William Tyree - The Fellowship

The article was called “The Country Club Cult that Runs Washington.” Ellis scanned the 300 or so words on the first page.

It appeared to be a firsthand account of power meetings among several high-ranking congressmen at the estate known as Eden. Her eyes grew wide when she saw one of the names mentioned in the article intro: Senator Rand Preston.

It was easy to see how Arunus Roth had missed it. The article was a scanned image of a page out of a defunct print magazine called Inside Washington. Ellis’ hands were starting to sweat. She clicked through to read the rest of the story. To her dismay, the link to the next page was broken.

She hit the back button and found the name of the writer, Nathan Drucker, on the scanned image. His bio read:

Nathan Drucker is a writer for Capitol Herald, covering congressional news and events.

Ellis navigated immediately to the Capitol Herald site, and then to its staff page. Nathan Drucker was still there all right, although he now held the title Senior Editor. He was a curious-looking fellow, with small eyes, a monobrow and a flamboyant, waxed, handlebar mustache.

She wasted no time in dialing the Capitol Herald newsroom, selecting Drucker’s extension from the phone tree.

“Nate Drucker,” a man’s voice answered.

“Hi,” Ellis said. “I’m calling in regards to an article you wrote several years ago, called the Country Club Cult that Runs Washington.”

The journalist didn’t immediately respond. The silence was filled by the dull roar of newsroom chatter.

“Are you there?” she said.

She heard a door shut. Drucker had apparently gone somewhere private to talk.

“Who is this?” His tone had changed completely. Whether it was paranoia or anger, Ellis wasn’t sure.

“My name is Haley Ellis,” she said, immediately regretting that she had given him her real name. “Do you have a few minutes to chat?’”

Drucker exhaled deeply and loudly, as if merely mentioning the old article had touched a nerve.

“That piece was published a long time ago,” he said. “Are you from the Bureau?”

The Bureau? Ellis had found smoke. She was betting that she would find fire, too.

Eisenhower Building

Speers cringed when a video chat invitation from Chad Fordham appeared on his screen. He accepted grudgingly. Although he himself had been an early adopter of video chat way back in the day, a part of him wished it had never been invented. He missed the freedom of multitasking during audio-only calls. He was constantly looking off-camera as he monitored his neverending feed of incoming messages.

“You’ve got lunch in your beard,” the FBI director said as soon as the connection was established.

Speers moved a reasonable distance from the camera while he combed his salt-and-pepper goatee with his fingers.

“Better?”

“Yup,” Fordham observed. “How’s it going?”

“Just another day in paradise,” Speers said, leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. “I just spoke with the operatives whom we’ve entrusted with restoring global security.”

“Something wrong?”

“It seems that Carver has enlisted the help of Nico Gold.”

Fordham smirked the way people do when they hear about little boys getting up to mischief. “The president’s not going to like that one bit.”

“Better that she not know,” Speers said. “We need to shield her for her own protection.”

“Risky.”

The two men didn’t always agree with each other, but Speers respected him. That hadn’t always been the case. They had knocked heads a few times during the Hatch Administration over funding and, more recently, issues relating to the DNI’s increasing control over strategic intelligence operations. But when it counted, during the Ulysses Coup, Fordham had made the gutsy call to deploy an improvised force of special agents to help defend the Capitol. Speers would never forget that.

“What choice do we have?” Speers said. “So far, the intel our people have turned up has been garbage, and Carver is the one out in the field, shouldering all the responsibility without even a guarantee that we would extract him if he got into trouble.”

“What about the committee?”

“Screw the committee. Carver should get the job done any way he sees fit, as far as I’m concerned.”

“All righty then. And what about Ellis?”

“She’s on her way back to D.C. to interview some journalist that might know something. What about you?”

“It’s 24 hours after Mary Borst disappeared, and we have no idea where she is. Her roommate says she didn’t come home, and Hank has been unable to reach the mother.”

“She’s in Europe, right?”

“Relocated to Seattle, but she’s constantly traveling on business. She’s one of the UN’s most senior people.”

“But she must have seen the news about Preston. Weird that she wouldn’t have come to Washington out of concern for her daughter by now.” As soon as Speers said it, he thought of his own schedule. He hadn’t even been home since the crisis began, and home was just a few miles away. “Did we triangulate Mary’s phone?”

“Obviously. Zero activity. The phone either went up in the fire, or the battery’s been removed. In the meantime, we’ve contacted her carrier and we have complete access to all her communications. The inbound calls are just piling up, one after another. Concerned friends, distant relatives who knew she worked for the senator keep dialing in, leaving messages of support.”

“Outbound?”

Fordham shook his head. “Nothing.”

Speers rested his elbows on the oak desk. “The simplest explanation is usually the right one.”

“Meaning…”

“Our people made a mistake. Maybe she really did go up in the fire, and we just missed her. Let’s get a second set of eyes onsite.”

Johannesburg, South Africa

It had been a hard drive from Nico’s hideout in Kei Mouth, through the winding roads of the Eastern Cape, and into the grassy golden flatlands of the Transvaal. Carver had let Nico drive while he kept a careful watch from the passenger seat. If they were going to work together again, he had to re-establish the trust Nico had destroyed when he fled the country. That meant giving him a job to do.

Nico had driven without incident, asking only that the radio remain off so that he could process all that had happened. Apart from lunch orders and bathroom breaks, there was very little talking between the two men. That was fine by Carver. He too had plenty to mull over. Chiefly, how the president was going to react when she found out that he had dug Nico Gold out of hiding for this. With luck, Nico would easily earn his way out of the president’s doghouse. If he didn’t show results, and fast, Carver himself might be looking for a hideout.

As they approached the airport, Carver pulled a battery out of the glove compartment and inserted it into his phone.

“Either you really needed some quiet time,” Nico observed, “or you didn’t want anyone to know where you were.”

Carver nodded. “More like I didn’t want people to know where you were.”

“Houses built close together also burn together.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means our wagons are hitched together, Agent Carver. The way I see it, The House Committee on Domestic Intelligence would have given you a pass if you’d disclosed my location. I want you to know I appreciate it. It’s the only reason I haven’t run this car into a ditch.”

Carver turned in his seat. “That committee hearing was closed to the public.”

“That sort of thing has never deterred me.”

“You said you’d given up computers.”