Usually, the men she exploited went away feeling like whores. But sometimes the younger ones thought it was a thrill ride and wanted to come back for more. She had devised a way to make sure that didn’t happen, by claiming to be with the CIA Domestic Resources Branch. Once she disclosed to them her fictional occupation, they usually wanted nothing more to do with her. She might as well have told them she was HIV-positive.
When she commanded Anthony Carmeli to leave, she noted the usual hurt, but he was somehow different than the others. He seemed like a genuinely kind and caring person—and this made her feel less triumphant and more hurtful than usual, as if she was a schoolyard bully.
After bolting the door behind him, she studied him from the window as he passed under a street lamp. His head hung low and he walked slowly, placing one foot in front of the other tentatively, as if he didn’t fully comprehend what had just happened. She couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him. As he moved out of the yellow glow, he looked back up at her and their eyes met. Skyler pulled the curtain across the window with a quick jerk of her hand. She wasn’t about to waste her time on some foolish man who represented nothing more to her than a sex object.
And yet she couldn’t help but feel a touch guilty.
Turning off the light in the living room, she heard the computer chirp in her office. She walked into the room and brought up an encrypted message in legible English.
CONTRACTORS UNHAPPY WITH YOUR OUT OF SCOPE STUNT. HAVE RENEGED ON BALANCE OF PAYMENT. BEING CUTE IS NO WAY TO CONDUCT BUSINESS. YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE LEFT THAT SOUVENIR BEHIND. I WILL RECOVER THE BALANCE BUT THIS IS GOING TO COST YOU. DO NOT CONTACT ME. I WILL KEEP YOU ADVISED OF SITUATION. FUCK YOU FOR THIS.
She read the email twice, cursing out loud both times. Xavier was obviously referring to the American Patriots’ button she had left behind at the crime scene. But what was the big deal? Collectively, the four buttons would prove more of a distraction than anything else, leading investigators in four different directions. It wasn’t as if she had pointed an accusing finger at AMP in particular.
The more she reflected, however, the more she realized that leaving the buttons behind had been foolish. She had violated standard operating procedure by making improper use of the dossier on the men that had hired her provided by Xavier. So far, she knew of only three men involved. From the dossier she knew about Joseph Truscott, former CIA deputy director of operations, current consultant to a host of security firms, and one-time rival of Xavier; and Benjamin Locke, leader of a powerful religious-conservative organization in Colorado Springs called American Patriots. The third man was a high-level field contact she had only spoken to over the phone and whose identity had not been revealed.
It was customary for her to receive dossiers on contractors, but the information was for protective purposes only. The dossiers were not supposed to be used except in the event of a double-cross. Under such circumstances, it was critical to have background on the men who took out the contract. That way, if they refused to pay, tried to take her out, or were caught and tried to strike a deal with the authorities, there were options open to Skyler and Xavier both. But for the current assignment, the contractors had done nothing to violate Xavier or her.
She was the one at fault.
The main reason she had left behind the buttons was to stir things up and confuse the investigators. But there was an additional motive behind the AMP button: to make sure the contractors understood that the assassin they had hired knew about them. The Kieger hit was the biggest of her life, with tremendous risk, and the button was to serve as a thinly veiled threat and protection against a double-cross.
Now, however, it looked as though her ploy had backfired.
Cursing herself, she deleted the file and logged off the computer. Turning off the light, she went to the bathroom, put on some facial cream, and brushed her teeth. Then she kneeled down next to her bed as she had since the age of three, prayed to the Heavenly Father, and went to bed.
For an hour she slept heavily. Then the demons came on like a firestorm.
The nightmare was different than the others. First she saw her father’s business partner, Don Scarpello—“Yes I am going to hurt you, but you will like it” —gleaming in brutal triumph after taking her against her will when she was a girl. Next she saw her former lover Alberto—the Genovese freedom-fighter who had trained her and later ordered her death—cackling at her through clever brown eyes. Then she saw the innocent man and woman she had shot at the elevator. Finally came the men she had killed over the years, one by one, standing before her as they had the moment before their unexpected demise. Their ghostly images were framed in her sniperscope, crosshairs centered on their faces. In the next instant, there was a little pop and their heads exploded like melons.
Before the last man fell, she jerked awake gasping for air. Touching her body, she felt sweat beneath her chin and arms. Her teeth ached from the grinding. It took several minutes to bring her breathing under control and steel her shattered nerves. There was no hate left inside for her victims; she felt only a profound guilt and hatred of herself.
Fetching a glass of water from the kitchen, she gulped it down like a healing potion. Returning to her bedroom, she pulled a rosary with a small silver crucifix from her bedside table. For several seconds, she stared at the figure of Christ, nailed to the holy cross in humble surrender. Kneeling next to the bed, she clutched the rosary with trembling fingers, her lips quivering.
Then she said a prayer for every one of the people she had murdered—the last for the woman at the elevator.
CHAPTER 19
LATER THAT VERY SAME MORNING, an undercover freelance journalist named Jennifer Odden set foot in her office at American Patriots just as her telephone rang. She thought it might be Tom Stokes, managing editor of the hard-hitting, non-partisan monthly news magazine The New Constitution . He had said he would catch up with her at the beginning of the week on her secret piece. Good old Tommy. Flicking on the light, she tossed her JanSport daypack on the credenza and made a beeline for her desk, picking up the phone before the third ring.
“Hello.”
“Is this Ms. Jennifer Odden?”
The voice was clipped, businesslike, with an unmistakable upper-class East Coast flavor. She didn’t recognize it. “Yes,” she answered after a moment’s hesitation.
“I’m Reid Farnsworth Lampert, the new managing editor. I’ve taken over for Mr. Stokes.”
Her jaw dropped. “Tommy’s quit? But I talked to him just last—”
“Mr. Stokes didn’t quit,” Lampert cut her off. “I’ve taken his place.”
Something about the man’s insolent manner, smug tone, and cavalier dismissal of the well-liked Tom Stokes made her picture him as a multiple-generation Ivy Leaguer with a bloated trust fund, raised by nannies he tormented incessantly.
“But he’s been with the magazine for the last twelve years. I can’t understand how this happened.”
“It’s been in the works for weeks, but with a strategic move of this magnitude, we had to conduct the negotiations in the strictest confidence.”
Jennifer saw a pair of AMP employees—the enemy in her way of reckoning as well as the subject of her story—walk by her office. Not wanting to be overheard, she quickly pulled the telephone cord around her computer monitor and closed the door. Returning to her desk, she slumped in her chair, wondering what she had done to deserve the likes of Reid Farnsworth Lampert. She had spoken to him less than a minute and already she wanted to smack him.
“Ms. Odden, what Mr. Stokes failed to understand is that we’ve entered a new era of investigative journalism. To compete with the blogosphere and tabloids, we have to bring a certain edge to our product.” He made a burbling sound, as if clearing phlegm from his throat. “Now I’d like to move on to the reason for my call. I need you to bring me up to speed on this story of yours.”
A certain edge to our product? Jesus, what rock did this pompous fool crawl out from u
nder? What’s with this Miss and Mister crap? And how in the hell did he manage to steal Tommy’s job?
“I don’t have all day, Ms. Odden. I need to know where you stand with the story.”
She felt harried and on the defensive, but she forced herself to plod forward. “Well, so far I’ve put together Part One...how AMP was formed, its purported mission and organization—”
“I already know about that, Ms. Odden. Mr. Stokes did brief me before his departure. What I want to know is where you stand with Part Two. What goes on behind closed doors? Who is Benjamin Locke and how did he rise to the pinnacle of the religious right movement?”
Jennifer took a deep breath, hoping to restore her own equanimity. What he seemed to be asking her was not so much to bring him up to speed, but to ‘sell’ her story, to justify it as newsworthy. “Okay, here’s what I’ve got so far. American Patriots is not a charitable organization dedicated to giving Christians an active voice in government, it’s a front for partisan political—”
“Oh, spare me the claptrap,” Lampert interrupted rudely for the third time. “What I want to know is how they do it.”
“I’ll tell you how they do it. They’ve carved it up into two different divisions.”
“A political division and a religious division.”
“That’s right. But what you don’t know is that the political division is supposed to account for only ten percent of the organization and is required by the FEC to report its income sources and expenditures. Like a political action committee. The religious division, on the other hand, is supposed to make up ninety percent of the organization and be a non-partisan, tax-free entity. Which means it can’t conduct political activities. In reality, there are no lines between the two divisions. More than seventy percent of the organization’s resources are going toward electing hardcore conservatives to public office, not religious activities. In short, AMP is hiding behind a cloak of religiosity. Why? To pay minimal taxes. That way it can raise more issue-advertising revenue to help put its hand-picked representatives into office. Both at the state and federal level.”
She was met with silence. When Lampert finally spoke, his voice was skeptical. “The proof is in the pudding, Ms. Odden. And I still haven’t heard any proof.”
She was prepared for this. “It all starts with the voter guides and congressional scorecards. Fifty million were sent out for the primary and another sixty million for the general election. The voter guides list candidates’ positions on Christian conservative pet issues, while the scorecards give numerical scores to candidates based on their voting records in the House and Senate. What I’ve found is the religious division is just as involved in the preparation of the voting materials as the political arm. In fact, staffing requirements are such that they can’t get out all election materials without the help of the religious staff.”
“So they’re bending FEC rules.”
“No, they’re flagrantly breaking them. The materials aren’t just to educate voters—they’re blatant attempts to influence votes. They’re deliberately stacked in favor of hard liners over moderate Republicans, Independents, and Democrats. Not only that, the voter guides grossly distort the issues, misrepresent and even falsify opponents’ positions, and deceive voters about whether candidates replied or not.”
“How are you sourcing all this? You know we need at least two independent sources before we can even think about going to print.”
“I have something better. I’ve kept copies of all draft red-line strike-out versions of the voter materials to show how they’ve been altered to fit the AMP agenda. When you see the drafts and finals side by side, you can see what’s going on: a pattern of deceit to achieve a desired political result.”
“Documents are best because they can’t change their story. But is anybody willing to go on record?”
“I haven’t approached anyone. That would blow my cover.”
“You have people on tape though, correct?”
“Yeah,” she replied, realizing he must have learned this from Tommy. The truth was, by posing as a loyal AMP employee while actually trying to uncover the organization’s dirty little secrets, she really was something of a spy. She routinely taped American Patriots employees with a microrecorder that looked like an ordinary pager, discovering, in the process, that what her co-workers said was far different than what appeared in the AMP mission and policy statements. The recordings were useful in capturing the true political nature of the organization, since the employees had no idea they were being recorded.
“What exactly do you have on tape?”
“I’ve got several high-level employees, including Locke himself, boasting that the voter guides and scorecards are deliberately distorted to have a partisan impact. What makes what I’ve told you news is AMP is expressly advocating GOP candidates for state and federal office. By coordinating the distribution of its voter guides and making thousands of phone calls instructing voters whom to vote for, it’s using its political muscle for the sole purpose of getting rabid right-wingers elected. Most of this is being done by the religious division to avoid paying taxes. Bottom line: American Patriots is a patently illegal political action committee masquerading as a religious organization. And that’s what the public needs to know.”
Jennifer stopped right there, confident she had made her pitch. The line was quiet for several seconds while Lampert sorted out all she had told him. The silence was excruciating and she felt as if all her cogent arguments were slipping away.
“This piece seems to have possibility and yet it still needs something more. What else have you got?”
“I’ve managed to get my hands on draft and final versions of the Republican Party platform presented at the convention in Houston in August. It was written largely by Locke and his assistant, the rising conservative star Gregory Powers. Obviously if AMP is writing, editing, and re-writing the GOP platform, it’s only reasonable that the group be regulated as a PAC, not as a religious organization.”
“No politician adheres to the party platforms anymore. Look, Ms. Odden, I’m looking for the big hook here, and I’m just not hearing it. AMP has to be involved in something more than election law violations and aggressive politics. What we’re looking for here is the misappropriation of funds, elected officials being strong-armed into taking stands they oppose, direct linkages between political payoffs and public policy. And behind it all, we need someone we can hate: a larger-than-life Nixon or Cheney. The problem is everyone seems to love Benjamin Locke. He is incredibly popular. Ultimately, what I’m looking for—and what Mr. Stavros is counting on from you—is a real vast right-wing conspiracy that sells. Unfortunately, I’m just not getting that from you.”
“All right, I’ll get some more material.”
“It’s a little late for that, Ms. Odden. Senator Fowler—I mean President-elect Fowler—is the only game in town right now. A violent political assassination. The first woman president in the nation’s history. A country in crisis. Everything else is bloody being frozen out.”
“Don’t tell me you’re pulling my story before I’ve even finished it.”
“I have no choice. The Kieger assassination is just too hot right now. And besides, you’re already out there where it all happened. I need you.”
She felt herself burn with anger now. “That’s not going to work for me. I have a written contract for this story. Tommy and I wrangled over it for a month with Legal.”
“I don’t think I need to remind you, Mr. Stokes is gone. I, and I alone, decide what is , and what is not a story, as well as when to print it. The magazine will fulfill its contractual obligations, if that’s what you’re worried about. Just not right now.”
“What do I tell Benjamin Locke and everyone else at AMP?”
“You don’t tell them anything. You wrap the story up and hand in your resignation.”
She felt a wave of panic. “You can’t pull the tent stakes now. I’ve penetrated the computer files as far as I ca
n go, but I still haven’t tracked down all the hard copy files. There’s a special fileroom that only certain employees have access to. I think I can get in, if you give me a chance.”
Now his voice held piqued interest. “Did you say fileroom? What kind of fileroom?”
Somehow she had known the prospect of dirty little secrets locked behind closed doors would intrigue him. “Fileroom E. It’s supposed to house the human resources records, but the word is there’s other stuff in there. Proprietary stuff, like financial and lobbyist records.”
“Why can’t you get access?”
“It has a cyber keypad. I have four of the six numbers, but I’m still trying to get the last two.”
He gave a nasally chuckle. “Tommy was right—you truly are quite the spy.”
“Look Reid,” she said, hoping to appeal to him as a human being, though she wasn’t sure he fit into that category. “You have to let me finish this story. It means everything to me.”
“Never call me by my first name again. It’s Mister Lampert to you. How much time would you need?”
“One week.”
“I’ll give you until Thursday.”
“But that’s only three days. I’m going to need more time. This is a five-part—”
“Do you want me to make the deadline Wednesday, Ms. Odden?”
“Okay, okay, I’ll get it done,” she said quickly before he had a chance to change his mind.
“That’s the spirit. As my grandfather, Princeton Class of ’27, used to say, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s most certainly a way.’ Ta-ta, Ms. Odden.” He hung up.
Jennifer collapsed in her chair, cradling the phone on her chest. She had just dodged a bullet, but now she was confronted with a far bigger problem.
How the hell was she going to get into Fileroom E?
CHAPTER 20
WHEN SPECIAL AGENT KENNETH GREGORY PATTON looked up at the American Patriots headquarters, he was reminded of the foreboding castle in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane . It wasn’t the ten-story brick structure itself that gave him pause, rather the ominous cumulus-laden sky that served as its backdrop and the knotty pines twisting in the gusty wind. The roiling, black storm clouds bearing down from above gave him a vague feeling of claustrophobia, which was intensified by the howling wind and scratching sound of the branches against the building, like a persistent ghost.
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