The Peace Proxy: Part 1 (4 page)

When her class adjourned, someone was
waiting for her. Robert Stroh, the opponent of the candidate the
rally
was held
for, had been in the audience.
He had witnessed the exchange and was impressed. As Katherine left
the mathematics building, Robert made introductions and asked if
she had a serious interest in politics. He was handsome, slightly
graying at the temples, which added
a
distinguished
air to his youthful face. Initially, Katherine
was certain he was using the politics angle to ask her out, but as
they walked he explained the trouble he was having with his
burgeoning campaign and made a point to mention he was married.
After determining his interest was legitimate, she seriously
considered his request to join his campaign. In the end, she
decided it sounded interesting enough to give it a chance.
Katherine started working for the campaign within the week and upon
her graduation two months later, became the campaign manager. And
so, a promising future in physics was traded for a brilliant career
in politics. Her political savvy was uncanny and under her
leadership,
the campaign unseated the
incumbent. Robert proved to be a capable man of action in the
Senate.
When he
was
appointed
to the position of Secretary of State, he took his
prized assistant with him.

Garrett’s childhood was the antithesis of
Katherine’s. Orphaned when he was four, with no surviving family,
he
was raised
by a close family friend, Arthur
Craig. A refined,
gentle man
, Arthur saw to
Garrett’s needs, but could not substitute
for
a father. He put Garrett through the one of most prestigious
boarding schools in the country. It was a lonely upbringing, but it
instilled in Garrett a sense of self-reliance that formed the core
of his confidence. As a college freshman, he took an interest in
football, a game he had never played. He tried out as a
walk-on
and, to the surprise of many, earned a position
as a wide receiver. By his junior year, he held two school
records,
and there was already talk of a
professional career, but a tackle in the first game of that season
left him with a compound fracture of the left femur. The injury
became infected and at one point, it was uncertain Garrett would
keep his leg. Fortunately, he did recover, but he had lost a year
of school.
He
tried to return to football, but
he never regained the speed he could so
easily
generate before the injury. Suddenly the journalism degree he had
been neglecting held extreme significance for his uncertain future.
He doubled his course load and graduated six months later than he
would have, had his injury not kept him from class for a year.

Despite their disparate backgrounds, or
perhaps due to the same, Katherine and Garrett connected with each
other in a way neither had previously experienced. After dating for
several months, she moved in with him in New York. She retained her
position as the special assistant to the Secretary of State,
commuting between New York and Washington D.C. on the Airless
Magnetic Levitation Train.
Generally called
the “A-Lev,
”
the system housed a Maglev train
in an airless tube, eliminating friction and pressure drag.

Garrett was grateful for the timing of their
meeting. The effect of having his reporting success curtailed so
abruptly would have been much harder to
bear
without Katherine, but
lately,
a distance had grown between them. It was small,
but Garrett could feel the emptiness and sensed the divide was
expanding. Katherine had subtly indicated she was ready for their
relationship to transition to the next level, which meant marriage.
Garrett was still trying to recover from the damage he perceived
his reputation had suffered after his dismissal from the Tribune.
He
was not ready to be responsible for someone
else’s happiness. He knew the issue would soon reach a level that
neither could continue to
ignore,
and they
would have to move forward or move on.

“Charlie called and said he understood if we
didn’t make the party tonight,” Katherine voiced from the
bedroom.

“The party, right.” That explained
Katherine’s unusual apparel at this hour. Garrett considered
whether he wanted to face a ballroom filled with a majority of his
New York counterparts after what had happened. He decided the
events had been
largely
beyond his control and
hiding would not change the parts he could have affected. Moreover,
Katherine was looking forward to this evening. “I feel up to it,
how about you?”

“I’m not the one who had a rough day at the
office,” she teased as she emerged wearing an ankle length, slinky
black dress with a slit up one thigh.

Garrett smiled approvingly. “Well, if you’re
going to look that good, I might as well show you off,” he remarked
as he got up and walked to the bathroom. “Give me thirty
minutes.”

Garrett stared out the window of the cab as
he and Katherine sped off toward their destination. Recounting the
day’s events, he found the barely audible hum
of
the electric motor did little to soothe the growing
feeling of chagrin over Governor Weller’s suicide. If the
corruption case had
been prosecuted
, Garrett’s
investigative prowess would have been sensationalized through the
trial. With the suicide, some would view the Governor as the
victim. Garrett’s behavior would now be the focus of his fellow
journalists. There might even be an investigation concerning the
ethics of confronting a subject with evidence of a crime before
sharing that information with the authorities.
This
was
not going to repair his damaged reputation as he had
envisioned. Despite his self-pity, he was reminded the outcome was
much worse for the Weller family. Tonight, a widow was trying to
ease her children’s
heartbreak,
and Garrett
reluctantly acknowledged he had a role in the events that led to
that outcome. The notion sent his spirits to new lows.

Katherine took his hand and asked, “So, what
happened?”

Garrett was silent for a moment before
answering, “I played the recording for him, and he shot
himself.”

“It could have been you too, Garrett. Not
smart; confronting him like that,” she replied. Although Katherine
could be a real sweetheart, she did not let it get in the way of
the facts.

“You think?” Garrett said, with more than a
hint of sarcasm, as he continued to stare out the window.

“Don’t get feisty with me,” she responded
playfully. “You know I love you, but…” she trailed off, realizing
what she had said. Garrett turned from the window and faced
Katherine, the aircar he was watching outside forgotten.

“Well, actually,” he responded, allowing his
broad smile to relay his approval of the use of that term of
endearment.

She returned his smile as she nuzzled
against him. “I shouldn’t have said that,” she joked, “you’ll be
running for the hills now.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Garrett replied as
he hugged her closer. They were both quiet for a while. Garrett
could sense her need to hear the same from him, but he could not
bring forth the words. What troubled him most was he could not
understand why. Some part of him would not allow total immersion
into what
he
knew to be true. He did love
Katherine,
and the idea scared him a little.
Growing up in boarding schools had ingrained in him an independence
he struggled to surrender. He had subconsciously created a life
plan that included becoming a successful professional before
starting a family. His psyche was struggling with the possible
rearrangement of that sequence of events. The irony of their
relationship was without the calamity that derailed his career they
would not have met, but if he had met Katherine when his star was
on the rise he probably would have already proposed. His inner
debate continued until the silence between them became awkward.
Anything he said now would sound disingenuous. He was disappointed
at letting the moment pass them by and so, not knowing what to say,
they finished the ride in silence.

Promising a night all in attendance would
remember, the World Press Alliance had reserved the ballroom at the
Millennium Plaza for the annual Christmas party. It occupied the
space that would have been the 90
^th
through the
100
^th
floors and was renowned for its extravagance.
Neither Garrett nor Katherine had seen it, and each was looking
forward to the experience. The doorman directed them to the two
elevators used exclusively for the ballroom. The lobby
was crowded
with people busily going about their
preholiday errands, but Garrett saw no one he recognized from the
press corps. They were an hour late; everyone else was probably in
the ballroom. They made their way to the elevator and pressed one
of the two buttons. The doors closed. The acceleration was
immediate and considerable. To let Garrett know there was no
lingering anxiety from their earlier conversation, Katherine kissed
him as they reached the top floor.

The doors opened into a short hallway that
led to the ballroom foyer. Even from this distance, one could sense
the open space beyond the arched entrance. A door marked with a
caricature of a man caught Garrett’s attention and he excused
himself from Katherine to use the restroom.

As Garrett opened the door to leave the
restroom
, it stopped in mid-swing. A tall
figure pushed Garrett back into the room with a smooth, but stern
force.

“What are you doing?” Garrett asked.

The figure did not reply. He looked over his
shoulder, giving the hallway a quick glance before returning his
attention to the restroom. He looked at Garrett briefly as he
allowed the door to shut. He then checked the room to ensure it was
empty.

Garrett sized up the stranger as he moved
further into the restroom. He was tall, about ten years older than
Garrett, with broad shoulders framing a physique that was likely
muscular twenty years ago, but had run soft with age. It only took
a cursory glance to see the man had not shaved
for
several days, and by the appearance of his attire had
not changed clothes during the same period. He
was
remarkably underdressed
for the occasion.

“All right, you have my attention,” Garrett
acknowledged. “What’s going on?”

The man motioned
for
Garrett
to be quiet while he checked the last stall.
Satisfied the room was vacant, the man locked the door.

“Garrett Richards,” the man began, “you know
me as Mercury.”

Garrett was briefly surprised by the
admission, but almost instantly that emotion gave way to rage.
Mercury was the code name used by Garrett’s best informant. They
had worked together for five
years
but had
never met. On many occasions, Mercury had provided information for
the groundbreaking articles that had boosted Garrett’s career. That
was until two years
ago
when Mercury put
Garrett on a collision course with Senator Rimes. The construct was
elaborate, involving multiple offshore accounts, but simple in its
premise. The Senator would purchase undeveloped commercial
properties,
and the companies wishing to
procure his influence would buy them at three or four times the
amount paid. In some of the most egregious cases, the company
buying the land was the original owner who had sold it to the
Senator well below market value at the scheme’s inception. The
transactions
were always executed
through
several degrees of separation
for
both
parties. The story broke at the most crucial time in Senator Rimes’
reelection campaign. The campaign did not survive the scandal and,
after the truth
was revealed
, Garrett’s career
followed suit. During his investigation, Garrett met with and
received depositions from multiple witnesses corroborating the
fraud. After the article
was published
, they
disappeared, along with their carefully tailored backgrounds.
According to official records, they had never existed. Mercury had
provided all the contacts.

The man offered his hand in that
time-honored
gesture meant to demonstrate affability for
the newly acquainted. Garrett’s emotions were taking his body in
another direction. His clenched fist lashed out, contacting the
other man’s jaw with a loud crack. When Garrett later recalled the
events of this meeting, it seemed that the appendage acted of its
own
volition, while the rest of him watched
with the apathy of a detached bystander. The punch had its intended
effect and the man Garrett knew as Mercury fell flat on his back
with a resounding thud.

Garrett stood over the fallen figure. “You
set me up,” he accused between ragged breaths.

The man moaned as he rolled over. Using one
hand
against
the floor, he recovered to his
knees while his other hand stemmed the flow of blood from his
broken lip.

With his back still to Garrett, he swore
loudly. “Damn it. I didn't set you up.” He stood as he spoke and
slowly turned to face Garrett. He met Garrett’s incensed stare as
he massaged his jaw with his right hand and added, “We both got
burned on that investigation.”

Garrett sensed the truth of the man’s
assertion, but the frustration of struggling
for
years
to reestablish his credibility left his anger
unabated. “I didn't read anything in the paper about you losing
your job.”