High Treason

by John Gilstrap

  Jonathan had known Venice Alexander (it’s pronounced Ven-EE-chay) since she was a little girl, the daughter of his family’s lead housekeeper. Separated in age by an improper number of years when he was in his teens, he’d enjoyed the crush she’d had on him, and he’d been moved by the emotion she’d shown on the day he moved out.

  While Jonathan was off saving the world in the United States Army, Venice had become something of a wizard—and, strictly speaking, a criminal—in things computer related. In the early days of Security Solutions, as soon as it became apparent that advanced computer skills were needed, Venice had been Jonathan’s first choice. Now, she pretty much ran the place, stimulating ones and zeroes to accomplish amazing feats.

  “I don’t understand why there’s been no ransom demand,” Venice said. She looked like she wanted to be typing something on her terminal, but was frustrated that she didn’t know what to type.

  “And no announcement to the media,” Boxers added. “If this was a bunch of terrorists, it seems to me that they’d be all over the airwaves announcing their prize.”

  “I agree on both counts,” Jonathan said. “And those two things together tell me that this isn’t your standard kidnapping.”

  “Did the White House people give you any theories at all?”

  Jonathan shook his head. “No. In fact, they seemed sort of intent on not going there.”

  Venice cocked her head.

  Jonathan elaborated. “Call it intuition. They want us to do our own legwork. I don’t know why.”

  “Didn’t you say they promised to share all the intel they gathered?”

  Boxers chuckled. “Promises from a politician. Now there’s something to take to the bank.”

  “Ven, I know you must have done some research since our phone conversation,” Jonathan said. “What have you come up with?”

  She beamed. Finally, a chance to play with the computer. “Let’s start with the troubling details,” she said. “In the aftermath of nine-eleven, you can’t scratch your ear or pick your nose in Washington without it being recorded by a camera. But guess what.”

  Jonathan was way ahead. “None of the cameras near the Wild Times Bar were working.”

  “Right. Now, that could be a coincidence—”

  “But I don’t believe in those,” Jonathan finished for her.

  “Exactly.”

  “I sense that you have a theory,” Jonathan said.

  Venice’s smile grew larger. “Look at the big screen.” Her fingers worked the keys. At the far end of the rectangular conference room, an enormous television screen came to life. There was no sound, but the images showed a list of news stories from various periodicals.

  “Last night’s outing to the Wild Times was far from Mrs. Darmond’s first extracurricular nighttime adventure.” She clicked through the headlines.

  First Lady Startles Crowd at Georgetown

  Nightclub

  Anna Darmond Steps Out

  Is The First Lady Really the First Liability?

  Arguments Rock White House Residence

  Rumors of Darmond Divorce Cast Pall

  Over State Dinner

  POTUS Said to Be Distracted By Marital

  Stress

  First Step Supports Mom in Divorce

  Rumors

  They went on and on.

  “This is all background,” Venice explained. “I don’t know how relevant it is, but Anna Darmond is no Pat Nixon. Apparently, the public eye is not something she relishes.”

  “What’s a ‘First Step’?” Boxers asked.

  “The stepson,” Venice explained. “The son born before she was married. Remember when he made a point of telling the press that he voted for the other candidate?” It was big news at the time, capturing the imagination of every television comic on the planet. “And these only scratch the surface. The Darmonds make the Clintons look like lifelong lovers.”

  “Among all the pundits, are there theories as to why there’s so much discord?” Jonathan asked.

  Venice gave him an annoying smirk. “You really are not dialed into pop culture at all, are you?”

  Jonathan smirked back. “We’ve met, right?”

  “She doesn’t like his politics. She says he’s wandered from the principles he held when he first ran for Congress. She’s been very vocal. She’s even done talk shows dissing her husband. How can you not know this?”

  “I stopped watching television when the morning news shows stopped doing news and started hawking movie stars. Newspapers are only half a step better.”

  “I say the prez off’d her to shut her up,” Boxers said.

  Jonathan shot him a look. “Are you serious?”

  Big Guy shrugged with one shoulder. “Half serious, anyway.”

  Venice made a puffing sound, her ultimate dismissal.

  The theory actually rang as not outrageous with Jonathan. If there was one lesson he’d learned over all those years serving as Uncle Sam’s muscle—and the additional years serving as an anonymous watchdog—it was that there was no limit to the degree to which power corrupts. If the president of the United States—particularly this president of the United States, whose own cabinet had already proven itself to be murderous—needed only to kill someone to gain reelection, Jonathan could imagine that being an easy decision.

  “Let’s table that theory for a while,” Jonathan said. “Any others?”

  “Maybe she just wanted to get away,” Venice offered. “Having everybody assuming that she was kidnapped is way better than having the country hate her for walking away from her husband.”

  “You know that would make her a murderer, right?” Jonathan asked. “People were killed in that shoot-out. If it turns out to be some kind of tantrum-inspired ruse, that would spell really bad things for her.”

  “You asked for other theories,” Venice said. “That was the first one that popped into my head.”

  Jonathan’s gaze narrowed. “You’ve got some back-pocket research.”

  Venice smiled. “I confess that I accessed some files that Wolverine might not want to know I know about.”

  Time after time, Venice proved herself to be the mistress of electrons. As an analog guy trapped in a digital world, Jonathan had no idea how she worked the magic she did, but he’d come to think of her abilities as a force of nature.

  “Anna Nazarov emigrated to the United States from Russia in 1986, the year before her future—and much older—second husband first ran for Congress. She had her only child, Nicholas, eighteen months later, courtesy of Pavel Mishin, an electrician whom she never married.”

  “How old was she when she arrived?” Jonathan asked.

  “Sixteen, and not by much.”

  “Nothing wrong with her youthful libido,” Boxers said.

  “It’s that clean American water,” Jonathan said.

  “Can we grow up, please?” Venice chided. “Those years marked the last desperate breaths of the Soviet Union. Her baby was a natural-born citizen, and her ticket to stay in the US of A. There’s not a lot else on the record until she met Tony Darmond on a blind date in 2002. Apparently, it was a whirlwind romance, and yada, yada, yada, she’s FLOTUS.”

  Jonathan recognized the acronym for First Lady of the United States. Something in the way Venice said the yada, yada, yada rang a warning bell. “You’ve got a suspicion,” he said.

  “Not a suspicion, really. Okay, yes, a suspicion. It was hard to come to the United States back in the eighties. You had to be somebody over there, but when I search her family name, I don’t really get much. She held menial jobs, but never really made an impact anywhere. Here’s a woman who sleeps with the most powerful man in the world, and all we’ve got on a major chunk of her life is generalities. That makes me suspicious.”

  “Be less mysterious,” Jonathan said. “Say what’s on your mind.”

  “Really, that’s it. I don’t have a larger theory. It just seems incongruous to me that the First Lady would go so . . . unexamined
.”

  “Well, her husband does belong to the news media’s favorite political party,” Boxers said. In the Big Guy’s mind, being a member of the media put you very close to being an enemy of the state.

  “But what about the bloggers?” Venice pressed. “And the networks of the opposition? Nobody’s given this chick a hard look.”

  Jonathan grinned. “But I sense that someone’s about to.”

  “I’ve tried,” Venice said. “I mean, I’ve really tried. She sort of disappears.” She drilled Jonathan with her eyes. “Remind you of anyone you know?”

  Because of his covert work, Jonathan and Boxers had both disappeared off the grid a long time ago. Jonathan laughed. “What, you think she was an operator?”

  “I don’t know what I think. I really mean that. But everybody leaves a footprint. Emigrés leave a big footprint. Mrs. Darmond, not so much. Just seems odd to me. I don’t know if she’s a Special Forces operator or part of witness protection, but it seems very, very weird to me.”

  Jonathan thought about that. These were the days of the twenty-four-hour news cycle. CNN reported on zits that appeared on celebrities’ noses. First Ladies should have complete pasts. “Are you telling me that she’s invisible for those years between having her kid and marrying the future president?”

  “Essentially, yes. I can’t even find a driver’s license application.”

  “How about tax returns?” Boxers asked.

  “Yes. There’s a tax return for every year. Not surprisingly, I suppose, they show a geometric growth in charitable contributions after she met Darmond.”

  “Feeding the poor through pure ambition,” Boxers said. “A noble and long-standing American tradition.”

  Jonathan smiled. No one did cynicism better than Big Guy.

  Venice continued, “I even looked for good works. Maybe she worked for a soup kitchen or a homeless shelter. There’s nothing.”

  Jonathan weighed the meaning in his mind, forcing himself to assume the worst, if only because years of experience had shown him that the worst was the norm. When people disappeared from view, it was either by their own choice, or by the choice of others. In Jonathan’s case, he was a cipher in official records because of the good—and occasionally bad—works he’d performed in service to Uncle Sam. Others disappeared because of testimony they’d provided for the US attorney, and still others—think the Unabomber—disappeared because they wanted to be anonymous. Nobody—nobody—disappeared accidentally.

  “Plus, there’s one other big thing that bothers me. The first three digits of her Social Security number are one two eight. That’s a New York series.”

  Jonathan leaned closer. “And?”

  “There’s no record of Mrs. Darmond ever living in New York. How would she get a Social from an area where she never lived?”

  Jonathan smiled. “You know what?” He reached into his pocket. “This is worth a phone call.” He pressed the speed-dial number for Wolverine.

  She answered on the second ring. “Scorpion.”

  “We’ve been doing some research here,” Jonathan said. “Is it possible that you’ve been holding out on us?”

  “I need more than that.”

  It took all of thirty seconds to lay out his concerns. “Has Mrs. Darmond been disappeared for a reason?” he concluded.

  Irene said, “This is not a conversation for the telephone.”

  Jonathan felt excitement stir in his gut. “Well, Wolfie, I have it on good authority that time is of the essence. It’s your call.”

  Hesitation. “Is it fair to assume that Mother Hen has found a way to stymie the National Security Agency yet again?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Mother Hen had long been Venice’s radio handle, but Jonathan wasn’t about to confirm that.

  “One day, you know we’re all going to share a jail cell, right?”

  “Not me,” Jonathan said. “I have immunity. Don’t tie my hands, Irene. You’ve asked me to find the First Lady. If you withdraw the request, I’ll sleep fine. But if you want me to do my job, please don’t get in the way.”

  Another hesitation. Much longer this time. “Bravo Four Three,” she said. “In two.”

  Jonathan checked his watch. It was well past rush hour, but it would still be tight to get downtown to Saint Matthew’s Cathedral in two hours. Then again, he was carrying a badge now—the absolute privilege to drive at killer speeds with impunity. “Okay,” he said, but Irene had already hung up.

  “Come on, Big Guy. We’re going to church.”

  David forced himself to suppress a gasp when Becky Beckeman answered the door of her Alexandria Apartment. She wore skinny jeans and some kind of a gauzy peasant shirt that somehow emphasized her nipples in high relief. She’d clearly tied her longish dark blond hair up in a hurry, creating a flyaway disheveled look that he’d never seen before. Her normally painted face was free of makeup, and in a weird way, the plainness of it looked better than the mask she wore at work.

  “David!” she exclaimed. “My goodness, are you okay?”

  “Can I come in?”

  She stepped aside, clearing a path. “Yes, yes, of course. Please, let me take your coat.”

  As he shrugged out of his North Face jacket, he took in the details of her apartment. Lots of yellow and lots of cat pictures. And daisies. Maybe they were sunflowers. Only the pictures, none of the living variety of either flora or fauna. Typical, he was sure, of twentysomethings living in the residential purgatory that Eastern Towers was, her chief designer appeared to be the Salvation Army thrift store, accessorized by the occasional slipcover. In yellow, of course.

  “You sounded so concerned on the phone,” she said. “Is everything all right?”

  Cue the pivotal moment. What was the appropriate amount to share when you suspected that representatives of the United States government, augmented by the Metropolitan Police Department, were conspiring to kill you?

  “I don’t think you’re in any danger,” he said. He’d meant the words to be reassuring, but when he heard them, he realized that they were terrifying. Becky’s wide-eyed expression confirmed that for him. “I mean—”

  “Oh my God, David. What have you done?”

  The presumption of fault startled him. “Nothing. I haven’t done anything. It’s my friend Deeshy.”

  “Who?”

  “DeShawn Lincoln. You met him once in the office.”

  “The African American police officer?”

  David would have said the black cop. “Yes. Him.”

  “What did he do?”

  “I think he got himself killed.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah. And I think the guys who killed him know that I know. And they know who I am. That’s why I can’t go home.”

  Realization fell across Becky’s face like a shade draping a window.

  David spoke quickly. “I didn’t call you from my own phone,” he said. “And I took a cab, and I had the cab drop me off at the Hilton on Seminary Road. I walked over here. It should be untraceable.”

  “It’s entirely traceable,” Becky argued. “The Hilton’s a quarter mile from here. We’re coworkers. If people know how to look for you, why wouldn’t they look for you here? Certainly, they’d come by here to ask if I’ve seen you.”

  David sighed. “Can we sit down?”

  The question seemed to startle her. “Oh. Of course. Yes, please, have a seat.” She gestured toward the yellow love seat, while she headed toward the yellow chair that sat opposite. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Any dark liquor.”

  Becky winced. “I don’t keep alcohol in the apartment. I have iced tea. It’s freshly brewed.”

  “No, thanks,” he said. “I’m fine.” He lowered himself into the puffy love seat and was surprised to find it comfortable. He inhaled deeply. “Maybe I shouldn’t have put you in this position,” he said. “I was in a panic, and I couldn’t think of anyone else.”

 
From her reaction, he wondered if the words offended her.

  Becky eased herself into her chair. “So, you think that your friend was murdered.”

  “Yes.”

  “By whom?”

  David shifted uncomfortably, and crossed his legs. “I don’t know for sure,” he said. He relayed the details of his last conversations with Deeshy, including the parts about the Secret Service and the police.

  Becky’s face formed a giant O. “He was killed by the Secret Service? Do you know how crazy that sounds?”

  “I think that ‘crazy’ doesn’t touch how it sounds,” David confessed. “But it is what it is.”

  Becky looked to the floor, and silence consumed the room for a good two minutes as the gravity of it all sank in. At last, Becky said, “So, what’s your next step?”

  “I need cash,” David said. “Not that I have anything in particular to buy, but once Uncle Sam gets his act together, he’s going to start tracking every electronic transaction. My credit cards are going to be off-limits, and even ATM transactions are going to be like footprints in the snow. I need to pocket as much cash as I can before they lock down my accounts.”

  “And how are you going to do that?”

  David felt his cheeks turn red. “I was hoping that you might drive me to Annapolis tonight. We could cruise some ATMs there. I don’t know how much they’ll let me take before the system locks down, but I’ll grab as much as I can, and then we come back here. With luck, the cops will think that I’m moving north, and that’ll give them even less reason to come sniffing around here.” It was an unspeakably selfish plan.

  Becky looked at him for a long time. He’d never noticed the intensity and intelligence of her brown eyes before. She stood. “Okay,” she said. “It’s after ten. We should get started.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Jonathan left the Batmobile in its garage and took the BMW M5 instead. It was a long haul from Fisherman’s Cove to downtown Washington, and he decided to make the trip in style. Since Boxers lived in the District to begin with, he drove separately, thus saving Jonathan the needless bitching about the small size of the sports car. The Big Guy’s vehicle of choice was a black on black on black Cadillac Escalade.