Born to Run (5 page)

"Happy Birthday," said Andie, raising her glass.

Jack raised his. "Not a bad way to celebrate my fortieth, even if it is a couple of days late."

"I still wish you would let me and Theo throw you a party."

"No. Absolutely not. No party."

"Crab cake?" asked the server.

"No, thank you," said Jack.

Not that the food wasn't tempting. The White House chef had cooked up everything from chicken-fried tenderloin (good with gravy) to marzipan. Even the gingerbread replica of the White House looked good enough to eat. The whole experience struck Jack as somewhere between magical and over the top, from the boughs and lights twinkling in the East Room to the Marine Band playing Christmas songs by the grand piano in the foyer.

"Would you mind snapping our picture?" said a young man with a British accent.

"We just got engaged," said his fiancee, flashing her ring.

"Mazel tov," said Andie. It wasn't a term Jack had heard her use often, but it seemed to pop from her mouth instinctively, as if the Christmas overload had struck an ecumenical funny bone in her body.

Jack snapped their photo, and Andie moved closer as the lovebirds walked away, arm in arm, the crystal ornaments on the tree glistening like the 2-karat diamond on the bride-to-be's finger. Holidays were notorious turning points in relationships, and Jack wondered how many women at tonight's party would get diamonds this season, how many would throw their arms around their man and say yes, and how many had their stomach in knots just thinking about it. He wasn't anywhere near ready to pop the question, but he wondered if Andie was on the latter end of that continuum.

"Quite the ring," said Andie.

Jack's cell rang, and they both laughed at the mechanical play on word.

Jack checked the number. He didn't recognize it.

"You're not going to answer that, are you?" said Andie.

"Aw, come on. I've never taken a phone call in the White House."

Jack hit Talk and said hello, but no one was there.

"Still never taken a call in the White House," he said.

It rang again. This time it was an e-mail. Again, Jack didn't recognize the sender, but the subject line was enough to give him the creeps.

"What's up?" said Andie.

Jack's first reaction was to delete it, and his second was to open it up and read the entire message. He did neither. Jack wasn't entitled to his own Secret Service protection, but they had warned him about this, and he knew the protocol.

"Jack?"

He heard her, but he didn't answer. He took her hand, and they didn't stop walking until they approached the south portico, where the lighting was better.

"Something wrong?" said Andie.

He showed her the screen, and they read the message together.

I can make your father president. No bullshit. Meet me.

Suddenly the fact that they were standing in the White House mansion, just a short walk away from the Oval Office, was even more surreal.

"It's officially started," said Andie.

"What?" said Jack.

"The wackos have arrived."

Paulette Sparks staked out a strategic position in the State Dining Room beneath the watchful eye of Abraham Lincoln. Harry Swyteck didn't know it, but for the past ten minutes, he'd been in Paulette's journalistic crosshairs. He hadn't moved in over a n h our, a steady stream of reporters plying the nominee.

"Good luck getting near him."

Paulette looked away from her target just long enough to respond to her friend.

"Watch me."

"You really are working tonight, aren't you?"

"Isn't everybody?"

Paulette covered the White House for CNN International, and by all accounts a soon-to-be-announced transfer would land her on the fast track toward White House correspondent--one of the youngest in the press corps. Seven years earlier she'd been an engineering student at Northwestern University. Much to the dismay of her honors physics professor, Paulette burned one of her electives in broadcast journalism--and loved it. She changed her major and never looked back. Internships more than class work led to a job as a general correspondent with a network affiliate, and she was quickly promoted to Washington. A "going home" piece she did on Vietnam--the village where her American GI father had met Paulette's mother before the fall of Saigon--won her a Peabody Award and triggered a slew of job offers that took her national. Her hard-hitting but poised and professional style during a ten-month assignment to the Keyes-Grayson campaign earned her even more respect and credibility--not to mention an invitation to the White House Christmas party.

"One more glass of holiday cheer should loosen the governor's tongue," said Paulette. "And then I move in."

Her friend smiled. "You can always tell the first-timers. They're the ones who don't know the White House eggnog has even more kick than calories."

Paulette's BlackBerry vibrated. She would have liked to ignore the thing, but her day never ended, and she was hopelessly addicted. The number on the display screen was a bit of a shocker, one she hadn't seen in almost ten months. It was her younger sister.

Paulette followed a server into the pantry, away from the noise of the crowd, and took the call.

"Chloe, is that you?"

"Paulette! Listen to me!"

The frantic tone concerned her. It sounded like the bad old days. "Calm down, okay? Just breathe in and out. Did you take something?"

"No--no!"

The call was breaking up. Paulette could only imagine where her sister was calling from. The last time they'd spoken, Chloe was on the verge of passing out in the backseat of a taxi at 3:00 A
. M
., no money to pay the fare. She only called when she was in real trouble. Seven years apart, Chloe the offspring of their father's second marriage, they had never been as close as Paulette would have liked. Still, it had been heartbreaking to watch Chloe's decline after getting fired from her White House internship for suspected substance abuse. Chloe denied any drug use, of course, and she refused rehab. Paulette had done her best to help her land on her feet, but it was no easy task when Chloe hated her for being everything she would never be.

"Are you in trouble?" said Paulette. "I'm at the White House party, but just let me know if I need to come get you."

"No, you don't--just . . . listen\"

She sounded out of breath, on the verge of hyperventilation.

"Chloe, what are you doing?"

"Working. A story. A really big one."

"I'm worried about you."

There was no reply.

"Chloe, are you still there?"

Paulette heard a scream.

"Chloe!"

The line was silent.

"Shit!" said Paulette, as she punched 911.

Chapter
8

Chloe tucked her cell into the pocket of her blue jeans, angry at herself for the way the call had gone. Paulette was such a bitch. She zipped up her jacket and started walking.

Chloe had agreed to meet her source at the covered bus stop on Georgia Avenue at ten o'clock. It would have been a pleasant walk past Howard University in daylight, but nighttime made it a long, cold mile. Her breath was steaming and her hands were freezing. Driving, however, was out of the question. She'd lost her license after the DUI conviction, and her old Sebring had been collecting white pocks of bird shit in the alley behind her apartment since June.

Did you take something, Chloe?

It had taken her sister all of ten seconds to accuse Chloe of drug use. Chloe couldn't even brag to perfect Paulette without her heart racing and throat tightening. It was pointless trying to explain that she was about to break the biggest story in the country--bigger than anything "Paulette Sparks reporting live from the White House" had ever dreamed of. And of course Paulette had to tell Chloe--the fallen intern--that she was at the White House Christmas party. What a joke. The stupid member of the Sparks family--the one who was way too dumb for print journalism--was drinking eggnog with the president and First Lady. It was enough to make Chloe gag. She wanted to scream. Again.

Get control, girl.

Screaming in Paulette's ear had been a big mistake. She was probably on the phone right now telling their father how Chloe had snapped again. But so what? Chloe's source was about to make her--not Paulette--the Washington reporter on the move.

The blinking bank marquee at the corner said it was 9:57 P
. M
. and twenty degrees Fahrenheit. The wind made it feel colder. Chloe pulled her jacket tighter. Gloves would have helped, but she'd lost her only pair on the subway yesterday. She blew on her hands to warm them and--whoa--even she could smell the vodka. It seemed weird that something so odorless in the bottle could stink so badly on the breath, but alcohol was alcohol. She'd learned that lesson when she lost her internship at the White House, too. She dug a mint from her pocket and popped it into her mouth. Cool. Just like Chloe. Way cool.

Definitely too cool for this fool.

The wind gusted as Chloe reached the bus stop. The covered shelter was protected on three sides with Plexiglas, which provided welcome relief from the cold. Down the street, the traffic light changed from red to green. A cluster of cars rolled past the bus stop, and then the street was quiet again. Chloe took a seat on the wooden bench, folded her arms tightly, and looked out toward the empty street.

Nineteen degrees according to the bank marquee. The temperature was literally dropping by the minute, and the minutes were passing like frozen molasses. She'd agreed to meet her source at the bus stop, thinking it would be a safe, public place with plenty of people around. She hadn't planned on an unusually brisk cold front keeping everyone but her off the street.

At exactly 10:00 P
. M
., her cell rang.

"This is Chloe."

"Hello, Chloe," the man said. "It's me."

It was the first time she'd heard his voice. Until now, they'd communicated only by e-mail and the accent threw her. The h in hello sounded more like the German ch in Ich or Nacht.

Chloe said, "I'm here, just like I said I would be. Where ar
e y
ou?

"Watching."

An uneasy feeling came over her, as if she were suddenly in a fishbowl.

"You owe me," he said.

"I know, but it's--here's the thing about that," she said, unable to steady her voice. It was so much easier to play it cool by e-mail. She was quaking like a schoolgirl in the principal's office.

Pull yourself together, damn it!

He said, "Don't get cheap on me," but it took Chloe a moment to realize that tsip was cheap.

"We have to talk."

"Talk, my ass," he said. "I done enough talking."

She swallowed hard. "You need to be patient."

"No," he said. "You work for a rag sheet. The rag sheet pays its source."

Rag sit? What is that accent?

"I e-mailed you copies of the wire-transfer instructions. Didn't you see?"

"You think I'm stupid, Chloe?"

Her heart sank. She'd thought the documents were convincing fakes. "Transferring that much money to an offshore account takes time," she said.

"You bitch, I see what you're doing. Make me think the money is right around the corner, get me to give up the story for free, bit by bit. I could have sold this story to any of the tabloids. I picked yours."

"It was the right choice."

"Until your editor put a newbie on the assignment. A story like this, I expected him to take it straight up to the owner. Guess your boss only wants pictures of celebrity party girls in short skirts and no underpants."

"A White House story is a more complicated negotiation. I have to flesh out the gist of it, at least, and then I can get the money."

"And I believed that crap at first. You seemed smart. Hungry. Primed to stick it to President Keyes, after the way they fired your ass from the White House. But you know what, Chloe? I don't think you intend to pay me a dime. It's like you changed on me. What happened--all of a sudden you decided you dont like being a checkbook journalist?"

She didn't dare tell him how true that was. What was the point in landing a story this big if the world--led by Princess Paulette--was going to accuse her of sleazy tactics?

And, of course, a quarter million dollars was simply way over budget.

"Please," she said, "just--"

"Shut up!"

Chloe gripped the phone, afraid that he was going to hang up. Suddenly, his tone took on an even sharper edge.

"Do you have any clue who you're dealing with? Do you?"

"Just calm down, all right?"

"I calm down when people pay. And if they don't pay, I make them pay."

Chloe froze, unaware of the approaching car on the street.

"We can work this out," she said.