“That will come. Just wait and see. The American people will be on your side.”
Her office phone rang.
“Sally,” she called out to her assistant in the other room, “did you send this through?”
“No, Senator. Whoever it is called your line directly.”
“Hmm,” she said, and she picked up the receiver. “Hello, you’ve reached Senator McKay.”
“Senator.” It was a man’s gruff, unfamiliar voice. “You don’t know me, but please don’t hang up.”
“Who are you? How did you get this number?”
“I can’t tell you who I am. But what I can tell you is that your life is in danger. There is a plot to assassinate you on Saturday. You need to call off your speech.”
“What? Are you threatening me?”
“No!” said the voice. “But someone is going to kill you, Senator. You need to cancel the rally.”
“That’s not going to happen. If you have information, why don’t you call the police?”
“They won’t be able to do anything about it. Not against the people who are plotting to kill you. You need to go somewhere secret and safe and stay there.”
“And who are these powerful people who want me dead?” she asked, affecting mild amusement.
“Look, I know you won’t believe me. But think about whether Senator Edgar Nickerson might have the means and the motive to take you out of the picture.”
“Edgar Nickerson!” she laughed, skeptically.
“This is serious, Senator!”
“Look, sir,” she said, losing her patience, “if you have information about an assassination plot, please contact the authorities. If you have information that implicates Senator Nickerson in this kind of conspiracy, by all means take it to the newspapers. But don’t ask me to cancel my speech on hearsay. I won’t be stopped by vague threats.” She slammed down the receiver hard and sat back, fuming.
“Are you okay, Lana?” asked Poole.
She waved him off, but he could tell she was shaken. “This isn’t my first death threat, Dennis. Just alert the security team that there’s been another one, and have them do what they do.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? Can I get you something?”
“I’ll be fine. These . . . these thugs think that they can intimidate me. Well, I’ll show them. If they want to stop me from making my speech, if they want to stop this bill from becoming law, they’ll have to make good on their threats and kill me. Because anything short of that will not hold me back.”
“Aren’t you worried that they will?” asked Poole, who was himself more than a little apprehensive. Still, he couldn’t help admiring her grit.
McKay looked out her window with steely resolve. “If they do, if all the powers in Washington are arrayed against me, then I suppose I can’t stop them. But backing down is one thing I will not do.”
“You really think this reform is worth your life, Lana?” he asked.
“Yes. But even if it weren’t on the face of it, I wouldn’t let that stop me. If I back down now, it’ll be the same thing next time, and the next. And next thing I know, I’ve got a lifetime of backroom deals and compromised principles. And then I’m no better than any of them.”
“If that’s your decision,” he said, “I’ll be right there with you.”
“I know you will, Dennis,” said the senator. “I know you will.”
“Do you think she believed you?” Conley asked Morgan.
“Not enough.” He looked down at the prepaid cell phone, its face still glowing from the call.
It was the afternoon of the same day that Conley had rescued him, and they were sitting in Conley’s car in a supermarket parking lot. Morgan had been stitched up and had bandages wrapped around his thigh and torso. The bruising on his face, if anything, looked worse. But although he hadn’t rested, he had taken a shower and eaten, and he felt refreshed and alert.
“What do we do now?” asked Conley.
“I don’t see that we have a choice,” said Morgan. “We can’t let Nickerson win. We have to stop him.”
“We can’t do this alone, Morgan.”
“And who are we going to call, Conley? If we call the Feds with a story about a CIA conspiracy but no credible evidence to back it up, they’re just going to think we’re another couple of crazies.”
“Then we have no one else to turn to. We have to contact the Agency,” Conley reasoned.
“Are you crazy? They tried to kill me and my family, and you want to trust them with this?”