Sedition (A Political Conspiracy Book 1) (7 page)

He stood behind her and lightly touched the right side of her neck with his lips. She purred and giggled before moving away.

“What’s that one about?” she asked, tipping her glass to the wall before swirling the wine and taking a small sip. She held it in her mouth, rolling it over her tongue. He had taught her well.

“That’s my favorite piece. It’s called
iPod Ghraib
. It’s a social commentary on commercialism and politics. See the iPods in the hands of the Iraqi prisoner? Those replace the electrical wires shown in the original photograph.”

She swallowed the wine. “Who’s the artist?”

“Trek Thunder Kelly.” Thistlewood moved in again, placing his hands on her denim hips. They were only slightly wider than her girlish waist.

“Hmmm.” She raised her glass to the adjoining piece on the wall. “Did he do that one too?”

“Yes.” The professor moved his hands back to the small curves just above her hips. He loved that part of her body. He slipped his fingers underneath the cashmere to lightly touch her skin. “Another social commentary.”

The piece was a manipulated photograph titled
Target Iraq-Fallujah Battle
. It depicted three US soldiers crouched near a stone building. Each was holding an M16. But instead of their typical desert camouflage uniforms, they were outfitted in red uniforms patterned with white Target store logos. It was one in a series of six.

The pieces spoke to him because of their raw attitude. Kelly was unafraid to speak his mind and challenge established thought.

“Very interesting.” She turned from the picture to face Thistlewood and wrapped her arms around his neck. The glass of wine was still in her hand and it hung just above and behind Thistlewood’s head. Her reading glasses fell on the bridge of her nose. She looked like a naughty librarian. “You like interesting things, don’t you, Professor?”

He found her interesting. She was a twenty-four-year-old graduate student at American University. But he hadn’t met her in class, surprisingly enough. They’d met at a funeral some months prior.

The deceased was a longtime friend of Thistlewood’s. His funeral service was at a small parlor owned by the coed’s father. She was there handing out service programs to the guests. The professor was immediately attracted to her.

“I’m Art Thistlewood,” he had offered, extending his hand. He couldn’t take his eyes off her full and exquisite lips.

“I’m Laura Harrowby,” she had replied while shaking Thistlewood’s hand. Her fingers were long and slender. “My father owns the place.”

Harrowby’s Funeral Home & Chapel was among the more established mortuaries inside the Beltway. In three generations it had established itself as a place of kind service and great discretion, both valuable attributes in a political town. Harrowby’s had handled the preparations for a long list of notables.

Thistlewood and the coed had exchanged telephone numbers. They met for brunch the following Sunday and had been dating since.

Standing in his apartment, her arms wrapped around his neck, Laura pushed against him and kissed his lips gently. Thistlewood could tell she was preoccupied with the scruff on his upper lip.

“You didn’t shave today,” she whispered.

“Long day,” he replied softly, “with the president’s death and all.” He leaned in to kiss her again, but she pulled back.

“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you!” Laura said excitedly. “I think my father may handle the preparations for President Foreman’s funeral.”

“Really?”

She stepped back. She was standing a foot in front of him though Thistlewood’s hands were still holding her. “He’ll probably just handle the casket and flowers. The White House called to ask about the logistics before I came over.”

“That’s fascinating,” Thistlewood said, dismissing her apparent excitement in favor of his. “Now where was I?”

Laura pointed to the spot behind her right ear. His thumbs rubbed against her skin just above her hips. Thistlewood gently pressed his lips to her neck.

“Mmmm.” Laura spread her fingers and ran them up the back of the professor’s head. “Now aren’t you glad I talked you into
not
cancelling tonight?”

Thistlewood nodded without speaking as he breathed softly into her ear, tugging on the lobe with his teeth. The small mantel clock chimed eleven times. He had little more than an hour until he needed to leave for his meeting. It would be enough time, he thought, as the pair slid onto the love seat.

Chapter 10

“Separation, Harrold.” Matti’s supervisor leaned back and dropped his hands into his lap. He twisted his seat back and forth as he talked. “I need separation on this. There are a lot of levels to this investigation. The asset cannot become too comfortable with knowledge of how we do business. Plus, I don’t need WikiLeaks or the hackers from Anonymous screaming
my
name from his virtual rooftop.”

He could tell from her body language how she was closed off to him, that she didn’t like or even believe the answer. Would she push that point?

“Sir,” she pressed, “another question.”

“Of course.” He turned back to his computer and placed his hands on the keys to type. He used a modified hunt-and-peck method of typing, using his two index fingers and his thumbs. It was an odd but efficient technique.

“The asset alluded to the fact that our agency would already know where tonight’s meet is taking place. Why is that? And why would I not have that intelligence in the folder you gave to me?” Matti, her supervisor could tell, was beginning to figure out that there was a lot more to this “investigation” than he felt she
needed to know
.

“As evidenced by the photographic and biographical intelligence you received about the group”—he kept typing—“you are not the only analyst working this effort.”

“Clearly, sir…but if I am to be effective at this, then—”

“Wait there.” He stopped typing and leaned his elbows on the desk. He swiveled back in her direction. “Effective?”

“Yes.”

“You are being
effective
by passing along the information this asset gives to you. You are to gather HUMINT and give it to me. I, in turn, give it to those who need to know.” He was beginning to lecture again. “You have been with this agency long enough to understand how we work. You are to do as you are told: gather, analyze, and pass along. This job is no different. Should I rescind my offer and find someone else?”

“No, sir,” Matti said. “I understand.”

“Now go back to your office, process the HUMINT gained from the asset’s phone call. Forward the information to me and then await your next contact.” He shooed her away with his right hand and turned his attention to his computer again.

Matti got up and left the office, knowing that something was not right but that she’d pressed her luck far enough. Given the paramilitary nature of the NSA, she decided to follow orders.

Matti surprised even herself with her doubt. Since joining the agency, she’d only occasionally asked questions beyond the scope of her work. When met without answers to those questions, she generally shrugged and went about her work unfazed. Matti needed to believe in people and things and ideas long after most had given up.

She could define and describe the differences between frankincense and myrrh at age five, but was thirteen when she accepted the nonexistence of a living, breathing Santa Claus. An anatomical whiz in elementary school, she could name all 206 bones in the human body, but she left bedtime notes for the tooth fairy until the last of her baby teeth fell out.

Before her mother’s death, Matti’s parents always appreciated the “little girl” in their daughter. They did everything they could to facilitate her youth as long as possible. When the principal of her elementary school suggested that Matti skip second grade, her parents refused. They also discouraged her participation in organized activities intended for older children, choosing instead to stimulate her intellect with extracurricular learning. She took part in museum youth programs and studied piano.

Matti’s mother traveled a lot as a regional makeup sales representative. Her father worked at the high school and was often not home until after dark. She was a twelve-year-old latchkey child who learned how to pick the lock on the back door on the days she forgot the key. She learned how many holes to poke in the cellophane covering boxed macaroni and cheese after burning it too many times. Though she was sometimes lonely, Matti was happy.

And then her mother died.

Matti remembered her mom wearing a floral print top with a cream-colored skirt when she left for the trip. She’d smelled like peaches.

“I’ll be back in three days,” Matti remembered her mother telling her. “Just a quick trip to Virginia and back. I’ll call tonight and we’ll say prayers.” She never called.

The next day, the phone rang and her father had wailed. The vision of him sinking to the kitchen floor, the phone spinning as it dangled from the wall, was embedded in Matti’s flash drive of a mind.

Hit and run. Killed instantly. Closed casket. No suspects. Toxicology. None of it made sense to either Matti or her father, and nothing was ever the same after that.

The two coexisted. Though Matti’s father was home a lot more after her mother’s death, she was more alone than she had ever been.

At night, as she lay awake, she would hear her father calling out for her mother in his dreams. He was at the other end of the house, but she could clearly hear his subconscious cry for answers. She was resolved to try to find them. Maybe they would help her father sleep. Maybe they would make the two of them a family again.

“I don’t want to know,” he’d told her one night over a take-out pizza. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It
does
matter,” she’d reasoned. “If I can figure out what happened, it will help. If I can get us answers, maybe you can sleep.”

“I sleep just fine.” He’d shaken his head and torn a piece of pepperoni from a slice. “And you’re no Dick Tracy. Let it rest. Let
her
rest.” He’d rubbed his temples below his rapidly receding hairline.

Sixteen-year-old Matti had picked at her plate. She knew there had to be a clear-cut answer somewhere. She reasoned that every puzzle had a solution and every code had a key.

That was, until her boss gave her an assignment too good to be true. The NSA prided itself on allowing its employees to “move around within the agency” and experiment with different elements of the intelligence game. But this was an unusually rapid transition with no merit. Of that, she was positive.

There was more to this “asset” and this “investigation” than her supervisor wanted her to know. It was as if she’d caught her mother hiding Easter eggs.

Chapter 11

Felicia Jackson was pacing in her office as a team of exhausted aides sat in chairs, three-ringed binders and reams of paper on their laps.

“Look, people,” she directed, “I am not a constitutional scholar. I need the basic information here. I have to know
what
we’re doing and
what
we’re fighting against. Don’t give me legal mumbo jumbo.”

The more experienced attorneys were busy elsewhere, formulating her case, and a young attorney on loan to her from a powerful DC law firm spoke up.

“Madam Speaker,” he offered, “let’s get down to brass tacks here.”

“Good!” She stopped pacing and pointed at the young man. She noticed that he was still in his three-piece suit, tie knotted to the top button.

“The line of presidential succession is mentioned in the Constitution in two places. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment provides for the ascension of an able-bodied vice president. That element is essentially moot here because there
is
no current vice president.”

“Won’t they make the case that Blackmon is the VP?”

“Yes. But the Twenty-Fifth Amendment probably won’t come into play. We have to concern ourselves with Article II, Section 1.”

“Which says what?” She asked the question as she turned her back on the lawyer and walked to her desk, half standing, half sitting on the desk’s edge with only one foot on the floor.

“It reads—” the attorney looked down at the paper stack on his lap “—‘Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the president and vice president, declaring what officer shall then act as president, and such officer shall act accordingly.’ We argue,” he continued without looking up, “that you are the ‘officer’ at the top of the succession order. Though, you must first take the oath before you can assume the duties and authority of the office.”

“So,” Felicia said, mulling over what the lawyer was saying, “this is nothing different from what I was told earlier. I am still
not
clear on why Blackmon has any case at all. He never took the oath.”

“That is true, Madam Speaker,” the attorney replied. “But their case is about the constitutionality of
your
place in the line of succession. This will center on the Succession Act of 1947.”

The lawyer picked up the stack of papers from his lap and placed them on the floor in front of his chair. When he bent forward, Felicia noticed the small circular bald patch on the top of the young man’s head.

“Here’s where we make our case,” he said, sitting up straight in his seat. “United States Code Title 3, Chapter 1, Section 19 lays out the ‘officer’ eligible to act as president should both the sitting president and vice president be unable to perform their duties. In subsection A1, it clearly states that ‘the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, upon his resignation as Speaker and as representative in Congress, act as president.’”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Well, Madam,” the attorney paused, “they will point to the same US code subsection E. It reads ‘Subsections (a), (b), and (d) of this section shall apply only to such officers as are eligible to the office of president under the Constitution.’ And they will argue that you are not eligible.”

“On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that you are not ‘constitutionally’”—he used his fingers to indicate a set of quotes—“an officer.”