by Peter Stone
“Rough day,” I said, shaking my head with a beleaguered smile.
The policeman took a breath. His expression grew sympathetic. “You and me both, kid.” He smiled back. He would not be smiling in a few minutes when he got the message and realized that he let one of DC’s most wanted just stroll on by.
As I got farther away from him, I picked up my pace until I was at a full sprint again. I crossed the gigantic, oval-shaped grass field in front of the White House, without even thinking about the significance of the structure. Architecture starstruck no more. As I neared the street lights of Seventeenth Street, more people began to stare. I couldn’t blame them when I saw my messy reflection in a glassy office window. I looked like a confused private who’d worn Costco business casual instead of his fatigues into the heart of battle. Or a particularly creative haunted-house employee, fully embracing Zombie Intern. People laughed and/or shielded their children as I ran by them. Then they went on with their evenings.
But there was one who didn’t look away.
I saw him first as I banked left onto Pennsylvania Avenue, just two and a half breathless blocks away from the embassy. He stood on the other side of the street—abnormally tall, hulking, and lean. Like a former Navy SEAL. Like “that friend of Russell’s” BIB had just mentioned to Katie. Ready to pounce.
Waves of traffic streamed between us, a wide, protective moat of speeding and honking cars. I bolted up the street. Every breath was a blowtorch blast down my arid throat. He reached the next block well before I did, as if he moved in fast-forward. Finally, the embassy came into view.
As did a police car, lurking toward me from a side street. The two patrolmen looked straight at me. Their faces changed to animated, angry stop right there, as I realized my description had likely hit the wire.
Two long blocks from the embassy, I did an about-face and ran to the building, as I saw the tall man calmly jogging through and navigating a buzzing Pennsylvania Avenue. That’s when the flashing lights of the police car bathed the northern side of the street in electric blue. The speaker from the car shouted something.
I looked back at the street to see the tall man two lanes from the sidewalk, eyes locked on me with a dispassionate, robot-like gaze.
He was reaching inside his jacket when the car hit him. It was a tiny car—a smart car or an especially mini Cooper. Looked smaller than him, even. But the car won. A slow crunch of bones softly echoed against the buildings on the street as the man flipped high up into the air and then slammed down on his side. For a few seconds, the pursuing policemen turned toward the accident as traffic slowed down and bystanders tiptoed into the street. A middle-aged woman stepped out of the car and held both hands to her head. The horrific scene proved a sufficient diversion for me to run the remaining block and a half to the embassy door, where I was initially greeted by a confused and defensive guard.
I banged on the bulletproof glass as Lena appeared on the other side and convinced the security guard to let my sorry-looking self inside. I didn’t look back to see if the police had seen me enter the embassy doors.
She gave me a hug. It was tentative at first, due to the mud caked all over me. Then it turned into a full-on embrace. I felt my body collapse a little in her arms as the fatigue and the shock of the last three miles caught up with me. I peeled myself off her to see that the mud had transferred to her bare legs, shorts, and oversize button-up shirt. We grabbed each other’s hands and headed into an elevator.
“You’re lucky my parents are gone tonight. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to harbor a fugitive as easily.” She pushed the third-floor button, but a familiar face reached through the doors just before they closed. “Or this very assertive FBI agent who I convinced the security guards to let in here earlier. I guess you’re friends?”
“Such a shame that drivers don’t see pedestrians anymore. Didn’t even hit the brakes, did she?” It was Memo, snarky as ever. Grateful that a couple of kids were apparently doing all his work. “Glad you decided to wear some clothes with that mud, by the way.”
“What are you doing here? You’re supposed to leave her out of this,” I told him.
“We were both supposed to leave her out of it, if I recall correctly,” he replied. “Nice choice of asylum, though.”
His contagious laugh infected Lena, as they both chuckled. I laughed too, more relieved and in shock than amused.
“What is it about you and elevators?” I asked him.
“Convenience, mostly.” He shrugged. “Anyway, you piqued my interest in this little lady’s security footage. So I decided to drop by.”
We reached the third floor and Lena guided us to a conference room. Lena and I eased into the oversize chairs that surrounded the table. Memo remained standing.
“Compelling stuff,” he said as he held the same tablet Lena had used to show me the footage. “And it’s now in FBI custody. I know I must have sounded ungrateful earlier, but this will definitely help us when we move on to the Ariel case. So thank you, Cameron. And Lena.”
I reached for my phone—for the footage of BIB and Katie that I had just taken.
“Let me know if you come across something a little more . . . hard-hitting,” he said to Lena. “Surprise me.”
“Actually . . . ,” I interrupted, and they both looked at me. But then I put my phone back in my bag. If I told Memo about the video, he’d confiscate it as well. And “FBI custody” sounded so boring. I changed gears. “I think we’ve had enough surprises for a summer.”
“Meteer showed up at the bureau after we spoke today, by the way,” he said. “Deposition in progress. As is his new identity and booking at an alternative treatment facility in the quaint coastal village of . . . well, I suppose that’s privileged information, now, isn’t it?”
“That’s very decent of you, Memo,” I said. “Are you going to arrange for a new identity for me as well? Or just the CVSU contract for my dad?”
“BIB confesses, and your dad gets the contract. That’s the deal.”
“You’re right. First things first,” I dutifully parroted Memo’s philosophy. “Well, I hope a confession surfaces soon,” I said both wistfully and knowingly. I felt for my phone under the surface of my bag, just to make sure I still had it. I felt the contours of this little stick of dynamite that I had in my possession. Yep, still there.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go hammer out the details of an arrest warrant. That’s my favorite part—the look on these devils’ faces when they’re suddenly surrounded by eight feebs. The surprise. We’re competitive about this stuff at the bureau. Maybe someday you’ll get to issue one of your own. . . .”
“Someday. . . .” I smiled back.
“Okay, that’s a little sadistic,” Lena intervened and stood up to show Memo the way out.
“Wait a second,” I said. “How am I supposed to get out of here with DCPD chasing my head shot all over town?”
“When the police find out about BIB, you won’t have to worry about them anymore,” explained Memo. “I’m sure Ms. Cruz can find you some comfortable accommodations for the evening. . . .”
Lena rolled her eyes and walked him down the hallway.
Memo popped back into the room for a word of farewell. “It’s been nice working with you, kid. Your mom would be proud.”
By the time she had finally said good-bye to the chatty, upbeat Memo and returned to the conference room, I had connected my phone to a bank of audiovisual machines. The TV screen in the room had come to life, revealing a wallpaper image of a wicker basket filled with kittens and balls of yarn.
“Seriously?” I teased.
Lena initially tried to change the image, but then sat back in pride. “My parents never let me have a cat, so I made this the default background image on all of the screens in the building.”
“Brilliant,” I commended her. “Oh, and by the way, there’s one more thing.” I pointed to a video file that appeared in the corner of the screen. “Press play.”
<
br /> She clicked play, and the conversation between BIB and Katie began.
Katie’s voice was more tremulous than I remembered: “William, look, I’m on your side, and this kid is . . . a kid, but what he knows . . . what he knows could end you.”
Lena leaned in, eyes widening with every sentence.
Katie went on, “If something is to be done, we need to do it now.”
BIB joined the conversation: “Then do it. Like you did to the girl. . . . Fine. Like we did to the girl. You and I. And the plastered law student you handpicked for Ariel. . . . It’s turned out better than we could have planned.”
“This is unbelievable,” she commented. “Wait, this is BIB’s confession. And Katie, too! Why didn’t you give it to Memo?”
“Memo’s focused on Branson right now,” I said. “He actually told me to hold off on the Ariel thing, if you can believe it.”
“I think the FBI can handle these things on their own.”
“Clearly, they needed a little help this summer,” I said, gesturing at her and me. “You know how he said maybe someday I’d be able to deliver my own surprise to one of the bastards in this town?”
“You’re making me nervous, Cameron,” she said.
“Let’s make someday come sooner.”
27
It was ultimately Lena who clicked send. Well, mostly her.
We had watched the video a few more times together—each time more amazed at how commonplace the conversation seemed. BIB and Katie were so calm, so matter-of-fact.
“Do it . . . Like you did to the girl. . . . Fine. Like we did to the girl.”
“Are you gloating over her death now, Katie? Have I made you that jaded?”
“It felt a little cleaner than calling up your sad friend from black ops. You know, you can’t be so heavy-handed anymore, Mr. Speaker.”
It was well past midnight as the video sat there on the screen—fifty-eight seconds that were about to ignite the world. And a very bad man’s very good reputation. Never ceasing to surprise, Lena displayed a disturbing facility for wiping video files of identifying metadata and setting up fake e-mail accounts; this one was named “lasirenita.” The little mermaid in Spanish. Our subtle way of letting Ariel break the news, if only by way of a corporation’s cartoon.
La sirenita’s note was about to show up in the “anonymous tip” inboxes of four DC bloggers.
Hovering over the send button with the cursor felt like massaging a bomb detonation trigger—irreversible power and destruction, one tap away. Lena and I talked about holding on to the video, giving the video to Memo after all, selling the video instead of giving it away—and I was halfway through describing what I’d do with the money (new house for my dad, a couple of ATVs for Berto and me, no, just kidding, Lena, I mean weekend trips to Princeton) when Lena pushed my hand down and the upload bar started to fill. Pixel by poisonous pixel, displacing white for black, until it was done.
Not for long.
We both held our breath as lasirenita’s “sent” box changed from zero to one. We looked at each other with a mix of nausea and WHATTTT?
Lena broke the silence: “So how does it feel, intern? You made a difference after all this summer. Or rather, you’re about to.”
Her fingers had remained on mine after making The Click, and we were now holding hands.
I answered, “You know when you let out a fart, but it’s totally quiet, and there’s like ten seconds before anyone else smells it?”
“Gross,” she squealed. “Are you giving me a warning or something?”
“And you know it’s really bad, and people are going to react. Audibly.”
“Classy,” she noted.
We visited all four blogs, just in case there was an eager insomniac editor. Each site moaned the dirge of a slow news day (a trumped-up gerrymandering “exposé,” “Top Congressional Recess Vacation Spots,” and HillZone’s reminder about the upcoming Fifty Hottest Staffers list). The headlines were about to get much more interesting.
“Anyway, that’s how I feel right now. There’s this fart cloud about to cover the city, the country, and maybe the world. And no one knows it’s coming,” I explained.
“A fart of truth and justice,” she added.
“Yes, exactly. See, you get it,” I said. “This analogy has been brought to you in part by three a.m.”
“Very nice,” she said. “I wonder what else three a.m. is sponsoring tonight?”
I wheeled my rolling conference chair closer and answered her question, leaning forward to kiss her and closing my eyes. I didn’t feel anything in response.
Keeping my eyes closed, I said, “This offer expires any second now.”
“Just messing with you,” she said before meeting her lips with mine.
Waves of chills flowed from my head to my fingertips and back up to my head as we kissed. Not a tentative Is she liking it? kiss. Not someone else’s aggressive movie kiss. It was a simple, comfortable Cameron-and-Lena kiss. Kisses, to be precise. Six of them. And they were perfect. We both opened our eyes to see each other’s smiles.
“You’ve certainly learned a lot this summer,” she remarked.
“Well, I had to learn pretty quickly, because we are going to be in opposite corners of the country soon,” I said.
“Right now, it’s just us and here and now,” she replied.
“And a very romantic conference room,” I added.
She moved from her chair and sat with me in mine, which proved instantly uncomfortable. We tried to find a position that worked for both of us to sit in one chair, but the chair insisted on its single-person capacity limit.
“Did the Mexicans think to add a couch in this building?” I asked.
“Wi-Fi’s crappy everywhere else but this part of the building,” she explained. “Lo siento, mi amor.”
She climbed up on the table and crossed her legs, and leaned forward to me.
“Where have you been all my life, Cameron? We could have solved so many conspiracies together. All of these politicians would have no chance. We’d run them out of town,” she said before refreshing the blogs again.
No stories. And these sites were supposed to be scrappy!
“You grew up in the wrong town that one day you couldn’t wait to get out of,” I explained. “You should have been in Lagrima all along.”
I joined her up on the conference table and we lay down next to each other in a surprisingly comfortable position, given that we were on our backs, on a table. A wave of exhaustion hit us both as gravity guided more blood to our heads.
“Lagrima’s not so bad, you know,” I said, almost dozing off.
With my eyes closed, I grasped her hand and heard her light breathing.
The last thing I heard her say before falling asleep was “How could it be bad? Lagrima made you.”
• • •
“Cameron! Cameron!” Lena was shaking me awake. “Story’s online. The fart—it’s out!”
I lurched upright and saw the wall clock indicated it was almost six a.m.
“Look!” She pointed at the screen as I got off the table and sat next to her to read the story.
HillZone had gotten to it first, with a 5:02 a.m. post time.
The first thing I saw was a grainy but unmistakable screenshot from the video. It was BIB, with a faint trace of a smile.
NEXT-IN-LINE SPEAKER ADMITS TO MURDER OF FORMER STAFFER? was the headline.
A less-reputable website touted BIB’S FIB.
The articles were scant and filled with caveats. But the video spoke for itself.
“No way,” said Lena, who had popped open a laptop. “The Washington Post, the New York Times—they’ve picked up the story. And ‘Congressman Billy Beck’ is trending!”
All of the articles described the mysterious, overnight receipt of a video from “lasirenita.” A couple noted the connection between the username and Ariel Lancaster. We scoured the Internet like seven-year-olds foraging for presents on Christmas mo
rning, excitedly reading each article to each other.
A ding announced a text on the phone that Memo gave me. I picked it up to find a simple, grudging compliment:
Nice camera work, son.
Can’t let you have all the fun, I responded. Or the credit—don’t want this to go to your head.
Keep your eye on the news this morning was all he replied.
By ten a.m., a few blogs had declared Ariel’s death a murder. One more identified the “accomplice” in the video as Chief of Staff Katie Campbell. They all called on local authorities to investigate the connection between the fatal accident and BIB. Nadia Zyne had released a strange denial of the seemingly undeniable evidence in the video. I was in the middle of reading HillZone’s report on her claim, which was that the video was “fabricated.” And then the page auto-refreshed and a new story claimed the top spot.
The headline screamed: SENIOR CONGRESSMAN ARRESTED FOR CONSPIRACY AND MURDER CHARGES. Plus a picture of FBI agents escorting BIB from the Rayburn building, the congressman sporting the obligatory this can all be explained look.
Lena and I took turns reading particularly damning phrases from the article to each other. It was exciting and queasy all at once.
“ ‘. . . but not the murder you’re thinking about. Not the earlier allegations from this morning. This crime is six years old. . . .’ ”
“ ‘. . . sufficient evidence that suggests Beck was behind the death of pharma king Wade Branson. Former Navy SEAL Russell Meteer turned himself in to the FBI . . . ,’ ” read Lena. I scrolled down the page.
“. . . even as authorities scramble to investigate a video that seems to show Beck’s acknowledgment of a role in the death of Ariel Lancaster, former staffer of Beck’s and daughter of fellow Congresswoman Nani Lancaster as well . . .” I couldn’t believe the words I was reading. Rather, I couldn’t believe that the words that had been in my head all summer were now on the screen. Shared with the world.
Lena started searching for related articles, which asserted: PARTY SCRAMBLING TO IDENTIFY REPLACEMENT CANDIDATE FOR SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE AS ELECTION NEARS; WHO WAS WADE BRANSON?; and, already, an op-ed about violence-prone Navy SEAL veterans.