Alaric couldn’t help laughing. “Emmy’s husband went to school with him.”
And Alaric was ninety-five percent certain that Emmy used to fuck Harrison too, though she’d never openly come out and said so. But Alaric had seen how Harrison looked at her, and also the way Black glared at Harrison with open hostility whenever he caught him doing so. It was remarkably similar to the scowls the man shot at Alaric.
“Really? It’s nice they’ve kept in touch.” Beth spoke with a touch of wistfulness. “Have you spoken to President Harrison before?”
“A handful of times, but only once since he became president.”
And that had been under awkward circumstances. When Alaric had heard that an unidentified female had been quarantined in the aftermath of a biological terror attack, Naz had ferreted out the details, and Alaric had known right away there was only one woman clever enough and crazy enough to get into that situation. Emmy. Breaking into the facility where she was being held had been his first step back into the light as well as a challenge to himself. Was his undercover game as good as it used to be? Could he still sneak into a heavily guarded military base? It turned out the answer was yes, but he hadn’t realised Harrison would be there until he found himself facing off against a dozen Secret Service agents. It probably hadn’t helped when he’d put two fingers to Harrison’s temple and told him his security was fucked, but adrenaline had a lot to answer for, and hey, he’d lived to tell the tale.
That day, Harrison had looked like shit, clearly worried about Emmy. Black hadn’t been in much better shape. It would be interesting to see the two men together again, to find out whether the dynamic between them had changed. In the old days when Harrison was a mere senator, Black had held all the power. Would he make any concessions to the president? Harrison still jumped when Emmy clicked her fingers. Alaric had glimpsed the message she’d sent him on the plane earlier—Devane - WTF???—and this late-night phone call was no doubt the result.
“Well, er, wow. Good luck. Is that the right thing to say? I’ll make something you can reheat whenever you’re ready.”
Beth could act smooth and polished when she put her mind to it, but Alaric liked how she was so openly awkward in private. There was no second-guessing with her. She wore her heart on her sleeve, or at least, what was left of it after her prick of an ex-husband had done his worst. Alaric had messed up too when they first met—they’d gotten too close, too fast, and he’d taken a hasty step backwards before he ruined her. With his reputation still in tatters and his wanderlust unsated, he was in no position to consider a relationship. And Beth was too fragile for a fling.
That didn’t stop Alaric from feeling like a shit for sleeping with Ravi two nights ago, though.
He blocked the memories out as he bent to kiss Beth on the cheek. “Anything you’d care to cook will be superb.”
This wasn’t a regular presidential phone call. Emmy, Black, and Alaric clustered around a tablet in a conference room at Riverley while Harrison was on a couch in what looked like his personal study, the space devoid of the usual hangers-on who sat in on his calls. Was anyone else listening from the situation room? Black got straight to the point.
“Is this a private call?”
“Does it look as if I’m on official business?”
Not in jeans and a faded Def Leppard T-shirt, no. Alaric noted that Harrison sidestepped the actual question, but Black seemed satisfied with the answer.
“You remember Alaric McLain?”
Harrison gave him a tight smile, a day’s worth of light-brown stubble speckling his jaw. “How could I forget? You’ll be pleased to hear the Secret Service has tightened up its procedures.”
Good news for the country, bad news if Alaric wanted to bypass security again. “Excellent.”
“And I never did thank you personally for the information about Likho.”
Ah, yes. The supervirus Emmy had tangled with. The dirt had come from Naz, who was a treasure trove of secrets. When he quit his job at SVR—Russia’s foreign intelligence service—he’d walked away with more than a stapler and a “Good Luck” card. The Russian government would still be trying to kill him if he hadn’t faked his own death.
“Forget it.”
One of Alaric’s own sources had heard that the reason the FBI hadn’t pursued Alaric to the ends of the earth was because Harrison had whispered in the director’s ear. At the behest of Emmy, undoubtedly, but he’d still taken the pressure off. Alaric had owed the man a favour.
“It’s late,” Black said. “Shall we get on with this?”
Harrison shrugged. “Emmy? Why were you asking about Kyla Devane? Are you looking at her for some reason?”
“We’re looking at Irvine Carnes, and Devane’s name popped up as an oddity. Why’d he endorse her?”
“Why are you looking at Carnes?”
Emmy jerked a thumb at Alaric. “We’re still after those bloody paintings from the Becker Museum raid, and we’ve got reason to believe Carnes’s assistant picked one of them up in London the Wednesday before last. Either he’s masquerading as an art thief in his spare time, or he was there on Carnes’s behalf.”
“Carnes was always a straight shooter. I can’t see him getting involved in a robbery.”
“You also couldn’t see him endorsing Kyla Devane, right? And what would you say if I told you he once tried to buy this particular painting from the museum?”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, that’s about where we got to. I’m heading to Kentucky tomorrow with Alaric, but I want to get an idea of what we’re walking into. Forewarned is forearmed.”
“If I could tell you, I would, but quite honestly we’re scrambling here. The Devane thing blindsided everyone. But holy shit, we need to keep her out of that seat.”
“Why?” Alaric asked. He’d looked Kyla Devane up before the call, but he wanted to hear Harrison’s reasoning. “Forgive me, I haven’t been following that particular race. Isn’t she running as an independent?”
Since Harrison was the country’s first independent president, logic said he should be on her side. His victory had come after a vicious, mud-slinging battle between the Republicans and Democrats left the populace jaded, and a clever campaign coupled with people’s apparent desire for change had enabled Harrison to slide through and claim the top job. Which was pretty much the path Devane seemed to be following. Oh, and it didn’t hurt that both of Harrison’s main rivals had been tainted by scandal right before the election. A call girl for one and association with a white supremacist group for the other if Alaric recalled correctly.
“She’s unpredictable. Her policies are all over the place, and since the senate’s split forty-seven Republicans, forty-eight Democrats, and four independents after Carnes’s retirement, there are times when she could be the deciding vote.”
“Playing devil’s advocate, isn’t that a good thing? She claims her wealth will allow her to listen to the people rather than corporate lobbyists.”
“That’s bullshit. She’s not a politician, she’s a party girl trading on her family name. Look at her history. Everything Kyla Devane does is to benefit Kyla Devane, nobody else, and she doesn’t understand that if she’s making decisions on a national scale, millions of real people are going to be impacted. Hell, she promised to hold Twitter surveys to help her decide how to vote.”