Текст книги "The End Game"

Автор книги: Catherine Coulter

Соавторы: J. T. Ellison
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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

60

BISHOP TO D5

He was a clod, he’d practically attacked her. It didn’t matter that she was all over him, too, he was embarrassed and he didn’t know what to do.

“Nicholas Drummond!”

He whirled around at her ear-shattering yell to see Mike standing, outside Vanessa’s door, her blouse pulled out from the waist of her pants, her ponytail straggling over one ear, and how had that happened? If he wasn’t mistaken, her eyes were still glazed, and that was nice, but—

Her hands were on her hips, then she actually shook a teacher’s finger at him. She was now standing not two feet from the crowded nurses’ counter, surrounded by techs, doctors, nurses, and there was an orderly standing in the doorway of a room, holding a bedpan. No one was moving, every eye on them. Craig Swanson stood behind her, and the bastard was smirking.

Time stopped.

She took one step toward him, drew up, shook her finger at him again. “How dare you say you’re sorry, that it shouldn’t have happened, that it was a mistake, and then you bolt?” She shook her finger again at him and yelled, “Bad dog!”

The silence was deafening.

No, she hadn’t said that, she couldn’t have. He cleared his throat. “Bad dog? I’m a bad dog?”

“You’re worse than a bad dog, but that’s not the point. Now you’re all sorry you smashed me against the wall? Sorry you had your hands all over me? You regret turning into a wild man? You want to talk? Talk? Well, forget that, Special Agent Drummond, because that will not happen. I will never talk about this, do you hear me? I will pull my own tonsils out through my ears if I’m ever even tempted to talk about this. Do you understand me?”

“You’re yelling, of course I understand you.”

“Good. So that must mean your brain is functioning again.” She looked neither to the right nor to the left, marched right up to him, saw him open his mouth, and shoved him back. “No, you keep your mouth shut. We need to get downstairs. I believe Dillon will be there, although I don’t exactly remember what we’re going to do with him, but it will come to me.”

She smacked her hand again against his chest. He started to grab her wrist, but didn’t. Nicholas stared at her furious face, saw the pounding pulse in her throat, the snap and fire in her eyes, and couldn’t help himself. He laughed, then cleared his throat and called out to all the staring hospital staff, at all their now-blooming smiles, the stirrings of laughter, “As you were! No charge for the show,” and he punched the elevator button and they waited, silent, side by side. Nicholas heard Craig Swanson hoot with laughter, and others joining him, talking, laughing, a couple of them even shouting suggestions to the Bad Dog. He even heard a bark and a woof.

When the doors opened, a nurse stepped out, humming the theme from Frozen, “Let It Go.” She took one look at them and said, “Whoa,” and hurried off.

“What!” Mike yelled after her. “We have our clothes on! What’s wrong with you?”

As the doors closed, they heard more rolling shouts of laughter. A couple more barks.

He opened his mouth.

“Be quiet unless you can verify that Dillon is meeting us in the lobby.”

“I believe so. It’s about the video feeds from that diner in Baltimore. I think. Then we’re going home with him to have lasagna for dinner. But I suppose that could have changed, what with no power. I’m not really one for cold lasagna, are you?”

“No.”

“Would you like me to call Savich? Verify?”

She shook her head, kept staring at the slow-moving numbers. The elevator stopped on the second floor, the doors opened, and there stood two white-coated doctors talking about nausea. One look, and by mutual unspoken agreement they turned and walked quickly away.

When the bell dinged and the doors opened onto the lobby, he watched Mike march out of the elevator, head high, never looking at him, not looking at any of the dozens of people in the lobby. She spotted Dillon, waved, and continued her march toward him.

She had to stop when three teenagers, one of them with his arm in a brand-new cast that was already covered with lewd drawings and scrawls, blocked her way. She couldn’t knock the kid out of the way, he was hurt and drug-addled.

“Wait,” Nicholas said, and she ignored him, then reluctantly slowed.

Mike could smell him, that fine Nicholas scent that was his and his alone, but more than that, she felt him, felt him drawing closer to her. She knew he was leaning in, felt his warm breath on her cheek.

“No, not a word, do you hear me? No pathetic excuses, no going on about what a mistake that was.”

“Okay. Shall I?”

“Shall you what?”

“Tell you to fix your ponytail? It’s rather lopsided.”

Mike grabbed her hair and pulled it back into place and slipped the band back on.

“I guess your shirt needs to be tucked in again, too.”

She shoved her shirt back into her trousers, called out, “Dillon, we’re coming,” and she stalked away from him, going around the teenagers, leaving him to listen to the boy with the broken arm laugh like a hyena since he was happily floating on pain meds.

61

KNIGHT TO F3

The White House

Callan had spent half the evening on the phone—talking either to the president or to Ari, or the head of the Iranian security services, who swore up and down his government had nothing to do with the reactors turning on. She wanted to tell him he was a lying moron, but of course she didn’t. It drove her mad, but denial was woven into their brains, par for the course. Then who did know about the reactors? But he didn’t have an answer to that.

A big muckety-muck had ordered someone to push the button and keep pushing. The Israelis had taken one look at the Iranian landscape lit up like a series of way stations across the desert and started planning a preemptive offensive, launching drones and preparing their battlements, which made the Iranians move more troops into place, shuffling their missile batteries around for the best offensive. How long would the Iron Dome last under a true barrage of nuclear warheads? Not long, and the collapse would be immediate around the entire region.

It was all happening lightning-quick, too, a match set to a fuse, flaring to life and settling in to burn fast and hot. If they didn’t nip it in the bud right here, right now, too many people to count would be dead.

The talks had fallen apart, no great surprise there, considering one of the parties was lying big-time. What had started as Bradley’s hopeful road to lasting peace was fast turning into a fistfight to see who would kill the other first. Again.

The president had ended up stalking out. He was now flying back to the United States on Air Force One, expected to land by ten in the morning. She hoped his blood pressure hadn’t spiked too high. She assumed she’d get a royal ass-chewing simply because she was handy, and given her opinions on the Middle East talks were diametrically opposed to his, that would make him even more pissed off to have her proven right. And then he’d have a nice long ride to lay into her on their way to the Yorktown event. Given he was the president of the United States, she couldn’t slug him.

She stayed in the Situation Room, her cup of strong black tea at her elbow, watching the movements across the region. The domino effect of the nuclear facilities coming online was a wonder to behold. Every country who’d been at the table in Geneva—from Saudi Arabia to Russia to Israel—was scrambling for position. The reports had been filtering in for the past few hours—major movement in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen. The ISIS media machine had been on Twitter promising attacks. Hezbollah and the Palestinians were openly calling for the Israelis’ immediate surrender, threatening attacks on the Gaza Strip, threatening to bomb Tel Aviv. Israel wouldn’t hold back for very long.

And, of course, this was what Iran was waiting for. Provocation. Why had they pushed it now? She knew they didn’t yet have a nuclear weapon, so why?

She had to fix this. She had to stop it. And she had no idea how she was going to pull it off.

Callan picked up the phone and called Trafford.

“Temp, tell me you have news for me. The media is all over us, trying to find out what’s going on, and believe me when I say ‘the president is unhappy’ is a gross understatement. He is adamant he doesn’t want to cancel the event at Yorktown, won’t be seen as knuckling under to a terrorist threat, et cetera. All I’m concerned with is making sure he gets to Yorktown, that we aren’t going to have to do something stupid, like stop a war instead.”

“We’re working on it, Callan. FBI’s been officially briefed, we’re all on the same page and moving forward. Again, I strongly recommend the president cancel Yorktown. This man, Matthew Spenser, is completely unpredictable. We don’t know what he plans to do now and we haven’t found him yet. But our agent is certain he plans an attack, probably at Yorktown.”

“I’ll keep working on Bradley.”

“Good. A few minutes ago, Agent Savich, FBI, sent us over an enhanced photo of Zahir Damari. I’m hoping that since we now know what he looks like, we can keep him from getting anywhere near you.

“Even better, we have a video feed of two males; one of them is very likely Damari, although he doesn’t look like the enhanced photo the FBI sent us back. He’s probably wearing cheek implants, makeup, maybe a wig, really an excellent disguise. He’s lasted so long in his business because he appears to be very careful, no matter the situation.”

“Who was he meeting with?”

“As yet unidentified. The video shows them meeting in a diner in Baltimore. The unidentified male passed Zahir something in a tube. Plans of some kind, the waitress said. They were arguing, but talking low, and she tried to stay out of the way. As soon as we have more, I’ll let you know.”

“You’re sure it’s Zahir? Tell me, Temp, where are you getting all your information?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Callan, you know sometimes it’s better not to know all the details.”

“Would you say that to the president?”

“In this case? Actually, yes, I would.”

That gave her pause. She wasn’t used to being kept out of the loop on top-secret covert actions. “Temp, we’ve known each other a long time. If you’re trying to save me from a possible political hit down the road, I appreciate it, but to be honest, I think it would be best for me to know the whole story, as soon as possible. I have a bad feeling about all of this. A very bad feeling. Now, tell me, where are you getting your information?”

He sighed. “You asked for it. We’ve had a deep undercover agent in with COE for the past four months.”

She was shocked into silence, then came to life with a roar. “What were you thinking? You should have briefed me immediately, the president, too, at the very least—”

“Callan, when we sent in an undercover asset, it was because we heard this man, Matthew Spenser, was developing a new undetectable bomb with a huge payload. When he suddenly brought his band back to the U.S., what could we do? The asset had to wait until he perfected the bomb before she could steal the final plans and get them back to us. We couldn’t very well pull her out.”

“She? It was a female agent?”

Temp chuckled. “What is this? You’re surprised? You, the first female vice president?”

“It’s not that, Temp, and you know it. Where is the agent now? I want a briefing, I want her in front of me right away.”

“You can’t have her. She’s in the hospital. Unfortunately, Matthew Spenser discovered she was working for us and shot her, left her for dead in a burning building.”

“Will she live?”

“Yes. She was very brave, Callan. It’s amazing she survived. Spenser still believes she’s dead.”

“Who is this agent? What’s her name?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

Callan slapped her hand onto the desk, the sound sharp as a gunshot. “Templeton Trafford, do not play games with me. I want her name, now.”

“Vanessa Grace.”

Callan said, “Is she related to Carlton Grace, by chance?”

“Yes, she’s his niece. You remember her father, also an undercover expert. He was killed when she was a girl.”

“Yes, I remember Paul and I remember mourning him.”

“Well, her uncle Carl raised her. She’s been with the agency six years. She’s very good, might even prove to be better than her old man one of these days, maybe even better than her uncle, and he was incredible in the bad old days.”

As Callan listened, she walked to the window and looked out at her city. Since the power went down, it had quickly emptied. It looked surreal, a painting of a city without movement, without people. A dead city. She’d nearly forgotten there was a blackout, being inside the White House, where everything still ran smoothly.

“Temp, does anyone other than the FBI know about this?”

“No, only the FBI. Carl Grace told me Savich, Drummond, and Caine were speaking this afternoon with Vanessa. Small world, turns out Vanessa knows Agent Caine from school. Carl said it went well. They won’t speak to the press, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“And Spenser believes she’s dead?”

“Yes, no way for him to know she’s not. We’ve kept it all very quiet.”

Callan said, “Do you think he would be upset were he to find out she’s still alive?”

“I’d say so, after shooting her in the chest and leaving her in the fire, along with his own BFF, Ian McGuire, a minor IRA bad guy he’s been working with for a very long time. McGuire tried to protect her. It was a major betrayal, Callan. You know how some people feel very strongly about betrayal.”

“Who else from the group have we identified?”

“Other than Zahir Damari, the only other major player is a computer guy named Andrew Tate. As for the rest of the group, Vanessa thinks they’re very likely gone from the country by now. So we have Matthew Spenser, Andy Tate, and Zahir Damari on the loose. Yorktown, Callan, that’s got to be the target, and you, of course. Will Zahir Damari try to take you there? It sounds plausible.”

Callan looked at her watch. It was a few minutes past nine o’clock. “Call up someone you trust in the media. If we hurry, we can make the eleven p.m. news. We’ve got to draw Matthew Spenser out as soon as possible. Don’t worry, Vanessa Grace won’t be in that hospital room. Assign another of your people to play her. Get it on the news, Temp, get it on the news right away. Vanessa Grace is now officially bait.”

A pause, then: “Callan, it’s good to know you haven’t lost your chops.”

62

KNIGHT TO E4

Sherlock passed the lasagna to Mike. “A good thing the power came back on as you guys pulled into the driveway. It’s Dillon’s special sauce, which I have to say, being the recipient for lo these many years, is well nigh the best ever made.”

Savich said, “It’s my grandmother’s recipe, actually, with only a few additions.”

Nicholas said, “Savich, could I give Cook Crumbe your recipe?”

“Cook Crumbe runs the kitchen at Old Farrow Hall,” Mike said to Savich, who’d cocked his head. “This ancient shack where Nicholas was born.”

“That’s good, Mike. How many bedrooms, Nicholas?”

He thought about that, then said, “I really don’t know. Now, about the sauce, I think my mother would love it. As for my grandfather? You’ve met him, Mike, you never know. But it’s worth a try.”

“Papa didn’t make the garlic bread,” Sean said, “Mama did. She’s good at garlic bread, and she likes me to tell everyone.”

Laughter, and it felt good.

When dinner was finished, Nicholas played four rounds of Super Spaceman Spiff with Sean, and lost every round.

Sean studied his face. “You aren’t losing on purpose, are you, Uncle Nicholas? I mean, I beat you fair and square, right?”

“Yes,” Nicholas said, “I did lose on purpose. I’m trying to be nice.”

Sean said, “You will not lose on purpose this time. Do you promise?”

“Yes, I promise.”

Sean beat him. Then he pulled an excited, tail-wagging Astro onto his lap, leaned back against the sofa cushions, and frowned at Nicholas. “You weren’t telling the truth. I really beat you all those rounds, didn’t I?”

“All right, you caught me. I was trying to spare my ego.” He said to Savich, “He’s too smart, he saw right through me.”

Sherlock nodded. “I’m the only one he can’t beat, right, Sean?”

“Well, Mama, maybe not this week.”

Sherlock grabbed both him and Astro up and swung them around and around, making Sean shout with laughter and Astro bark madly. She gave him a big smacking kiss. “No, no kiss for you, Astro. All right, my boy, it’s time for bed. You’ve humiliated Nicholas enough for one night. Astro, it’s time for your evening walkabout.”

“Good night, Uncle Nicholas. Good night, Aunt Mike.”

Mike shook his hand. “A pleasure to watch you trounce my partner. He occasionally needs trouncing. A lot of trouncing.” And even though she’d meant to keep her voice light, hey, all a joke, both Savich and Sherlock gave her a look that said everything.

They know there’s something going on. Mike looked over at Nicholas. His face was stone vacant and he was staring at his shoes as if the soft Italian leather held all the answers.

Savich looked from one to the other. “Whatever’s wrong, you two need to fix it.”

“There is absolutely nothing wrong, Dillon,” Mike said, jumping to her feet. “There’s absolutely nothing at all going on, not a single thing. Besides, I don’t want to talk about it. Nicholas, isn’t it about time you checked in with Ben?”

Nicholas nodded, punched in Ben’s cell number. Ben answered immediately. “You’re not going to believe this, Nicholas. We found trackers on both your personal cars and five of the vehicles you’ve used from the pool in the past month. Nice Beemer, by the way, you have to let me drive it sometime. The trackers are small, very small, state-of-the-art, placed in the engine block instead of the wheel well. It took some looking to find them. Someone has definitely been keeping track of your—our—whereabouts. From what we can tell, the trackers send a GPS signal strong enough that the person who’s following can watch your movements on a laptop, remotely, up to fifty miles away. Very sophisticated.” He paused, then, “And that’s how they found Mr. Hodges and our three guys.”

“Any chance you can reverse-engineer the data, see where it broadcasted to?”

“We’re working on it, but it’s a moot point, really. They’ve been turned off now. We’ve taken them all to the lab to be worked over for any DNA or fingerprints.”

“Unnecessary. We know who placed them.”

“Who?”

“Someone in COE, probably Andy Tate—he’s their computer whiz. Or Zahir Damari, aka Darius. It sounds more like him.

“Any movement on Gray’s end, on the nanotriggers Spenser engineered for his bombs?”

“He’s right here, hold on. Let me put this on speaker.”

There was a click, then Gray came on the line. “The triggers were definitely Havelock technology. Good catch, Nicholas. The only issue is they are on the market, being used by a number of people, legitimately. We’ll have to get a warrant to see who they’ve sold them to, and it will take time.”

Mike said, “Gray, anything on the money trail?”

“Now, here I have more for you. We ran a forensic accounting on the guy Adam Pearce found, name of Porter Wallace. He’s definitely managing a few portfolios on the side. I found a link between him and Larry Reeves—the insider at Bayway. The money was moved into Reeves’s account from an offshore account in the Caymans. It’s closed now, totally untraceable. But Wallace went to Grand Cayman three weeks ago. Stands to reason he opened the account, put the money in, moved it when he was given the go-ahead, then closed the account. We’re going to pick him up in the morning, have a nice long chat, start taking apart his entire world. The warrant was issued an hour ago. We’re planning a five a.m. knock at his house. From what I can tell, he’s been a very bad boy.”

“Any ties to organized crime you can find? We could make a nice RICO case against him.”

“On the surface, it looks like he’s only been working with COE. I’ll keep digging into his background.”

Mike leaned over the phone. “Gray, who is this guy, anyway, this Porter Wallace? How does a Wall Street broker get hooked up with Matthew Spenser?”

“It’s a small world. Wallace is from Hartford, Connecticut, went to Avon Old Farms, a swanky private boys’ school—”

Nicholas interrupted him. “Gray, you found the link. Matthew Spenser went to Avon. They must have known each other in school. Whether he’s helping out of the goodness of his own heart or he believes Spenser’s ideology or he’s being threatened—either way, we have a direct tie to Spenser. Well done.”

Mike was grinning. This was huge. “This is great, Gray. Thank you. Next time we’re at the Feathers, your beer’s on me.”

“I’ll take the beer gladly, but I’ve got to point out that Adam Pearce really got everything we needed. I simply followed the trail. I’m very glad you talked him away from the dark side, Nicholas.”

Nicholas said, “Let us know how the knock goes on Porter Wallace. Just so you know, I have Adam working on a few more things.”

“We’ll keep running the trackers, see if we can find where they may be broadcasting to. Otherwise, it’s the usual craziness associated with crime scenes. I notice you’re not here to do any of the paperwork.”

Mike laughed as she looked at Nicholas and gave him the first real smile since, well, best not to revisit that. “He does manage to escape the paperwork, doesn’t he?”

•   •   •

When Savich was showing her the guest bedroom, Mike said, “Dillon, do you think they’ll cancel the Yorktown speech? I mean, it would be stupid to carry on as if nothing has happened.”

He shrugged. “I’ve long given up trying to determine what a politician will do in any situation. It’s the president’s decision. We’ll find out in the morning.”

Nicholas said, “Maybe everything will be handled before it’s crunch time. The place has to be crawling with advance people, and now even more Secret Service. How in the world would Spenser get in to plant one of his bombs?”

Mike said, “Maybe the bomb or bombs were planted before the Secret Service got there. I give up. My brain is fried. I’m going to sleep.” She laid her hand on Savich’s arm. “Thank you for letting us stay.”

She was laying her go-bag on the bed when Sherlock called out, “Wait, guys, you’d better see this.”

On the small television in the kitchen was a still shot of George Washington University Hospital.

“Your informant’s on the local eleven o’clock news.”

They all watched as the reporter fed the information to the anchor, who seemed pleased as punch to announce that a government agent, believed dead in a Brooklyn fire, was very much alive and being treated for gunshot wounds.

Mike looked Nicholas straight in the face. “At least they didn’t use her name. But you know Spenser will come after her if he hears this. Who in the world leaked the story? I mean, if we were setting it all up and I were taking her place, that would be different—”

“Well, no matter,” Nicholas said, “since you’re not.”

Savich was already dialing his cell. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

Nicholas’s phone rang. “Savich, hold on a minute. It’s Carl Grace.”

He put it on speaker. “Agent Grace?”

Grace was shouting, nearly incoherent with rage. “What are you people playing at, exposing my niece like this?”

Savich said, “We don’t know anything about it, Carl. We haven’t talked to anyone. We told you we wouldn’t.”

But Carl was too furious to listen. “The FBI leaks like a sieve, always has, and you wonder why we don’t take you into our confidence? And you’re trying to pretend you had nothing to do with this? Don’t bother coming back to the hospital, I will see you banned from the grounds.” He hung up.

“I think he’s a bit upset,” Nicholas said.

Savich said, “Hold on,” and made a call. He was frowning when he punched off. “Mr. Maitland has no idea where this came from. He imagines the CIA will have extra agents watching Vanessa tonight. Or moving her, that would be better.”

Mike straightened her shoulders and said to Nicholas, “You know if Spenser sees that broadcast, he’ll come for her immediately. It’s not too late—I can take her place.”

“No, you will not.” Nicholas turned on his heel and walked out of the kitchen.