CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They were in a formal-wear shop. Matt was being fitted for a tux. Alyssa didn’t need fitting. She knew her sizes, and the red cocktail dress fit perfectly. She tried it on once and was still wearing it.
Matt came out of the changing room wearing a black tux with long tails and a pink bowtie and cummerbund. His pink with her red dress was a debatable color match, but Alyssa didn’t care. She wanted to be able to keep track of Matt at the fundraiser. Every man there would be in a black tux but few men wore pink. Giving him those accents would make him easier to spot.
What she wasn’t prepared for was how good he looked. Matt was a scrawny beanpole of a guy, but it meant the tux hung on his frame well and gave him an air of sophistication that might not have worked for a bulkier man.
She smiled at him and enjoyed the sight. Matt practically glowed at the idea that Alyssa was looking at him and liking it.
Alyssa paid with cash – still the one asset she had in abundance – and they walked out of the formalwear shop onto M Street.
"This is crazy, you know," Matt said as Alyssa strode boldly up to the curb and stuck her arm out for a cab. "This is the successor to a Presidential candidate who was just assassinated. The security on him is going to be like a vise. You’re the most wanted woman in America. You changed your hair color, changed your eye color, and stuffed your bra. You think that’s going to get past the greatest dragnet in American history?"
"I don’t think my costume will get me past," she replied. "I think my attitude will get me past. Matt, if you learn nothing else from me, learn this. Project confidence. If you do it, no one ever suspects you of anything."
A taxi pulled to the curb, and they climbed in. The conversation died. Neither of them wanted to say anything worth saying where it might be overheard.
Arriving at the fundraiser, Alyssa simply shook her head at the spectacle. In mere days, the West-Reeder campaign had become Lance Reeder for President. Banners decorated the front of the building; red, white, and blue bunting lined the walkways; and well-dressed donors streamed in. Somewhere in the distance, a band pumped out John Philip Sousa music.
The main entrance to the Leavey Center at Georgetown was across a short bridge that carried pedestrians over the narrow road underneath. Alyssa and Matt joined the throng heading over to hear the future President speak.
Inside the building, the route to the ballroom was lined with staff in formal attire to guide people in. Giant video screens had been erected, playing new versions of the old West campaign commercials, now with Lance Reeder in the starring role. Obvious Secret Service agents in their dark suits and their earpiece-microphones stood along the path. Alyssa knew what she had always known about getting into places you’re not allowed: just look like you’re supposed to be there. She’d done her job right at the store – both she and Matt looked the part of people who would spend $35,000 to go to a political event. She knew what worked for situations like this.
Matt, on the other hand, had no such experience or confidence. He leaned over to put his lips right next to Alyssa’s ear and whispered, "I think I might wet my pants the next time a Secret Service guy looks at me."
She put her arm around his waist – mainly to give the federal agents an explanation for why they were whispering together, but also to comfort him. She was surprised at how good it felt. It seemed silly, even stupid, that it meant so much to her. Other people formed relationships and bonds every day, but Alyssa’s whole life had been spent making sure no one knew too much about her; making sure no one got too close. A couple of days of being on the run changed everything. All of a sudden, this one person who still trusted her mattered. He mattered a lot.
Before, Alyssa merely tolerated Matt. Now she liked him. She wanted him to like her. She wished she had never done some of the things she’d done – the things that had hurt him. She wished she didn’t have to worry about him realizing what she had done to him. If he ever found out that she was the one who burned his computer and his whole office to the ground…
Her arm would probably never be welcomed around his back again.
Never mind if he ever found out what she was thinking now. She had promised him that she wouldn't kill Lance Reeder here. But Alyssa had no idea whether she would keep that promise. She had a visual fantasy that she couldn't stop dwelling on. She would knock down a Secret Service agent, take his gun, and kill the man who had ordered West killed, ordered her friend killed, and ordered her framed.
She could sense that her arm around Matt's back didn't give him perfect peace, but he did at least try to smile and look around at people, just as she was doing. That was what people at political fundraisers did. Checking out the crowd to see who else was there was as much a part of the event as seeing the candidate.
They made it inside the ballroom, passing easily through the metal detector since Alyssa had not brought a gun. Once there, the din became almost overwhelming, as hundreds of people chattered in an enclosed space. Alyssa guided Matt toward the bar to keep them looking normal.
"All we need to do now is get me close enough to talk to Lance Reeder," she said. "Which might not be that easy. You’d be shocked to learn how many people give $35K and never even get to shake his hand."
Matt shrugged. "I'll feel better about it if we never get close to him. You're taking a huge risk to be here, Alyssa, and not just the risk of getting caught."
"We’ll get close," she replied. "Trust me: I’m confident about getting close enough to eavesdrop on a politician. It’s what I do for a living."
Barr shook his head. He didn’t respond. He simply let the silence grow until it was easier to change the subject.
"I still can’t believe Lance Reeder’s going to be President. The guy’s a total nothing. He’s never accomplished anything in his life but to survive a car wreck."
Alyssa shrugged.
"I never cared much about who got elected. I just took their money to go thrill-seeking, but it’s not relevant right now. Keep your eyes peeled for a chance to get close to Reeder."
They made it to the front of the line at the bar. Before Matt could speak, Alyssa ordered two blue dolphins. He asked, "Blue Dolphin?"
Then he tasted it. Water.
"Keeps you hydrated, helps you look normal at a booze-fest, and neither of us needs our faculties impaired right now," Alyssa said.
They circulated around the party. To Alyssa, the scene was boring. In the course of her career, she’d been to dozens of high-dollar fundraisers. The dresses could have fit right in at a Hollywood movie premier. Most of the women had clearly spent hours with a stylist that afternoon. Discreet wait staff floated among them, always seeming to offer a tray of hors d'oeuvres just as the conversation ended.
Matt’s bright pink bowtie worked exactly as she planned, making it easy for her to keep an eye on him in the crowd. She was just making eye contact with him to ensure he had nothing to report, when she felt a hand on her bare shoulder.
She was a professional. She was used to tension, so she didn’t jump out of her skin, but she did feel the tingles that come from adrenaline flooding the body, and her fists did clench instinctively, ready to fight for her life.
"Thank God. I’ve been so desperate to find you. This was my last hope."
Chambers blinked and turned around. Before her was a man with the top of his head shaved completely bald, but wearing about a week’s worth of beard over his full face. He wore glasses with the thick black plastic frames that formed the basis of every stereotype image of nerds. His rumpled business suit was definitely a step below the formal attire of most men at the party.
It took her a moment or two to recognize him, and when she did, she had to give a smile and slight nod in admiration.
"George Pierce. Nice work on the disguise."
"I ought to have learned at least a little bit. I’ve been working with you for ten years. Which, I might add, is why I need a disguise. You’ve got to help me, Alyssa. The FBI thinks I’m a suspe
ct! I have a friend who owns a boat, and I know where he hides the keys. I’ve been living there since the day we heard that West died. At lunch, I heard the radio report that you were a suspect. I’d been wondering what I should do about it. Then I walk back to my office, and there are a bunch of cops hanging around it. I turned around and went the other way."
Matt Barr elbowed a few people out of the way in his race to get back to Alyssa.
"What’s going on?" he asked breathlessly. "Who are you?"
"Quietly," Alyssa growled. "Matt, this is George Pierce, an old… business associate of mine. George, Matt Barr. An old friend. Pretty much the last friend I have left, as you might imagine if you watch the news at all."
"Not quite the last friend," Pierce replied. "There’s Mike Vincent."
"What do you mean?" Matt asked, eyes going wide.
"Matt, please let me do the talking. But yes, George. Since that’s given away, how did you know that I know Mike Vincent?"
Alyssa’s face could have won the World Series of Poker. She gave no clue at all that she was really here for Reeder, and Pierce was off the mark.
"It’s the only reason I thought to look for you here. He’s one of West’s best friends, and one of the leading figures in the West campaign. I figured he had to be here."
"But why would that lead you to look for me here?"
"A few years ago, I was brought in to help on a project," Pierce recalled. "A frequent client of mine was running against Mike Vincent in the primary, and he wanted to sandbag that Rich West fundraiser that helped him get started."
Chambers kept her facial expression carefully under control. She had worked the same project, of course, but with no involvement from Pierce, so she had never wondered whether Pierce might have been involved with the Vincent race.
"My client tasked me with hiring a plumber to go in there. You turned me down when I called."
She remembered the call quite well. She didn't like turning George down, but she already had a project. Little did either of them know it had been the same project.
"Do you remember that guy Reeder's opponent was using when you and I first met? Fred Harris? Well, I hired him."
At this, it took all of Alyssa's willpower for her to keep her jaw from dropping open. She remembered every detail of meeting Harris at West's fundraiser for Vincent. She could still recall what it felt like to have her ears ring and see stars from the first time she'd lost a fight. Now, with Rich West dead, the memory was especially poignant.
"When I made contact with him about the job, he told me, 'I nearly caught Vincent leaking to the press when he was a campaign staffer a couple years ago. Someone shut him up before I could get the actual evidence though.'"
This time, Alyssa couldn't stop herself.
"Wait, Harris was working the first Reeder for Senate campaign at the same time I was?"
"Exactly. That's how I knew about you and Vincent being friends. I knew you'd be trying to get in touch with him for help. He's a big deal at the West campaign, and this is their big re-launch. He'd have to be here. You let him off the hook once, he owes you. I knew you'd come here. I risked everything to be here at the same time you were, so I could get your help."
Chambers just shook her head. Pierce found her by exactly the wrong chain of reasoning. The problem with that was, if Pierce expected her to be here because of the old Vincent connection, who else might be waiting for her here?
Pierce continued, "You would never tell Tilman and me who the mole was. You just got him to quit leaking and kept his name secret. So we knew the two of you had to be friends. We just didn't know who it was. Wow, was Tilman ever angry at you. He didn't want to pay you, but I insisted. You're a valuable ally; I didn't want to make you mad."
Chambers whistled softly. This put everything into a different light. She had always wondered who sent Harris after her at the West-Vincent event. And George knew.
"Who were you working for when you hired Harris to sandbag that fundraiser?" she asked.
Pierce looked away from her.
"Come on, Alyssa. You know how it is in this business. We don't rat people out. We have to keep secrets, or we lose our value."
"George, you don't get how wrapped up this stuff is in what's going on right now. I need to know...."
"Look, I didn't come here to rehash the past. I want you to tell the FBI I had nothing to do with the assassination! I can't have them rooting through my entire past—who knows how many clients are going to get embarrassed by what they find?"
She arched an eyebrow and fixed Pierce with a skeptical eye.
"Are you serious? You're here begging for my help and you won't help me in return? You can't actually believe that's going to work out."
He replied with a rising voice, on the edges of panic.
"You have to help me, Alyssa. I’ve been hunting for you since the news broke about the assassination. They’ll believe you. Tell them I wasn’t involved!"
"Tell you what, George," she replied. "If you tell me who sent Harris to that fundraiser, I'll..."
That’s when Alyssa heard the sound of a helicopter flying very low over the building. Even amid the din of the party, the roar of its rotors shook the floor, which meant it had to be very low indeed. And that could not mean anything but trouble.
Even as she thought it, she noticed a team of federal agents in raid gear coming in through the main door of the ballroom. They wore body armor, black fatigues, and helmets. Each was carrying very serious weaponry, and they were headed straight for her.
"Someone must have recognized us!" Matt said in a harsh whisper.
"I can’t get caught here!" Pierce shouted. "I’ve been hiding for a week; if they find me with you, they’ll be sure I did it!"
He bolted off toward the nearest gray service door.
"Wait! George, let me!"
Alyssa darted after him. She was in far better shape. She reached the door before Pierce.
She threw it open and ran headlong into a Secret Service agent who was dashing down the hall – clearly bent on securing the door from the other side.
They both tumbled to the ground. Since the agent was male and in good physical shape, his weight gave him much greater momentum. That meant Alyssa fell backwards, and the agent came down pinning her to the cement floor.
She grabbed his left bicep and shoved up, rolling him over and off her. She got to her knees and delivered a very swift punch to the solar plexus and a chop to the neck. Then she plucked the pistol from his shoulder holster, rose to her feet, and kicked him in the head to make sure he stayed down for a while.
"It’s in the fan now, guys. Let’s get out."
The three of them raced through service corridors. They turned left, right, right, left, through anonymous, windowless concrete halls meant only for staff, not for guests. The pounding footsteps of pursuers echoed off the walls, spurring the three of them on. Alyssa was easily in the best shape, but before long even she found herself winded.
She could see evening light beaming in from outside on their right. That had to be an exit. But before she could even wonder about it, the sound of a gunshot hurt her eardrums. In the tight confines of the hall, with its cement walls echoing the sound, the noise was painfully loud. Ahead of her, she saw the sparks of a metal-jacketed bullet ricocheting off the wall.
She whirled and was confronted with making a choice. Thoughts blazed through her head faster than lightning. Her perception seemed to speed up.
Racing up behind them, shouting at them to halt, were three of the agents she had seen come into the fundraiser. One of them had his weapon out; he had clearly fired the shot that missed Alyssa. In her hand was a pistol stolen from the Secret Service agent she’d run into. She could pull the trigger and return fire. She could solve their problem quickly and easily. They were running; she was standing still. She had every reason to expect better aim. The agents were wearing body armor, but there was no such thing as body armor for the head.
&n
bsp; She could kill them.
But the choice was the same as it had been with the FBI agents in the helicopter. Alyssa’s end goal was to come out of this with her name cleared. Killing a bunch of federal agents was counterproductive.
Not even a second had passed before she worked the decocking lever on the pistol, tossed it to the side, and threw herself at the approaching agents.
She collided with the first one, taking the impact on her shoulder. He fell over and she rolled to her feet, coming up face-to-face with a second man, the shooter. She punched him in the temple, and he went straight down.
The third man tried to grab the hand she’d just punched with. She broke his grip and elbowed him in the side of the head. He went down almost as quickly as the second one did.
She stood there panting, nursing the knuckles of her punching hand, when she heard another gunshot. Behind her.
She turned, saw the place where she’d thought there was a door, and heard screaming beyond it. Alyssa scooped up the Sig she had dropped and dashed out that door.
George Pierce lay bleeding to death on the ground. Standing a few feet away from him, the smoking barrel of his pistol still pointed at George’s fallen body, was Fred Harris. His black hair glistened in the setting sun.
Alyssa never hesitated. She brought the pistol up and fired at Harris. It was one of the more satisfying moments of her life. She activated an instrument of death aimed at the man who killed Rich West.
It was satisfying even though she missed.
Harris dove, rolled, and came up right next to Matt Barr, who was still staring at George Pierce’s corpse. He grabbed the reporter and held the gun to his head.
In his other hand – the one not holding the gun – Harris clutched Matt Barr by the head, holding his hand over his mouth, which was trying to scream. Harris rubbed his weapon against Matt’s temple.
A black van screeched to a halt right behind him, and Harris smiled at Alyssa as the door opened.
"Drop the pistol and kick it over here," he said. "Or I blow Mr. Barr’s head off."
Alyssa sighed and dropped the pistol a second time. She sent it skittering across the pavement with her toe.
Harris laughed, still clamping his hand over Matt’s mouth.
"Here she is, surrendering rather than risk any harm to you, Mr. Barr. It’s almost like she likes you. But I don’t know how you two can stand each other. Barr, don’t you get that this is the woman who…."
"NO!"
Alyssa knew what he was going to say. She knew the secret from her past that Harris was going to throw open for Matt to look at. Her scream was so loud as to make Harris’s words unhearable, but he simply waited until she ran out of breath.
"...who set fire to your big union corruption story?"
Matt shook his head violently, as if trying to communicate something, trying to break free of Harris’s grip, trying to shout or scream. Muffled sounds came out, but nothing recognizable.
Alyssa felt the strength go out of her legs. She collapsed to the ground. Humiliatingly, mortifyingly, she felt tears in her eyes, right in front of people. All that would come out was a whisper.
"I tried to find a way to tell you…"
Harris just laughed.
"True love. Who knew?"
With that, he threw Matt into the back of the van and piled in after him. The sliding door slammed shut. The vehicle squealed away.
Alyssa tried to get back to her feet to run after it, but as she did the door opened behind her and another of the pursuing federal agents ran out. He looked almost as surprised to see her as she was to see him, but he recovered. He reached out with both hands to grab the front of her dress.
Alyssa was too distraught to care, but her training was so ingrained it worked anyway. She threw him to the ground and kicked him in the head.
She ran away as fast as she could, still crying, looking for a place to hide.
♦
Alyssa crouched, curled up, behind a stack of five-gallon drums in a janitorial closet. Federal agents had already looked in the closet once, but they had assumed the drums to be stacked directly against the wall, instead of harboring a fugitive behind them.
She didn’t know what to do. There was nowhere left to go. George had been her oldest ally, and he was dead. Matt had been… well, finding Matt had helped her remember what it was like to want another person around. Now he was in the hands of a killer. He would probably soon be as dead as Pierce.
If he wasn’t already dead, he was probably being tortured right now with Harris trying to find out how much Chambers knew. And there was nothing she could do about it. She had no idea where Harris would be hiding. And she certainly couldn’t dial 911.
For years Matt had been an awkward annoyance with his constant efforts to woo her. Then he had matured into a distant, comfortable business colleague – one with whom she might swap stories and mutually beneficial information over drinks.
Then her whole life burned up. Then Matt gave Alyssa the one gift no one else in America was willing to give: a few simple hours in the company of another human being who trusted her. That had made Matt into something more than he had ever been before. She wasn’t sure yet what to call it.
She wasn’t used to this. It was a strange emotion, to want someone to be near, to want them to like her, to want them to pay attention to her. She’d built a whole life in which people were risks and assets, not…
Friends.
Wondering whether he was being tortured drove her crazy.
When she was worn out from imagining Harris and Matt, her thoughts went to memories of George Pierce. Pictures flashed before her eyes: his shocked face when she had dropped the watch onto his desk in her first-ever political theft; his bloody body lying on the street as his lips opened and closed, trying to get one last breath; the way he looked when he tried to say something to her before he died.
Gunter’s death had been unpleasant. George’s hit her much differently, though. They weren’t friends. Alyssa didn’t have friends – depending on what she was calling Matt. But George had been… well, he was Alyssa’s only relationship that lasted, besides her father and Matt.
Now he was gone. Gone when he had come to her hoping to be saved. She couldn’t shake his words – very nearly his last words: "You’ve got to help me, Alyssa!"
Even knowing that it was wrong, she kept holding that against herself. He came to me begging for help, and I let him get killed.
It wasn’t rational. She had tried to take the lead, but the thought wouldn’t go away.
The tears started again. She used to be mortified about crying. At the moment, though, she was past caring about anything. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to avoid prison.
She tried to motivate herself with memories of her father’s stern code: Do anything to win. You’re a Chambers. But they fell flat. Lance Reeder paid Harris to kill Rich West; he was the kind of person who’d do anything to win. Maybe it was Matt’s influence, but she no longer wanted to be that kind of person.
She had never felt this lost, never felt this alone, never felt this hurt. She hadn’t known pain like this since her mother died.
In the end, that was the memory that helped her pull herself together.
It was only a 12-year-old girl’s recollection, but it was still clear as day to her: scuttling down the antiseptic-scented hallway, trying to keep up with the medical professionals wheeling the gurney to emergency surgery. In the memory, her mother used every last ounce of strength she could find – the last of her strength, it turned out – to lift her head and look at her daughter, and say two words.
"Be strong."
The gurney went through two swinging doors and an experienced, kindly old nurse stopped her with a hug, and Alyssa’s childhood ended early. But it ended with those two words being her most formative memory.
"Be strong."
She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and set her jaw.
Just in time. She hear
d the sound of a vehicle pulling up outside her closet, and a door opening.
Alyssa froze. She held her breath.
The door to the closet opened.
She tried to will her heart to beat more quietly.
There were no brisk whispered commands that might be expected of a team of federal agents. There was none of the rustling of clothing that might indicate professional operators giving each other hand signals. By the sound of the footsteps, it might be just one man.
Harris?
Alyssa had wedged herself into a very small space. There was really no room to move at all, but she clenched her fists, gritted her teeth, and prepared to fight.
"Chambers? Are you in here?"
It was a harsh whisper, as if the speaker were afraid of being heard beyond the janitorial closet.
The voice didn’t sound like Fred Harris, but it was vaguely familiar.
"Are you here Chambers? I’m here to help. It’s Mike Vincent."