by Josie Brown
“Awesome assist?” Jack hisses. “The nerve of this guy!”
I pinch him so that he shuts his yap.
“Needless to say, I’ve commanded Assistant Attorney Reynolds to drop all allegations,” Lee continues. “However, we still have the issue of finding a mole in the West Wing. I hope you’ll agree to help us do so.”
“I thought we’d proven it was Vice President Drucker,” I reply. “I assume Ryan shared with you the video of the conversation he had with Gordon Soames. It occurred at least a year prior to when the researchers’ results were breached.”
“Ryan did. And although this recently discovered intel proves Vice President Drucker knew of Operation Hercules, it doesn’t make the case that he caused the breach with the drones, and then turned around and gave information to the Quorum. Remember, he was ambushed only after Arnie revealed the breach two days ago, and the vice president’s wife was killed in the attempt on his life. In any event, we won’t be able to interrogate him until he comes out of his coma.”
Lee has a good point.
“What about Soames?” Jack asks. “He could have easily released the drones.”
“We don’t have the proof we need to verify it,” Lee replies.
“Okay, then, what is it that you’re asking of us now?” Jack’s wary growl is meant to warn Lee to tread lightly.
“The mission is more Donna’s call than yours,” Lee responds blithely. “It will put her in deep cover.” He pauses. Finally: “Donna, will you agree to stay ‘dead’?”
“What?” I can’t believe my ears. “For God’s sake, why?”
“Because Carl thinks he’s just ruined your reputation—and Jack’s too, unless Jack agrees to stay under house arrest for Gordon’s murder,” Lee explains. “Carl thinks you’re now on the run, alone, and that you’re less likely to track him down. Of course, you’ll do the opposite—with Jack and the rest of the Acme team as back-up.”
“Emma, are the GPS trackers Donna planted on Carl and Dr. Welles live yet?” Ryan asks.
“Yes, sir. Live and well. It looks as if the men are together—and, unfortunately, over the border, in Mexico.”
Hasta la vista, baby.
“It’s our chance, Donna,” Lee pleads, “to put him behind bars permanently.”
Somehow my worst nightmare was resurrected. He’s got a point: time to put it to rest once and for all.
“Under one condition: Jack has to be allowed to tell my children the truth–that I’m alive, and that it wasn’t me who was killed.”
Lee thinks for an eternity. “Even one little slip up on their parts puts your safety at risk. Do you trust them?”
“With my life.” Always, and forever. Just as they trust me with theirs.
“I’ll honor your condition,” Lee promises.
“Okay, then—I’ll do it.”
Jack smacks his forehead as if I’m crazy.
Maybe I am.
But the way I see it, I’ve got nothing to lose and a lot to gain—another chance to kill Carl.
Bring. It. On.
Trisha shakes her head adamantly. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
I haven’t asked my children for their permission, or even their approval. It is not their place to give it. Instead, I’m living up to my promise to them: that I will always be as honest as my job allows.
I’ve explained why I need to keep playing possum. I’ve asked that they play along too.
Without saying a word, Jeff agreed immediately. His own personal experience with terrorism gives him a perspective on trust and self-sacrifice that makes him far wiser than most.
Mary’s acknowledgement was just as stoic. She’ll ignore the snickers. She’s learned the hard way that peer approval isn’t always right, or just. Jack and I may not always be forthcoming about our missions, but she realizes everything we do has our family’s best interests at heart.
I nod at Trisha, but then I ask, “Explain why.”
My youngest wrinkles her nose in thought. “God may take it wrong. He may think you’d rather be with Him than with us.”
“He knows that’s not true,” I explain. “He knows I’m doing this so that the bad men don’t win.”
She crosses her arms at her chest. “You mean, like…Carl Stone?”
It’s the first time she’s called her biological father by his given name. Why? I wonder. “Yes, Trisha, like him. What brought him to mind?”
“He wants me to hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” I ask. “How?”
“He told me to put the cleansing powder from under the kitchen sink in your coffee.” Disgusted, she wrinkles her nose. “He thinks I’m just a little kid, but I know that’s wrong! My real father would never want that.”
She’s right. Carl’s mind games are bad enough, but I never thought he’d stoop so low as to ask one of our children to physically hurt me. He’s gotten meaner in the next life.
Finally, Trisha nods. “I won’t like it, but I can pretend.”
“Thank you.” I hug her tightly before turning to Evan. “Think you can carry this off?”
Evan is tall enough that he can put both hands on my shoulders. Gazing into my eyes, he declares, “Whatever you need, Mom.”
I’m so relieved that I burst into tears—of joy.
Sheesh. I am such a sap.
“Group hug?” Jack suggests.
My God, he’s a bigger sap than me.
Yet another of the many reasons I love him.
My funeral is a glorious affair.
It has something to do with the joie de vivre of its planner: the first lady, Babette Chiffray—who revels at the chance to put her enemies in the ground, this time literally as opposed to figuratively.
Trust me, if it were up to her, she’d have let me rot in a hole in the backyard. But since Janie insisted on supporting her best friend and threatened to run away if she couldn’t, Babette had no recourse but to join her—with one condition: that her posse was allowed to control the event.
Even Babette realizes that the funeral of a terrorist isn’t the best photo op for a first lady. Still, she was determined to make the most of it. Narcissa and Lucretia rallied every news network to show up.
Besides, Babette always looks fabulous in black.
Despite his daughter’s insistence that she attend and his wife’s hunger for any spotlight, Ryan back-channeled my request to Lee that the president stay away. No need to suffer the political backlash that an appearance will garner, especially since DNA testing on one of Gigi’s body parts found at the scene—a foot—proves that she was me.
How the hell can that be?
I’m relieved to see Lee honored my wish. When my pardon comes through, we’ll celebrate a better kind of homecoming: Carl’s, to a maximum security jail cell.
As distraught as Aunt Phyllis is, maybe it’s a good thing Babette talked my aunt into letting her make the arrangements. I guess my aunt will jump for joy when she discovers I’m really alive. Or else she’ll brain me with a frying pan for playing such a mean trick on her.
Many were injured, but to everyone’s relief, only one person died: the bomber herself. The Quorum’s planning didn’t account for the fact that Haute Hipster was closed for inventory. The clerks doing it were in the back storeroom. Still, the sensationalism of yet another major domestic terrorist attack—this one involving a suicide bomber—has taken its psychological toll on America.
My service is taking place the day after the event. Our feeling about it: the sooner, the better, we reason, so that the world can forget my supposed culpability and we can get all get on with our lives.
I have to give credit to Babette’s posse, Narcissa and Lucretia. They took care of every niggling detail at warp speed—including the most important one: getting every major network to cover it live.
As always, Babette has at least one ulterior motive: making sure she is front and center when the cameras and microphones are pointed her way.
I watch it vi
a satellite feed on Arnie’s computer, from the privacy of my great room. The drapes are drawn to guard against the NSA agents’ prying eyes. Although Jack is supposedly still under house arrest, he has special dispensation to go to my funeral with my children; so as far as the Feds know, the house is empty. I entered through the basement tunnel.
At the cemetery, the paparazzi jockey around each other at curbside, but they know better than to trample those who are pushing up daisies. The wall-to-wall Secret Service detail has no other problems with crowd control because the only ones to show up besides Babette, Janie, and my family are my Acme co-workers.
Most of our neighbors chose not to pay their respects. They prefer to make their feelings known via the picket signs in front of our lawn that proclaim:
TERRORISTS AREN’T WELCOME IN HILLDALE!
Cheever Bing’s mother, Penelope, is leading the lynch mob. According to what I can catch via her bullhorn, owning a home in the same neighborhood as a known terrorist—even a dead one—is killing their property values.
To that extent, they’re probably right.
Still, when the facts are finally released, will they show up at my doorstep with Bundt cakes? I hope not. Because no matter how delicious they look, I’ll still put them through a metal detector—
As I requested, Ryan gives my eulogy. His insights on me are spot on. So is his obvious love for me. When he calls me “the daughter I never had,” I tear up.
Jack stands on the other side of Babette. Her slim hand tucked into the arm of the bereaved widower. He pats it so often and looks so soulfully into her eyes that you’d think it were him consoling her, and not the other way around.
Bravo, Jack, Bravo! The Oscar for “Best Performance by a Covert Operative” is yours hands down.
My children should also be up for Academy Awards. Jeff looks stoically straight ahead, never down at the casket. He’s not just pretending that he is burdened by the horror of terrorism.
On the other hand, Mary uses it as performance art. She sheds enough crocodile tears to rival Babette. And while Evan gives Aunt Phyllis a broad shoulder to lean on, to his dismay Mary uses Jean-Pierre’s to comfort her.
In truth, it is she who is comforting him. What little of Gigi’s remains is left is already on a plane to Biarritz. May she finally rest in peace.
Trisha chooses not to act. But at least she’s not acting out either—that is, until she can’t stand Janie’s sobs. At that point, she jerks her friend to her side and whispers in her ear.
Oh, no. What did Trisha say to her?
It’s enough to make Janie sob even harder and shake her head in awe.
Babette notices this. She sends Janie’s au pair, Sally, to quiet her little girl. Instead, Janie whispers agitatedly in Sally’s ear, but Sally firmly shakes her head NO.
Ryan winces, but continues with his last words to and about me in a voice loud enough so that others can hear above Janie’s drama.
A curt head thrust indicates Babette’s desire to question her daughter herself. The little girl runs over to her and whispers something in her mother’s ear.
Babette turns white.
She holds tight to Janie.
As soon as Ryan’s last words are spoken and my body is lowered into the ground, Babette is walking off with Janie—practically running, in fact.
The others ignore her. They are here for all the right reasons: to pay their respects—or, at least look as if they are.
My children throw flowers into my grave.
For Jack, it’s a clod of dirt.
He tosses it for Gigi, not me.
He then looks skyward—to me—and winks.
It’ll take half an hour before they’re home from the cemetery. I decide to busy myself by cleaning up the house. I grab my vacuum and head upstairs.
Trisha’s room, in its typical disarray, is as good of a place to start as any.
She no longer likes to sleep in it. She even dresses in Mary’s room now, running in to grab clothes out of her closet or bureau, which is why half her clothes are now on the closet floor.
I raise my head in silent prayer that her nightmare—and mine—will soon be over, when I see it, hovering in the corner of the ceiling:
An iridescent insect?
No. A drone.
I take the long arm of the vacuum and swat it down.
Did I break it? I pick it up. Thank goodness, no.
I can’t wait to get ahold of Arnie and see what he makes of it.
I’ve just picked it up when I hear his voice whisper in my ear: “Honey, I’m home…”
Before I can turn around, I feel the sting: of a needle, filled with some knock-out drug.
Catching me as I fall, Carl murmurs, “Miss me, babe?”
The drone falls out of my hand as I black out.
Chapter 16
Dead on Arrival
“Dead on Arrival,” or “DOA,” is a term used by first responders and other trained emergency personnel to indicate a body has clinically expired before they came on the scene.
This phrase has been co-opted in the English language in regard to other incidents in everyday life that fail even before they begin: a missed opportunity, for example; equipment that arrives broken; or, say, an idea that pops into one’s head, but upon further cognitive processing, is considered a non-starter.
Sometimes, personal relationships are DOA.
Telltale signs that your current paramour sees it in a similar light will reveal themselves in other phrases he may use to describe the status of your coupledom, like “friends with benefits,” or (quelle horreur!) “just…a friend.”
At that point, “dead on arrival” may take on a new, literal meaning: one that describes what (or in this case, who) is planted under your backyard flowerbed.
Should a neighbor inquire, “Um…is that your boyfriend in the wood chipper?” You can honestly answer, “Nope, just…a friend.”
“I so enjoyed killing you.” Carl’s voice sounds so far away. And yet, his hot breath wafts in my direction. “And now, I get to do it all over again. What fun!”
His warm lips nuzzle my cheek.
I’m too tired to open my eyes. Instead, I lift my arm a few inches, only to discover that my wrists are bound together by some kind of restraint.
Ah, okay. No matter. I swing my legs straight up, where he should be—
But I hit nothing but air.
Carl chuckles at my feeble attempt to harm him. “You’ve got it all wrong, wifey! I said I’ll be killing you—not the other way around. Again! What are the odds, eh?” He shrugs. “But hey, I understand. It’s not easy to let go. You’ve seen it on the face of your twin. She had a hell of a time letting go, didn’t she?” He stops as a memory strikes him. “Granted, your father had no issue with it. As I remember, he drank himself to death. Ah well, at least he enjoyed himself on the way out.”
Finally, I’m able to force my leaden eyelids open, only to find myself staring at my ex-husband.
I resist the urge to touch him. Make that, to punch him. I already know he is all too real.
Maybe that’s a good thing; I’ve got so many questions to ask—and for that matter, so much to say to him. I’ve got yet another chance to give my ex a piece of my mind.
It would help if I weren’t shackled, naked, to this operating room table.
I guess the reason why when I realize Norbert Welles stands a few feet away, tinkering with his mind-melding machinery. And since it looks as if I’ll only have time for one or the other, I think it best that I skip the tirade and go for the questions. Turning to Carl, I ask, “Why aren’t you in Mexico?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t find the GPS tracker?” He shakes his head at the thought. “It did its job: let you and your keepers think you were safe.”
“Where am I, anyway?”
“Our mad scientist’s laboratory.” He nods toward Norbert. “In other words, nowhere you’ll be found.”
I shiver at the dark tone in his voice
. “How did you get into my house?”
“The same way you got out after breaking off your ankle monitor—the tunnel in the basement.” He smiles. “It was a great idea of mine, wasn’t it? I’m sure you’ll think of an appropriate way to thank me.” He winks broadly. He’s in a chatty mood because he thinks he’s holding all the cards.
“How is it that you’re alive at all?” I ask.
Carl takes his time before answering me, as if weighing the value of the secret to his resurrection against my odds of death, here at his hands. Apparently he thinks I’ve already lost. I pray he’s wrong. “I almost didn’t live. When the Quorum found me, I was near death. They nursed me back to health—body, mind and soul. The Super Soldier research was instrumental.” He lifts his arms, as if performing a magic trick. “Without it, I wouldn’t be standing here today.”
“Was Drucker your leak regarding the fact that we were on to you?”
“Nope. It was your hacker-slash-clown, Arnie.” Noting that my eyes are growing wide, he taunts, “Tsk, tsk, someone forgot to sweep Lion’s Lair for Eileen’s security bugs! They were live during your meeting there, with Lee and his government goon squad. If Arnie had kept his yap shut, we would have never known you were on to us.” Carl chuckles. “Hitting Drucker’s motorcade took a thorn out of our side—and Lee’s for that matter. Lee now has a reason to rally the troops against domestic terrorism. Even if Drucker survives, he’ll assume it was Lee who tried to take him out, if only to keep him from making a political stink about the breach.”
“Was it Soames who released the drones in the West Wing?”
“Good call—although now that your new hubby is the prime suspect in his murder, you’ll never be able to prove it.”
“Was the ‘demonstration’ at your little terror convention really necessary?” I ask.
“Bread and circuses, baby. You see, domestic terrorism is a growing market segment, and the Quorum wants to own it. The anger and helplessness people feel against their government isn’t just happening overseas. It’s here too—and it has been since a band of patriots became our Founding Fathers.” He puts his hand over his heart in mock salute. “But with the domestic cells, there’s always a loose end—the still live bomber, who’s usually stupid enough to get caught. Sadly, domestic ideology isn’t as strong as that of the radical jihadists. They seem to have forgotten the homegrown motto, ‘Give me liberty, or give me death.’ Our little demonstration gave them the nudge needed to get off their haunches.” He shrugs. “No one says it has to be a game of follow the leader. Recruiting the young and impressionable—who seek immortality through heroism—is much more appealing. That’s where Dr. Wollstonecraft’s research—”