“Wilco,” Alex said, imitating his soldier tone. He didn’t seem to notice.
Carston’s housekeeper would probably be home by now, unless she had errands to run. She only worked mornings there. Of course, she could have other clients, but Alex imagined that Carston would pay well so he wouldn’t have to share – he would want her free if he needed something. Alex drove the black sedan across town, not all that far, really, from Daniel’s empty apartment. She was glad he was safely tucked away at Val’s. She was sure they’d have some kind of surveillance on his place, just hoping he’d be stupid enough to come back for his toothbrush or favorite T-shirt.
The housekeeper’s neighborhood had street parking only. She found the decade-old white minivan a block over from the apartments where the woman lived. There was plenty of traffic, both cars and pedestrians. She found a spot near the minimart on the corner and set off for a walk.
The early-summer heat had her sweating almost immediately. Unlike Kevin, she didn’t have a myriad of costumes to choose from, so she was in her blazer again today, and it felt twice as thick as usual. Oh, well, she needed the pockets. Hopefully the makeup wouldn’t sweat off.
There were enough people around her that she felt invisible, just one of the herd. The numbers dwindled as she crossed over to the next block, but she still didn’t stand out.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and hit Redial.
Kevin answered on the first ring. “What’s the problem, Oleander?”
“Just calling to say hi,” she told him.
“Ah. Blending?”
“Of course.”
“Talk to Danny. I don’t have time to blend with you.”
“I’d prefer it anyway,” she said, but he was already gone.
She heard a thud as the phone hit something, and then Daniel said, “Ouch.”
Alex took a deep, calming breath. Kevin always made her want to stab things.
“Alex, are you all right?”
“Absolutely.”
Kevin shouted something in the background.
“Kevin says you’re trying to look natural,” Daniel said.
“That’s part of it,” she agreed.
She was only two cars from the minivan now. There was a man ahead of her but walking in the same direction so his back was to her. She couldn’t hear anyone close behind her, but there could be someone who had her in his sight line. She didn’t turn to look.
“So I guess we should talk about something normal people talk about,” Daniel was saying.
“Right.”
“Um, what would you like for dinner? Do you want to stay in again?”
Alex smiled. “Staying in sounds great. I’ll eat anything you feel like cooking.”
“You make things too easy for me.”
“There are enough difficulties in the world without adding my own.” She flipped a few locks of the wig out of her eyes, her fingers knocking into the phone. It skittered across the sidewalk and teetered on the edge of the curb. “Hold on,” she called toward it. “I dropped the phone.”
She knelt and swiped the phone up, holding on to the edge of the minivan’s wheel well for support. She jumped back to her feet, brushing at the knees of her leggings.
“Sorry about that,” she said.
“Did you just plant the tracking device?”
She started walking again, heading for the end of the block, where she could begin circling back to the car. “Yes.”
“Very smooth.”
“I told you it was nothing. I’ll see you soon.”
“Drive safe. I love you.”
Kevin shouted something in the background, and there was another thud close beside the phone.
“Are you kidding?” Daniel shouted back. “A knife?”
Alex ended the call and picked up the pace a little. She couldn’t leave them alone for twenty minutes.
Things had returned to normal – or her new version of it – by the time she got back to the apartment. Daniel was still studiously watching the news. Val had just brought Einstein back from a walk and was filling the lovely crystal bowl with water for him. Kevin was watching the feed from his cameras and sharpening a machete. Home sweet home.
“Anything?” she asked Daniel.
“Nothing about me. Apparently the vice president is bowing out before the election after all. I guess those recent scandal rumors aren’t entirely unfounded. So of course, everyone is speculating about who President Howland will select for his running mate.”
“Fascinating,” Alex murmured in a tone that implied the opposite. She dumped her bag onto one of the white bar stools, sat on the next one over, and opened her computer. All seemed quiet at Casa Carston, so she started scrubbing backward to see if she’d missed anything while she was out. So far she hadn’t discovered any regular visitors besides the housekeeper and the security service that drove by once daily in the afternoon.
Daniel flipped to a different news network, where another version of the same story was running. “You don’t care who the president runs with?” he asked. “Howland’s pretty popular. Whoever he chooses will probably be the vice president, and possibly the president four years from now.”
“Ventriloquist dummies,” Kevin grumbled, setting down the machete and starting to work on a long boning knife.
Alex nodded in agreement as she slowed the feed to watch two teenagers amble past Carston’s house and up the block.
“What do you mean?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t worry about the puppet,” Kevin said. “I worry about the guy pulling the strings.”
“That’s a pretty cynical attitude about the democratic nation you used to work for.”
Kevin shrugged. “Yup.”
“Alex, Republican or Democrat?” Daniel asked.
“Pessimist.”
She reached for the other computer, the one with the bugged calls on it, and plugged in her headphones.
“So nobody cares that the front-runner is some ultra-right senator from Washington State who used to work for the Defense Intelligence Agency?”
The first call Alex had missed was from the daughter again – she could tell from Carston’s warm, fatherly voice. She started fast-forwarding.
“Makes sense,” Val was saying, pulling a rubber band out of her hair. She was wearing sweaty workout clothes and looked like she should be on a Maxim cover anyway. “Howland is soft. Get someone with a conservative edge, pull some voters off the fence. Plus, the new guy is one part grandpa, one part silver fox, with a catchy two-syllable name. Howland could do worse.” She shook her golden hair out, and it fell into perfect waves down her back.
“It’s sad, but you’re probably right. Just a beauty pageant.”
“Everything is, honey,” Val told him.
Alex stopped to check the recording, but Carston was still just listening and muttering kindly mm-hmms. She sped it up again.
“I suppose I should get used to it, since I imagine I don’t get to vote anymore.” Daniel frowned. “Vice President Pace. Do you think he was born with that name, or did he alter it to make it voter-friendly? Wade Pace. Is that something you would name a kid?”
“I wouldn’t name a kid anything,” Val said. “Because I would never be dumb enough to bring one home.”
Alex’s fingers reached down automatically to stop the recording.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Just explaining that I’m not the mom type,” Val said.
“No, Daniel, what was that name?”
“Senator Pace? Wade Pace?”
“That name… it sounds familiar.”
“I think everyone knows his name,” Daniel said. “He’s been positioning himself for this kind of promotion, not exactly low profile.”
“I don’t follow politics,” Alex said. She stared at the TV now, but it just showed some news anchor. “How much do you know about this guy?”
“Just the stuff they’re running on the news,” Daniel answered. “Sterling service record, all the normal clichés.”
“He was military?”
“Yes, some kind of general, I think.”
“A lieutenant general?”
“Maybe.”
Kevin was paying attention now. “Wade Pace. Pace with a P. That our guy?”
Alex stared into space, unconsciously rocking slightly back and forth on her stool. “He’s from Washington State… he worked defense intelligence…” She looked up at Kevin. “Let’s say the DIA is theoretically exploring some biological-weapons options. This guy’s already got some political aspirations, so of course he makes sure the money gets spent in his hometown. They would have had plenty of innocuous goals on the surface – all the outsiders would see was the economic boost. Probably helped get him his seat in the Senate. Great. But then, years later, the fabricated virus is stolen. Obviously, no one can know that he ever had a hand in its creation. No one can know it exists. We track down the bad guys, and they give up too much information. Wade Pace has big dreams. Anyone who heard his name in connection with this virus -”
“Has to be preemptively silenced,” Kevin finished. “And who knows exactly what the too-thorough CIA agent might have seen? Better shut him up, too.”
“Can’t take any chances,” Alex whispered. “Not when you’re reaching this high.”
It was silent for thirty seconds.
“Wow,” Val said, so loudly it made Alex jump. “Are you guys going to assassinate the vice president?” She sounded utterly thrilled by the idea.
“He’s not the vice president yet,” Kevin said. “He’s nothing, officially. That means no Secret Service.”
Daniel’s mouth was hanging open.
Higher stakes again, but not by so very much. In the end, no matter what else he represented, Wade Pace was just one beating heart.
Kevin locked eyes with Alex. “So he put a hit out on me, my brother, you, your friend… so he could try to be president. Oh, I’m going to enjoy this one.”
She opened her mouth but then quickly snapped it shut again. It would be a lot easier and safer – for her – to let Kevin do as much of the wet work as possible.
But there was her anonymity – Daniel’s, too, so she might as well lump in Kevin’s matching face – which had to be protected above all else if this plan was going to work. Kevin might be better at killing people than she was, but she was pretty sure that she was better at doing it with minimal ripples. If you want something done right…
“As much as I hate to deprive you of any fun, I think you might want to let me take this one.” She shivered slightly. This was probably a big mistake. Was she turning into the adrenaline junkie she’d accused Daniel of being? She didn’t think so. She felt nothing but dread at the idea of adding another job to her list. “Quiet is the goal, right? It won’t get too much attention if our wannabe president dies of a heart attack or a stroke – not the same coverage as if he were found shot in some kind of home invasion.”
“I can be quiet,” Kevin insisted. His eyebrows were pulling down into a scowl.
“Natural-causes quiet?”
“Close enough.”
“Close enough puts our other targets on high alert.”
“They’re already on high alert.”
“So how do you see this happening?”
“I’ll improvise when I get there.”
“Sound plan.”
“You know how many people die in household accidents every day in this country?”
“No. But I’m positive that more white men in their early sixties die from health-related problems than from any other reason.”
“Okay, great, a heart attack would be the quietest way for Pace to die, agreed. How are you going to get in, shorty? Knock on the door and ask to borrow a cup of sugar? Be sure to wear your frilly apron – really sell it.”
“I can adapt the Carston plan. I’ll just need a few more days of research on Pace -”
Kevin’s hand slapped loudly against the counter. “We don’t have that kind of time. We’ve delayed too long as it is. You know Deavers and Carston aren’t wasting the prep time we’ve already given them.”
“Rushing just leaves openings they can take advantage of. Proper preparation -”
“You are so annoying!”
She hadn’t realized how close together she and Kevin had gotten – pretty much spitting in each other’s face from about six inches away – until Daniel’s hand suddenly shot in between them.
“Can I interrupt to suggest the obvious?” he asked.
Kevin smacked his hand away. “Stay out of it, Danny.”
Alex took a deep, calming breath. “What’s obvious?” she asked Daniel.
“Alex, you have the best plan for how to… um, assassinate the senator.” He shook his head quickly. “I can’t believe this is real.”
“It’s real,” Kevin said harshly. “And I wouldn’t call a plan with no entry point the best plan.”
“Let me finish. Alex has the best… methodology. Kevin, you have the best chance of getting in undetected.”
“Yeah, I do,” Kevin said belligerently.
“Oh,” Alex said, feeling suddenly disgruntled for some reason. Probably just bruised pride and the irritation of having to cooperate with someone so obnoxious. “You’re right,” she admitted to Daniel. “Again.”
He smiled.
“What?” Kevin demanded. “And stop with the goo-goo eyes, you’ll make me vomit.”
“Obviously” – Alex drew the word out into almost five syllables – “we have to do this together. You go in with my premixed solution in hand. Actually…” Her brain started turning over options. “More than one solution, I think. We’ll have to stay in contact so I can guide you to the best application -”
Kevin gave her a withering look. “You’re in command, and I’m just following orders on the ground?”
Alex stared him down. “Tell me your better plan.”
Kevin rolled his eyes, but then refocused. “Fine. It makes sense. Whatever.”
Alex felt better already. She could perform her part without any risk. And though she didn’t love to admit it, she knew Kevin could do his.
Kevin snorted like he could hear her thoughts, then said, “Can I ask one favor?”
“What do you want?”
“When you’re mixing your little beakers of poison, could you make this one hurt? Hurt bad?”
Alex smiled in spite of her fear. “That I can manage.”
He pursed his lips for a minute. “This is weird, Ollie. I… well, I almost like you right now.”
“The feeling will pass.”
“You’re right – it’s fading already.” He sighed. “How long will you need with your chemistry set?”
Alex calculated quickly. “Give me three hours.”
“I’ll research my new target, then.”
Kevin grabbed his machete and other knives and headed upstairs, whistling.
Alex stood and stretched. Even with the new pressure and attached dread, it felt good to have the answer. The missing name had been an irritant, like an itch on the inside of her skull. Now she could concentrate on her next move.