Authors: James Hunt
***
The hallways of the Capitol building buzzed with the news coming out of the Southwest. Gallo’s last stand would be front-page headlines for the next week. But Smith could only focus on getting to his office, brushing off the congratulations still lingering from his debate win over Jones.
Smith found Edwards talking with a pair of senators from across the aisle. Edwards had a drink in his hand, waving it around and spilling some of it on the floor.
“I did it because it was the right thing to do,” Edwards said, his words slow, lazy. “And I’d do it again.” He took a sip from his drink, missing his mouth on the first attempt.
“Benjamin,” Smith said, panting and out of breath. “I’ve been trying to contact you. Where have you been?”
“David!” Edwards said, throwing his arm around Smith’s shoulder. “We won!”
“Yes, I know,” Smith answered, peeling Edwards’s arm off him. “If you’ll excuse us, Senators, I need the congressman for just one moment.” Smith pulled Edwards over to an area not populated with drunk politicians.
“David, what’s wrong?” Edwards asked, swaying on his feet. “We don’t have to worry about anything anymore. We did it!” Edwards thrust his hands in the air, sending a rain of gin and tonic down on the two of them.
“Benjamin, I need the number of the man that was putting together our contingency plan,” Smith said. “I need that number now.”
Edwards furrowed his brow, straining to understand what Smith was talking about.
“The
number
, Benjamin,” Smith repeated.
Edward shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. “Um, I have the number in my office.”
Smith grabbed Edwards’s arm and pulled him through the thick crowd of politicians, all of them reeking of booze and self-indulgence.
Beth was in the car, waiting for them. Once she spotted them coming down the steps she got out of the car and immediately dialed a number. She caught up with Smith, who was dragging Edwards at this point.
“What’s going on, David?” Edwards asked, stumbling on the road to his office.
“Daniel’s in trouble,” Smith answered.
Edwards yanked his arm away forcefully, stopping abruptly. “And why on Earth would I want to help him?”
“Because he helped save us,” Smith answered, his tone sharp and slow.
“He also helped Jones put us behind bars.”
“They had something on him. It wasn’t his fault.”
“Jones has something on everybody, David! That’s what he does! That’s who he is!”
“His entire family is in trouble! Do you want their blood on your hands? Because that’s exactly what will happen if you don’t give me that number!”
The two men were nose to nose. Beth hung up her phone and stepped between them. “Congressmen, I think we should continue this conversation in a more private location.”
Smith glanced around at the pedestrians who had stopped to watch and listen to what he and Edwards were yelling about. “I think that’s a good idea. Wouldn’t want to stop the celebrations and end up on the news during all of this. Would we, Edwards?”
Even in his inebriated state, Edwards was smart enough to know that he wouldn’t be doing himself any favors by making the headlines in his current condition. “No, we would not,” he answered.
The three of them pushed through the celebrating crowds on the sidewalk and headed up the steps to the building to Edwards’s office. Inside, most of the offices were empty. Congressmen and their staff members were out enjoying the atmosphere of good news, which the capitol had been lacking for the past decade. The three of them piled into Edwards’s office, and Beth shut the door behind her.
“Where is it?” Smith asked.
Edwards pulled open one of his desk drawers. He shuffled through papers, then slammed the drawer shut. He opened another, and the shuffling of papers intensified. “It’s not here.”
“What?” Smith asked, rushing over to the desk.
“It’s not here!” Edwards repeated.
“Who’s been in your office?” Smith asked.
“I haven’t been here all day. Anyone from my staff or the building’s staff could have come in.”
If Smith couldn’t enact their contingency plan, then they wouldn’t be able to get to Daniel in time to save him. There was only one person who could undo what had happened. Jones.
***
Jones’s laptop sat open on his desk. A piece of software was running on the screen. A loading bar rested at fifty-six percent. The grind of a paper shredder chewed up documents as Jones tore apart papers from his personal files.
In between the shredder’s humming and grinding, the celebrations beyond his office walls crept inside. Jones had let his staff members go so he could be left alone to finish his final preparations. With Gallo defeated, he wouldn’t be able to deliver on his promise to Strydent about United States assistance in taking over Brazil. He knew Smith would resubmit bill HR 285016, and with the support of the American people now behind him, it would pass.
Jones just needed to get out before any of the blowback landed on him. There would be a bloodletting of politicians in Congress, and he would be a vessel in the hemorrhaging, but that was not why he was leaving.
Strydent would send someone to kill him, who was probably already on his way. The company wouldn’t risk letting him get away; he knew too much. And there was also the fact that they would now lose billions of dollars because of Dr. Carlson’s research. Strydent was a sinking ship, and it was going to take as many people down with it as it could.
Jones’s office door creaked open, and his hand went for the pistol on the chair, concealed underneath his jacket. His heart raced. He tore the jacket off, and the gun flipped to the carpet. He picked it up just as his secretary Cindy poked her head through.
“Congressman Jones?” she asked.
Jones immediately hid the gun behind his back. “Cindy, I’m busy.”
Cindy surveyed the condition of Jones’s office. Boxes were packed. Papers were spread over the floor and stacked on chairs. And the paper shredder that Jones hovered over was packed full with different-colored bits of paper.
“Um, sorry. I just didn’t know if you wanted something from the party?” Cindy asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Okay. Goodnight, Congressman.”
Cindy backed out and closed the door. Jones rested the gun back on the top of his jacket and picked up the next document in the folder he was working through. He still had more than half of his stock to go through. He checked his phone. Ken still hadn’t called. Jones needed him here to finish this. He couldn’t waste much more of his time with these trivial tasks.
There was already enough evidence to impeach Jones just with what Smith and Daniel knew, but what was contained in these files was much worse. The secrets of a career lay within the documents he shredded, and while he couldn’t prove his innocence in recent events, he wasn’t going to give authorities any additional incentive to come and find him once he was gone. The evidence in these documents was enough for the government to use a considerable amount of resources to find him, interrogate him, then kill him.
The door creaked open again. Jones kept his head down, feeding the shredder another document. “Cindy, I told you I don’t want to be disturbed.”
When Jones looked up, he was staring down the barrel of a .45 Smith and Wesson, complete with a suppressor. It was the same man that visited him before, the one that delivered Strydent’s “message.”
The man was dressed in similar clothes; his only additions were two jet-black gloves, allowing him the luxury of avoiding leaving fingerprints.
Jones’s eyes locked on the gun. The only sound the room offered was the shredder finishing its work on the document Jones had just given it. Once the paper was destroyed, the room went silent.
The man was as still as a statue. He didn’t even look like he was breathing. Jones eyeballed the pistol still lying on the jacket. It was within an arm’s reach.
“They don’t think they can trust me? Look,” he said pointing to the shredder and the papers around him. “Nothing will get traced back to them.”
“They know.”
“How much are they paying you? Hmm? You think this won’t come back on you? Killing a United States Congressman? You think that just because people will hate me they won’t want to find out what happened?”
Jones found himself unable to control his arms, which were flailing at his sides. The confidence and composure he had displayed in so many speeches, rallies, events, and political sessions slowly slipped away. The assassin in front of him couldn’t be swayed with his talented tongue or the stroke of a pen. Jones was now facing the ultimate invoice to all of the charges he’d made during his tenure in politics.
“Well?” Jones asked.
“Pick up the gun.”
“What?”
“The gun. Pick. It. Up.”
Jones’s left hand twitched, knowing full well what fate greeted him once the gun was in his hand.
“No.”
The man took a few steps forward, the barrel of his pistol inching closer. “Do it.”
Jones reached his left arm, slowly, over to the gun. His bony fingers curled around the gun’s handle, and he lifted it from the chair.
“Shoot the wall behind me,” the man said.
The pistol shook in Jones’s hand as he reluctantly raised his arm. The man didn’t move. Jones couldn’t believe, he was actually letting him aim the pistol at him. Did the man think Jones wouldn’t shoot him? Did he think Jones was too frightened? Intimidated?
“I could kill you,” Jones said.
“You could, but you won’t.”
“Why not? I have the gun. You entered my office threatening to kill me. I could use it against Strydent. I could use your death to turn everything around. I could still win. Why couldn’t I do this?”
“Because you don’t pull the trigger, Congressman.”
Two quick thumps and two bullets sliced through Jones, one hitting his chest, the other hitting his shoulder. He collapsed to the floor, the gun falling with him. Jones lay there on the carpet, moving his arms, unable to feel the papers scraping up against him.
Jones stared at the ceiling of his office, feeling cold. His eyelids started to feel heavy. The crushing weight, which he struggled to fight, drew them down. He suddenly felt thirsty. His mouth was dry, and he could feel his body screaming for water. But it didn’t come. The last bits of life left him, and the final feeling of his life was the want and need for water.
***
Fire trucks, ambulances, and police vehicles were all crowded outside Jones’s office when Smith showed up. Smoke broke through the windows of the building as politicians, aides, and interns who had escaped the fire stood looking back at their ruined offices. All of them were dripping wet and stinking of sulfur. The water from the sprinkler systems was treated water from the sewage plant.
Smith grabbed the attention of one of the officers. “What happened here?”
“A fire started in one of the office buildings. My guess is one of these big-shot congressmen had a little too much to drink and passed out with a cigar in his hand. But we won’t know for sure until the report comes out. That could take a while.”
“What office was it?”
The officer called over to his partner a few police cars over. “Hey, Dom! Whose office did we think started the fire?”
“Jones!”
The officer turned back to Smith, “Yeah. Jones. The fire department said that the scorch burns in his office definitely pointed toward that location as the source.”
Smith was caught in the spectacle, looking at the massive plumes of smoke rising into the night sky and feeling the shock from the words coming out of the officer’s mouth. “Did they… find a body?”
“I don’t know if you could call it a body, but yeah, we found a piece of charred meat. Hey, you’re Congressman Smith, aren’t you? You’re the guy that’s getting the fresh-water projects started. Sir, it’s an honor to meet you.”
The officer stuck out his hand, and Smith shook it halfheartedly, still processing everything that was happening. “Thank-thank you.”
If Jones was dead, then there wasn’t any way for him to stop the hit on Daniel and save his family. Whatever Jones had put in motion was going to stay that way until it was done.