Drake shook his head, forcing himself to focus.
Crosby went on with his whimpering worry fest.
“Roger Grantham’s test results came back positive for lymphoma,” he said. “He’s giving a press conference in an hour.”
Drake slid the damning photographs back in the envelope. So, Grantham would step down as speaker of the House. The job was as good as his.
“You have unprecedented support from the public since you came out with the list,” Crosby said. “Tatum Hanks wants the job, but you’re the party’s certain nomination for speaker.”
“You think so?” Drake loosened his blue and silver bow tie and undid the top button of his starched shirt. Hanks was majority whip. In other circumstances would get the party nod. But Crosby was right. In the wake of all the terrorist killings, the public and most members of Congress were lined up behind Drake.
“So what are we going to do?” Crosby said, fidgeting with his hands.
“David.” Drake smiled. “We are going to make certain I become speaker of the House.”
“Sir, I mean what are we going to do about the photos? If they get out, we’re screwed.”
Drake chuckled. “Interesting choice of words, considering.” He put a hand on the kid’s shoulder. “There wasn’t any note?”
Crosby shook his head, looking pale. “No, just the photos.”
“Don’t look so glum, David,” Drake said. “Remember, I know this girl. I know where she lives.”
“Do you want me to call someone in to help us… I don’t know… take care of the problem?”
“Come on, Dave,” Drake belly laughed. “I’ll handle this myself. I step out on my wife once in a while. I’m not some mobster who has people whacked because they cross him. How would that look for the guy who’s about to be the number-three guy in the line of succession for the presidency of the United States?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
New York City
M ujaheed Beg stood against the peeling yellow wallpaper of the crowded hotel room looking over his shoulder out the window. Six stories below, the clang and clatter of garbage trucks on Thirty-ninth Street helped to drown out the soup of angry voices in the suite with him. The Mervi brooded sullenly, keeping his back to the wall. It angered him that the doctor had insisted on his presence in New York when he was so close to finding out more about the dark woman who had almost stumbled onto him at Arbakova’s house.
Still, the doctor was his employer. When he’d called to tell Beg to take the five-o’clock Acela Express out of Union Station for New York, the Mervi had grudgingly complied.
Now he found himself at the Eastgate Tower, standing in a room that was, as many rooms were in Manhattan, little larger than a closet. The hotel was just a short distance from the United Nations. Groups of foreign nationals were the norm, even in the day and age where men with dark skin and a Middle Eastern look were viewed as potential terrorists anywhere else.
Dr. Badeeb sat on the edge of the queen bed. He lit his sixth cigarette of the evening with the butt of his fifth, grinding out the old one in a glass ashtray on the mattress beside him. He picked a bit of tobacco off his lip and waved away the plume of blue smoke that encircled his face.
Over the course of the last two hours, eight other men had slipped into the room one at a time, each with dark faces and even darker dispositions. Some smoked, sitting on the low dresser beside the television. Others squatted along the wall, peering sullenly over black beards and thick mustaches.
The room smelled of old cigarettes, burned coffee, and body odor. Beg was a creature of the desert and yearned for the smell of wind, or at the very least, fresh blood.
“Brothers,” Badeeb said, waving his cigarette in the air. “Please, we must remain calm. Think of all our young friends. They have become martyrs in our struggle. Do you not see the news and what the Americans are doing to one another?”
Mustafa Mahmoud, a gaunt firebrand from Lahore, threw up his hands. He had the only chair in the room. “I must ask you the selfsame question, Doctor. Do you not watch the news? This infidel congressman, Hartman Drake, is to be the next speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.”
A murmur of consent hummed around the other men in the room.
Mahmoud continued, his words clicking off his tongue. “Have you not heard what this man says about Pakistan or Palestine or the entire Middle East? He would bomb all Muslim countries off the map if given the opportunity.”
Badeeb pressed the flat of his right hand to his chest. “I understand your worry,” he said. “But we are compelled to continue with our original course of action. Assets are in place. We have traveled much too far to alter plans at this point in time.”
Mahmoud stood abruptly and stared directly into Badeeb’s sweating face. Beg moved forward a half step. Watching. The others in the room fell completely silent.
“My brothers,” Badeeb said, waving Beg to stay back. “I promise you. I myself will take care of Drake when the time is right. I am certain he will be invited to the infidel wedding.”
“Of course, you know best, Doctor,” the skinny Pakistani muttered. “I am but a simple hotel keeper. But think on this. If we continue on your original plan, and Hartman Drake does not attend this wedding, he will have the power to do untold damage.”
“I ask you to trust me,” Badeeb whispered, bowing his head.
Mujaheed Beg held his breath. The doctor paid him well, but there was far more to his work than mere employment. He saw the doctor’s dedication, saw the devotion the man gave to his jihad. Of all the men in the room, Beg was perhaps the only one who could have faith in the doctor’s plan-and when it concerned Hartman Drake, such faith was proving difficult even for him.
The man needed to die.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Washington 0830 hours
Nancy Hughes sat in her favorite white wicker chair overlooking the rolling lawn of the Naval Observatory. The grass glistened from an overnight rain. A white porcelain cup and saucer rested on her lap, steaming peacefully in the quiet air.
She took a sip of her Earl Grey and tipped her head at her new assistant. “Mrs. Peterson is ill today. Think you can handle her duties along with your own?”
“Absolutely, ma’am.” Amanda Deatherage gave an impish smile that Hughes found unsettling. She was a small girl, not much over five feet tall, with narrow, girlish shoulders and piercing hazel eyes. Her stiff, red wool suit and large Wilma Flintstone pearls gave the impression of a child playing dress-up. She had a tendency to tug at her clothing as if it was bunching up and her stockings sagged noticeably above the heels of scuffed pumps. Her resume was impressive enough and she possessed decent organizational skills. It was the rumpled appearance that had put her number two behind Grace Smallwood on the applicant list.
“Excellent,” Hughes said, taking another sip of tea before setting the cup on the porch. She took up a small notepad and situated a pair of gold reading glasses on her nose. “So, how will I earn my keep today?”
Deatherage opened the burgundy leather appointment calendar and studied it for a long moment, pen poised above the pages.
“Let’s see, ma’am…” She scanned the schedule.
“Nine a.m., you meet with the head of the Kiva nonprofit… uh
… at the Smithsonian Castle.” She looked up, mouth open in reverent awe. “That is, like, the coolest thing ever. Anyways, after that, at eleven-thirty, you have lunch with the first lady at Ben’s Chili Bowl…”
Hughes closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair. “Are you sure? For some reason I thought that was Monday.”
Deatherage’s auburn bangs bobbed as she shook her head. “It says right here: Secret Service notified… SLOTUS and FLOTUS-Ben’s Chili Bowl eleven-thirty a.m.”