by Kim Baldwin
They both knew Cass would eventually get called back into action, but so far, Montgomery Pierce had left her alone and they had taken full advantage of their undisturbed reunion. Jack had also used every opportunity to get Cass to leave the EOO, but so far, no argument had worked. Cassady continued to believe in the organization’s cause and that she was fulfilling her destiny. Every time she said that, Jack despised Pierce even more. She hated him for what he’d done to her and how thoroughly the organization brainwashed the EOO ops.
When Jack’s cell phone rang a couple of blocks from her apartment, she checked the caller ID and smiled. “Miss me already, baby?”
“That, too,” Cassady replied.
“What else?” Jack stopped walking and her heartbeat accelerated. “You’re okay, right?”
“Of course, baby. Are you at the apartment yet?”
Jack relaxed and continued down the street. “Almost. I have to get through the polyester nightmare coming my way.” She sidestepped the group of elderly tourists in track suits. “So, what’s up?”
“I was wondering if you want to go out for dinner tonight.”
“Why?”
Cassady laughed. “Because I want a break from cooking, and you can’t keep coming up with excuses to keep me indoors.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Jack, it’s time we left the house. And you know I’m going away next week, anyway. You can’t keep me cooped up forever.”
Jack had been trying to forget the fact that Cass had a violin solo scheduled with the Boston Symphony, her first musical engagement in months. “Yeah, about that.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t see why I can’t be there. You know, watch you rehearse and all that.”
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because the rehearsals are only for a week and you’ll be at the concert anyway. And that aside, you’ll scare everyone if you’re there the whole time.”
“Huh?”
“You keep standing guard over me like I’m a flight risk. People notice, you know? And besides that, honey, I know you love me and I adore you, too, but I need my old life back. Your overprotectiveness is a reminder.”
She knew Cass was right but wasn’t sure she was ready to take any risks.
As if reading her mind, Cass added, “Stop being paranoid, baby. No one’s out to get me.”
“About dinner…what if I cook tonight?”
Cassady chuckled. “Honey, the last time you cooked, the oven went up in flames.”
“I’m almost sure it wasn’t my fault and I said I was sorry.”
Cassady laughed. “You really are a beautiful kinda different.”
“I prefer it when you call me Special Edition.” Jack laughed, too. “So, what can I cook for you tonight?”
“We’re going out.”
“I’ll cook naked,” Jack offered.
Cass replied after apparently mulling over the offer for several seconds. “I guess you deserve one more chance.”
Jack laughed again. “Good thing you didn’t accept the bet,” she said, satisfied.
“Naked, with nothing but my floral apron.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Those are my conditions.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Her eyes bled from the image in her mind. “You can’t possibly expect me—”
“I’ll make reservations at that little Italian—”
“Okay, I’ll do it,” Jack mumbled.
“Excuse me, what?” Cassady asked mirthfully.
“I said, fine.” She must really love this woman.
“And I get to take one picture.”
“No way. No way, Cass.”
“Maybe we can go for a drink after dinner.”
“One picture. And no one ever sees it,” Jack hurriedly added.
“We have a deal.”
“Boy, am I whipped or what?” Jack said to herself after they’d disconnected.
She was almost at her apartment when she heard someone call out, “Ms. Jack!” She turned to find the owner of the dry cleaners she’d always done business with, a short Turkish man named Mustafa. He not only cleaned her clothes, but he also passed along messages when one of her underworld clients wanted to contact her. “I have a message for you,” he said.
Jack hadn’t received any notes from him in well over a year. Ever since she’d stopped taking hit jobs and changed her life, she’d stayed away from any previous connections to the mob bosses and other criminals she’d worked for. She had no idea if any of them had tried to reach her because she’d abandoned the landline Mustafa used to contact her and deliberately avoided the dry cleaners.
She had always been very careful about how she was contacted. The cell phones she used on the job were disposables. Clients could find her only via a three-step process of intermediaries. They would first contact a man Jack never associated with, who in turn would pass along the message to a second intermediary she simply called Pigeon, a skinny black guy who was gayer than the whole of 1920s Paris. Pigeon would go to the dry cleaners and write the number of whoever was looking for her on her laundry ticket. Mustafa would then reattach it to her clothes and call her to pick up her laundry. If the Turk knew what the messages were about, he never let on to her or said anything to anyone else, as far as she knew.
“I haven’t dropped anything off,” she said.
“I know.” Mustafa shrugged. “I tried to call you, but you never answer. I thought you moved away.” He was aware Jack lived in the area because she was usually quick to pick up her messages, but he never knew precisely where.
“That’s right.”
“Here.” The Turk shoved the laundry ticket into her hand and turned to go back to his shop.
Jack didn’t look at the stub before she stuffed it into her pocket. “If my friend drops by again, tell him I died,” she called after Mustafa.
“About time,” he replied, and disappeared inside.
Jack went to the kitchen the moment she got to her apartment. Determined to burn the stub, she pulled it from her pocket and grabbed the matches she kept on the counter for the gas stove. She could have tossed it, but she was in the mood for a dramatic ending. She was about to torch the message when she saw the number written on it. It didn’t ring a bell, but what Pigeon had written beneath it did. BIG MONEY.
Yuri Dratshev, the Neanderthal of a Russian mob boss, was trying to reach her. The last time she’d taken a job from him was to find Walter Owens, the serial killer who had once kidnapped Dratshev’s daughter, Nina. Nina had managed to escape, but when Owens resurfaced years later, Dratshev sought Jack out and agreed to pay her three-million-dollar price tag to deliver his head on a platter. Jack did the job and even let the mob boss keep the last half of the payment. She had her own reasons for wanting Owens dead; his last kidnap victim was Cassady. After that job, she’d vowed to stay away from her previous life and everyone in it.
She was about to burn the stub when something stopped her, perhaps morbid curiosity for what was going on in the netherworld. She shoved the number back into her pocket and set about gathering up what she needed so she could get home to Cassady.
*
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Ryden still did a double take every time she looked in a mirror, unable to recognize herself now that the transformation was complete. Once the swelling and bruises were gone and she’d gotten the contacts that changed her green eyes to dark brown, her resemblance to the president was uncanny in its perfection. She was at least grateful that the person she’d been chosen to double was a striking, elegant-looking woman and not someone with looks even more plain-Jane average than those given to her at birth.
Training her to emulate Elizabeth Thomas convincingly, however, was proving much more time-consuming and difficult than even the surgeries themselves. After a month of practice, she wasn’t doing too bad mimicking the president’s slight
Maine accent and patterns of speech, but her own vocabulary was radically different than that of the Harvard-educated Thomas. Thomas used a lot of big words Ryden didn’t even know the meaning of, and never cursed—something she herself did with even more regularity than she realized until Tonya kept correcting her.
Learning Thomas’s mannerisms was difficult as well. It was more about learning what not to do than about perfecting what to do. The president practiced excellent etiquette—no elbows on the table, no interrupting people when they were talking, and so on, things Ryden seemed to do constantly without thinking. She also had to break her tendency to run her hands through her hair or raise her voice when she was frustrated or stressed, and instead adopt Thomas’s calm, reserved demeanor in every crisis. Ryden gestured constantly with her hands when she was talking, something Thomas rarely did.
The hardest thing to master, however, was Thomas’s erect posture and the way she walked. Ryden had lived her life in tennis shoes whereas Thomas wore high heels, and she looked as ungainly and awkward as she felt even after weeks of practice.
The single plus in the whole situation, if there was one, was that she was eating like a fiend and they were providing her with all of her favorite foods. She had to gain a few pounds to better match the president’s weight, and since Ryden had always had a fast metabolism, that meant she was consuming four or five big meals a day.
She heard a car door slam outside—Tonya had arrived for today’s lesson—so she switched off the video she’d been watching, a compilation of recent public appearances by the new president. Ryden had seen so many hours of footage she had at least a solid understanding of Thomas’s viewpoints on nearly every subject possible, and she’d grown to admire the woman’s poise and ability to quickly articulate her thoughts and opinions. She’d first thought it impossible to ever match the president’s eloquence, but Tonya had assured her that once she was put into position, someone would script everything she would say in public. The one thing going for her was her excellent ability to memorize.
“How are we today, Madam President?” Tonya said by way of greeting when she came through the door. Ryden hadn’t heard her real name since Tonya and two men in suits had driven her, under cover of night, from the private clinic to a secluded home outside Arlington, Virginia. Tonya came and went, but the two men remained to make sure she didn’t leave or try to contact someone.
She had already corrected her slouch at the sound of Tonya’s approach. “I’m very well, thank you. What is my schedule for today, Tonya?” she replied in Thomas’s Maine accent.
Tonya smiled her approval. “One of your first public appearances will be at a formal dinner, so we’re going to dress you appropriately and teach you the proper utensils, glasses, and so on for each course.” She glanced at her watch. “But first, your patron wants another update on your progress. She should be calling any moment.”
Patron. Tonya always called her that, but Ryden thought of her as the bitch who’d set her up and gotten her into this predicament. She’d learned the sex of her mysterious blackmailer a couple of weeks earlier, when the woman had first checked in via Tonya’s cell to see how the lessons were going.
She still knew nothing else about the woman. Not her name, or location, or even why she was doing this. Ryden only knew her voice and attitude: icy, ruthless, and terrifying. The first time she’d called, Ryden had asked why she’d been singled out for this nightmare, and she literally begged to be set free.
The woman just laughed. She’d calmly told Ryden that she was in far too deep to back out now, and any premature exit from this plan would result in her sudden and gruesomely painful death.
When Tonya’s phone went off, Ryden jumped. Tonya put the ice bitch on speakerphone.
“How is our student doing?”
“Since we spoke last, she’s mastered all the names and faces in her briefing list,” Tonya reported. “And is well familiar with the full agenda we’ve given her. We’re down to the final small social niceties and protocol she’ll need to master for official functions.”
“Excellent. We’re set to make the substitution in two days,” the reptilian voice replied. “Madam President?” Whenever ice bitch used the formal address for Thomas, it always sounded somehow condescending.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m here,” Ryden replied, careful to perfectly mimic Thomas’s accent and intonation.
“Of course you are, dear. Where else would you be?” Her laughter was as chilling as her voice.
*
Washington, D.C.
Two days later, February 24
The crowd amassed at the historic Jefferson Hotel for the posh Democratic National Committee fund-raiser included a host of Hollywood celebrities, but Elizabeth Thomas was still the star of the event. After two hours of nonstop handshakes and picture taking with top contributors to the party’s coffers, she slipped out of the cocktail-hour preliminaries to change for the four-thousand-dollar-a-plate formal dinner. The hotel manager had provided her the expansive Thomas Jefferson suite on the top floor for just that purpose.
As Elizabeth stood in front of the elevator, surrounded by five Secret Service men, she wondered how she’d ever get used to how guarded she had to be at all times. Her only private moments since her election were in the bathroom, bedroom, and on the rare occasions she asked to be alone with a family member. And even then, the Secret Service stood guard outside. She hadn’t even had much privacy during her husband’s funeral four months earlier.
She’d known her new life as president of the United States would come with plenty of sacrifices, and she hadn’t minded making them. Ever since she was a little girl, she’d realized it was her destiny. Not so much because she had been groomed and raised in the political arena—her father had also represented Maine in the Senate—but because she sincerely wanted to make a difference. Her ideas for a better America would rub some the wrong way, but as with all new laws and initiatives, it was just a matter of time before the dust would settle and people came to accept the changes.
The elevator arrived and one of her guards stepped in to make sure it was secure. Exaggerated, she thought, but they, too, needed to follow protocol.
“Madam President.” He gestured for her to enter, and the remaining four men who surrounded her followed her inside. One pressed the button to the eighth floor, and they all stood solemnly staring at the floor indicator above the sliding door.
Elizabeth heard a noise right above her, and in an instant, two of her guards were at her side, hovering over her and shielding her with their bodies, while the other three pointed their guns at the ceiling.
“What’s happening?” was all she had time to ask before the lights went out and the sound of bullets surrounded her. Dull, almost distant reports—they were using silencers, she realized, as she was abruptly and roughly pushed to the ground, facedown. Her two nearest men covered her, their weight oppressive. Barely able to breathe, and unable to see what was happening, she felt her heart roar in her chest. Seconds later, in a momentary lull of the gunfire, she heard the sound of something heavy drop next to her.
“What’s going on?” she shouted, and squirmed under the weight of her guards, which had become increasingly unbearable. Dead weight, she realized with a panic. They weren’t moving at all.
The shooting stopped, but Elizabeth didn’t dare move. “Is it over?” she whispered. She was trembling, and her pulse boomed in her ears. No one answered, but she could hear heavy breathing, and suddenly the weight on her lessened and she could move a little. Thank God. At least some of her men were apparently okay, and she was still alive.
Then the weight crushing her was gone entirely, but it was still pitch-black in the elevator. Still too shaky and out of breath to get up, she rolled over onto her back. Immediately, a bright beam of light pointed directly in her face blinded her.
“Be quiet, and lie still,” a voice behind the light commanded, and Elizabeth was surprised to realize it was a woman’s voice. Her he
art began to beat even faster.
The figure was hovering over her. Elizabeth tried to push her away, but the woman pinned her down roughly.
“Help!” she shouted, but the assailant quickly covered her mouth.
“I said, be quiet, or I’ll shoot you right now.”
Elizabeth froze and let herself be pulled up. The beam of light shifted as she rose, allowing her to see more clearly. Though she still couldn’t make out the woman’s identity—she was dressed all in black and wore a ski mask—she could see that all five of her guards were dead, each of them shot in the head.
She glanced up to where the initial sound had originated and saw that a metal ceiling tile was missing. The masked woman immediately blindfolded and gagged her, then tied some kind of harness around her.
Elizabeth wanted to kick, punch, try to scream through the gag for help, but she was afraid she’d end up on the pile of dead bodies. The woman bound her hands and feet, and removed her wedding ring. Seconds later, she was being lifted. She could do nothing to stop it; it was impossible for her to move much at all.
“Go,” she heard a man say as she was being pulled up.
“Jesus, are they dead?” a female voice replied.
*
Ryden had never imagined any operation could happen this fast and be this well organized. One guy had deactivated the elevator and lights, while another two individuals were lowered down the shaft with a wire. They had shot the Secret Service agents through the roof of the elevator, with the help of devices attached to their heads. She assumed they were some kind of infrared or other high-tech gadgets that helped them see their targets through the elevator ceiling, like she’d seen in spy movies.
Seconds later, she was lowered down the shaft herself in a harness and came face-to-face with the gagged and bound president of the U.S. going up. They were wearing identical clothes. The masked woman who was waiting in the elevator positioned Ryden on the floor and gave her the president’s wedding ring to put on. Ryden thought she would lose her lunch at the sight of dead men scattered on the floor. No one had said anything about people being killed. After tossing Thomas’s purse beside Ryden, the masked woman shoved the bodies of two of the dead agents over her and disappeared back through the hole in the ceiling.