Brink of Chaos

  Deborah was tossing the trash from the buffet table into a big garbage bag. She glanced over at the meeting taking place in the adjoining room, where the senator, in shirtsleeves, was leaning back in his chair, arms crossed. Beside him stood George Caulfield, his national campaign manager, and across from him was Zeta Milla, holding her black D&G handbag. Winston Garvey, the chief foreign-policy advisor, was somewhere out of sight, and Deborah could hear snatches of their conversation. Several American companies in Bolivia, they were saying, had just been forcibly taken over by government forces, and the executives had been taken hostage. President Tulrude was deferring to the United Nations to intervene. Now Hewbright was formulating his public response.

  The opening ceremonies of the convention would start that night. Deborah knew that would involve a military honor guard and a musical number by a large community choir from Colorado Springs. That would be followed by a video presentation on the JumboTrons, giving a retrospective of American history, called Our Legacy of Liberty. Later, at the end of the evening, Senator Hewbright would appear on stage and formally present the big ceremonial gavel to the chairman of the party, who was presiding over the convention. As she thought of all this, Deborah had a feeling of impending dread — it was the timing of it all, right before the climax of the convention. If someone was going to disrupt Hewbright’s nomination, wouldn’t this be the time? Deborah knew she had to do something — anything — to find out what Zeta Milla might be planning. And she had to do it fast. It was time to try the plan she had formulated earlier.

  Deborah tied up a garbage bag and walked out of the common room. Rick had left with a rolling cart of leftover food several minutes before. On the way out, she snatched up an empty garbage bag and tucked it under her arm. With the full bag of garbage in her hand, she jogged down the hall to the service elevator and threw it into the open elevator. She pushed the button for Basement and scooted back down the hall to the women’s restroom where, around the corner from the stalls, she had stashed her duffel bag. She opened it and pulled out the handbag she had purchased that morning — identical to Zeta Milla’s — which Deborah had filled with empty files and a stack of photocopy paper to give it heft. She dropped the expensive handbag into the empty garbage bag and trotted back to the war room.

  Hewbright’s group was still in the adjoining room. Zeta Milla was in the same spot, handbag hanging from her arm. Deborah could see Hewbright Speaking and looking up at Milla. Milla nodded and walked out into the common area where agent Owens and Deborah were standing. Deborah took her garbage bag and pretended to busy herself, collecting plastic knives and spoons. Zeta placed her handbag on a chair and pulled out her Allfone. On her cell she talked quietly to someone, asking for statistics on the U.S. companies in Bolivia that had just been raided. While she was talking, George Caulfield hurriedly dashed out and told her to come back into the room, to catch the remarks of President Tulrude, who was about to deliver a live televised message from the Oval Office. Caulfield was red-faced, yelling that Tulrude was “trying to co-opt our convention” with this stunt.

  Zeta Milla nodded and told the person on the phone that she would call back. She dashed back to the adjoining room with her Allfone in her hand, leaving her black handbag on the chair. A chill ran down Deborah’s back. An opportunity. She knew this was it.

  Go girl, charge of the Light Brigade!

  She stepped over to Agent Owens and said, “Excuse me, Agent Owens, I’m not sure, but there seems to be some strange stuff going on out in the hallway. Thought you may want to know.”

  “Strange? Like what?”

  “Like a suspicious-looking bag in the service elevator.” She tried to sound innocent so that later he wouldn’t suspect her of having staged a diversion.

  Owens swallowed the last bite of his cookie and headed down the hall.

  Deborah made her way to the chair where Milla’s handbag was. Keeping her eyes fixed on Zeta, who had her back to her, Deborah snatched it up, pulled her identical bag out of the garbage bag, and after placing it on the chair, strode quickly around the corner to the kitchen galley, out of sight. Deborah opened Milla’s bag and rifled through the contents. A small makeup kit, lipstick, a calendar. She leafed through it, but nothing suspicious jumped out.

  She peeked around the corner. Milla still had her back turned. The group was glued to the television at the other end of the adjoining room, and the president’s voice could be faintly heard in the background. Deborah kept digging. Kleenex. Breath mints. She came to the bottom where she found a piece of folded paper. It was a printout of an email from Zeta Milla to FBI Agent Ben Boling. She poured over its content. It confirmed their earlier conversation, in which Milla described to Agent Boling, in detail, her visit to Perry Tedrich in Wichita the day of his disappearance. Milla told Boling how much she appreciated his clearing her of any suspicion in Tedrich’s disappearance and tragic death and how heartbroken she had been. She also mentioned that she feared for Senator Hewbright, particularly after the hacking of his Allfone, and that she urged the FBI to increase surveillance for the sake of Hewbright’s personal safety.

  Zeta Milla seemed to be the epitome of a non-threat. Deborah was numb with disbelief. And something else — she felt utterly stupid. She stuffed the contents back into the purse and quickly moved over to the chair. She grabbed her replica handbag off the chair, tossed it back into the garbage bag, and then placed Milla’s black bag back on the chair.

  When she turned, she was startled to see Zeta Milla standing in front of her.

  “Sorry,” Milla said with a smile, “I need to get past you.”

  Deborah moved out of the way. Milla smiled, casually picked up her handbag, and turned back to Deborah. “By the way, I’m glad to see you on the team. I’m sorry I sort of gave you the brush-off a while ago. Must be the stress of everything that’s going on, I guess.”

  With a nod, Deborah said, “Sure. Understood.”

  Milla dashed back into the adjoining room, as Agent Owens came strolling back from the hallway. He walked up to Deborah. “I found that suspicious bag in the service elevator.”

  “Oh?”

  “Wasn’t that the same garbage bag you just took out of here?”

  With a struggle to look confident and undaunted, Deborah replied, “Wow. Yes. Don’t know where my head’s at. Sorry.”

  Agent Owens sauntered over to the cookie plate and grabbed a lemon bar, still eyeing Deborah as he did.

  Deborah tried to sort things.

  An hour later she was standing in the top tiers of the convention arena, looking down over the scene — the human tide of political exuberance mixed with celebratory chaos. Every seat was taken. Funny hats, waving banners. Confetti flying. The signs for each state delegation posted among the crowd.

  But in the midst of that massive surge of optimistic energy, she was surrounded by darkness. Doubt, like a storm cloud, had swept over her.

  When the house lights dimmed, the crowd quieted. A mezzo-soprano from the Denver Opera appeared on stage in a single spotlight. Behind her, the entire back wall displayed an enormous American flag made of tiny lights, which sparkled and began waving digitally. The woman began singing “The Star Spangled Banner.”

  Deborah saluted the flag, but as she did so, something flashed into her mind. Why would Milla carry such an exonerating email in her purse in the first place? In fact, why would she have so carelessly left her purse in the main room if she knew there was a mole inside the campaign? Deborah quickly worked through one explanation in her head. If Milla was a traitor, then perhaps she had left the purse within Deborah’s reach so that she could deliberately plant false information about her innocence. But if that was true, that would mean Zeta Milla had discovered that Deborah was suspicious — and maybe even knew that Deborah was a plant herself.

  When the singer finished, she made a quick bow, and the crowd roared their approval.

  But Deborah’s mind was not on what had just been sung — the familiar fi
rst stanza of the national anthem — but on what had not been sung. At West Point, Deborah had learned the second stanza as well, and as she recalled the lyrics she felt a chill run down along her spine, as if an ice cube had fallen down the back of her blouse.

  On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep

  Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,

  What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,

  As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

  She mouthed the words to herself. “Half conceals — half discloses.” That was it. She thought about the email in Milla’s purse, purporting to be from Milla to the FBI agent. But that was only half the evidence, wasn’t it? Milla could easily have contrived that. Where was the evidence that Agent Boling ever received it or that she had actually sent it?

  She grabbed her Allfone and typed into the little keypad a question to Gallagher.

  Urgent — Did Ben Boling ever clear Zeta Milla as a suspect in the Wichita murder?

  Then she hit Send. But Deborah wasn’t going to wait for the reply. She was already jogging out of the arena and down to the elevator so she could get up to the war room suite.

  In a small, noisy café in northern California, at John Gallagher’s uncle’s wedding reception, a homegrown band was playing the blues instrumental “Night Train.” Gallagher was one of the groomsmen, but this definitely was not his kind of bash. When he received Deborah’s text, he was glad to be able to loosen the button of his starched tux shirt and step outside onto the deck to get a breather.

  He glanced at her question on his Allfone. He squinted. He dashed off a reply and hit Send. But halfway back across the deck toward the door, Gallagher stopped and typed another short message to Deborah.

  Be careful kiddo.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Deborah was almost to the elevator. A few stragglers dashed past her to get down to the convention hall. In the background she could hear the echoes of the announcer and the crowd cheering in the arena.

  She heard the buzz. She flipped open her Allfone. It was from Gallagher.

  Her question had been simple enough:

  Did Boling clear Milla?

  Gallagher’s response was even simpler.

  No.

  In the elevator Deborah punched the button for the floor of the war room. As the doors closed, she knew what she had to do, though it had all the appeal of grabbing a wasp’s nest with her bare hands. She had to get Secret Service Agent Owens aside, show him Gallagher’s text, and explain the phony email in the bottom of Zeta Milla’s purse. She also had to explain the background information that Pack McHenry had dug up about Milla’s real connection to the Castro regime and her history as an assassin-for-hire.

  Okay, Deborah thought, she would have a lot of explaining to do herself — like why she was acquiring intel about Milla in the first place and how she had joined the staff under an assumed name. Yes, she knew she might even be suspected of foul play herself. But all of that was a calculated risk, well worth it if Zeta Milla could be exposed before something happened to Senator Hewbright.

  The elevator doors opened, and Deborah sprinted out just in time to see Rick heading down the stairwell.

  “Rick,” she cried out, “have you seen Agent Owens?”

  “Uh, yeah … awhile ago. He’s always hanging around the senator.” Then Rick said, “I’m taking the stairs to the arena; it’s faster. Don’t want to miss — hey,” he said as if he had remembered something, “they were looking for you in the private suite.” Then he turned and headed down the stairs two at a time.

  Deborah jogged into the war room. It was cleared out. No signs of anyone.

  She stepped into the hallway. A second buzz on her Allfone. It was the second short message from Gallagher.

  Be careful, kiddo.

  At the end of the corridor, the door to Senator Hewbright’s private suite opened. Zeta Milla emerged, dressed for the evening, very classy. Her hands were thrust in the side pockets of her designer suit jacket, and a Gucci briefcase was tucked under her arm.

  “Hey, there,” Zeta yelled cheerfully, “we were looking for you. The senator has a quick errand for you.”

  For an instant, as time stopped, Deborah looked down the long hallway at Zeta Milla and wished she had more time. Thinking of Gallagher’s warning, she thought to herself, Sorry, John. Can’t do.

  Deborah caught her breath, manufactured a smile, and strode down the hallway toward Zeta Milla.

  Milla let Deborah pass by her and walk into Senator Hewbright’s suite. Deb had taken only a few steps into the penthouse suite before she was startled by the sound of the door slamming behind her. Zeta was behind her, her hands no longer in her pockets. She held a briefcase by the handle and wore latex gloves.

  Deborah scanned the room. She could see a pair of feet lying on the carpet, extending from behind the cabinets of the kitchenette. She took a step in that direction and recognized the dark suit and light blue tie of the man lying there. In the middle of Agent Owen’s white shirt was a small blackened hole and the blood that encircled it.

  Deb lifted her eyes. Senator Hewbright was also on the floor of the kitchenette, but from what Deb could tell, he was still alive. His eyes were wide and his mouth covered in duct tape. The cabinet doors under the sink were open and his hands were handcuffed together around the pipe.

  When she turned toward the door, Zeta was there, almost touching her, pointing a handgun with a silencer at Deborah’s face.

  “Sit down, dear,” Milla said calmly.

  Deborah did as she was told, easing onto the soft chair in the living room but not taking her eyes off Milla.

  “You know,” the woman said, “I had a plan before I knew that you were coming. Crude. But it would have been effective. But when you walked into this campaign, I knew how very perfect you would be.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Deborah said.

  “Oh, but I do.”

  “Why —”

  “Don’t bother trying to understand,” Milla said. “You Jordans think you can outsmart the world. You — the young West Point graduate — did you really think you were going to outsmart me?” Zeta laughed with a guttural tone. It had the sound of something hideous and evil.

  “But you should know something,” Milla continued. “How your love for Senator Hewbright will not go unnoticed.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “How you stalked him and came here under an assumed name. Yes, I know that too. How your romantic obsession with him slowly became psychotic.”

  Deborah’s eyes flashed. “You’re crazy.”

  “Oh?” Then Zeta Milla, with her other hand in her briefcase, pulled out some invoices. “Then what do you think the authorities will say about these … motel receipts with your name on them — having paid in cash each time, of course, showing your many liaisons with the good senator at those times when I know he would have been alone and without witnesses — except for Agent Owens.”

  Milla glanced over at the agent’s body. “Oh, dear, and he’s gone too. Well, they’ll find the receipts in your pockets, along with the note about how enraged you were at finding out that the senator had feelings for me. A murder-suicide … a fairly common syndrome, I’m afraid.”

  “No one will believe it,” Deborah spit back. “My father and mother will hunt you down and expose all of this.”

  “I doubt that, but even if they do, it will be too late. Senator Hewbright will be permanently unavailable as a candidate, because in your rage — you killed him. Before you committed suicide, of course. They will find the gun in your hand, and I will tell them how I witnessed the whole awful bloody ordeal. Which leaves Governor Tucker as the dark horse candidate here at the convention. As you know, he doesn’t stand a chance of winning, especially after his political party gets smeared with this grotesque spectacle.” Then she added, “Deborah, dear — really — by being here, you really gave me the perfect gift. T
hanks, darling.”

  A knock on the door.

  Deborah froze.

  Zeta calmly walked closer to the door but kept the long barrel of the gun pointed at Deborah. “Who is it?” she asked.

  “Room service. Delivery for the senator.”

  “No, thank you. He’s taking a nap right now. Just leave it outside, please.”

  “Oh, boy,” came the voice from the other side. “My manager’s going to throw a fit. All the candidates are supposed to get one of these baskets. I need to say I’ve passed it off to someone up here or he’s going to come up here himself and blow a gasket.”

  Zeta Milla waved with the gun barrel for Deborah to stand up. Then she said in a hoarse whisper, “Take the basket and close the door. If you do anything I don’t like, I’ll blow a hole in your back.”

  Milla stepped to the side, out of range of the door, with her gun trained on Deborah.

  Opening the door, Deborah saw a middle-aged man in a white service jacket, holding a basket. He had a pleasant smile. As she reached for it, he pushed his way forward, entering the suite and staring right into Deborah’s eyes with a look that seemed to be telegraphing something. “Sorry, but I need you to sign for this,” he said and looked around the room as if he were deciding where to set the basket down.

  FBI Agent Ben Boling, in the room-service outfit, smiled at Deborah as she signed for the basket, and he looked around the room without moving his head.

  When he looked to his right, he saw Zeta standing just around the corner. The glass cabinet across the room had caught her reflection, and Boling could see the gun in her extended hand.

  Instantly, he pushed Deborah to the ground, dropping the basket, and in a swooping motion turned the corner toward Milla. He fired a shot but missed. She returned fire and hit Boling in the chest. He collapsed to the floor.

  Zeta moved out from around the corner and fired again but narrowly missed Boling’s neck. Before Zeta could hit him again, Deborah leaped at the gun barrel and knocked it as it fired. A lamp on the other side of the room shattered. There was a momentary struggle for the gun, but Milla kicked Deborah ferociously in the knee-cap, then in the groin, and stomped her shin, all in rapid succession until Deborah faltered. Then Zeta swung the handgun violently to Deborah’s face and pistol-whipped her to the ground.