"Memorial Day" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flynn Vince)

Three

The corner office she was heading for was perhaps the most impressive in all of Washington, even more impressive than the oval-shaped one just up the street. The tall blonde walked right past two administrative assistants and the security detail and entered without asking permission. Once inside she closed the heavy wood door and approached her boss's aircraft carrier-sized desk. The woman had a definite air of confidence about her, a sense of purpose in each step. She was as aware of her surroundings as she was of herself.

There was no middle ground for Peggy Stealey. She'd graduated from the University of Washington's Law School thirteen years ago, and she'd been fighting ever since. One case and one cause after another. Some of them she'd been less passionate about than others, but she'd given every one of them her all. Peggy Stealey hated to lose more than she liked to win, and that more than anything was the key to understanding how she ticked.

While some men found her irresistible, there were perhaps an equal number who found her harsh and a bit intimidating. She was a statuesque six feet tall with the legs of an all-American 400-meter hurdler, and the cheekbones of a Nordic goddess. She tended to dress conservatively; lots of pants suits and skirts that stopped just above the knee, and she almost always wore her blond hair pulled back in a low ponytail, but when she wanted to, when she felt it would give her an advantage, she was not afraid to sex up her look. That was as far as she went, though.

She'd slept with only one coworker since graduating from law school and that had been back in Seattle more than twelve years ago. She hated to admit it, but she'd been naïve. Only a few months out of school, she was overworked, lonely, and sleep deprived. She'd let down her guard and slept with the law firm's rising star, a partner sixteen years her senior. The affair had been torrid, some of the best sex she'd ever had, and definitely the best sex he'd ever had.

It had ended abruptly when he'd been tagged by several of Seattle's business leaders, and the party's chief power broker, to be the next U.S. senator from the state of Washington. Her entire image of him changed almost overnight when the wimp didn't even have the guts to break it off with her himself.

He'd scheduled a lunch with her and in his place his mother, of all people, showed up. He was married, of course, with two children. Important people had already ponied up large sums of money, the announcement had already been made, the race was underway, and the party needed to win. The old dragon had told her that she was not the first and probably wouldn't be the last woman her son would have a dalliance with. It seemed that her son, like his grandfather, which was where all the money came from, had a problem keeping his organ in his pants. The matriarch of the family had hinted at some sort of financial compensation while she picked at her salad. Peggy had dismissed the offer without hesitation. She may have been naïve at the time, but she still had her pride.

By the time their main course was served, Peggy had recovered enough to state assuredly that she had no desire to see herself dragged down in a scandal that might ruin her career. No one, other than her son's opponent, would gain by the information being made public, so a deal of a different kind was made, a deal to ensure that Peggy Stealey's star would continue to rise.

And it had. Still in her thirties, Stealey was now the deputy assistant attorney general in charge of counterterrorism, and she was standing before the man whose job she planned on someday having. She listened to the attorney general's phone conversation long enough to ascertain that he was talking to neither the president nor his wife, and then made a very stern gesture for him to hang up the phone.

Attorney General Martin Stokes frowned at his subordinate, but did as she wished and cut the director of the FBI off in mid-sentence. Stokes knew Stealey well enough to know that it would not be out of character for her to reach across his desk and end the call herself. He sometimes wondered why he put up with her, but he already knew the answer. Stealey was smart and motivated, and she got things done. She'd given him great advice over the years, whether he wanted to hear it or not, and for that she was invaluable.

Sycophants were as common in politics as lawyers, and in that sense Peggy Stealey's straightforward approach was refreshing. She was like a violent spring thunderstorm: You could see her coming, your excitement and fear growing with the anticipation of the awesome spectacle that was about to commence. If the storm blew through quickly, it was a rather enjoyable experience. The brief downpour cleaned things up and the lightning turned the grass that rich shade of green. But if it hovered or stalled, basements were flooded, trees were toppled, and personal property was damaged.

That was Peggy Stealey. If she dispensed her insightful opinions with brevity, it could be a rather pleasant thing to experience, but if she decided to really unload, it was like a destructive storm; at some point it was a good idea to stop watching and go hide in the basement.

Stokes put the handset back in the cradle and hoped this would be brief. Before he could ask what was on her mind, she started in.

"This Patriot Act is afucking disaster!" She chopped her hand through the air as if she was about to cut his desk in half. "And if you're still holding on to that fantasy of yours that you're going to occupy the White House someday, you'd better get your shit together and figure out that it makes you look like a Goddamn fascist. And in case you haven't noticed, Americans don't elect fascists...at least not Democratic fascists."

There it was. She'd got it all out in one breath. On the surface he agreed with much of what she said, except the last part. With the exclusion of the nationalistic component, the Democrats had their fair share of fascist tendencies, but right now that wasn't important. Tropical storm Peggy was in his office and she looked like she could grow into a hurricane any second if he didn't do something.

Nodding he said, "Your timing couldn't be better. I've been sweating over what's going to happen when one of these cases gets kicked up to the Supreme Court."

"Happen?" She scoffed. "They're going to pull down our pants and spank our asses until our butt cheeks are fire engine red, and then the entire legal community is going to stand up and cheer, and then you can kiss the White House good-bye."

She liked to beat him over the head with the White House thing. She knew it got his attention. Stokes didn't bother asking her to sit. In a calm but firm voice he asked, "What do you think we should do?"

With that, she was off again, a six-foot-tall blond-haired, blue-eyed Teutonic goddess, karate-chopping the air with one hand and then the other, expressing herself with efficient, forceful, clipped precision. This was when she really turned him on, when his thoughts returned to having sex with her, but it was not to be. He'd made one foolish effort to try and rekindle their affair after he'd been safely elected senator. Her response had been swift and definite. She'd delivered a blow to his solar plexus that had left him curled up on the floor like an infant.