Born with Secrets: A Political Thriller (14 page)

Vincent and Barr were
backed up against the giant plate glass window, with their hands in the air.
The very same bald man with the abused nose from the video stood in front of
them. The difference was that, now, he was holding a full-sized, large-caliber
handgun with a giant sound suppressor hanging on the front barrel.

Congressman Mike Vincent stood with a pistol aimed
at his chest, but one could never have told it by his demeanor. Matt Barr saw
the look of peace that always came over his friend’s face when he was praying.
Silently, the reporter added his own.

Mike just looked the attacker in the eye and smiled
at him.

“You must be Luther Cobalt,” Vincent said. “My
opposition research guy tells me you just got fired as a Correctional Officer.
I suppose that video has something to do with the reason why.”

Instead of answering him, Luther just snarled.

“Vincent, you have no idea how long I’ve been
waiting to kill you.”

The Congressman lifted his eyebrows and replied,
“Have we met? I didn’t even know you existed until I got the Oppo report on
Doyle’s brother being fired.”

Luther grabbed Vincent by the lapel of his suit
coat, turned, and threw him against the wall, aiming the gun at his face as he
did so.

He shouted, “That’s exactly right! You never knew I
existed! You never knew any of us existed. You didn’t care how many people lost
their jobs. All you cared about was getting your headlines for being Mister
Clean and breaking up a Federal contracting scandal! Never mind that I lost my
job and had to scrape like a dog for every dollar. Never mind what I had to go
through to come back. Never mind all the guys like me, who used to work with
me, who all got put out in the cold so you could look like a hero!”

Vincent looked crossways at him. “Did you… work at
Electron Guidewire?”

“That’s right! Until you needed an issue for your
election and didn’t care who had to lose their job and go broke so you could
get it! So you saw a little video of me talking to my brother, and you don’t
like how I’m going to make up for all the years of being penniless? You don’t
like how I got back on my feet? Well guess what Vincent: I care every last bit
as much as you cared about me when you were getting yours. Sucks to be you.”

Matt watched with wide eyes as his friend struggled
in Cobalt’s grip. He was afraid to interfere, with a gun inches from his
mentor’s face and a finger on the trigger. Trying to create some kind of
distraction or diversion, he decided to ask a question.

“I don’t get how the Genetic Probable Cause Bill is
going to make you rich?”

“Idiot!” Cobalt growled. “The Feds pass that law,
suddenly everyone — everyone! — is giving the Federal government a DNA sample.
Get a DUI? DNA sample. Drunk and disorderly conduct? DNA sample. Getting a
traffic ticket will get you in the Federal government’s DNA database.

“And who do you think will have the contract to
store all that? Who do you think will be looking at all that? Cobalt Data
Mining Systems, that’s who! I’m gonna know who’s got cancer before they do. I’m
going to know who’s an alcoholic before they do.”

Luther Cobalt paused in his tirade to laugh and then
finished.

“Oh yeah, your family tree? I’m going to know that
way better than you do.”

He redirected his attention to Vincent and said,
“Just think: you could have avoided all of that if you hadn’t wanted to be
famous so bad that you cost a bunch of innocent people their jobs. Well,
tonight you pay the price. Tonight you die, Vincent.”

He pressed the silencer to Vincent’s forehead.

Vincent smiled at him, and said, “OK with me. Jesus
loves you, brother.”

Behind them, at that moment, the computer started
buzzing an insistent alarm tone.

All of them turned to look. Cobalt turned away from
Vincent, granting him at least a momentary reprieve. An icon flashed to life
and filled the whole screen with a flashing red border.

The words, “Alarm activated” blinked in front of the
picture that filled the screen.

That picture was video from a security camera right
near where a wall-mounted alarm had been pulled.

One of Luther’s hired thugs leaned against the wall,
holding his weight up by clinging to the alarm. His leg was obviously injured
by the way he kept his weight off it and leaned on the wall and alarm.

Around him, three of his comrades lay on the ground,
unconscious, dead, or immobilized. Their weapons were scattered around them in
a haphazard pile.

For some reason, a broken mop handle lay amid the
discarded weapons.

The man leaning on the alarm stared right at the
security camera and, although there was no sound, he mouthed the word, “Help!”

Standing in the middle of the chaos, fists clenched
at her side, panting for breath, dressed in black from head to toe, was Alyssa
Chambers.

She turned to the guy leaning on the alarm and
delivered a slow, beautiful, arcing crescent kick right to his head. He
collapsed to the ground.

Cobalt swore and then added, “I will murder
her.
I’ll rip her head off.”

He sprinted out of the room.

***

With the ear-splitting
klaxon of the alarm wailing in her ears, Alyssa made a snap decision. Any
minute now, any guards who were left in the building would converge on her
location. However, around the corner and down the hall was the door where all
of the guards had previously gathered. Their behavior suggested that something
interesting was behind it.

She darted back to that door.

She arrived just as it opened. A guard came up from
the basement, dressed in black like all the others. He had obviously been
summoned by the alarm.

His eyes went wide as he emerged from the door to
run headlong into her. Alyssa reacted faster. She got in enough good hits to
leave him on the ground and then ran through the door.

Behind it were steps leading down. She took them at
a flying clip, three steps at a time, until she made it to the basement
hallway. Once there, there was only one door with light coming from behind it.
She darted over there. Just as she did, someone shut the alarm off. That
probably meant she didn’t have much time.

Throwing open the door, Alyssa saw a nearly bare
room with gray cement walls and a linoleum floor. A bare light bulb hung from
the ceiling, flooding the area with harsh, unshielded light.

Most striking of all, though, was the slight frame
of a small, young woman tied to a chair near the middle of the room. In
addition to the cords binding her wrists, she wore duct tape over her mouth and
a blindfold tied around her head. She still had on her prison khaki uniform and
the ugly black shoes the government issued new inmates. Her spiky brown hair
was instantly familiar.

Moira LeBlanc.

Whatever was going on, it wasn’t as plain as Alyssa
thought when she left the prison. If Moira had escaped, why was she a prisoner
here?

She dashed over and undid the blindfold. Moira’s
eyes squinted shut against the bright light.

Alyssa’s fingers fumbled as she rushed the ropes,
struggling to get the girl free as quickly as possible. One hand came loose.

As it did, she heard heavy footfalls behind her.

Alyssa had left the door open, so the sound carried
clearly. Rubber soles of tactical boots thudded hard on the bare concrete.

She turned around, expecting to see more guards who
had come in response to the alarm.

Standing in the doorway, looking at her with a
vicious glare she had seen too many times already, was Luther Cobalt.

Alyssa dropped into a guard stance.

Cobalt looked around at the room. The only exit was
the metal door frame in which he stood.

“There’s no fire alarm here that you can pull,” he
said.

***

When he dashed out
of the room, Luther Cobalt had pulled the door to the office shut, slamming it
behind him. He was barely gone before Matt ran over to it and began trying to
work the knob.

It wouldn’t budge.

He pulled hard against the door trying to open it,
but it didn’t budge. From outside a guard called in.

“You two just cool your jets. Luther said not to let
you out. I don’t want to have to shoot you, but I will if I have to.”

Ignoring the instructions, Matt braced himself and
kicked as hard as he could right near the door knob. The wood splintered but
didn’t break.

The guard shouted, “I warned you! Sit still!”

Matt kicked again and felt his foot almost break
through to the other side of the door.

Outside it, they heard a voice swearing. Matt was
getting ready to kick again, but Mike Vincent tackled him and dragged him away
from the door.

Just in time. The guard outside fired his carbine
through it, punching holes through the door accompanied by painfully loud
explosive gunshots.

Vincent said, “Matt, I get where you’re coming from,
but don’t get shot.”

“Mike, I’ve got to get to her. Alyssa’s here! And
Cobalt is going to kill her.”

“You won’t do her any good if you provoke this guard
into shooting you.”

From outside the door they heard, “That’s right!”

“We get it,” Vincent shouted back. “Don’t shoot!”

With that, he dragged Matt away from the door. When
they were a few feet away, he whispered to his friend.

“I’ve got an idea. This place is just a high end
executive office, not a prison. They never intended to hold people here. Follow
me.”

Vincent went back to Doyle Cobalt’s desk and pulled
out the center drawer. As quietly as he could, he shifted all the contents
around, looking for something. He prayed and muttered as he dug. Finally, he
found a small flat blade screw driver.

Vincent grinned like a Cheshire cat as he drew it
out of the desk. Pressing a finger to his lips and giving Matt a very stern
look, the Congressman tiptoed back to the door. Standing to one side of it, he
stretched up and fitted the screwdriver into the first of three screws on the
top hinge. They were meant for a Phillips screwdriver, but he didn’t let that
stop him.

Silently, he worked the screws out one at a time.
Then he got Matt to hold the top hinge in place while he unfastened the bottom
one.

Whispering so quietly as to be barely audible,
Vincent addressed his friend. He shared his plan.

“Pull the door in toward us to get the latch out of
the door frame. Then we throw it as hard as we can into the outside room,
hoping we hit the guard. Then we charge him.”

Matt nodded.

Vincent whispered, “We have to move like lightning.
When I start pulling the door in toward us, you join in. Pull in as far as both
our arms will reach, then throw back out as fast as possible. I won’t give any
verbal signal; it would add to his warning time.”

Again, the reporter nodded.

Vincent hooked his fingers under the bottom of the
door. Matt did the same at the top. Silently, Mike mouthed a count down.

“Three… two…”

As one, both of them drew the door into their room
slightly and hurled it out. The guard cried out in pain as it hit him. The two
men both shouted at the top of their lungs as they ran through the door at him.

The guard had been hit in the face by the corner of
the door, and his nose was bleeding. Matt jumped on him and started punching
his face, over and over again.

Vincent came out behind them and grabbed Matt by the
collar, pulling him back from the guard.

“Easy. He’s down,” the Congressman said.

As Matt stopped his fist in midair and sat there
panting, Vincent pulled the short-barreled M-4 carbine out of the black-clad
man’s grasp.

Matt scrambled back to his feet.

“I’m going after Alyssa,” he said.

Congressman Vincent said, “Matt, you don’t know
where she is.”

“Just run toward the sound of the fighting usually
works with her.”

Vincent took his friend by the shoulders and held
eye contact.

“Matt, listen to me. You saw Cobalt. He’s a killer.
He’s a huge man, and he’s capable of murder. I was looking in his eyes while he
was getting ready to pull the trigger on me. You aren’t prepared, Matt. You
aren’t a fighter. Alyssa is. Let her handle it.”

Matt replied, “If all I can do is stand between her
and the gun, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

With that, he turned and bolted down the hall.

A young, female police
dispatcher sat in front of a computer. She wore a headset that covered one ear
and held a boom mic in front of her mouth. Her small town in Northern Virginia
didn’t have a lot of crime, so she was the only dispatcher on duty that
morning.

Her panel lit up, promising a more interesting day
than she expected. She pressed the button to engage.

“Nine one one, what is your emergency?” she asked.

“Possible homicide in progress. My name is Mike
Vincent. I’m a Member of Congress. We need a response at once.”

The caller gave an address. It came up automatically
on her screen anyway, but she had found that callers usually insisted on giving
it if they had it. It was a few miles out of town.

She began keying instructions into her computer,
summoning county sheriff personnel to the location. It was their jurisdiction.
She was about to type some more orders into her computer because the caller
identified himself as a Congressman. Since September 11, 2001, there were
special protocols in place for a threat that involved one of them.

Before the young dispatcher could do anything else,
a hand came down over the keyboard, stopping her.

She looked up to see her supervisor. She stared at
him in confusion. He pressed the mute button on her keyboard.

“Belay that call to the Sheriff,” he said.

“What? Why? Sir, he said there’s a homicide…”

The supervisor shook his head.

“I just got a call from the Secret Service,” he
said. “They mentioned something called
Executive
Order 15342. They’re claiming jurisdiction at that site.”

The operator looked
confused. “But…”

“It’s a done deal,” her
supervisor said. “We’re not allowed. This is a federal matter. Send them no
help. Terminate the call.”

The operator’s conscience
bothered her as she hit the disengage button. But it had been a direct order,
after all.

***

Alyssa circled warily, eyes on
Cobalt’s shoulders and hips, watching for hints of his intentions. There was no
reason for her to leap into the fight. She could see Moira tied to a chair in
the back of the room, and Cobalt couldn’t hurt the younger girl as long as he
was focused on Alyssa. Delay was her friend, and she used it.

With no warning he lunged at her, hand coming in
toward the midsection, trying to get under her guard. She slipped to the side,
expecting to dodge a punch, but he wasn’t interested in striking. Cobalt moved
his arm, grabbed hold of her jacket near the shoulder, and tried to pull her
forward.

Alyssa recognized the move. He wanted to put her on
the ground. At first, she didn’t panic; the counter was to let him pull her
forward slightly but move her leg forward at the same time, keeping her balance
and then turn what was supposed to be his throw into her pivot and punch, for a
solid hit to the ribs.

The entire plan evaporated when she felt the power
of his throw.

He’s so strong!

She was flying forward before the thought had time
to fully form. It was all she could do to tuck her head, take the landing on
her shoulder, and roll. Only by the thinnest of margins did she get back to her
feet before Cobalt could fall on her.

A swift kick stopped his forward momentum and then
she shuffled back.

The fight became a chess match, with Alyssa backing
out of his range and circling every time Cobalt tried to get close. Having
experienced the force of his arms, she had no desire to fight in close.

A quick poke to the eyes to make him block, then she
dodged his hands.

She ducked under a punch, delivered a chopping hand
to his groin, and scampered away to his rear before he could reach down.

She fought like a guerrilla army, striking and
fading away. It was tiring for her, but he had more bulk to move. It had to be
even more tiring for him. Both of them had sweat pouring off their faces.

But Cobalt showed no sign of quitting.

Once again he lunged at her, and once again, Alyssa
shuffled back out of his reach.

But this was the time she made a mistake. At the
last minute, she heard muffled noises from behind Moira’s gag, but it was too
late. She shuffled back right into Moira’s chair. The chair fell over, and
Moira landed on the ground with a thud.

Alyssa didn’t fall but for a precious second she was
off balance. Her attention was focused on not falling.

Cobalt’s big, meaty hand grabbed her leather jacket.

His other hand grabbed her wrist.

With a guttural shout of triumph he threw her to the
ground. Alyssa’s whole field of vision became a whirling blur until she felt
her back hit the hard concrete floor. All the air exploded out of her lungs in
a long cough and retch. She couldn’t fight because her body wouldn’t do
anything but suck in air.

This was even worse than the fight at Zack’s apartment.
This time, Cobalt rolled her onto her front and climbed onto her back. Each of
his knees held one of her hands in place, which inflicted a fair amount of pain
as well as keeping her arms immobilized.

The arm wrapped around her throat and Alyssa had nothing
she could do. She couldn’t move her arms. Cobalt’s great weight held her torso
pinned in place. She couldn’t even get to him with her feet to kick.

God, please help. Please.

Nothing changed. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t
move. She wanted to scream, but there was no air.

The door to the room banged open. Alyssa heard it,
even though Cobalt held her face to the floor.

To her everlasting amazement, she heard the voice of
Matt Barr.

Matt Barr? What the…

“Alyssa! No! Get off her!”

She heard racing footfalls. She felt Cobalt’s arm
release her throat, and she couldn’t do much more than gag and retch as her
lungs sucked in air.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cobalt draw a
pistol from his waistband.

The sound of it going off was so loud it hurt her
ears and left her unable to hear anything but a painful, persistent ring. A
spent shell casing bounced to the floor in front of her, though the gunshot had
deafened her to the sound of metal on concrete. Her trained eyes recognized the
brass from a .45.

She could lift her head high enough to see Matt’s
hands clutch his thigh as he collapsed forward. His momentum carried him until
he tumbled to rest near Moira.

Cobalt’s arm went back around her neck. After the
brief reprieve, she was being strangled again. She’d barely had time to suck in
a breath or two and now she was back exactly where she’d been.

Her vision began to narrow down into a tunnel.

She felt herself losing consciousness.

I hope you’re real.

And then an ugly black prison-issue shoe swept
through her peripheral vision on its way to Cobalt’s head.

The weight on her back was suddenly gone as the man
rolled off her.

Alyssa twisted to the side, looking at Cobalt’s
unconscious form.

Her hearing had come back enough from the gunshot to
hear Moira speak.

“The only fighting lesson you ever gave me. I
f a fight goes to the ground, whoever happens to be nearby
can kick you in the head.”