The Senator's Choice

by Noel Nash

  CHAPTER 3

  WHEN SETH MATTHEWS LIMPED into Madison’s Downtown Market and Café, he knew something felt different. For the past twenty years, Matthews had a standing Monday lunch date with Senator Daniels whenever the senator was in Columbus. The wait staff held the corner booth for Matthews unless he notified them otherwise. But when Daniels walked in, he requested a booth near the front window. Dishes clanked. Silverware clinked. Patrons chatted. It all combined to form a soundtrack worthy of covering their conversation — if anyone truly was listening.

  Thump. Shuffle. Thump. Shuffle. Thump.

  Matthews utilized his cane proficiently. He groaned as he slid into the booth.

  “When are you ever going to learn?” Daniels asked him.

  Matthews settled into his spot and rested his cane against the window. “Learn what? That I’m not twenty-five any more? I figured that out a long time ago.”

  “No, that you’re too old to go diving after thugs.”

  “The kind of thugs I chase don’t run — they shoot.”

  “Let’s hope that cane is loaded then.”

  “Would I be using it if it wasn’t?”

  The response earned a smile and chuckle from Daniels.

  Matthews put his arms on the table and leaned forward. “Is everything all right? There was something in your voice on the phone.”

  “I just needed to make sure you were still coming today.”

  Matthews leaned back and waved off the senator. “Jeff, you know I come here almost every Monday even when you aren’t in town. It’s just a bonus that you happen to be here most days.”

  “I know, but today was really important.”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  Matthews placed his hands up as if to surrender. “It’s all right. Nothing to be alarmed about. I just need your help, that’s all.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “The kind you can’t tell anyone about.”

  “Oh. That kind of help.”

  The waitress sauntered toward them, catching the eye of the senator. “Gracie, can I get a cup of coffee?”

  “Sure thing, Senator Daniels,” she said as she scurried back to the kitchen.

  Matthews leaned back and shifted in his seat. “What’s going on, Jeffrey? You’re starting to freak me out a little.”

  “Sorry. It’s just that—” He looked as if he might break down and cry.

  Matthews put his hand on the senator’s arm. “What’s the matter? You can tell me.”

  The senator pulled back. “That’s just it. I can’t tell you anything.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they’ll shoot me.”

  “Who?”

  “The guys out there watching.”

  Matthews nodded as if he’d just learned something interesting. His calm demeanor betrayed the gravity of what he knew Daniels wanted to tell him. If anyone was watching, they wouldn’t perceive the conversation to be anything of consequence. He stared down at his menu and appeared to ponder his dining selection. “They can’t hear you in here, you know, unless your mouth is speaking directly toward their mic. Speak into your menu and you’ll be fine. There’s plenty of ambient noise out here.”

  Daniels put his head in his menu and started talking about the Philly cheese steak. Then he blurted, “They’ve got Luke.”

  Matthews clenched his fist. “They?”

  “I don’t knowwho, Seth. I received an envelope at my office this morning and it had a picture of Luke tied up and demands.”

  “What dotheywant?”

  “To kill the energy bill I’ve been working so hard on.”

  “And you have no idea who this could be?”

  “Not right now.”

  The waitress bounded over to their table and interrupted. “So, what’ll you gentlemen be having today? The usual or are you ready to get crazy and order something different?” She worked over her gum and waited for their response.

  “How’s the turkey club?” Matthews asked.

  She giggled and scratched a few notes on her pad. “Look at you, gettin’all spontaneous on me and mixin’it up.”

  Matthews forced a smile and nodded. “You never know what I’m gonna do.”

  She winked at Matthews. Daniels chimed in with his order.

  “I’ll go ahead and put your lunch order in fellas,” she said before flitting off toward the kitchen.

  Matthews leaned forward and waited until Daniels’gaze met his.“We’re gonna get the sonofabitch who is doing this to you, you understand?”

  “I— I didn’t know who else to turn to.”

  Matthews relaxed and leaned back in his chair. “As if there was anyone else you know who could handle this for you.”

  “I just can’t lose Luke.”

  Matthews nodded. “I know. I’ll get him back or—we’llget him back, rest assured.”

  “I wrote down what I know on a sheet of paper underneath this newspaper,” Daniels said as he tapped his copy ofThe Washington Post. “Just make sure you grab it before you leave. The vote is Friday.”

  Gracie put the coffee down on the table in front of the men and smiled. “Your order should be right up, gentlemen. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  Daniels and Matthews thanked her and decided to discuss the topics that normally populated their weekly conversations, like which Major League Baseball team had the most elite pitching staff or which NFL team secured the best free agent in the off-season. It lacked the exuberance usually invested in the discussions, but both men understood the situation dictated an obligatory degree of passion.

  Once they finished their lunch, they exchanged a handshake and short embrace. Matthews snuck the hidden piece of paper into his pocket and the two men exited the café and headed in opposite directions.

  Matthews pulled out his secure cell phone and dialed a number. “Assemble the team, ASAP. We’ve got a job.”

  ***

  DAVE DUMAS CLOSED HIS MAGAZINE and relaxed in the back corner booth of Madison’s Downtown Market and Café. He finished picking at his lunch, which came far earlier in the day than his stomach required.

  “Ready for the check, hun?” Gracie asked him.

  He nodded. “Was that Senator Daniels I saw in here earlier?” he asked.

  “Sure was. Been comin’here as long as I can remember.” She placed his ticket on the table.

  He picked up his ticket and fished his wallet out of his pocket. “Who was that other guy he was with?”

  “His name’s Seth.”

  “Seth what?”

  “I don’t know his last name, believe it or not.” She paused. “You sure are rather nosey.”

  “Oh, I’m from Ohio and I voted for Senator Daniels in the last election. If I was sure that was him, I would’ve gone up and introduced myself.”

  “Well, next time you see them here, you should. He’s a nice guy and he always loves to talk to the regular people.”

  Dumas pulled a pen out of his pocket and made a note on part of the receipt before tearing it off and putting it in his pocket. “Maybe I’ll do that. Thanks again.”

  “Yeah, I see plenty of people come and go in this town …” she paused and pursed her lips as she stared at the ceiling before glancing down at Dumas. “Nope, there’s not a better man that Senator Daniels. Ever since his wife died—”

  “Thanks a lot—” he said as he looked intently at the waitress’nametag.“Gracie.”

  “I remember one time when Senator Daniels—”

  “Thanks for the coffee.” Dumas got up and slapped a ten-dollar bill on the table. He plodded toward the door and exited the restaurant.

  Once he reached his car, he made a phone call.

  “It’s me,”Dumas said.“It looks like he’s doing as told. No suspicious phone calls. Just a standing lunch date with some gimpy old fart of a brother-in-law, Seth something or other. I couldn’t pick up much of their conversation, but it didn’t look too interesting. It looks like every
thing is still on track.”

  “Good. Let me know if anything changes.”

  Dumas hung up. He had a senator to shadow with no room for error. His own life depended on it.

  CHAPTER 4

  SETH MATTHEWS PUNCHED THE CODE into the keypad outside the gate to his wooded property. Navigating the quarter-mile gravel driveway, he feared the worst for his nephew. When he imagined what was happening to Luke, he banged his fist on the console. Scared, helpless, confused. The poor kid had already experienced enough painful loss for a lifetime. Matthews took several deep breaths in a row.

  Calm down. Don’t make this personal.

  Matthews’personal pep talk proved to be a worthless exercise. Once he arrived around the back of his house, he jammed the gear into park. He got out and slammed the door as he stormed up the walkway. He didn’t slow down when he ripped Rich Hammond’s carbon arrow out of the pine tree just off the path. He thrust the door open and stared at the rest of his team already sitting in his living room off the foyer.

  He held up the arrow in his left hand. “Hammond, how many times do I have to tell you that my yard isn’t your personal archery range?” He threw the arrow down. The arrow clinked several times on the hardwood floor, providing the only sound in the room.

  After a moment of silence, Hammond asked, “You okay, boss?”

  “What kind of question is that? I just want to know if the rest of you are as angry as I am.”

  Zellers cleared his throat. “I think we’re all pissed that this is happening to Luke. But you’re the one always telling us to separate ourselves from our emotions so our judgment isn’t clouded when we’re on a mission.”

  “The hell with all that,” Matthews barked. “This isn’t just any mission. This is Luke we’re talking about.”

  Before another word could be said, Matthews crumpled into a chair. A wave of hot tears rushed down his face. “Not Luke! Anyone … anyone but Luke.”

  Jones knelt at Matthews’side. “Personal or not, we’re going to get him back.”

  Matthews looked up and saw Shepherd squatting on his other side. A tear rolled down Shepherd’s face. “Can I punch the guys in the face when we catch them?”

  Matthews stood up and forced a smile. “I’ll let you do whatever you want to do to them, Shepherd. Now, let’s get to work.”

  The team followed Matthews into the kitchen, deemed the situation room by Jones three years ago when they first banded together. Since then, The White Knights — as they decided to call themselves — had procured everything from people to stolen items that required discretion in retrieving them. Matthews came up with the name for the group after their first mission, which involved extracting the daughter of a Moroccan prince from a terrorist camp in the Middle East. The prince had called in a favor to Harold Buchannan, a former ambassador to Morocco and later a U.S. senator. Buchannan explained that the CIA couldn’t get involved in such matters, but he knew a guy who could pull it off without inciting an international incident should they be captured. Matthews assembled the team. “It’s high risk, high reward,” he told them. As badly as he needed each person’s unique skill sets, he sought to discourage them all as much as possible. It didn’t work; they all signed on to become part of the elite group. A week later, The White Knights stole into the camp and rescued the prince’s daughter. Though grateful for the opportunity to return home, she pleaded to stay with the team — or more specifically, Hammond. Not one to be tied down to even a wealthy princess, Hammond declined. A month later, The White Knights reunited for another assignment and had completed more than twenty since.

  Everyone except Matthews sat down.

  “What do we know?” Jones asked.

  “Not much. I called the school on my way over here to find out about Luke’s attendance this morning. I told them we were going on a family vacation this week, and they said that explained his absence today. So, we know that his abduction happened sometime between six-thirty this morning, when Senator Daniels left the house after seeing Luke stumble downstairs for breakfast, and eleven.”

  “That’s a pretty tight window,”Jones said.“We should be able to work with that and learn something more.”

  “Yes, and let’s start with friends and use social media to find out if something else might have happened. Shepherd, can you hack into his cell phone?”

  “On it.”

  “Zellers, do some digging and see if you can figure out who has motive for going this far. I don’t want to leave any stone unturned. We’ve got to find Luke before the vote on Friday.”

  Matthews scribbled down a few notes and stared at the plan he’d already begun to formulate.

  Zellers and Shepherd both opened their laptops and began typing. In a matter of seconds, the sound of Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez belting out a rendition of Offenbach’s “La Belle Helene” filled the room.

  “Turn that crap off, Shepherd,” Hammond snapped. “Nobody can think with that racquet playing.”

  Shepherd paused the music. “Would you prefer some less harmonious noise? Perhaps The Flaming Lips?”

  Hammond nodded. “The Flaming Lips? Now, that’s real music.”

  Flórez resumed playing on Shepherd’s computer.

  “I’m outta here. I can’t take this,” Hammond said. He got up and exited through the backdoor.

  Matthews followed Hammond outside.

  “Can you just chill about the music thing? Geez. You’re always giving him such a hard time. You do realize that he’s quite different from you?” Matthews asked.

  Hammond sighed.“So? It still doesn’t change the fact that music irritates me.”

  “Forget about that and focus, will you? We’ve got a job to do — one that requires your intense focus. There’s little room for error here and the last thing I need are a couple of our team members squabbling over music preferences. Got it?”

  Hammond nodded.

  “Now, follow me to the weapons cache. We’ve got to inventory our supplies to make sure we have all we’ll need to rescue Luke.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘complete the mission’?” Hammond asked.

  Matthews glared at him. “This isn’t just a mission.”

  “It’d better be if we’re going to succeed. You’re making this awfully personal — and you’re always preaching to us how things can go south quickly if we make missions personal. It’s why you wouldn’t let us go after Shepherd’s father last year—”

  “I’m very well aware of what I’ve told you,” Matthews snapped. “But this is different.”

  “How?”

  “It’s family.”

  “So was Shepherd’s case.”

  “But Luke’s a kid. He’s going to die if we don’t save him. You know that. I know that. And if he’s smart, he knows it too. I sure as hell ain’t gonna sit around while someone else does this. Not for Luke.”

  Matthews strode toward the cinder block structure and handed Hammond a pad to take stock of their supplies. Machine guns, pistols, ammo, clips, knives, ropes, grappling hooks. If Matthews ever needed to make a stand against someone on his property, his stash assured he would be on the winning end of any altercation.

  They had almost finished their inventory process when Jones burst into the storage room.

  “What is it?” Matthews asked.

  “Shepherd thinks he’s found something. You gotta come see this.”

  CHAPTER 5

  LUKE DANIELS OPENED HIS EYES and blinked. It made no difference whether they were open or shut — darkness dominated his field of vision compliments of the bandanna tied snug over his face. His back ached and so did his head. He tried to move and realized his feet were tied together along with his hands. A blunt metal object jabbed him in the back, clinking as he squirmed. If the cramped space didn’t give it away, the hum of the tires on the freeway certainly did.

  What am I doing tied up in a trunk?

  Luke tried to remember. Even though he was awake now, he remained groggy.


  I was riding my bike to school when a car cut me off. I swerved to avoid it and tumbled into the street. I got up and then … nothing.

  He heard voices talking from inside the car and eased forward in an effort to listen.

  One man was going on about the overreaching government.I know that voice. That’s—

  “Rush Limbaugh’s an idiot,” an unfamiliar voice said.

  “Just turn it off,” said another man.

  “Don’t you want to hear his latest theory?”

  “No.”

  Click.

  The voices went quiet as the tires continued to whirr on the smooth road.

  Luke had yet to see their faces, but it wasn’ttheirfaces that he longed to see.

  The minute Dad finds out about this, I know he’ll call Uncle Seth.

  The summer of an election year, his father’s seat proved to be hotly contested. Reluctantly, the senator sent his 10-year-old son to spend a few months with his recently retired Uncle Seth. It started out innocently enough. A few fishing trips, excursions to watch the Nationals play, and watchingCastawaymultiple times. Luke told his uncleCastawaywas about as boring asMoby Dick, which Uncle Seth bristled at. In one sentence, Luke managed to put down his uncle’s favorite bookandmovie. The next few days, his uncle called him Wilson just to rattle his cage. It was nothing but fun and good times for Luke, aside from watchingCastawayseveral times more than he ever wanted to.

  But then something happened one day while they were coming back from lunch at his uncle’s favorite downtown restaurant.

  Uncle Seth received a phone call and as soon as he hung up, spun the car around and stomped on the gas.

  “What’s going on?” Luke asked.

  “Something’s come up,” Uncle Seth said.

  “Just don’t ask any questions or get out of the car. Got it?”

  Luke nodded. He wasn’t sure whether to cry out of fear or smile at the prospect of adventure lurking ahead. He remained quiet and stayed in the car when they skidded to a stop in the driveway of a home in a nearby Virginia suburb.

  Luke rolled his window down to eavesdrop on the conversation.

  “What’s the situation now?” Uncle Seth asked.