by Josie Brown
The ledge of the neighboring roof gave them a bird’s eye view of six men in black, slipping silently up the staircase. The men had the door lock picked in no time. Apparently the lock to Digits’s front door was also a breeze to jimmy because they yanked him back out, just as he was climbing onto the fire escape.
The men then walked out with Digits tossed over the shoulders of the largest of them.
“Oh my God!” Abby whispered. “Shouldn’t we go back and help him?”
“If we do, they’ll kill us, too.” Ben slammed his fist against the wall. “Digits devoted his life to taking down the Ghost Squad. And Fred gave his life to see them brought to justice. We’ve got to get this intel to the right people.”
“And who is that?”
“Hell if I know.” Wearily, Ben slumped against the wall. “We’ve got to get out of here. Find a place to rest, if only for a few hours.”
They waited until all three cars drove off before climbing down off the roof.
It was Abby’s idea that they walk a few blocks to the National Theatre, where a show was letting out. “The crowd should be pretty thick. We can pick up a cab there, and take it to a hotel. We can sleep in short shifts. Maybe we’ll dream our way out of this.”
Ben nodded and stood up. With Fred gone and Digits in peril, he didn’t have the heart to tell Abby that their chances of survival were now slim and none.
Smith would not have remembered Digits if, through the fog of pain that comes with all four molars being extracted without an anesthetic, the kid hadn’t mentioned his father’s little vacation in Hotel Transylvania.
He had to give Digits credit. It had taken one of Smith’s spooks a full hour to knock his computer’s security code out of him.
Finally the operative working Digits over asked, “I think we’ve gotten everything we can out of him. Should I put him out of his misery?”
Smith thought for a moment, but then an idea that came to him. “Nah. We’re taking him with us to Vegas. That way, he’ll be front and center for the Big Bang. This kid has been stateside all these years, so why not make it look as if he was the mastermind of Operation Flamingo? You know, like father, like son.”
The operative shrugged.
Fucking numbnuts, thought Smith. He doesn’t get it. Our job is theater. The huddled masses will eat it up. They love a good backstory.
His only disappointment was that they had once again let Ben Brinker and the bimbo slip through their fingers. But considering the pain therapy being administered, Smith had to believe Digits when he claimed he had no idea where they’d gone after they left him.
That was fine—for now. If they were running scared, it meant only one thing:
Any moment now, they’d reach out and trust someone they felt was safe.
The fools, he marveled. That’s the point. You can’t trust anyone.
They’ll find that out soon enough.
Chapter 49
Ben would have preferred to take Abby to one of the nicer downtown hotels, but they couldn’t take the chance of running into someone they knew, or that the hotels were being watched by Talbot’s spies.
He opted instead for a shabby residential hotel just around the corner from the Greyhound bus depot on L and First, and paid for a full week in advance, cash. She waited outside while he paid cash for a room on the second floor and far in the back of the two-story cinderblock building.
The room was small. The furniture, made from a scarred wood-simulated melamine, was at least twenty years old. A thin blanket covered the lumpy double bed. An old television was bolted to a shelf high above the dresser.
“Home sweet home,” Ben muttered.
“Tell you what, you take the first sleep shift,” she insisted. “I’m too wound up to go to bed.”
He was too, but he appreciated her offer. “I’m going to jump in the shower. Keep the door bolted and the chain on. And keep the curtains drawn, too. I’ll make it quick.”
Her nod was weak. She was obviously more tired than she cared to admit.
As he suspected, the water coming out of the corroded showerhead was tepid at best. Still, it felt great running down his back. He lathered up the best he could with the thin sliver of soap. There was no toothbrush. He wondered how bad his breath smelled.
Not that they’d had an opportunity to get up close and personal. They were both in mourning—of the lives they never really had.
When he came out of the bathroom, he found Abby curled up on the bed.
She’d been reading Maddy’s diary, and she’d been crying.
He sat down beside her. “What’s wrong?”
“All these years, Maddy had been suffering from such heartache, and I never suspected it.” Abby tried to staunch her tears with the back of her hand. “That summer in New York, the man she was in love with—in the diary, she calls him ‘Mr. X’—he took her virginity.” She pointed to a passage, then flipped the page to another, and another, and another. “But Mr. X wasn’t the only one. She had many lovers. They were all much older, and most were married. It was almost as if she was playing a game to see if she could somehow make them love her! She wrote that she knows nothing will come of it, as if she knew she was being used. After a while, she writes as if she’s treating it like a blood sport.”
Yes, that was the Maddy he knew.
”Here, hand me that.” He motioned to the book.
Reluctantly she handed it over, as if she were afraid it might shatter his illusions of Maddy, too.
What she didn’t know was that he no longer had any illusions about the one he once loved.
As he flipped through it, he came across a reference to a picnic. It stopped him cold.
“What’s wrong?’ Abby asked.
He shrugged. “I think you were wrong about how and when Maddy and Andy met. Listen to this. ‘Firm picnic. Met THE ONE. Tall, dark, handsome. Clerks for Atherton. What is it with Southern men? So polite, but a great flirt. Worth breaking date with X to find out.”
Abby stared down at the bed. “I see. Is there anything else?”
Ben turned a few more pages, then stopped to read. “Ha…Yes, well, here she’s nicknamed him ‘my invisible man,’ and adds ‘but he hates it when I call him that. He doesn’t understand why we can’t be open about our relationship. I can’t tell him about X. Not yet, anyway.”
“I’d love to know who X was,” Abby murmured.
“Yeah, you and me both.” Ben leafed through the journal. “There are big gaps in the timeline. Sometimes she writes just a few words. ‘Bliss.’ Or ‘We were almost caught—by X!’” He turned a few more pages before stopping. “Abby, you need to read this.” He handed her the book.
X found out. Threw a fit, said it can’t go on. I told him it would, and there was no way he could stop us. “I already have,” he said. “He knows what will happen if he does.” I told him to fuck off.
Took me three weeks to realize he was right. Andy wouldn’t return my calls, so I went to the courthouse and cornered him. At first he refused to see me, but I told him I wouldn’t leave until he did. That’s when he told me it was all a big mistake.
Stupid, stupid me.
Abby turned the page. “All it says next is ‘Being sent home.’ The date of the entry matches the time in which she came back to Alquith Hall.”
Ben picked up the book again. “The dates are blank, until the very last entry.” He read it out loud:
That asshole, Paul! How could he have introduced Abby to Andy? And now, they’re engaged?
I want to kill myself.
No. I want to kill X.
Abby grabbed the book from Ben. “Do you think X is Paul?”
“My guess is no. Otherwise she wouldn’t have named Paul elsewhere in the journal.”
“I guess you’re right.” She didn’t sound convinced at all. “The date for this entry coincides with the date Andy and I announced our engagement. I told Maddy myself, over the phone. Now I know why she sounded so upset. I thought it was because she fe
lt she might be losing me.” She flipped a few more pages. “Want to hear the very last entry? It’s dated the day after Andy was sworn in as senator.” She picks up the journal with shaking hands. “She writes, ‘He called. The Hay-Adams for cocktails, then the honeymoon suite. Bliss! My IM has come back to me.’”
IM.
Invisible Man.
She tossed the journal against the wall so hard that the spine broke. Loosened by the force, a few of the old journal’s pages fluttered onto the floor.
Ben didn’t blame her for being upset. “You’re mad at Andy, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am! He should have told me about them. Had I known, I would have never…I would have never fallen in love with him, let alone married him.” She rose from the bed and paced the floor. “Why me? Why not Maddy? Was it for the money?”
“If money was his goal, both you and Maddy would have been equally desirable. That goes for the Vandergalen name and connections, too.” What had Paul called Andy? Oh yeah: the son of a pig farmer.
“But he only chose me because I was the ‘good twin’.” The surge of anger now spent, she slumped back down on the bed and closed her eyes. “Maddy went out of her way to tweak the nose of the old guard. It made Uncle Preston furious. Her behavior burned lots of bridges, including the one Andy would have crossed, to be with her.”
If he loved her, Andy would have been at her side despite what anyone thought, including Preston,” Ben insisted.
I know I would have, he thought.
“Ah, you see? You don’t know Andy any better than I did.” She shook her head slowly. Despite the sarcasm in her tone, her voice sounded miles away. “He did this for the power. I was a silly little fool to believe it was anything else. Well, it backfired. Instead, he ruined all our lives. So much for love.” Her voice drifted off.
He looked over at her. Despite her furrowed brow and her clenched fist, she seemed so helpless. He sat down beside her and patted her arm. The feel of her smooth skin stirred something in him. Not desire, as Maddy’s touch had been capable of doing, but something deeper.
Bliss.
Overwhelmed by his emotions, he lay down beside her. The blanket had gathered on the other side her. As he reached over to pull it toward him, too, she sighed.
He fell asleep holding her.
Ben woke up with a start. He looked at the clock on the bedstand. He’d only been asleep a few hours. In fact, it was six in the morning.
Good. Rafe Lennox would already be in his office. The new chairman of the Democratic Party was always the first one through the door at the party’s headquarters.
If anyone had a vested interest in breaking this story wide open, it was the opposition.
He grabbed one of Digits’s untraceable cell phones and dialed the number he’d known by heart since he’d worked with his first candidate.
“Long time no see, you traitor,” Rafe said, after hearing Ben’s voice on the other end of the line. His tone was light and certainly a bit condescending. “I guess this call means the prodigal son is now looking homeward.”
Ben didn’t have time to play games. “I’ve got something I think you’ll want to hear. In fact, I’d suggest Bradley Cridge, Reuben Edelson, and Edgar Concha should also be in on this. I can be in your office in one hour.”
“I presume you’ll make it worth our while?” Of course Rafe would ask that, considering that Ben had just asked that the Democratic Senate and House leaders, as well as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, be in attendance.
“You’ll have to trust me. The repercussions will affect the party for years to come.”
Ben’s tone was all it took to convince Rafe. “I’ll tell Security not to toss you out on your ass when you get here.”
Ben left a note for Abby: Stay here. Keep the door locked, and the Do Not Disturb sign on the knob. I’ll bring food. Promise.
He had to stop himself from also writing that should anything go wrong, he hoped she knew he had a tremendous respect and love for her.
If he came back, he’d tell her that in person.
Chapter 50
As Ben laid out his story from beginning to end, he watched the expressions on the faces of Democratic Party leaders change from annoyed, to intrigued, to incredulous—
And then to wary.
Ben looked from one man to the other. “Look, I know it sounds far-fetched. One GOP presidential candidate is blown up by another, who also happens to be the sitting Vice President. To top it off, this nut job wants to blow up Las Vegas and pin it on an oil-rich country. It’s certainly a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream.”
No one said a word.
“Here, in case you need a visual aid.” He pulled the printed files they’d taken from Digits’s place, and spread them out on the massive conference table.
Gingerly the men picked through them. Ben watched the shock and awe on their faces as they sifted through the schematic that laid out the who, what, where, when and how exactly as it would play out: the photos of the supposed terrorists; the purchase of a ranch where a private hell had been built for them; even where the human bombs would be standing when the clock struck midnight.
The men’s eyes shifted from one to another. Finally Rafe spoke. “Listen, Ben, as tempting as it would be to knock the GOP presidential frontrunner on his ass prior to the election—particularly with a scandal involving treason—how do we know this stuff is legit?”
Ben smacked the table. “You didn’t just land in DC. For Christ sake, for years the rumors have been circulating about Talbot’s Ghost Squad—”
“That’s just it,” Senator Cridge cut in. “It’s just a rumor. No one’s been able to verify it.”
Exasperated, Ben ran his hand through his hair. “Then send someone out to the ranch, to check it out. Find out who yanked those illegals off from immigration. Go to Digits’s apartment to—”
Congressman Edelson shrugged. “And we’re supposed to do this within the next sixty-eight hours?”
“Yes, Congressman! Party posturing aside, another part of your jobs is to prevent a terrorist attack on US soil! Thus far three men and one woman have given their lives, because they stood in the way of this scheme of Talbot’s. Gentlemen, the clock is ticking, so get your dicks out of your hands and do something.”
“That’s uncalled for, Mr. Brinker.” Senator Concha growled. “For that matter, how do we know this—this preposterous accusation isn’t just something you cooked up to fool us into making scurrilous accusations against the GOP frontrunner? If this crap is faked, we’ll look as if we’ve been duped by forgers. Or worse, we’ll be perceived as dirty tricksters ourselves.” His eyes narrowed as he leaned back. “Come clean. How much did Talbot pay you to slip this steaming bowl of shit our way, so he can watch us eat it in front of the press and the American public? Sucking on one GOP tit is no different from sucking on another, am I right?”
Ben couldn’t believe his ears. It suddenly dawned on him, Either they’re too stupid to see the importance of stopping Operation Flamingo, or they’re too scared.
“Look Ben, you’ve got to admit that all of this does sound somewhat…well, fantastical. Considering the shock you’ve gone through, what with losing Mansfield and all, maybe it’s time to take a breather, a little vacation.” The tone in Rafe’s voice was meant for a six-year-old who was refusing to eat his vegetables, certainly not respectful of someone who had won every race he’d ever managed for these sons of bitches.
Enough of this shit, Ben thought. I guess my next stop is the Post.
“Gentlemen, your collective lack of courage is disappointing, to say the least. Come New Year’s Eve, should Operation Flamingo take place, that footnote in history you all so desperately covet will finally be yours. Granted, you won’t like how it reads, but then again, cowards rarely do.”
Plucking the thumb drive out of Rafe’s hand, he scooped the pages off the table and headed out the door.
Smith had learned it was just as prudent to have friends in low places as to have them in the highest echelons of power.
There was no place lower than the bulk supply store used by the DNC, where it purchased everything it needed: pens, pads, staplers, and even American flag lapel pins for its Congressional members.
In fact, as pleased as the DNC’s purchasing assistant was with the enormous discount Smith had arranged for her, she was gaga over its exclusive design. Besides being four-color cloisonné and 14-carat gold rimmed, the pins contained tiny microphones, which were monitored by Smith’s ghosts.
No doubt about it, the Dems’ cheeky foibles kept his men in stitches. And every now and then, the mics dropped a solid gold sound bite right in Smith’s lap.
Like now, when Ben Brinker’s whereabouts were revealed, along with Senator Cridge’s obvious heart murmur.
But of course Brinker would have run to his old Dem buddies, Smith reasoned. And of course even if they’d found the accusation against Talbot believable, they’d deem it too hot to handle. Cridge, Edelson and Concha were only living up to their nicknames: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, and Speak No Evil.
The only balls in the Sheeple’s Party could be found between the legs of the Party’s Congressional Majority Leader—who just so happened to be a woman.
Smith sent two ghosts to pick up Brinker.
He also sent a text to Talbot suggesting that the GOP line up a strong candidate for Cridge’s seat, now that it seemed that the portly fellow wasn’t long for this world.
As he suspected, the Veep wrote back, asking if this untimely demise could take place, say, maybe a week prior to the absentee ballots going out.
Smith texted back: Miracles do happen.
Then he put it on his calendar.
He loved planning October surprises.
Norm Phister, proprietor of the Two Bits, the busiest shoeshine stand in the Capitol South Metro Station, was a guy who kept his head down. But that didn’t stop him from keeping his wits about him. “Ben, ol’ boy, you know you’re being followed, right?” he murmured as he wiped down Ben’s chocolate brown Bally derbies. “Man, these shoes have been through hell—”
