Gideon Crew 01 - Gideon's Sword by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

Author:Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child [Preston, Douglas & Child, Lincoln]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Thrillers, Mystery Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Revenge, Suspense Fiction; American, Children of Murder Victims, Detective and Mystery Stories; American
ISBN: 044656432X
Google: l8iXQ4KF9AoC
Amazon: B007HW019O
Publisher: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Published: 2011-02-22T06:00:00+00:00

“That’s it?” Harris asks, his voice squawking through my receiver.

“That’s it,” I repeat from my almost empty office. Everyone’s at lunch but Dinah, who, like the phone beast she is, is on a call with someone else. I still watch what I say. “When the Members vote for the bill—which they always do since it’s filled with goodies for themselves—we’re all done.”

“And you’re sure you don’t have any uptight Members who’ll read through the bill and take the gold mine out?” Harris asks.

“Are you kidding? These people don’t read. Last year, the omnibus bill was over eleven hundred pages long. I barely read it, and that’s my job. More important, once it comes out of Conference, it’s a big stack of paper covered in Post-it notes. They put a few copies on the House side and some more on the Senate. That’s their only chance to examine it—an hour or so before the vote. Trust me, even the Citizens Against Government Waste—y’know, that group that finds the fifty-thousand-dollar study on Aborigine sweat the government funded—even they only find about a quarter of the fat we hide in there.”

“You really gave fifty grand to study Aborigine sweat?” Harris asks.

“Don’t laugh. Last month, when scientists announced a huge leap in the cure for meningitis, guess where the breakthrough came from?”

“Aborigine sweat.”

“That’s right—Aborigine sweat. Think about that next time you read about pork in the paper.”

“Great—I’m on the lookout,” Harris says. “Now you have everything else?”

Reaching into the jacket pocket of my suit, I pull out a white letter-sized envelope. Checking it for the seventh time today, I open the flap and stare at the two cashier’s checks inside. One’s for $4,000.00. The other’s for $8,225.00. One from Harris, the other from me. Both are made out to cash. Completely untraceable.

“Right here in front of me,” I say as I seal the lettersized envelope and slide it into a bigger manila mailer.

“They still haven’t picked it up?” Harris asks. “It’s usually promptly at noon.”

“Don’t stress yourself—they’ll be here…”

There’s a soft, polite cough as the door to our office peeks open. “I’m looking for Matt…?” an African-American page says as he clears his throat and steps inside.

“… any second,” I tell Harris. “Gotta run—business calls.”

I hang up the phone and wave the page inside. “I’m Matthew. C’mon in.”

As the page approaches my desk, it’s the first time I notice he’s wearing a blue suit instead of the standard blazer and gray slacks. This guy isn’t a House page; he’s from the Senate. Even the pages dress nicer over there.

“How’s everything going?” I ask.

“Pretty good. Just tired of all the walking.”

“It’s a real haul from the Senate, huh?”

“They tell me where to go—I got no choice,” he laughs. “Now, you got a package for me?”

“Right here.” I seal the oversized envelope, jot the word Private across the back, and reach across the desk to put it in his hands. Unlike the other page visits, this isn’t a drop-off. It’s a pickup. The day after the bidding, the dungeon-masters expect you to cover your bet.

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