CHAPTER NINE | FLASHBACK
Once George Pierce had been her only connection to her work in politics. Those days were long over. The woman in front of her now had been referred by Lance Reeder's one-time campaign manager. She had her back turned and didn't know Alyssa was behind her.
The street was pitch dark, and the woman was on her way home from a hard night of partying. Politics was often like that, Alyssa had learned – at least, the campaign part. Her politics were never like that. But campaign staff worked hard and then played hard, as the saying went. This particular woman had just spent a couple hours drinking with fellow staffers but was now on her way home to get what little sleep she could before a new spin cycle started with a new day.
Two cat-like steps brought Alyssa within striking distance of the woman. Deftly, her hand shot forward and covered the subject's mouth and the barrel of her .22 went to the back of the woman's neck.
"Don't scream and don't move. You might be carrying mace, but I'm carrying a gun, so I win." Her voice was a harsh whisper, too low to be identified.
There was a brief moment of panicked struggling – typical at moments like this, Alyssa had long since learned – and then the other woman went stock still, rigidly frozen like a recruit on a parade ground. When she lifted her hand slightly, the subject whispered, "Please! Take anything you want in my purse. Just take the whole purse, and let me go. Please."
"I'm not here to rob you. I'm here to rob someone else, as I understand it. D.W. Tilman said you wanted a plumber."
"What?"
The woman tried to turn, and Alyssa tightened her grip again to keep her in place.
"Don't turn around. I steal campaign secrets for a living. I've been told you wanted to hire someone of that particular profession. It's not a legal business – I don't like strangers being able to identify me. So keep still, eyes front, and tell me what you want."
"Y... you're the woman Tilman told me about? The one who... who gets things?"
"For a fee."
Alyssa dragged the woman into an alley to the right. Once they were safely away from casual observers, she went on. "Now, if Tilman was properly informed – usually that's one of his few virtues – you're having issues with the press having their hands on some troublesome information, is that right?"
"Financial records. They've gotten enough bank records together to trace a lot more labor union money into our account than the campaign finance laws allow."
"How'd they get those? Your FEC reports are public, but your actual bank records should be almost impossible for another campaign to get." Alyssa knew campaign laws better than most lawyers.
"Our finance director sold us out. He had the statements, and the other guys blackmailed him into giving them to a young reporter hungry for a story that can make his career. He didn't give the press everything, but he gave them enough to write a story. Please, I won't turn around. Could you at least let go of me? This is uncomfortable."
Alyssa took her hand off the woman's jaw and stepped back. "So what good will it do us to get those records back if your finance director can just rat you out again?"
"He's fired now, obviously. He can't get any more bank statements. Without those, it's just the word of a disgruntled former employee."
"That's still a bad story."
"But more survivable than one with proof." The young campaign manager twitched as though she wanted to turn around but caught herself.
"Just so you understand that I take no responsibility for how that story plays out. You hire me to remove those records from your opponent’s possession, not to spin. If I deliver my part and you still lose, don't blame me."
The campaign manager whispered, "I'm not an idiot, of course I know that. Sure, you can beat me in a fistfight, but in my own area I'm very good. Let me deal with the spin. Can you do your part?"
"Of course," Alyssa replied.
"How much?"
"Half a mil."
It had become her usual fee. She'd found that it was about all the market would bear.
The client coughed and asked, "How much?"
Apparently this young woman wasn't as experienced with the market rate for law-breaking.
"Don't even think of haggling. Just say yes or no."
"I need time to work out that kind of money, especially without our finance guy. We'll pay you when we have the goods."
"Half up front. That's my rule."
"We can't. The money isn't there, not right now. Surely you know it takes time for a campaign to come up with money that can be hidden. You probably deal with that every day. But we can't afford to wait – the kid from the Post is probably writing it right now."
About an hour later, some laxatives in coffee left a short, black-haired pizza delivery driver too ill to work. She called in sick, never realizing that her cell phone had been hacked, and the call rerouted. Wearing padded clothes to make herself look pudgier – they were also good for hiding her pistol – Alyssa drove the other woman's rusty old Civic to Don Vito's Genuine Italian Pies, where they never realized that their regular driver was hanging on to a toilet for dear life. Alyssa picked up a few pizzas for delivery.
The receptionist at the Post sent her back to the newsroom with the pies. The Don Vito's driver was a regular, and the receptionist never quite realized that the reporters hadn't sent out for dinner yet.
Once inside, Alyssa dodged into the women's room. In her padded thermal carrying case was one pizza for a realistic smell. The rest of it was occupied by black jeans and a turtleneck – good for sneaking, but normal enough to pass for an ordinary visitor if she were spotted. Rapidly she changed clothes and stuffed the delivery uniform into the case.
As always, more than half of her disguise came simply from attitude. As long as she acted like she had every reason to be there, no one paid her much attention. She walked among the scattered desks and cubicles of the Post's newsroom, stealing glances at computer screens when no one was looking. She listened carefully too, eavesdropping on the reporters' conversations as they worked. From what she heard and saw, she rejected the first few desks she passed. They were occupied by people working on other stories – stories they would actually get to file.
But then she passed a desk where a reporter worked alone, away from his chattering colleagues. He wasn't talking. He simply hunched over his keyboard, typing furiously. Approaching the man from behind, Alyssa could read a bit of his computer screen.
"...records reveal that the United Brotherhood of Commercial Transport Workers illegally spent two million..."
This was the man. And she knew him.
It was Matt Barr.
Her jaw hit the floor and goose bumps broke out all over Alyssa's skin. She stared at him – her oldest friend, the man who'd been breaking his heart over her time and again. For too long, she was simply frozen in place, staring at the friend she had come to rob. Belatedly, she realized she would stand out if she just stood there, so she ducked behind a desk where none of the other reporters could see her. Hiding there, she peeked under the bottom of the workstation and stared some more, completely at a loss as to how to proceed. And as she watched, she heard her father's voice, so clearly she thought he must be in the room with her.
Before long in politics, you'll have to decide whether there are things that are beneath you.
The noise of Matt's typing finally stopped, and he pushed back from the desk and stretched. Yawning, he stood up and walked away, heading for the restroom.
There couldn't possibly be a better time. He'd be gone for a minute, maybe two. In that time she could grab the documents, sabotage the computer, and be heading for the door before he zipped up.
She remembered the other half of her father's advice: if there are things that are beneath you, you'll get out of politics. If there aren't, you'll make history.
Swallowing thickly, she pulled on a pair of gloves and rose from behind the desk.
"Alyssa Chambers. We just keep running into each other."
; The words dumped a gallon of adrenaline straight into her bloodstream, but somehow Alyssa fought off her instincts and froze. She stopped mid-stride, looking almost like a photograph.
She recognized the voice immediately. After a long pause she said, "I wish I could say I was happy about that."
From behind her, a man stepped out of the shadows and walked into her field of vision. He was wearing a double-breasted navy suit and a red tie, as if he'd just come from a cocktail party. Except for the silenced pistol in his hand, he could have fit right in at any charity fundraiser. His slicked back hair and scar confirmed what she knew from his voice. Fred Harris.
"I'd offer to shake hands, but..." he hefted his pistol slightly, never taking its barrel away from Alyssa. He held it low at his side to keep it out of sight to most of the reporters in the room. The newsroom around her seemed frozen, its bustle gone as if that had been the illusion. How could they not be noticing this? How could they not see? Rationally, Alyssa knew that while the two of them stood casually talking, no one would pay them the slightest mind. After all, she'd relied on the same technique herself many times over. But with her fight or flight instincts raging, she could not bring her body to accept what her brain was telling her.
"Does Matt know you're here?"
After wasting so much time hesitating to betray him, it would hurt to discover he'd already betrayed her.
"Of course not. Prissy little reporter deal directly with a blackmailer? Never! He thinks his source handed those bank statements over of his own free will. It's just that I knew the opposition would have to respond, and if they did, there was only one person who might be able to get this far. So I figured I better wait here and protect my investment in case you showed up."
A scream ripped through the scene.
Alyssa's head whirled to the right without conscious thought, where she saw one of the reporters staring at her and Harris, mouth open, and shrieking. Someone had finally noticed the gun. A distant part of Alyssa's mind realized that her opportunity was gone forever. The scream would surely bring Matt out of the bathroom.
Harris had the same reaction. He turned to stare at the interloper. The difference was, Alyssa recovered faster.
Without even turning back to face Harris, she pivoted on one foot and sent a high kick flying into his temple. He went down like a chopped tree, but he also had his finger on the trigger of his weapon. It went off as he fell.
The bullet went far wide of Alyssa. Instead, the unconscious man's last act had been to shoot a nearby computer monitor, which exploded in a shower of sparks.
When the pistol went off, and then the monitor exploded, the rest of the newsroom staff joined in the panic. They all dove for the floor just as, across the room, Alyssa saw Matt come running out of the bathroom.
More afraid of him seeing her than she'd been of the gun, she threw herself on the floor just like the reporters.
Someone pulled a fire alarm, or a burglar alarm, or something, because a screeching siren began to pierce the chaos, so loud Alyssa's hands went to her ears without thinking.
Then flames began to lick out of the bin of a nearby paper shredder, where a spark from the blasted monitor had fallen. They caught a computer cord hanging above the shredder, bringing more sparks that landed on a stack of paper.
Chambers crawled to Matt's desk on her belly, praying that he would do the rational thing and duck for cover. She peeked up over his desk until she saw the bank statements sitting on top of the pile of papers. With one furtive motion of her hand, she grabbed them.
Behind her, a room full of newsprint was starting to burn, and acrid smoke made her nose scrunch up. Alyssa squirmed around and put the bank statements into the growing flames, watching as her last scrap of morality twisted into ash in the heat.
The flames were too close for comfort now, and they were spreading in other directions, too. The other reporters fled from the growing blaze – she could see them running out the front door she'd entered a lifetime and ten minutes ago.
Alyssa grabbed the laptop off Matt's desk, the story about illegal union financing still on the screen. She threw it into the blaze as well, and then she hefted Harris over her shoulder.
She didn't want to let the man die. Maybe she still had some scruples left.
Deception was part of her job, after all. Deceiving herself came easy.
She ran for the nearest window and threw another computer monitor through it to break the glass. Then she vaulted out with her unconscious nemesis on her shoulder. Alyssa left him behind – safely away from the blaze, with his gun in his hand and his fingerprints all over it, waiting for the police who would surely show up.
Then she faded away into the night. The fire behind her was just getting started, but the embers of her conscience were flickering out.