The Plot (6 page)

At the sight of none other than a grinning Hamilton Bates walking beside the Vice President, who appeared to be telling a joke, Max suddenly sat up straight, fully attentive. From their expressions, it was clear they were unaware that the camera was focused upon them.

"
Among those attending were the Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations, the Vice President, and Hamilton Bates, CEO of the international conglomerate, Bates Enterprises."
An impeccably dressed Asian man joined the Vice President and Bates as the video clip ended and the face of the anchor-woman reappeared. “
As a young man fresh out of Yale University, Madison Hart served as war correspondent during the last years of the Vietnam War and was later in charge of the Asian office for Bates Press Service in Hong Kong."
An old film clip of a young man dressed in camouflage, holding a microphone and speaking from an embattled airstrip, appeared on the small screen. He looked remarkably like his daughter-thick black hair, oval face, round blue eyes.

"
With the return of Hong Kong to Chinese control, Hart was reassigned to Washington, D.C. and later was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his book,
Linchpin
, an in-depth study of the Bill of Rights. He died Tuesday in a traffic accident,"
Genevieve Stone said, reappearing on the screen.

"Traffic accident?” Max asked aloud, leaning back against the soft cushion. “How did yesterday's ‘hit-and-run’ become today's ‘traffic accident?’ My God. Can't these news folks ever get the story straight?"

"
In other news, the Vice President arrived in Los Angeles today on the first leg of her presidential campaign through the western states and is expected to raise millions of dollars from Hollywood supporters for what she calls her ‘Era of Enlightenment
’
campaign. She received a warm welcome from Mayor James Jefferson and a large crowd of well wishers. Meanwhile, the Conservative candidate for President was met by nearly fifty student protestors at a Dallas-Ft. Worth speech attended by an estimated five thousand people. The protestors carried signs decrying his ‘regressive’ policies
."

Spin, spin, and more spin, Max thought, swirling his drink so the ice clinked against the glass. Not much doubt about which candidate
this
channel supports. Fifty protestors in a crowd of five thousand? Big deal. I wonder how many protestors greeted the Vice President. He shook his head. What was it Alice used to say? “The world is spinning out of control.” He swirled his drink again, downed the last of it, and shook his head. Not out of control, Alice darling. Spin
is
in control. Era of Enlightenment, my ass. Someone ought to enlighten the media.

He only half-listened to the rest of the report as he went to the kitchen to freshen his drink, pausing to look in the refrigerator. It was empty except for the left-over pizza he'd ordered two days ago, a half quart of skim milk, and some wilting, ready-to-serve salad. He put the pizza on the tray in the toaster oven to reheat and returned to the living room. The anchorwoman was signing off, her face partly obscured by the credits scrolling down the screen.

A childhood friend used to taunt him for not reading the credits. “Everybody knows who the stars are, but does anyone pay attention to who the hair stylist is?” he had asked. Max leaned against the wall and watched, determined to know who had done Genevieve Stone's hair and makeup. Maybe it would make for interesting dinner conversation someday. If he ever went to a dinner party again. But it wasn't makeup or hair that caught his attention. It was the small print at the very end: “Copyright by Bates Enterprises. All rights reserved."

"Good grief,” he muttered.
The man is everywhere-like kudzu. He was at the hospital where they took Hart's body; he hovered over Cassandra Hart while we interviewed her; he even hosted the memorial service reception-and he bugs the hell out of me about the investigation. Now I find out he even controls the evening news.

He looked at the briefcase containing Sheila's research and shook his head. “Worse yet, I had to bring ‘im
home
with me tonight,” he said and, opening it, withdrew the large sheaf of papers Sheila had thrust into his hands when he left the office.

"It's not
all
here,” she had said, an intense look in her green eyes. “But it's enough to keep you
awake
tonight."

"Oh, well. I don't sleep so good anyway.” He settled himself on the sofa and began reading.

The Tiffany lamp on the dresser cast a kaleidoscope of colors across the ceiling but did little to dispel the shadows lurking in the corners of the room. Cassie opened the jewelry box and withdrew the silver bracelet. “Let's see what Freedom's charm will unlock for me tonight,” she said aloud, almost smiling as she closed the lid and walked into the hallway. She'd recognized the key the minute she'd seen it this afternoon, so her father's first clue had been easy. She would figure out the rest as she went along, she thought, climbing the attic stairs with the bracelet clutched tightly in her hand.

She flipped the light switch at the top of the stairwell and looked around. As a little girl, the attic had been her favorite playground, a place where make-believe became almost real. Yeah. Just like my fairy tale wedding that never quite happened, she thought, her eyes falling on the long white dress hanging from a hook on the far wall. Her chest grew tight as she remembered the twinkle in Alan's blue-green eyes, the dimples that accented his easy smile.
How he made me laugh. And cry.
Her father had been there for her from the moment she learned the embassy had been bombed and that Alan would never come home again.
Two months before we'd have been married
. She shook her head. This time, she had only herself to lean on, and, taking a deep breath, she forced her eyes away from the dress, her mind away from what might have been.

In the far corner, the table and chairs her mother had planned to refinish were still as worn and scratched as when they'd belonged to Grandma and Grandpa Jamison. Shelves full of books that no one read anymore-but couldn't bring themselves to part with-lined the walls beside the front window. Toys and clothes long ago outgrown and outmoded lay discarded in heaps and bunches wherever there was room for them; and the steamer trunks that had followed her family's travels filled whatever floor space was left. It was the perfect hiding place for little kids at play-and for secrets.

As she wound her way past the remnants of so many yesterdays, dust motes stirred around her, hovering like golden specks in the bright overhead light. The distant roll of thunder broke the stillness, a half-promise of relief from the drought that had plagued the eastern seaboard since June, and Cassie imagined the smell of rain as she reached the far wall.

The door was concealed between the knotty pine panels, and it had been a long time since she'd been up here. The trick was finding the keyhole. All the knots in the wood looked so much alike.
There. Is that it
? She knelt and pushed against the dark knot about two feet above the floor, smiling as it fell to the floor to reveal a small, black steel lock. When she turned the key and the panel swung open, she felt a rush of anticipation.

The dark brown steel safe was almost as tall as she but was twice as broad. At the sight of the combination lock on the door, she cast about in her memory for the sequence of numbers that would open it.
It's something obvious. Something Daddy said we would be able to remember, even under stress. Of course. “Freedom's birth date."
Bending close, Cassie turned the knob left to seventeen, right to seven, and left again to six. When the final tumbler fell into place, she stood and pulled on the handle.

The yellowed copy of the Bill of Rights clung tenaciously to the inside of the door. How the masking tape had made it through the heat that built up in the attic during these many summers, she had no idea, but, somehow, it had stood the test of time. As had the dark, gleaming weapons standing like soldiers before her-soldiers the government had banned. She grimaced at the memory of the pleasant young clerk at the Jiffy store who'd been shot to death during that robbery last week.
Bet
he
was glad no one is allowed to have guns anymore.

The rifles and handguns her father had collected over the years were all there-to serve and protect,” Daddy always said. The two AR 15's from the Vietnam era stood ready and waiting alongside the 20-gauge Remington double-barreled shotgun Daddy had bought her for bird hunting. She reached out to touch the cold steel of the old Winchester rifle her great great grandfather had used in the Spanish-American War. It would be worth its weight in gold if people were still allowed to collect and sell weapons. There was the M-1 carbine from World War II; the 12-gauge Browning shotgun that Daddy preferred for dove shooting; and the Remington .243 Grandpa Hart gave to Daddy on his sixteenth birthday for his “first ever” deer hunt. Her father had killed a six-point with it and, even though it wasn't a “trophy” buck, he was prouder of that deer than of any he'd shot since. If the police had discovered the Freedom Safe during their search this afternoon, they'd have confiscated and destroyed not only the firearms, but the memories that lingered within them.
And I'd be under arrest
.

Cassie pulled the letter from her pocket. “Look to the second right for direction.” She studied the Bill of Rights attached to the door, but it revealed nothing she didn't already know by heart. She looked at the letter again-second right” was not capitalized.
Second right
. On the top shelf, red, yellow, and green boxes of ammunition were stacked on top of one another in neat rows. Cassie took the second box from the top at the far right, surprised that it was not at all heavy like a box full of bullets should be.

"Bingo,” she said aloud. Her fingers trembled as she removed the cardboard lid and took out the key and handwritten note. “Hank Charles. Independence Bank. Tallahassee, Florida. #371.” It looked like the key to a safe deposit box. But who was Hank Charles? An alias her father had used to rent it? No. He'd have had to present identification to the bank. She pondered the note for a long moment. It was like an address.
Hank Charles was his contact at the bank.

Cassie's breathing grew shallower and faster as she considered her next move, aware that the minute she boarded a plane to Tallahassee, her life would be in danger. No longer would she be just the bereaved daughter of a threat. She would
be
the threat.

The morning dawned as bleak and gloomy as Cassie's mood. She had awakened early, despite being up most of the night searching through her father's computer. It was a wasted effort. The burglars had deleted everything from the hard drive except the programs themselves, and there wasn't a floppy disk to be found anywhere. Now, as she sat cross-legged on the floor of the study boxing up what photos and certificates hadn't been destroyed, she wondered why the intruders had spent so much energy on them. After all, they were just memorabilia.

The photo of herself and her parents at the airport the day they departed Hong Kong lay at her feet, and she picked it up. Mother's large brown eyes looked across the years at her, and the furrow between her dark eyebrows belied the smile on her lips. Daddy was smiling, too, as was the Governor who had come to see them off, but neither looked very happy. The only one who seemed genuinely happy was her-a gangly kid who couldn't wait to come back to American stores and real McDonald's hamburgers. A cadre of police officers formed a tight line in the background, and Cassie shivered at the sight of them. It hadn't been until several years later that Daddy told her the police were there not as bodyguards but as
enforcers
.

She shuddered, remembering the night they took her father and mother away. The loud banging on the door just as they sat down to dinner. The smell of baked fish. May Lee's voice rising as she spoke rapidly in Chinese to the soldiers, who pushed past her into the dining room. Their big rifles. The thick gloves. The goggles on their faces. Daddy's whispered instructions to pretend they didn't understand Chinese. It was nearly a week before Mother came home. So thin. Dark circles under her eyes. Daddy had been gone for nearly a month. Cassie shook her head. When he did return, the interim Hong Kong government, controlled behind the scenes by the Communist Chinese, ordered him to leave the country within twenty-four hours.

She recalled their hasty packing. Many of her mother's cherished keepsakes had to be left behind. Although the Governor promised to have them shipped later, he was unable to do so. The new government had “appropriated” them as the “rightful heritage of the Chinese people.” Cassie frowned.
Yeah. Like Mother's collection of German nutcrackers.

"Mother and Daddy are both gone now, the Hong Kong they loved exists no more, and I'm no longer a little girl,” Cassie murmured. She laid the photo between sheets of tissue paper and placed it atop the others in the small box, closing the lid as May Lee came into the study.

"I've put everything away that can be salvaged,” Cassie told her. “So you can take over as soon as you're ready."

May Lee nodded, then bent down to pick up a torn photograph. “Why would they want to destroy your father's pictures?” she asked, fitting the two pieces together.

"I don't know, May Lee. It makes—"

"Look. There's some writing on the back of this one,” May Lee interrupted, handing it to her.

Cassie studied it for a moment, turned the picture over to see who was in the photo, then again looked at the notation on the back.
Firethorne. With my compliments. Joshua.
“That's funny. Why would Daddy keep a photo of Uncle Hamilton unless he was in it, too?” she murmured aloud. “May Lee, I don't remember ever seeing this before. Have you?"

She looked at the photo again. “No. Not ever. And I dust everything twice a week."

Cassie lay the photo on the desk and turned on the lamp. The picture was grainy, as if it was copied from another photograph.
No. More like it was copied from a videotape
. Some of the faces were hard to make out, but she recognized the former President, the now-dead Russian Premier, and Uncle Hamilton. They were seated at a broad conference table across from a couple of Asian men and one who looked distinctly Middle Eastern.