The Housewife Assassin's Ghost Protocol (14 page)

“Lee wasn’t exactly on point. In truth, you’d be indicted for treason if you’d been caught passing classified intelligence to Salem. And for that matter, if Lee were subpoenaed and it was disclosed that he knew of your relationship, he could be impeached—or worse yet, convicted of a crime. As it’s been proven in other administrations, the President of the United States is not above the law.”

“Great dodge. I’ll take that as a yes.” She nods grudgingly. “It’s your turn.”

“Babette, are you still on Graffias International’s board of directors?”

Her back stiffens. “I…I resigned when Lee was sworn in. It’s the law, you know.”

“Then why is your name still on its most recent corporation papers?” I counter.

She smiles slyly. “Is that a question?”
 

“No. It’s a fact. And should anyone else discover it—”

“Merely a clerical error. I’ll have someone take care of it immediately.” She flicks her wrist in annoyance. “My next question to you is: what were the state secrets that Lee’s previous secretary, Eileen Woodley, supposedly stole?”

“I can’t answer that question for the same reason as Lee stated to you regarding Salem.”
 

Babette rolls her eyes. “If that’s the case, I get another turn.”

“Sure, go for it.”

She leans in, as if analyzing every pore in my face. “What exactly is it that Jack sees in you?”

I bite my tongue to stop myself from shouting out: You mean, besides the fact that I’m not a conniving gold digger
? Instead, I tell her the truth: “That’s easy: my husband knows I love him with all my heart, and that he can trust me with his life.”

Proof that the concept is novel to her is that she reels back, like a demon sprinkled with holy water.

My turn: “Having established that Salem was involved in terrorism, what can you tell me about his business dealings, legitimate and otherwise?”

“I was his lover, not his accountant,” she hisses. “Our meetings took place in a bedroom, not a boardroom.”

“You’ve been on the board for quite some time, even before you knew Lee. Your first husband, Jonah Breck, was also on Graffias’s board. Is that where you met?”

She wags a finger at me. “You aren’t supposed to get two questions in a row, remember? But I’ll give it to you, as a bonus. The answer is no. I met him around the same time he came on the board. And after Jonah’s unfortunate demise, Salem asked me to take his place on the board.”

I nod. Still, I’ll have Emma pull together as much as she can on Babette’s background,
 
not the public relations fodder planted for reporters find for puff pieces in
Vanity Fair, Vogue
, or
Elle.
“Okay, now, what do you want to know?"

Her eyes glitter as she taps her OPI-glossed talons in anticipation. “What’s your opinion: was Carl a better lover than Jack?”

 
“Hardly,” I growl.
 

“
What?”
She shakes her head in mock shock. “With those
long
fingers, and those bedroom eyes…not to mention all the not-so-subtle innuendos, I just thought Carl delivered mind-blowing sex! Oh, not that Jack’s fingers are so short.” She winks knowingly. “You’ve piqued my interest, Donna. So come on, give me
all
the juicy little details.”

I shake my head primly. “That’s a second question.”

“Give it to me, and I’ll do the same for you.” She winks slyly. “But just this once.”

“He’s a wonderful kisser. He likes to cuddle—”
 

She yawns—loudly.

“As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted with a view of the potential cavity in your Number 28 bicuspid, when Jack and I are intimate, he gives as well as takes. He is kind, loving, gentle, and—”

“You’ve got to be kidding me, right?” Her nose wrinkles in disgust. “Next you’ll tell me that he only does it missionary.”
 

I feel my face heat up, not out of shame, but anger at telling her anything at all about him.
 

Babette notices too. She giggles. “Oh, my God, I get it now! You’re making him sound boring
on purpose
. You know, we were supposed to be honest with each other!” She clicks her tongue at me as she stands to leave. “I guess it lets me off the hook, and not a moment too soon. I’m getting bored.”

“I still have two more questions, remember?”

She lets loose with an exasperated sigh, but sits down nonetheless.

“You stopped by the Oval Office on Thursday while Lee was in a meeting in the Roosevelt Room. You were in there by yourself for at least three or four minutes. What were you doing, Babette?”

Scorn lifts her brows. “Twiddling my thumbs. We’re hosting Vice President Drucker and his wife, Leona, at Lion’s Lair this weekend. I wanted to go over the agenda to keep his boring wife busy. Apparently, he had something more important to do.”
 

Gee, now what could that be…

Oh, yeah, I got it:
save the world from destruction.

She shrugs. “She’s gaga over celebrities, so I guess all I’ll have to do is rustle up a few to hang poolside with us. At least there’s one upside to this: considering the poor woman’s girth, I should look practically svelte beside her, even in a maternity one-piece.” She looks at her watch again, to let me know the clock is ticking. “You’ve got one more question, so you better make it a good one.”
 

Oh lady, ’tis indeed
. “Are you a Quorum operative?”

My question knocks the smirk off of her face. “How dare you!”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“I won’t dignify that with another word!”

“I’ll take your dodge as a yes, then.”

Furious, she springs to her feet. “Get out of here! Get out of my life, once and for all! Why, I’ll have you banned from stepping foot on one blade of grass on these grounds—”

“Calm down, Babette! I’m not going anywhere, but you’re certainly free to leave.”
 

“No—not until you answer one last question!” She grabs hold of my arm.

“Okay, shoot.” If she had a gun, I’m sure she would.

“Did you…were you with Salem on the night he was killed?” Her voice cracks under the weight of her question.

“Me?” I’m flustered because I didn’t see the question coming.
 

Hmmm
. How much does she already know? I’ve got better than a fifty-fifty chance that she truly is clueless.
 

I’ll take those odds. “Sorry, but no. I had better things to do
on the eve of my wedding
. And, even if I hadn’t, I would never—repeat,
never
—be unfaithful to Jack.”
 

Her face is a complete blank. Either too much Botox, or she’s thinking this through.
 

Finally, she rises again. With head held high, she murmurs, “I’m glad we finally had this little chat and cleared the air, Donna. I always wondered if yours was the last face Salem saw. I can now sleep soundly without worrying that the woman my husband would so willingly fuck also killed the man I loved.”

She opens the door and walks out.

Suddenly, I realize that she never even bothered to take this opportunity to ask me to confirm or deny her suspicions about her husband and me.
 

I guess she doesn’t care.

I find myself with one more reason to pity Lee Chiffray.

“Really? The golf game was that bad?” I kick off my heels before plopping down on our hotel suite’s sofa and draping my legs over Jack’s.
 

“The game itself was fabulous—for one of us, anyway. Evan owned the back nine.” He tugs at my toes, one by one. “This McIver guy would be an idiot to pass on adding Evan to his student body—if not for his grade point average, then because the university’s golf team would lose out.” He gives me a knowing wink as he kisses my little toe. “Hey, the tub in the master bedroom is big enough for two.”

“My feet smell that bad? Yeah, okay, I can take a hint.” I pull my legs in under me. “But I’m not ruining a good soak by talking about my reconnaissance. We’ll do it here and now.”

“I’m all ears. I’d hate to think today was a complete waste of time.”

“Really? You didn’t have fun on the links?”

He rolls his eyes. “I could think of better things I could have been doing. Unlike you, I don’t find hanging on Lee Chiffray’s every utterance that enthralling.”

That declaration earns him a kick. “No? Well, then, maybe you would have enjoyed answering Babette’s questions instead—since they were mostly about you and your”—I glance down at his lap—“bedroom technique.”

He’s laughing so hard that he falls off the sofa. “And all this time I thought women never played kiss and tell.”

I point to myself. “This woman did—sort of, in the hope that she’d give me pertinent intel in return.”

“So, what did you ask her?”

“Everything: about Salem, the Quorum, even Jonah Breck.”

He raises a brow. “Did you ask her about Lee?”

“You mean, how he is in the sack? Of course not!”

“That’s not what I meant, my lascivious little arm charm!” He shakes his head in wonder. “I mean, did she indicate he had ties to the Quorum?”

I grab his hands in order to pull him back up onto the couch with me. “I felt she’d be more willing to discuss Salem. She was, but only up to a point—that point being what I knew about his death. The last thing I was going to tell her was that I pulled the trigger—let alone that I somehow missed, but got a second chance at taking his life, with a set of pliers.” I shrug. “It was all for naught. When it came to answering my questions about Salem, she turned on the dumb blonde routine.” I bat my eyes, and with all of Babette’s honeyed sweetness, I declare, “‘Salem and I were just fuck buddies…The Quorum? What’s that? …I was only put on Graffias’s board because of Jonah’s untimely demise.’”

Jack chuckles. “You fluffed her up by divulging the titillating details of my incomparable studliness for a few half-truths and dodges? What a waste.”

“You’re telling me. And for your sake, I thought it best to tone down the details of your, er, prowess. In hindsight, perhaps blabbing all the tantalizing details would have had her spilling her guts—to you, anyway.” I nod toward the bathroom. “Speaking of your ‘incomparable studliness,’ actions speak louder than words.”
 

He must agree because he picks me up in his arms and carries me toward it.

We make it as far as the door’s threshold when my cell phone buzzes.
 

Arnie is calling.
 

Jack snatches the phone out of my hand, but puts the connection on speakerphone: “This better be good.”

“I wish it were.” Arnie sighs. He’s on speakerphone as well, indicating that the rest of the mission team is also on the line. “We’ve viewed each security feed individually, to see if Donna missed something in her assessment: that no one other than Dr. Wells, Dr. Wollstonecraft, FLOTUS, and POTUS were alone with any of the files. Sadly, no.”

“And worse news,” Emma pipes up. “Except for the president’s copy, all the Operation Hercules white papers were shredded after they were collected. The pieces were then incinerated.”
 

“So, as of this moment, Lee’s copy is the only one left,” I deduce.

“There would be fingerprints on it other than Lee’s,” Abu points out. “For example, his new secretary’s, and perhaps the Quorum asset.”

“Lee insisted that he opened the secure pack himself before reading it. Before and after the meeting, he kept it under lock and key,” Jack reminds him. “So if they’re on it, she has to be the Quorum operative.”

“The same goes for Babette, then,” Emma counters. “You had quite an interesting conversation with her yesterday, Donna.” I can tell Emma is trying to stifle a giggle.

“Yeah right, hardee-har-har.” Obviously, everyone has read my summary brief of our conversation. “In any event, we’ve now got Lee’s copy in hand, so that Acme can dust it for prints.”

“If the West Wing security feeds are a dead-end, what’s our next course of action?” Jack asks.

“Arnie has a suggestion,” Ryan replies.

“More than likely, the white papers were compromised with a cell phone camera,” Arnie reasons. “I’m sending you a phone app that releases a Trojan to the subjects’ cell phone’s WiFi and cellular signals. Once activated, it allows Acme to read their uploads, emails, and downloaded transmissions. When you go undercover, try to get your phones within a ten-foot range of the suspects’ devices.”
 

“As DARPA employees, can’t we just plant the Trojan by sending an email, or a text?” I ask.

“We can’t take the chance that the security measures on their cell phones can detect the source of the Trojan virus,” Emma explains. “IP servers are the least secure point of entry.”

“What if it’s already been erased from their cell phones’ memory archives?”

“We’ll still know if it was there, and where it went afterward,” Arnie replies. “Or, as a rapper would sing”—and sadly, Arnie actually croons—“‘
Its vapor tail leaves an electronic paper trail...
’”

“Besides the fact that you sound like a scalded cat, no rapper in his right mind would sing about something like this,” Abu mutters.