His hands outstretched, Logan began to step toward her, but he stopped himself. “I can’t change who I am either. I wish I could,” he said, his voice cracking. “And I can’t be a part of your plan tonight.” His eyes held an ultimatum. “If you do this, you’re going to have to do it without me.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
WITH MAKEUP ON, her hair curled and sprayed to perfection, and a smile on her face, no one would guess that Rachel was dying on the inside. After she and Logan had broken up for good, she’d held it together long enough to go over how to work the software that would hack into the senator’s computer.
Sawyer had tried to get her to talk about what had happened between her and Logan, but she refused to discuss it. Taking comfort in the familiar, she regressed to the woman who focused solely on her job. Tonight was about more than the interview. It was about proving to Logan that she was her own woman. Just as with her other stories, it wasn’t solely about her career. It was about exposing the truth. She’d thought after spending the week with her, Logan had accepted that, like him, she had a drive to protect people. But he hadn’t and, as a result, she was nursing her first broken heart.
Rather than watch her take what he perceived as a risk, Logan had taken a commercial flight back to Michigan. Sawyer and the guys had installed the app on her new cell phone and shown her how to use it. The app would tap into the Wi-Fi and download the data from every computer on the network. The chances of Senator Hutton having his computer on were slim to none, but unless she could find a legitimate excuse to use it, they’d have to cross their fingers. If she didn’t get access tonight, she’d have to find another time she could try again. But she wouldn’t give up. She’d do what she had to do in order to uncover the truth, whatever that was.
She kept her purse behind her chair, the cell phone tucked away inside. As soon as she’d arrived at the Lake Las Vegas mansion where Hutton had been staying, she’d checked the available Wi-Fi networks, clicking on the one that matched the last name of the home’s owner. Then, to bypass the required password, she’d opened the app and typed in the code that Sawyer had made her memorize before slipping the phone back into her purse. It was out of her hands at this point.
But she didn’t plan on going easy on the senator. She had a list of questions that she needed answers to in order to assure herself he wasn’t responsible for the hell she’d gone through this past week.
Working in conjunction with her station, the local news crew had arrived an hour earlier to set up. She’d kept herself busy, throwing herself into her job, making sure everything was ready before the senator came downstairs and joined them. Once the interview was completed, her station’s producers would edit it for the eleven o’clock news. Her boss mentioned the possibility of it getting picked up by the national network, but she didn’t want to get her hopes up. She’d already had her hopes dashed once today. She didn’t need to go through it again.
Relaxing on the chair that had been set up for the interview, she stood when Senator Hutton entered the room. Dressed in a different suit than he’d worn in the FBI’s office, he looked just as polished, no sign of the exhaustion that Rachel felt from having gone without sleep last night.
“Can I get you anything, Senator?” asked one of her crew. “Water?”
Senator Hutton waved him off. “I’m fine. Ready for my interview.” He took Rachel’s hand and shook it. “It’s nice to see you again, Ms. Dawson.”
She gave him a smile she wasn’t feeling inside. “You too, Senator.” They settled in their seats, the senator completely at ease under the lights and cameras. “Thank you again for agreeing to this interview.”
“You saved my life and possibly millions more. There’s very little I wouldn’t do for you. In fact, if you ever decide to leave your career, I could always use a woman like you as my press secretary.”
Her life was spent pursuing truth and justice. In her opinion, she’d find neither in politics. “Thank you for that kind offer, but I love my job, and there’s nothing else I’d rather do.”
Intentionally omitting a couple, she went over the topics they’d be discussing before she began the interview.
She angled her knees toward him. “You made headlines this week for your record-breaking eighteen-hour-long filibuster of Senator Byron’s bill. Can you give the average American who knows nothing about politics the short reason you chose to do that?”
Relaxing, he leaned on the arm of his chair. “Despite my efforts to defeat Senator Byron’s proposed legislation, the bill had made its way to the floor for a vote. I felt very strongly that decreased spending to Homeland Security would place our country in a vulnerable position. We need to spend more on protecting our borders rather than less. With a filibuster, I was able to delay the vote until the Senate returns from its break, using that time to sway the votes in my favor, so that the bill would be defeated.”
She could understand how he’d been so successful in politics all these years. When he spoke, he captured everyone’s attention with his deep, powerful voice. “You also have a bill up for consideration, is that true?”
“Yes, as the chairman of the Senate HELP Committee—the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Senate Committee, which overseas public health and health insurance laws, including governmental agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Food and Drug Administration—I’ve come across disturbing statistics regarding the probability of certain life-threatening viruses crossing into our borders both naturally and intentionally.”
She cocked her head. “Intentionally? What do you mean by that?”
His expression grew somber. “I’m talking about biological warfare. Terrorists or even governments using viruses to kill our citizens and weaken our economy. Unfortunately, as you learned this week, Ms. Dawson, the probability has become a reality. Two agents in our Federal Bureau of Investigation conspired along with an alleged serial killer to smuggle the Leopold virus into our country from the Congo, in a gas canister meant to hold oxygen. It was only due to your bravery that our country is not facing one of its worst terrorist disasters since 9-11. Thousands of people may have lost their lives if the airborne virus had been spread into the Tuscany Casino. Which is why I’m proposing to increase our funding to Homeland Security and to both fast-track drugs through the National Food and Drug Administration and loosen restrictions in case of no alternatives.”
She frowned. That was the first she’d heard of that portion of his proposed legislation. “I’m sorry. You lost me. No alternatives?”
The senator crossed his leg, reclining in his chair. “For example, there are diseases with treatments that may not cure but will lessen the severity of the symptoms or extend life expectancy. If a new drug is invented that will cure the disease in a percentage of those suffering, but will cause severe side effects for others up to and including death, it would never be approved for use in this country. But let’s say there’s a disease like the Leopold virus that has no treatment, an airborne virus where eighty percent of those infected will die within days of transmission. We must approve those drugs for use until an alternative is available.”
Rachel continued questioning him for another hour until her throat had grown dry. Then she asked, “Senator Hutton, have you questioned why you were targeted by those seeking to release the virus?”
His eye twitched as he paused, a bit thrown off by her question, but he recovered quickly with a shake of his head. “I’ve thought about this all day, Ms. Dawson, and I’ve come to this conclusion: Infect the man who has been warning our country about the virus and send him back to Washington, DC, unaware of that infection. Within days, I could’ve spread Leopold to the entire Senate. I was selected as their nuclear bomb, unaware that I was programmed to go off. They chose me for both the irony and the opportunity.”