by AJ Tata
“But all of that was predicated on a firm center. That firm center, in my view, has eroded and given way to a polarized nation, like the heavy weights at either end of a barbell. And what has done that, Mr. Madison, is the media. In your time, it would take days for the word to get around. Legends were built upon myths that, as they circulated, became even more adrift from reality. Today, the television is reporting news as it happens and manipulates the public opinion instantly. People are bombarded with spinners that constantly lie in order to push across their agendas. They are the very factions you envisioned. It is a tangent that wants to become the primary.”
He swirled his drink in his hand, then placed it atop a felt coaster on the antique sofa table that ran behind the leather davenport. Maker’s Mark bourbon and Coke. He’d been drinking it since he had sneaked flasks into college football games to watch his jock buddies play.
“Your institutions have done their job well. This is the greatest nation on earth. We are the beacon of democracy and hope for so many, yet few understand our genius. Your genius, my genius. They don’t understand the essence of what makes this country great, and now we are under assault by a decaying moral spirit. We are retreating from our foundation. And what is filling the void in the wake of our retreat is cynicism and opportunism.”
He shook his fist at the portrait, his emotions overtaking him.
“What is it that we must do as a nation to return to our foundation?” Hellerman asked Madison, his voice filled with rage. “What is it that people cannot see? There is no shared sacrifice! There is no attachment to the idea of democracy, only an assault on its principles in its own name! There are those in this country who have put under siege the very courts that you, sir, created. They are using those courts to manipulate and pervert the very Constitution that you framed. All in the name of contemporary expediency!”
His arms were outstretched, fingers spread in tense anger.
“How do we reunite the country and create that common center? What would you do?”
And he knew precisely what Madison and the others had done. They had revolted and, in the process, changed the world. They had seen the wrong, and they righted it. He was doing nothing less.
Hellerman heard a noise behind him, snapping him from his soliloquy.
He saw her standing in the foyer, and it was clear she had been there for some time. Something seemed odd about her appearance. It was spring time and not overly cool, yet she was wearing a long, black overcoat that hung just above her bare ankles. Studying her, he saw she had on black heels, two inches high. Her hair was combed back and out, framing her face the way a cobra’s neck flares when it is ready to strike. In one hand, she was holding a bottle of Dom Perignon. In the other she was holding a small bag.
“Hi, Trip, how are you?”
“Fine, fine,” he said, a slight sheen of sweat covering his face, a product of his passionate discussion with Mr. Madison.
He walked to the sofa table, snatched his drink, and walked over to give Meredith a quick peck on the lips. Then, after stepping back, he waded into her, giving her a long kiss. She responded by dropping her long overcoat, revealing her completely naked body.
She walked past him carrying the Dom and stretched out on the sofa. She peeled away the foil covering the cork and slowly, but seductively, worked the cork out of the bottle. It popped about the same time Hellerman thought he might. The foam was running down the bottle and oozing over her warm skin.
“Want some?” she asked. She poured a steady stream onto her flat belly, a pool of the tan liquid gathering in her navel.
He was upon her, drinking the champagne from her body. They worked hard at it, sliding all over the sofa. He was normally much more careful than this, but what an entrance. And he wasn’t even expecting her this afternoon, which made it seem that much more reckless, dangerous, and . . . appropriate.
At some point, Meredith had retrieved two champagne glasses from the china hutch and poured the remaining champagne into them. Hellerman excused himself for a few minutes. She presumed he was either in the restroom or popping another Viagra. She had achieved the effect she was seeking. As he dragged himself up the stairs, she watched him disappear. She quickly reached into her overnight bag, and pulled out a small vial of powdered diphenhydramine hydrochloride, the active ingredient in sleeping pills. It was enough to knock out a small pony, but she had been assured that it wouldn’t kill him.
She hesitated, weighing the significance of drugging the vice president of the United States and then dumped a little over half the powder into the drink. The man had told her she could use the entire bottle and not worry about it, but better safe than sorry, she figured. Half should do the trick, erring on the side of caution. She sloshed it around as she quickly returned the vial back to her overnight bag.
She held up the glasses, checked the clarity on each, and assured herself that he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Placing the glasses back on the coffee table, she felt a wave of sadness wash over her. She had promised herself she wouldn’t get weak. Part of the reasoning behind the entrance attire and sex up front was so that she would feel detached from herself, the actions being so completely out of character.
She ran her hands along her naked body, feeling the stickiness of the champagne. She felt cheap and whorish and was glad. She deserved it. She needed one last dirty episode before she cleansed herself of this demon.
“You look great there on the sofa, like a mountain cat, sleek, stalking,” he said, obviously energized. Maybe he was taking Viagra, or probably some amphetamine.
“Thanks, you look like a stud bull just earning a day’s pay,” she said with a chuckle.
He laughed as he sat next to her and rubbed her leg with one hand while reaching for the champagne with the other.
Her heart raced when she saw him snatch her glass off the table. He looked at her with a knowing grin and said, “Here you go, my dear.” He handed her the glass and then retrieved his from the table.
“Cheers.”
They clinked the glasses, chasing away the bad spirits, she hoped. Meredith watched him finish his champagne. He was an impatient drinker and typically downed glasses of $200-a-bottle champagne like it was a beer mug full of Stroh’s Light.
It took about five minutes and was more natural than she thought it would be. Hellerman yawned and said, “Well, wildcat, I think you wore me down to a nub. I’m suddenly very tired. I think I’ll take a short afternoon nap.”
He settled next to her on the sofa, but she quickly stood and retrieved the quilt from the rack in the hallway. It was a typical country patchwork quilt with a sunrise design, the dawning of a new era.
He snuggled into the leather pillow and was breathing heavily by the time she placed the quilt over his naked body. She stood back and watched him for a second. His face was drooping and sagging. He made a few spasmodic twitches here and there as his body reacted both to the drugs and the stress. She surveyed the room and shook her head. The scattered clothes, empty champagne bottle, empty glasses, naked bodies, and the smell of sex reminded her of college. Except champagne bottles had replaced box wine.
She quietly retrieved her bag and slipped into the blue jeans, tennis shoes and sweat shirt she had brought along. Carrying her bag over her shoulder, she eased toward the basement door and slid down the steps. She found the door, which was unfortunately locked. Expecting this, though, she pulled out an electronic lock-picker she had purchased online.
It was a simple device that looked like a key. Once she inserted it into the keyhole, a small laser scanned the ribbing inside the lock to determine the shape. A micro blast of air then replicated the key shape, the force depressing the tumblers. The entire process took about thirty seconds. She pulled down on the lock, slid it off the hasp, and was inside Hellerman’s lair.
She had not figured out what had been bothering her about last night’s visit until she saw a report on the latest tallies of deaths and injuries across th
e country.
A Florida Bureau of Investigation team had picked up a cell phone transmission that indicated a possible terrorist attack on the State Capitol building during a full session of the legislature. The details were sketchy, but a combination of extra security, pushing the perimeter out, and having blocking forces to prevent escape had worked. Once the terrorist vehicle entered the perimeter, SWAT teams captured two U-Haul trucks filled with explosives. They were being operated by four Latinos that, authorities later learned, had connections to Cartegena’s Colombia drug cartel. This was the first real clue that the attacks were bigger than Ballantine.
Meredith had gone jogging that day during lunch and, as she rounded the Lincoln Memorial, it suddenly occurred to her. On Hellerman’s list were the bombings of the Mall of America, the other malls, the Charlotte Coliseum, the apartment buildings, and even the averted one they all knew about in Atlanta.
Meredith remembered seeing Tallahassee, Florida, on the calendar as well. Nothing had happened there, and the intelligence report had just come in this morning. She checked the date and time on the message and called the Florida Bureau, who told her the arrests had gone down the previous afternoon at about five p.m. The Florida authorities had kept it top secret at the state level, fearing who might be intercepting the information at the federal level. Once the operation was complete, they were more than happy to share the information.
So unless Hellerman had some unknown connection in Florida’s Bureau of Investigation, he had known about the attack before it had happened. She had been beating herself up all day trying to figure out how he could have known about it, trying to find a loophole. She kept coming back to the same place . . . that he somehow knew ahead of time.
She pulled out a small disposable camera and took two pictures of the same poster. This time she noticed a small question mark next to Tallahassee. While not completely incriminating, the question mark indicated that at some point today he had wondered what had gone wrong. Of course, there was still the remote possibility that it was a note to himself to follow up on an intel feed he had received.
Her gut told her she was right. He was involved. She had no clue how, but she came here to find out.
She took a quick snapshot of the radios, all displaying a different frequency. There were two Qualcomm Globalstar satellite phones in a recharge pack and two other, more normal-looking, cell phones plugged in as well. She snapped a picture of those. She opened the drawers of his desk and began opening files and snapping pictures no matter what they said. She wasn’t reading any of the files. She was a one-woman assembly line. Open file, snap picture. Open file, snap picture. She was beginning to get nervous now. She had been in the basement over twenty-five minutes, and something felt wrong. Aside, of course, from the fact that she had drugged the vice president and was secretly in his basement gathering evidence that could possibly indicate a conspiracy.
When she felt that she had thoroughly canvassed the room, she turned to leave and then stopped. There was a laptop computer plugged into a modem. What the hell, she figured, so she steeled herself up and reached down, popping out the hard drive of the laptop and tossing it in her bag.
She turned off the light and closed and locked the door. Then she stopped and waited, standing perfectly still and listened.
Nothing.
She waited some more.
Still nothing.
She slowly climbed the stairs and then waited at the top of the last step before opening the door that led to the kitchen.
Still nothing.
She pushed slowly, the door making a slight creak that stopped when she had pushed it past a forty-five-degree angle. She stepped into the kitchen and slowly closed the door behind her, the squeak playing its octaves in reverse. That’s interesting, she thought.
She stopped. Still nothing.
She stepped into the connecting hallway between the kitchen and the living room, where she could see the high back of the sofa, which was a comforting feeling. While she could not see him, she felt in her planning that if she got to this point, she could just sweet talk her way out the door. She watched the sofa as she walked toward the foyer. Despite her progress, something did not seem quite right.
She hit an angle where she could see lengthwise along the sofa.
Hellerman was not there.
She froze. The room started spinning around her like a top, large sections of the house panning toward her quickly and then away like in the horror flicks. She could hear the screeching strike of Norman Bates’ knife with each image racing at her. She was hyperventilating and began to sweat.
Then a thought occurred to her.
Maybe he left. Maybe he woke up and left. After all, it was still daylight outside.
While completely irrational, it was enough to get herself under control. She still had not moved since noticing the sofa was empty. She tried moving one leg, then another toward the foyer. It was working. She was moving. She was going to make it.
“I thought you’d left,” Hellerman said from the dark recesses of the foyer, his face half-lit by a splash of sunlight cutting through the dining room window.
“I just changed,” she whispered.
“Why are you whispering?” he asked, stone-faced.
“Sorry,” she said louder. “When I left you were asleep and I guess I was in my ‘be quiet’ mode.”
“Where were you?”
“I went into the kitchen and changed, honey. Didn’t want to wake you. You were such an animal today, thought you’d need to rest up for tomorrow,” she said, sounding better and proud of herself.
He seemed to consider that and then said, “I went into the kitchen and got some water, then took a leak in the hall bath. I didn’t see you.”
She swallowed hard.
“Well, I was there getting dressed and have to head back now, honey, so why don’t we just drop the inquisition here and be grateful we both had some of the greatest sex in our young lives,” Meredith said, moving toward the door.
“What’s in the bag?” he said, moving forward.
“My coat. These clothes I’m wearing used to be in there. Remember, I showed up naked and we screwed our brains out?”
“Don’t talk to me like that,” he spat.
“Then quit treating me like this. You screw me until you drop, and then I’m quiet and respectful of your need for sleep, and you are giving me the third degree.”
“I just didn’t see you.”
“Well, I saw you, thought you might be sleepwalking,” she chuckled and immediately knew she had said the wrong thing.
“Why are you lying to me, Meredith? What’s in the bag?” He moved closer. He was only five feet away now.
She held her key ring in her hand.
“Go to hell. You treat me like garbage and now accuse me of coming in here and stealing something?” she asked incredulously.
Hellerman lunged toward her, hands outstretched in anger. She lifted her keys and gave a long squirt of mace directly into his face, causing him to double over and scream.
She grabbed the door, darted through the entrance, forearming the storm door. As she raced down the steps, she heard the door smack back onto him.
Safely inside the car, she glanced at the front door and saw Hellerman glaring at her. She shook it off and drove slowly along the quarter-mile driveway, not wanting to alarm the Secret Service agents present.
She passed a black Lincoln Continental parked at the end of the driveway. She smiled and waved at Alvin Jessup. Jessup was no fool. He had known long ago what was going on between his boss and her. She turned east, as she always did, and could not stop the emotions escaping her as she accelerated.
She needed to talk to Matt right away. Pulling out her cell phone, she punched in his number and let the phone ring.
Then she started to cry.
Chapter 47
Northern Virginia
Jacob Olney would do just about anything for Meredith Morris. He had developed
a crush on her the first day she stepped into the Pentagon two years earlier and found her way to his cubicle to sign up for a pass and a photo. He remembered how she had smiled at him, engaging him like he really mattered.
Even though it only took a minute to complete the form and then take the mug shot, she shook his hand and talked to him for what seemed like an hour, but was probably closer to ten minutes. She had asked about him, what he liked to do. He immediately launched into a nervous dissertation on his photography business and gave her his card. She had called a couple of times just to check up on him and had even stopped by once since she had been at the White House.
Jacob was a wiry, pimple-faced, thirty-year-old man with shaggy black hair. He knew she was out of his league, but he loved the way she made him feel. And even though they hadn’t chatted for several months, he was delighted to receive her phone call this late afternoon. He was even more than happy to oblige her unique request to meet her at his place for him to develop a roll of film.
Tonight, she was walking into his basement with him.
“This must be why they call it a dark room.” Meredith smiled nervously. They were standing in the room with only the eerie black light to see by.
“Right, it is a room, and it is dark, ergo a dark room.” Jacob’s voice was squeaky, as if puberty were just around the corner. She was ready to laugh, thinking it might be a joke, but she could tell he was serious. He was focused as he pressed the film into the solution in the pan.
“How has your business been lately, Jacob?” She was wearing the same clothes she had on when she left Hellerman’s house and felt dirty.
“Great, Meredith. I’m making about eight hundred bucks a week on the side, lots of it tax free.” He looked at her seriously. “But don’t tell anybody.”
“You have my word,” she said, holding up her hands to emphasize the point.
“So why the big rush to get these developed?”