Sedition (A Political Conspiracy Book 1) (20 page)

Matti could feel the crowd watching her as she pushed past the glass door and onto the sidewalk. She looked to her left and then to her right. It was dark outside now. She saw no taxis to either side. She decided to run left. As she sprinted down the sidewalk, Edwards shoved through the door, gaining ground quickly.

Matti saw a cab ahead. She held up her shoes and waved. The cab slowed at the curb right in front of her. She scrambled for the handle, pulled it, and threw herself into the backseat. Out of breath but full of adrenaline, she slammed the door. Edwards was within a few feet of her but stopped running as if nearing the edge of a cliff and watched the cab pull away.

“The Metro stop at Reagan National,” Matti huffed. Her feet hurt and she wanted to get as far away from the men as possible. She knew she’d blown it. She might have jeopardized the entire operation. Her supervisor would be incensed. She considered that breaking the rules wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Rules are there for a reason.

Matti turned around to see the three men still standing on the sidewalk. Bill Davidson had joined them. They weren’t following her.

She leaned back against the blue vinyl of the seat. What had she done?

*

“What was that about?” Davidson didn’t bother to greet his brethren. “Why were you chasing that woman?”

“She’s a spy,” Thistlewood blurted out.

“What?”

“She’s a spook, Bill,” Thistlewood said, talking with his hands. “We’re being watched and followed. The jig is up.”

“We don’t know that, Arthur.” Sir Spencer had slipped the pistol back into the ankle strap underneath his pants. None of the others had seen it. “She was suspicious. She’s likely working for some agency, but we don’t know that she’s a spy. And we don’t know what information she has or doesn’t have.”

“George is the problem!” Thistlewood snarled and pointed his finger at the artist.

“What are you talking about?” Edwards said in a raised voice. “Why am I the problem?”

“Lower your voices, men.” Sir Spencer stood between Edwards and Thistlewood. “Let’s go back inside and discuss this privately.” He waved the men inside, and they walked back into the reception hall. A small crowd had gathered at the door. They moved back as the men entered.

“Nothing to worry about,” announced Sir Spencer. “We thought that woman may have tried to abscond with a piece of George’s work as a souvenir.” The crowd bought the excuse and went back to its conversation and drink.

The men walked back past the bar to the rear hallway. Thistlewood stopped to assure Laura that he’d be only a few more minutes. She accepted the delay as the men disappeared up the stairs and into a private room.

They feared the plot was in peril. There was distrust amongst the conspirators. They needed to clear the air. Edwards was the first one into the room. He found a plastic chair in the corner in which to sit. He was also the first to speak.

“So what was
that
about, Art?”

“Someone in this group is telling the government what we’re planning!” He waved his hand loosely around the room at all three men, stopping at Edwards. “I think it’s you!”

“Me?” Edwards pointed at himself with his thumb. “What are you talking about? You know me, Art. What would make you think I would ruin what we’ve worked so hard to accomplish?”

“You didn’t want to tell Sir Spencer that we’re being followed. You insist on holding this high-profile art opening, even though we’re thirty-six hours away from the biggest day of our lives. You could’ve canceled it and kept our profile low. You didn’t. Then you spend time with this woman who is probably a spy. It adds up.”

“First of all, I didn’t think we needed to make Sir Spencer believe we’re getting skittish or paranoid.” Edwards was standing despite his now-throbbing ankle. “Secondly, I couldn’t
cancel
the event. And if we
were
under surveillance, changing plans would have only raised suspicion. You said the very same thing at your office this morning. As for the woman tonight, I have never seen her before.”

Davidson stood silently, listening to the back and forth between the professor and the artist. He wasn’t surprised. He knew that a conspiracy was destined to breed jealousy and paranoia. It was all the more reason for him to pull out.

Sir Spencer also stood quietly, gauging the reactions and body language of the three men. He could tell from Edwards’s genuine shock and defense that he was telling the truth. The artist was no turncoat.

The knight was certain that the professor protested too much. He was worried about Thistlewood’s steep decline from normalcy to rabid paranoia. But Sir Spencer was sure that he too was clean.

He thought about Jimmy Ings. The drunk was too deep into the plot to spill the beans. That left only one person who might be responsible for a leak if one existed.

“Bill.” Sir Spencer looked over at the former cabinet member with something just short of contempt. His lips were pursed as though he’d sipped sour milk. “What are your thoughts?”

“Wait,” Thistlewood interrupted. “What about George here?” He gestured toward the irritated artist.

“Arthur,” the knight said, fed up with the whining, “that will be enough. If there is a traitor among us, it’s not George. I suspect it’s not you, and I doubt James Ings has the wherewithal to betray anything but his brand of liquor. I know
I
am not talking to the government. That leaves the good attorney general here.”

Davidson understood the knight’s suspicion, but it bothered him. Other than his expressions of concern and his hesitancy to follow through, he’d given no indication he would go to the authorities. He was too close to it. It was far enough along now that he risked complicity even if he shouted the plot from the rooftops.

“I ask again,” repeated Sir Spencer. “What are your thoughts?”

“I haven’t talked about this with anyone.” He tried to avoid sounding defensive but wasn’t successful. “What would I gain? I am the highest-profile person in this group. I would only sully my public reputation were I to reveal my affiliation with you people.”

“
You people
?” Thistlewood didn’t like that. “That characterization gives me the impression that you don’t consider yourself a part of this.”

“Quite right,” Sir Spencer concurred.

Edwards stayed quiet, enjoying the spotlight being on someone else.

“Well, I
am
having trouble with this,” Davidson admitted. “I’m opposed to the violence. I can’t justify it. But that doesn’t mean that I would set up some elaborate scheme to undo you. I am still hopeful we can achieve our goals without killing or injuring innocent people.”

“Fair enough,” said Sir Spencer. “But we are resolved to accomplish our objective in the most effective way possible. In war there is always collateral damage. This is a battle over the soul of this nation and its global positioning. I think you comprehend the gravitas, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Davidson pulled a handkerchief from his pants pocket and dabbed beads of sweat from his forehead.

“I need an answer from you by midnight,” Sir Spencer said. “And I need the information you promised. I will call you.”

Davidson nodded. “Am I done here?”

“Yes.” There were things to discuss that Davidson didn’t need to know.

Davidson started to leave when Edwards stopped him. “Bill, wait a second. I have something for you. It’s downstairs.” Edwards told the knight and the professor he would return in a moment, and they walked out.

“How can we pull this off even if we
don’t
have a leak?” Thistlewood said, convinced the plan was ruined. “We can’t explain that woman, Matti, or what she was doing here. It’s just too dangerous now. Maybe Bill is right.”

“Bill is wrong.” Sir Spencer crossed the small room and sat in the plastic chair that Edwards had vacated. He sighed. “If our conspiracy is compromised, we will know it soon enough. We are too far along now to step on the proverbial brake.”

“How is that?” Thistlewood asked doubtfully.

“If they know anything about us, they likely know everything. Or at least, they think they know everything. In either case, they won’t stop us until we advance far enough with the plot to give them probable cause.

“They won’t try to stop us until it’s too late to stop us. Even if we are caught in the act, there are elements to this that they won’t expect. We will be successful regardless. The only thing we risk now, if we have been exposed, is our own freedom.” Sir Spencer wasn’t looking at Thistlewood as he spoke. The knight’s eyes were distant. “I am willing to sacrifice my life for the greater good.”

“But if they know about us now, then they could stop us from placing the explosives. Or they could disarm the explosives,” Thistlewood insisted. He believed that the knight wasn’t facing the reality of these new developments. “They’ll arrest us. It will all have been for nothing. Remember that guy in Dallas? He was a Jordanian or Egyptian on a personal jihad, trying to blow up a building in downtown Dallas. Somehow his plan got discovered and he unwittingly divulged everything to the feds, who were working undercover to bust him. They gave him a fake bomb, which he left in a garage. He thought he’d pulled it off when the feds rolled in and arrested him. That could happen to us. It could be happening already.”

“Ye have little faith, Arthur.” The knight snapped from his daze and looked at Thistlewood. “A wise man attacks the city of the mighty and pulls down the stronghold in which they trust.”

“Proverbs. I get it.”

“I mean to remind you that wisdom conquers strength. We must trust that our just cause will triumph. There is no proof that anyone has betrayed us or that Matti Harrold is anything more than a desk-riding bureaucrat who became spooked at George thumping on the bathroom door.”

Thistlewood considered the rationalization. He said nothing in response.

“Now you have a job to do,” Sir Spencer concluded. “Get your girlfriend and get it done.”

Thistlewood turned to leave and hesitated as Edwards reentered the room; he was uncomfortable leaving Sir Spencer alone with him and worried he himself would be left out of the loop. But he knew that his role that night was critically important, so he turned into the hallway. He didn’t acknowledge Edwards as they passed.

Sir Spencer hit the C on his phone and made a brief phone call for some last minute arrangements. Davidson, he knew, needed a push.

Chapter 27

Bill Davidson was two blocks east of the Mayflower Hotel. He walked from the exhibit hall and turned right onto Seventeenth. He was holding a small bag that Edwards had given to him, which contained a copy of
Henry David Thoreau: Collected Essays & Poems.
It was a heavy hardback edition squeezed between two other volumes in a boxed set, and its weight stretched the plastic handles of the bag.

Edwards had borrowed it weeks earlier to read some of Thoreau’s political writings. He’d expressed particular interest in the famed “Civil Disobedience” essay. Davidson had mentioned that he knew a copy of the book was in a storage room at the Hanover-Crown Institute, and he’d borrowed it and loaned it to the artist.

Davidson turned left onto DeSales Street off of Seventeenth. He took the side entrance into the hotel and went straight into an open elevator to his left in the main lobby.

When the elevator door opened again, he stepped out into the hallway and knocked on the first door to the right. He heard the pull of the chain lock on the door and the turning of the latch. He was anxious.

“Hello, sexy,” she purred. She was dressed in a white cotton robe and nothing else, the belt at her waist looped but not tied. She pulled him into the room and locked the door behind him. She had a glass of wine in her hand. “I thought you’d never make it.”

Davidson walked her to the bed and dropped the bag onto the floor. He kissed her on the neck and then whispered in her ear, “I missed you.”

“I missed you,” she replied. “Now go get changed.” She playfully pushed him away from her and took a sip of the wine. Davidson noticed a room service tray with a bottle and another glass.

“Okay, I’ll be fast.” He walked to the bathroom near the front door of the room.

“Oh,” she said in between sips of wine, “you left your little book at the gym today.” He felt his breast pocket and realized it wasn’t there. He turned around to see her pointing her glass toward the small desk. It was next to her purse.

“Really? I don’t ever take it out of my pocket except to write in it.” Davidson was bothered. He walked purposefully to the desk to pick it up and put it in its rightful place.

“Don’t worry, silly,” she cooed. “I didn’t look at it. I picked it up because I recognized it as yours. Your secrets are safe.”

His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. He wasn’t sure what to think. But there were too many other more important things to worry about. He relaxed his brow. “Okay. Thanks for finding it.” He patted his breast pocket and walked to the bathroom.

Davidson flipped on the light and shut the door. It was false modesty, but it was habit. He had started to unbutton his shirt when she called to him.

“I love the wine, Bill,” she said from just outside the bathroom door. Thank you, sweetie.”

“I didn’t order it.” Davidson thought she was kidding. He sat on the edge of the tub to slip off his shoes. “I thought you bought it.”

“No.” Her voice came from farther away; he imagined she was looking at the bottle. “The card just says ‘Enjoy’. It doesn’t have a name or a signature. So who sent it, then?”

“Probably the concierge,” Davidson said, suspecting it was from the hotel; he spent a lot of money there. He stood from the tub’s edge and unbuckled his belt, dropping his pants to his ankles. He heard a knock at the door.

“Hold your horses, gorgeous. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“No, that’s the room door, Bill. I’ll get it.” She peeked through the peephole and saw it was the same man who’d delivered the wine. “Room service again, I think.”

Davidson heard her unlock the door and swing it open. Then he heard two hollow-sounding clicks within a second of each other followed by a thud. He didn’t hear the door shut, nor did he hear any voices.