Read Born with Secrets: A Political Thriller Online
Authors: Bowen Greenwood
Born with Secrets: A Political Thriller (15 page)
For a while, he’d just sat in the car bored but as
the wait dragged on, he’d become curious. Just who was this mystery woman who
showed up at his home and said she knew Moira in prison?
The first moment he had put FCI Rocky into an
Internet search, his jaw dropped open.
Every link went to a story about the famous assassin
Alyssa Chambers. And every image was an unmistakable picture of the woman who
had left him in the car.
Now, he browsed through various sensationalist
conspiracy theories about her. Alyssa Chambers was hired by the Mafia to kill
Rich West before he could crack down on organized crime. Alyssa Chambers was a
Russian agent sent to kill the only Presidential candidate who had the kind of
courageous foreign policy to stop them. The myths about her past were
unbelievable in the extreme, but it wasn’t hard to find the court records of
her actual trial, before she cut the plea deal.
Suddenly, the fight at his apartment made a lot more
sense. Now, the way she casually donned night vision goggles and set off to
break into a building was completely understandable.
He had been sitting in a car blabbing about his
crush on Moira with one of the most infamous criminals in a generation. He was
stunned and humiliated at the fool he had made of himself.
He was so wrapped up in his reading about his
newfound partner that he never noticed the men in dark suits who surrounded the
vehicle. When one of them tapped on his window, barely bending over, stern
expression on his face, holding a badge in one hand, Zack was so caught by
surprise that he let out a yelp and jumped in his seat.
Once he calmed down, he timidly rolled down the
window. His vehicle was surrounded by men carrying weapons, standing stiffly at
attention, scanning the night for possible threats. Some were clad in tactical
garb like fatigues and helmets. Others wore suits. The one talking to him was
among the latter group.
“Sir, can you step out of your vehicle?”
The man held out an ID card and shield that identified
him as a Special Agent of the United States Secret Service.
Nervously, Zack did as he was told. Running fingers
through his dark hair and hitching up his dirty jeans, the young man felt his
heart race. Having just figured out that he was consorting with a major
criminal who was supposed to be in prison, he didn’t find it surprising at all
that he had come to the attention of law enforcement.
The agents pushed him against the car and frisked him
very thoroughly and very quickly. They took his wallet and his smartphone.
“Sir, why are you parked here at this hour of
night?”
The question came from the same agent who invited
him out of his car.
Zack didn’t even feel any impulse to keep anything
back. He answered without hesitation.
“I had no idea who she was. She showed up at my
apartment looking for a friend of mine. I only came along because I wanted to
see my friend, not because I was helping her with anything. Whatever she did, I
wasn’t involved.”
The agents traded glances among each other.
“Sir, this area is restricted under the authority of
Executive Order 15342. I can’t allow you to remain
here unaccompanied. You’ll have to come with us.”
“I didn’t do anything! I
had no idea who she was!”
“I don’t care. Mr.
Ravenberg, please place your hands behind your back. I’m going to handcuff you.
The young man’s voice rose
as he said, “Am I being detained? What am I under arrest for? What is this?”
The Federal Agents just
shoved his arms into place, cuffed him, and threw him in the back seat of their
black SUV.
***
Alyssa let her head fall back down to the floor. She
was still catching her breath. Across the room, she heard Matt groan in pain.
He lay in a pool of blood on the floor clutching his
thigh.
Next to him, there was a wooden chair tipped over on
its side. A collection of ropes were looped around it and hanging over it. A
piece of duct tape flapped off the back, half-stuck there.
Alyssa struggled to lift herself up on her elbows,
but it took all the strength she had left. She groaned.
Beside her lay Cobalt — huge, bald, menacing.
Into this scene of chaos came Tom Wheeler, Counselor
to the President, with a phalanx of Secret Service agents at his heels.
When he recognized Moira, he pointed to her. Several
of the Secret Service agents with him pulled her away from everyone else and
surrounded her.
As soon as they did, Wheeler asked, “Moira LeBlanc?”
Her only reply was to say, “I’m fine! Help Alyssa!”
“Are you Moira LeBlanc?” Wheeler repeated.
“Yes, but I don’t need help. Help Alyssa! The woman
in black, help her! She almost got choked to death.”
A wracking cough that was half retch interrupted and
then came words that were part gasp and part whisper. “I’m fine, Moira.”
“You don’t sound fine,” Moira replied.
She finally succeeded in getting to her knees and nodded
at Matt.
“Matt got shot. Could someone please help him?”
Next, she moved her head in the direction of Cobalt
and coughed out, “And this guy needs handcuffs. Or a Taser, if you’re carrying
one.”
As Federal Agents knelt next to both Cobalt and Matt,
she crawled over to the latter. She collapsed next to him. A Secret Service
agent pulled Matt’s hands away from his thigh so he could examine the wound.
Alyssa held his hand.
She whispered, “I know it hurts, Matt. Stay awake
though. Almost ninety percent of people who get shot by handguns live, but you
can’t let yourself drift away into shock.”
Wheeler waved at several of the other agents,
summoning them over to him. He said, “Let’s get the girl secured.”
Then he pointed at Cobalt and added, “Get that guy
out of here.”
Moira asked, “Excuse me? Get the girl secured? Who
are you, anyway?”
The Secret Service agents clustered around her so
tight it was hard to see her.
Since Moira wasn’t getting an answer right away,
Alyssa watched the Agents lift him into a fireman’s carry and carry him out the
door. Her eyes followed them. Those eyes grew wider when the door opened and
she saw an army of fit-looking men in dark suits lining the hall.
“Wheeler?” she asked. “Are you sure you brought
enough men?”
“The Secret Service is taking over this whole
building,” he offered by way of explanation. “All those clothes I gave you have
electronic tags sewed into them. We’ve been following you since you left my
plane. Once it became clear you had found the right place, we came down like a
hammer. We’ve got people out front holding back all the employees who want to
come in to work. We’ve got guys on every floor… This is federal property at the
moment.”
As an afterthought he added, “We’ve got a mile wide
perimeter around this place. We found some punk kid in a parked Mercedes
blabbering about you, Chambers.”
She coughed, then replied, “That’s Zack Ravenberg.
He’s with me. He wants to talk to Ms. LeBlanc here.”
At once Moira perked up. “Zack’s here? How? Why?
Where is he?”
Alyssa said, “I tracked him down from all your
emails back and forth with him that you let me see when we were stealing that
video. He told me you would be trying to hack this place again if you had
escaped from prison. We came here looking for clues about where you might be.”
Moira said, “Let’s go see him.”
Wheeler shook his head and said, “Not yet. If he
checks out, we’ll put you two together later on. But not yet.”
“Why not?” the girl asked. “I don’t get why we’re
surrounded by all these cops anyway.”
Alyssa shrugged and said to Wheeler, “It does seem
like a pretty massive show of force just for her.”
Wheeler gave her a grin and said, “Well, not
just
for her.”
Moira asked, “What’s going on here? Why did those
men kidnap me out of FCI Rocky? Why have they been holding me prisoner here?
Who are you and why are you making such a big deal over me? Can somebody tell
me why all of this is happening to me?”
Wheeler looked at her and said, “Soon, Ms. LeBlanc.
Very soon. You’ll have every answer you want. Probably more than you want.”
The girl shook her head. “The only person I trust
here is Alyssa. The rest of you might as well be with the people who’ve been
holding me here, for all I know. I don’t know what you want with me, but you
won’t get it.”
“I hired Alyssa to find you,” Wheeler replied.
The girl looked suspiciously at Wheeler, then at
Alyssa.
She asked, “Is that true?”
Alyssa felt hot embarrassment flushing her cheeks.
The raw trust coming from Moira made her feel guilty about all of her
suspicions of the girl since she disappeared from FCI Rocky.
“His name’s Tom Wheeler, Moira. He’s an old… well,
an old friend of mine.”
She said it with hesitation. She still wasn’t sure
what all this was about, or what Wheeler was up to, or how he’d found her.
Now Moira eyed Alyssa suspiciously, sending a spike
of guilt through her stomach.
The girl asked, “What’s going on?”
And then, there was a small shuffling noise outside
the door. Looking out, Alyssa saw the whole battalion of Agents in the hall
standing stiffly at attention. The ones in the room with her joined them.
And then he walked in.
Alyssa had been raised in privilege, and she
recognized the work of a top-notch tailor at once. In fact, the charcoal gray
pinstripe suit looked like the work of H & H Stevens, her father’s
preferred tailor in Washington D.C.
A diamond tie tack commanded attention right in the
center of his bold electric blue heavy silk tie.
The shoes were polished to a mirror shine, the
creases of his pants looked like the edge of a sword, and an Hermes watch poked
out from underneath his French cuff.
Alyssa had worked for him, at several removes, two
years ago. He was taller than his campaign commercials made him out to be.
The President of the United States.
The President said, “At ease, son.”
But he spared Matt only that brief second before he
walked over to Moira.
The bare concrete basement storage room seemed to be
illuminated somehow by his presence. Maybe it was the expensive clothing in a
dingy environment. Maybe it was the way the Secret Service agents focused on
him.
As he came nearer and nearer, Moira’s mouth hung
open and she stared at him, not even conscious of how she looked. She tried to
back up a step or two.
The President walked right up to the young woman.
The professionally plastic smile of a politician disappeared from his face, and
a soft, gentle, warm expression took its place.
To Alyssa’s everlasting amazement, a tear leaked out
of the President’s eye as he stared at Moira for a moment.
“Moira LeBlanc,” he said. “I’m delighted to finally
meet you.”
The girl obviously recognized him from television.
Her mouth moved several times before she could finally push any words out of
it.
“Wh… wh… why would you want to meet me?”
His smile grew broader, and he was unashamedly
letting the tears roll down his cheeks now.
“I’m your father.”
Finally Moira said, “My what? I’ve never even met my
father. He left before I was born. What are you talking about?”
“I’m so sorry, child. I’m so sorry. If I could have
that choice back, I’d give my life for it. I’m sorry I didn’t stay with your
mother.”
Moira couldn’t speak. She just opened and closed her
mouth like a fish.
“Your mother was a wonderful woman. I imagine she
still is, but I haven’t seen her for about eighteen years. She was so kind and
so good.
“And I treated her so horribly. She was a wonderful
woman, and I was a terrible, terrible man. Not a man, a boy. Cowardly.
Dishonorable. Selfish.
“I deserved for her to tell the press every detail
of our… time together. A thousand times over I deserved that. But she never
gave me away. I left her without saying a word, and she never paid me back. I
rose higher and higher in politics and still she never made noise. She never
went to the media. She never went to my opponents. Even after she had a
daughter, and I was doing nothing to support you and her, she still kept my
secrets. It’s fair to say you were born with secrets, Moira.
“It’s your mother I think of when I think of
becoming a better man. Moira, I owe you a lifetime of love. I owe you
protection, and provision, and … and fatherhood. I don’t have any idea how to
make it right. But on my word, I will start, and I will see it through.”
The young girl stammered. And then she sobbed and
collapsed against him. She pressed her face against that five-figure
hand-tailored suit and bawled into it.
Alyssa felt Matt’s arm pull her closer, even as he
still leaned against the medic.
She heard him whispering, but it wasn’t her to whom
he was speaking.
“Thank you God. You put the lonely in families.
You’re a father to the fatherless.”
Alyssa sucked in a breath. It was the verse Matt had
quoted her at their last visit in prison. It was the verse she had looked up
after he left.
Suddenly, she knew the answer to the question she
had been asking incessantly: was her release from prison a miracle?
A father to the fatherless.
Her own father. The betrayal. The lifetime of lies.
A father to the fatherless.
Alyssa felt her knees weaken. She clutched Matt
tighter, leaning against him. Something like a suppressed cry slipped out of
her.
No. No, God would never waste a miracle to help a
politician cover up an adulterous affair.
But He would certainly use one to give a lonely girl
a father.
“A second chance,” she whispered. “Thank you. Thank
you. It’s a miracle.”
***
He looked as perfect as he always did. To judge by
his hair, he hadn’t even done anything as strenuous as play golf.
“I was outside in the hall,” the Congressman said.
“They wouldn’t let me in here after the President came in. Hi, Alyssa. Good to
see you again.”
She straightened up and smiled at Vincent. She didn’t
really know what to say. She didn’t know what to say about anything. It was
real. Matt was right. Congressman Vincent was right. There was a force for good
in the world. There was a God. And she had encountered Him. Nothing seemed the
same anymore.
When she didn’t speak, Vincent continued, “I can’t
wait to tell my campaign manager. She didn’t believe me when I said the
President was becoming a better man.”
Matt asked, “Did you know about this?”
The Congressman replied, “That the President had a
daughter? No. But Wheeler here has been coming to me for advice lately. He kept
asking me what Bible verses I might share with a man who regretted his past.
Fortunately, the book’s full of those.”
Wheeler said, “I didn’t know about the daughter at
first either. Neither did the President. He just started being a lot moodier in
private and asking me if I thought there was any way he could ever redeem
himself after all the messing around in his youth. I talked to Vincent about it
because that’s his reputation: the official Mister Clean of Capitol Hill.”
Vincent gave him a lopsided grin. “High praise, my
friend.”
Wheeler went on, “Anyway, I got an anonymous message
to my personal email. It was a threat to tell the media that the President had an
illegitimate daughter and that he had been a deadbeat dad her whole life. There
were some blackmail demands about signing the Genetic Probable Cause Bill, and
backing away from endorsing Mike in his primary. There was also a big file
attachment. It was a DNA test result showing the President as the genetic
father of an eighteen-year-old girl named Moira LeBlanc. They claimed to have
her in captivity.
“That’s when the President and I had a big sit down.
I wanted to talk about ways to cover it up, but he wouldn’t even listen to me.
All he wanted was to find her and get her free if they really were holding her.
We tracked her through the Federal court system to FCI Rocky, where, obviously,
we found that she had just ‘escaped.’”
Wheeler chuckled. “Well, when anyone in politics
says FCI Rocky, the next words out of their mouth are always, ‘Is Alyssa
Chambers still there?’ So, Alyssa, pardoning you and getting your help was the
President’s idea. You should thank him.”
Alyssa said, “I thought you wanted me to find her
because she was one more of his affairs.”
Wheeler nodded and replied, “I tried to make it
sound like that. We didn’t want anyone to learn the truth before we had her
under our protection.”
He turned to Vincent and added, “Also, Mike, that’s
why I missed your appointment with The Man. We had just talked about that
email, and I was on the plane to get her out of jail. I was concerned about the
political fallout to the President, of course. That’s my job. But he didn’t
care about any of that. He just wanted to meet her. He wanted to…. Well, you
heard him.”
Congressman Vincent said, “With the blackmail
demands to stay out of my race and sign the Genetic Probable Cause Bill, you
had to wonder about Doyle from the beginning.”
He paused, then added, “Well, maybe not Doyle, but
certainly his brother.”
Wheeler said, “The Secret Service is already hauling
Doyle in. One way or another, he’s about to lose the primary. We’ll know soon
enough whether he was involved or just a vehicle for Luther’s scheme.
“But yeah, obviously we wondered about them from the
beginning. Cobalt’s company stores people’s genetic data. It’s why he owns this
server farm that we’re in. Cobalt Data Mining Systems has the federal contact
for data storage. It’s not just the FBI that uses it. It’s the entire federal
government. And of course, the Secret Service keeps a record of the President’s
DNA.
“So when we started investigating, it seemed like a
definite possibility that their computer storage systems tumbled to the match.
Or more likely, they specifically looked for it.”
He concluded, “But the Genetic Probable Cause Bill
is very popular in certain law enforcement, intelligence gathering, and
national security circles. The Cobalt brothers left a lot of false flags to
make this look like it came from within one of those agencies. We really
thought that was the problem for a while. It could just as easily have been a
conspiracy from some bad apples in those agencies. We didn’t know. So we sent
in Chambers.”
Vincent slipped back into the role of a Member of
Congress. Speaking to Wheeler in his capacity as a top aid to the President, he
said, “That bill. It’s way worse than I thought. I didn’t like it when it was
just about giving everyone and their dog a DNA test, then placing everyone with
suspicious genes under surveillance. But Luther had way bigger plans than that.
He was figuring on all kinds of genes, not just ones for criminal activity. He
was planning to sell the data: who’s an alcoholic, who’s a risk-taker, who’s a
risk to cheat on their wife… everything. You guys can’t sign it.”
Wheeler sniffed. “Don’t worry. I’ve just been
through a miserable couple of days dealing with the consequences of genetic
information being too well-known. The President will never sign it after this.
But it’s not just about the President. We all, every one of us, have the right
to deal with our flaws in our own way. No one wants the government knowing all
of our faults from birth. No one wants the government predicting our sins
before we commit them. There’s not a person in America who wouldn’t be hurt by
this bill.
“Everybody’s born with secrets.”