Free The Emissary by Patricia Cori Page B

traffic. That great bastion of democracy, the White House, was now barricaded and hiding from its own people. He felt a pang of conscience, knowing he was part of the corruption that was helping eat away at the foundations of a dream.
    America, and all it had once stood for—all he had fought for—was dying … on life support, and counting.
    Images of the killing fields of Vietnam, the blood of women and children, flooded his river of memories, as they always did whenever he came to Washington. Something here triggered the haunting; those tiny ghosts still managed to enter and exit through a locked door in his soul. Doing his best to shake them off, Mat promised himself that these visits to the capital were somehow going to have to come to an end.
    Before turning in for the night, he sent two strategic text messages, alerting his team to be prepared to fly him out, at the first available runway slot. He set his alarm for 4:00 a.m., knowing he would have to get out of town first thing in the morning, or be stuck for days in Georgetown, which was not an option, for more reasons than he cared to even think about.
    While the city slept into the pre-dawn hours, the snow intensified, pushed into the region by the massive storm front that had already dumped mountains of snow across the entire Eastern Seaboard. Snow flurries played cat and mouse with the plows, their drivers working through the night to free up the most important districts, and all the main roads, before morning. As they groaned their way through the city streets, breaking the muffled silence of blanketing snowfall, they engaged in a futile game with nature: the powder falling stealthily behind them, instantly covering the pavement just as quickly as they got it cleared. It was as if Mother Nature, with all her graceful artistry and mighty determination,had decided to override the business of man, and to remind those who dared attempt to control her that she was—and would always be—the ultimate authority.
    Weather was never a deterrent to Mat’s daily workout regime of running five miles every morning; his motto was “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” In fact, he usually enjoyed the cold and found running in it stimulating—within reason, which subzero temperatures were not. Still, he awoke before his alarm and got suited up and out the door by 4:30, jogging in the freezing black night: just him, clearing his head from the night before, and the plows, clearing the roads. It was his surefire way to release the adrenaline overload of all that he had to do to keep the big boys happy, to keep the hungry wolves at bay, and to hold on to his seat of power.
    He got back to his suite as day was breaking. A hot shower, a bit of breakfast, and he would be on his way to the airport by 7:00. With the driver waiting outside the lobby, and his pilot on standby at the airport, he called Jamie, enlisting her into active service. Just two weeks after their encounter, he had to call her back to Houston and get her cleared with his management team before sending her out to search for buried treasure. Even though it was only a formality, it was still important.
    What Mat did not need now was a Judas from the inside.

    On the other side of the continent, there could not have been a more picture-perfect San Francisco morning. Jamie lounged around in her flannel pajamas, gazing out at the sun, as it broke through the cloud banks: the fog curling slowly back out over the ocean and gulls, diving the waves. From her precious bay-view bedroom window, she looked out over Fisherman’s Wharf and the incredible vista that extended beyond, as far out as the Golden Gate Bridge: a view most people only dreamed about.
    A third-generation San Franciscan, she was convinced that there was nowhere on Earth more breathtakingly beautiful than this magical place: the City by the Bay. Drinking in the natural beauty and the warmth of the sun’s golden rays, Jamie snuggled up lazily under her down