laughs, straining his shackles as he leaps forward. “Something has happened. I’ve been here since before your dear President Mitchell and his lovely bride were burned up in that wreck as the
y should have been, as you should be. But you’ve never come to visit me. Why today? What has happened?”
I sit back in the chair.
“We’re getting closer to discovering who represents Solvane in the United States government. A CIA programmer has disappeared. We think he uncovered the name of the mole.” Carefully, I analyze Valdovar’s eye movements. There is a light flicker. “Oh, so there is something that scares you.”
“Solvane should scare you too. Solvane controls everything. You know that.”
“They don’t control me.”
Valdovar laughs. “They will.”
“I’m not afraid to break the law when it comes to you, Valdovar. Nor am I afraid to piss off Solvane. We’ll do whatever we need to do to expose the name of the official who represents Solvane. We will also find Unit Ten and get those twenty-one men home and safe.”
“Like your cowboy predecessor said, ‘Bring it on.’”
I stand up.
“Eversol!”
The door opens. Eversol comes in, gun drawn.
“No need for that,” I say. “But undo his hand shackles, please.”
Eversol’s eyes go wide.
“No, sir,” he says. “Not while you’re in the same room with him.”
“I gave you an order!” I say. “Do it!”
Eversol tries to hold his ground, but flinches. “Guards!”
Three Marines with rifles enter the room.
“Train weapons,” says Eversol as he takes his keys out and heads to Valdovar. The Marines point their guns at Valdovar. Eversol carefully unlocks the hand shackles, then walks behind me.
I slowly walk over to Valdovar, right into his space.
He’s like a cat, swift and hard. He rises and turns, throwing his right in a tight chop to my neck while his left fingers go for my eyes. Very good, taking advantage of the moment before allowing me to think…or so he thought.
My Special Ops reflexes kick in, catching both his movements as I duck to my left and wrap my hands around his arms as they come toward me. I spin and shift my weight so the momentum of his attack knocks his weight off his right foot. One kick with my left wingtip and he spins and goes down on his back, my right forearm pressing hard into his throat as he lies on the floor. He makes some gurgling sounds.