CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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."
"And then the story was gone. Destroyed. My only copy of the evidence was burned in a deliberate fire. And the person who did it was the center of my world – the woman I dreamed of marrying."
He said, "All I ever wanted was for you to love me, and you betrayed me."
Alyssa winced.
He held her hand.
"I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea how I was ever going to feel OK again. And like anyone would, I talked to my friends about it. I talked to my friend Mike Vincent."
Her eyes opened wider with surprise.
"He and I have been friends since he started secretly giving me information, trying to stop Lance Reeder from getting into the Senate."
At the involuntary widening of her eyes, he said, "Yes, Alyssa, I’ve figured out that was you too. I knew there had to be a reason Mike made me give my word not to tell you that my tip came from him. Mike and I have been friends for years but since he got married he’s really become a better friend."
"Mike and his wife helped me understand that my father missed the point entirely. My father’s religion was all about rules, and wrath, and stuff you can’t do. Mike and Kathy talked to me about love, and forgiveness, and grace."
"They helped me get to a place where I could understand what real forgiveness meant and live it out."
He took both of her hands in his. "I promise you Alyssa. I paid for this lesson the very hard way. It’s gone. Forgiven. White as snow. Everything you feel guilty about doing to me... believe me, you never have to feel guilty anymore."
Chambers felt herself about to cry. In the middle of enemy territory, with armed men patrolling only meters away, she was crying because there really was one person in this hostile world who still trusted her.
When she collected herself, Alyssa said, "Matt, I... I don't know what to say. I don't know what to think. I don't know how you can... What I know is I want to get you safe. We’ll wait here until the guards pass by again, then I’ll help you over the back wall into the woods around the grounds. Get away. I’m going to cause enough of a disturbance right inside the house that there won’t be anyone left to follow you."
"Get away and tell them the truth if I don’t come out."
"Of course not, Alyssa. I’m coming with you if you’re going into danger."
"Don’t be ridiculous. If we both die, no one will ever know the truth."
"If you die, I don’t care if anyone knows the truth."
She felt the breath go out of her. How could anyone respond? What could she possibly say? She had fifteen years of "shut up, I don’t want to hear it" experience. Do I want to change? How does it work?
"Matt… I’ve never had close relationships before. I never wanted them before. I don’t know what I want now. I learned to… to like having you around, these past days. But I don’t know how to talk about it or what to say. I just know that I want to keep you alive."
He smiled at her.
"If you like having me around let me come with you. You’ve got training that I don’t have for dealing with physical danger, but I don’t believe physical danger is the only thing you’ll face in that mansion tonight. I need to be with you."
It was hard. A dozen plans passed through her brain, ideas to trick him—or push him—into leaving. But that was more of the stuff she felt guilty for. That's how she’d treated Matt—and everyone else—before she had to confront it all.
<
br /> "I’m going in to talk to my father, Matt," she said.
He nodded. "I wondered. I caught a glimpse when they were tying me up and the hood was out of place. I’ve known I was in your old caretaker cottage for a while now, and that made me wonder. There’s obviously something political going on, and it’s pretty big time. That means H. Franklin is going to be somewhere near the center of it."
"Pretty much dead center."
They waited long enough for the guards to not only pass but also disappear around the side of the mansion. Then Chambers opened the cottage door to head out.
Fred Harris was standing about ten feet from the door, patiently waiting for them. A thin smile stretched across his lips, showing enough teeth to look menacing.
She didn’t give any sign of being startled. She slid into a guard stance, with her fists up in front of her, as if she had come out the door explicitly for the purpose of fighting him.
Harris stood calmly in the middle of the perfectly-trimmed grass. His hair was dark; his clothes were dark. His eyes and his smile were darker still. His hair might have been glued down, it was so sleek.
Seeing Alyssa take a fighting stance, Matt acted immediately. He threw himself forward, charging at Harris.
Alyssa shouted for him to stop, but it was too late. And it was never any threat to the other man. He simply stepped to the side, let Matt’s charge carry him right past, and dropped his fist like a hammer onto Matt’s lower back as he passed, targeted right at the kidney. With a cry, the reporter fell forward onto his face.
At once, Alyssa ran at Harris, trying to land a punch to his side while he was turned to follow through on Matt. But he was too fast. He blocked that and shot back two blows of his own, both aimed at her gut.
Alyssa dodged one, blocked the other, and landed a solid kick to Harris’s hip that sent him backward across the lawn, shuffling to regain his balance. Alyssa stepped around Matt’s supine form – she thought she could see his back rise and fall as he breathed – to follow Harris.
The pause as she came forward gave both a chance to prepare themselves more for the fight. Alyssa bent her knees a bit deeper, and planted her feet a little wider, settling into a more formal fighting stance. Harris sneered.
"Do you want to bow to each other and touch gloves too?"
"That would be a sign of mutual respect," she replied. "So, no."
Then she fired off a lightning kick right at his groin.
Harris dodged and punched at her gut. Alyssa blocked that and kicked again, a big, swooping high kick aimed at his temple. He dodged back and came up against a stone bench. He allowed himself to tumble deliberately backward over it, and then he rolled back onto his feet. He rose next to a sculpted stone flower pot and threw it straight at her head.
She ducked then, distracted by the sound of Matt groaning, glanced over her shoulder. She put her eyes back forward in time to block a punch aimed at her nose, then punched hard at Harris’s solar plexus. She hit him hard and was rewarded with the sound of all the air in his lungs being expelled.
Harris backed up. He was trying to recover while dodging the broken flower pot on the ground.
"Almost got you when you wanted to run over to your friend there," Harris taunted her. He sidestepped, feinting with his fists.
"You should never have brought him here," she replied. "There’s nothing he can tell you about my plans. You could never have tortured anything out of him."
He laughed. "Who cares what he can tell me? You think I cared? I needed Matt because we needed a lever on you."
Alyssa saw red at that. It was just one more reminder that her father was at work in this nightmare. Without a second thought, she faked another high kick. When Harris began to duck, she bent low and brought in an uppercut that hit him right below his eye.
Harris spat a curse at her and backpedaled but before she could drive home the second and third punches, he kicked her swiftly in the side. Alyssa felt the pain that told her he may have gotten one of her ribs.
They both stepped back slightly to recover from the blows. Both were panting, staring angrily at each other. Alyssa had enough breath to say, "You think you can make me lie down and take the fall like a good girl? Just hold Matt over my head?"
Harris grinned. "Once you find someone’s lever, everything else becomes easy. You, Reeder, whoever."
Chambers sneered back at him.
"Reeder’s love life probably made it easy to find blackmail material on him. You’re going to find it doesn’t work that way with me."
Harris barked out a laugh.
"Find blackmail material on Reeder? Find? The man’s going to be President of the United States. You think we’d leave that to chance? We create levers when we need them. And we needed Lance Reeder’s compliance more than most. That’s what your father pays me for. That’s what he’s been paying me for since you were a cute little girl running off mad because your daddy wouldn’t pay attention to you."
It happened in a flash. She saw again the moment when she had bragged to her mother about her first fight. She felt again the anger as her father sent her off. And she heard again the words.
"Sarah, this is my friend Lance."
Her head wanted to explode with the horror of it all. Her father had deliberately created the situation. He had deliberately put her poor alcoholic and neglected mother into a situation to be taken advantage of by a worthless scumbag of a man. He had done it all to create a lever over Reeder, so he could control him. And then he had sold out his own daughter to put that leveraged man into the White House.
A lightning-quick step carried her to Harris as, from behind her back, she produced Vincent’s revolver. Chambers rammed it up against Harris’s nose so hard it almost went up his nostril.
"Lance Reeder once said something about my mother’s death and a car crash. He was drunk. He seemed to realize right away that he shouldn’t have said it.
"Harris, you tell me the truth right now or you die."
The gun in his face changed everything.
"Look, it was never my idea! You get this; you’re in the business, too! It was a job! I did a job! He paid me to put those pills in her drink. I didn’t know how much she drank! I didn’t know what was going to happen!"
Holding the pistol in her right hand, Alyssa drove her left fist into Harris’s temple as hard as she could, and watched his head flop over unconscious.
"Fourth time’s the bloody charm, isn’t it?" She said, and rose to her feet.