Woman King (33 page)

“You were brilliant,” he said. “We were
brilliant. That could not have gone better.”

“Oh, no! Please don’t jinx us again,” I said.
“I do think we turned a corner, but let’s not tempt the gods. We’ll
watch the news tonight and see what happens tomorrow.”

No sooner than I finished my sentence,
Gabriel burst through the door carrying a bottle of sparkling wine
and a stack of plastic glasses. “
Très bien, excellent
,” he
said. “I knew we were going to be fine, so as soon as I could, I
went out to find something to celebrate with. They call this
Champagne…but we will see,” he said, waggling his eyebrows to
indicate his skepticism.

We had beaten the devil, for the moment at
least, at his own game. As the evening wound down, however, I began
to have an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew that
either Stoner or JP would be waiting for me outside. It didn’t seem
possible to escape without one more confrontation. William, sensing
my anxiety, was quickly by my side.

“Are you expecting trouble outside?” he
asked.

I nodded. “It feels inevitable.”

“We’ll go together,” he said. “Whatever is
there, we’ll meet it together.”

I suggested Levi and Gabriel use the back
door of the offices to leave. It didn’t seem necessary for either
of them to deal with any more trouble tonight. But before Gabriel
walked out, I asked for a minute of his time.

“Now that we’re finished with this mess, I
want to see that recording,” I said.

“
Merde
, you are stubborn,” he said,
but without a trace of irritation. “
Bien sûr
, I will ask
Aidan to have them ready tomorrow night.”

Feeling victorious, I grabbed my bags, ready
to walk outside with William to my car. Time was a marvelous thing,
I mused, in its ability to speed up and slow down depending on your
adrenaline. Two days had passed with almost no sensation of their
conclusion. I wondered if time felt that quick for William,
too.

“Sadly, no,” he said, hearing my thoughts.
“Not when it’s centuries, instead of days.”

“Does it make you weary?”

“Sometimes,” he said. “I have learned to pass
the time gracefully. Come on, let’s go home.”

Unfortunately, as anticipated, both JP and
Stoner Halbert were waiting for me outside. I studied the two of
them, noting their body language, and got the distinct impression
that they had known each other prior to the campaign. They were
standing too close to one another to be strangers. Men normally
don’t give their personal space away that easily, but these two
were standing as close as brothers would. A light bulb went off in
my head. Was Halbert so determined to humiliate me that he would
ask his friend the reporter to play seducer? Perhaps that’s where
the video came in. JP had needed something for Halbert, having come
up short in his quest to compromise me. William’s trip to Hearst
Castle, it seemed, had saved me on several levels.

“Gentlemen,” William drawled, as he held my
hand tightly. “Is there something we can help you with?”

Both men regarded William warily, now unsure
of themselves.

“What you do want?” I asked. “The press
conference is over.”

“I have it on good authority that you were
not even in the house when Lyon made those comments to Levi,”
purred Halbert. “My sources tell me you walked out of the
fundraiser, and off the job, early for a tryst with your lover. How
professional do you think that would look to the world if it were
broadcast?”

William started forward, but I put out my arm
to stop him.

“I’ve got one better,” I said. “How about I
tell the press about your longstanding friendship with JP, a
preeminent Silicon Valley reporter, and how you two conspired to
have him lure me into his bed to gain confidential information, and
when that failed, violated the privacy of two men by secretly
videotaping them. What do you think the press will make of that?
Shall we have a race to see who can pick up the phone faster? My
instincts tell me my story will prove far more damaging to your
boss, especially when I tell the press I am engaged to be
married—that it had been a surprise proposal that caused me to
leave early.”

Two pairs of eyes stared back at me,
unmoving. This they hadn’t expected.

“Shall we get started? I’ll start data mining
and see if I can turn up any compromising photos of the two of you
together on Facebook. You know, you can never really delete things
from the Web.”

“Bitch,” Halbert said, taking a step towards
us. “You think you can—”

“Shut up,” JP said, pulling Halbert’s arm.
“For once, just shut up.”

“I suggest you two leave here,
now
,”
William said, leaving little doubt about what would happen if they
refused. Both men glared, but turned and walked away.

“Are you going to turn JP in to his editors?”
William asked, opening my car door for me.

“No,” I said, sinking into the seat with
relish, my body finally realizing it was exhausted. “JP will live
in fear that I will call his editors and that is punishment enough
for him. As for Halbert, he’s got one hell of a boss, how pleasant
can that be? I am satisfied just to get on with my work.”

“You surprise me,” William said, as he turned
the key in the ignition. “Most people would be ready for revenge by
now.”

“Oh, I do want revenge,” I said, yawning.
“But the best revenge will be for Levi to win the race. So I would
rather focus on that. Besides, I feel foolish, having almost fallen
into their trap. If you hadn’t come for me, I might have done
something far worse to harm Levi’s campaign. I hope you don’t mind
that I lied and told them we were engaged. It seemed like the one
thing that would take the wind out of their sails.”

“I don’t mind one bit,” he said, giving me a
provocative look that spelled hours of fun later. “I say we go back
to my place and make it official.”

****

The sun, it seemed, was taking its time to
set, driving me crazy as I waited for dusk to arrive. Only when it
was dark could our group assemble at the Council’s offices and
review the videos of the robbery. Unlike the two days before, when
time had passed at the speed of light, today had dragged on.

The only bright spot in my long, restless day
was reviewing the positive media coverage we continued to receive
following our press conference. My instincts and my ability to read
people had paid off. Earlier in the day, our campaign pollster had
phoned with news that Levi was widening his lead against Lacy. Even
JP had surprised me. His story hadn’t betrayed any of his venom;
he’d played it straight.

Finally, as the foghorns began to wail and
dusk crept into the city, I called upstairs to Elsa and asked her
to walk with me to the museum. She had gone up to take a nap
earlier, something I’d never seen her do before. She complained of
being tired, which was understandable given that we’d all been
working at a fast pace for weeks.

On the way to the museum, we spoke very
little, too wrapped up in our own thoughts, I suppose. We walked
around to the side door and I placed my palm on the copper, waiting
for the sensors to recognize my fingerprints and open the door.
Once inside, as we approached the main bay of cubicles, I saw
William seated, speaking with Aidan. Their discussion, whatever the
topic, looked serious and I sensed that I was being mentioned in
some context. Gabriel was there too, nodding solemnly. Perhaps
William was simply recounting last night’s finale, which were
details I had yet to tell the team.

“Hello,” I said, breaking into their
conversation. “How is everyone tonight?”

“Olivia,” Gabriel said standing to take my
hand in his for a moment. “William is telling us about Halbert’s
threat against you. He tells us you handled them well, but I am
still concerned. This Halbert, he is about to enter a lost place,
we have an expression
au diable vert
, a place that is
inadvisable.”

“It was his choice,” I said. “He chose the
dark side. But I wonder what will happen if he loses the election.
How will he and his entourage take the loss?”

“Indeed, that’s a good question,” Gabriel
said, a glint in his eyes. “You have come through all of this a
changed woman, Olivia. You seem more…composed.”

“My newfound responsibilities are growing on
me,” I said earnestly. “Thanks to Elsa and the rest of my training,
I don’t feel as vulnerable. I feel more in control of my
destiny.”

“From what I have been told, you’re more than
comfortable, Olivia,” Aidan said, joining the conversation. “You’re
becoming a leader.”

I blushed, feeling suddenly shy at the
compliment. I looked over at Elsa to see if she was happy, but her
face gave away no hint of any emotion. I found it curious, but let
it pass. I knew she was tired and surmised that perhaps she was not
feeling well.

“Can we watch the videos?” I asked, giving
Gabriel an imploring look.

“The room is set up now; we can go in,” Aidan
said, gesturing toward the closed door of a nearby conference
room—a structure whose size and shape seemed not at all to
correspond to the actual footprint of the building.

Once again, I marveled at how the building
always seemed to have a conference room available when we needed
it. I hoped one day to be shown the spell required for making whole
rooms out of nothing, but in the meantime, I enjoyed the trick, and
the privacy it offered.

A large flat-screen television was mounted on
the wall inside, and there was an iPad, a keyboard, and a tray with
a pitcher of water and several glasses. Aidan and Elsa sat down in
chairs at the head of the table and began speaking. Gabriel did not
join us.

“We believe we’ve reviewed all of the videos
that popped up on YouTube in the first two days after the robbery.
Here is a montage of what’s out there.”

I cringed as I watched the first images of
the car crashing into the building. I remembered how it felt to
fall on my shoulder when the car jumped the curb, the pain in my
eyes as I tried to peer through the windows of the jewelry store. I
watched one video, then the next. My memory of the crime was so
much different from the images I was looking at. My recollection
was that there were very few people on the street, but as I watched
now, I saw that there were actually dozens more than I
remembered.

“Did you see me in any of these images?” I
asked.

“Surprisingly, no,” Elsa said. “There were
smart phones filming the robbery from almost every angle, but so
far, you have not shown up in a single frame. It’s almost as if you
became invisible.”

“That’s the second time I’ve seemed to become
invisible,” I said, remembering Lily’s comments at dinner.
“Obviously, that’s impossible, so there must be another
explanation.”

The images on the TV continued to whirl by,
when suddenly something caught my eye.

“Wait, stop, hold that frame for a moment,” I
said, squinting at the face of a man I recognized. “I know
him.”

“What do you mean, you know him?” Aidan
asked.

I pointed at the screen. “I don’t know him,
but I recognize him. I saw him, here, in this building.”

A shot of dread ran up my spine and it wasn’t
my own. The collective reaction of the group was grim.

“Where did you see him?” Aidan asked, walking
briskly to close the door to the conference room. Elsa followed
him, closing the metal blinds in the room completely. I shut my
eyes to get the memory straight, so much having happened in the
last few days.

“It was here,” I said slowly. “Gabriel and I
were having dinner together that night, and I was waiting for him
to get his coat. This man was pacing outside Nikola’s office. I
remembered him because I thought at the time he looked like a
soldier, or an athlete of some kind. He was very tense. He was
waiting, and pacing, and then the door opened and he went inside. I
mentioned it to Gabriel.”

“What did he say?” Aidan asked, coming to sit
next to me.

I massaged my finger against my forehead for
a moment as I thought back to our conversation. “He said something
like, ‘Yes, Nikola knows a lot of Serbs from the Balkan war and
some do look quite grim.’ ”

William, who had been lingering in the back
corner of the room, came to stand next to me, placing his hand on
my shoulder.

“This man?” he asked. “Did he see you
watching him?”

I thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think
so. I was standing in the shadows, waiting for Gabriel. It was only
when he arrived that I stepped into the light to greet him and by
then, this man had gone inside Nicola’s office.”

The group’s concern was growing more palpable
by the second, so I said to no one in particular, “You know, I can
feel your worry. Is someone going to tell me what they think this
means? Do you think Nikola had something to do with the
robbery?”

“We don’t have enough information to make
that connection,” Aidan said quickly, ever the cautious diplomat.
“It could be nothing but a coincidence. The Serbian community is
very small in San Francisco. His visit could have been about
something totally unrelated.”

“Are we going to check it out?”

William and Aidan exchanged glances that told
me all I needed to know. This was off limits to me.

“Olivia, I will look into this,” Aidan said
sternly. “The Council is a fragile organization, made up of many
competing interests. Certain protocols must be maintained. It would
not be appropriate for you to ask Nikola about this.”

Elsa peered out through the blinds, checking,
I guessed, to see who was working in the main bay. “We can’t
discuss this outside of our group,” she said.

“What about Gabriel?” I asked, unsure if she
included him in this discussion.