The Short Drop

by Matthew Fitzsimmons

  He made a mental note to have the tall agent moved off his detail.

  His flock of aides surrounded him inside the hotel and brought him up to speed on the way to his suite. While the rundown was going on, he scanned two memos and peppered them with questions. He was adept at following multiple conversations simultaneously.

  “What time is the fund-raiser?” he asked.

  “Eight, sir.”

  “Where’s my speech?”

  Someone handed him a fresh copy. He also took two briefing books that included the latest intelligence on a developing situation in Egypt and an update on Senate wrangling over an immigration bill.

  “Leland, I want to see you in two hours. We’ll talk over lunch. Otherwise, don’t bother me unless there’s a constitutional crisis and I’m president.”

  That brought a polite chuckle from the flock. The Secret Service pulled the door shut behind him.

  Alone, Benjamin Lombard took off his suit and laid it out on the bed so it wouldn’t pick up a crease. The air-conditioning felt good after the unrelenting Arizona heat. He wasn’t sure why, but a five-star hotel had better air-conditioning than just about anywhere else on earth. He considered it the pinnacle of civilization, enabling a man to live in such godforsaken places as Phoenix, Arizona.

  Standing in his dress shirt, boxers, and black socks, he let himself cool in the dark of his suite. After a few moments, he turned on the news and was greeted by a story about Anne Fleming’s campaign stop in California. Benjamin saw it now; the light attendance at his stump speech this morning had brought the big picture into focus. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that tomorrow’s meeting with Douglass needed to be a bloodletting. It would send a message and would reenergize and focus the troops. He wondered what it would take to coax Abigail Saldana out of semiretirement as a pundit; she wouldn’t put up with this Fleming nonsense.

  A staccato knock at the door broke him from his thoughts, and his good mood evaporated. The Senate itself had better be a smoking crater, or so help him God, whatever overeager staffer stood on the far side of that door would need to move to Turkey to find a job in politics.

  “What?” Lombard bellowed, nearly yanking the door off its hinges.

  It was Leland Reed, and he looked troubled.

  “What is it?” Lombard asked again, but the fire had gone out of his voice.

  “Can I come in, sir?”

  Benjamin stood aside and let him into the suite. Reed didn’t sit but instead did an uneasy circuit around the room like an automated vacuum cleaner patrolling for dirt. Eventually, he came to a rest by the window.

  “Well, what is it? Christ, you’re making me nervous.”

  “Sir, you know the list you asked me to keep an eye on.”

  Lombard knew exactly what list Reed meant. You didn’t make it this far in politics without making a few enemies. More than a few. The list comprised people who might try to hurt his campaign. Everyone from political foes to former employees to a high-school girlfriend who didn’t like the way they’d broken up. It wasn’t that he was expecting trouble, but every campaign dug something long forgotten out of a candidate’s past. There was no reason to expect this one would be any different.

  “Who?” Lombard asked.

  “George Abe.”

  “George? Really.” That surprised him. He’d always considered them on reasonable terms despite how they’d parted ways. “What’s George done?”

  “He met Duke Vaughn’s son at a diner in Virginia. They’re driving into Washington as we speak.”

  The hairs on Lombard’s neck prickled. Gibson Vaughn and George Abe. Those were two names he never expected to hear in the same sentence, and the only thing they had in common was him. That they were together could not be a coincidence.

  “What were they talking about?”

  “That I don’t know, sir.”

  “Well, find out. Do we have anyone in George’s outfit?”

  “No, sir,” Reed said.

  “Well, get someone. And get Eskridge on the phone. Looks like he may need to get hands-on after all.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  They drove in silence to DC. Gibson sat in back beside George Abe, who disappeared into his phone, answering e-mails. When Abe entered his phone’s passcode, Gibson stole it out of the corner of his eye. It was force of habit. It had taken him months to perfect the skill, but he could steal a phone’s passcode from across a room simply by watching the thumb move. Gibson filed it away just in case.

  Numbers had always come easy. Math, science, computers had always made sense to him. It had been a tremendous asset when he’d gone to the dark side. He’d trained himself to remember sequences of numbers. He could recall anything up to sixteen digits with one pass: phone numbers, credit cards, social-security numbers—it was remarkable how often people recited vital information in public. It ranked among his less socially acceptable talents.

  Up front, Abe’s girl Friday sat in the passenger seat, scanning the road like she was riding point in Fallujah. He’d seen that look before in the eyes of combat veterans. The memories that wouldn’t stay memories. The sights and sounds that were forever tuning up like a discordant symphony. She carried it like that—tense and watchful—as if roadside ambushes were commonplace in Northern Virginia.

  Back at the Nighthawk, Abe had introduced her as Jenn Charles. She’d given him a professional handshake, but her false, trapdoor smile was a warning not to cross her. Still, Jenn was a sweetheart compared to the dour little man driving: Hendricks—no first name given. Hendricks didn’t seem to like Gibson either, but, unlike with Jenn Charles, it didn’t feel personal. Hendricks didn’t seem to like much of anything or anyone.

  Despite it being a Sunday, traffic into DC was as heavy as rush hour. It was early April and the cherry blossoms were blooming, so the roads into Georgetown were bumper to bumper with sightseers. Somehow Hendricks maneuvered them expertly through the congestion, dancing between lanes as one ground to a halt and the other accelerated. A very practical superpower, Gibson thought. On Key Bridge, Hendricks exited onto the elevated Whitehurst Freeway, which ran alongside the Potomac and emptied them onto K Street. The river sparkled all the way down to the Kennedy Center.

  Gibson glanced at Abe. His words at the diner still stung—Suzanne loved you better than anyone. He looked out the window at the river.

  Better than anyone.

  Gibson had known Suzanne since they were kids, their lives linked by their fathers’ bond, which ran far deeper than senator and chief of staff. Lombard had been best man at Duke’s wedding, and after his mother’s death, when he was three, Gibson spent more of his holidays with the Lombards than with his own family. Senator Lombard and Duke would often work late into the night and through weekends, and as a result Gibson had his own bedroom down the hall from Suzanne. When Gibson was seven, Duke had to sit him down and explain that three-year-old Suzanne was not his actual sister. Gibson had not taken the news well.

  Some of his fondest childhood memories were from the Lombards’ summer house at Pamsrest on the Virginia shore. Summer began each year with the annual Memorial Day party thrown for hundreds of the Lombards’ closest friends, political allies, and their families. There were always scores of kids to play with, and they were allowed to run wild while the grown-ups socialized and networked on the lawn and wide wraparound porch. Gibson would spend the day playing epic games of capture the flag that ranged all over the back of the property. An ice-cream truck made an annual appearance to the delight of the children, who had already pigged out on hamburgers, hot dogs, and potato salad. It was a kid’s paradise, and he’d always looked forward to such events eagerly.

  Suzanne spent the parties inside, reading in the large bay windows that dominated the back of the house. From the raised, cushioned banquettes piled high with pillows, she could look out over the property as f
ar as the tree line. It was a waste of a beautiful day, in his opinion. At that age, he much preferred climbing trees to contemplating them. But it was Suzanne’s favorite spot in the house and the first place anyone looked for her. From there she could watch the party and read her ever-present books. If she could sweet-talk her mother into delivering her lunch, she would happily pass the day reading and napping in the sunshine.

  While he counted her as a sister, Gibson didn’t “get” Suzanne for the longest time and treated her the way older brothers often treat little sisters—like foreign creatures. She didn’t play football or baseball; she didn’t like playing soldier out back in the woods; she didn’t like any of the games that he liked. So he did the only sensible thing under the circumstances—he ignored her. Not out of spite but simple expedience. They had no shared language.

  But Suzanne treated him the way little sisters tend to treat older brothers—with patient love and constant amazement. She met his dismissiveness with adoration, his disinterest with beamy smiles. She was never hurt or put off that he didn’t return her affection, and she was always willing to give him another chance. In the end, she simply outloved him with a child’s generosity—the kind that burns away as one enters adulthood, but which Suzanne had in abundance. Gibson never stood a chance, and, eventually, with persistence, she wore him down, and he learned to love her back. And somewhere along the line she stopped being Suzanne and became his sister.

  His Bear.

  Not content to simply be loved, Bear pestered him, for what seemed like years, to read to her. He’d read to her once when she was very little; he couldn’t remember what book, only that he’d quickly lost interest. Since then she’d begged him to read to her again, usually from her reading nook as he pelted out the back door to play in the woods. He wasn’t a reader in those days, so he’d always put her off.

  “Gib-Son. Gib-Son!” she would call. “Come read to me!”

  “Later, Bear. Okay?” was always his answer.

  “Okay, Son. Bye!” she would call after him. “Later!” As though later had become an official date.

  Bear always said his name as if it were two words or sometimes shortened it to “Son” if she was excited. Duke thought she sounded like an old southern gentleman: “What are you doing, Son?” It made all the adults laugh, which only encouraged her. She didn’t get why it was funny, only cared that it meant everyone was paying attention to her.

  Bear finally broke him down one Christmas. The senator and Duke were in crisis mode over some piece of legislation, so Gibson spent most of that holiday at the Lombards’ house in Great Falls. She was seven. He was eleven. In a moment of weakness, he said yes, and she’d gone scampering off before he could start another movie. She came back with The Fellowship of the Ring by someone named J. R. R. Tolkien. The movies based on the series hadn’t existed back then, so he didn’t know anything about the book except that it was thick and hardbound.

  “Bear. No chance,” he said, weighing it in his hands. “It’s too big.”

  “It’s the first book of three!” She was bouncing with excitement.

  “Come on…”

  “No, it’ll be good. I promise. It’s an adventure,” she said. “I’ve been saving it for you.”

  Grace Lombard had watched with an amused, pitying smile that told him what he already suspected—no escape for you now, young man. Gibson sighed. How bad could it be? He flipped to chapter one. What the hell was a hobbit? Whatever. He’d read for twenty minutes, Bear would get bored or fall asleep, and that would be the end of it.

  “All right. Where do you want to read it?”

  “Yes!” she said triumphantly and then had to think, not having planned on getting this far. “By the fireplace?”

  She led him to an armchair in the living room. The fire was dying, and Bear built it up until Grace warned her not to burn down the house. Then he’d waited another ten minutes while Bear arranged everything just so. That meant piles of pillows and a throw, hot chocolate for her, a glass of Cran-Apple juice for him. She ran around the room, adjusting the lights so it wasn’t too bright but not too dark either. Gibson stood in the middle of the room, wondering what he’d gotten himself into.

  “Sit, sit, sit,” Bear said.

  He sat. “Is this okay?”

  “Perfect!” Bear snuggled contentedly across his lap and put her head on his shoulder.

  He gave her ten minutes before she’d be asleep.

  “Are you ready?” he said, trying to sound grumpy but failing.

  “Ready. Oh, wait,” she said but thought better of it. “No, never mind.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind,” she said, shaking her head. “Next time.”

  There wasn’t going to be a next time. He opened the book and got comfortable. Halfway into the first sentence, Bear stopped him.

  “Son?”

  He stopped. “What?”

  “Thank you.”

  “You know there’s no way I’m reading this whole thing.”

  “That’s okay. Just as much as you feel like.”

  He read the first thirty pages without a pause. Bear didn’t fall asleep, and it wasn’t even a bad story. There was a wizard and magic, so that was pretty cool. They were still reading when the senator and Duke took a break from their strategizing. Mrs. Lombard led them to the doorway of the living room. Stealthily, like it was a safari, and they might startle the wildlife. Gibson didn’t notice them until the camera flashed.

  A framed copy of the picture had hung in the hall between their bedrooms, and Duke had kept one in his office at home.

  After the surprise photo, Gibson had tried to quit reading, but Bear, sensing trouble, clamped her hands around his arm.

  “What happens next?”

  Gibson found he was curious too.

  They finished The Return of the King two years later, and in the process, Gibson became a reader. Something else he owed Bear. Books helped him keep his sanity first in jail and then in the Marine Corps. He read whatever he could get his hands on: obscure Philip K. Dick stories, pulp Jim Thompson mysteries, Albert Camus’s The Stranger, which he’d found revelatory at nineteen. An ancient copy of Don DeLillo’s Great Jones Street had been a constant companion since boot camp, and he could recite the opening monologue from memory.

  If he was honest, he had never allowed himself to connect the Suzanne Lombard in the security-camera footage with his Bear. In his mind, Bear was a college graduate, living in London or Vienna the way she had always daydreamed. Bear was dating some smart, shy boy who adored her and read to her on Sunday mornings. Bear had nothing at all to do with the long-missing Suzanne Lombard. It was easier to believe that fiction.

  Would she like his daughter? He sometimes caught himself comparing them—the two little girls who figured so large in his life. Not one bit alike—Ellie wasn’t the quiet, introspective type. She was like her dad in that regard, much preferring to climb trees than read under one. But Ellie and Bear were exactly the same when it came to loving people. They both hugged in the same fierce, uncompromising way. Yeah, Bear would have loved Ellie, and Ellie would have loved her right back.

  Where did you go, Bear?

  Gibson looked at George Abe and the team he’d assembled.

  Would she answer at last?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As they passed McPherson Square, Jenn shifted in her seat and let George know they were back. The Range Rover pulled into the building’s underground garage.

  When they parked and got out, Jenn drifted to the back so she could keep an eye on Vaughn. He glanced back at her but said nothing. He was taller than she expected, but his eyes were no less intense. He’d made her in the diner, which was embarrassing enough, but the way he met her eyes when they shook hands outside the diner made her feel like a microwavable dinner. She didn’t like it.

  Ups
tairs, the offices of Abe Consulting Group were dark and quiet. The lights hummed to life automatically. It wasn’t a huge space, but the atrium was immaculate and modern with high ceilings and stylish black leather furniture. Vaughn seemed impressed.

  Hendricks ushered them down a corridor toward the sound of thudding, angry music. He pushed open a pair of glass doors to a conference room, and the noise spiked painfully. It was like standing on a runway as a 747 landed over your head. Jenn recognized it but didn’t know the name of the band. She never did. She didn’t care enough about music to waste time committing it to memory.

  A bald head popped up from behind a laptop like a weary Whac-A-Mole.

  “The music, Mike! Jesus!” Hendricks yelled.

  The conference room went silent, and the bald head stood up. It belonged to Mike Rilling, Abe Consulting’s IT director. In his early thirties, he had the jittery, bloodshot eyes and sallow skin of a man living on a potent cocktail of caffeine and junk food. The stale smell of stress clung to the room.

  “Sorry, Mr. Abe. I didn’t think you’d be here until this afternoon.”

  “It is this afternoon,” Jenn said.

  “Oh,” Mike said. “I’m sorry, Mr. Abe.”

  “That’s fine. How is it coming?” Abe asked.

  Mike’s mouth opened but closed without answering the question in what Jenn recognized as the international sign for It’s not coming at all, and I wish people would stop asking about it. She’d been there and had some sympathy for him. Mike worked as hard as anyone on the team, but this was not his area of expertise. Not his fault, though overselling his ability had been. That was why Vaughn was here. If it wasn’t already too late.