Life of Secrets (15 page)

"George,
you don't get how wrapped up this stuff is in what's going on right now. I need
to know...."

"Look, I
didn't come here to rehash the past. I want you to tell the FBI I had nothing
to do with the assassination! I can't have them rooting through my entire
past—who knows how many clients are going to get embarrassed by what they
find?"

She arched an
eyebrow and fixed Pierce with a skeptical eye.

"Are you
serious? You're here begging for my help and you won't help me in return? You
can't actually believe that's going to work out."

He replied with
a rising voice, on the edges of panic.

"You have
to help me, Alyssa. I’ve been hunting for you since the news broke about the
assassination. They’ll believe you. Tell them I wasn’t involved!"

"Tell you
what, George," she replied. "If you tell me who sent Harris to that
fundraiser, I'll..."

That’s when Alyssa
heard the sound of a helicopter flying very low over the building. Even amid
the din of the party, the roar of its rotors shook the floor, which meant it
had to be very low indeed. And that could not mean anything but trouble.

Even as she
thought it, she noticed a team of federal agents in raid gear coming in through
the main door of the ballroom. They wore body armor, black fatigues, and
helmets. Each was carrying very serious weaponry, and they were headed straight
for her.

"Someone
must have recognized us!" Matt said in a harsh whisper.

"I can’t
get caught here!" Pierce shouted. "I’ve been hiding for a week; if
they find me with you, they’ll be sure I did it!"

He bolted off
toward the nearest gray service door.

"Wait!
George, let me!"

Alyssa darted after
him. She was in far better shape. She reached the door before Pierce.

She threw it
open and ran headlong into a Secret Service agent who was dashing down the hall
– clearly bent on securing the door from the other side.

They both
tumbled to the ground. Since the agent was male and in good physical shape, his
weight gave him much greater momentum. That meant Alyssa fell backwards, and
the agent came down pinning her to the cement floor.

She grabbed his
left bicep and shoved up, rolling him over and off her. She got to her knees
and delivered a very swift punch to the solar plexus and a chop to the neck.
Then she plucked the pistol from his shoulder holster, rose to her feet, and
kicked him in the head to make sure he stayed down for a while.

"It’s in
the fan now, guys. Let’s get out."

The three of
them raced through service corridors. They turned left, right, right, left,
through anonymous, windowless concrete halls meant only for staff, not for
guests. The pounding footsteps of pursuers echoed off the walls, spurring the
three of them on. Alyssa was easily in the best shape, but before long even she
found herself winded.

She could see
evening light beaming in from outside on their right. That had to be an exit. But
before she could even wonder about it, the sound of a gunshot hurt her
eardrums. In the tight confines of the hall, with its cement walls echoing the
sound, the noise was painfully loud. Ahead of her, she saw the sparks of a
metal-jacketed bullet ricocheting off the wall.

She whirled and
was confronted with making a choice. Thoughts blazed through her head faster
than lightning. Her perception seemed to speed up.

Racing up
behind them, shouting at them to halt, were three of the agents she had seen
come into the fundraiser. One of them had his weapon out; he had clearly fired
the shot that missed Alyssa. In her hand was a pistol stolen from the Secret
Service agent she’d run into. She could pull the trigger and return fire. She
could solve their problem quickly and easily. They were running; she was
standing still. She had every reason to expect better aim. The agents were
wearing body armor, but there was no such thing as body armor for the head.

She could kill
them.

But the choice
was the same as it had been with the FBI agents in the helicopter. Alyssa’s end
goal was to come out of this with her name cleared. Killing a bunch of federal
agents was counterproductive.

Not even a
second had passed before she worked the
decocking
lever on the pistol, tossed it to the side, and threw herself at the
approaching agents.

She collided
with the first one, taking the impact on her shoulder. He fell over and she
rolled to her feet, coming up face-to-face with a second man, the shooter. She
punched him in the temple, and he went straight down.

The third man
tried to grab the hand she’d just punched with. She broke his grip and elbowed
him in the side of the head. He went down almost as quickly as the second one
did.

She stood there
panting, nursing the knuckles of her punching hand, when she heard another
gunshot. Behind her.

She turned, saw
the place where she’d thought there was a door, and heard screaming beyond it.
Alyssa scooped up the Sig she had dropped and dashed out that door.

George Pierce lay
bleeding to death on the ground. Standing a few feet away from him, the smoking
barrel of his pistol still pointed at George’s fallen body, was Fred Harris.
His black hair glistened in the setting sun.

Alyssa never
hesitated. She brought the pistol up and fired at Harris. It was one of the
more satisfying moments of her life. She activated an instrument of death aimed
at the man who killed Rich West.

It was
satisfying even though she missed.

Harris dove,
rolled, and came up right next to Matt Barr, who was still staring at George
Pierce’s corpse. He grabbed the reporter and held the gun to his head.

In his other
hand – the one not holding the gun – Harris clutched Matt Barr by the head,
holding his hand over his mouth, which was trying to scream. Harris rubbed his
weapon against Matt’s temple.

A black van
screeched to a halt right behind him, and Harris smiled at Alyssa as the door
opened.

"Drop the
pistol and kick it over here," he said. "Or I blow Mr. Barr’s head
off."

Alyssa sighed
and dropped the pistol a second time. She sent it skittering across the
pavement with her toe.

Harris laughed,
still clamping his hand over Matt’s mouth.

"Here she
is, surrendering rather than risk any harm to you, Mr. Barr. It’s almost like
she likes you. But I don’t know how you two can stand each other. Barr, don’t
you get that this is the woman who…."

"NO!"

Alyssa knew
what he was going to say. She knew the secret from her past that Harris was
going to throw open for Matt to look at. Her scream was so loud as to make Harris’s
words
unhearable
, but he simply waited until she ran
out of breath.

"...who
set fire to your big union corruption story?"

Matt shook his
head violently, as if trying to communicate something, trying to break free of
Harris’s grip, trying to shout or scream. Muffled sounds came out, but nothing
recognizable.

Alyssa felt the
strength go out of her legs. She collapsed to the ground. Humiliatingly,
mortifyingly, she felt tears in her eyes, right in front of people. All that
would come out was a whisper.

"I tried
to find a way to tell you…"

Harris just
laughed.

"True
love. Who knew?"

With that, he
threw Matt into the back of the van and piled in after him. The sliding door
slammed shut. The vehicle squealed away.

Alyssa tried to
get back to her feet to run after it, but as she did the door opened behind her
and another of the pursuing federal agents ran out. He looked almost as
surprised to see her as she was to see him, but he recovered. He reached out
with both hands to grab the front of her dress.

Alyssa was too
distraught to care, but her training was so ingrained it worked anyway. She
threw him to the ground and kicked him in the head.

She ran away as
fast as she could, still crying, looking for a place to hide.

♦

Alyssa crouched,
curled up, behind a stack of five-gallon drums in a janitorial closet. Federal
agents had already looked in the closet once, but they had assumed the drums to
be stacked directly against the wall, instead of harboring a fugitive behind
them.

She didn’t know
what to do. There was nowhere left to go. George had been her oldest ally, and
he was dead. Matt had been… well, finding Matt had helped her remember what it
was like to want another person around. Now he was in the hands of a killer. He
would probably soon be as dead as Pierce.

If he wasn’t
already dead, he was probably being tortured right now with Harris trying to
find out how much Chambers knew. And there was nothing she could do about it.
She had no idea where Harris would be hiding. And she certainly couldn’t dial
911.

For years Matt
had been an awkward annoyance with his constant efforts to woo her. Then he had
matured into a distant, comfortable business colleague – one with whom she
might swap stories and mutually beneficial information over drinks.

Then her whole
life burned up. Then Matt gave Alyssa the one gift no one else in America was
willing to give: a few simple hours in the company of another human being who
trusted her. That had made Matt into something more than he had ever been
before. She wasn’t sure yet what to call it.

She wasn’t used
to this. It was a strange emotion, to want someone to be near, to want them to
like her, to want them to pay attention to her. She’d built a whole life in
which people were risks and assets, not…

Friends.

Wondering
whether he was being tortured drove her crazy.

When she was
worn out from imagining Harris and Matt, her thoughts went to memories of
George Pierce. Pictures flashed before her eyes: his shocked face when she had
dropped the watch onto his desk in her first-ever political theft; his bloody
body lying on the street as his lips opened and closed, trying to get one last
breath; the way he looked when he tried to say something to her before he died.

Gunter’s death
had been unpleasant. George’s hit her much differently, though. They weren’t
friends. Alyssa didn’t have friends – depending on what she was calling Matt.
But George had been… well, he was Alyssa’s only relationship that lasted,
besides her father and Matt.

Now he was
gone. Gone when he had come to her hoping to be saved. She couldn’t shake his
words – very nearly his last words: "You’ve got to help me, Alyssa!"

Even knowing
that it was wrong, she kept holding that against herself.
He came to me
begging for help, and I let him get killed.

It wasn’t
rational. She had tried to take the lead, but the thought wouldn’t go away.

The tears
started again. She used to be mortified about crying. At the moment, though,
she was past caring about anything. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to avoid
prison.

She tried to
motivate herself with memories of her father’s stern code: Do anything to win.
You’re a Chambers. But they fell flat. Lance Reeder paid Harris to kill Rich
West; he was the kind of person who’d do anything to win. Maybe it was Matt’s
influence, but she no longer wanted to be that kind of person.

She had never
felt this lost, never felt this alone, never felt this hurt. She hadn’t known
pain like this since her mother died.

In the end,
that was the memory that helped her pull herself together.

It was only a
12-year-old girl’s recollection, but it was still clear as day to her:
scuttling down the antiseptic-scented hallway, trying to keep up with the
medical professionals wheeling the gurney to emergency surgery. In the memory,
her mother used every last ounce of strength she could find – the last of her
strength, it turned out – to lift her head and look at her daughter, and say
two words.

"Be
strong."

The gurney went
through two swinging doors and an experienced, kindly old nurse stopped her
with a hug, and Alyssa’s childhood ended early. But it ended with those two
words being her most formative memory.

"Be
strong."

She wiped her
eyes with the backs of her hands and set her jaw.

Just in time.
She heard the sound of a vehicle pulling up outside her closet, and a door
opening.

Alyssa froze.
She held her breath.

The door to the
closet opened.

She tried to
will
her heart to beat more quietly.

There were no brisk
whispered commands that might be expected of a team of federal agents. There
was none of the rustling of clothing that might indicate professional operators
giving each other hand signals. By the sound of the footsteps, it might be just
one man.

Harris?

Alyssa had
wedged herself into a very small space. There was really no room to move at
all, but she clenched her fists, gritted her teeth, and prepared to fight.