Stanley had done that. He had taken Nathan out of their lives with his greed and corruption.
She'd schemed and worked to cut off government contracts, but Stanley had connections everywhere.
Why should he prosper? Why should he be allowed to live like the Sun King while Nathan's bleached bones lay in the cold ground?
Her heart cried for revenge.
Oh God, yes. Catherine had ruined government for Offutt, but maybe she could do more than that. One dossier, the one where four Blackvale employees were accused of sex trafficking, was ready to go. The Washington Post had a section dedicated to anonymous whistleblowers. She could send the dossier to them. To The Intercept. To WikiLeaks. Send it wide. He would go to jail. She would sit front row center every single fucking day of his trial. And when he was sentenced to a long jail term, she would-
What was that annoying sound? She frowned, cocking her head. A faint buzzing, like a faraway insect, only a big faraway insect. Coming from the window.
Catherine got up and pushed away the curtains fluttering in the warm breeze. The old-fashioned window was open to the wind, something she loved in warm weather. So unlike the sealed-tight windows with constant recycled air she worked in all day.
The sound was louder and it took her a couple of seconds to trace it to a big insect floating in front of the window about two feet above her head. She was about to pull back when something strange about the insect caught her notice. It didn't move, was stock still in the air, and it had a funny shape. Like a wasp, only not a wasp. Bigger. A central body with eight … legs. Not legs, really.
What was it?
With a shocking suddenness, the … thing dropped until it was right in front of her face. She recoiled, stepped back, but the thing followed her, so close to her face she had trouble focusing her eyes.
Suddenly, her face was wet. Something wet had come out of nowhere.
Had the thing spat at her? How could that even be possible? E
Disgusted, Catherine walked to her desk for a handkerchief. She sniffed. Whatever was on her face didn't have an odor. She touched it. Drops. Drops of something on her face.
Ack.
She went to grab a Kleenex to wipe herself with but grabbed the edge of her desk instead. Her knees couldn't hold her up. She fell into her chair more than sat in it, opening her mouth to call her assistant.
No breath. No breath to call, no breath to pull into her lungs. No breath at all. She brought a hand to her throat, not understanding what was happening to her. It wasn't a heart attack. Nothing hurt in her chest, it wasn't a stroke, she didn't feel anything in her brain.
But she couldn't breathe. Her chest expanded but no air came in, it was like being choked but there was no one there to choke her.
Every muscle in her body trembled, spasmed. She fell out of her chair, sprawling on the carpet, putting a palm on the floor to push herself back up, but nothing happened. Her chest was burning as she tried to draw in air and failed. Heat and pain seared her chest up to her throat as she gasped for air that wouldn't come.
Spots appeared before her eyes, growing larger and larger, the chair, the desk disappearing from view into the blackness.
One last futile kick of her legs, and she was gone.
The insect-like thing buzzed into her study, dropped down and hovered in front of her bright red frozen face, waiting for further instructions.
Portland, Oregon
Back in the warehouse serving as HQ, Baker froze the video on the senator's old face, mottled hand clutching her throat. Her brown eyes were still, her body limp in the unmistakable stillness of death.
"I want her deader'n shit," is how Offutt had described the service.
Baker picked up his encrypted satphone and called.
"Yes." How glad Baker was that this was the last time he would have to hear Offutt's nasal voice.
"It's done," Baker said.
"How do I know it's done?" Offutt whined. "I haven't heard anything in the media."
Because she died minutes ago, you dipshit, Baker wanted to say but didn't. The hit had been an absolute scramble to get some DNA, get it down to Atlanta and have it spliced to the engineered virus. It had been so fast there had been the risk of violating opsec. Baker had made Offutt pay through the nose.
Instead of answering, he sent four stills to Offutt's secure phone. From the spray to when she fell to the floor.
"For all I know this could be staged. How do I know she's dead?"
Again Baker didn't answer, but switched on the video feed and patched it through to Offutt. Minute after minute went by in silence, the time elapse scrolling by on the bottom of the screen. In case Offutt might think the time elapse was fake, De Haven had been kind enough to keep a big desk clock in the line of sight of the video camera. The clock showed five full minutes elapsing while her chest didn't move and her open eyes didn't blink.