Capitol Reflections (47 page)
Mark could barely believe his gambit worked. He was certain neither Woodward nor Bernstein had ever done anything like this. Maybe a little bit of Peter Tippett rubbed off on him while they were in Panama.
When the tall agent turned away and stepped into the hall outside the bathroom, Mark held the door carefully by the protruding clothes hook on the back so that it wouldn’t shut all the way on its pneumatic hinge. He watched his captor take a few steps away and reach into his pocket for a cigarette and a book of matches. When the guy struck the match, Mark grabbed what he figured would be his only opportunity to make a run for it. Holding his breath, his shoes in his hand, Mark slipped quietly out the bathroom, mere inches behind the man’s back, praying that he wouldn’t turn around, that the door wouldn’t squeak, and that his footsteps couldn’t be heard. Moving like a shadow, he took a sharp left down a long hallway, a quick right, took two steps, and came up against a dead end.
Shit. Now what?
Further exploration revealed that what Mark initially thought was a wall was in fact a filthy door obscured by all sorts of items that would be better off in the dump. Nervously, he cleared a narrow path as quietly as possible. Fortunately, the door was unlocked. Once outside, he climbed up by stacking several plastic cartons together; three minutes later, he lay on the flat roof of the convenience store.
He waited, peering over the edge. He figured he had about one more minute before the cavalry appeared.
He was right. They came in droves, agents everywhere. But they never even looked up at the roof.
After some time, he estimated half an hour or so, Mark could see that the search had progressed far into the residential neighborhood, away from the store’s vicinity. He lowered himself over the side, dropped to the ground, and went back inside the 7-Eleven.
“Hey buddy,” he told a man grabbing for a twelve-pack of Coors in the cooler. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks if you give me your baseball hat and sunglasses and then trade shirts with me.” Mark made sure his back was to the cashier—though he was relatively sure she hadn’t seen him when he came in—and positioned himself behind the cola display.
The man reached for two more twelve-packs. “You’re on, pal. Can I sell you my watch, too?”
“No, but you can rent me your pickup truck for an hour. It will be waiting for you at the Greyhound terminal in the next town.”
Mark walked outside, wearing the cap, glasses, and dirty Hawaiian shirt. He stepped into the rusted blue Ford truck and was gone.
65
Anne Davidson Broome was no fool. She was well aware that Henry had his little flings on the side. She had long ago told Henry the price of his freedom: separate bedrooms, no scandals, and no questions about her frequent trips to the world’s most expensive female-only spas. The problem? The rules had suddenly been broken. Her husband had not exercised proper discretion at the DNC Gala. She had seen his hands exploring the soft terrain of at least a dozen women, all of them young enough to be his daughter. Her own father and grandfather had not always been faithful to their wives, who looked the other way in order to benefit from the wealth generated by the Great Midwest Petroleum Company. It was an unfortunate family legacy: the men were allowed to sow their wild oats as long as the homestead was well maintained and no bastard children received the name of Davidson on their birth certificates.
Still, tolerance was one thing, and humiliation quite another. She put down the P I’s report on Henry’s latest mischief and walked to the living room of her well-appointed Washington home.
“I think we need to talk, Henry.”
“I’m busy, dear.” He had his feet up while he drank his thirty-year-old scotch on the rocks.
“No you’re not.”
Henry frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean, Anne?”
Anne stood before her husband, looking down at him to give herself the psychological advantage of height. “Henry, your lack of discretion when it comes to women has become far too embarrassing. I see you have a new chief aide—a Ms. Virginia Soo.”
“Yes, that’s correct. Is that a problem? I can’t work without a staff.”
Henry shook his glass, watching the cubes rattle back and forth.
“It most definitely is a problem. You’ve already brought her to two different motels after lunch in the past week. Really, Henry. I would think that you could make it somewhat harder for my private investigator to spot you. If he can, then so can most of Washington.”
Henry rose to pour himself another drink, but before he did, Anne could see the rage on his face. Good.
“I’ll try to do better,” Henry said, patting her derriere as he strode past. “And don’t waste your money on an investigator anymore. If I catch one in the act, you’ll both be sorry.”
Anne stiffened at his touch, and then smiled. “Do not threaten me, Henry. And I’m afraid there won’t be any more chances for you to do better. You humiliated me at the DNC Gala, and things have only degenerated. All those Asian women. At least one a week, according to the investigator’s report. I’m guessing that they come courtesy of Gregory Randall?”
Henry turned back to her and headed toward the couch. “Don’t tax me, Anne. You’re stepping over the line.”
Anne simply laughed as she pushed Henry back onto the sofa, causing his scotch to spill on the adjoining cushion. “I don’t think you comprehend my meaning, Henry. You’re out.”
“Out?” Henry said, laughing mockingly. “Out of what?”
“The coffee business, for one, which I already technically own. The Senate, for another.”
“And how exactly are you going to accomplish this coup?”
“Let’s just say that a little bird e-mailed a well-known reporter about how to find information about the payments from Randall to Lanai, Inc. Suggested he look through Transpac files to verify it. I don’t have to remind you that Transpac files store lots of information, even about that little hobby of handing around Asian women.”
Henry stood, red-faced. “Listen here, Anne. There’s as much damning information on you in those files as there is on me. You own Transpacific Coffee. You’ve got to be stark raving mad!”
“Mad? No, Henry, dearest. I’m just a housewife who does fundraisers for charity and occasionally signs on the dotted line—and someone who wants your Senate seat. Imagine the outrage I’ll display when I find out that my philandering husband gave me enough shares to make me majority stockholder of Transpacific Coffee Imports, a company that sells to Pequod’s, even though it doesn’t say so on paper. Exactly what’s so special about those beans anyway, Henry? Why all the subterfuge? They were your pet project when you first brought me to Lanai all those years ago, and you’ve kept your little secret for all these years.”
Henry threw his heavy tumbler at a picture on the wall, smashing the glass inside the frame. “You think I would share that with you? You think you can topple me?”
“I don’t only think, Henry. I know. Because I have an advocate. Phillip Trainor, to be exact, the next Democratic nominee for President of the United States. He thinks the sympathy vote for me will be enormous, plus the press loves a good sex scandal. I’m an upstanding, scorned woman whose father and grandfather were successful businessmen, a woman who had the guts to blow the whistle on her husband, one of the most powerful men in the world, simply because it was the right thing to do.”
“You wouldn’t—”
“Trust me, I would. Assuming it comes to that. Of course, it would be far easier for you to step aside for reasons of ‘health.’”
Anne never expected what she saw next. Her comments hadn’t flustered Henry. They hadn’t caused him to slump on the couch. Instead, they seemed to embolden him. Henry put his hands in his pockets, and faced his wife squarely. “Let me tell you why you’re not going to reveal anything more—not ever. And why that reporter is going to be worth nothing more than a three-dollar bill in a few days. And while I’m at it, let me also tell you about those plants I grow, the ones you ‘technically’ own.”
Henry smiled his most arrogant smile.
“We have Mark Stern in custody—you didn’t know that, did you?”
Anne tensed, but her face revealed nothing.
“And we have all the data he collected at Transpac. As for Transpacific Coffee, its offices in Pedregal are already empty. Nobody in that port seems to have heard of the company. As for their files … what files? As of 11:15 this morning, there are no files, no Transpac … and no Mark Stern to cause trouble. Whatever you blab will be regarded as the ravings of a crazy woman. Might even land you in a rehab center if I pull a few strings. So many wives of congressmen have drinking problems. Now, as for the coffee … ”
Despite her strength of character, Anne Broome suddenly didn’t feel so confident.
66
In a ’98 Nissan Quest with numerous squeaks and rattles, Gwen, Jan, Peter, Rick, and Karn bumped along a dirt road outside of Calverton, Virginia.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in so many different cars and rooms in such a short period,” Gwen commented.
“I think our switch to the van back at the Capitol was clean,” said Rick, who’d borrowed the Quest from Alex Morgan, a friend at the Department of Treasury. “No guarantees, but I’d be surprised if anyone knew where we are. We may still need another vehicle before this is all through, though. There’s an old Ford Bronco where we’re going, although I’m not sure it’s been used in a while.” Rick held the wheel tightly as he followed the ruts in the ground through a gentle turn. “Up ahead—that’s Alex’s getaway. Uses it for deer hunting, or for just some peace and quiet.”
The van rumbled to a stop and the occupants emitted a collective gasp. The porch of the large pine cabin was occupied.
“What’s he doing here!” exclaimed Jan.
“What took you guys so long?” Mark Stern said, getting up nonchalantly from the old wooden rocker and moving toward the Quest.
“You escaped?” cried Gwen. Once again, she had that look of genuine concern on her face and Mark’s heart ached. If they managed to get out of this situation alive, he was going to have to figure out a lot of things.
Mark held out his arms as if to display the fact that he was indeed standing in front of his friends. “I’m all here, right.”
“How’d you know where to find us?” Jan asked.
Mark nodded toward Rick. “A friend of mine gave me inside information before my unfortunate incarceration.”
“But still—how did you dodge those morons?” asked Peter.
Mark grinned. “I pretended I was you?”
Peter guffawed. The others simply seemed mystified.
“Bravo,” said Peter. “We need you if we’re going to put all the pieces of this puzzle together. Pulling a story together for page one is your strong suit, isn’t it? I mean, aside from dodging would-be captors.”
They settled into the dining room of the lodge, gathering around a large table with their papers and computers.
“Now that we’re settled—and unwatched,” Karn said, “I want to show you what I went back to my office to gather. This came from an old friend of mine, Professor Raju Kucherlapati, who was Jamie’s mentor at Princeton. According to the professor, Jamie was obsessed with trying to figure out how gene sequences in plants led to the synthesis of various optical isomers.”
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