by Tom Abrahams
“Why are we doing this?” she asked, searching his eyes for the truth. She wondered if he knew it or if he was as much a mushroom in the scenario as she was.
“How do you mean?”
“Why are we pushing this multilateral intelligence-sharing treaty? That’s what it is. A treaty. Why would we share our information with other countries? Why would they want to share with us? What’s this really about? Whose idea was it?”
“Matti—” Brandon smiled, cocking his head like a curious dog “—what are you getting at here? You know the answer to this. You’ve been part of the design team, the planning, the legislative negotiations.”
Matti studied Brandon’s expression as he spoke. He appeared befuddled by her questions. He was either in the dark like her or he was a good actor. She wanted to believe it was the former.
“I just…” Matti needed to drop another lure. She wanted to know what he might be hiding from her, if anything.
Brandon stood straight, pulling his hands from his pockets. “Madam President.”
Matti spun to see President Felicia Jackson standing inches behind her. She adjusted her skirt and cleared her throat. Matti was not a good actor.
“Brandon.” The president nodded and extended her hand to her chief of staff. “Matti, what am I missing over here? Is this the gossip corner? I love good gossip.”
“Nothing you’d be interested in, Madam President,” Matti said. “We were talking about lawyers and how much we hate them.”
“Ha!” The president slapped Matti on the back and then gripped her shoulder. “Very good, Matti. You know how much I despise those snakes. If it weren’t for the nest of lawyers slithering around DC, it might feel a little bit more like America.”
“Very true.” Matti nodded, sensing a bubble of tension about to pop.
“Any good lawyer jokes?” the president asked. “I could use a good joke right now. Prime Minister Hirimoto doesn’t have much of a sense of humor. He doesn’t like what we’re doing.”
“SECURITY?” asked Brandon.
“Exactly. He’s worried we’re creating an axis of power that excludes the rest of Western Europe and our allies in Asia. It’s like we didn’t send him a wedding invitation and all of his friends are going to attend.”
“Why didn’t we include Japan?” Matti asked.
“We?” the president mocked. “We picked the four nations with which we were the most comfortable. Switzerland and Luxembourg are the only other countries we considered. They may join later.”
“I have a joke,” Brandon said, changing the subject.
“Lawyers?” The president’s glare lingered on Matti as she spoke.
“Unemployment.”
President Jackson rolled her eyes. “My favorite subject.”
“Actually I have a slew of good unemployment jokes,” he said.
“Do you?”
“None of them work.”
“Funny.” The president didn’t laugh, but she smiled and nodded her approval. “Well, it’s six point nine percent funny.”
“Six point nine?” Matti asked.
“The unemployment numbers were released yesterday,” Brandon clarified. “We’re up to six point nine.”
“Matti,” the president added, “you should better acquaint yourself with unemployment.”
Matti bit her lip, resisting the temptation to lash out. She laughed lightly and excused herself. “I need to find the ladies’ room.”
“Of course.” The president smiled flatly and stepped out of Matti’s way.
Matti wove her way through the growing crowd, slipping between gowns and tuxedos, shuffling toward the ballroom exit. As she neared the doors, a slender woman in a black cocktail dress bumped into her.
Matti excused herself as she made brief eye contact with the woman. The woman, with a blonde pixie cut and a touch too much jasmine perfume, grabbed Matti’s arm and apologized, then complimented Matti’s dress.
Matti thanked her and reached the hallway, glancing back briefly to catch a glimpse of the woman as she disappeared into the crowd. She couldn’t see the woman’s face but did spot a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder. And from behind, her hair looked like a wig.
“Odd,” Matti mumbled, then went in search of the restroom and a moment of Zen.
*
The assassin found a waiter carrying drinks and helped herself to a glass of white sangria. She took a sip and relished the mixture of sour and sweet. She felt the eyes of men as she worked the room, moving from table to table.
Some of them looked vaguely familiar. She couldn’t remember where she’d seen them. Maybe on television, she guessed, maybe somewhere else. So many of her memories were clouded in a thick haze.
Another sip and she’d had enough of the drink. She set her half-full glass on a table near the front of the room, slipped her hand into the pocket of her chic dress, and felt two room keys. One was the key delivered in her instruction packet. It allowed her access to the hotel. The second belonged to Matti Harrold. She’d lifted it moments earlier with a quick dip into Harrold’s open clutch. It was too easy, really. If she’d failed at securing the key, she’d have had to improvise. It would have taken time she couldn’t be sure she’d have. It might have ended with more collateral damage. Now she was golden.
She plucked at her temporary blonde bangs as she slithered back to the rear of the ballroom and the exit. The dinner would last two hours, maybe less, and she’d need to be in and out of the room by then.
Once she reached the hallway, she picked up her pace, hurrying to the bank of elevators some fifty yards away. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Matti Harrold exiting a restroom and returning to the dinner.
Plenty of time.
The assassin found Matti’s room and used the key to enter. The lights were off. She slipped the key into a slot in the wall next to the door and flipped them on. The lights illuminated the space. It was at once modern and comfortable. The assassin walked to the bed and sat on its edge before laying back on the down-filled duvet.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose. She allowed herself to imagine, if only for a moment, she was someone else.
She wasn’t Mariposa the programmed assassin. Instead, she was a newlywed on a honeymoon. Her tall, young husband had surprised her with a Mediterranean holiday. She could feel his bronze skin on the tips of her fingers, his breathless whispers in her ear, laced with an intoxicating Turkish accent. He was strong and intelligent and protective.
They would have two children: a boy named for him and a girl named for his loving mother. Mariposa was a part of their family. She was loved and adored. She loved. She adored.
They’d live in the United States and summer every year in Europe. Their children would be multilingual. They would—
There was someone at the door. Someone trying unsuccessfully to get inside.
*
Matti rattled her hotel room door, hoping to will it open. It didn’t work.
She’d left the dinner sooner than planned. A sip of the soup and a minute of conversation were enough. She told Brandon she felt sick and needed to go to her room.
“Are you okay?” he’d asked.
“I’ll be fine. I just have a headache, and my stomach is a little upset.”
“It could be jet lag,” he’d suggested.
“I don’t think it’s that.”
He’d helped her from her seat and she’d worked her way quickly to her room.
Matti couldn’t focus on dinner or political conversation when she knew what lay ahead. She needed to quickly plot her design. The bald man responsible for killing the flight attendant was going to attack the G12 summit in some way. It could happen as early as day one of the meetings. Matti knew time was short and she had an impossible task ahead of her.
Thankful to have escaped, she reached her door and reached into her clutch, digging around for the key, and couldn’t find it.
She turned the door handle and pus
hed and pulled the locked door back and forth. It was locked. She was keyless.
“Great,” she huffed, and turned back to the elevator. “Just what I need.”
Matti pressed the elevator call button. She pressed it again. And again. The elevator doors slid open and she banged the button for the first floor.
She checked her bag again, picking through the few items in her purse. No key. She exhaled again and trudged from the elevator to the front desk to ask for a replacement.
While she waited for the clerk to help her, she glanced up and noticed a camera staring back at her. She looked behind the counter to what looked like an office. There was a computer monitor with a grid of security feeds flashing from one angle to another.
She’d need to come back here once she was out of her evening wear. If she could get a look at the video stored on that computer’s hard drive, she might have a better idea of where to look for the bald man.
With a new key, Matti rode back up the elevator to her floor and traipsed back down the hall to her door. She slid in the key and shouldered open the door to a rush of familiar jasmine in the air. Another key was in the power switch.
Somebody was in her room.
*
The assassin was running out of time. The attempted entry into the room had jarred her from her daydream and put her to work.
She moved quickly from the bed to the bathroom and flipped on the light.
On the counter next to the sink was a clear toiletry bag. It was zipped closed. The assassin opened it and picked through the deodorant and toothpaste. She didn’t find what she needed, so she re-zipped the bag and placed it exactly as she’d found it.
She looked around the room and didn’t see anywhere else she might find what she was searching for until she closed the bathroom door. Hanging on the inside of the door was a makeup bag. In the bag, along with an assortment of brushes, pencils, tubes, and compacts, was an opaque orange prescription bottle. The label indicated the pills inside were sumatriptan, a generic migraine medication. When she palmed open the top, the assassin knew the drugs inside were street. As a long-ago addict, she recognized the lack of craftsmanship and inconsistent labeling as familiar signs these were synthetic. She shook a couple into her hand. They were close enough to what she’d bought in Istanbul that she doubted Matti Harrold would notice at first. The pills were the same shape and virtually the same blue color.
She emptied the rest of the bottle into her hand and dumped the remaining seven pills into the toilet. She flushed it and then set the bottle on the counter, reaching into her pocket for the Turkish replacements.
The assassin emptied seven pills into her hand and then scooped them into the bottle, recapping it. She was turning to put the bottle back into the makeup bag when the door swung open, the corner hitting her in the side of the head.
She fell back against the toilet, dropping the bottle to the floor to catch herself before she hit the back of her head on the wall. In front of her, staring down at her, was her mark.
“Who are you?” Matti Harrold yelled. “What are you doing in—”
The assassin braced herself and swept her leg at Harrold’s legs, causing her to lose her balance and fall against the door, banging it wide open against the bathroom wall. She grunted as she hit the tile, and the assassin pounced.
Matti Harrold was on her stomach, trying to press herself from the floor, when the assassin lunged at her back, grabbing onto her like a wrestler, tumbling against the open doorway.
The assassin tried getting her arm around the woman’s neck, but she was wily, fighting as if her life depended on it.
“Who are you?” Harrold spat before biting down on the assassin’s arm.
The pain was sudden and sharp, but she yanked her arm free and pressed down on the small of Matti Harrold’s back just before Harrold launched the back of her skull into the bridge of the assassin’s nose.
The crack preceded a searing pain across the assassin’s face. Her eyes watered and blurred. Her sinuses swelled. She could taste blood at the back of her throat. She stayed on top, pinning the mark to the floor as she gasped for air through her mouth.
The assassin applied pressure with her weight and leveraged one arm to keep the woman on her stomach. She used the other to feel for her neck. She grabbed a fistful of hair and yanked backward as if starting a lawnmower, slamming the woman’s head back to the floor. Her eyes closed, pressing back the tears, and her face throbbing, she gripped the woman’s larynx and pressed her fingers against either side of it.
The woman was flailing like a flipped beetle, but she was weakening. She was slowing, losing air. She could sense the woman was giving up and giving in to the inevitable, so she loosened her hold just enough to give the woman another suck of air, planning to prolong this as much as she could.
She tried opening her eyes, but closed them instantly against the brightness of the bathroom light. Adjusting her grip, reapplying weight to the woman’s back, she went in for the kill.
In the moment she took to breathe through her mouth, she sensed someone else in the room. She lifted up her head and was met with a concussive blow to the right side of her head.
*
Matti sensed the world darkening around her. She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were screaming for air that wasn’t coming. She’d given it her best. It wasn’t enough against whoever this killer was.
A warmth spread from her chest to her limbs and she relaxed. It was almost over. Then she heard, in the foggy distance, a thud, a crack, and felt the release of the pressure on her neck and back.
As she choked back to full consciousness, a voice powered through the haze and a hand touched her shoulder.
“Mahhhhttttiiiiii,” it called. “Mahhhtttttiiiii, ca-yun yeewww heeeaarr meeee? Arrre yeeewww oh-kayyyy?”
Matti’s eyes blinked open, at first trying to focus on the bathroom floor. Then the hand helped her roll onto her back, and she squinted against the bright light directly above her.
“Matti?” It was the backlit shadow of a man. The voice was vaguely familiar. “Matti, are you okay? Can you hear me?”
Matti nodded but couldn’t speak. She couldn’t swallow. Her throat was raw, her neck bruised. She squinted to try to identify the man above her.
“Matti?” He leaned down, placing his hands on either side of her face. “It’s Brandon. Are you okay?”
Matti tried to smile. She thought maybe she was smiling. She nodded again.
Brandon reached down to grab Matti’s shoulders. “I’m going to move you into the bedroom.”
Brandon lifted her, holding the back of her head as he would a baby, managing to position her in such a way that he carried her from the bathroom. Matti felt as if she was floating until she felt the soft down of the bed. Her body sank into it and she wondered if she’d ever have the strength or motivation to leave it. She breathed deeply, a hint of jasmine still in the air.
“She’s dead,” Brandon said, sitting next to her, “whoever she is. I hit her with the bottom of a lamp and caught her across the side of her head. It slammed her into the edge of the counter. She’s dead.”
Matti could hear Brandon talking, felt his hand on her thigh. She wasn’t really processing what had happened. She heard a guttural moan and wondered if it came from her.
Was she attacked? Was there someone in her room? Why? Who? What?
“I followed you up here,” he admitted. “I was worried about you. I heard a commotion, some yelling, and some banging around. Your key was still in the door, so…”
Matti used her returning strength to reach for Brandon’s hand. She grabbed it and squeezed. It was a way to thank him.
“I need to call the Secret Service,” he said. “They need to know about this.”
Matti gripped his hand more tightly and shook her head. With clarity, Matti knew this was about the plot. She knew somebody, likely the president, had sent the woman to kill her.
“Don’t call?” Brandon shook free of
Matti’s hand and stood from the bed. “Why? I don’t understand.”
Matti forced herself to swallow against the pain in her throat, but she couldn’t speak. She pointed to the bedside table and the pad of paper on top of it.
Brandon helped her sit up in the bed and she scribbled a few words. He looked at the words and then into her eyes.
“Another plot? To do what?”
Matti wrote eight letters.
“SECURITY? A plot related to the SECURITY Act?”
Matti nodded.
Brandon started talking with his hands, something Matti hadn’t seen him do before. “All of this is because of that? You’re saying someone tried to kill you because of the SECURITY Act?”
Matti nodded, flipped the page, and scratched out a complete sentence.
Brandon read it and without saying anything disappeared into the bathroom. Matti closed her eyes and concentrated on trying to swallow. It was getting easier, if no less painful. She heard the water run in the bathroom sink for a moment, and Brandon returned with a glass of water.
“Try to drink this.” He held the cup for her as he sat next to her and tipped it against her lips. “Just take a couple of sips.”
Matti obliged and winced back two small sips of water. She took a deep breath through her nose and nodded again.
“She has no identification on her,” Brandon said. “She has a couple of cell phones in one pocket. I’m guessing since I have your key, the one powering the lights is one she obtained somehow.”
Matti motioned for the glass. Brandon handed it to her and she took another sip.
“Someone clearly sent her here,” Brandon acknowledged. “But the idea that the president is involved, as you suggest”—he eyed the notepad on Matti’s lap—“I don’t know that I buy that. Why would she want you dead? She could just fire you.”
“I know too much,” Matti managed in a ragged whisper. “Sir Spencer is alive. I saw him at Camp David. She knows. I told her.”
“What’s the plot?” Brandon put his hand on her leg again. “And don’t overdo it. If you have to write it down, write it down.”
