by Jeff Gunhus
Through these cords and over a dedicated server, the images of Catherine Fews’s death and subsequent dismemberment traveled through cyberspace at slightly less than the speed of light until they arrived at a remote hard drive where they were etched onto memory.
Destined now to become someone else’s insurance now that Catherine Fews no longer had a need for it.
4
Marshall “Libby” Ashworth had not been nervous for a meeting in years. Although just turned fifty, he had seen too damn much to bother with nerves. Heads of state, U.S. presidents, celebrities, all had been part of his everyday routine for the last two decades and the novelty had long worn off. Just like anyone else, famous people used the john, got stupid when they drank too much, smelled bad when they sweat and were generally more flawed than John Q Public could ever guess.
As a staffer, he’d watched George W. Bush waddle through security briefings asking questions that proved one child had been left behind and he was sitting in the White House. Libby Ashworth was there when that sycophant Clinton said goodnight to the donors who’d ponied up the cash to spend the night in the Lincoln bedroom. He’d cried as the first African-American President was sworn in, only to see him fumble through a presidency high on promise and miserably low on results. And it wasn’t just the executive branch. He’d seen Senate leaders hold up funding for needy families for no other reason than because a bill’s author had bad-talked someone during a poker game. And he’d seen Supreme Court Justices so drunk they couldn’t walk straight, talking trash about the sacred court on which they sat.
He’d seen enough of Washington to know better than to hold the people who worked there in enough regard to ever be nervous to meet them.
Except the meeting today was different.
This meeting had him very nervous.
And that scared him.
<><><>
The old man sat on the top step of the Lincoln Memorial. The Memorial was his favorite monument on the National Mall. There was something soothing about Lincoln’s expression and the way he serenely looked out over the city from his small hill, as if he might actually be able to shame the men and women there into better behavior.
Over forty years of living and working in the center of the American Empire had worn down some of the old man’s hope but not all of it. He still thought he could make a difference, but time was working against him. The latest distraction had to be done away with so that his other work could continue. The man believed he had chosen the right man in Libby Ashworth but one thing he knew for sure was that nothing in this town was certain.
He let his eyes soak in the National Mall. The reflection pool stretched out toward the Washington Monument, the tall obelisk that seemed to point to the place of honor that would forever belong to the first President. The man always felt it a shame that Washington had become a caricature, a logo more than a man. From the very beginning, Washington had been above them all. Above the pettiness. Above the fray. But the old man was a decent historian and had studied Washington the man for years. He had been as imperfect as any of them, full of vanity and contradictions, but he had been nearly perfect at the times when it counted most of all. And, in the end, that was what really mattered in a person’s life. At least that was what the old man kept telling himself.
Farther down the Mall, its distant image already wavering in the heat, sat the building where even the concept of perfection was a distant thought. The dome of the U.S. Capitol building dominated the skyline, ironically crowned by a sculpture of a Native American woman, as if as a purposeful statement of the town’s cynicism. Sure we wiped out your civilization and stuck you on reservations to starve you and abuse you, but we put a statue of your people on our Capitol, so suck it up.
The man shook his head, knowing that such thoughts only showcased his own developing cynicism. He felt tired though, more tired than ever. He just wanted to finish what he started, then he would let himself rest. But first the work had to be done.
“Excuse me, do you—”
A middle-aged man dressed in full tourist mode with bright blue shorts and grey pitted out t-shirt approached him from the right. Halfway through his question two muscular men stepped between the man and their boss, politely asking the man to move on. The old man watched the tourist crane his neck around the bodyguards to see if he could identify the person being protected, then go back to his family to excitedly tell them what happened. He imagined that the tourist would tell the story over and over when he returned home to Moline, Iowa or Orlando, Florida, or wherever he was from, and when people asked who the person was on the steps, he would just shake his head and say he had no idea.
And that was exactly how the man liked it.
<><><>
“Hello, Clarence,” Libby Ashworth said, trying to exude confidence he didn’t feel. He carefully wiped the granite before sitting on the step. “Nice office you have here,” he said with a nod toward the Mall. “Can’t beat the view.”
“Hello, Marshall. Thank you for meeting me on such short notice.”
No one called him Marshall in this town. It was Libby, had been since prep school and the old man knew it. The same as he knew that the prestigious Ashworth name was from his mother’s second marriage. The same as he knew probably every flaw and misstep in Libby’s life. The purposeful error irritated him, but he left it alone. “Well, you sounded a little upset over the phone. When the Director of the FBI calls me a little worried and wants to meet on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I figure it’s a good idea to take the meeting.”
Clarence Mason smiled. “Soon the ex-Director, if your friends have their way. I hear Hernandez is the flavor of the month.”
Libby nearly flinched. He knew Mason to be direct but he’d expected a little more foreplay. Not only that, but Victor Hernandez had only come up in a top-level meeting forty-eight hours earlier. The old man was showing off his sources. Libby had to admit that they were good. “Victor Hernandez is the President’s multicultural young face,” Libby said. “He’s an empty suit.”
“I know,” Mason said.
“Power knows where power goes, Clarence. You taught me that. The important calls in this town will be going to you for a long time yet.” He smiled but thought to himself, Not if I can help it, you fucking dinosaur.
Clarence Mason shrugged slightly. “I do what I can.”
Libby almost laughed out loud. Clarence Mason was one of the most powerful men in DC. Not since the Hoover years had more people feared someone at the FBI so much. The old man knew where the bodies were buried, had probably buried a few himself over the years, and no one knew what his personal files contained. There were not many who cared to find out. Even before he became Director, when the President needed advice about something sensitive, it was Clarence Mason on the other end of the line. At least that was how it had been with the previous four Administrations.
“All right, Clarence. What’s on your mind?”
“Your boss has some exposure that you need to know about.”
Libby swallowed hard. “Recent?”
“Less than six months. Before Iowa, but not by much.”
“Hard evidence?”
“Photos that place him in the home of a well-known pro. Right here in town.”
Libby felt his stomach turn over. He’d dealt with issues like this before but the feeling never got better. “Is she going public?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. She was murdered last week. Throat slashed and then her body was hacked to pieces. The killer was very…creative in how he left the body.”
“Jesus, did you have someone…” Libby turned away, realizing that he didn’t want to know the answer to the question.
“No, we were not involved,” Mason said softly. “But we need to be. I thought you should know in case it leads somewhere close to you.”
Libby felt his face flush. “Don’t go down that path. He’s a womanizer, sure, but what you’re talking about is completely different. I can
’t believe you would even—” He cut himself short, noticing the way Mason was coolly watching his body language. He knew he needed to get back in control of his emotions. “So why are you telling me this?”
“Call it professional courtesy.”
“So it has nothing to do with my guy talking to the leaders on the Hill about you?”
“He was talking about me?” Mason said. “I had no idea.”
Libby shook his head. He knew full well that half the senators had called Mason the minute they had left their offices to warn him that forces were trying to push him out of power. It had been part of their strategy all along. Who could have guessed that the old man had this ace in the hole? “All right, anything else?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Don’t tell me I’m going to read about this in the Post tomorrow.”
“This girl made videos.”
“Videos? Oh shit,” Libby said. A grainy photo could be denied. Photoshop experts lined up to testify on the morning news shows how it was faked. But video? That was a different thing entirely. He really was going to throw up. “Of him?”
Mason nodded. “Your guy. And others. In this woman’s apartment we found a video set up behind a mirror. The device didn’t have any memory in it and the battery was out.”
“Did the killer tamper with it?”
“Hard to say. But that’s not the problem.”
“Great.”
“We found a second camera in the room. This one with a feed to the Internet.”
Libby stood and ran his fingers through his hair. He had a strong urge to walk away from the old man with all his bad news, get in the car and just drive until he ran out of gas. People would talk for a while about his disappearance, wonder what happened to him, but the world would move on and people would stop asking. Then it would be someone else’s shitty job to deal with this problem.
“So you’re telling me that…that there’s a sex video on the Internet right now? That it’s been out there for six months and I’m just now hearing about it?”
“If it was being distributed you would have heard about it a lot earlier than this. As far as your boss is concerned we only recently realized he had visited this woman in a…uh…personal capacity.”
Bullshit, Libby thought. You’ve been sitting on this you son-of-a-bitch, waiting for when you needed it.
“And how did you come across this piece of information?” Libby asked. “I didn’t know it was legal for you guys to put public officials under surveillance.”
“Never said he was. The only reason we have the photo is because the woman sent it to us to cut a deal. She wanted protection in exchange for the videos she made.”
“Protection from what?”
“According to the email we received, the first camera was from someone who approached her with the idea. Paid her to set up her clientele. The second camera was her idea. She knew she was playing with fire and wanted out.”
“You think the guy found out she contacted you and killed her?”
Mason shrugged. “That’s one theory.”
“I don’t get it. Are the videos out there on the Internet or not?”
Mason smirked and Libby fought the desire to punch the son-of-a-bitch in the face.
“Our analysts say the first camera had removable memory. So those are gone. Impossible to say where. If your guy’s luck keeps going strong like it has so far, then she removed the memory herself and stored it somewhere before she was killed.”
“And if his luck’s run out?”
“Then the guy who set this thing up has the videos. Or the guy who killed her.”
“Might be the same guy.”
“Might be.”
“And the second video?”
Our analysts say it went out over an encrypted feed, right into the dark Internet where it’s impossible to trace.”
Libby had heard the term dark Internet before but didn’t really understand it. He wasn’t about to admit that in front of Mason. The words impossible to trace were all he needed to hear.
“But someone has it.”
“Yes, someone has it and either they’ve been sitting on it or...”
“Or what?” Libby asked.
“Or your guy’s been compromised and someone is using this to control him.”
Libby shook his head. “No, that’s not possible.”
“If you say so, Marshall.”
Libby spun around and pointed a finger at the old man. “You find the son-of-a-bitch. And you find him fast. Do your job, for Chrissake.” He lowered his finger and took a breath. “And the name’s Libby, you asshole. You know damn well I don’t go by Marshall.”
Mason looked at him calmly, as if they were discussing gardening tips instead of a scandal of staggering proportions. Libby turned heel and strode down the steps of the Memorial, his legs shaking from the adrenaline pumping through his bloodstream.
He knew he shouldn’t let the old man get to him like that, but he couldn’t help it.
They’d had their fights over the years, going back to when Libby was a young boy. But Libby hadn’t lost his temper with Mason like that since he was a teenager.
But, then again, his father was always able to get a rise out of him.
Libby wondered what his shrink would have made of this father-son moment on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Or of the fact that Libby spent an inordinate amount of his time plotting his old man’s downfall. Too bad he’d stopped going to therapy two decades earlier, because it would have been quite a session.
If there was any silver lining at all it was that the meeting had taken place at all. Professional courtesy his ass. Mason had called him to rattle his cage because he didn’t have as much as he implied. All he had was a grainy photo they both knew could have been faked and a dead prostitute who said she had videos. What really bothered Libby was that Mason actually believed he might know something about the girl’s death. The entire meeting had been a pretext for the old man to see with his own eyes how Libby responded to the information. No, that was just part of it. The old man knew Libby couldn’t just sit on the news and wait to see what happened. Even though it was exactly what his manipulative asshole of a father wanted him to do, Libby had to tell his boss. And it was anyone’s guess how that meeting was going to go down. All he knew for certain was that Mason’s spies would be on the lookout to see what reaction they got by throwing this firebomb into the enemy camp. Libby had to be careful.
A black sedan waited for him at the base of the steps in a restricted parking area reserved for police. He climbed into the backseat.
“When does the boss get back?” he asked the driver.
“Fundraiser tonight in California. A stop in Detroit on the way back.”
“Did you hear me ask for his fucking schedule? When is he back to the residence?”
“Sorry, sir. Senator Summerhays will be back tomorrow at five P.M.”
“Take me to the residence anyway. Make it quick,” Libby snapped. He leaned back in his seat and pressed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Telling truth to power had never been a problem for Libby Ashworth. He just wasn’t looking forward to telling the front-runner for the office of President of the United States that he was a dumb ass and had been caught with his pants around his ankles for what might be the last time in his career.
5
Allison hardly noticed the dark clouds piled up to the west, marching forward with silent deliberation over the Washington DC skyline. A cold breeze kicked up dried leaves and sent them spinning among the gravestones. The trees still held half their leaves, clinging to the hope of a few more days of warmth, but even these were being ripped away whenever the wind gusted.
She wandered through the cemetery with her wool trench coat pulled tight around her, the Louisiana heat a distant memory. The wind numbed her ears and she wished she’d accepted the knit hat her dad had offered her on the way out of the car, but it wasn’t bad enough to make her turn ba
ck. The car was parked some distance away even though there was an access road that led right next to the grave she was there to visit. Her dad sat in the car’s passenger seat, there for company, aware enough to know she needed this time alone.
And that’s why she walked through the headstones alone, carefully reading the names of strangers chiseled in stone as if she might discover among them someone she knew. She wanted the time to herself. And she wanted to put off the upcoming visit as long as she could.
The problem with anniversaries was that it forced a pause, a reckoning of what had happened in the intervening time since the last marking of time’s passage. As Allison approached Richard Thornton’s grave, she thought through what she’d done with her life over the last year.
Work. That was the simple answer. After Arnie Milhouse, Director Mason cleared her way to return to CID, over Garret’s objections, and she dug in. Her co-workers tried in various ways to get her to talk about the night she was abducted and tortured. About how she’d managed to escape and kill her captor. But she refused. Those with high enough clearance could read the case report, but that only gave a cold, clinical rendition of the facts. The word on her was that she was a hard ass, too good to share lessons learned from the experience, but that wasn’t the case. Despite passing her FBI psych evaluation with flying colors so that she could return to duty, the night haunted her. She simply wanted to leave it where it belonged. In the past, where it couldn’t reach her. Only things were never that simple.
She had only to close her eyes at night to see Richard’s broken body sprawled on the rocks, his eyes frozen open, staring lifelessly at the shoreline. If it wasn’t Richard’s face that appeared, it was Arnie’s. Leering at her as he ran his hands over her body. She was strapped into the chair in his torture chamber, unable to move.
Nearly every night she woke gasping, clutching at invisible hands at her throat, unable to breathe, trying to scream for help. On the worst nights, the old nightmare of the rape returned. Only now, in some bizarre mash-up of memory, it was Arnie on top of her instead of Craig Gerty, pressing into her, licking her face with his disgusting tongue. The nightmares came so often that she didn’t even consider entering a new relationship with a man. She couldn’t trust herself not to wake up screaming.