Free Against All Enemies by John Gilstrap Page B

dared to look inside, and feared to ask what it held, but he imagined that it was the Holy Grail of the political opposition. Though Haynes was far from the most progressive member of the Senate when it came to technology, his limited knowledge made Stella’s system look like stone tablets and an abacus. She opened the black leather monster and read from the page on the top. She always read from the page on the top.
    “According to the coroner, your attacker’s name was John Doe. Cause of death was a bullet through his heart, though she speculates in the report that the bullet through his liver would also have been fatal, though arguably at a slower rate. I don’t believe that you’re smiling.”
    “I’m sorry,” Haynes said, though he was anything but. “It’s gratifying to know that I hit what I was shooting at. Did I mention that I wasn’t killed? Tell me about John Doe.”
    Stella went back to her papers. “He’s an unknown quantity,” she said. “No ID in his pockets, no hit off of the fingerprints. He’s completely off the grid, and according to the Metropolitan Police, the Capitol Police, and the FBI, no one knows who he is. He never existed.”
    Haynes knew what that meant, and he suspected that Stella knew as well. “No one’s invisible these days unless they are intended to be invisible,” he said.
    “What are you suggesting?”
    “I don’t have a specific suggestion,” Haynes said, “but I know that Congressman Blaine’s body is still warm, and no one has yet to identify his shooter, right?”
    Stella’s face darkened. “Are you suggesting that they’re one and the same?”
    Haynes shrugged. “I’m suggesting that they could be. How would we know when one shooter is a ghost and the other—the one who actually takes up physical space in the physical world—is dead? As a result of some admittedly expert shooting.”
    “Does the thought of jail appeal to you, Haynes?”
    “Actually, it repels me,” he said. “But for the now, I live in the glow of having beaten the mysterious bad guy to the draw. What’s our next step?”
    Stella looked horrified. “You’re asking me that question? I was going to ask you that question.”
    Haynes took his time considering the problem. Anywhere else on the planet, the fact of his survival while under attack would grant him a free pass, but this was the District of Columbia, where juries tilted in bizarre directions that allowed drug dealing tax evaders to serve on the City Council without consequence while slamming hundreds of dollars in fines against people who parked in spaces where the meters had been broken for weeks. A prominent politician who dared to live might well be at a disadvantage. The fact of his gun would likely be the deciding factor, and the city fathers were likely to take a hard line.
    “I think our best bet is to nationalize the issue,” he said. “But for my illegal gun, I would be dead now. It’s an argument that will get us a lot of national attention.”
    “I think you’re right,” Stella said. “The problem is that your jury is going to be composed of DC residents who will indict whomever the prosecutor tells them to indict, and then the trial jury will be composed exclusively of people without enough clout to get out of their jury duty, and every one of them will be positively giddy at the prospect of sending a senator of your political persuasion to jail.”
    Haynes let the words hang, then said, “Have you considered a career in motivational speaking? Your optimism in the face of difficult news is stunning.”
    “You make light,” Stella said, “but just wait until—”
    “We’ve got time,” Haynes interrupted. “We need to find out who the assassin was.”
    “The FBI doesn’t know who he was,” Stella said. “If they don’t know, how on earth are you going to find out?”
    When she framed the question that way, the answer was as obvious as the sun in the sky. “I know a guy who knows a girl,” he