Time To Hunt Page 15

  They talked for a few more minutes, and then Noah told her that he loved her and ended the call. The phone went back into his pocket, and he continued on his journey.

  * * * * *

  The plane landed at Dulles Airport, and Monica Lord walked off with her simple carry-on bag. It had been an interesting day, and she was congratulating herself on making inroads with Camelot. She was convinced that he was, underneath everything else, the kind of man who would support her actions. If she could get him to be voluntarily on her team, there was honestly a chance she might be able to make a difference in the world.

  Of course, the biggest problems were right here in her backyard. Washington was a snake pit, and no matter who sat in the Oval Office, it only got worse every year. It wouldn’t be long, she knew, before she would have to start cleaning up at home, the way she’d already been doing in other capitals.

  She checked her personal phone for messages. Jonathan knew that she kept it turned off whenever she was traveling, and he accepted her explanation that business required all her attention. A phone was nothing but a distraction, but she always checked it periodically to see if he or any of the kids had left a message.

  There was a new one. “Hey, sweetheart,” Jonathan’s voice said. “I was just informed that I’ve got to go to Los Angeles right away. I’ll probably be a couple of days, but we can switch our date night to Friday, if that’s okay. I love you, and I’ll see you as soon as I can get home. Hope everything went well today. Bye.”

  She couldn’t help smiling. Jonathan was one of the sweetest men she had ever known, and she admitted to herself that she had been looking forward to having the house all to themselves that night. Britney and Alisha were going to spend the night with one of their friends, and Junior was on a school band trip to Philadelphia and wouldn’t be back for a couple of days.

  Of course, having the evening free wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. She took out her other phone and scrolled through the contacts, then hit the Dial button on one of them.

  “Charlie,” she said in a singsong tone. “Guess who’s back in town a little early?”

  “Already?” There was a huge smile in his voice. “Are you busy tonight?”

  “Oh, I’ve got a few hours. The usual place?”

  “I’ll be there in an hour,” Charles said. “Can’t wait to see you.”

  “Ditto, sweetheart. See you soon.”

  She put that phone away as well and then made her way to the taxi stands. She walked past the first two cabs and started to get into the third, then turned around and walked back to the first one. She opened the back door and slid inside, and the driver turned his head to look back at her.

  “The Saint Anthony Hotel,” she said. The driver nodded and started the meter, then put the car in gear and they were off. The ride took almost twenty minutes, and she was happy to tip the driver an extra twenty dollars for getting her there so quickly.

  She walked inside and went to the front desk, and the clerk smiled at her. “Ms. Lancaster,” he said. “I don’t think we were expecting you tonight.”

  “No, but I’ve had a problem that requires me to stay overnight, and you know I couldn’t stand the thought of staying in any other hotel. Have you got a room for me?”

  “Of course,” the clerk said. “The Overlook Suite is available. Would you like it?”

  She smiled. “That would be perfect,” she said. She handed over a credit card and received her key cards only a moment later. She had been a guest at the hotel often enough that the computer could complete the registration from her credit card alone.

  She turned and carried her bag into the elevator, then used the key card to tell it to go all the way to the roof. The Overlook Suite was a penthouse on the southwest corner of the building and commanded a fantastic view of the White House and the National Mall. She took out her second phone and sent a text message to Charles. “Overlook Suite. Call me when you get into the elevator and I’ll bring you up.”

  She got into the suite and dropped her bag on a chair, then kicked off her shoes. The deep pile carpet felt good on her stockinged feet, but her phone rang before she had a chance to truly enjoy it.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m here,” Charles said. “I’m getting into the elevator now.”

  “Fantastic,” she said seductively. “Just ride it up. I’m calling it now.”

  She hurried out the door and to the elevator, then inserted the key card into the slot that would call the elevator all the way up to her. She heard it ascending, and then the doors opened. Charles stepped out and she jumped up to throw her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

  “Oh, Daddy,” she said. “I thought you’d never get here.”

  Senator Charles Wiggins kissed her passionately and carried her through the open door into the suite.

  Their affair had begun twenty years earlier, when Monica Simmons had come to work in his offices. She started out as a receptionist, then quickly moved up to secretary. That was when Charles actually began to pay attention to her, fascinated by her diminutive size. At first he was only mildly flirtatious, but it hadn’t taken long for Monica to realize that he was one of those men who harbored fantasies about young girls. Being as small as she was, she had known many of them and had learned not to let her disgust show on her face.

  Charles seemed different, however. While he was definitely flirting, he didn’t make any of the usual comments she’d grown accustomed to. He had never offered her candy, for instance, nor asked if he could buy her some new toys. Those seemed to be common opening gambits for most such men, but Charles only hinted that he would like to take her to dinner.

  It was her curiosity about him that finally got her. When he invited her to dinner with him after a late night at the office, she accepted, and her only precaution was to make sure she had a stun gun in her purse. If things got out of hand, she wasn’t a bit bashful about shocking her boss into sleepy time. If nothing else, she figured, it would definitely result in some serious job security. He’d be terrified of what she might say if he ever let her go.

  He was a perfect gentleman throughout dinner, though, and she finally figured he wasn’t going to put “the move” on her until it was time to take her home. When dinner ended and he had his chauffeur stop at her apartment building, she actually had her hand in her purse and holding the stun gun, but all he did was thank her for a lovely evening and say he would see her the following morning at the office.

  She had gotten out of the car and walked halfway to the front door of her apartment building before that same curiosity overcame her completely. She stopped, turned around, and walked back to the car, and he powered down the window with a smile on his face.

  “Would you like to come in for a drink?” Monica asked him, and she put all the sultriness into it that she could manage.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Oh, er,” he stammered. “Monica, I—I’d honestly love to, but it might seem a bit inappropriate.”

  He was just too freaking good to be true. The curiosity mixed with frustration, and she reached down and opened the door. “Why? You’re not married, are you?”

  “Well, no, but…”

  “Senator—Charles, you’ve been flirting with me for weeks. You’ve offered to take me out for dinner a dozen times, and this is the first time I ever accepted. Are you honestly going to sit there and turn down the chance to come into my apartment alone with me?”

  “Monica,” he said readily, “I honestly don’t know what to do. Do I want to come in there with you? Absolutely. But you hear things nowadays is about sexual harassment and how powerful men are forcing themselves onto the women who work for them. I don’t want anyone to get that kind of idea about me, and I certainly don’t want them talking about you.”

  And that was when she burst out laughing. “Charles,” she said, “you can either get out of that car and come in with me, or I can guarantee you that I will do everything in my power to drive you compl
etely out of your mind at work. I will dress so sexy that no one will even notice you at all, because they’ll be too busy staring at me. I will tease you every possible chance I get, I will sneak up behind you and run my fingernails across your neck, I will do everything possible to make you want me so badly that you will be unable to even think about what you’re supposed to be doing. Now, which one will it be?”

  The man actually managed to sit there for another thirty seconds before letting out a sigh and climbing out of the car. He wasn’t that much older than her, and he was certainly an attractive man. Monica was willing to accept that she might have been wrong about him, that maybe it wasn’t about her size at all. He had followed her in, and they sat on the couch and enjoyed a cocktail together before she finally wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss.

  That had been the beginning, and it had gone on ever since. There was something about Charles that she simply couldn’t walk away from, and it wasn’t long before he was telling her that he loved her. She would always shush him at that point, because she actually detested politics and couldn’t imagine herself as a senator’s wife. She told him that she loved him, as well, but that it would never work out if they were to be married, and he finally accepted.

  A few months later, he promoted her to office manager, and that’s when the trouble began. Other staff, aware of their relationship but unable to prove it, were undoubtedly jealous. Complaints were filed against her, and after a couple of years of putting up with snide comments and pure rudeness, she finally told Charles that she was going to quit.

  “I’m only quitting the job, though, sweetheart,” she said. “I’m still your girl, and that won’t change.”

  Change always comes, though, and it was about a year later that she met Jonathan Lord. He was running a business incubator at the time, and she was just preparing to launch her beauty products business, something that Charles had invested in. Jonathan helped her get it started and created the marketing program that had been so successful. They began dating, and she finally had to tell Charles that she was going to be married.

  They had actually been in this very suite at the time, and Charles had almost fallen to tears. He told her that he would always love her but would always want the best for her, and so he would let go and vanish into the woodwork.

  “The hell you will,” she said. “I mean, I really don’t want to give you up, not completely. Sure, getting married might mean I’m not always available, but I promise I will make time for you.”

  “I can’t ask that of you,” Charles said, but she had shut him up with a kiss. He couldn’t resist her, and she knew it, and he had given in to her rather quickly.

  It was after that time that she noticed how he was caressing her, and it suddenly dawned on her that he had always done it just that way. He was gently rubbing her shoulders and upper arms, not allowing his hands to roam anywhere else. He always kissed her on the forehead, as well, but it had always seemed so perfectly natural with him. It had never bothered her, the way it had with other men she had been with.

  She admitted to herself that she had always subconsciously known that he wanted that particular fantasy, and that she had forced herself to ignore it because she was afraid it would sully their relationship. Suddenly, however, it actually seemed like something she would enjoy. She turned on her side and cuddled up to him, playing with the hairs on his chest, then raised her eyes to look into his.

  “If I ask you to do something,” she said softly, “will you promise not to get upset with me?”

  “I could never get upset with you,” he said.

  She licked her lips, suddenly finding it difficult to say what she wanted to say. “When we—when we’re together, in bed, I mean, would you mind if I—if I call you daddy?”

  His sharp intake of breath had told her that she had scored, and he assured her that he would never be upset if she did so. They had made love again, and it was the first time she ever pretended to be a little girl with him, and she was absolutely shocked at how much she enjoyed it.

  Charles, on the other hand, had been so enthralled that she almost worried he was going to have a heart attack. Their affair became one of fantasy, and Monica looked forward to the times when she would be with him.

  And then he had started confiding in her, telling her things that would normally require a serious security clearance. Monica filed it all away in her memory, at first only thinking of someday writing a book about Washington, but then some of the things she was learning started her thinking about other possibilities. Armed with the information he shared in their beds, she began slowly creating her plans, and it wasn’t long before she no longer had any compunctions about using seduction to get what she wanted.

  Some of the people Charles worked with were into far greater perversions than his, and she learned quickly to play along with them. She always made sure she arranged the room and got there before the men and women she targeted. That allowed her to plant small cameras she acquired, some of them disguised as clocks and other common, everyday items that would go unnoticed.

  She collected photographs and videos until she was finally ready to make a move, and then they were carefully sent to her victims. They always seemed to come from some foreign intelligence agent, and by using a voice-changing device and a fake accent, she could soon give orders to some of the more powerful people in DC. Through them, she made contact with other agencies, eventually even gaining control over powerful people and operatives from other countries.

  Surprisingly, a few of them seemed to actually enjoy her domination and became loyal helpers. It was one of those, a man named Eric, who devised the little explosive that could be implanted into a human body, and he even taught her how to do it herself. The very first one she implanted was into him, and he seemed proud to be so permanently marked as her own.

  Since then, she had implanted only a few more, and had convinced him to create the device that monitored her heart rate. He’d been very proud of that one, since it had to be powerful enough to send a signal through a cellular tower, and had to be rechargeable. She had a small, soft device that she could plug into a wall socket and wrap around her neck, a cordless charger that would keep the little battery going for many, many years. The battery in the device could last up to two weeks, but it needed to be charged for at least six hours every now and then.

  Jonathan thought it was some kind of New Age healing device that she used because of the constant sore throats she claimed to get every week or so. He was always kind and gentle when she had to use it, and she loved him for it.

  But Jonathan wasn’t here, and Charles was. Not only was she about to have a great time, but there was no telling what he would talk about after.

  As always, it paid off. When the loving was finished, Charles lay there with her and told her about all of his concerns, about the sudden increase in terrorist activity around the world, about the various agencies his committee had to oversee. This was how she had first learned of E & E and a few other agencies that were kept hidden from the public eye, and she had learned to listen closely in these moments.

  It was also how she learned about some of the special devices that were used in counterterrorism. Charles had told her about the little microchip detonators he had acquired from one of the agencies, and how it could be controlled by something as simple as a cell signal. She had told Eric about them, and his position with the CIA allowed him to get his hands on a number of them. He had immediately started using them in the little implantable bombs, and Noah had actually gotten the first of those.

  And then her reveries came to an end, as Charles said something that put a chill through her. The director of the CIA had come to see him that very day, and the committee had finally been made aware of the existence of a mole within the US intelligence community. Jointly, the CIA and FBI had created an operation to try to uncover this person’s identity, code-named Witchfinder, but so far all they had learned was that the mole was mos
t likely a woman.

  “They say she’s apparently got her claws into just about every agency,” Charles said. “They already linked her to a number of assassinations, and she’s been instrumental in revealing some unimaginable state secrets to some of our potential enemies. According to the director, she’s known to have been colluding with North Korea and China, possibly even Russia.” He shook his head as he cuddled her. “When they find her, there won’t even be a trial. She’ll simply be terminated, and the whole thing will stay buried forever.”

  Monica fought the urge to ask questions, because even Charles was not immune to suspicion. No matter how much he loved her, there was no doubt in her mind that he would hand her over if he learned about her clandestine activities. Instead, she simply lay there awake as he drifted off to sleep, and when he woke in the morning she was gone. She left him a note, telling him that she loved him and would see him again soon, but that she needed to get home.

  It was time for damage control, and she knew that she had to move fast if she was going to survive. Somewhere in the halls of Langley, there was a young woman who was in charge of Operation Witchfinder, and Monica needed to know who she was immediately. This woman had to either come under her control, or she had to die.

  It was just before six when she got to her house, already exhausted from not being able to sleep all night. She walked inside and locked up, setting the alarms automatically, and then decided that a couple of hours’ sleep would do her more good than making a pot of coffee. She climbed the stairs and entered her bedroom, dropped her clothes into the hamper, and went into the bathroom for a quick, hot shower.

  Fifteen minutes later, her hair still wrapped in a towel, she slid into her bed and forced herself to think about her children for a few minutes. That always helped when she needed to relax, and soon she was breathing deeply as she slept.