Rainey reached Lhasa that evening and slipped into a busy teahouse near Danjielin Temple. With a nod to the proprietor, she headed to the washroom and rinsed off the road dust. At her preferred corner table in the back, a waiter arrived with her favorite noodle dish which she quickly devoured. Satisfied, she sat back with a large mug of sweet chai to catch up on the news and location of her now-approved target.
With just over a week to go, Earl had been campaigning, hitting cities in Pennsylvania and Michigan. His die-hard fans still turned out and chanted insults against his opponent from four years ago or the new one against members of Congress. The media ridiculed them, but rung their hands over his poll numbers. Ten points behind the Murray/Warden ticket, but after 2016, nobody was taking anything for granted.
The propaganda station reported him to be fifteen points ahead. Word was he’d fired the last pollsters in his campaign who’d reported anything close to the truth to him. At least he hadn’t executed them like Kim Jong-Un, who’d killed the negotiating team he’d sent to South Korea.
Earl was due at the debate in Atlanta in two days, but had returned to the White House. Rainey accessed his secure schedule, but no meetings popped up. She thought he must be recuperating. With the impeachment vote in the House of Representatives and the trial in the Senate, Earl had gotten increasingly erratic.
A surge of fury heated her stomach. The spineless House leaders had hemmed and hawed before finally issuing subpoenas for a series of witnesses. They’d had to take each name through the courts and serious hearings had begun only three months ago. Now in the Senate, the compelling testimony got lost in the noise of the campaign and only the most politically savvy Americans followed it. Gutless cowards. They’d left it for her to clean up.
Rainey sat back in her chair and made herself focus on her breathing until the fire in her solar plexus reduced to a warm glow. She had a job to do, a job she’d been appointed to, one she’d come to accept. When Zigsa gave her a copy of the Bhagavad Gita while she was recuperating at the nunnery, she suggested that Rainey, like Arjuna, should accept her destiny.
She focused back on the task at hand and made a decision. Atlanta—she’d go to Atlanta and observe, then make her way to his resort in the Keys. She sent an encrypted message to her Secret Service contact asking when Earl would arrive and where he’d be staying, then closed down her electronics.
She finished her chai and left a big tip on the table. Making her way through the kitchen, alive with the bang of pots and pans, the smells of ginger and lemongrass, she went into the back hallway. She climbed the narrow steps to the second floor and walked to a storeroom in the back. Checking to be sure she was unobserved, Rainey closed the door and locked it. Then she moved boxes of tea and other spices that were stacked against the wall. Once the wall was clear, she pushed a panel. It released easily.
Rainey pulled out a metal box from the hidden space, dialed in the combination, and opened the lid. Shuffling through a few passports, she decided on the identity of Mia Woods—young, rich, searching for herself or a good distraction. She took a stack of American dollars.
While she was at it, she checked the weapons stash. The Glock 19 and the smaller Ruger LCP were freshly oiled. Mipam Tashi, who owned the shop and worked in the Tibetan resistance, took good care of her stockpile. She left the weapons, but took a small knife made of a hard plastic that would not set off the alarms.
She stuffed five hundred dollars into an envelope for Mipam, then donned a baseball cap with an embroidered symbol for Shiva on the front and headed out. On the streets, the weather had turned cold with tiny pellets of hail falling. Rainey walked to a boutique in a fancy hotel where she bought a few outfits that fit Mia’s profile. In a separate store, she procured a new suitcase. In yet a third shop, she bought make up, then headed to the airport.
Control’s hacker 7R4C3R kept up a convincing social media presence for Mia. Rainey reviewed the Facebook and Twitter account to see what Mia had been up to lately. Apparently, she’d been in New York at some art openings, then gone off to Hong Kong to attend a lecture from a noted Buddhist monk. Rainey had to hand it to 7R4C3R. It had taken her forever to realize this acronym stood for Tracer. His real name was anybody’s guess.
In the ladies’ room in the airport lobby, Rainey slipped on the personality of Mia Woods along with the makeup and change of clothes. She flounced up to the ticket counter, plunked down an American Express card, and purchased a ticket for the evening flight to New York with a connection to Atlanta. She rattled on in a breathless voice about how she just loved Tibet. “Those maroon robes. And the chanting.” She pressed her hand to her chest and closed her eyes. “Enthralling.”
“Yes, ma’am. Will you be checking any luggage?” The clerk eyed Rainey’s dress and hat as if she were expecting three cases.
“Just the one.” She held out her hand for her boarding pass.
“Gate eight. Have a good flight.”
Mia settled into business class and turned on a series of movies which she largely ignored. When she landed in New York, she had a message from John Morton, her contact in the Secret Service.
Call me when you land.
After clearing customs, Rainey almost missed her new suitcase. Yes, it was the bright pink one. Just what Mia would pick. She wheeled the atrocity off to an empty hall and phoned John. It took almost a full minute before he answered.
“Where are you?” came his quiet voice.
“I just landed at Kennedy.”
“The Skeleton is in Pristina meeting with his handlers.” They’d given Earl this unofficial code name. “We’ll be in Atlanta tomorrow. Can you give the stadium a once-over for me? See where our holes are?”
Rainey waited for a couple to walk by, then said, “Sure thing.”
“I appreciate it.”
“He’ll be at the Ritz?”
“Always.”
“See you there.”
“Not if I see you first.”
Morton clicked off before she could offer a comeback.
Rainey grabbed her luggage and ran to catch her Atlanta connection. She wanted to leave the pink monstrosity, but it would get picked up by security and traced back to Mia Woods. She couldn’t put that identity at risk or draw any attention to her travel.