The Mark of the Assassin

bathtub
    after work, either."
    "Good girl," he said. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Need anything
    else? Want me to pick up your cleaning? Do some shopping for you at
    Sutton Place? Command me, my queen."
    "Just bring me the McGregor file. I'll reward you with food and wine."
    "In that case, I'll be there in five minutes."
    "I'm flat on my back in bed, so use your key."
    "Yes, my queen."
    Max hung up. Michael was on a chair and ottoman at the foot of the bed,
    listening to the conversation on the cordless phone. He looked at
    Elizabeth and said, "Perfect."
    IT TOOK MAX more than a half hour to fight his way through traffic to
    Georgetown from the firm's Connecticut Avenue office. He stuck his key
    in the Osbournes' lock, opened the door, and stepped inside the entrance
    hall. "Elizabeth, it's me," he called. "Hey, Max, come on up. There's
    cold wine in the fridge. Grab a glass and a corkscrew."
    He did as he was told and walked up the stairs. He found Elizabeth
    sprawled on the bed, surrounded by stacks of briefs and legal pads. "My
    God," he said. "Maybe I should work here instead of downtown."
    "That might not be such a bad idea."
    He placed the McGregor files on the bedside table and instinctively
    began straightening papers and organizing her things. Michael walked
    into the room. Max said, "Hey, Michael, how are you?"
    Michael said nothing. Max said, "Something wrong?"
    Elizabeth touched his arm and said, "Max, we need to talk."
    "SUSANNA CAME TO ME after you turned her down," Max said. He was sitting
    in the chair in the bedroom, legs sprawled across the ottoman. Michael
    had opened the wine, and Max drank half the bottle very fast. The
    initial shock of the confrontation had worn off, and now he was relaxed
    and talking freely. "She asked me to help her. I slept on it, and then I
    agreed to do it."
    "Max, if you had been caught, they'd have fired you and probably
    prosecuted you. Law firms can't tolerate theft and violation of
    attorney-client privilege. It doesn't make clients feel good, and it
    makes it damned hard to attract new ones."
    "I was willing to take the risk. When you're in my position, Elizabeth,
    you tend not to take a real long view of things."
    "I don't want to be judgmental, Max, but you should have come to me
    first," Elizabeth said. "I hired you. You work for me. The firm would
    have fallen on me like a ton of bricks."
    "And what would you have said?"
    "I would have told you not to do it."
    "That's why I didn't come to you."
    "Why, Max? Why go after Braxton like that?"
    Max looked at Elizabeth as though he found the question offensive. "Why
    Braxton? Because he's a dirty, crooked asshole who's about to become
    secretary of state. I'm surprised you even have to ask the question.
    I've heard the way he talks to you in the partners' meetings, and I've
    heard the way he talks about you when you're not around."
    He hesitated a moment, looked at Michael, and said, "Can I bum one of
    those from you?" Michael handed him the pack and a lighter. Max smoked
    for a moment and drank more of the wine. "It's personal, too," he said
    finally. "Someone told Braxton I was HIV-positive. He was working behind
    your back to get me fired as one of his last acts before leaving the
    firm. I wanted to make his final weeks so fucked up he wouldn't have
    time to deal with me, and Susanna gave me the opportunity to do it."
    Michael said, "How did you get the documents?"
    "I stole one of the keys to his file room and copied it. That night I
    went into the office on the pretense that I had some work to do. I went
    into the file room, took the documents, and headed over to Susanna's
    place. I laid down only one ground rule: She wasn't allowed to photocopy
    the files. I stayed at her house all night while she worked; then I went
    into the office early and put the files back in their original place.
    Nothing to it, really."
    "You still have the key?" Elizabeth asked. "Yeah, I thought about
    throwing it off Memorial Bridge, but I kept it instead."
    "Good."
    "Why?"
    "Because we're going to go in there tonight to get those files again."
    CHAPTER 40.
    Washington, D.C.
    OFFICIALLY, THERE WAS a lid in place at the White House, which meant the
    press office expected no more news that day and the President and First
    Lady had no public events and no plans to leave the residence. But at 8
    P.M. a single black sedan slipped from the South Gate of the White House
    and entered the evening traffic of downtown Washington. Anne