THE NEXT DAY I’m absently searching for general information on Bill Hutchison in this dingy ass apartment they’ve got me staying at. On the way here yesterday, I had convinced Bruce and Rodney—the other guy watching me—I needed a computer to research my target. They’re dumber than shit, so it didn’t take a whole lot of effort on my part to get my way. I sent a quick, coded message to Turner, and made it look like I was actually working on a plan to assassinate Hutchison.
Bill Hutchison is the complete opposite of Cal. Where Cal comes from a lot of money, Hutchison is a self-made man. He’s relatable and likable, something Cal has always struggled with. As I sit here, my mind replays all of the events from yesterday to try to piece together any extra clues. Cal said I’d be perfect for the job given my skill set in the military. I can only assume he’s referring to my sniper qualification I received while serving. While I’m doing some digging, I come across a video of Cal at his most recent campaign stop from this morning. I click on it and once it starts, my heart drops to the pit of my stomach.
It’s not what Cal is saying that causes this reaction; I couldn’t give two fucks about him. It’s my beautiful girl sitting off to the side who makes me feel like I’m breaking in a million pieces. She’s always put up this fake front in the public eye, and that used to piss me off. But I’d much rather see that than what I’m staring at now. She’s looking straight ahead with a blank look on her face. There’s no smile, no clapping.
No life.
Her face is void of any emotion and it’s killing me. God, what is he doing to you? Throughout her obvious misery, she still had a light, an inner fight about her. Now it’s gone.
I jot down a few of the campaign stops Hutchison is planning to make in the next week or so and decide this is a good place to start. The sooner things get started, the sooner I can end all of this and get to Elizabeth. Judging from this video, she needs to get the hell away from Cal quickly before she becomes this empty shell forever.
“Tell the boss to get his jet ready,” I say. “We need to go to Iowa next week.”
“Prepare for landing,” the pilot says over the intercom. I was hoping we’d be on Cal’s private jet to connect him to all of this, but no such luck. I tried to remember the wing number as we were boarding to pass it on to my boss so he can find out who owns this. Maybe that’ll be our link to Cal.
The plane touches down on a runway in Iowa and finally comes to a stop. Once we unload, I’m immediately ushered into a car that will take us to the location I specified last week.
Anything can happen on the job, and you try to expect the unexpected. From the very beginning I’ve been thrown into situations I didn’t plan for. It all started when I looked into big green eyes. One look at Elizabeth and I knew I was fucked. There was no way I was going to be able to resist her. She caught my attention with her gorgeous looks and quiet intelligence, but I was a gonner when I found out what a selfless person she was. Once she told me about her mom, I fell for her, and I fell hard. I knew she wouldn’t leave Cal to be with me, and I wasn’t going to ask her to make that decision. Not when her mother’s health was on the line. When she said she was leaving him, I’ve never felt so damn happy in my whole life. That was short lived. The thought of what could have been eats at me, and I constantly think about what we would be doing right now if we were together instead of in this fucked up situation. A situation where she doesn’t even know I’m alive.
My motivation has always been the job. In the military my sole focus was bringing down terrorists. When I got out and joined the FBI, it was the same. Until I met Elizabeth. Now, she’s what’s most important, and I’ll do anything and everything to get her out of there.
We stop a few blocks away from where the event is being held. It’s not starting for another three hours, but I wanted to see what kind of holes are in the security to see how easy it would be to set up in advance. At least that’s what I told the guys. When I went over my plans for this trip, I told them it was a bad idea to send Rodney with me, but they wouldn’t listen, insisting I needed one of them with me so I “didn’t do anything stupid.” What they don’t know is I’m setting them up. I need them off my ass so I can move around with a little freedom.
“Just follow my lead,” I tell him after explaining our goal is to run to the stage and take out one of the security guards on the front corner. He’s hesitant at first, and he should be. This is the stupidest idea ever. But he finally agrees when I offer to leave him behind.
“Don’t forget, you try to pull anything, and you can say good-bye to your girl, understand?” Rodney asks right before we take off. Why he feels the need to say this every time is beyond me. I know what’s at stake here. It’s all I can think about. I don’t need a daily reminder.
I hunch down, with Rodney mimicking my movements. “You sure about this?” he asks nervously. Who would’ve thought a big, dumb thug like him would be scared of this shit.
“You wanna stay here?” I ask again. He shakes his head no. “Okay, on my go.” I wait for the guard to turn his head, and when he does, I motion for us to move. We both start running across the field, but before we can make it fifty feet, I hear them shouting for us to stop.
“Freeze and put your hands up!” The guard on the front corner draws his weapon and that’s my cue to turn my ass around and get the hell out of there.
“Let’s go!” I say, but I know Rodney won’t be able to keep up. Oh well, it’s all for yourselves in this game. I sprint as fast as I can back the way we came. What’s that saying about a bear attack? You don’t have to be fast, you just have to be faster than your friend? Well, the same concept applies here. I don’t look back until I’m further in the tree line, but when I do, I see Rodney on the ground with three guys on him handcuffing him. One of the guys is still coming toward me, so I keep moving to avoid being arrested. I’m hoping this incident is just what I need to get Cal to back off my nuts a bit so I can talk to my boss and check in on Elizabeth. I can’t do any of that when I have a tail twenty-four-seven. So I’m going to pin this botched mission on Rodney’s fat ass to prove having someone follow me is an issue.
About four blocks up I come to a convenience store. I walk in and immediately go to the store clerk. “Do you guys sell disposable cell phones?”
“No, I’m sorry,” the girl replies. Fuck.
“Do you have a phone I can use then?”
“Sure.” She hands me a cordless phone. I know I don’t have long and will need to get back to the car before they find out Rodney was arrested.
“Turner,” he answers gruffly.
“Sir, this is Matthews,” I say into the receiver. Whenever I’m in the field, I always use my undercover name, even when talking to my boss and colleagues. You never know who’s listening. “I don’t have long, but I wanted to give you an update.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’m being held by two guys in an abandoned building in Manassas.” I give him the address of my exact location. “Don’t send a patrol unit. I don’t want to tip anyone off.” He agrees. “Cal wants me to assassinate Bill Hutchison so he can win the election. I’m in Iowa right now. We flew in on a private jet. Tail number November, 6–2-4, Romeo, Sally. You got that, sir?”
“Yeah, what else you got?”
“The two guys he has on me are Rodney and Bruce. I don’t know last names, no visible tattoos or other distinct markings to give away affiliations. Rodney just got arrested, so you might want to look for a police report. I’m sure Cal will use his connections to get him out, so be quick.”
“Okay, anything else?”
“Not right now.”
“Alright. Be careful and check back in when you can.” He hangs up and I hand the phone back to the clerk who gives me a weird look before leaving and running back toward the car.
“Where the hell is Rodney?” Bruce asks, placing his hand on his gun that’s holstered at his hip. I put my hands up.
“He got arrested.”
“What do you mean he got arrested?”
“We were trying to get to the stage and his fat ass slowed us down. I just barely got away. I told you guys he would be in the way, and because no one wanted to listen to me, the whole mission has been put in jeopardy.”
We get in the car and drive off. On our way back to the airport, Bruce calls “the boss” to tell him the bad news. “He wants to talk to you,” he says, holding the phone out to me.
“Looks like you need a reminder of what happens when you fuck up,” he says. I don’t know who’s on the other line, but it’s not Cal.
“I told everyone it would be too hard to get in and out with him trailing me. I can’t do the job and worry about covering him. If anything, your poor decisions led to his arrest and now this whole thing might be compromised. I hope your guy doesn’t talk or we’re all going down for this.”
He laughs. “You’ve got balls, kid, I’ll give you that. And I won’t be going down for shit. Don’t worry about Rodney, he won’t talk and I’ve got a guy up there at the precinct. So what’s next?”
“What’s next is you guys let me do this my way. You think you’re safe, but do you think cops care about guys like me who do the hit? No, they care about guys like you who order it. Take off the constant trail and let me do what I’m good at.”
There’s a long pause on the line and I’m worried I’ve pushed it too far. “Fine. You do this your way. But I swear, if you fuck up at all, they’ll be looking for your girlfriend in pieces. You understand?” I swallow hard at the thought of them harming her.
“Yeah.”
“Good. Get to it then.” He hangs up. I glance at the screen as I hand the phone back to Bruce, but the ID only says Boss Man.
“Looks like I don’t need babysitting anymore,” I say to him. We drive back to the airstrip, board the plane, and fly back to Virginia since today is a bust.
Well, not really, but they don’t know that.
“IS ANYONE WATCHING Elizabeth?” I ask Turner over the phone. Since Rodney’s arrest two weeks ago, I’ve been able to move around unescorted. It’s not much, but it gives me enough time to talk to Turner and report back to him.
“No, we had to pull everyone off when you went down.”
“Are you shitting me?” I say in a low, restrained voice. The last thing I need right now is to draw attention to myself, but this is unacceptable.
“Listen, it’s out of my ha—”
“No, this is bullshit and you know it. They’re going to kill her if shit hits the fan.” My free hand rakes through my hair in frustration.
He sighs over the line. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. I might be able to get a man to run surveillance outside the home when she’s not traveling with him. If anything is going to happen to her, it’s not going to be when they’re together.”
He’s got a point. Cal will be nowhere around with an iron-clad alibi. It’s not ideal and I’d rather have her watched all the time, but something is better than nothing. “Did you find out anything about the plane?”
“We’re still working on it. I think it’s registered under a fake name.”
“Okay. Well, I talked to the boss on the phone right after Rodney was arrested. I don’t know who he is, but it’s not Cal. He said he’s got people on the inside at the precinct who would get Rodney out.”
“Yeah,” he lets out a huff. “I figured there was some kind of connection. He was released an hour after he was brought in.”
“This goes way deeper than we ever thought, man. It’s not just simple corruption and taking illegal campaign funds anymore. Now we’re talking about infiltrating the police department, murder, and who knows what else.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. What a cluster fuck this is turning into.
“I have a feeling when we find out who the jet belongs to we’ll start connecting the pieces. Just keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll let you know if we have any updates on the jet the next time you call.”
“Okay, sir.” I hang up feeling slightly better about Elizabeth than I had before. Turner can be a hard-ass, but he’s always there when you need him. I know if he can make it happen, he will.
A week later, I’m sitting in that dirty-ass abandoned building doing “research.” Really, I’m searching for every video I can find on YouTube of Cal campaigning. In the last two weeks he’s made four appearances, and each one Elizabeth looks worse and worse. She’s lost a lot of weight. Her cheeks are sunken in and her once bright, beautiful face is now a pale, ashen color. Each time I see her sad expression, I feel like someone has punched me in the gut and stolen all the air from my lungs. Every part of me is screaming to race to her and take her away from here, but I know it won’t do anything to solve the bigger problem. Until Cal is completely out of the picture and in jail, she’d never be able to live a life without fear. He’d find her, I have no doubts about that.
Cal ends his speech and holds his arm out for Elizabeth to join him at the podium, except she doesn’t move. She sits in her chair and stares straight ahead. She’s not blinking, her face a vacant mask. Cal turns back to the crowd, waves, and smiles nervously before turning back toward Elizabeth. At that moment someone comes up on the stage and grabs her elbow, attempting to get her to stand up.
“Come on, stand up, sweetheart,” I whisper to the screen. After a little coercion, she finally gets up with the help of the staffer and walks off the stage. “God dammit.” My fingers can’t type fast enough as I search for articles on what happened. After a minute or two, I find a statement that was released by his press secretary.
After today’s event, Mrs. Fitzgerald was taken to the hospital and treated for exhaustion. At this time we ask that you respect Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald’s privacy and allow her to recuperate. We will update you as her condition changes. Thank you.
I slam the lid closed on the laptop and shove it across the table. I’ve got to get to her. I had planned to wait until all of this was over with Cal, now I’m thinking I don’t have the time.
A week later and I can’t get the video of Elizabeth out of my mind. It haunts me every day. In my gut I know something isn’t right. I used to get this weird feeling whenever we’d go out on a mission in Iraq or Afghanistan and I thought shit was going to hit the fan. It was like this small voice that would make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end telling me we were headed toward a fucked up situation. I’d joke with the guys and call it my Spidey Sense, but it was rarely wrong. And when it was right, there was nothing funny about the shit we had to deal with. I’m having one of those feelings now whenever I think about her.
Hutchison is campaigning near Cal’s home turf, which works out for me. It’ll give me a chance to sneak over and see Elizabeth. As much as it’s going to kill me, I can’t let her know I’m alive. If Cal senses anything is off with her, it might blow my whole cover. I just want to check in on her and see if she’s getting better. There haven’t been any other videos of her with Cal since she froze last week, and that bothers me.
I’m about to head out to scout the area around Hutchison’s appearance, or that’s what I’m telling Rodney and Bruce. These two guys are like dumb and dumber. I even convinced them to give me my wallet back, arguing that I might need money during an emergency. As long as I use the line, “If I get caught, we all go down,” they seem pretty compliant. Hell, I could probably convince them to let me go if I tried hard enough.
“How long are you going to be gone?” Bruce asks me as I’m heading toward the front door.
“I shouldn’t be more than a few hours.” I don’t wait for a response, grabbing the car keys off the table and walking out the door. I have to say I was a little surprised when I mentioned taking the car and wasn’t met with a lot of resistance. But I’m not a damn idiot either. I’ll bet the car is bugged with a tracking device. That’s why I’m going to park it near the intended location and take a cab back to Elizabeth’s house.
I have the taxi stop a few houses down from Elizabeth’s. From here,
I can’t see her house since there is so much space between each residence. After paying the cab driver, I get out and walk over to a car. Tyler, one of the guys assigned to watch her, sees me approach and motions for me to go around to the passenger side.
“Hey, Tyler,” I say once I’m in and the door is firmly shut.
“How’s it going, Matthews?” he asks, surprise in his voice. It’s obvious he wasn’t expecting me to show up. Turner would have my ass if he knew I was here.
“Not good. Where’s the video surveillance?” Looking around the car, I don’t see any equipment and I don’t see Elizabeth.
“There is none,” he responds casually. I have to work really hard to cool my temper.
“What the fuck do you mean there is none? I thought you were supposed to be watching her.” My fists clench at my sides and I can feel the vein pulsating in my forehead as my anger rises. How the hell are they supposed to get to her and save her if they can’t even see her?
“Turner said it wasn’t in the budget. He petitioned the department for it, but they shot him down saying she wasn’t the priority and all resources should be used to bring down Cal and whoever else he’s working with.” This isn’t Tyler’s fault, I know, but the way he says it so nonchalantly like it’s not a big deal makes me want to put my fist through his face.
“So what the hell are you doing out here then?” My hands tremble, needing to direct my pent-up frustration.
“I’m watching her as close as I can. I note if someone other than the neighbors drive by. So far everything is pretty quiet. I’ve only seen one car come by. Other than that, no one has been here, not even her husband.” My jaw clenches at that word.
Husband.
He’s not a husband; he’s her tormentor and holds her mentally captive while he advances his own agenda.
“Can I use your phone?” I ask him. He pulls it out of his coat pocket and hands it to me. After I dial the number, it rings a couple times before it’s answered.
Uncovered by Truth Page 2
