Jake put his hands on hips. He had to agree.
Robert sighed.
“I wanted to warn you. I talked to Matt Rodman two days ago,” he started.
“The Speaker of the House, right?” Hallie said.
“Yes. We were friends growing up. His family and Nancy’s were close and spent summers in the Keys and winters skiing in Colorado. Anyway, we have been cooperating with a clandestine group of investors and businessmen for decades. Ever since college, really. They supported me in my law firm, got me a partnership, pulled strings and then bankrolled my first campaign for North Carolina State representative in my district. They were always in the background, there was very little correspondence. Mostly, it was invitations to events where words were whispered, handshakes exchanged, maybe a cigar or a bit of whiskey.” His eyes searched the room.
“What name would you give these people?” Jake asked. He was riveted to the story.
“Name? Several times they called themselves a “collective” or a “consortium,” but in the beginning, they called themselves something else,” He bowed his head in thought, his hand to his chin. “Viv-something. It has been years, but I think it was Latin. ViVeri maybe. Yeah, that’s it. They had these tie tacks in the seventies with interlocking Vs.”
“Five Vs?” Hallie asked.
“Yeah. How did you know? Have you heard of them?”
She shook her head.
“No. It’s from a movie, V is for Vendetta. It is from a Latin phrase, vi veri veniversum vivus vici,” she explained.
Robert looked at Jake with a sense of awe and incredulity.
“What kind of wife do you have here, pard?” he said appreciatively.
“One that hopefully can tell us what that means. The suspense is killing me.”
She shook her head.
“It means, ‘By the power of truth, I, while living, conquered the universe.’ It is a reference that can be interpreted in a number of ways, really. It is all in how one defines truth, I suppose.”
“So, I gather these Viveri guys didn’t just give you some money, clap you on the back and give you tickets to the opera. Am I right?” Jake said to the senator.
“No. They would from time to time send ideas for new bills, introduce me to powerful lobbyists. Once in a while they would tell me which way the wind was blowing, so to speak. Investments, vote counts for bills, and so forth. All under the table and hush-hush. I am ashamed to say I never bucked the system until recently. I was too dependent on it.”
“So what has changed?” Hallie said. It was almost imperceptible, but Jake could tell that Hallie was disappointed in their new friend. She was fishing for a way for the senator to redeem himself in her eyes.
He bowed his head.
“People are going to die. Mostly guys like me. I wasn’t the only one, but lately, several of my friends in Congress and in some of the state posts—governors and state senators throughout the south—have been voting against measures that this consortium have been trying to get us to put into play. It is a bunch of pork belly spending and most of it is wrapped up in other bills so tightly it almost pinches some bills right off the floor before they are even put to committee. Anyway, I guess collectively, we have been bad boys.” He shrugged.
Jake shook his head.
“Politics give me a headache. No offense, senator, but help me out here. What are you saying? The only thing I heard that I can understand is people are going to die.”
“I don’t blame you, son. I guess we have worn out our usefulness. It started last year when some of the ‘old guard,’ so to speak, began losing their posts to challengers. These were veteran incumbent posts. Then, there was the moral ineptitude of powerful men and women coming to the surface. You put a man in a position of power for too long, there is bound to be some sort of skeletons coming out of the closet.” He paused, smirking with irony. “I guess I am susceptible too. Don’t look at me like that. I know. Anyway, we are falling one by one. If we don’t play ball with them, then we lose our power.”
“How is this related to people dying? I still don’t understand.” Jake said. He tried to keep the frustration from his voice.
“Let the man tell his story, Jake. We’re not up north,” Hallie chastised him. “We take our time down here in the south to properly tell a good yarn. Go on, Senator.”
“I have let my country down. I have let Nancy down. She is so tired. She has propped me up during those times when I thought I would break down and bring my political career toppling around my feet because of my guilt. One of their people contacted me six months ago. He met me for a brunch of red velvet pancakes at the Terrace Café in Charlotte. Big guy. I won’t go into detail right now. Let me just say that the ideas this guy was outlining were scandalous. He expects the core of us that have been bankrolled by the consortium, this collection of the most powerful people in the world, to ‘cut the head off the snake,’ as he put it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, to hear it from him, it all sounded so logical but the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. I knew I had to do something, but I didn’t. The attempt on the President’s life was real. It was planned for next year, so I did not understand why you were in Atlanta at first.”
“You knew about it?”
“Technically, no, I did not know Gabriel was going to be targeted so soon. I thought I had time. I thought they were going to do it while I was campaigning against him for the Democratic seat.”
“So, they were going to assassinate the President to put you in?”
“Nothing was guaranteed. It was all just speculation. I was asked if I was ready to go to bat. It was my turn, he said. I was just so greedy. I knew Nancy was sick again. I just thought...I just wanted her to have that moment, you know. She has worked so hard, been through so much...”
Jake looked at Hallie. Her eyes were sad. He knew what she was thinking.
“Senator, is that all?”
He sniffled and wiped his nose with a white handkerchief from the front pocket of his chinos.
“No. Of course not. Like I said, I talked to the Speaker of the House. He is in even deeper than I am. I am just another pawn after all. They knew about Nancy. They were going to expose the news of her condition after the assassination. It would destroy voter confidence in me. The Republicans would win. They have money on both sides of the aisle. Whoever plays the nicest is the one that gets the treat, I suppose. That is why there is bipartisanship to begin with, we both serve the same entity. We both owe the same debt. The whole system is corrupt. Not just here. All over the globe.” He sniffed and gathered himself. Jake and Hallie knew not to interrupt.
He started again. Slower now.
“I called someone I know in the security community in France. Someone like you but freelance. He knew these guys. He had mentioned it to me one time when Nancy and I went to Switzerland with him and his wife. He told me, with fear and whispers, that they had their hands in every European market, every major employer. Not just that. Military Jake. Armies. Material. Missiles. Ships. Tanks. They have it all.”
“You are talking about a global coup? How can they possibly expect to pull something like that off?” Hallie said, incredulous.
“They are few in number, but they have power, Hallie.”
“What does this have to do with us, Senator?” Jake asked.
Senator Swane could not look him in the eye. He stared down at his shoes, his shoulders slumped in defeat and grief, in guilt and exhaustion.
“You have to do what I cannot. You have to stop them.”
“Why me?”
“If you don’t they will use you.”
“Use me for what?”
“Jake, they want you to assassinate your father.”
Chapter 5
No Sunshine When She’s Gone
They drove in silence for almost a half hour before he said what was on his mind.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
&
nbsp; Hallie did not move. She stared straight ahead.
“I thought you knew,” she said. Her voice sounded hollow.
Jake shook his head. He was not angry with her, he just did not understand how something as important as Oh, by the way, you almost killed your dad, the President, could get left out of the conversation.
“I knew nothing. I had my memory wiped, remember?”
“President Vine is your biological father. He was at our wedding. When your memory returned, I assumed you had made the connection. I figured it was why it was so hard for you to adjust. I gave you extra time and extra space because I felt you might be upset because, you know, he is your dad,” Hallie explained. She sounded defeated.
“I was upset because I didn’t know who I was,” he said. He did his best to keep the anger from his voice. He just drove the Suburban through the humid North Carolina afternoon, the sun setting to his left. He was grateful for the window tint. His arm and the left side of his face was hot enough.
“I know you don’t share a last name, I understand that it could throw you off. I just can’t understand how you haven’t recalled your father? He’s the reason we were able to both work for the Service. He’s the real reason you joined Galbraith in the first place.”
“I just didn’t remember. I still don’t. I don’t remember Mom, either. I have tried, believe me. I don’t know if they are buried deeper in my memory or if they have been removed completely. When the senator first mentioned that this consortium wants me to be the one to assassinate him, it didn’t connect. I didn’t believe it until he showed me that picture from his campaign for governor when I was fourteen.”
“We have pictures of your mother and father all over the house.”
Jake gritted his teeth. Sometimes the truth was awful.
“The house is foreign to me. It is like it belongs to someone else. I feel like I am living someone else’s life. If most of my memories hadn’t returned, I would tell all of you that you were nuts. I didn’t live this life. I didn’t live in this house. My father isn’t the President of the United States.”
She turned and looked at him then. Her eyes were rimmed with tears. He knew he had hurt her. He couldn’t retract it now. The damage had been dealt.
“That’s just the thing, Jake. All those things are true. You did live this life. With me. In that house. You were always distant from your parents, but it seemed natural considering your job and their divorce. You never bonded with his second wife and never forgave him for your mother’s death. They transferred you out of Washington the day your father began his campaign for President. Surely you remember all of that.”
He shook his head. The pressure behind his eyes made him want to cry.
“How could they make me kill my own father? Who are these people that can control me this way?”
Hallie touched his cheek with hands that were cool. Her caress made him close his eyes for just a second and blink away tears. His frustration and turmoil raged in his chest. He needed her touch to ground him. He glanced at her, his vision blurred by the tears.
“These people cannot beat you, Jake. Only you can.”
He kissed her fingers and tried to keep the SUV between the ditches.
“Don’t give me false hope,” he said.
She leaned back, her hand patting his leg.
“Not false hope, honey. A promise. I won’t allow them to control you anymore.”
“I am not the only one, though, am I?”
Hallie was silent.
“The senator said that they had operatives just like me all over the globe. The strike will be in a great unstoppable wave. Sons and daughters, trusted servants and friends. How did they do this? Who are these people?”
“We stop them. That is the only thing we can do. It starts with us. We can control what happens to you,” Hallie said. Her voice was distant.
Jake looked at her there in the seat beside him, so vulnerable and yet so strong. Her jaw was working. Jake felt he knew that look: she was thinking of what she wanted to say next.
He looked away as she glanced over at him. He felt a little guilty, like he had caught her inner thoughts.
“Jake. Look at me.”
He did. Dread and curiosity mingled in a knot at the base of his throat. Her mouth was forced into something between a grin and a grimace. Tears were streaming down her face, falling onto the lapel of her jacket.
“Hold out your hand,” she commanded.
He glanced back at the road ahead.
“Shouldn’t I pull over?”
“Just give me your hand,” she said, her voice choked. Her breathing coming from deep.
“Alright.”
Before he felt the small bundle she placed in the palm of his hand, he knew. He could see the neatly clipped lawn, the shoes and pant legs of the people around him. He could see the eyes full of fear. He could see, vividly, the woman on the grass, curled in a fetal position, a smile playing at her lips.
He felt the thin chain slip through his fingertips. He looked down and saw the silver locket sitting in his hand and more memories threatened to push into his consciousness. He pushed back long enough to look at Hallie.
“Why?”
“Because I forgive you, Jake. I have already forgiven you.”
“Forgive me. For what? Being a horrible husband? For being a terrible person?”
“I don’t need to forgive you for those things because they aren’t real.”
He shook his head and glanced back ahead, searching mentally for life line his wife was throwing to him. A life line that was costing her.
“Then what is it? What do you forgive me for?”
Her mouth screwed up into a frown and he could see her hand shaking.
“For forgetting your family. For forgetting me. When I kissed you in the elevator, it was like...I just almost could not bear it,” she said between sobs. Her eyes were moist and she seemed on the verge of a good cry.
“Well, I am glad you didn’t shoot me then,” he said, trying to add some levity. He was encouraged when she laughed. A courtesy laugh, but it sounded good.
“You are lucky you survived. But, going forward, I need to know that we are a family. We are a team.”
He felt his shoulders bunch. His line was set in thin line. He could feel his teeth clenched. He was ashamed that she had to question that. It was his fault. His failure.
“Of course we are, Hallie. I seem to be hard on those I care about. Even people I barely know. Like Camilla,” Jake said, barely containing the volatile mixture of anger, shame, and frustration.
“I forgive you for that. I know that you did not actually kill Camilla, Jake. Someone else pulled the trigger. You just set the trap. I suspect it was Lars or perhaps Violet.”
“If I didn’t kill her, why would you need to forgive me?”
“She was my friend, Jake. I miss her. I asked her to protect you. She pulled some strings and got on your security detail.”
“Wait. I was being followed?”
“Of course you were. Whenever we could. Sometimes you just disappeared. Camilla was sent to protect you and re-establish a connection with your programming. I did not know that at the time. I also did not know that it was Camilla that needed protected. It was all a trap for her. If you had just responded on New Year’s, none of that would have happened.”
“She gave me this locket.”
“Yes.”
“Is it special?”
“Yes.”
“It was my mother’s, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Jake.”
“It was supposed to help me remember.”
“It did. But, your programming was deep. It was probably like a computer being asked to look for a deleted file. You were only kicking back error messages. It cost Camilla her life.”
“I am sorry, Hallie,” he said. Jake brushed her hair back from her ear and traced a tear down her cheek.
She put her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes.
&nb
sp; “I want you to remember it all Jake. I am surprised Kyle didn’t tell you. How does that not come up in conversation? Am I selfish?”
“No. You aren’t. We both want the same thing. Maybe somewhere in those memories I am gaining lies an answer to how to protect my father, too.”
She shook her head.
“We can’t go near him now. It is too dangerous. We need to think about us. About our family, Jake.”
Jake considered this as he drove. The airport was visible on the horizon, its lights blinking vaguely in the moist night air. The hum of the tires on the road was soothing. His nerves needed soothing. He wanted to do something. He wanted to right the wrongs, he wanted to correct his mistakes. He wanted to pay back what had been stolen from him.
“You’re right. Hallie, go back and get Sarah safe. I will head to the house and get some things, talk to Kyle, and tell him we are stepping down.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“You want to leave the Agency? They are protecting us. They are the only way we can bankroll this escape.”
He shook his head.
“I have money, Hallie. Don’t worry.”
“You are going back to Galbraith, aren’t you?”
“They are going to get me, anyway. I want you safe. And I want to smoke out some rats in the process.”
“You don’t trust Kyle?”
He looked at her.
“I don’t trust anyone but you, Hallie.”
She reached across the console, her body colliding with his. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and wept. He drove like that for several minutes, the lights of the airport getting closer, Hallie sobbing into his jacket, her strong arms squeezing him.
Jake had made up his mind before he had left the Senator’s. The senator was more than willing to accommodate Jake after all he had been through. Besides, Robert and Nancy had a soft spot in their hearts for Hallie. Agreeing to see her safe had been an easy proposition.
Jake and Hallie entered the airport and parked on the runway near a private jet. A man with a captain’s insignia descended the stairs from the Gulf Stream. He did not smile, but opened the door and took Hallie by the hand.
3 Thank God it's Monday Page 4
