Collusion

by Newt Gingrich

  “Why would she need an obesity drug? And I’m sure she isn’t going to just hand over her pills.”

  “Preventive maintenance. Sticking your finger down your throat gets tiresome after a while. How good are you at sneaking into an office?”

  “I’m more a kick-down-the-front-door type.”

  She took a sip of her scotch. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. First, we have to get you by Miss Whitworth in the hallway to access the staircase. Next, there are cameras upstairs in the hallway but not in her private office where the pills are kept. Top right drawer of her desk. It’s the bottle marked Belviq.”

  “Can’t you ask her or get them for me? You work for her.”

  “No, she keeps the drawer locked because she doesn’t want anyone to know she takes them, especially me. And I’m not the person who needs them. You are. Your problem. You do the B-and-E.”

  She checked her watch. “The power is about to go off thanks to Austin. When it does, the emergency lighting will come on, but it takes about four minutes for the hallway cameras outside her office upstairs to reboot. It’s an antiquated system. That gives you four minutes to climb two flights of stairs, get into her office, take enough pills to last while you’re in Russia, and come back to the birthday party.”

  “I’m not David Blaine.”

  “You don’t need to be.” She took his hand and he felt the outline of a key in her palm. “Master key,” she said. “You’ll have to return it.”

  “How do we get by Miss Whitworth?”

  “I will help with that.”

  Garrett realized he was trusting a complete stranger.

  “You haven’t told me your name,” he said.

  “You haven’t asked?”

  “I should know the name of a fellow burglar.”

  “Giorgia Capello but everyone calls me Ginger and, no, I’m not and never have been a redhead. It’s just a nickname.”

  As they started toward the hallway, Capello stopped at the bar and asked for a Perrier. She delivered it to Miss Whitworth, who was still at the table with party hats. The stairway was directly behind her.

  “I’m here to relieve you,” Capello said cheerfully.

  Whitworth looked suspiciously at Garrett.

  Capello said, “I’ve managed to convince Mr. Garrett to change his mind. He’d like a hat.”

  Garrett chose a red top hat that was much too large for his head. He felt ridiculous.

  Capello said, “Miss Whitworth, you did all of the planning for this party and you’re so good at these events, it’s time for you to join it and let me watch the table. Most everyone we invited already has arrived.”

  A disapproving look swept across the older woman’s face. “I was asked to welcome guests. Not be one.”

  “Now, Gloria, really, you should—”

  The lights went out. Loud shrieks from the children’s room. The emergency lights popped on. A girl burst into the hallway and darted into the adult room. “Mommy! Daddy!” she squealed.

  “Oh my,” Miss Whitworth said. “Ginger, maybe you should take over for a few minutes while I sort this out.” She looked at Garrett. “Are you coming or leaving?”

  “I’m still reviewing my hat options.”

  Miss Whitworth hurried inside the ballroom.

  “Remember cameras in the hallway and outer office,” Capello said. “Four minutes.”

  He darted behind the table and up the stairs.

  Capello checked the adult room to see if anyone had seen him. It didn’t appear so. Everyone was focused on Ambassador Duncan, who had dropped to his knees to be eye level with his upset daughter, who seemed panicked.

  “The music’s stopped,” she declared through tears.

  “Probably because the lights went out,” Duncan said.

  “No, Liam broke it,” she replied. “He started punching buttons on the computer. He thinks he’s so smart.”

  Reaching out to straighten her daughter’s jeweled birthday tiara, Heidi Duncan said, “Don’t you worry, princess.”

  “Would you like me to summon Mr. Duwar?” Miss Whitworth asked, having suddenly appeared behind the birthday girl.

  “Yes,” Heidi Duncan replied. Speaking to her daughter, she added, “Now you go back into the other room with Miss Whitworth and she’ll get the music working.”

  In the hallway heading toward the children’s party, Miss Whitworth noticed Garrett was nowhere to be seen. “Mr. Garrett?” she asked.

  Capello replied, “Little boys’ room.”

  Upstairs, Garrett inserted the master key into Heidi Duncan’s office suite. He tried the top drawer. Locked. Grabbing a letter opener, he jammed its tip between the drawer and desktop, and pressed on the side of the bolt, prying it down.

  Tick-tock, tick-tock. He needed to hurry.

  Inside were a dozen prescription bottles. He was taking too much time. There were a dozen brown pill bottles. Lorcaserin. He couldn’t find it. Then remembered. Capello had called it a different name. Seconds passed. He cursed his growing inability to concentrate. Belville? Belust? No—Belviq? He rechecked each bottle. Thankfully, only one began with a B.

  He stole five pills. Returned the bottles. Forced the drawer shut and hurried to the doorway. Peeking into the hallway, he saw a blinking red light directly under the camera lens. He had run out of time. Pulling the paper top hat as far as possible over his head, he lowered his chin and dashed for the stairway.

  Capello was waiting anxiously in the hallway. He reached her at the same time a man dressed in a tan shalwar kameez—long shirt and baggy trousers favored by men in the Indian subcontinent—was approaching her from the building’s entrance. He was slender with long curly hair knotted in a bun and a beard. He and Garrett reached Capello at the same time from opposite sides.

  “Krishma,” Capello said warmly, greeting him. “Miss Whitworth and the children are waiting for you. A computer issue.” She nodded toward the kids’ room.

  The man gave Garrett a curious stare. “We haven’t met,” he said, extending his hand. “Krishma Duwar.”

  Garrett shook his hand but didn’t offer his name. “Nice to meet you.”

  Capello interrupted: “Miss Whitworth hates to wait. You best go inside.”

  Duwar looked a few more moments at Garrett. Then at the stairs that he had seen him descending. “Perhaps we will meet again later,” he said.

  When Duwar was gone, Garrett said, “He saw me coming down the stairs. Who is he? Will he tell?”

  “He’s the embassy IT expert. Global Intelligence Technologies,” she replied. “I don’t know if he’ll mention it.”

  “It might not matter. The camera’s red light was blinking. I took more than four minutes. I tried to hide my face with this stupid hat.” He tossed it on the hallway table.

  “I wouldn’t worry about the cameras,” she said. “You actually had eight to ten minutes. I wanted to keep you on your toes.”

  Miss Whitworth emerged from the children’s party accompanied by Duwar.

  “Crisis averted,” she said. “As always, Mr. Duwar worked his magic. I’m certain both the ambassador and Mrs. Duncan will want to personally thank you for saving their daughter’s birthday party. You should join them in the ballroom.”

  “You’re very kind,” Duwar replied, picking up a birthday hat and putting it on his head.

  “Will you be joining the party, too?” Duwar asked Garrett.

  “No, I’ve had enough excitement for the night.”

  “Miss Whitworth told me that you’re the infamous Brett Garrett who now works for my company’s competitor, IEC.”

  “Guilty as charged on both counts,” Garrett replied. Speaking to Capello, he added, “Would you mind walking me outside. I’m still trying to find my way around here.”

  Outside, he said, “That IT man—Duwar—does he help the ambassador with his computer?”

  “Yes, all of the time. And also Heidi. She’s the worst with her computer.”

  He stopped.
“Good night, Ms. Capello. I trust you’ll tell Austin about our little operation tonight—even though you claim to be on the ambassador’s wife’s staff.”

  “The IEC housing quarters are to your left,” she replied. “It should take you about four minutes to get there.” She laughed before reentering the building.

  Twenty-Two

  “I have to tell the FBI,” Valerie Mayberry declared.

  She was huddled with CIA director Harris in his government-issued Cadillac. This time on a service road behind a Walmart at the Fair Lakes Shopping Center off Interstate 66. His driver was standing watch outside.

  “You work for me,” Harris declared. “I’ll decide when and if the FBI needs to know about yesterday’s shrine bombing.”

  “I’m temporarily detailed to you but I’m still an FBI employee and I witnessed a crime. People were murdered. Others wounded. I have to file a report.”

  “No, you don’t. You reported everything to me, that’s sufficient.”

  “But I know who was responsible. Makayla did it. The bureau needs to know about her Antifa cell. She’s a murderer.”

  “Did you see her detonate that bomb?” he asked. “You don’t have any evidence. On the other hand, you shot pepper spray into a high school principal’s eyes during a fatal domestic terrorist attack.”

  “I had to. I was undercover.”

  He grunted. “Don’t be naïve. The media will exploit the hell out of this—especially after reporters identify you as the crazed woman in a viral video threatening a Virginia congressman with pepper spray. Your career will be finished. Worse, you will go to jail.”

  “You could explain it to Sally North and Director Davison.”

  “Explain what? I never instructed you to threaten a United States congressman with pepper spray or assault a high school principal during a terrorist attack. You acted on your own. Let me remind you that there’s also an NDA. Any disclosure about our operation or admission that you were undercover would violate that.”

  “You can’t use that against me. NDAs are invalid if something illegal happens and one party knows about it.”

  Harris chuckled. “Oh my dear, do you really think you’re smarter? In civil cases that might be true. But not in a covert operation classified top secret. The entire reason why we have top secret operations is to keep the public from knowing what you did. If you tell anyone what happened at that shrine, I will personally see to it that you’ll go to prison for life. You’re dispensable.”

  She couldn’t tell if he was bluffing. His tone and angry voice suggested he wasn’t. She also suspected Harris could be vengeful. If anyone were to be blamed for not stopping the shrine bombing, he would make certain it was her, not him.

  Changing tactics, Harris tempered his voice. “Valerie, when you came to work for me, you entered the world of realpolitik. The bureau doesn’t need your help solving that bombing. You need to stay focused on the bigger prize, and that’s Pavel. The clock is ticking. Yes, it’s horrific that two innocent people were murdered yesterday during the shrine bombing. But Antifa would have exploded that bomb whether you had been there or not. We needed you there because—based on the boldness of that bombing—Makayla is our best lead and most likely candidate to be the one helping General Gromyko.”

  The CIA director rested his arm on the top of the back car seat above her shoulders. He leaned in so close she could smell the stench of his morning coffee. “Remember the attack in Kiev? The first terrorist out the door? The one that you theorized might have been a woman?”

  “Makayla?”

  “It’s another reason why you need to keep your mouth shut about the shrine and keep embedding yourself inside her Antifa cell. It’s more important to stop her from killing again with poison than to identify her now and possibly have her go underground. Now tell me again exactly what Makayla said when she grabbed your jacket and pulled you into that van.”

  “I think she said, ‘I’m not leaving anyone behind this time.’”

  “Think isn’t good enough, Mayberry. Did she or did she not say ‘this time’? Because that clearly suggests she was one of the terrorists at Kiev who left Gabriel de Depardieu behind. Think, damn it!”

  “I’d just been struck with a board on the back of the skull.”

  “What you don’t know is we’re comparing your Smithmyer College video to the security taped footage of the masked terrorists in Kiev.”

  “If it’s Makayla,” she said, “you’re eventually going to have to tell the bureau because the CIA can’t arrest her. You’ll have to tell my bosses about the shrine bombing and disclose that I was there. When that happens, they’re going to be furious that I didn’t tell them now.”

  She glanced out the tinted window. She was trapped in a catch-22.

  “What if Pavel is lying?” she asked. “What if he’s fabricating this entire Kamera poisoning scenario about Gromyko murdering Americans to make himself so indispensable that you’ll do anything to get him and his grandson out alive?”

  “Not believing him puts us at greater risk than believing.”

  She grunted, unconvinced.

  He said, “The Russians are pushing the edges—look at the poison murders in London. President Kalugin is out to undermine and destroy us. You’ve grown up being told that all people, regardless of their nationality, are basically good and decent and want peace. But that’s the stuff of fairy tales. Kalugin wants you and me and every American who he can kill dead. That’s realpolitik. You can’t make friends with a crocodile. Now, when is your next meeting with Rivera? Has she told you how to contact Makayla?”

  “I’m meeting Rivera this afternoon for drinks and shopping. And, no, I have no idea how to contact Makayla.”

  “Squeeze her. Find out how to contact Makayla.”

  He handed her a business card. “When you have something, call this number and ask for Mr. Smith. He’ll get information to me. We’re done meeting face-to-face.”

  “You’re distancing yourself from me, aren’t you? Setting me up. Just like you did Brett Garrett in Cameroon.”

  The veins in his neck bulged, his eyes narrowed, and she saw hate in them. Harris reached over her lap and opened the passenger door for her to exit.

  “Go!” he snapped.

  Later that day, Mayberry left her Reston condo to meet Rivera as planned. Rivera had suggested Nostos, one of the finest and pricier Greek restaurants in the Tysons Corner area. Mayberry had just parked outside the eatery when her phone dinged. Text message. New meeting spot. Yelp reviews gave Petit le Diner a half star. Odd, given Rivera’s five-diamond preferences.

  Mayberry arrived at the French restaurant and immediately checked its nearly empty bar. No Rivera. She scanned the largely vacant dining room. She wasn’t there. At least, Mayberry didn’t immediately spot her. It took a second and then a third look. Rivera was nearly unrecognizable at a table for two in a dark far corner. She was wearing no bling. Skinny jeans with holes. A gray lace-paneled, roll-tab sleeve blouse. Nice, but department store goods. Cheap sneakers. An oversize floppy hat. Hiding behind no-brand sunglasses that were so huge they covered half her face.

  “What’s up with the new look?” Mayberry asked jokingly, pulling out a chair with a worn seat cushion at Rivera’s table.

  “Those two—the ones who got—you know—who died yesterday,” Rivera whispered, nervously glancing around the room at a half-dozen patrons. “I’m leaving for Turkey tonight.”

  Reaching across the table, Mayberry placed her hands on top of Rivera’s. “This is ridiculous. You weren’t responsible and neither am I.”

  “You’re wrong, Valerie. We can be charged as accessories to murder—even as domestic terrorists.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “My father. He could tell I was upset. He began asking—I told him everything and he called our family attorney. They told me not to meet you, but I needed to warn you. We’re friends and you have money. You need to disappear, too. Tonight.”

  �
��Where would I go?”

  “Come to Turkey with me.”

  “No. You don’t have to run. We can go to the FBI and explain,” Mayberry said. “We could turn ourselves in.”

  Rivera jerked back her hands from under Mayberry’s. “I’m Muslim. My mother is from Turkey. How can you—of all people—say I should go to the corrupt FBI?”

  “Okay, okay,” Mayberry replied, hoping to calm her. “It was a stupid idea.”

  Rivera began to cry. “You got to believe me. I didn’t know they were going to kill old people, children.”

  Mayberry noticed a waiter approaching. She waved him off.

  “So, you didn’t know about the bomb?” Mayberry asked.

  Rivera looked frightened. “Why are you asking me that?”

  “I just wondered if I was the only one who didn’t—”

  Rivera interrupted. “Are you saying you are innocent and I am not?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Demonstrating at a college, yes. Pepper-spraying racists, yes. Calling for a revolution, ending capitalism, yes. But murdering people at some stupid Civil War memorial, no, no, no. I swear I didn’t know.”

  Without warning, Rivera reached out and grabbed Mayberry’s hands, still resting on the table between. She squeezed tightly. “You have to run. It’s not just the FBI. It’s Makayla.”

  Rivera’s eyes flitted across the restaurant. “That man sitting over there.” She nodded toward a table close to the restaurant’s front door. A hulking figure was watching them.

  “He works for my father. A bodyguard. It’s not safe. Makayla has powerful friends everywhere, including Washington.”

  “Who? What friends?”

  “The bomb. On the news, they said it was C-4 explosive—like what you see in movies. No ordinary person can walk into a store and buy it.”

  “Someone in the military is helping her?”

  “Why are you asking me these questions?” Rivera said, clearly frightened. And then she flip-flopped and volunteered more information. She was a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in her moods. “There’s something I never told you. Something about me. When I was in Paris at school I took a French lover, Gabriel, and he’s the one who introduced me to Antifa. She was there, too.”