Collateral Damage (11 page)

Ted looked into his empty bottle and grimaced. Lizzie reached for it and held it up high for a waiter to see it. A fresh bottle appeared like magic.

“And if I play ball, I get…what?”

“A twofer. You get me to represent you, and you get to keep your job. Win-win,” she said happily.

Ted thought Lizzie looked like a barracuda, with him caught between its jaws. “God’s a guy. You’re full of yourself, Lizzie. No one is that influential.”

“I’m handling the transfer of the
Post.
In fact, when I leave here, I’m heading to the
Post
to wrap up some final details. We can share a cab if you like. Bet you don’t know who the new EIC is. Sullivan is being put out to pasture. New broom sweeps clean. You want to keep your job, do what I say. I can guarantee Espinosa his job as well.”

“A contract?”

“Do you want a contract?”

“Well, yeah. I’d hate for some new EIC to hold my job over my head. Five years. Guarantee my package if the new deal doesn’t go through. Upgrade my health benefits and my expense account.”

“Deal,” Lizzie said. “And I get what?”

“My silence. Isn’t that what this is all about? Who’s coming on board as the new EIC? I’ve heard rumors. The guy from the
Times?
”

“Not even close. Maggie Spritzer.”

Ted’s eyes rolled back in his head. He clutched at the edge of the green table till he could focus on Lizzie. “That was beyond cruel, even for you, Lizzie.”

Lizzie laughed. “Why is the truth cruel? Ms. Spritzer will be at the meeting. So do we have a deal or not?”

“Yeah,” Ted said. “But all bets are off if I catch you breaking the law. If that happens, you’ll be standing in the tall grass, and I’ll personally stuff the contract up your…whatever. I do have some ethics left, you know. We still on the same page now?” Ted asked coldly.

“Oh, yeah. We’re on the same page. Now, I want you to call the FBI and ask for Erin Powell. Say you heard they want you to come in. Make an appointment, then call me, and I’ll meet you there.

“So are we sharing that cab or not?”

Ted slugged down the rest of the beer in his bottle, slapped a ten-dollar bill on the table, and stood up. “Why the hell not?”

“Yeah, why the hell not,” Lizzie said.

T
he women were armed with rakes and paper bags as they moved about the compound. Raking and bagging leaves and debris was the same as doing a ten-mile run, Charles said as they pelted him with pinecones to show what they thought of his order.

They worked in teams of two each, while the seventh Sister, Yoko, trimmed back the autumn chrysanthemums that graced the perimeter of the compound. They talked among themselves as they worked, their voices excited at first, then sobering at the possibilities that might confront them once they arrived back in Washington.

Annie scooped up a load of leaves to dump into the bag Alexis was holding open. “We’re going to be staying in a house down the street from the ex-national security advisor. You remember Mr. Woodley, right? It was before my time with the Sisters, but Myra told me everything. I’m sorry I missed that little caper.”

“Do I ever? I’m sorry you missed it, too, Annie. It was a mind bender from the git-go.” Alexis grinned.

“Well, Charles said Paula, the ex-NSA’s wife, told him a house was for sale, so we bought it. We’re going to be flight attendants. Myra and I will be the den mothers or cook and housekeeper. Mrs. Woodley invited us for tea after we move in. Myra thinks Mrs. Woodley just wants to torment her husband with the sight of us, which Myra said is okay with all of us. I said I thought that would be fine. I’m really looking forward to meeting both of them.” Annie laughed, then Alexis doubled over as she formed a mental picture of the man they’d turned into a virtual vegetable.

“According to Charles, you girls will have the proper airline uniforms and the requisite luggage. And you will be coming and going, so no one will be suspicious. As Mrs. Woodley said, it’s pretty much a mind-your-own-business kind of neighborhood, so we shouldn’t draw too much attention. For the past few days some women from an acting studio have been going in and out, dressed as flight attendants, so the neighbors could see them. Their gig is up tomorrow, when we show up one by one. You know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men, right?”

Alexis laughed as she snapped a plastic tie around the neck of the bag that they would later haul to the side of the mountain, open, and dump the leaves. The mountain was their personal landfill.

“What’s so funny?” Nikki asked as she dragged a huge bag of leaves over to where the others were piled up. “This is a thankless task. By tonight there will be just as many leaves as we’ve raked up on the ground. I don’t want to do this again. It would be different if we could burn them, but we can’t. I have blisters that have blisters of their own, even wearing these gloves.” To prove her point, she peeled off the work gloves to reveal huge blisters on the palms of her hands. “Better yet, I quit!” she said dramatically.

That was all the others had to hear. They threw down their rakes and their work gloves, marched over to the steps of the Big House, and sat down.

Yoko closed her pruning shears and joined the others. “I can’t believe we’re going to Washington tomorrow.” Her eyes sparkled as she sat down on the bottom step. “This trip, I want to take a drive past my old shop just to see what’s going on. We always had mountains of pumpkins for the children. I worked so hard to make it festive for the little ones. On Saturdays we did a hayride. I don’t care what Charles says, I’m going. Do you all hear me? I’m going to do that.”

“We’re all going to do it, Yoko. If the gods are in the right position, maybe we can all take the hayride. Wouldn’t that be great?” Nikki asked.

The others clapped enthusiastically.

Charles appeared in the open doorway. “What is it I’m going to say that you won’t like?” Before anyone could reply, he looked at the wild disarray in the middle of the compound and knew instantly his chicks had quit on him. He backed inside and closed the door.

“Coward!” Kathryn shouted.

“So, where were we,” Myra asked, “before Sir Charles made his presence known?”

“We were saying how excited we all are to be going back to Washington. Imagine having tea with the Woodleys. I can hardly wait,” Alexis said.

“So our game plan hinges in part on Lizzie. Let’s make sure we have this down right. She’s going to get one of us into Pamela Lock’s inner circle by trading on an old friendship, not to mention that Lizzie has acted as legal counsel to both Lock and the woman who will be her party’s presidential nominee. One of us will be a high-powered, well-connected volunteer with her own Rolodex along with the proper credentials Charles will set up. Said volunteer will have her own assistant. It will be the same for the RNC operation. One high-powered, well-connected volunteer plus assistant. Do I have that right?” Kathryn asked.

“That’s my understanding, which means there are three of us left doing…what?” Alexis asked.

“Don’t even go there if you’re planning on planting Myra and me in that Kalorama house being den mothers. We want in, don’t we, Myra?” Annie demanded.

Myra fingered the pearls at her neck. “Yes. Absolutely, we want in. We are not going to sit on our…our duffs, this time around. We are definitely in.”
God, did she just say that?
Obviously she did because the others were looking at her with a great deal of interest. Or maybe it was respect. She did love getting respect.

“I wouldn’t mind sitting this one out,” Isabelle said. “I can run errands, chauffeur anyone who needs to go somewhere. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

“Trust me, no one is going to be sitting around. We just have to refine the plan a little more and get it up and running,” Nikki said.

“Nikki, what’s your gut feeling? Do you think a pardon is even a remote possibility?” Myra asked, her tone so wistful, Nikki felt herself choke up.

“No, Myra, I don’t. I’m sorry. For the president’s chief of staff to promise something like that is just too unbelievable, but in doing so, I think the man tipped his hand. I think he’s involved somehow. I can almost guarantee the president knows nothing about that particular wild promise.”

“Think about this, Nikki,” Annie said. “What if we can get Lizzie to…uh…drop a few little hints that we might be willing to help if Martine Connor offers us the same deal should she make it to the White House? All is fair in love and war, and this is war. To the victor go the spoils, that kind of thing. This is our survival we’re talking about. I for one have no trouble working to make Ms. Connor her party’s nominee. We help to get her the nomination, then do everything we can to get Connor into office, using the
Post
to support her against the incumbent.”

The others thought about it, looked at Annie, and, as one, nodded.

“That’ll work for me,” Kathryn said.

The others nodded.

“I don’t know about helping the Democrats,” Myra fretted.

“Get over it, Myra. You’re going to love helping
this
Democrat,” Annie said. “More to the point, you can’t vote, anyway. Think of it as just a word you have trouble saying. End of story. Well, no, that’s not really the end of the story, you’re going to have to plan a huge party, a big, glorious fund-raiser. We can blackmail all those Hollywood people that were on the fringe of Michael Lyons’s smarmy life. We also have the file Mitchell Riley kept on all those people with money. We can blackmail every single one of them to donate generously to the fund-raiser.”

Myra didn’t know if she could bring herself to help a Democrat or not. She shrugged. She’d worry about her political affiliations later. She did know how to plan and throw a party, though.

The Sisters looked at Annie in awe, their jaws slack at her suggestion.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Blackmail is a pimple compared to what we’ve been doing,” Annie said airily.

“Annie does have a point, girls. Personally, I love the idea,” Kathryn said. “Let’s make our fabulous fund-raiser in New York, so we can shop. I need some new clothes.”

The girls hooted with laughter because, as they all knew, Kathryn used to live in jeans and flannel shirts—but since hooking up with Bert Navarro, she was into clothes, perfume, and enticing animal-print undies. She flushed but held her ground.

“Okay, New York it is. Anything outside of Washington will give us more cover. I think we should call it a soirée for Ms. Connor. A hundred thousand a plate. Ten to a table. How many on our guest list? How much do we want to raise to get her the nomination?” Annie asked, excitement ringing in her voice.

“Ten million sounds like a nice, healthy number. Connor can buy a lot of airtime in the big primary states for that kind of money,” Nikki observed.

Annie clapped her hands together. “Myra and I will head it up. I think the Waldorf-Astoria will do nicely. Don’t you think so, Myra?”

Myra was speechless as she fingered her pearls. All she could do was nod. What would Charles say when he found out they might be helping a Democrat become her party’s nominee and then take the White House from the Republican incumbent?

Annie clapped her hands again. “Okay, it’s done. We can promise Ms. Connor the ten million without blinking. Think, girls, what else can we promise her to sweeten the deal?”

“We have a lot of time for that. We can arrange a whole host of things to bring in money as long as we’re in blackmail mode. For now, we’re just making promises to see if she’s receptive. While she might be leading in the polls against the guys trying to get the nomination, she’s still strapped for funds. Hey, we’re women, we can make it happen. We dangle the carrot, see if she takes the bait, then get to work,” Nikki said. “No sense spinning our wheels until we see if it will fly.”

The women’s fists shot in the air to a chorus of, “I like it…I think it will work, too…She’s a woman, and women stick together.”

“We need to go over that file on Martine Connor that Charles gave us,” Kathryn said. “We need to know everything about her from the day she was born so we don’t get sandbagged along the way. Lizzie can help us with that. We need to make Martine Connor a household name. Maybe Charles can help us with that.”

The front door of the Big House opened. Charles stood in the doorway with a silver tray in his hand and a manila folder under his arm. “Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pumpkin tarts, and hot tea for lunch, ladies. In the envelope is the updated, guaranteed-to-be complete file on Martine Connor, and will be of more help to you than the first one I gave you.” He turned around and closed the door.

“How
does
he do that?” Alexis grumbled.

“By listening at the door,” Annie snapped as she bit into her sandwich. She chewed furiously, and when she finished her sandwich, she looked down at her watch and then at the Sisters. “Lizzie should be at the
Post
about now. I wish I was a fly on the wall to see how that’s all going to work out. Not that I’m worried, it’s a done deal. I just never owned a newspaper before. What if I screw up? What if things don’t work out? Then what? It’s such a massive undertaking,” she babbled.

“I can’t believe that’s you talking, Annie,” Myra said. “Aren’t you always the eternal optimist? Where is this worry coming from all of a sudden? The glass is always half-full as opposed to half-empty with you. Why are you so worried now when it’s too late to back out? It’s not like you’re going to be running the paper; other people will be doing that,” she finished, with a bite to her tone.

Isabelle started to laugh and couldn’t stop. “The part I like best is that Maggie is going to be Ted Robinson’s boss. Close your eyes and visualize how that’s going to play out. I think I might pay to see that if it was on pay per view.”

While Annie and Myra cleaned up the luncheon debris, which was almost nil, the others went back to raking leaves.

“I thought they quit,” Annie said, looking over her shoulder.

“No one quits on Charles and lives to talk about it. You know that, Annie.” Myra smiled. “Not even us, so get ready to rake as soon as we take all these things back to the kitchen. He’s watching us, you know.”

“I know, I know,” Annie said cheerfully, her good mood restored.

At the same time as the Sisters were raking the leaves, Lizzie Fox and Ted Robinson were taking the elevator up to the fifth floor of the
Post,
where the two parted company, Ted to his newly assigned cubicle and Lizzie to the conference room. She knew her way, having been there four times, but always late at night after the paper had been put to bed.

They were waiting for her, and to a man they stood when she entered the room. The bright-red leg-hugging boots with the four-inch heels did not go unnoticed. Nor did the clinging leather pants miss inspection.

Maggie Spritzer, dressed in a conservative charcoal-gray suit befitting her new position at the paper, was the one who walked around the long table and hugged Lizzie, to everyone but Lizzie’s amazement. They watched bug-eyed as Lizzie hugged Maggie with a bone-crushing embrace.

“Gentlemen,” Lizzie said by way of greeting. “Please sit down and let’s get to work.” Before she opened her one-of-a-kind briefcase, she looked around at the faces of the men she was dealing with. They looked like sharks but were so in the box she discounted them entirely. All they wanted to do was nitpick. Lizzie Fox did not nitpick. She slammed and rammed, and if you were still standing, she’d sucker punch you right out of the room.

Lizzie slapped stack after stack of papers, all earmarked with red sticky note arrows, on the table in front of her. She looked around again, and said, “I have exactly seventy minutes to wrap this up. The new owner has informed me that if we don’t get it done in that time period, I am to walk out of this room and the deal is off. I do not play games, gentlemen. From this minute on until the clock runs out, it’s my way or it’s the highway. It’s up to you. Now, let’s go to the yellow folder. Shame on you for trying to slip that past me. It’s gone. Let’s move on to the red folder…”

Sixty-eight minutes later the digital kitchen timer in Lizzie’s briefcase pinged.

“That’s it, gentlemen. Thank you for your cooperation, your willingness to try to screw me—and you see where that got you. We have ourselves a deal. I hope your client is as happy as my client. I won’t say it’s been nice doing business with you because it has not been a pleasant experience.”