Act of Treason by Vince Flynn Read Free Book Online Page B

when it comes to stuff like these moronic campaign finance laws, but this…” Baker gestured to the photos. “If someone on the other side decided to make this go away and do it in such a way as to make it advantageous to their cause…then they stepped way over the line.”
    “That’s a big if, and you still didn’t answer my question. Why did you wait until now? Why didn’t you come forward the day after the explosion?”
    “Are you kidding me? The opposing candidate’s wife gets incinerated by a car bomb, and you think I should have gone public with a bunch of pornographic photos of her screwing her bodyguard, who, by the way, also got killed in the explosion? I would have been branded the biggest bastard in the history of politics.”
    “I didn’t say go public. Why didn’t you bring it to me?”
    Baker stood and waved his hand in frustration at McMahon. “You’re where I was in the weeks after the attack, except I still had a campaign to manage. A campaign that we almost won, which is amazing, when you think about it.” He grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair. “I didn’t want to believe any of this. Things were happening so fast those final two weeks. There were the funerals, and then Alexander decided to go on with the debates, after we’d been informed that he was pulling out. We were in a street fight with our hands cuffed behind our backs. We couldn’t fight back. We had to just sit there and take it.”
    “So again,” McMahon said forcefully, “why now? Why sit on this for two months?”
    “Because I didn’t want to believe it. This is going to sound really corny to you, but I believe in this country. I believe in the two-party system. I believe in the peaceful transfer of power, and from everything I’ve seen, Josh Alexander is a decent man. I’m not about destroying institutions and ruining the people’s faith in their government, but…” Baker fell silent.
    “But what?” prodded McMahon.
    “Mark Ross and Stu Garret are motherfuckers! And I mean motherfuckers!”
    The severity of the comment caught even McMahon off guard.
    “Pathological liars, the both of them,” Baker continued. “The more I sat and thought about this, the more I realized they are absolutely capable of orchestrating some fucking coup like this.”
    “That’s great,” McMahon said sarcastically, “your personal opinion and all, but do you have a shred of evidence that the vice president–elect of the United States plotted to have his own motorcade attacked?”
    “Evidence…no.” Baker shook his head. “But motive, yes. And trust me, Agent McMahon, I’ve been following your investigation. In fact, I’ve already read the draft you’re going to deliver to the president on Monday. It’s heavy on supposition and light on the facts. Yeah, you have all your standard lab analysis on the bomb. You guys are great at that, but beyond the lab report, it’s all fluff. You guys don’t know where that van came from or how the explosives got into the country. Most importantly, though, you don’t have a suicide bomber, and we all know how the Islamic radical fundamentalists love to martyr themselves.”
    “That’s not always the case.”
    “Fine. Then where’s the guy in the red Nationals baseball hat?”
    McMahon’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”
    “Who, not a what, and don’t act so surprised. I told you, I’ve been following your investigation.”
    McMahon looked anxiously at Kennedy and then back to Baker. “Who have you been talking to?”
    “You know that is something that has always driven me nuts about this town. Everybody gets hung up on who said what to who, and they ignore the fact that the truth is staring them right in the face. You have a thirteen-year veteran of the Secret Service who has an impeccable record, and she reports that just before the blast, she saw a man in a red Nationals baseball hat and sunglasses standing behind a tree and acting suspicious. The