Born with Secrets: A Political Thriller Read online

  Born with secrets

  by bowen greenwood

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidences either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © March 2015 by Bowen Greenwood. All Rights Reserved worldwide. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Copyright

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  Alyssa Chambers was born into one of America’s oldest, wealthiest, and most powerful families. She grew up steeped in tradition as she watched her father pull the strings to manipulate politicians and government. She observed as he bent the system to his will, using his connections and influence to be the power behind the headlines. She tried to rebel against the whole system, sinking into thrill-seeking and risk-taking. She turned to a life outside the law, learning to steal and to spy and not to get caught. Her rebellion carried her back home, as she began to steal from the same wealthy and powerful politicians with which her father worked. Eventually she stole from the wrong person at the wrong time, breaking into a politicians office on the very night he was assassinated. Framed for the murder, Alyssa ran for her life, looking for the assassin and trying to clear her name. The truth she eventually found was more horrible than she could ever have imagined. She had been deliberately set up to take the fall, and the man who framed her was her own power-mad father…

  Alyssa Chambers stood in the middle of chaos, calmly planning how to survive.

  Her revolver lay on the floor, chamber open, brass cartridges scattered across the hardwood, gleaming in the dim light.

  An old man in a three-piece suit also lay on the floor panting for breath. His tie was askew in his collar – almost ripped off.

  A slender man in his thirties with wavy brown hair hung up the land-line telephone on the end table, then knelt beside the old man, offering him a sip of water.

  Her family estate always smelled like aged whisky and leather. Tonight was no exception, despite the fight she’d just had here.

  Furniture was tipped over and scattered. One lamp lay on the floor, bulb broken.

  Federal Agents would arrive any minute.

  They were coming to arrest her.

  Alyssa was a slender woman. She was clad entirely in black. Normally jet black and past her shoulders, her hair currently had the ragged, neck length, colorless look that came from too many temporary dye-jobs and efforts at disguise. She stood with a calm that belied the fact that there were probably fifty men armed with explosives and automatic weapons bearing down on her that very second.

  Those armed men would be expecting to confront a master of unarmed combat. She had punched, thrown, disarmed, threatened, kicked in the head, or otherwise assaulted nearly a dozen of their brother agents over the last few days. She was also accused of murdering the man who would have been President. Given that, they would come with full force, guns drawn, ready to open fire at the slightest sign of a threat.

  And, unfortunately, she had left the armed guards fully-conscious outside. When the Federal Agents and hired guns ran into each other, it was only going to make the FBI’s attitude worse.

  Her main hope of survival lay in making sure the agents understood in advance that she wanted to surrender without a fight.

  But how? All of her allies and connections were dead. Her father – once a mighty colossus of American politics – lay dazed on the floor, trying to catch his breath after she nearly shot him. She knew one Congressman who would believe her, but she didn’t know how to reach him. That left only one person who even had a hope of helping.

  Decisively, she scooped up the phone and dialed a number from memory. As might be expected, the past-midnight call from an unknown number was ignored. She called again.

  She had to repeat it a third time before a groggy voice finally asked, “Who is this?”

  Tom Wheeler. He was communications director on the Presidential campaign that Alyssa once worked for. When he spoke, she could almost picture his high-and-tight buzz cut.

  “It’s Alyssa Chambers.”

  That earned her a profanity, and she quickly said, “Don’t hang up” with the brisk, authoritative tone of someone who expected to be obeyed.

  “You killed Rich West and you held a gun on me. Why shouldn’t I hang up on you?”

  “I told you before that I didn’t kill him, Wheeler. And to prove it, I just called the Feds.”

  That was a slight exaggeration. It was actually her friend Matt Barr, currently attending to her injured father on the floor, who had called 911, but the net effect was the same.

  Alyssa continued. “They’re on their way to take me into custody, and it doesn’t take a genius to know they’re going to come in hot. You hired me. You got me into this. Now I’m likely to get killed if you don’t help me. I’m innocent, Wheeler. If you hang up now, an innocent woman is going to get gunned down by a few dozen Federal Agents, and the man who actually killed Rich West will get away scot free. I need your help.”

  Wheeler was silent for precious seconds. Alyssa could practically feel the Blackhawk helicopters bearing down on her.

  Finally, he said, “Make your pitch.”

  Breathing a sigh of relief, she said, “The Secret Service and FBI are on their way here right now. We called in reporting the assassin was here. Like you, they believe ‘the assassin’ means me, and they think I’m a particularly dangerous one. They’re going to come in ready to shoot first and ask questions much later. You’re in politics; you’ve got connections. I need you to call someone in the Federal law enforcement chain of command and tell them to take me alive.”

  “Has it escaped your notice that I’m on the far side of the aisle from the administration, Chambers? Far far across the aisle? I’m running the campaign against them.”

  “You still know people.”

  “None of the people in power even like me. They’re not going to take my word in a case like this.”

  In the distance, Alyssa heard the distinctive whump-whump-whump of helicopter rotors.

  “I’m almost out of time, Wheeler. I can hear the choppers. They’re coming.”

  He replied, “Give me your word that you really want to surrender. If I stick my neck out on this and you lie to me, I’ll find a way to make you pay Chambers. I swear I will.”

  The choppers were coming in low, she could tell from the volume. With a top speed of nearly 200 miles per hour, they were bearing down fast on Chambers Estate. She had a minute. Maybe less.

  “Yes, Wheeler. You have my word. Please. I’m not accustomed to having to beg.”

  He said, “I’ll call the Attorney Gene
ral. But never forget I saved your life.”

  With those words, he hung up. Alyssa dropped the phone and assessed the room, looking for anything else she could do to increase her chances that the Federal Agents wouldn’t shoot her on sight.

  She kicked the revolver as far across the floor as possible, so the agents would not perceive her as being near a weapon.

  She moved to the center of the room to be highly visible from windows and doors.

  The floor shook from the roar of the rotors directly overhead and seemingly all around them. Standard tactics for a raid like this called for a team on the roof and two teams on the ground.

  Over the thunder of the chopper blades, she heard the unmistakable sound of an AK-47 on full auto and then the sharper staccato of a 5.56 millimeter carbine firing three round bursts. Alyssa surmised that the guards she had snuck past to get inside had just come to an unfortunate end.

  The downside was when the Federal Agents encountered live fire that made them all the more likely to enter the house with guns blazing.

  “Matt!” she shouted.

  The man with wavy brown hair looked up from his place on the floor, turning away from her father.

  “They’re about to breach the door. Kneel down and get your hands in the air if you want to live!”

  She only spoke to Matt. She didn’t particularly care if Federal Agents shot her father. He had betrayed her worse than she could ever have imagined.

  She set an example, dropping to her knees and elevating her open palms. Matt came up beside her and knelt as well.

  “They’ll probably come in from front and back at the same time. They’ll probably use explosives to blow the door. They’ll use CS gas, which is going to mess up the entire front of your face in a really painful way. Do not panic when that happens, or you might do something that gets us both killed. Do not swallow. Coughing and spitting will help a little but not much. Get ready!”

  At that moment, the front door did indeed blow off its hinges and fly several feet down the hallway.

  Immediately Matt moved, hobbling on his knees to get in front of Alyssa, placing himself between her and the men with guns.

  The front window shattered and a cylinder came flying through, mist hissing out of it.

  A second fist-sized cylinder arced through the air, landed on the hardwood, and rolled. Alyssa saw it, identified it, and almost lost her cool.

  Stun grenade! I didn’t warn Matt to expect a flash bang! Please don’t panic Matt…

  The flash bang grenade went off. The light was so bright it was painful even through her closed eyes. The noise was so loud it hurt her ears, leaving nothing but a painful ringing.

  Although Alyssa couldn’t see it, men in black fatigues, wearing full body armor, poured in through the front door. Their faces were covered by gas masks. Each carried a short-barreled carbine.

  Someone grabbed Alyssa’s hair and threw her forward. A quarter-century of martial arts training screamed out to drive her elbow back and get the attacker’s ribs, but she didn’t. She twisted as much to the side as she could to take most of the fall on her shoulder. Then she let the agent mash her face into the ground and roughly pull her hands behind her to cuff them.

  The barrel of a gun pressed against the back of her skull.

  Through the ringing in her ears, she could barely hear the man screaming.

  “You’re under arrest for the assassination of Rich West! Just twitch, I dare you! I’d love to blow your head off! I wanted that man to be President!”

  CHAPTER 1

  …Two years later…

  A political candidate stood on the stage with blue bunting behind him. The bare, anonymous hotel ballroom had been covered in red white and blue for the debate. The man’s full head of gray hair framed a face with a thin nose and round, wire-framed glasses. He wore a black suit and bold yellow tie and as he spoke, he moved his eyes around the audience, trying to make eye contact with as many people as possible.

  His name was Doyle Cobalt, candidate for the U.S. Senate.

  He was giving his closing remarks after a debate and said, “…it’s time to get serious about fighting crime and terrorism. It’s time to stop these people before they start. That’s why, if you elect me to the Senate, I’ll introduce the Genetic Probable Cause Bill. No more being caught flat-footed when some lone-wolf terrorist attacks an army base. We’ll know who they are before they strike. We’ll stop them before they strike. We’ll provide real security to our country.”

  Matt Barr sat in the audience, covering the debate for The Post. Doyle Cobalt was one of two candidates in the primary election for one of the most hotly-contested U.S. Senate races this election cycle. As a political reporter, covering Cobalt was his job. He had to report what the man said.

  He didn’t have to like it.

  Taking a break from the keyboard to brush a stray strand of his curly brown hair out of his eyes, Matt noticed that he’d gotten ink on the cuff of his rumpled light blue dress shirt, but he ignored it. He was never very good at dressing sharp, and there was no one here whom he wanted to impress. The only person he wanted to impress was in the Federal prison outside of town.

  One more time, he pondered the ethics of his current assignment. His job was to cover this Senate race, among others. He didn’t have to like Cobalt, but he did have to at least try to be objective about him.

  The problem with that was Cobalt’s opponent, Congressman Mike Vincent.

  Vincent and Matt had known each other for about twenty years now. Vincent had been feeding the reporter good inside scoops for all that time. They went to church together. They barbecued on weekends together.

  It was hard to be objective about a race when one of the candidates was his best friend.

  And, now that Cobalt had finished, it was that same Mike Vincent who was giving his concluding remarks.

  Vincent wore a navy blue suit, white shirt, and red striped tie — the very picture of a politician. His hair was half gray and half blond. He was a tall man, and he was in very good shape. He smiled broadly.

  Matt tuned back in so he’d have some quotes to throw in the article. He heard the Congressman say, “For too long, America has languished in the grip of politicians who value power and money more than truth and humility. I won’t promise you bills that I’ll pass, but I will promise you what kind of man I’ll be. I won’t break my campaign promises the moment I get to Washington. I won’t say one thing here at home and another with donors. I will earn your trust every single day, or I’ll leave the job of being your Senator to someone who can. Thank you, and God bless our great state, and God bless America.”

  As Vincent concluded, the debate moderator stood up to say a few words of parting but, of course, the crowd was already getting up to leave. Matt hurried up so as not to get trapped in the flood of people. He wanted to hit the “spin room” backstage, where campaign staff from both sides would be waiting to tell reporters like him who had won the debate. Unsurprisingly, they always seemed to conclude that the one they were working for had won. But still, how they made the case could be instructive.

  Unfortunately, the departing audience made it hard for him to reach the door that led backstage. The press of traffic carried him away from it, not toward it. Finally, caught between a large man and his three children, Matt found a door that said “staff only” and opened it to disappear inside.

  Immediately, he was out of the traffic. Instead, he found himself in a dimly-lit anonymous corridor with no decoration, no other people, and no signs indicating where it led. He picked the direction that was toward the debate stage and headed that way, carrying his laptop under his arm.

  The corridor twisted and turned several corners, sometimes seeming to take him farther away from the spin room rather than toward it. Matt began to grow nervous that he’d miss the chance to pick up anything useful from the campaign flacks.

  But then he heard voices around the next corner. Thinking he had arrived, he turned.

&n
bsp; At once, he ducked back.

  It wasn’t the spin room; it was just another blank corridor. And the voices didn’t come from spin doctors, they came from Doyle Cobalt himself and one other man — presumably a campaign staffer of some kind.

  Hiding behind the corner, Matt listened to them.

  “…have no idea the real potential of the bill.”

  “You know I don’t like it when you talk that way. It’s good…”

  “…maybe. But… this is, and who’s…”

  “If we can just get this passed…”

  The voices faded. Looking around the corner, Matt saw the two men walking away.

  What bill were they talking about? Cobalt’s Genetic Probable Cause Bill? What was the other man hinting at, that it could do more than anyone knew? And who was the other man, anyway?

  His journalistic appetite whetted, Matt made a snap decision.

  He darted around the corner and followed them, making a point to hang back far enough that he could always have a corner to hide behind.

  As he trailed them, doing his best to stay out of sight, Matt could catch tiny little snippets of their conversation.

  “… never mind criminals…”

  “…can’t talk about that ‘til…”

  “…no idea…”

  Cobalt had made the Genetic Probable Cause Bill the center of his campaign. The idea was pretty easy to grasp. In his former work as a university professor, Cobalt had discovered one of the genes that appeared to cause criminal tendencies in humans. Variations in this gene affected the risk that a person would be violent or antisocial. The Genetic Probable Cause Bill would let law enforcement use genetic information to identify terrorists before they struck or criminals before they broke the law.

  Matt thought there was a whiff of George Orwell about it. But with crime rising and terrorist attacks on American soil getting worse and worse, a substantial number of voters liked the idea.

  Enough of them liked it that Cobalt was winning the Senate primary by a respectable margin.

  If there was more to the bill than the public knew, something they couldn’t talk about until after the election, that might make a real story. Other than that, the debate had been a boring recital of talking points.