Lost in America

by A. S. French

  Rosie glanced over the dead man’s things. ‘What about Detective Moore? What part did he play in this?’

  Astrid sighed, remembering the kindness he’d shown her in this room. And then she felt the phone sticking into her hip; at least he’d charged it for her.

  ‘Moore played the most important part of anyone. When your father had Caitlin murdered, he needed a false trail to throw the honest law enforcement off. So Detective Moore put those numbers in her and the kid’s mouths. The human trafficking website is genuine and is probably run by one of your father’s competitors. So they got two birds with one stone: a competitor shut down, plus the police and the FBI with their hands full for months, even years to come. Me being there was just an unhappy accident.’ Electric pain stabbed at her gut as she remembered Jimmy Sawyer bragging about how he’d killed Caitlin’s children because he’d heard her talking in the kitchen about Courtney and Olivia. ‘But they didn’t count on one thing.’

  ‘Which was what?’

  Astrid reached across and picked up the photo of Jim and his wife.

  ‘He tried to tell me the night I was here, but my brain was still mush. I guess he believed he couldn’t take any chances. The Police Chief had to be in on it, or it wouldn’t have worked putting the squeeze on Moore. And the best way to squeeze someone is to apply pressure on the people they love the most.’

  ‘I thought he was divorced?’

  ‘Not divorced, separated, but he still loved her, and they had a daughter. I’d bet good money on your father having threatened them, and making sure Moore was aware of it.’ Just like he did with Olivia and me. ‘Moore tried to tell me that night. He kept going on about sacrificing everything you have for those you love, about doing anything to protect them and keep them safe. He said people would give up all their ethics and principles to defend who they loved the most, would even sacrifice the many to save them.’

  She put the photo back and felt like smacking her head against the wall.

  How could I have been so blind and deaf?

  ‘I understand why my father needed to control him and the rest of the police, but not why you say he’s so important.’

  ‘Because if it weren’t for Jim, I wouldn’t be here now. He framed me for those murders; he placed my passport at the crime scene. It was Moore who pitted me against your father.’

  And she’d only realised it when she found what was inside his kitchen drawer.

  ‘What?’ Rosie looked confused. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The closer they got to the end of this plan, the more the decent people resisted. Not only was Caitlin killed when she changed her mind, but her kids were, too. Moore wanted out as well. He wasn’t afraid for his own life, just for his wife and daughter. And then I stumbled into town and got drunk.’

  ‘What do you mean about Caitlin changing her mind?’

  Astrid finished her bourbon. ‘I was too ready to believe the fiction of her being an investigative journalist, my brain too mixed up to remember what she said to me until now. But she would only perceive herself as Lee Harvey Oswald if she was to kill the President.’

  ‘When he arrives at my father’s mansion?’

  ‘It has to be. He has a reputation as a womaniser, someone who wouldn’t turn down a night with a woman when he’s away from the public eye. That woman was to be Caitlin Cruz.’

  ‘Why would she do something so terrible?’

  ‘Benedict threatened her kids, and what mother wouldn’t do anything to protect her children? Even murder a President.’

  ‘But she changed her mind.’

  ‘She knew too much, so she had to die, and your father tasked your brother to do it.’

  And he got me involved in this, him and Detective Moore.

  ‘How do you know Moore was part of this?’

  Astrid reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.

  ‘I always wondered what happened to this. Why wasn’t this planted near Caitlin’s body and my passport? It would have been more evidence against me. When Jim questioned me in the cell, I gave him the number of my boss at the Agency, but he kept making excuses about not getting through. I ignored it at the time because I didn’t want the Agency’s help. I only realise now he must have gone through the phone when I was arrested and unconscious in jail. There are only two numbers on there: my sister’s and my former boss’s. Moore must have spoken to him, and my former boss explained who I was and told him I worked for British Intelligence. Then it went boom in his head, and all the gears fell into place.’

  The penny dropped for Rosie Sawyer. ‘You were his way out?’

  ‘Exactly. A way out from under your father’s thumb, a way to save the President and a way to protect his wife and child. What he didn’t expect was Chief Colt’s determination to prove me guilty.’ She stared at the photo of Moore and his wife. ‘His desperation left him putting all his trust in me.’

  ‘He assumed you’d want to find who framed you.’

  ‘He must have done, assuming any normal person would need to clear their name, never mind someone he probably thought was a female James Bond.’

  Rosie laughed. ‘And he was right.’

  Astrid shook her head. ‘But he wasn’t. I didn’t care. I was out of jail and just wanted to get out of town. People have framed me for murder before; this was nothing new to me. If your father had left things alone, I would’ve departed days ago.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Rosie sounded disappointed by the thought of it.

  ‘I was going to leave here when the police discovered the bodies at the cabin. I believe your father was trying to confuse the issue, getting the authorities looking in different directions. He had those two people murdered to make it look like the work of the Cruz family’s killer; it was all part of his distraction, one which would lead to that trafficking website. And your brother killed the guy who set that up and tried to frame me for it. He didn’t need to do that because I would’ve left soon enough. Even the cyber-attacks helped him. Then he sped up things with the home invasion here and at Campbell’s house.’

  ‘When he tried to kill you twice?’

  Astrid smiled at her. ‘That’s what I thought, but they weren’t attempts on my life; he was getting rid of loose ends.’

  Sawyer narrowed her eyes in apparent confusion. Astrid glanced around the room and remembered the time she’d spent talking to Jim; how he’d cooked for them, and they’d spoken about music.

  ‘Jim told me everyone at the station knew he’d been sleeping on the sofa for weeks. I’m guessing your father owns all the apartments on this block and doubtless has spare keys for each of them. He sent someone to strangle Moore that night. Unfortunately for them and your old man, they found me on the couch.’

  ‘What about the attack on the Campbell place?’

  ‘They weren’t after me, probably didn’t even know I was there. It was Robbie Campbell they wanted out of the way, and you don’t send one bloke and some wire to murder a trained Secret Service Agent. But he’d gone back to Washington early, and I was twiddling my fingers on the computer in that house.’

  ‘No wonder you were pissed.’

  ‘I was more confused than annoyed. If the FBI had tracked down the people behind the website, I would’ve been more than happy to have left. By the time I discovered the dead hacker, I was royally pissed off, and your brother made it worse.’ He’d paid for his mistakes, and Benedict Sawyer would as well. ‘Your father only has himself to blame for what’s about to come.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Because if he hadn’t sent you to force me out of the car to the little rendezvous in his vape factory, I still would’ve left town sooner rather than later. Once he threatened my niece, there was no going back.’ She flexed her sore hand as she regained full strength in it. ‘Your father might think he’s a master strategist, but he never planned for me, and I’m the one who will bring his house of cards crashing down around him.’

  Rosie took Astrid’s scarr
ed fingers and placed them to her lips. She kissed the entire length of them before reaching up to her face and crushing Astrid’s mouth against her own. They hung like that for an eternity. Rosie was gasping for breath when they parted.

  ‘There are still a few things I’m unsure about. Who is the new patsy if they assassinate the President, and how does the brief vacuum in political power help my father and his friends? Are they plotting a coup?’

  ‘I assume your father set the coup in motion a long time ago. You said it yourself, Rosie: he likes to plan way in advance, and in this case, it must have been years in the making.’

  She imagined a younger version of Benedict Sawyer sitting around the table with a bunch of similar-minded people, all staring at the pawn they were waiting to play.

  As Astrid bit through another slice of pizza, Rosie appeared to understand what her father had planned.

  ‘You mean…?’

  ‘It’s the Vice President. He’ll be their puppet.’

  22 Girl Goes Down

  It took a second or two for Rosie to process the information. Then her lips stretched wide and her eyebrows rose. A chunk of pineapple clung to her bottom lip, only tumbling into her lap when she spoke.

  ‘The VP, my God.’ She raised a quivering finger to her mouth. ‘My father went to school with his father. Our families are virtually cousins.’

  Astrid poured both of them another bourbon.

  ‘Your old man and this group will assassinate the President.’ She remembered the conversation she’d had with Maggie Delaney about her overhearing Caitlin Cruz use the term Hawkestra. Was this what she meant?

  ‘And the VP will become President.’

  ‘That’s right. They’re going to put him into the Oval Office, then instigate some global conflict to keep him there, pulling his strings all the while. They knew about the President’s withdrawal of troops from the Middle East, disagreed with it, but he wouldn’t back down.’

  ‘You think my father has planned this for a long time?’

  ‘I’m guessing he and his cronies have had a long-term strategy to get his old friend at the most powerful table in the world, and recent events have sped up those plans.’

  ‘You mean the troops coming home?’

  Click, click, click as all the cogs fell into place inside Astrid’s brain.

  ‘That’s the opposite of what they want. They need American troops in the Middle East because they need a war there: a holy conflict to give them as much access to oil as their greedy little hearts will take.’

  Rosie dropped her pizza on to the table as the colour drained from her face.

  ‘It’s only one of two wars they desire.’

  ‘Two?’

  ‘I may not be privy to most of what he does, but the thing I see without any doubt is how he hates liberals and democrats.’

  ‘He wouldn’t be the first or last to feel like that, Rosie. I’ve seen it across the world.’

  Rosie drank the bourbon in one go and coughed. The colour returned to her through the red bursting from her cheeks. ‘I don’t know about any of that. All I recognise is how my father detests weakness. He perceives strength to be a hatred of weakness, and anything which promotes helping others is a flaw to him.’ Her eyes glazed over as the empty glass trembled in her hand. Rosie’s lower lip quivered as the words crawled from her mouth. ‘I mean passionate, sadistic hatred. And I’m not exaggerating. That’s what proves he’s strong, his zealous contempt for weakness. To him, kindness, honesty, and compromise all equal weakness.’

  Rosie put the glass on to the table and sank into the sofa like a deflated balloon. Astrid wondered how long she’d kept all of that inside her.

  Probably most of her life.

  ‘So, as well as conflict overseas, your father and his group want a domestic war between the right and the left. He hates whatever he perceives the liberal agenda to be and set up the perfect spark with the tinder box of Caitlin assassinating the President. Her defiance scuppered that plan, but now he has the ideal substitute.’

  ‘Who? You?’

  Astrid shook her head. ‘No. Someone much closer to home. Your father’s going to use Eleanor as the Oswald.’

  ‘Officer Campbell?’

  ‘He’s had to adjust his plans, but he likely thinks it’s fate. My involvement must have irritated him initially, got him furious when he discovered Moore had planned to get me involved. Perhaps he loved the idea of a Brit engaged in his new American Revolution. Now, in his eyes, he has a liberal, African-American bisexual adulterer he can blame.’

  Rosie sank further into the sofa. ‘And there’s nothing we can do to stop him.’

  The TV blared in the background, spewing out more news about the forthcoming arrival in Bakerstown of the leader of the free world.

  ‘What time is the President due at the mansion?’

  ‘About nine in the morning. I got a text yesterday telling me to stay away until the weekend.’

  Astrid explored her options ‘It’s Wednesday night now. The President arrives tomorrow and leaves on Friday. Only he won’t be alive when he does. Eleanor will get the blame, and one of your father’s goons will conveniently kill her.’

  ‘What about the Secret Service Agents protecting him?’

  ‘I’m sure Benedict has everything planned to the last detail. Robbie Campbell would have helped him with that.’ And look where that loyalty got him. ‘Has the President’s security been to your house?’

  Rosie grabbed the bottle of bourbon. ‘They were there this afternoon, checking every nook and cranny in the mansion and the grounds.’

  Astrid racked her brains for Security Service protocol for visiting presidents. She recalled reading Agency documents about when a president planned to travel: Secret Service Agents would visit the destination up to three months in advance. There, they’d meet with local law enforcement agencies to work out the logistics of the visit.

  ‘This is no last-minute trip. Secret Service would have visited weeks ago, collaborating with Chief Colt and his department. Detective Moore and Agent Campbell would have taken part in any meetings they had.’

  ‘You think the mansion will be thick with security now?’

  ‘No, but they’ll return two or three hours before the President’s due. The sniffer dogs will be with them, so we’ve got about twelve hours to get in and out before they arrive. How many people does your father have around him?’

  ‘Forty or fifty at least.’

  ‘Do you know where he’ll have Campbell?’

  ‘I’d guess she’d be in the suite on the third floor since it’s the hardest to get to. There’s only one way into there. You’ll need an army to get in.’

  ‘And where will your father be?’

  ‘He spends most of his waking hours in the library on the first floor. That’s where I hear him on the phone to his associates. There’ll be security outside the room.’

  Astrid got her phone, aware she still hadn’t replied to Courtney’s new message, and searched for the Sawyer mansion online. She found photos from outside and inside the building, plus a set of plans for it and the grounds. She asked Rosie to identify the suite on the second floor recognising this is what Americans would refer to as the third floor, and the ground-floor library.

  ‘Is this an attic on the top?’ She pointed to an oval-shaped window at the highest point of the house.

  ‘It is. I used to play there when I was younger to escape from my father and brother. You can’t access it from the outside.’

  Astrid scanned every photo of the mansion she found.

  ‘Don’t worry about that.’ She pointed at the vape factory on the plans. ‘Can you get me into there?’

  When Rosie nodded, Astrid knew she was ready. It would take about forty minutes to get there.

  She put her phone away. ‘We’ll leave at three in the morning.’

  ‘Why then?’

  ‘Even if they’re expecting something, most of the security won’t have the min
d-set to be mentally ready at that time. The human brain is conditioned to sleep then. They’ll be unfocused and jumpy, which is perfect for me.

  ‘So what will we do until then?’

  Astrid turned off the TV and closed the curtains.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll think of something.’

  They left dead on three. Astrid combed through Moore’s apartment before leaving, taking a few things she hoped would come in handy. She’d done a sweep of the area before they left, making sure none of Benedict Sawyer’s people were watching them.

  Rosie was nervous, her fingers trembling as she drove.

  ‘Don’t you want a gun?’

  Astrid shook her head. ‘I need stealth, not brute force. This should do me for now.’ She patted inside her coat at the large knife she’d taken from Moore’s kitchen.

  ‘What will you do to my father?’ Astrid had already told her what had happened to her brother.

  ‘He threatened my niece, Rosie. He has to pay for that.’

  Sawyer slammed her foot on the accelerator. ‘Good.’

  23 Ignite

  It took fewer than thirty minutes to get there, and the electronic gates opened as the car approached. Astrid hid in the space between the front and back seats, dressed all in black to blend into the shadows. She’d found the shirt and jacket in Jim Moore’s wardrobe. She ran her fingers across the leather, feeling she had a part of the Detective with her.

  Rosie drove into the grounds and whispered to her.

  ‘I’m inside and heading towards the warehouse.’

  ‘Do you remember what to do next?’

  ‘Yes. Park outside the front, then go to my room and lock the door behind me.’

  ‘And don’t leave unless I come for you or get a message to you.’

  Astrid twisted her body to fit into the gap, flexing her fingers as the car trundled across the ground. Rosie provided a running commentary.

  ‘The lights are on in the grounds. People will see you if you go in through the front.’