Double Crossfire

by Anthony J. Tata

  A year ago she had seen the former senator at her parents’ funeral. Syrian terrorists had kidnapped and held her parents captive in the Blue Ridge Mountains, near Asheville, North Carolina. Carter was fresh off a brutal presidential campaign, which she had lost. Gaining the majority of the popular vote, but losing the Electoral College vote, Carter had not taken her defeat either easily or lightly. The anguish on Carter’s face hovered in Cassie’s mind and her first coherent thought was that she had wondered whether the angry frown was in response to her parents’ brutal slaying or left over from the election defeat. Jake had ushered her away in his large arms as she wept uncontrollably. Both parents. Both dead. Same day. Same killer.

  “Do you understand, ma’am?” the woman asked. The maid’s voice was high-pitched and accented. Something Hispanic.

  “Where am I?”

  “In Senator Carter’s house.”

  Assuming the maid was using Carter’s former title, Cassie shifted in the bed, trying to gain some altitude. She might as well have been looking through a dirty Coke bottle, though. The armoire across the room faded in and out. The woman leaned over and peered at her, looking like a bigmouthed Snapchat filter with oversized lips and funky glasses.

  “You okay?” she asked, sounding distant and close at the same time.

  Cassie took a few minutes to get her bearings, sitting up in the bed.

  “Your name?”

  “Mi nombre es Rosa,” she said.

  Cassie smiled. “Gracias, Rosa. I’m Cassie.”

  Rosa smiled and nodded. “Yes, we know you, Ms. Cassie.”

  “Where am I again?”

  “Cassie, this is Jamie Carter, your godmother,” said the commanding voice through the intercom. “Get cleaned up and come on down for some brunch, dear.”

  Four Sonos speakers were positioned in each corner of the room. There was no obvious camera and maybe one didn’t exist, but “Jammie,” as Cassie had once called her, seemed to be aware of what she was doing.

  Rosa patted her knee, walked away, and stood by the door, turning her head to watch Cassie.

  “I am leaving now. IV drip. Just disconnect like this,” Rosa said. She showed Cassie how to remove the IV without removing the needle taped on the back of her hand. The plastic connector clicked and the line came from her hand, held up by a smiling Rosa. “See? Leave like this? Or put back in?”

  “Leave it,” Cassie said. “What’s in the drip?” Her voice was terse, laced with anger at this stranger who hovered over her like an evil witch.

  Rosa shrugged. “You were very dehydrated when you came in this morning. But I watch over you. Like a hawk,” she said with a big smile. Rosa made a claw with her hand and held it up in the air above Cassie. “Make sure you’re okay.”

  “Get out!” Cassie swatted Rosa’s hand away as best she could, disoriented. She tried to counterpunch the perceived attack. A momentary rage surged through her mind. She was disoriented and saw Rosa as an enemy. She visualized the hand-to-hand combat she had endured in Iran. Men coming at her from all directions. She had fired her Beretta pistol until it clicked hollow against an empty magazine. She had flipped it over in her hand and used it as a blunt-force instrument as men clawed at her. Shots rang out, echoing along the valley floor. Her Jordanian friend, Captain Hattab, tackled her and took three bullets to his torso, bleeding out all over her. She had snatched his pistol and continued to fire. But the men kept coming and coming and coming.

  At some point, Rosa looped the IV drip tube on the metal stand next to the bed and stepped out of the room and closed the door.

  After a few minutes, Cassie was able to focus, the haunting memories fading. Her mind searched for the energy of Zara’s drugs. The needle? Where was the needle when she needed it? One minute, she was fine; the next, she was back on the desert floor or in the cave or in the fight of her life. Was this what post-traumatic stress was like? She looked at the floor from high upon the mattress on the poster bed. She managed to slide off, stumbling a bit. She grabbed the clothes that the maid had laid out for her.

  Jeans, dark green sweater, socks, Converse tennis shoes, bra, and underwear. All new. All practical. She carried the clothes into the bathroom, ran the shower, took her time, checked her cuts and bruises in the mirror—not too bad, but not great—then dried herself, dressed—the clothes fit reasonably well—and walked downstairs. Still a bit foggy, still unsure exactly where she was, Cassie stood at the bottom of the oak landing, veins pulsing hot, feeling like fire under her skin.

  Jamie Carter was reading a newspaper folded into one-eighth of its size, as if she were on the subway or train, and eating fruit from a white porcelain plate. The glassed-in sunroom shone brightly with the morning sun. Beyond the window was an expansive green lawn that sloped to a large lake or river. A wooden plank dock jutted into the dark water, a white speedboat moored to its side.

  Without looking up, Jamie said, “Come, Cassie. Have a seat. You need to eat.” She pointed at an open seat to her right. The newspaper was to her left.

  Cassie walked carefully to the sunroom, passing through an expansive family room with high-end design furniture full of oak and walnut. A large-screen TV, about the size of a Jumbotron, hung above the stand-alone fireplace to her right. The back side of the fireplace poked onto the wraparound deck outside.

  Sitting in the soft white leather dining-table chair, Cassie squinted at the harsh light blazing through every window, felt like lashing at it, resisted the urge. Jamie put down the newspaper and then her fork, which bore the cheesy remnants of eggs Benedict.

  Jamie Carter was a graceful Southern lady with perfectly straight, razor-cut blond hair parted on the left side and hanging just off her shoulder. She wore a white silk long-sleeved blouse with an olive cashmere sweater draped around her shoulders. Khaki pants fell atop a pair of practical pumps. She had a pair of breakable readers hanging from her neck. Her eyes were narrow, showing a hint of blue, and her nose had been sculpted into a perfect little ski slope, straight down. Everything on her face was smooth and sanded.

  “This doesn’t look like your house in Virginia, Jammie,” Cassie said. The hint of sarcasm was out of character, but there it was. Jamie eyed her for a moment and smirked as if to say, Very well.

  “First of all, we’re adults, so drop the ‘Jammie,’ Cassie. Jamie or Senator work just fine.”

  Cassie nodded. “Okay. Senator?” She said the word as if it didn’t fit quite right, even though Jamie had been a senator from Virginia for nearly four terms, starting at the fresh age of thirty-five directly after her gubernatorial term.

  “Yes, here. Catch up on the news. I saved these for you. It’s November. You’ve been in the hospital for three months.”

  Jamie handed Cassie the Washington Post, which she unfolded to show two above-the-fold articles:

  SENATOR HITE DIES IN BIZARRE SEX SCENE

  JAMIE CARTER WINS SPECIAL ELECTION: NAMED SENATE PRO TEM BY PEERS

  “Wow. I mean, I didn’t know Hite, but congratulations, I guess.”

  “Thank you, I guess,” Jamie said. She laughed. “That paper with Hite’s death is from August.” She tapped the folded Post on her left, then her finger flitted to the newspaper to her right. “This one is from yesterday. Cake walk, really.”

  “Wait,” Cassie said. “Hite was from North Carolina. We’re in North Carolina? I thought you lived in Virginia? What happened to your Middleburg place?”

  Jamie placed a well-manicured hand on Cassie’s wrist—a sign of affection or a shackle?—and said, “I’ve lived here since . . . your parents passed.”

  She snatched her wrist away, wrenching it free from her clutch.

  “My parents didn’t pass, Senator. They were slaughtered by Syrian terrorists,” Cassie spat. Emotion wasn’t her forte or her practice. Then she had a sudden recall of her harrowing escape from the facility, the medical cooler and its contents that had to be preserved at all costs, and a high-speed chase through North Carolina. The cooler. The
tree. The men surrounding her. She needed the contents of the cooler, stat.

  “I know they didn’t pass, Cassie. Your mother was my best friend since college. Roommates. What do you want me to say? Since your parents were brutally slain? Is that better?”

  Cassie looked outside, saw a woman walking toward them from the pier. She was tall, with shoulder-length black hair and a long stride. A black T-shirt read BADASS BITCH, written in big white letters. Tight yoga pants showed off her toned quadriceps and calf muscles. Most interesting was the pistol tucked into her right side.

  “That’s my new policy advisor, Zara Perro,” Jamie said. “I believe you two know each other?”

  Cassie’s heart clutched. Zara. This is where she had flown after murdering Broome. Zara strode into the sunroom, sweat glistening off her brow, yoga mat tucked under her arm.

  “Good morning,” she said in a Hispanic-accented voice. As an intelligence officer, Cassie had studied languages in detail. From their previous sessions at the Valley Trauma Center, she had pegged Perro as being from the Basque region of Spain, most likely.

  “Zara, I think you know Captain Bagwell here,” Jamie said.

  “Of course. She was my patient,” Zara said. She reached out a hand and Cassie shook it, but all she could think is, Artemis teams are ready.

  Rosa brought two plates of eggs Benedict and hash browns. Zara sat down opposite Jamie, their eyes locked for a moment, and then they both turned to Cassie, with Jamie saying, “Cassie, what do you remember about everything after Iran?”

  “I’ve pretty much covered all of that with Zara in the lovely prison she was running with Broome. So let’s start with some of my questions, Senator,” Cassie said.

  Jamie locked a steely gray-eyed gaze on Cassie. “This is my house. We play by my rules.”

  Zara smirked. “In prison? You were making great gains, Cassie. I’m disappointed to hear you call the trauma center a prison.”

  “Women locked in rooms. Guards doing what they wanted. What would you call that?”

  “I never observed those conditions. That’s a legitimate facility,” Zara said.

  “And that was a legitimate bullet you put in Dr. Broome’s heart. Rather, two bullets?”

  Zara nodded and smiled tightly. Her large brown eyes fixated on Cassie, unblinking.

  “I see I’ve got your attention,” Cassie said. “So let’s start with my questions, my rules, shall we?”

  Jamie and Zara exchanged furtive glances.

  “Actually,” Jamie said. “There is a video of you running from Dr. Broome’s office near his time of death.”

  Cassie said, “Zara was about five minutes before me.”

  “The tapes don’t show that. The police haven’t mentioned that.”

  Cassie looked away. Of course, there would be no record of Zara departing the compound.

  “So you’re harboring a fugitive?” Cassie asked.

  “I never said the police have this video,” Jamie said.

  She processed that information. Jamie and Zara sat comfortably across from her, shoveling information at her in heaps. A fantastic story about her arrival here in New Bern. Her implication in the murder of Dr. Broome.

  “I get it. Either I work for you or you turn over the tape,” Cassie said.

  “You always were a direct one,” Jamie said. “I never said any such thing. You’re always free to do whatever you please.”

  The statement hung in the air as it was intended. A challenge. Defy Jamie and Zara and the cops would mysteriously find a tape. Comply and perhaps she was in the clear.

  “Won’t they make the connection that I went missing at exactly the same time as you shot Dr. Broome?” she said to Zara.

  “Again, I had nothing to do with that, but if you must know, they already have one of the kitchen workers as a suspect. It seems that Dr. Broome had a nightly rendezvous with her, took some liberties she wasn’t prepared to give, and she finally got her retribution.”

  “Then I’m in the clear,” Cassie snapped.

  “There’s always exculpatory evidence that can be produced for her. Don’t get full of yourself,” Zara said. “I worry about you.”

  Cassie sighed, assessing her predicament. “Seriously? I have questions.”

  “Of course,” Jamie said.

  “Where am I?”

  “New Bern, North Carolina. Craven County. You’re on the Neuse River, which flooded last year with Hurricane Florence. I bought this property for pennies on a dollar from someone whose insurance had, unfortunately for them, lapsed. Next question?”

  She knew New Bern. It was in between Raleigh and the coast, just upriver from Carteret County, Morehead City, Beaufort, and Atlantic Beach. Camp Lejeune was an hour or two away toward the coast.

  “How did I get here?”

  “Zara found you. You had been in a car accident in the middle of the state. Montgomery County, to be exact. Right next to your stomping grounds in Southern Pines. My guess is, you were headed to General Savage’s place. Your new daddy? Anyway, the police were chasing you. I’m not sure what you did wrong, but I told the governor and the state bureau of investigation chief that you were with me and that they shouldn’t pursue the matter any further.”

  Much of that rang true, but parts also did not. She remembered helicopters and men in tactical vests. She didn’t recall a car accident. Maybe they had wrecked the car and Zara had happened upon the scene? That was too much of a coincidence.

  To Zara, she asked, “Where did you find me?”

  “In the woods, near the Uwharrie Forest,” she said flatly.

  That information rang true. Thick canopy above. Gravel road. Terrain with which she was familiar.

  “What kind of car was I in when I wrecked?”

  Her tenor was more like a prosecutor cross-examining a witness.

  “You had stolen a police cruiser,” Jamie said.

  She remembered that, as well as Rax helping her in Virginia, her memory rushing back, like a flood.

  “All coming together?” Jamie said.

  “Yes, for the most part. Except the accident. I don’t remember that,” she said flatly.

  “Here’s a newspaper article about it from this morning,” Jamie said. She reached to the floor and snagged a newspaper folded in half, then placed it on top of the one she had previously given to Cassie.

  Cassie read the details. Police car stolen. Accident in Montgomery County. Unidentified female thrown from the vehicle into the woods. First responders arrived and called in a helicopter to life-flight her to the nearest hospital.

  “When we learned it was you, Cassie, Zara intercepted you at the landing pad at WakeMed in Raleigh. She put you in an unmarked ambulance and brought you here.”

  Cassie looked at Zara, who nodded.

  Could the helicopter have been a medical evacuation aircraft? Could the men in tactical vests have been EMS workers? What about the medical cooler? The drugs she had been given in the facility near Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia?

  “How did you learn it was me?”

  “Please. We have an operation that is scanning and gathering information every second. We knew the police car had been stolen. Didn’t know it was you. But we were tracking it, quite frankly, so I could put out a strong anticrime statement once the ordeal was over with. Then the dash cam flashed back a photo of you, which then went to the SBI, where I had Zara get involved. We made sure the photo was not distributed and that the ‘chase’ was intended to find you and get you out of trouble.”

  “Then why not life-flight me right here, if that was your goal?”

  “And have every media van in the state parked out front of the newly appointed senator’s house? You’re smarter than that, Cassie. Zara’s a medical doctor. She intervened at the exact right time, using her credentials to pose as your primary care physician. Then she whisked you away from the helipad.”

  Cassie had no memory of any of this. There were the four men, the needle, the pinch in her arm. Sh
e nodded.

  “Coming together for you?” Jamie asked.

  “Partially,” Cassie said.

  “Good, because I’ve notified the Army that you’re in my care and on convalescent leave. And once you recover, you’ll serve in the Office of Congressional Liaison on my staff, working with Zara.”

  Cassie thought of many fates she would prefer to face than being a staff weenie working for Congress, her latest predicament perhaps even preferable.

  “After all, the new Senate president pro tem will need a crackerjack legislative team,” Jamie said.

  “President pro tem?” Cassie muttered.

  “I know. You’re thinking it’s too soon for me to be named. With the president going off the rails the way he is, we need leadership now. With my election official last week, the majority leader called and told me my peers selected me as pro tem. I’m sure it was to keep me from moving on him as majority leader, but I’m fine with that. We face key votes this week. Climate change. Income equality. Infrastructure. Electoral College. All of this is coming due and we need Hite’s vote, which is now my vote.”

  Cassie nodded. Jamie continued.

  “My new-slash-former colleagues still see me as the leader of the party. Though my service was interrupted at 22 years, my peers have selected me to represent them. I’ve been on the phone all morning talking to the national committee and Senate leadership. Hite followed me when I stepped down to run for president, and now it only makes sense that I resume where I left off, pre-Hite.”

  “I wasn’t wondering about any of that. I was trying to remember what the president pro tem does,” Cassie said.

  Jamie and Zara smiled in a patronizing way, no teeth, one-sided smirk, and eyes cast downward.

  “The Senate president pro tempore, dear Cassie, is the leader of the Senate. The most powerful unknown person in the Senate. You’ve been to war. You understand power and chain of command. God knows your father and mother did. They were the ultimate power couple.”

  “When do you start?”

  “Immediately. Because the seat was vacated by Hite’s death, I now get to finish the remainder of the term. Two years.”