by Stephen Frey
Forte rubbed her shoulder. “So you see, it was my fault.”
Stephanie shook her head. “No,” she said softly, “you were just protecting him.”
“Maybe I had an ulterior motive.”
She looked up at him again with a curious expression. “What do you mean?”
“I think you know.”
She pivoted on the couch so they were facing each other. “No, I don’t.”
“I’ve always admired you, Stephanie. You’re smart and beautiful. I’ve always wondered if the two of us might be good together.” Her eyes widened and he watched her search his face for the truth. Jesse must have told her not to trust him, worried that he might make this play someday. Understanding that he couldn’t have her for himself but not wanting anyone else to have her either, especially the man who was manipulating him. “No kidding, I’ve always thought you had so much to offer.”
“Why didn’t you ever get married?” she asked.
“No time. I’ve devoted my life to two things. Making as much money as I could and improving the world for our people.”
She was quiet for several moments. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Jesse always said you told him you had something on him, something very bad.”
Forte suppressed a smile. This couldn’t have been going any better. “He told you that, huh?”
“Is there something?”
She’d just answered so many of his questions. Forte nodded.
“What?”
He didn’t have any problem telling her at this point. Maybe he could even use telling her to his advantage. “I have a clip of Jesse saying some very nasty things about white people. You’re in it, so is Clarence Osgood. So is Jefferson Roundtree.”
Stephanie gasped and put her hands to her face. “After that press conference, about a year ago. There was that cameraman.”
“Yes.”
“Clarence ran after that guy but couldn’t catch him.” She shook her head and grimaced. “He couldn’t catch a lame turtle.”
Forte chuckled snidely. “Clarence Osgood is faster than you think.”
“Oh, I know, he’s very sharp. But how did you get the clip?”
“Like I said, Osgood is faster than you think.”
“Clarence caught the guy?” she asked, picking up on what Forte was telegraphing her.
“Caught him and paid him. He told you and Jesse he didn’t, but he did. Paid the cameraman ten grand and got the clip.”
“Clarence gave the clip to you?”
“There was a price.” Half a million. Not enough for Osgood to retire on but enough. “I just showed it to Jesse for the first time this afternoon.”
“But why would Clarence want you to have it?”
“He thought Jesse was getting too big a head. He thought I needed some way to hold him back, to control him.”
“When did Clarence give it to you?”
“Six months ago.”
Stephanie’s expression grew grim. “Then why are you firing him?” She looked right into Forte’s eyes. “And me?”
It took all the self-control Forte had not to give away his guilt. He made certain he didn’t blink, made certain his eyebrows furrowed together as sincerely as possible. He was going to make at least one stab at trying to hold on to his innocence. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“Clarence found the e-mail from you to Jesse. Don’t lie to me, Elijah.”
Forte said nothing for a few moments, then gave in. “When did he find it?”
“At the end of March.”
“How did he find it?”
She shrugged. “Like you said, I guess Clarence is faster than he seems. He must have figured out Jesse’s password.”
“When did he tell you about it?”
“As soon as he found it. He came right into my office.”
Which would have been before Stephanie had come to Forte about Samuel Hewitt trying to recruit her. Apparently, they’d found the e-mail in March, but she’d come to him weeks after that. Suddenly he felt bad, which he rarely did. “I did send that e-mail,” he admitted. “I’ve sent several of them to Jesse. One only a little while back. It’s not that I don’t have a lot of respect for you, Stephanie, you know I do. It’s just that Jesse needs a different level of experience now, people who’ve worked for a president before. Being a senator’s one thing; being president is quite another.”
“I can do the job, Elijah. I know just as much as—”
Forte held up his hand, silencing her instantly. “I’m not going to discuss it,” he said. “I’ve made up my mind.” He took a deep breath. “What there will be for you is a permanent job at Ebony Enterprises. Head of corporate communications. That’s a huge position at Ebony. You’ll start at five hundred a year, and you’ll get a piece of the company. You and Heath Johnson will be my two top officers.”
“Five hundred thousand?” she asked incredulously.
“Yes.” He touched her chin gently. “As long as you promise to have dinner with me once a week.”
She sat straight up, pulling herself away from him for the second time. “I’m not going to be your half-a-million-dollar-a-year whore, Elijah,” she snapped. “Even if I am getting old and ugly.”
Forte laughed loudly. “You’re still so beautiful, Stephanie, and I meant what I said. Dinner, just dinner. Hell, I have dinner with Johnson at least twice a week. I figure you can give me at least one night.”
She couldn’t hide her smile. “Well, I guess.”
Forte’s eyes narrowed. “Now, let me ask you a question. How upset was Osgood when he found the e-mail I sent Jesse about getting rid of you two?” He knew the answer, but he wanted to see the reaction in Stephanie’s eyes so he could judge exactly how pissed off Osgood had been. What the man might do.
She didn’t hesitate. “I’ve never seen him madder.”
HEWITT SAT on a leather couch in the living room of Trenton Fleming’s spacious Manhattan apartment—tonight he would stay in one of Fleming’s guest rooms. It was almost two in the morning, but the first leg of his China trip didn’t start until five in the afternoon, so he had time to celebrate. He was spending a few days at U.S. Oil’s London office before going on to Shanghai, otherwise he would have gone west from Texas, through Los Angeles, instead of coming to Manhattan.
Fleming returned from the kitchen with a fresh bottle of Scotch and put it down on the coffee table in front of the couch. “Guess I won’t be making it into the office until late tomorrow.”
“Hey, you only go around once.” Hewitt grabbed the Scotch bottle and poured himself another drink—no ice, no water, just Scotch—and a satisfied smile spread across his face. He raised his glass to the elk head above the fireplace on the far wall. It was just like the one on Champagne. Fleming had shot both of them in Wyoming a few years ago, the kills coming just days apart. Hewitt was going to take Three Sticks elk hunting in Wyoming this winter. “Here’s to Christian Gillette.” His smile grew wider as he thought about his share of the Black Brothers fee. There wasn’t any doubt about the firm getting its seven percent on top of the ten million it had collected today. After all, he was the one at U.S. Oil who’d make the decision to buy Laurel Energy. It was a beautiful world when everything was rigged in your favor. “And here’s to another big fat fee.”
Fleming matched Hewitt’s smile with his own. “You played Christian exactly right, Samuel. Made him think he had Laurel Energy sold, then jerked the deal away. Then made him think there might be a shot again with that invite to your ranch, then left him at the altar again by putting off the ranch trip at the last minute. I bet if your assistant hadn’t called this morning to put him off, he wouldn’t have given me that check this afternoon.”
Hewitt smacked his lips after his first taste of the new bottle. “Oh, yeah, Christian would have waited. He thought he could push me over the edge by coming to the ranch, convince me I had to have Laurel. But he was wrong.”
“He thinks he’s the master.” Fleming chuckled. “Well, let me rephrase that. He thought he was the master.” He blinked slowly. The alcohol was starting to kick in. “What will you end up offering him for Laurel?”
Hewitt sniffed. “A little over four billion. He’ll take it, too. He’ll be pissed, but he’ll take it. He doesn’t have any choice. I’m the only game in town.” Hewitt noticed the alcohol getting to Fleming—the bleary-eyed look, his head tilting to one side like a ship with a leak. No one could keep up with him, Hewitt thought to himself proudly. It had been that way since Princeton, and it was a big advantage. “Plus, he told his investors he had a deal. He shouldn’t have done that.”
“How do you know he did that?”
Hewitt gave Fleming a telling glance.
Fleming smacked himself in the head with his palm. “Of course, of course. I’m an idiot.”
“No, you’ve had too much Scotch.”
“Yeah, probably. So, you still want to tap Christian into the Order?”
“Absolutely.”
“I don’t know. He was pretty shook up about the assassination attempt when he was in our offices today. He seems like a die-hard Democrat to me. I think we’ve lost him to the dark side.”
“He’ll come around.”
Fleming held his glass up to the light, gazing at the Scotch. It was older than him—seventy-five. “Who do you think tried to kill Wood today?”
Hewitt shook his head. “Damnedest thing. I don’t know, I don’t even have a clue.” And it bothered him to be completely in the dark about anything that important. “I’ve put out the information traps, but I haven’t heard anything yet.”
“You think it was just some crackpot?”
“Don’t know.”
Fleming sneered. “Press sure made a shit storm out of it, didn’t they? The blood on his shirt and everything. His picture was everywhere. Probably picked up quite a few votes thanks to the whole thing. Black and white.”
Hewitt glanced at the elk head again. He couldn’t wait to take Three Sticks to Wyoming. “Doesn’t matter how many votes he got because of it. Once we get through with him, he won’t even have his Senate seat.”
Fleming took a long guzzle from his glass. “When do I get to see this infamous clip? This thing that gives you so much power over him.”
“Right now.” Hewitt pressed the “play” button on the remote. “I queued it up while you were getting the new bottle.” The snow on the screen quickly cleared, replaced by Jesse, Stephanie, Osgood, and Jefferson Roundtree. When the clip was finished, Hewitt smiled triumphantly. “What did I tell you?”
Fleming let out a long, low whistle. “Damn.” He nodded at the screen. “What’s the plan from here?”
Hewitt thought for a second. “I’m going to let Jesse win the nomination and let the public get used to him as the Democratic candidate. Give the country some time to get to know Jesse Wood, to start to like him. And they will because he’s a very likable guy. Then I’m going to drop the bomb, after everyone’s started to take to him. That way the clip will have maximum effect and people will be as angry as they can be. Whites and blacks. Whites for the obvious reason, blacks because they’ll feel like he let ’em down.”
Fleming shook his head. “That clip is very powerful.”
Hewitt’s eyes gleamed. “Jesse’s name will evaporate from the political arena faster than an August rain in the West Texas desert. The Democrats will have to scramble for a new candidate. More than likely it’ll be whoever ran second to Jesse at the convention. But, remember, that guy will be way behind when the party comes to him, and he’ll already have been branded a loser. He’ll have no chance. It’ll ruin the Democrats for years.”
“What about Christian? The clip will ruin him, too.” Hewitt had told Fleming that Jesse Wood was courting Christian as his vice presidential candidate. “Guilt by association, you know?”
“I’m gonna make certain Jesse doesn’t announce Christian as his VP candidate before I drop the nuke.”
“How?”
“I told you, I got a very important connection in the Jesse Wood camp. I know everything going on there.”
“Who is it?”
Hewitt pointed at the television screen. “The same person who gave me that beautiful clip of Jesse bashing every white person in America.” Hewitt thought about the night he’d waited at the gate of his ranch for the clip. His man had flown to New York to pick up the disk and to deliver the money. “Clarence Osgood.”
“Wood’s chief of staff?”
Hewitt’s man had met Osgood in Brooklyn beneath the Williamsburg Bridge. Osgood had been petrified that someone was going to see him—but he’d taken the briefcase full of half a million in cash. “Yup.”
“How in the hell did you convince Clarence Osgood to give you a clip of Jesse Wood bashing white people? How did you convince him to turn?”
“Osgood found out that once Jesse was elected, he was going to get fired.”
A confused expression came to Fleming’s face. “Why would Jesse fire Osgood once he was elected? I thought they were tight.”
Hewitt rose from the couch with a groan and popped the clip out of the disk player. “I don’t think it was Jesse’s idea.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think somebody else is pulling the strings in the Jesse Wood camp,” Hewitt said, ambling back to the couch and stowing the disc in his briefcase.
“Who?”
“Don’t know.”
“Can’t Osgood tell you what’s going on?”
“He won’t talk about that. He’s very scared of whoever it is.” Hewitt smiled. “But I’ll find out.”
“How?”
“I’m working on another connection.”
“Infiltrating, huh?”
“I tried with her a while back and she didn’t bite. But I got a call from her as I was coming over here. Apparently she found out she’s getting fired, too. I think she’ll tell me what’s going on. She sounded pretty pissed off.”
Fleming put his glass down and slumped back on the couch. “Who’s killing our brothers, Samuel? Who’s after the Order? Goddamn it, I don’t like needing bodyguards all the time.”
Hewitt felt his jaw clench. “I don’t, either.”
“But who’s doing it?”
Hewitt glanced at the elk head one more time. “Well, Benson killed himself, and I’m convinced that Dahl really was killed by a terrorist cell. The information from the witnesses was pretty convincing.”
“But what about Laird and Massey?” Fleming asked. “You told me you thought they were murdered, that their deaths weren’t accidental.”
Hewitt exhaled heavily. “I hate to say it, but I think Mace Kohler’s behind those murders.”
Fleming gazed at Hewitt glassy-eyed, shaking his head. “What?”
“Kohler’s off the reservation, Trenton. You’ve seen him at the last two meetings.”
“Yeah, but…but off the reservation enough to murder Laird and Massey?”
“We made a mistake with Mace Kohler. He’s a bleeding heart. And remember,” Hewitt said quickly, “he was Special Forces. He knows how to kill.”
“Still, I don’t—”
“And Blanton McDonnell came to me,” Hewitt continued. He hadn’t told anyone else about McDonnell reaching out the other night. “Blanton told me that Kohler’s convinced I’m going to have Jesse Wood assassinated if he wins the election in November.”
“Well, you were until you got that.” Fleming pointed at Hewitt’s briefcase. “He probably thinks you were behind the shooting.”
“Yeah, probably.” Hewitt’s expression turned grim. “Now no one can find him.”
“Huh?”
Hewitt nodded. “Kohler’s gone, completely disappeared. Into the mist.”
MCDONNELL KISSED his wife—it was five thirty and dawn was just breaking—then followed the bodyguard to the sedan, looking around before climbing into the backseat. He loved it out
here, loved the country. An hour from one of the biggest cities in the world, but you’d never know it. Trees, fields, streams. A gorgeous property, a beautiful life. He was glad he’d gone to Samuel Hewitt and told him about Mace Kohler. He felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
A few hundred yards out of the driveway McDonnell felt the sedan slowing down, and he looked up from his Wall Street Journal. Through the gray morning light he could see that there was construction on the bridge. A small team of men in hard hats and orange vests milling around a dark truck with a yellow light flashing on top. One of the men was putting out pylons. “Oh great.”
“Looks like they aren’t letting anyone past the bridge,” the bodyguard said over his shoulder, easing the sedan to a stop.
One of the men on the construction crew jogged toward the car.
“Get out of here!” McDonnell shouted suddenly, the realization hitting him like a freight train: This was a setup. “Jesus Christ, get me out of here!”
But the construction worker had already reached them, had already leaned down beside the bodyguard’s open window. “Sorry, but you’re going to have to turn around,” the man informed them. “There’s cracks in the bridge. Looks like we’re going to have to close it for a couple of weeks.”
“Thanks.” The driver glanced back at McDonnell, a what-the-hell’s-wrong-with-you look on his face. “You okay?”
McDonnell relaxed into the seat, watching the construction worker head back toward the bridge, then let his head fall against the seat. He’d really thought he was a dead man.
BOB GALLOWAY had been the chief financial officer of Central States Telecom for seven years. He’d made over thirty million dollars from the initial public offering the company had completed six months ago. With the proceeds of the stock he’d sold to the public he’d bought a mansion in a ritzy section of north Chicago called Kenilworth; bought a summerhouse on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, bought a big boat he kept at a marina in downtown Chicago, and put a million dollars in trust for each of his three children. He had the life—except that the SEC was about to indict him for leading a massive accounting fraud. They hadn’t actually taken any action yet, but he knew it was coming. He was guilty as sin, too.