by Heskett, Jim
He considered asking his secretary Naomi to take a look at it, but he didn’t know if he wanted her to spend her time on something like this. The young lady was busy enough fielding calls to his office and coming up with creative ways to deny people meetings with him. That last part alone was a skill he would pay for.
Wellner had not spent much time in management during his adult life. He had always assumed the chief part of the job was motivating people to achieve their best work. But—assuming politics and management were similar—mostly it was helping the people under him determine which tasks were worth their time. That, and paperwork. Being president of the DAC had turned out a lot more pedestrian than he'd hoped for.
The pay was okay since he made something akin to a "commission" off every contract that passed through the central switchboard. Better than the paltry sum he'd make selling cars or life insurance, for sure. But, the constant in-fighting wore on him, the never-ending pull to take sides in issues where the smartest choice was to stay neutral. Almost on a weekly basis, he had to choose which Branch to disappoint when a dispute arose. Which Branch could stand to have their pride wounded this week.
He made a note on a Post-it about the squeak. He would drop it by Naomi's desk on the way out later and make sure she understood it wasn't a priority.
And, he would resist the urge to hover by her desk and flirt with her, which was sometimes a harder task than telling some cold-blooded assassin from Westminster or Highlands that he would be executed for telling his brother about the DAC during a night out at the bar.
Wellner turned his attention back to the main task at hand. The blinking cursor on his laptop screen in front of him. He was four paragraphs into a Club-wide memo about the poisoning of the Boulder Branch communal meal three days ago. A crime not as serious as telling a civilian about the DAC, but not one to treat lightly, either. Not after the stink Jules had created about it during the last Review Board meeting.
The problem was how to strike the right tone in the memo. He needed conviction, for one. The members of the DAC needed to understand that any sort of violence in a Branch Post Office was strictly forbidden. Without adherence to all the rules, soon enough, none of the rules would carry weight. That piece of wisdom came from the Club’s previous president. Wellner didn’t credit his predecessor with teaching him much, but that one nugget had stuck with him.
But, Wellner also wanted to use this poisoning incident as a means to unite people. Branches had been tense lately, with Review Board meetings often becoming heated and ending without resolution on key issues. The general members of the Club looked to the Board to know how to act. They needed even stronger unity among the government.
That’s why the moves of his Vice President Jules had been so suspicious. Talking to Historian Kunjal Anand in secret. Dominating the conversation in meetings. Insisting on hosting the monthly DAC government dinners. Visiting Branches for inspections and random meetings without giving Wellner’s office advance knowledge.
How many Branches had she pulled to her side? When they came to oust him from his office, who would step up and defend him?
How far would Jules go to make him look bad?
His head thumped trying to find an answer to that question.
An assertive presence would deflate her power. That’s why the tone of this memo was so damn critical. He had to be stern, but also remind them he was the most qualified person to lead them. He had to appear strong and reasonable. With an election not too far in the future, the memo had to carry even more weight.
With a sigh, he plucked his glasses from the bridge of his nose and dropped them on the desk. His breakfast burrito sat eighteen inches away, wrapped in foil. He could smell the beans and eggs from here. But, it made his stomach sour, even though he was hungry.
A knock came at the door.
“Enter.”
Naomi poked her head in. Such an alluring young woman with her angular face and curvy figure. She knew it, too, judging by the wardrobe she rotated for work. Wellner didn’t mind.
“You busy, Mr. President?”
“I always got time for you. What do you need?”
She entered with her phone clutched to her chest, breathing rapidly. Her shoulders rose and fell, her lips were pulled down into a frown, and her forehead wrinkled.
“Are you okay?”
She appeared to consider this for a second and then shook her head. “I think you should see this. It just happened.”
He waved her forward and slipped his glasses back on. She came around to his side of the desk and bent over to hold her phone out in front of him. He couldn’t help but notice her perfume. Like vanilla. It made the blood rush to his crotch, but he cleared his throat and tried to ignore the feeling. Also, when she bent over, the front of her top dipped, and he could see a hint of the lace of her bra out of his peripheral. Maddening. Still, he forced himself to keep his eyes forward.
“What have you got there?”
She unlocked the phone and swiped to get to a video. In the first frame, he could see a grainy and dark shot of what looked like two people standing in a stairwell. He squinted but couldn’t make them out.
“It’s hard to see, but this is Jules and Kunjal.”
He blinked and pushed his glasses up his nose. “You said this just happened?”
“In the east stairwell, a few minutes ago.”
He didn’t even know Jules was at the Denver Consolidated Holdings building—often called the Holdings building for short—today. That was another item he needed to tackle. More visibility into the schedules of his government underlings.
Wellner leaned forward and tapped the triangular play button. For a few seconds, the shrouded figures stood, hazy in the darkness of the video. Noise from the building’s heater whirred in the background.
“This makes me uncomfortable,” said the figure on the right, who sounded like Kunjal.
“You have nothing to worry about,” said the other, who was definitely Jules, judging by the flourish of a regal mid-Atlantic accent.
“But the secrecy does not feel good.”
Jules took a step closer to him, and it appeared she put a hand on his arm. “What matters is the truth. I know you haven’t been with us long. There are certain ways the Club acts. A lot of people believe that it’s all ordained to be this way, because of tradition. But tradition doesn’t serve anyone when it’s sick to its core. A sickness that will eat us from the inside out. Do you understand?”
“I understand your words, madam Vice President. But I need time to think it over.”
She took a step back. “Absolutely. I don’t want to burden you with too much at once. But soon, we’ll need to take action.”
The two of them separated, with Jules leaving first. A moment later, Kunjal followed her down the stairs. The video ended a couple of seconds later.
“Did they see you?” Wellner asked.
Naomi put her phone in her pocket. “No. I don’t think so. I get headaches, and the stairwell is always so dark, you know. And quiet. It helps me get my focus back when I’m in pain.”
“I understand.”
"I was there when they came in and stayed until after they both left."
“This is good work, Naomi. You did good work.”
She smiled, which lit up her face and made her twice as attractive. But Wellner couldn’t think about that right now. He didn’t want to contemplate the adorable dimple in her right cheek.
Instead, he cleared his throat. “Can you send that to me?”
“Of course, sir.”
He sat up in his chair, studying her. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Do you like working here?”
Her eyes widened. “Absolutely. Have I done something wrong?”
“No, no, you’re not getting fired or anything like that. Let me rephrase my question: do you like working here, knowing that, if you ever try to go work somewhere else, you can’t put this on your r�
�sumé? And, that most people who work for the DAC don’t ever work anywhere else?”
“A lifetime of job security? I’m all for it.”
He considered pointing out the fallacy of her observation. He could easily ask her how many older people she had seen working in the building. That committing to work at the DAC didn’t usually mean a gold watch and a cake at a send-off party at age sixty-five. Instead, he said, “Thank you for showing this to me. I need a few minutes alone.”
With a graceful nod, she backed away from his desk and then scooted out of the room. When the door shut behind her, Wellner leaned back in his squeaky chair as his heart rate soared. He could hear it beating against the quiet of the room.
Jules was going to make a move against him. And it would happen sooner, not later.
Chapter Twenty-Two
EMBER
Ember scrubbed cheese from the plate and set it in the dishwasher. As she did, her eyes drifted over the disarray in her kitchen and living room. The mess had grown to epic proportions, a state of affairs uncharacteristic for her. The car being messy was nothing new. The contents of her purse being in shambles was par for the course. But the dirty dishes, the towels on the bathroom floor, the cans of flavored sparkling water sitting on the coffee table? Unacceptable.
She was only cleaning it now because there was a possibility someone might see it. A slim possibility, but one nonetheless. She had a hiking date with Zach Bennett in an hour, and the mountain trail started and ended only a mile from her condo.
Ember had no intention of inviting him back to her place after. For one, it was only their second date, and no way would she sleep with him already. And two, there was the fact that the heavyset soccer mom was trying to kill her. No telling when she might drop by with her hired hand Roland and a couple of noise-suppressed pistols. If Zach died in the crossfire, then everything else was pointless.
Fagan had chided Ember for staying in her apartment during the trial by combat. But, Ember didn’t see any point in running. She would have to face each of the five remaining assassins somehow. Plus, the secrecy of the Club meant most of them would not likely engage in a loud shootout in a public place. Yes, it did sometimes happen, but those occasions were rare.
Plus, motel beds were awful. Ember had spent thirty years of her life determining the exact right level of hardness for a good night’s sleep. You don’t trade in something as special as that just because people are coming to kill you.
A knock came at the door, and she checked her watch as she crossed the living room. Two thousand steps already. Not too shabby for cleaning the condo. Even with a short hike on tap, she would crush her step goal for the day.
Ember peeled back the front curtains far enough to use her hand mirror to check the walkway outside for danger. All clear.
She opened the front door to see her recruit Gabe standing there with a file folder clutched in his hands. He had bags under his eyes, and his color looked a tad green, but that was a long sight from being at death's door, as he had been only a couple of days ago.
Ember leaned out and saw her neighbor Layne Parrish standing in front of his place on the walkway, sipping a coffee and staring out over the little city. He lifted his coffee in greeting, and Ember gave him a wave, then she tugged Gabe by the hand into her place.
With the door shut, she gave him a hug. As far as she knew, it was the first time that had ever happened. Just to see her recruit alive pulled more of the invisible weight off her shoulders.
“Good to see you, too,” he said after they’d separated. “Feels like it’s been a while.”
“I thought you were going to die.”
“So did I. Also, if you can avoid it, don’t have your stomach pumped. It’s awful.”
“I’ll bet.”
Gabe darkened. “Fagan told me a couple of the others at the brunch died. Some are still in the hospital.”
“Yeah. It’s a shit-show, and I’m doing everything I can not to think about the ones we lost. But, at least the cops have backed off. Fagan did something to convince them there wasn’t anything criminal to investigate.”
“She’s the master at talking to the public. There’s no doubt about that.” His eyebrows climbed a few ticks. “I just realized something. You don’t think this poisoning was an attempt to weaken the Branch, to lower our numbers in preparation for another attack?”
“What, like a Branch war? I can see how you’d think of that, but I doubt it.” Ember eyed her recruit as he stood, shifting his weight from foot to foot every few seconds. “And you’re really okay?”
“I’m about as good as I’m going to get. This is what I signed up for, right?”
“Well, it’s usually not in this flavor. There’s danger, but it’s usually more like: standing in the customs line at Heathrow, wondering if you missed cleaning a spot of blood from your pants and some hyper-vigilant passport checker is going to notice it and pull you into a little side room to make you wait for the police. Thinking about how you’ll escape that room. And, if you are forced to, if you’re willing to kill local cops and if you’ve studied the airport exits well enough to escape without having to kill more than just the ones in the interrogation room.”
Gabe raised an eyebrow. “That happened to you?”
“Only in my head. You have to be prepared for everything to go wrong, every time you step outside your door.”
“Would you kill a cop?”
Ember sighed. “Not unless I had no other choice. I would never begrudge someone for doing their job. In their view, we’re the bad guys.”
“The first time I stood on a skateboard, I knew I could fall off, but I refused to wear a helmet. The danger made it more real for me. It made me take it seriously. Like those climber guys who free-solo up technical routes without any equipment.”
“Careful with that. Adrenaline can be your friend, but it can also cloud your judgment.” She flicked her chin at the folder in his hand. “What you got for me, Mr. Tech Man?”
He handed over the file folder. “The woman you saw yesterday is known as Parker Member #1586. She’s one of their Dark Members. Her real name is Lydia Beauchamp, which was not an easy piece of information to find, and you’ll have to trust me on that.”
Ember flipped pages. “I believe you.”
"The man and little boy you saw her with are her husband and son. It seems they don't know anything about her Club membership. The husband works from home as a copywriter for a marketing firm, and the boy goes to daycare at a place a couple of miles from their house. They think Lydia works in real estate. She has a desk at an outfit named Forever Home Real Estate in nearby Centennial, which is a legit business, as far as I can tell. I didn't do much digging on the fake job, so it may be worth a stop there to see if there's more to learn."
“Solid work, Gabe. The guy she has running errands for her. Do you have anything on him?”
“Sorry, no. The apartment near downtown is registered in the name of an LLC she owns. Roland has no criminal record, no rental history, no social media presence. He’s a ghost, as far as I can tell.”
“When I was snooping in that apartment, I found a notebook with what looked like records of drug deals. It was probably in her handwriting. If she’s making money slinging prescription pills to the moms at her daycare or something like that, why be a member of the DAC at all?”
“Maybe she’s new to the drug game.”
“I don’t think so. There were multiple notebooks of deals.”
Gabe shrugged. “Then for connections? Maybe she uses the message board to find people looking to buy? Because she’s a Dark member, there’s no record of her contracts kept by the Branch Historian. It’s all anonymous and viewable by Branch members only.”
“What a mess.”
Gabe stuck his hands in his pockets. “Yeah.”
“But, most of all, I don’t understand why she took on my contract if selling drugs is her main source of income.”
“Maybe the Parker Br
anch has a minimum number of contracts you have to take on to maintain your membership?”
Ember chewed on her lip. "Yeah, maybe. I wouldn't know because they don't let that kind of info go public. But, she doesn't seem too interested in coming after me. There are only three days left this week, and she hasn't done anything since the poisoning."
“Be careful what you wish for.”
“I need to draw her out somehow. I’m not gonna drive to her house and shoot her in front of her kid. That’s not happening. And, we have to assume she’ll find out we know about her, probably soon. That will make her jumpy. Maybe she’ll run.”
Gabe crossed his arms and adopted a wistful look. “If nothing happens for the next three days, her contract is null and void, right? Then you’re on to your week three contract?”
“Right.”
“What happens if you kill her after that? Two weeks from now, or next year?”
Ember turned up her palms. “I don’t know for sure, but I think that would be against Club rules if it doesn’t happen this week. I think it would count as killing another DAC member in cold blood if there’s not an active contract.”
“Even if she struck first by poisoning the Branch?”
“I don’t know. There are sections in the Club law about justified revenge, but it’s murky. We’d have to prove she did it to the Board, and you’ve seen in action how things can tip in either direction in those meetings.”
Gabe looked her in the eyes, with a level of gravity she wasn’t used to seeing from him. “She killed two of our people. She almost killed me. If she gets away with it…”
Ember closed the file folder and dropped it on the coffee table. “I get it. I have three days to take her out. Don’t worry, my little protégé. I’ll make sure she gets what’s coming to her.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
EMBER
Ember stopped in front of the trail marker sign halfway up the branching intro trail at Chautauqua Park in Boulder. Panting, hands on hips, feeling slick sweat run down her back. The chill in the air made the sweat even worse because, in five minutes, it would cool and send shivers up and down her spine.
