The Mark of the Assassin

silently withdrew. Elliott drifted closer to the
    fire and finished the last of his whiskey. He didn't like being sent
    for. He would leave when he was ready to leave, not when Paul Vandenberg
    told him. Vandenberg would still be selling life insurance if it weren't
    for Elliott. And as for Beck-with, he would have been an unknown San
    Francisco lawyer, living in Redwood City instead of the White House.
    They both could wait. Elliott walked slowly to the bar and poured
    another half inch of whiskey into the glass. He went back to the fire
    and knelt before it, head bowed, eyes closed. He prayed for
    forgiveness--forgiveness for what he had done and for what he was about
    to do. "We are your chosen people," he murmured. "I am your instrument.
    Grant me the strength to do your will, and greatness shall be yours."
    SUSANNA DAYTON felt like an idiot. Only in movies did reporters sit in
    parked cars, drinking coffee from a Styrofoam cup, conducting
    surveillance like some private investigator. When she left the office an
    hour earlier, she had not told her editor where she was going. It was
    just a hunch, and it might lead to nothing. The last thing she wanted
    her colleagues to know was that she was tailing Mitchell Elliott like a
    B-movie sleuth. Rain blurred her view. She flicked a switch on the
    steering column, and wipers swept away the water. She scrubbed away the
    moisture on the inside of the windshield with a napkin from the downtown
    deli where she bought the coffee. The black staff car was still there,
    engine idling, headlights off. Upstairs, on the second floor of the
    large house, a single light burned. She sipped the coffee and waited. It
    was awful, but at least it was hot. Susanna Dayton had been White House
    correspondent for The Washington Post, the pinnacle of power and
    prestige in the world of American journalism, but Susanna had loathed
    the job. She hated filing, every day, essentially the same story that
    two hundred other reporters filed. She hated being herded around like
    cattle by the White House press staff, shouting questions at President
    Beckwith from rope lines at staged and choreographed events. Her writing
    took on an edge. Vandenberg complained regularly to top management at
    the Post. Finally, her editor offered her a new beat, money and
    politics. Susanna took it without hesitation. The new assignment was her
    salvation. She was to find out which individuals, organizations, and
    industries were giving money to which candidates and which parties. Did
    the contributions have an undue effect on policy or legislation? Were
    the politicians and the givers playing by the rules? Was the money spent
    properly? Did anyone break the law? Susanna thrived on the work because
    she loved making the connections. A Harvard-trained lawyer, she was a
    thorough and cautious reporter. She applied the rules of evidence to
    virtually every scrap of information she uncovered. Would it be
    admissible in a court of law? Is it direct testimony or hearsay? Are
    there names, dates, and places in the story that can be checked out? Is
    there corroborating testimony? She preferred documents rather than leaks
    from anonymous sources, because documents can't change their story.
    Susanna Dayton had concluded that the nation's system of financing its
    politics amounted to organized bribery and shakedowns, sanctioned by the
    federal government. There was a thin line separating legal activity from
    illegal activity. She saw it as her task to catch lawbreakers and expose
    them. Her personality suited her perfectly to the work. She hated people
    who cheated and got away with it. She despised people who cut in line at
    the supermarket. She went crazy on the freeway when an aggressive driver
    cut into her lane. She loathed people who took shortcuts at the expense
    of others. Her job was to make sure they didn't get away with it. Two
    months earlier, Susanna's editor had given her a tough assignment:
    Chronicle the longtime relationship, financial and personal, between
    President James Beckwith and Mitchell Elliott, the chairman of Alatron
    Defense Systems. Reporters use a cliche when an individual or a group is
    elusive and hard to trace: shadowy. If anyone had earned the description
    of "shadowy," it was Mitchell Elliott. He had given millions of dollars
    to the Republican Party over the years, and a watchdog group had told
    her that he had funneled millions more to the party through questionable
    or downright illegal