They’d spent nearly a year pretending to be a couple for the Pavluhkin mission. Kyle showing up to a hearing like this wouldn’t be completely out of the ordinary. It would definitely shove him further into the spotlight than he wanted to be, but that was unavoidable. Jamie had asked Kyle to protect his family, and no way in hell was he going to fail that mission.
The SUVs made an illegal U-turn at the next intersection, their government plates getting them out of an electronic ticket. They braked to a stop in front of the main entrance on Constitution Ave NE and Kyle unbuckled his seatbelt. The Secret Service moved to hold back the descending press and secure the area.
Katie got out first, and then Kyle, both of them scanning the area with sharp eyes. He then turned around to help Leah out of the SUV, sticking close beside her as she smoothed down her dress. She’d forgone a jacket but opted for a demure cloche hat that kept the stiff breeze from messing up her hair.
Jamie and his parents exited their SUV, along with the JAG representative the MDF’s legal department had been keeping in the loop. A year and a half ago, the Marine Corps had agreed to shield Jamie from the first exposé after the attack at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The story—that Jamie had been on a joint assignment with allied service men and women—had buckled beneath the role the MDF had asked them all to play for months on end.
The two conflicting stories had muddied everyone’s perceptions, but negative details would always make for a better news day. Root Source, Inc. had touched too many lives, and none for the better. If the MDF’s mission brought down Richard’s campaign, Kyle had a feeling Jamie would have no choice but to choose between his duty and his family’s demands.
Kyle extended his arm to Leah, prompting her to give him a quick smile in thanks as she hooked her hand over the crook of his elbow. In her stilettos, she was a little taller than he was.
“Ready?” Kyle asked her in a low voice.
“Are you?” she countered, arching an eyebrow.
Kyle skimmed his gaze over the surrounding area, the reporters taking up quite a bit of his attention. “As I’ll ever be.”
Leah gave his arm a comforting squeeze. She, unlike Jamie’s parents, knew that he and Jamie were engaged and was happy for them. Her support went a long way toward soothing Kyle’s nerves. Leah had discovered their relationship when she’d walked in on them kissing in the middle of a mission last year. She’d been angry at first, but since then had become a staunch defender of their happiness, and for that Kyle would always be grateful.
The Secret Service, along with the Callahans’ private security, formed a steely-eyed wall between the horde of reporters and their charges. Hovering drone cameras swarmed above the crowd, taking pictures and video of their walk into the Hart Senate Office Building. While the majority of questions were yelled at Richard and Jamie, quite a few were directed at Katie, Alexei, and Sean.
Like everyone else, Kyle ignored the shouts, but he didn’t ignore the moving bodies. As a sniper, he could spot a threat from half a mile away or right up close. He didn’t relax until their group had made it past the security checkpoint and inside the building, with walls between them and most of the outside world.
Kyle had never actually been inside any of the government buildings that weren’t MDF or military-affiliated within the Washington, D.C. megacity. On any other occasion, he might find the marble entranceway beautiful. Being hounded down the venerable hallways left an ugly impression though, and he fought back a scowl at the reporters dogging their feet.
With so much attention directed at Richard’s campaign, more reporters than usual had requested press passes for today, despite it being a closed session. Richard’s press pool had gained more reporters as well, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Most had joined up to chronicle the investigation aimed directly at the Callahan family. Richard’s communications director had been working overtime since November, but their efforts to change the public’s opinion were being drowned out by negative press.
They bottlenecked in front of the doors leading into Room 306 on the third floor. Armed security guards barked out orders to push back the press, letting their group enter first. Kyle scanned the room as they stepped inside, taking in the imposing space.
Room 306 had been built with the press in mind, for the hearings that required more space to accommodate all interested parties. It didn’t matter that today would entail a closed session; the staged photo-op was mandatory.
Kyle’s feet sank into the rich blue carpet underfoot. Synthwood-paneled walls dulled the harsh lighting from above, but not by much. Media galleries had been set into the walls on either side of the room near the front for news cameras. The galleries were filled to capacity, but once the hearing was ready to begin, a panel would slide down and block the area, effectively cutting out the press.
Rows of chairs in straight lines faced the front of the room, where a raised dais with a long synthwood bench drew everyone’s eye. Many of the seats were already taken. Multiple terminals had been built into the bench, with the front paneling containing individual embedded computer screens that listed out the names of the senators presiding over the hearing today. The wall behind the dais consisted of a large holoscreen embedded in a slab of marble with the United States Senate seal mounted in the center beneath the holoscreen.
The space before the dais was taken up by a single long synthwood witness table neatly set up to accommodate four people. Small glasses of water had been evenly distributed, while four hovering microphones spun lazily in the air above the table in each designated seat. The vocoder they were synced to on the witness table would record every word spoken for the record.
The room was already full of people: senators, their aides, representatives from the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs, the FBI, and Kyle would bet even the CIA. Whether or not everyone had the right security clearance to be here was a different story altogether.
Kyle knew the senators presiding over the hearing weren’t going to be told much, despite what questions might be asked. The frenzy that would happen if their identities were declassified, and the reason they’d been assigned the Pavluhkin mission in the first place, wasn’t a situation any of them could afford to deal with at the moment. The case against Bennett, Declan, and the Pavluhkins needed to be airtight, and the government—and its allies—was still tying up loose ends.
The camera flashes made Kyle blink rapidly to keep his vision clear as everyone moved farther into the room. Leah drifted away to stand beside her mother. Kyle kept his eyes on the surroundings, aware of the weight of his handgun holstered at the small of his back. The cut of his suit mostly hid the shape of it, but no one outside their group had noticed yet. Kyle wasn’t putting anything past Stanislav right now, so no way was he giving up his weapon.
Kyle kept to the outskirts of their group, keeping his face carefully blank as Jamie and his father leaned in close and conferred as quietly as they could. The people in their group were beginning to find their seats, with some of the Secret Service retreating to the outside hallway to stand guard. Kyle stepped closer to Leah, following her and Charlotte to the front row on the right-hand side where seats had been left open for them.
“I hope this goes well,” Charlotte said.
“It’ll be all right, Mother. Jamie knows what he’s doing,” Leah replied.
The three of them took their seats, but their attention never left Jamie and the others. The buzz of activity never died down. Jamie looked their way, catching Kyle’s eye. For a second, it felt like they were the only two people in the room. Kyle pressed his thumb against his left ring finger, missing the cool weight of his platinum and diamond engagement ring, as he did every time he stepped out of their home.
You got this,Kyle thought, even though Jamie couldn’t read his mind. It wasn’t Jamie’s power, and Katie was under strict orders not to use her telepathy during the hearing. Nearly every senator on the committee wore implanted neural nodes that would monitor their brain waves, ready to document any psionic interference. Not that the MDF was looking to interfere on such a level.
Jamie looked away, turning to gather the others close for one last quick discussion with their JAG representative. The four of them had spent all day getting briefed by lawyers and the brass on what they could and could not answer today. Despite the legal representation being provided by the military, none of them were in uniform.
Richard took his seat beside Charlotte as Jamie and the others sat down at the witness table, the four of them sitting ramrod straight with hands folded on top of the table. They calmly waited out the senators getting settled up on the dais, ignoring the flash of cameras, the unwavering attention of the media in the galleries, and the photographers sitting on the floor in front of the dais working hard to get the perfect shot.
Senator Jeremy Stroud was the Chairman of the United States Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities tasked with investigating Richard and Jamie’s supposed wrongdoing and ethics violations with foreign parties within the shadow of the campaign. A no-nonsense Republican with four terms under his belt, Senator Stroud sat dead center in front of the witness table while the fifteen other senators assigned to the committee were ranged around him along the dais.
