“Yes,” she said.
“Alex, this Mallory Kauffman,” the woman on the other end said.
Alex let out a sigh of relief once she recognized the voice of her longtime confidant from NSA.
“I take it you got my message,” she said.
“You are good at covering your tracks,” Mallory said. “If you ever want to come back—”
“I’m fine where I’m at, thank you. Now, cut the recruiting act and tell me what you found.”
Mallory chuckled. “Cool your jets, Alex. I’ve got good news.”
“The suspense is killing me.”
“The recording you sent me was—how should I say it—eye opening.”
“I didn’t send it to you for commentary on its contents,” Alex said. “I simply wanted to know if it could be verified.”
“In that case, you don’t have to worry about a thing. I gave it to one of our digital forensic experts and he verified President Michaels’ voice on the recording.”
“Why do I get the feeling that a ‘but’ is coming?”
“Because it is.”
“Go ahead. Give me the bad news.”
“My expert told me that the voice of the other gentleman on the recording was digitized.”
“Meaning . . .”
“Meaning an expert would be able to prove that whoever Michaels was talking to wasn’t really the guy he thought he was talking to.”
“But would that really matter?”
“Probably not in the court of public opinion, but you know how Michaels and his team are so skilled at spinning a negative into a positive. I would just move forward with caution. There’s the possibility that this could come back on the paper and the editor would end up with egg on his face.”
“So, essentially you’re saying this isn’t admissible in court?”
“You’re not planning on presenting this in some sort of civil lawsuit, are you?”
“Of course not.”
“In that case, this should be fine for throwing a huge wrench in his re-election campaign if it’s released soon. But just beware that this isn’t a done deal. It still could blow up on you.”
“The goal is to expose his deceitful practices—the kind that are endangering the country’s safety and destabilizing the Middle East—to the American people so they can decide if they want this man as their leader,” Alex said. “That’s the goal anyway.”
“Well, it’s a noble one. Let me know if you need help with anything else.”
“Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”
Alex hung up and opened up her laptop, checking her regular email account from the comfort of her couch. With her feet propped up, she scrolled through the morass of junk mail and social media notifications. She refreshed the inbox and a message from Brian Lawton flashed onto the screen.
Alex’s eyes danced over the words as a smile began to spread across her face.
They’re running the story tomorrow morning.
She pumped her fist and closed her laptop before getting ready for bed. She wanted to let Hawk know all about it so he could follow the fallout as it happened in real time. However, the library was closed. She would still have time to let him know in the morning on her way to work, notifying him before news of the scandal went public.
* * *
ALEX DUCKED INTO THE LIBRARY and posted a note for Hawk in their shared draft folder. She continued to work, splashing through the standing water on the sidewalk. Overnight, a rain cloud settled over Brighton and hadn’t budged for nearly six hours. In an attempt to avoid getting drenched, she popped up her umbrella and fought to keep it up in a battle with the wind.
At lunchtime, she checked news websites to see if the story on Michaels had broken. Though she was six hours ahead of Chicago, she figured a story that big would’ve already trickled out. She imagined that news about the president arming terrorists would not only rock the U.S. but also the international community. But she was disappointed to find that it was still business as usual for all the major news outlets.
Maybe they decided to move the story to another day.
Later that afternoon, Alex took a break to check again. Still nothing. Concerned and distracted, she returned to work. For the next hour, she resisted getting online for fear of more disappointment, though she was certain that the story had been delayed for some reason or another. Mallory’s warning echoed in her mind, a thought she tried to push away. If Michaels’ team got wind of the story The Chicago Tribune was planning on running, the president’s administration would’ve attempted to squash it.
Is this really happening?
Alex tried to focus as she convinced herself that Lawton likely ran into some issues verifying his source or some other hangup that prevented the article from running when he said it would. Doing her best to ignore the tornado swirling through her mind, she gave her task her sole attention. But that was short lived when a phone call shattered her concentration.
“This is Alex,” she said.
“When was that story supposed to run?” Blunt asked in response.
“This morning. Why?”
“Well, you can forget about it now—the reporter is dead.”
“What?” Alex asked, her eyes welling up with tears. “How do you know? When did this happen?”
“I hate delivering news like this,” he said. “I’m sorry. I know that Brian Lawton was a good friend of yours. I forgot you were more than acquaintances.”
“Tell me what happened,” she said, choking back more tears in an effort to remain composed in the office.
“They’re claiming suicide. According to reports, he was drinking at his favorite bar after work last night and went home and jumped off the balcony of his high-rise apartment. The editor must’ve pulled the story when he heard about Lawton’s death—and I doubt the article will run at all now.”
“This was all my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Blunt said. “Some of Michaels’ goons are the ones who did this. Your friend was simply doing his job. I’m sure you warned him about the danger, didn’t
