Life of Secrets (17 page)

"The
Friday before Rich died, I was given a distinctive red ostrich leather folder
with gold on the corners, and told that it must be in the media’s hands before
Monday. Inside it was a whole ton of research about you. Various candidates you
were suspected of working for, various things you were suspected of having
stolen… tons of incriminating evidence about crimes you’re accused of. And the
front page was a note asserting that you had recently been contacted by Tom
Wheeler of the Hicks campaign. I was supposed to give it to the press."

He turned to
face Alyssa.

"It was
Reeder, of course, who gave me that."

She nodded
grimly and said, "West gets killed, I get the blame, and Lance Reeder
becomes the last man standing on a Presidential ticket that represented hope
for so many people. I’ve heard the rhetoric already: Don’t let Rich West’s
death be for nothing. Elect the man he chose to replace him."

Vincent nodded.
"The man my country needed is gone. In his place is…"

He paused. He
made eye contact with Alyssa.

"You and I
don’t really know each other all that well, Chambers."

She nodded.
He’d already emphasized that point earlier tonight.

Mike said,
"I have to do something now that I’m afraid of. I don’t know how it’s
going to come out. I don’t know how it’s going to affect you, or me, or my
friend Matt’s chances for survival. I’m afraid to say it and I don’t know how.

"But
you’re Matt’s only hope, and I can’t let you go in there unprepared for the
truth."

Chambers looked
at the Congressman. Two friends were dead, Matt might also be dead, and her
whole life destroyed. What was he about to tell her that could be worse? What
merited this much buildup?

"Lance
Reeder isn’t the one who ordered Rich West killed."

"What? But
you told me…"

Vincent said,
"I told you he gave me the folder. But I haven’t told you who he got it
from."

Chambers
couldn’t decide if she should be angry or afraid.
Just tell me!
But the
rational part of her brain wondered,
if he’s this afraid, what am
I
going to feel?

"For his
entire political career, Lance Reeder was never particularly competent on his
own," Vincent began. "He didn’t win because he was the better
candidate or the smarter man."

She stared
impatiently.

"He won
because, for all his career there has always been one backer who pulled the
strings behind the scenes to make sure Lance Reeder kept winning and winning.
One man who knew how to make the system work… how to make it dance…"

Before he even
finished she was on her feet, spilling the ice out of her empty drink. Alyssa’s
mouth hung open, and she took small, involuntary steps backward. "No. No
no
no
…"

"I saw him
walk into Lance’s office at the campaign headquarters on Friday morning. He was
carrying a red ostrich leather binder."

"No.
You’re wrong. It can’t be."

"It was your
father."

Alyssa fell
backward onto the floor, coming down hard on her rump, pulling her legs up to
her chest protectively. Her jaw came to rest on her knees, and she stared
vacantly ahead.

Her
protestations had been empty. As soon as Vincent mentioned Reeder’s backer, she
had known it made sense. Her father had kept Lance Reeder in power since she
was ten years old. Her father had won Reeder’s every campaign for him.

And now, her
father had made Lance Reeder the next President.

Kathy was on
the floor next to Alyssa, kneeling, with an arm around her shoulder. She didn’t
say anything; she just sat beside her and held her. Alyssa didn’t care. She
barely even noticed.

"You can’t
let this stop you, Alyssa. You’re the only one who can get Matt out."

"Give her
some time, Mike!" the female voice next to her whispered harshly. Alyssa
had forgotten her name.

He had always
valued power above everything else. He had always valued controlling people.
Now he had Lance Reeder under control. She remembered Reeder's accidental
almost-admission. He had had an affair. What a perfect lever for H. Franklin
Chambers. What a perfect chance for him to practice the kind of politics he was
famous for.

He's not
going to get away with it.

The thought was
cold. Always before, Alyssa experienced rage as a red filter over her vision
and a fierce heat all over her face. Tonight, it was different. Tonight was a
simple, steel-hard resolve to exact revenge on the man who had chosen power
over his daughter's love.

"He’s right,"
she said, barely able to muster the will to make her lips move. "He’s
right. I’m the only one who can get Matt out."

Kathy tried to
say something, but Alyssa cut her off.

"And my
father owes me justice."

They decided to
take a break. Alyssa went to the restroom to splash cold water on her face. She
came out, and Mrs. Vincent was outside the door, holding some black jeans and a
black long-sleeve t-shirt.

"My old
college roommate left these here the last time she came to visit," Kathy
said. "She’s pretty close to your height."

Gratefully,
Chambers changed out of her ripped and dirty dress and into the clothes that
fit her plans for the night better. Mike had a black baseball cap that she
took.

Kathy offered
her the final accessory. She reached behind her back and handed over an angular
black object. It was a pistol. She held it with the barrel facing down.

"Mike
insisted I carry this tonight when he went out looking for you. You’ll need it
more than I will now."

Alyssa took the
pistol. It was a revolver. Just a quick glance at the barrel and the chambers
told her it was a .44 magnum. She dropped the chamber open to see that it was
loaded. Then she tried to hand it back to its owner.

"I can’t.
It’s probably traceable to you, right?"

But Kathy was
already unclipping the holster from her waistband and passing it over.

"Take it.
If you succeed tonight it won’t matter that it’s traceable to us. If you don’t…
well, evidence will be the least of our worries. I'm giving it to you because I
believe in you, Alyssa. I trust you."

That made
Chambers uncomfortable. "You don't know anything about me. Even your
husband barely knows anything about me, and at least I've met him before
tonight. You and I just met."

Kathy smiled.
"Trust me. I know what I'm doing."

Alyssa nodded,
managed half a smile, and clipped the holster to the back of her jeans and let
the oversize shirt hang loose to cover the holster.

As she did,
Kathy said, "Whatever you have to do tonight, remember that we care about
you, and what happens to you, and how you end up."

"Your
husband said he wished he’d never met me."

"We all
say things we later grow out of. Mike grows fast. Trust me, we care about you
and want you to come out of this stronger."

The echo of her
mother’s voice in "stronger" almost undid Alyssa. She just nodded and
smiled.

Then the two
women rejoined Mike in the living room.

Vincent said,
"They can’t possibly be holding Matt at the West headquarters. The risk is
too great. Can you imagine someone finding out that a Presidential campaign had
a reporter tied up in the closet?"

Alyssa nodded.

"There’s a
very secure guesthouse on the estate. Brick walls, tiny windows, only one heavy
door. It started life as a home for the people who looked after the lawn and
vegetation. That’s where I would put him if I needed a place."

"It’s a
long drive to get back home from D.C., and it’s hard for me to see them
carrying a hostage into first class on an airliner."

"You're
right," she replied. "H. Franklin would have sent a private plane.
You don’t have to go through TSA to fly on those."

Vincent nodded.
"Well, whether Matt’s there or not, I really see only one way forward for
you. Back home. Even if they’re not holding Matt at Chambers Estate, your father
will be there, and he has answers. Try to find something that will back up my
own testimony about Reeder and your father. I’ll be happy to be a witness in
the trial but not if it’s just me. If you don’t have anything to back me up,
they’ll say I’m crazy. We need hard evidence."

Chambers said,
"It’s just a matter of getting me there. I don’t think H. Franklin is
likely to send any of the family planes for me right now, and I’m not eager to
submit to the facial recognition software that TSA is using these days."

Mike replied,
"I know a Senator who was part of the West inner circle with me. She flies
her own Cessna. But you had better succeed. If you fail, she’ll have to deal
with headlines about aiding and abetting the assassin, and I don’t want to do that
to her."

She nodded.
"I won’t fail."

As they drove
to meet his friend at her hangar, Vincent recounted one last tale.

"I had my
encounter with Frank Chambers of course. Everyone does in politics eventually.
He tried to use my relationship with a guy named D.W. Tilman to get at me. It
didn’t work out, and Tilman and I aren’t friends anymore, but it taught me how
Chambers works." He paused, looked at her, and then added, "The elder
Chambers, I mean."

"He likes
to get a lever on people. That's how he talks about leverage. He likes to
figure out what it is that makes a person susceptible to manipulation. And then
he uses it to get you to do what he wants. The way your father operates,
Alyssa, is that he likes politicians he can control. I know of governors he’s
blackmailed, but it’s not always blackmail. If Chambers can make himself the
only connection between you and the donor establishment, then he can control
you through that. If he can be the man who gets the news media to take you
seriously, that’s a lever he can use to control people. He’s always trying to
control people. He would say he's always trying to get a lever on people. I
lost a good friend over it."

Alyssa let the
silence grow for quite a while before replying.

"I know it
better than most."

"That’s
what I wanted to say to you, before you do this. You’ve shown me a lot of anger
tonight – at Fred Harris, at Lance Reeder…"

"And at my
father," she finished the list for him.

"Exactly,
Alyssa. Don’t let your anger be a lever."

♦

The hour was
somewhere near three in the morning. The rural ancestral home of the Chambers’
family was distant from Washington, D.C., and the flight had been long,
especially in a cramped, tiny plane. Chambers was glad to be out of the Cessna.
The Senator kept giving her terrified looks the whole flight. They landed,
Alyssa jumped out, and the plane left the area again without even shutting the
engine off. The Senator had obviously stretched her trust of Mike Vincent all
the way to its limit.

Now Chambers
stood looking down from a small hill at the yard of the estate. The urge was
strong to not let Matt go even another second in captivity. But even stronger
was her training, so she took the time to survey the terrain.

The grounds
stretched much farther than the walled-in, well-manicured green expanse around
the home. She had hiked cross country for quite some distance to come up on the
place from the back. She stood in a copse of pines on a low rise.

Before her was
her childhood home. There was the hidden corner where she had given Matt his
first taste of alcohol from a bottle stolen from her father’s bar. There was
the dolphin fountain she had passed on her way to brag to her mother about her
first fight.

And, most
important of all, near the back corner of the yard was the tiny stone cottage
that had once been a groundskeeper’s quarters. It had sat mostly empty since
Alyssa’s teenage years, when they started hiring a local company.

What was
different about her home was the pair of armed guards patrolling the stone wall
that marked the edge of the mansion grounds. She watched them walking away from
her. About ten minutes later a second pair walked past, and about fifteen
minutes later a third pair. Half an hour later, the cycle repeated itself.

To her
knowledge, there had never been guards at Chambers Estate before. Either Matt
was being held here, or her father knew that she was coming for him. Either
way, she was at the right place.

When the third
pair of guards passed for the second time, and the pattern suggested she’d have
about half an hour to work, Alyssa hurried off her the toward the stone wall.
She knew how to move silently in the night, placing each step carefully to
avoid twigs, leaves, and dead foliage. She knew how to find the shadows and
stay out of the moonlight. She came up against the wall; getting over it was no
problem for the former gymnast.

The cottage
windows were boarded up, which confirmed her suspicion/hope that someone was
being held prisoner inside. The front door was locked, but that was only a
defense against a stranger. Alyssa had had the key since childhood. She went in
and shut the door behind her.

A wooden chair
sat in the middle of the dusty, poorly lit floor. A space had been cleared
around it. Tied to that chair was a man with a hood over his head. In one
corner was a cold, empty woodstove. In another was a small bed,
unslept
-in for years. There was a chair with an ottoman
near the stove. Once upon a time, it had served the Chambers family as a guest
house after it stopped being servants' quarters. No one had stayed here for
years though.

Alyssa was
whispering, "Oh Matt!" before she even ran to him and gently removed
the hood.

He was dozing
lightly in a position that had to cramp his neck, but he woke instantly when
Alyssa removed the hood.

"Just
leave me alone," he mumbled. Then his eyes opened and he saw the short
woman kneeling beside him, working on the ropes that held him to the chair.

"
Lyss
!"

She nodded.

"
Shhh
, I’ll get you out."

But she
couldn’t keep her own advice. Her observations of the guards had not indicated
that they ever looked in the cabin, and it should be 20 minutes before the next
set came along. As she worked on untying the knots she said, "I’m so
sorry, Matt. I knew I should tell you about what I did. You shouldn't have had
to hear it from Harris. I meant to tell you, but I’ve been so afraid. Ever
since this assassination happened, I’ve been so alone. And when I finally had
you with me again, it felt too good to risk losing. I liked having a friend. I
needed a friend. I didn’t want to admit what I did, and have you turn your back
on me. I know it’s way too big for you to forgive, but …"

"Of course
it’s not, Alyssa."

"But…"

She had
loosened enough rope for him to move one hand. He took her chin in it and held
her gaze.

"I knew, Alyssa.
I’ve always known."

"What?"

"I saw you
there. I came out of the restroom and saw you fighting that other guy. I
recognized you clear as day. I saw you throw my laptop into the fire."

Chambers had
stopped untying to simply stare at him.

"I told
you once, Alyssa. I told you about it when you tricked me into telling you
about the Buchanan Club. It’s forgiven. Gone. White as snow."

She shook her
head slowly from side to side.

"I don’t
understand."

"It’s the
only way to ever get any peace when you’ve been wronged, Alyssa. It’s
forgiven."

She finished
untying him as she said, "Matt, I ruined your whole career. You could be
big time by now. You could be one of the celebrity reporters if I hadn’t done
what I did."

He nodded.

"It was a
terrible time for me. When I had that documentation in my hand, proving illegal
union contributions to a Senate campaign, I knew it was hot. It was the biggest
story I’d ever had. I was daydreaming of my own show on a cable news network…
bestselling political books… I wanted to be the new Bob Woodward, and I knew
that story could get me there."