I’m scribbling on my fourth novel tonight. It’s a sequel to Life of Secrets. Mike Vincent will be back, along with Alyssa Chambers.
If you’re still reading Life of Secrets, you may not want to read the rest of this. With the caveat that this is very much a work in progress, here’s a sneak-peek at “Secrets Three,” for lack of a final title.
***
“Is this really her?”
“The one and only. Except for being pretty, you’ll be shocked by how ordinary she is.”
“Judging by the news coverage, I keep expecting to find her in a strait jacket, strapped to a plank like Hannibal Lecter. I mean, she’s supposed to be this master of escape and disguise.”
“She’s never once tried to escape. Except for the occasional fight – which she never starts – she’s a model prisoner.”
The two men were correctional officers in the Federal Correctional Institution, Rocky Mountain. That was the long way to say prison. It was called FCI Rocky by those who worked and lived there, along with some other, less-printable names. One of the men was middle-aged and very physically fit, with a graying crew cut and wire-rimmed glasses. The other was younger, overweight, and shorter. His hair was sandy brown.
Cold brick walls wrapped the two men in a cocoon of impersonal space as they walked. The utilitarian environment did not encourage smiles.
The younger CO said, “When I heard I was being assigned here, I looked the place up online, and like every single link is about her. If you believe what’s written on the Internet, she’s half ninja, half female James Bond, with a dash of Batman thrown in for good measure.”
The older CO replied, “She’s an extraordinarily skillful woman. I’ve seen her in fights. The testimony at her trial – not internet sensationalism, but the real sworn statements – all paint her as a champion martial artist, award-winning small-caliber marksman, and genuine expert at disguise and concealment.”
“No way, really? You’ve seen her fight?”
The older officer nodded. “It happens every so often. Some new inmate will want to test herself against the legend. That’s why she’s in solitary right now. Another fight.”
The younger correctional officer asked, “What’s it like to see her fight?”
The older man chuckled. “’See’ her fight is sort of an exaggeration. She’s so fast you don’t see much. I saw four women – all members of the same gang – try to take her on once. Before I even realize what’s happening, one of them flies across the room and breaks a table by landing on it. Another one gets thrown into the wall. I’m just reaching for my baton when I see a fist to the nose of number three. Then the fourth collapses right where she’s standing somehow, without me being able to see anything hit her.
“And then she stood straight – like a raw recruit at FLETC standing at attention. Then she bows – no kidding, just like a Bruce Lee movie.”
He referred to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. All federal law enforcement agents started there, including Correctional Officers.
The older CO paused for effect and then said, “Get this. When the fight’s over she nods at me, beckons me over, and puts her hands behind her back, waiting for the cuffs. We’re lucky she’s nearly a model prisoner. There’s not a CO here who could take her in a fight. I doubt both of us could together.”
The younger man said, “Sheesh, that’s intense. I wish I’d seen that. I heard that when she was on the run, she fought five Secret Service agents at once and KO’ed them all.”
His older colleague said, “That’s in some of the testimony from her trial. Her friend – the guy who visits her all the time here – was under guard because they thought she would contact him for help. She knew he was under guard, and went in anyway. She snuck past four guards outside – all wearing night vision – and got inside, then beat up five more on her way out. I don’t think she actually knocked them all unconscious, though.”
The younger man grinned, then asked, “She’s single, right?”
The older one laughed. “Like I said, she’s got a couple guys who visit her a lot. I think one of them is kind of boyfriend-ish. But anyway, don’t even think it. Not only would they fire you and everyone who ever talked to you, but she’s so far out of your league it’s not even funny.”
As the two men approached the cell, they could hear fast, strong breathing. It wasn’t panting so much as the deliberately focused exhalation of an athlete in the middle of exertion. Once they arrived at the cell, in addition to the breathing, they could hear a count.
“One forty-six. One forty-seven. One forty-eight.”
Through the thick steel bars, the CO’s could see she was doing pushups, and gave no sign that she was aware of their presence.
The younger man glanced at the older and said, “One forty eight? At FLETC I topped out at thirty-nine.”
From inside the cell they heard, “One forty-nine. One fifty.”
She pulled her knees in and rose to her feet, turning to face the cell door.
“Good evening, gentlemen.”
Alyssa Chambers was five foot three with a lithe, strong figure. Her face had a slightly harder edge to it, with an angular nose and high cheekbones. Her long black hair would have fallen below her shoulder if she didn’t have it knotted up for exercise. Chambers’ eyes were dark. They focused on the two men with cold intensity, and the younger CO experienced the eerie sensation of her eyes picking out vulnerabilities. There was something about her look that said she was choosing how she would kill him if she had to, with nothing but her bare hands.
She wore sweatpants and a tank top. Her chest rose and fell as she caught her breath from the workout. A sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead, sticking her bangs to the skin.
“Evening, Chambers,” the older CO said. “We’re here to take you to a visitor.”
She made a show of looking at her wrist, where a watch might have sat if she had worn one. Then she looked back at the bars and raised her eyebrows. The question was obvious. They were far outside of normal visiting times. In addition to which, prisoners being held in the Secure Housing Unit – SHU, or just “solitary” in the vernacular – were not allowed visitors.
“Ours not to reason why,” the CO replied, then added, “Whoever it is has some serious bureaucratic muscle. We drop you in a conference room and we’re not allowed back until called for. This kind of thing literally never happens. Never.”
He moved his finger in a circle, to indicate she should turn around.
This Alyssa did, crossing her wrists behind her back to wait for the cuffs. The two men unlocked the door, came in and cuffed her, then led her down the hall.
The older one said, “I think my young colleague here has a bit of a crush on you, Chambers. He says there’s a lot written about you on the Internet.”
“Hey–”
Before the younger man could go very far with his rebuttal, Alyssa said, “I don’t expect to go on any dates for about 28 years.”
The older CO laughed. “Come on, Chambers. Good time, credit for time served before your sentencing, parole… you could be out in ten.”
“Do I even still have good conduct time credits? I keep getting in fights.”
Rather than respond, the older correctional officer opened the door at which they had arrived. He gently urged Chambers through it ahead of him, stopping short of a push. He removed her cuffs, then shut the door behind her.
She heard the sound of the door locking. Massaging her wrists, she looked at the room. It was obviously a conference room that the CO’s and prison staff used. There were motivational posters, as well as advisories about work comp coverage, thumbtacked to corkboards all the way around the room. A cheap conference table dominated, with chairs arranged around it. They were swivel chairs with wheels on the base, made of fake wood and fake leather.
Sitting in one of them, at the far end of the room from Alyssa, was the explanation for how she could have a visitor so far off hours, when she was stuck in the SHU. It would take a man with a lot of federal government horsepower to make all this happen. And the one at the far end of the conference table had more than enough.
“Tom Wheeler,” Alyssa said. “You’re the reason I’m stuck here.”
Two years ago, Alyssa Chambers had been a thief. But not just any thief. She had been a thief for hire who specialized in stealing secrets from the rich and powerful, and selling them to the highest bidder. All that came crashing down, though, when one job went horribly wrong. Paid to download the contents of a popular Presidential candidate’s hard drive, she broke into his campaign headquarters. It just happened that she broke in on the night he was assassinated.
Deliberately framed for murder, Alyssa found herself running for her life, hunted and alone. The beloved candidate’s death outraged the nation, and every “man on the street” interview called for her capture and punishment, preferably by execution. Although she eventually cleared her name, it came at great personal cost. Not only did she learn that she’d been betrayed, her life of crime came to light in the investigation.
Innocent of the assassination, a federal court still held her to account for her life before the assassination. They found her guilty of multiple counts of breaking and entering, among other crimes. When they thought she was an assassin, the public had been howling for her death. When she turned out not to be, the passions inspired by the 24-hour trial of the century news coverage proved hard to undo. The mob wanted justice, and the court did its best to appease them. She went away for 30 years for all her previous crimes. Meanwhile, her name lived on among conspiracy theorists as the real assassin who had gotten off by legal trickery.
And the job that ended her career and her freedom? The two million dollars she had been offered to download the hard drive of the late Rich West? The man who hired her for that job was Tom Wheeler.
He wore his gray hair in a high and tight flat top. Big, bushy eyebrows gave the impression that his hair would have been thick and unruly if he didn’t cut it so severely. Green eyes tried to trade stares with Alyssa, but looked away after only a moment.
He wore a navy blue suit and a bright red tie, in a perfect emulation of the stereotype of a politician. He slouched in his chair, though, spoiling the image.
Televisions in FCI Rocky were all set to a high volume, which allowed Alyssa to hear what was going on even when she wasn’t watching. Which was good, because it meant that every now and then, when the news was on, she kept up on current affairs. Tom Wheeler, she knew, held the office of Counsellor to the President in the current administration. Before they were elected, he had been the Communications Director on the campaign.
It was in that capacity that he had hired Alyssa Chambers for some “aggressive opposition research” on one of their opponents in the primary election. And it was that so-called research that eventually landed her in jail. The actual conspiracy to kill the candidate and frame Alyssa had been the brainchild of someone else. Alyssa didn’t like to think that much about that part. But the fact remained, Wheeler had been the one who hired her for the job.
He made eye contact with her again, and waved toward one of the chairs near him at the conference table, indicating she should sit. Alyssa took the chair at the far end instead. She stared at him without saying a word, waiting for an answer to her accusation.
“You know that wasn’t my fault Chambers. I had nothing to do with the plot to kill West. That was–”
She cut him off. “I know who killed him, and I know who framed me. But whether or not you truly had ‘nothing’ to do with it remains to be seen.”
Wheeler didn’t reply. Instead he lifted up a fat briefcase from beside his leg, and opened it with the lid facing Alyssa so she couldn’t see what was inside. Familiar with lawyer visits, she expected him to take some papers out. But she was wrong.
Wheeler proceeded to set out two cut glass tumblers, an expensive brand of bottled water, and then a tall clear bottle of amber liquid. Chambers recognized it right away. It was 25-year-old single malt Scotch whisky. Not only that, it was her favorite distillery.
He quietly poured a couple fingers into each glass and splashed a tiny bit of water in. With a gentle shove, he sent the glass sliding all the way down the table to Chambers.
She looked at the glass. She had been a Scotch connoisseur once upon a time. Knowing different distilleries and at what ages they sold their product had even been a small clue in figuring out who framed her.
But she hadn’t so much as smelled it in almost two years.
She picked up the tumbler and held it to her nose, breathing deep. “The best Scotch in the world” was a debate that connoisseurs could have for hours at a time, but in Alyssa’s opinion, this was it. MacAllan 25. She enjoyed the scent, then took a delicate sip. It was her first alcohol since surrendering to the FBI, and the taste was like an electric current on her tongue. Smoke, peat, elegance, and a lifetime of privilege were all in the taste.
Then she belted back the rest of the glass, set it back on the table, and slid it back to Wheeler.
She nodded at the bottle and lifted her eyebrows expectantly.
Wheeler smirked at her, filled the glass again, and sent it back down. When she wrapped her hand around it, he spoke.
“I want to hire you again.”
She waited for a moment before responding, letting the silence grow just enough to be awkward. She sipped the whisky and said, “Setting aside for the moment certain restrictions on my freedom of movement, I wasn’t kidding earlier. From where I’m sitting it sure looks like you were part of the crew that set me up.”
Wheeler sipped his own glass of whisky before replying.
“You were at the trial. Your…”
He saw the look on her face, and changed directions.
“Both of them testified that there were no other coconspirators.”
Chambers nodded. “I can’t imagine why, but I don’t take either one of them at their word.”
“I had no clue what they were going to do,” Wheeler said. “I didn’t even know who they were. I mean, obviously I knew…”
He paused and bit his lower lip, unsure how to go on.
Alyssa said, “Just say it, Wheeler. My father. You knew my father.”
He nodded, and drank the rest of his whisky to fortify himself. “Right. But I mean, I didn’t know him. I just knew who he was. Everyone knew who he was. But as for Fred Harris, I didn’t even know the name. If I had, I might have hired him instead of you.
“All I knew was that we were desperate. Rich West was so far ahead in the polls that people were saying we should call off the rest of the primary campaign, he had already won. A couple of our really big money people came to us and said they would pay for it if we wanted to take a gamble on anything that might change the momentum in the race.”
He concluded, “I had heard of you, and I had enough money available to hire you, so we took the gamble, hoping you would find something on his hard drive.”
Alyssa replied, “Yeah, and those big money people? Want to bet on where they got the money and the idea?”
“You may be right,” Wheeler said. “Maybe your father was behind that. But I never knew. Don’t blame me.”
He added, “Look, Chambers. You held a gun to my head back then. I saw your finger twitching on the trigger. You were on the edge of literally murdering me.”
She shook her head. “I was in control. You were never in any serious danger.”
“Maybe so, but I didn’t know that. I thought I was about to die, and you know I thought that. I’m sure you could see the look on my face. So you know how scared I was. If what you’re saying were true… if I really had a hand in assassinating West and framing you… don’t you think I would have given it up then, when I thought I was facing death?”
She nodded and took another sip from her glass. It felt good. The sensation started as a bite on her tongue, and spread out like the warmth of a campfire over her whole upper body. It wasn’t just the alcohol. It was this particular alcohol, and all the reminders it carried of her old life. Her name was the same here in FCI Rocky. Her body was the same. Her skills were the same. But on the outside, she was a queen. She was the only child and last heir of one of America’s oldest and richest families. She was powerful and connected to the mightiest leaders of the land.
In here, she had to turn around and meekly wait for the cuffs whenever she was told.
“So let’s say you’re telling the truth,” Alyssa finally said. “Let’s say you had nothing to do with framing me and sending me here.”
She paused, then waved around her to indicate the prison. “I’m not exactly in a work release program.”
Wheeler went back to his briefcase, and finally did what she had expected ever since she saw him open it. He drew out a piece of paper. With a grin like an all-in poker player turning over the fourth ace, he slid it down the table.
Taking it, Alyssa felt that it was not plain paper. It was a rich, bonded vellum, a watermark in the middle.
The watermark was an image of The White House.
Turning it over, she saw it was letterhead.
“Office of the President of the United States of America.”
Alyssa’s heart raced. The paper trembled in her hands as she skimmed through some legalese at the top, a summary of the charges to which she had plead guilty. At the bottom of the page were the words she had never even dared to imagine.
“Now therefore, I, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a conditional pardon unto Alyssa Chambers for all offenses against the United States which she has committed or may have committed. In witness whereover, I have hereunto set my hand this day.”