Chapter One

 

Jessica examined herself in the mirror with considerable satisfaction. Her glossy brown hair was pulled back tightly from her forehead and held together in a bun behind her head. She wore thin, rectangular-shaped glasses with dark black frames - though she really didn't need glasses. Her dark blue suit jacket easily disguised what was underneath, and hung low enough that no one was going to get any satisfaction checking out her behind.

She wore no makeup, not even lipstick, nor nail polish. She wore black, flat-healed, dress shoes in a mannish style.

She looked, she thought, perfectly businesslike and appropriate to the workplace. She was an administrator and political assistant, not a woman, not a girl. The world would deal with her on that basis, and not on any other.

She lifted one of her necklaces off a holder and slipped it over her head, then tucked the cross down under her high-necked white blouse before picking up her case and heading for the door.

She was quite excited about her new job. She had volunteered as an unpaid intern for a variety of conservative politicians for several years now. She had worked on campaigns in her time off in the summer and on breaks, and often on weekends. Now she had been hired as a genuine paid assistant to Senator Lloyd, the junior Republican senator for Idaho.

It wouldn't do to say so, of course, now that she was working for one of the people representing the state, but one of the reasons she'd worked so hard in college was to get away from Idaho. Jessica was, and she knew this, a snob. She respected the working people of Idaho, for they did important work and they worked hard at it.

That did not mean she wanted to spend any more time than necessary associating with them. She'd grown up in the city of Boise, which was the capital and largest city in Idaho. When she'd been in high school her family had taken a trip to New York City - which was almost 60 times the size of Boise, and she had known right there she wanted out of Idaho.

Though not necessarily into New York, which was as messed up place run by ignorant, incompetent liberal Democrats. What a city it could have been, she thought sadly, if only it were run by Republicans.

That thought was on her mind as she strode briskly down the sidewalk, her heels clicking rapidly on the concrete as she headed for the Metro. That there was a station only two blocks away had been a deciding factor in her choosing to rent this apartment on the third floor of the low-rise building.

She wore her earphones as she walked, but there was no music on them. She was alert to her surroundings, for Washington, unlike Boise was a city with a high crime rate.

Then again, virtually all Democratic-run cities had high crime rates.

She wore the earphones so she could pretend to not hear any abusive or harassing words which might be thrown her way. She would keep her face neutral, not look at whoever it was, and march on.

She got off the metro at the Capital South station and marched briskly across to Capitol Hill, then up the sidewalk towards the entrance. It always gave her a thrill to think of herself as a cog, even if a tiny one, in the wheels of government, in the greatest capital of the greatest country in the world!

It would be much greater, of course, if it weren't for the liberals. And the minorities.

She showed her pass and went through the metal detector with pursed lips, hiding her impatience. If they wanted to make sure no crazy gunman could cause trouble they should just let everyone bring a gun, she thought. She had several herself and knew how to use them.

Senator Lloyd, as a junior senator, didn't have an office on Capitol Hill itself. His office was in the senate office building on the other side of Constitution Avenue. But there was an early meeting first thing in the morning and she had been invited.

Her! Jessica Hart!

She marched down the marble corridor, head up and shoulders back, ignoring those around her as she headed for the meeting room. Yes, she was a junior aide, so far, but the senator had been impressed with her take on things, particularly from a young and female point of view.

Jessica had her doubts about the validity of her viewpoint as representative of either group. She had discovered that fairly early in high school, and at college she had learned that her views were definitely out of kilter with most young people.

That did not in any way lead her to believe she was mistaken. She knew very well she was correct. They were mistaken. They were intellectually lazy and miseducated. They had been indoctrinated by Marxist teachers and put very little attention or effort into analyzing policies before arriving at strong views in them.

Idiots, in other words.

But she didn't mention this to the senator. She felt her views were the valid ones, and she did point out when they veered away from those of the majority. She felt she owed it to him, and that he respected her for it.

She found the meeting room and, a little anxious, drew a deep breath, let it out, and opened the door. It was a large meeting room. And largely empty aside from junior aides, people like herself who didn't dare show up late, she thought.

She took a seat along the wall, of course, not at the table, and kept her eyes on the door. She would move as soon as the senator arrived, hopefully, before the seats behind where he would sit at the table were all taken.

The other junior aides were likewise positioned, ready to move whenever their senator arrived and sat down. They should have put nameplates on the table, she thought in annoyance. Then she'd know where to sit because she'd know where Lloyd would sit.

After a few minutes one of the other aides, male, of course, came over and sat next to her. She sighed but showed nothing on her face.

"You're new," he said.

She was not new. She was, in fact, twenty-two years old, but telling him that would give him more information than she wished him to have.

"Jessica Hart," she said. "I work for Senator Lloyd."

"Ah, the new guy from Idaho," he said.

"James Munro," he said, holding out a hand. "I work for Senator Farrel."

She blinked and shook hands, reminding herself that making contacts was important in this business. Senator Farrel was from Texas, a much larger and more important state, and he was a senior senator who had a lot of pull in the Republican Party.

"Hi," she said.

"So what do you think of all this?" he asked.

"All what? The room, the congress, capitol hill, or the purpose of our meeting?"

He snorted in amusement. "The effort to get more Republicans elected at the municipal level."

"Probably hopeless," she said. "The cities, especially the big ones, are filled with people dependent on welfare and other government services. Many of those people don't pay taxes, so appealing to their desire for lower taxes is useless, as is appealing for smaller government. They don't WANT smaller government. They want bigger government to take care of them."

"Is that what you told senator Lloyd?"

"That's what the polling data indicates. People who don't pay income tax are not eager to vote Republican."

"But there's the law and order issue."

"Yes, we're well ahead of the Dems there, but unfortunately, people are -."

She halted as Senator Lloyd arrived. He nodded and smiled at her and then walked past to take his place at the table. She smiled apologetically at Munro and scrambled to follow him, taking an empty seat at the wall behind him.

She opened her case and took out a report folder, then stood, leaned forward, and slid it onto the table in front of Lloyd.

"Thank you, Jessica," he said as she sat back down.

She opened her case again, checking to ensure the other file folders were in proper order so she could grab one if the senator wanted it. Other senators were arriving and sitting down and the room was getting busy.

The meeting was opened by Senator Rush, and the business began.

***

She scrambled to follow Lloyd and his senior aide Mark Killiam as they trotted down the stairs of the senate and headed back towards the office. It wasn't that she was short. Quite the contrary. But they were both tall men.

They walked side by side and she brought up the rear. Precedence and seniority were very important in politics. Killiam would not have been happy if she'd walked up alongside them.

They crossed the street and entered the Dirkson building, which, like the Capital itself, had a metal detector, then headed upstairs to the suite of offices they occupied.

"So what do you think, Jessica?" he asked in the elevator. "Why are most young people liberals?"

"Most young people have always been liberals, Senator," Killiam said.

"Yes, but I think it's worse now."

"I think it's the media," Killiam said.

"I think it's the colleges," Jessica said. "They're filled with Marxists and others of the radical left and they teach everything from the view of the Left. There are almost no conservative teachers anymore, and students learn almost nothing about conservatism other than that it's cruel and miserly for not giving more money to people."

"The media doesn't help," he said.

"The members of the media all come from those same colleges, sir," she said. "Their attitudes are the result of the indoctrination they get there. More importantly, we can't do anything about the media. We could do something about the colleges."

"Like what?"

"Like Republican states could go into their universities with a chain saw and cut out the rot and put in place conservative chancellors who would make sure conservative professors were hired."

They exited the elevator and headed up the hall to the office.

"They'd scream about academic freedom," Killiam said.

"What academic freedom? There's no academic freedom anymore. It's all group-think, and woe to anyone who dares utter a conservative view."

Killiam made a face but didn't disagree, and as they entered Lloyd's office the two of them continued on through it to where his secretary sat before the double doors which led to his inner office. She turned off and headed for her cubicle.

She hoped Killiam wasn't annoyed at her disagreeing with him. She didn't want him to see her as any sort of threat. She wasn't, of course. He was far too senior and knowledgeable and she was almost brand new. Still, she thought the senator appreciated her insights.

She pulled out her chair and sat down, turned on the computer, and examined the files in her in-basket. Junior aides did not do complicated work, which made it hard to get recognition. Unless they screwed up, of course, then recognition - and termination - would come swiftly.

She was the most junior of his aides, and there were four others, not to mention fourteen other members of his office staff. She brought up her computer, checked her emails, then got up and walked up the aisle to the small kitchen, where she got a coffee before sitting back down again.

"So how was the meeting?"

She glanced up as Andrea Maxwell sat down across from her.

"About as expected. Lots of talk, lots of encouraging words, no real agreement on plans."

"Well, it had to be more exciting than the agricultural support bill I've been wading through."

Jessica mentally winced. That would be insanely boring. But it was also very important to an Idaho senator, which was why it hadn't been assigned to the most junior aide.

"On the other hand, that bill is actually important to Idaho."

Andrea didn't disagree.

She was an attractive woman, Jessica thought, and didn't do anything to hide it. She kept her blonde hair loose, wore flattering colors, as well as makeup. She also flirted with men, which Jessica definitely didn't approve of. Yes, making connections was important, but doing it that way was simply not moral, in her opinion.

Not that anyone had asked for it and not that she would offer it up. If you couldn't say something nice about a person then best to say nothing at all, was her belief.

She went back to working on the crime statistics for America's biggest cities. Munro's boss had made the point in the meeting that crime offered them their biggest opening and no one had disagreed.

The Democratic need to hamstring police had developed into a fetish of late. And that was already leading to higher crime and murder rates. When people got frightened they sometimes turned to the law and order party out of desperation if nothing else.

An hour later she got an email From Munro, and she stared at it in surprise, then her eyebrows rose even higher when he asked her if she wanted to do lunch the next day. Why was he asking her? They'd barely met! Clearly, he found her attractive. She sighed, for no matter what she did with her wardrobe or her hair she couldn't really hide that she did have an attractive face even under the ugly glasses.

She wanted no relationship with any man right now other than business. She had no time for a personal relationship, especially since almost all men at this age only wanted sex anyway and were nowhere near ready for any sort of commitment.

Well, she didn't need a man to satisfy her sexually, and she wasn't ready for a commitment either. Nor would she indulge in cheap sex. On the other hand, most of the legislative assistants were male, and her value as an aide depended on developing a network of people she could go to for information and to make deals.

She swiveled her seat around.

"Hey, Andrea, do you know a guy named Munro? He works for Senator Farrel."

The blonde girl turned and raised her eyebrow.

"Yeah, I know him. He's kind of uptight. Maybe it's just that he's a snob."

"A snob?"

"People who work for the most important senators, which means the ones with the most seniority in the biggest states often tend to act kind of self-important around people like us. Not saying that's what he does, but he is kind of stiff and formal."

"I like stiff and formal."

"I like stiff and informal," she said with a giggle.

Jessica flushed slightly. Honestly, that was hardly the sort of talk to engage in at work!

"Well, he wants to have lunch," she said.

"So go have lunch. There's no law says you have to eat at your desk every day. And making connections is important. Just remember, a guy like Munro is never ever off duty. Watch what you say about Senator Lloyd and commit to absolutely nothing."

"Oh, I know that," Jessica said.

"Don't even imply anything. Guys like Munro are cutthroats. They'll wreck anyone to climb up a little higher."

"Maybe I shouldn't go," Jessica said.

Andrea laughed. "Honey, that describes three-quarters of the legislative assistants on The Hill. Certainly all the senior ones. Nice guys finish last here."

That was disheartening, but Jessica couldn't disagree with it.

She agreed to meet Munro in the Senate cafeteria, and then went back to work.