Dirty Love (Forbidden Bodyguards #3)

by Ainsley Booth

  What is interesting, though, is how large and enthusiastic a crowd a white supremacist can draw in downtown D.C.

  Interesting in a haven’t-we-learned-anything, no-of-course-not kind of way.

  I use our visual recognition software to document those in attendance, then flip the display order around so the biggest screen shot is of the room we expect them to use, and the second biggest space on the screen is for the back alley, where I think they’ll arrive.

  And sure enough, a black town car pulls up. Out steps a man in his fifties with a round face and a nothing smile. He looks smooth and carefree, like the ultra-wealthy often do, and I peg him immediately as one of our secret guests.

  “Who is that?” Jason leans in.

  I zoom and capture a good shot. When we’re lucky, the system finds a match right away. This time, nothing comes up. The search is still spooling as I reset the camera and we watch him mount the stairs. “Nothing in the domestic databases. Searching foreign resources next.”

  “Diplomat, maybe?”

  “Probably, if they’ve been scrubbed from the American lists. I’ll get the bots on it, but we probably won’t know before the end of the meeting.”

  “We’ll call him Mr. X for now.”

  The next car has three people in it. Amelia, another anonymous middle-aged man, and an obvious bodyguard. His, I think, as again it’s a face that’s not immediately traceable.

  PRISM was slick, no doubt about it. And they didn’t give a fuck about operating in plain sight.

  The next hour passes agonizingly slowly. They get settled in the room upstairs and talk about what sounds like nothing. A waiter brings them drinks, and we all wait for the meeting downstairs to break up.

  ~

  Rook stops in the men’s room on his way upstairs. Presumably to check his hipster hair cut and fix his ugly fucking tie.

  When he’s ushered into the room upstairs, he’s got a cocky, easy grin on his face. He knows who Amelia is, clearly. He holds out his hand and directs his first comments to her. “Spencer Rook. A pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

  “The pleasure is all ours. Please, have a seat. I understand you had a little salon downstairs just now. How did that go?”

  “As it always does.” He grins and leans back in his chair, smug bastard. “It’s a joy to help people get fired up about protecting the white race.”

  “You’ve gotten some press with your Institute lately. How do you feel that’s helping your cause?”

  “No such thing as bad press.”

  “Even if it invites the scrutiny of the FBI?”

  “Law enforcement is overwhelmingly white male. They feel the truth of what I’m saying right here.” He taps himself on his chest.

  “Who else does your message resonate with?”

  “Working men and women. People left behind by trade agreements and technological advances that have replaced their jobs with robots.”

  “Manufacturing,” Mr. X says.

  “Definitely. But small business owners, food industry. It’s hard to make money in small town America today. We’ve forgotten our dream because big business, wall street elites, and special snowflakes are in charge.” That he could say that straight-faced to three people with a combined wealth greater than a small nation was remarkable.

  That they didn’t even blink was even more so.

  They don’t mind his rhetoric.

  Hell, maybe it’s even what they’re looking for.

  What else does that rhetoric provide cover for?

  It doesn’t take long for Amelia to show her hand. “One last question. Who are you supporting for President next year?”

  Rook rubs his hands together. “Our base likes Howard Simon.” A Republican senator from Florida whose official portrait has him wearing hunting gear. I pull up the dossier as we listen.

  That’s not going to interest PRISM. He’s a two-issue candidate at best who won’t make it far in the primaries.

  Amelia gives Rook a big smile anyway. “I’ll have to make a generous donation to his campaign, in that case.” She stands and holds out her hand. “Lovely to meet you, Mr. Rook. We’ll have to do this again.”

  “Spencer, please.” He gives her a flirty smile that makes my skin crawl. “And I’d love to meet your family—”

  The rest of what he says is drowned out by Cole, who jumps to his feet, arms cocked and neck veins bulging. “Shut your fucking ugly gob, you piece of shit. Jesus Christ, I can’t wait to take you down.”

  It’s not funny, but…it’s a little funny.

  I glance sideways at Tag. He’s trying not to smirk, too.

  Cole swivels around. “What?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing.” I get it. He just doesn’t know that I get it yet. We’ll do anything for our women. And our country, too, although we’re all trained to have patience and plan for the right counter-attack on the latter front.

  Nobody trained us to be elite forces in the areas of love and emotional attachment.

  As Cole throws himself back into his seat, we watch a silent exchange happen between Amelia and her Mr. X compatriot. The third man in the room finally breaks his silence. “Well,” he says in a slow, flat accent. Dutch, maybe. I’ve got voice recognition going, too, but I doubt it’ll help identify him. “So this man can be useful to us? How?”

  “We think his message could have wide popularity if properly packaged.”

  “Tell me more.”

  Amelia smiles, cold and calculating. “We like Victor Best.”

  I jerk upright, my tablet spilling out of my hands and clattering onto the conference table.

  Jason holds up his hand, telling me to keep my mouth shut so we can listen to this conversation.

  “He is running as a Democrat, no? Really? And you want to pair me with this little fascist?”

  She laughs. Crazy bitch. “Rook isn’t a fascist, he’s a nationalist. And he’s speaking about the fears of people everyone has has written off. Those disenfranchised voters could be exactly what we need to sweep to power. And Victor Best is the candidate to invigorate them. I don’t care if he’s a liberal or a conservative. He’s belonged to both parties. And more to the point, he believes in neither. That’s the most useful element to us, after all. Moral flexibility.”

  Quiet laughter filters over the wires as all three chuckle at that.

  “We’ll back all horses, of course, to varying degrees. But right now, my money’s on Best. He’s shaking things up in a way we like.”

  “And Rook?”

  “Let’s see what we can do about arranging a meeting between them. It might surprise you how interested Best might be in the idea of appealing to everyday working people. Popularity is his strongest motivator.”

  “We’ll need to install someone we can trust close to him to manage this relationship between them.”

  “The council is in agreement on that.”

  “Then make it so. Now, let’s talk about the psychometric stuff coming out of England. What Reggie shared was fascinating, but it’s a gamble.”

  “That’s my favorite thing,” Amelia says. I glance at Cole, who’s face is hard as granite and unreadable.

  To say he hates his mother-in-law would be putting it mildly.

  A grunt comes next over the speakers. Noncommittal.

  My fingers fly over my keyboard, tap on my mouse. Its early morning in the UK but my contact in Cambridge is a light sleeper and works odd hours. Either way he’s not going to want to miss this.

  “Jason,” I say quickly. “How much of this can I share with Bryan at Cambridge?”

  He shrugs. “It’s just political meddling. Damning for people who care, but nothing life changing for the masses. Give him an encrypted link to a raw feed, and he can have it all.”

  Nobody credible is hunting conspiracies anymore. The crackpots ruined that fun for us, because now there are so many fake conspiracies out there that digging into the real ones doesn’t get any traction. Even Anonymous doesn’t car
e about shit like that.

  Now we’re just watching the world burn and figuring out what the power dynamics will be when we get a chance to rebuild.

  Branch, Gough, Nix…even Wilson. Every role I’ve ever adopted has been built on the premise that this destruction of democracy was a given, and I’d need to be well positioned for when it happened.

  For the first time in a long time, I find myself wishing it weren’t so.

  As the conversation continues, I tune out. It doesn’t matter. They’ll pull their strings. We’ll cut some and tangle others. Some we won’t be able to reach, because nothing is as simple as a gladiator roaring at a beast.

  I was fifteen when I went to college. Seventeen when I was expelled. When I came to Washington full of fire and ideals, and realized my government only wanted my skills to fuck up the world on their behalf. So a shadowy international organization backing a narcissistic billionaire in his bid for President shouldn’t surprise me, and it shouldn’t re-awaken that idealistic teenager hacker inside me, but it does on both counts.

  I’m still lost in my own thoughts when Tag pauses the video feed, shifting the focus in our conference room to the next question—so now that we know PRISM has a vested interest in the next Presidential election, what do we do about that?

  I know what Jason’s going to say, and I’m not wrong. “We can’t interfere.”

  “Why the fuck not?” Cole waves his hand at the now frozen image of the PRISM council principals on the screen. “They are.”

  “Because we’re better than them?” Tag drawls, clearly amused at the way the conversation has twisted.

  “Is that a question?” Cole growls.

  “Some days.” Tag shrugs. “Don’t get so distracted by the moral outrage that you miss the long game. If we interfere now, we don’t hurt PRISM at all. We don’t even hurt Best. They pivot and move in a new direction. The only way to actually hobble them is the wait until they’re invested. Until they’ve committed to a plan.”

  “You’re talking about letting them take this all the way to the White House.”

  “If not him, it’ll be someone else. The Republicans are going to nominate Senator Vance, and she’s going to lose. So yeah. Maybe Best takes the White House. And that’s when we hit him. And if he stumbles in the primaries and doesn’t secure the nomination, then Karma will have done her work for us. But we don’t play with unintended consequences.” He slaps his hand flat on the table. “We all know better than that.”

  I’m not sure I do.

  I clear my throat. “Speaking of unintended consequences…”

  —twenty-eight—

  Wilson

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Jason drops his voice, cold as ice, and paces away from the conference table. Tag and Cole’s faces are similarly stony.

  Maybe telling them right now wasn’t a great idea.

  “It was personal.” I cross my arms over my chest. “And now that there’s a complicating factor that makes part of it not so personal, I shared. Would you rather I have continued to keep silent?”

  “You don’t think we would have noticed next week when you get arrested in an FBI sting that arrests a major music industry manager and a candidate for President of the United States of America?”

  “When I put the plan together, he was a fringe candidate.”

  “Not so fringe anymore.”

  “I see that.”

  “You knew that last night,” Cole interjected. “When Deacon Webb told you he was being assigned to Best’s detail.”

  “Here’s hoping the Secret Service keeps him away from the fight, then.”

  “And if they don’t? This is a convoluted way to get your girlfriend out of a messy relationship. Maybe operations planning isn’t your forte.”

  “You got a better plan?”

  “If I came up with one, could you even shift gears?” Jason’s yelling by the end of the question. “No, we’ll make this work. But you’re bringing us in, on everything. Right fucking now.”

  I take a deep breath. “Easier to show you at my place.”

  ~

  Tag lets out a low, long whistle as he looks at the wall in my loft. Around the domino parade of names are a list of bank routing numbers, connected to domain addresses, dates, other names…a complete web of money and masked confusion. “This is old-school vengeance, dude.”

  I take that as a compliment. “Thank you.”

  Cole laughs. “Okay, explain it to those of us that don’t think in binary.”

  “For months, I’ve been waiting for Grant to do something illegal. Hire an underage hooker, gamble on the wrong thing. Jackass hasn’t. So I decided I had to do it for him, and with his brother’s money to boot. Those are small denomination donations to Rook’s so-called charity. They funnel in and then right back out of his company accounts. He does accounting once a month, so he’ll notice this at some point, but he’ll just find his brother. I don’t really care how that plays out. Then the money drops here—” I tap at Grant’s name. “And he uses it to bet on the fights. I pushed data packets onto his computer from the last dozen broadcasts, so the feds will find that trace after they arrest him.”

  “And how they are going to discover him?”

  I wince. “This is the part that includes Best, and unfortunately, I’ve already pulled the trigger. He’s also exceeded the personal contribution limit out of the same account, to the tune of ten thousand dollars. Ten thousand dirty, racist dollars that the Best account will be forced to report to the Federal Elections Commission in the next day or two.”

  “Triggering an investigation into that account?” Jason’s jaw is still tight as a steel coil, but there’s a grudging admiration in his voice that gives me hope.

  “Yeah. Ideally, they’re watching him as he bets on the fight, and they swoop in to arrest him at the event.”

  “You want him there in person?” Cole shakes his head. “Wouldn’t it be better if he was arrested at a hotel or something? Reduces the risk of…” He waves at the wall in the middle, where I’ve listed who I think might be at the fight in Vegas. Including now myself, as Nix. “You going to jail as well.”

  “Unless he’s there in person, it’s all circumstantial evidence. And a good hacker would be able to unravel what I’ve done, or at least show that all the fingerprints were digital only, and therefore questionable. His physical presence greatly reduces the chance they even send the digital stuff beyond their in-house tech guys. The entire case will be about his bets that night, not as much about the validity of the donation money.” I let out a long, slow breath. “Or that’s the plan, anyway.”

  “It’s good.” Jason nods. “We’re in.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “I can’t ask you guys to do that.”

  Cole gives me a hard look. “I asked you to take fucking knitting lessons from my woman. We’re in. This is what we do. Besides, how are you getting him to go to the fight?”

  “That’s the most beautiful part of it all. He was already in Vegas that night. Victor Best is going to invite him, and send a car. And he’s going to believe it, because he’s just that shallow.”

  “Excellent. I’ll be the driver.”

  “And we’ll be your eyes and ears outside the fight,” Jason says. “Worst case scenario, we can run interference with the Feds.”

  “Worst case scenario is that I end up pummelling the guy to death. He’s going to recognize me. If he engages…”

  Jason just shrugs. “That would be a bad idea on his part.”

  No fucking kidding.

  —twenty-nine—

  Tabitha

  Portland

  When a stagehand knocks at my dressing room door and asks me if it’s a good time for a visitor, I’m expecting him to introduce Victor Best. Instead of the fifty-something billionaire, though, it’s his twenty-something wife who steps inside.

  “Oh, hi!” I swivel out of my chair and put down the extra-pointy necklace I was just abut to put on in
case Victor tried to hug me. “I’m Tabitha.”

  She laughs and steps closer, holding out her hand. “Ginnifer, nice to meet you. I think, right? We haven’t met before?”

  I shake my head. “I’ve met your husband once or twice at things, but I think this is the first time for us. I was expecting him, in fact. My manager said he was in town.”

  Something passes quickly behind her gaze, then she gives a very practiced smile. “We are. He was.” She laughs. “Something came up and he had to fly to Washington unexpectedly.”

  “Ah, right.” He’s running for President, although nobody here takes him seriously. “Well, welcome. Are you staying for the show?”

  “We are, yes.” She points to the hallway. “My step-daughters are big fans of your opening act, so they’re meeting them right now. I thought I’d come in and say hello to you.”

  We couldn’t be more opposite, this woman and me. She’s wealth and class and sophistication, and I’m…best known for being bisexual.

  But she’s beaming at me, and I know that look. No, she doesn’t want in my pants. That’s a similar look. This is the look of an adoring fan.

  Well how about that. I beam right back at her. “I’ve got a few minutes, if you want to sit and chat?”

  “I’d love that.”

  It turns out Ginnifer Best is a little bit awkward, and a whole lot nerdy. I know her official back story. She was a teen beauty queen in Florida, and her parents were friends with Victor Best and his previous wife. When his wife fell ill with breast cancer, nineteen-year-old Ginnifer joined the family as an au pair to their two pre-teen daughters.

  And when he was widowed two years later, he married his nanny within three months.

  Their son, Thomas Jefferson Best, was born eleven months later.