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Authors: Bowen Greenwood
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hardest thing
she had ever done.
Part of her
agitation came from being in a public place while law enforcement was hunting
for her. But a bigger part was having her face all over the TV screen.
Most campaign
offices keep a TV set running constantly to monitor the latest news.
Since this was a presidential campaign, there were four sets—one on each
wall—all tuned to 24-hour cable news networks. And they were all taking
advantage of closed captioning to avoid the cacophony of four TVs blaring at
once.
Every screen
had Alyssa’s face on it. Each photo or video clip came with a tag line like
"Person of interest" or "Suspect?" or her favorite,
"Professor by day, assassin by night?" The closed captioning showed
the anchors saying things like, "Chambers is known to hold a black belt in
two martial arts and to be a competitive shooter."
They showed her
driver’s license photo, the photo from her personnel file at the university,
and publicity shots of her that the university had taken at various events. And
of course, there were the clips from interview shows on these very networks.
Really the
whole thing was ironic. She had never intended to wind up in the spotlight at
all. Far from it. But after she’d supplied little bits of analysis
for Matt’s stories here and there, she started getting calls from the rest of
the media. Such exposure had made her life awkward and only increased the
level of paranoia she felt when meeting new people, though she hid it
well.
She chuckled to
herself as she realized the dilemma each news host was probably wrestling
with. Just a short time ago they had called upon her, even fawned over
her, as a respected political analyst. Now they were showing sound bites
from some of those same interviews – obviously with a different goal in mind –
but the end result was still embarrassment for them. No wonder they
appeared to be a bit flustered!
The
receptionist saw her looking at the TV and said, "Pretty wild, huh? She
was just on that show last week giving some analysis about how we’re the only
campaign that has any chance of derailing Rich West. ‘Had,’ I should say. Now
they’re saying she killed him."
It took every
ounce of Alyssa's willpower to calmly make eye contact with the young woman,
smile broadly, and reply, "I know. Mr. Richards does shows with her sometimes.
Pretty crazy."
As soon as she
possibly could without looking evasive, she turned her face away to look back
at the TV screen. Her heart hammered so hard in her chest that she feared for
her health.
One screen
shifted to another interview with Congressman Vincent. The host explained that
Vincent was a senior advisor to the West campaign and asked him again about
Lance Reeder.
Vincent gave
his best smile.
"People
keep asking me that. I don't know the answer. I was in this for Rich. He was a
great man – maybe the first truly great man we've had in politics in
decades."
Finally, the
receptionist’s intercom buzzed, and Chambers was told to go down the hall to
the last door on the left. That, she knew, would be a penthouse office. Pausing
in the hall to collect herself after the nerve-wracking conversation in the
lobby, she was struck by the eerie similarity to the location where she'd been
the previous night. In fact, the West headquarters was only a few blocks up K
Street.
She walked down
the hall. Wheeler was going to answer some questions for her, but they wouldn't
be the kind of questions he'd expect from a supposed reporter.
She opened the
door to see Wheeler hanging up his cell phone. When they originally met, Alyssa
had taken the same precautions she always did with clients. They met at night,
and she approached him from behind. Although he had hired her as a thief, Tom
Wheeler had never seen her. Of course, he had seen plenty of pictures of her on
the news since then. She took a moment to congratulate herself on her disguise
– neither the receptionist nor this man had any idea who she
she had ever done.
Part of her
agitation came from being in a public place while law enforcement was hunting
for her. But a bigger part was having her face all over the TV screen.
Most campaign
offices keep a TV set running constantly to monitor the latest news.
Since this was a presidential campaign, there were four sets—one on each
wall—all tuned to 24-hour cable news networks. And they were all taking
advantage of closed captioning to avoid the cacophony of four TVs blaring at
once.
Every screen
had Alyssa’s face on it. Each photo or video clip came with a tag line like
"Person of interest" or "Suspect?" or her favorite,
"Professor by day, assassin by night?" The closed captioning showed
the anchors saying things like, "Chambers is known to hold a black belt in
two martial arts and to be a competitive shooter."
They showed her
driver’s license photo, the photo from her personnel file at the university,
and publicity shots of her that the university had taken at various events. And
of course, there were the clips from interview shows on these very networks.
Really the
whole thing was ironic. She had never intended to wind up in the spotlight at
all. Far from it. But after she’d supplied little bits of analysis
for Matt’s stories here and there, she started getting calls from the rest of
the media. Such exposure had made her life awkward and only increased the
level of paranoia she felt when meeting new people, though she hid it
well.
She chuckled to
herself as she realized the dilemma each news host was probably wrestling
with. Just a short time ago they had called upon her, even fawned over
her, as a respected political analyst. Now they were showing sound bites
from some of those same interviews – obviously with a different goal in mind –
but the end result was still embarrassment for them. No wonder they
appeared to be a bit flustered!
The
receptionist saw her looking at the TV and said, "Pretty wild, huh? She
was just on that show last week giving some analysis about how we’re the only
campaign that has any chance of derailing Rich West. ‘Had,’ I should say. Now
they’re saying she killed him."
It took every
ounce of Alyssa's willpower to calmly make eye contact with the young woman,
smile broadly, and reply, "I know. Mr. Richards does shows with her sometimes.
Pretty crazy."
As soon as she
possibly could without looking evasive, she turned her face away to look back
at the TV screen. Her heart hammered so hard in her chest that she feared for
her health.
One screen
shifted to another interview with Congressman Vincent. The host explained that
Vincent was a senior advisor to the West campaign and asked him again about
Lance Reeder.
Vincent gave
his best smile.
"People
keep asking me that. I don't know the answer. I was in this for Rich. He was a
great man – maybe the first truly great man we've had in politics in
decades."
Finally, the
receptionist’s intercom buzzed, and Chambers was told to go down the hall to
the last door on the left. That, she knew, would be a penthouse office. Pausing
in the hall to collect herself after the nerve-wracking conversation in the
lobby, she was struck by the eerie similarity to the location where she'd been
the previous night. In fact, the West headquarters was only a few blocks up K
Street.
She walked down
the hall. Wheeler was going to answer some questions for her, but they wouldn't
be the kind of questions he'd expect from a supposed reporter.
She opened the
door to see Wheeler hanging up his cell phone. When they originally met, Alyssa
had taken the same precautions she always did with clients. They met at night,
and she approached him from behind. Although he had hired her as a thief, Tom
Wheeler had never seen her. Of course, he had seen plenty of pictures of her on
the news since then. She took a moment to congratulate herself on her disguise
– neither the receptionist nor this man had any idea who she
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