that phone call is why you tried to give me the slip at the airport?
You don’t trust me.”
She licked her dry lips and glanced at the holstered gun, which was
visible as the wind whipped Lee’s jacket around. “I do trust you, Lee.
Otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting on a lonely beach in the dark with an
armed man who’s still pretty much a stranger to me.
Lee let his shoulders slump. “I was hired to follow you, Faith. That’s
all.”
“Don’t you first find out if the client or his intentions are
legitimate?” Lee started to say something and then stopped. That was
a reasonable question. The fact was business had been slow recently
and the assignment and cash had been timely. And the file he had been
given had a photo of Faith. And then he had seen her in person. Well,
what the hell could he say? Most of his targets weren’t as attractive
as Faith Lockhart. In the photo her face had suggested vulnerability.
After meeting her, he knew that impression wasn’t necessarily true. But
it was a very potent L combination for him, beauty and vulnerability.
For any man.
“Normally, I like to meet with a client, get to know him and his agenda
before I agree to accept a job.”
“But not here?”
“It was a little difficult, since I didn’t know who had hired me.”
“So instead of returning the cash, you accepted the offer and started
following me-blindly, as it were.”
“I didn’t see any harm in just following you.”
“But they could have been using you to get to me.”
“It’s not exactly like you were in hiding. Like I said, I thought you
might be having some sort of affair. When I went inside the cottage,
I
knew that wasn’t the case. The rest of the night’s events damn sure
reinforced that conclusion. That’s all I really know.”
Faith stared out toward the ocean, to the horizon, where water met sky.
It was a visual collision of sorts that happened every day and was
comforting for some reason. It gave her hope when she probably had no
other reason to feel it. Other than the man sitting beside her,
perhaps.
“Let’s go back to the house,” she said.
CHAPTER 32
THEY SAT IN THE SPACIOUS FAMILY ROOM. Faith picked up a remote
control, hit a button and the flames in the gas fireplace crept to
life. She poured another glass of wine, offered one to Lee, but he
declined. They sat on the overstuffed couch.
Faith took a sip of wine and stared out the window, her eyes focusing
on nothing. “Washington represents the richest, most enormous pie in
the history of mankind. And everyone in the whole world wants a slice
of it. There are certain people who hold the knife that portions out
that pie. If you want a slice, you have to go through them.”
“That’s where you and Buchanan come in?”
“I lived, breathed and ate my career. Sometimes I worked more than
twenty-four hours in a day because I’d cross the International Date
Line. I can’t tell you the hundreds of details, nuances, mind-reading,
gut checks and sheer nerve and perseverance that lobbying on the scale
we did requires.” She put down her wine glass and focused on him. “I
had a great teacher in Danny Buchanan. He almost never lost. That’s
remarkable, don’t you think?”
“I guess never losing at anything is pretty remarkable. We can’t all
be Michael Jordan.”
“In your line of work can you guarantee to your client that a certain
result will occur?”
Lee smiled. “If I could foresee the future, I’d start playing the
lottery.”
“Danny Buchanan could guarantee the future.”
Lee stopped smiling. “How?”
“He who controls the gatekeepers controls the future. “Lee slowly
nodded in understanding. “So he was paying off people in
government?”
“On a more sophisticated scale than anyone’s done before.”
“Congressmen on the payroll? That sort of thing?”
“Actually, they did it for free.”
“What-”
“Until they left office. Then Danny had a whole world of goodies lined
up for them. Lucrative do-nothing jobs in companies he had set up.
Income from private portfolios of stocks and bonds, and cash funneled