8

“How can we trust you?”

Harry Gibb sat alone in the booth of the darkened restaurant. The disembodied voice was ominously threatening, and he didn’t dare look in the adjacent booth for fear of the consequences.

“My enemy’s enemy is my friend,” he said with conviction. “I want this as much as you.”

“And you’re willing to do whatever it takes?”

“Yes, yes. I want Sterling’s life ruined. Just like he’s destroying mine!” Harry ground his teeth and clenched a fist in fury at the thought of his collapsing career.

“Then we must hit him where it hurts: his family.”

Harry felt a chill run through him. He stared at his fist and slowly unclenched it. “R-really?” he questioned, his voice quavering slightly. This was something he hadn’t considered. “You’re not expecting me to do anything, are you? I’m not that sort of person.”

“Oh, Harry. It isn’t as if you’re an angel. I’m sure you’ve trampled over many innocent people on your way up the political ladder.”

“Yes . . . but this is different.”

The voice gave a hollow laugh. “No, Harry, this is no different. Politics is just as ruthless as revenge. It’s just that with politics, you inflict harm before someone harms you. With revenge, at least it’s after the act—a lot more honorable.”

“I’m not sure I’m a hundred percent comfortable with this,” Harry admitted, feeling the situation slipping out of his control. He only wanted to wreck Sterling’s credibility and distract him from the campaign against him.

“Too late, Harry, you’re in too deep now. And I can assure you, Mr. Sterling has no qualms about crushing you. But don’t you worry—my men will do the dirty work. The question is, do you have the means to make it happen?”

“Y . . . yes,” Harry replied, reaching into his jacket pocket and taking out a thick brown envelope, stuffed with five hundred crisp hundred-dollar bills.

A waiter eerily emerged from the shadows—or at least the man carried a waiter’s tray. With a prominent tattoo and gorilla-like hands more suited to brutal work than simply serving food, the shadowy figure wasn’t an obvious choice for a high-class establishment. Harry laid the envelope on the tray, and the “waiter” departed without a word.

“When will the ‘campaign’ begin?” he asked.

The adjacent booth was silent.

“I said, when will the plan commence?”

Still Harry got no answer. Warily, he rose from his seat and peeked over the divide. The booth was empty, except for a wireless loudspeaker on the table. His contact had never even been in the room with him.

Making his way past the coat check, Harry headed for the rear exit, where a bald bouncer wearing tinted sunglasses opened the fire door for him. Sunlight burst into the darkened corridor, dazzling Harry as if a police spotlight had caught him in the act. His heart racing, he scuttled out of the building and into the alleyway. The door clanged shut behind him with a booming finality that signaled there was no going back.