The Pawn

by Steven James

  Just then, he heard a man whisper his name.

  He spun around and recognized his contact from Trembley’s description. Kincaid accepted the package and handed over the envelope of cash. The man hurried away.

  As he watched him leave, Kincaid noticed a scurry of activity behind the check-in counter. Two security guards were talking into their earpieces, staring suspiciously around the lobby.

  So, they knew already. He hadn’t expected this until after the meal at least.

  But it didn’t matter. They were too late. People were already sitting down to eat. Still, he needed to tell his family that the plans had changed. They’d need to be ready for his signal.

  And he needed to find the governor.

  After we briefed Mr. Williamson on the basic facts of the case, he shook his head. “We already swept the whole place. Believe me. The ballroom, the lobby, the gardens, everything. We even brought in the dogs. It’s secure.”

  Lien-hua shook her head. “It wouldn’t be an explosive device, maybe something chemical or biological. Closer to what happened at Jonestown.”

  “Jonestown?” Williamson gasped.

  I didn’t have the time or energy to explain everything to this guy. “What about air vents, air-conditioning ducts, things like that?”

  “I told you,” said Williamson flatly. “It’s secure. Do you have a suspect?”

  “Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid,” I said. “Wait. That’s it.” I flipped open my laptop, pulled up the picture of Kincaid that Lien-hua had found yesterday while researching him. Then I opened the face recognition program and asked Williamson, “Where can I hook into your video feeds?”

  Officer Muncey sat down at the table next to Tessa’s knapsack.

  “What are you doing?” asked Tessa.

  “Seeing if you need any help. What subject are you studying?”

  “Algebra.” Tessa tossed her hair to the side. “Oh yeah. I need my calculator. It’s in my room.” She hurried past the officer and went to her bedroom, grabbed a calculator, and then dialed Cherise’s number on her cell phone. Please pick up. Please pick up. I know you’re there. Please.

  Voicemail.

  “Cherise! I need you to call me back in like one minute. Please. I know you’re there. It’s important.”

  Tessa slipped the phone into her pocket and hurried back to the kitchen only to find Officer Muncey unclasping the buckles on her knapsack. “Hey,” yelled Tessa. “What are you doing?”

  Officer Muncey met her with a cold gaze. “Did you find your calculator?”

  “Put down my knapsack!”

  The computer screen flashed with faces, names, comparisons, and then . . .

  Nothing.

  “He’s here,” I mumbled. But I wasn’t sure, couldn’t really be sure.

  “He could be a guest, maybe?” said Williamson. “In his room?” “Pull up your guest list.”

  He typed in Kincaid’s name, then shook his head. “No one staying here under that name.”

  “He would almost certainly use an alias,” said Lien-hua.

  “Any ideas?” asked Williamson.

  “Jones,” I said. “Try Jim Jones.”

  Williamson typed, shook his head. “No. Wait—”

  “What?”

  “Someone named James Warren Jones is working with the catering.”

  “That’s it,” I said. “The food. They’re going to contaminate the food. Don’t let anyone near the food!”

  “Too late,” someone whispered.

  We all gazed up at the video monitors. The room became stone-still.

  On the screens surrounding us, the servers were spreading out like fingers on a hand, delivering poisoned food to the elite media leaders of the world.

  76

  Tessa’s cell phone rang. “Just a minute,” she told the cop. “And don’t touch my stuff!” She slipped to the other room and answered. “Hello? Cherise?”

  “What is going on, girlfriend? I haven’t heard from you in like three weeks, and then you’re all of a sudden, like ‘call me in one minute’ and—”

  “I might be in trouble.”

  “What?”

  “Hang on.” Tessa peered around the corner and saw Officer Muncey standing with her hands on her hips.

  “You don’t have books in here, do you?” said Officer Muncey. “I’m on the phone,” Tessa snapped.

  Then Officer Muncey unclasped Tessa’s knapsack and dumped Tessa’s clothes onto the table. “Tessa,” she said. “Hang up the phone.”

  “Stop those servers!” I told Williamson. “And call the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tell them to get a team in here now. And, Ms. Prescott, we need to shut down the hotel, quarantine these people. We have to. No one leaves.”

  She pursed her lips but only for a moment—probably calculating the losses in tens of millions—and then nodded briskly. “I’ll do it.” This was a woman who wasn’t afraid to make a decision.

  “We have to control this,” I said. “Shut it down.”

  “We don’t even know what the contagion is,” said Lien-hua.

  “I say we take Kincaid out,” said Ralph, drawing his gun. “Fast and clean.”

  “Wait, everyone. Wait!” said Lien-hua. “Remember Waco? Jones–town? When these cult leaders get scared a lot of innocent people die. These guys are paranoid, delusional. The more you raise the threat level, the less likely they are to back down. I think we need to negotiate.”

  Ralph cracked his knuckles. “Ready to negotiate.”

  “Hang on,” I said. “We need Kincaid. He’s the only one who can stop this. Wait a minute. His main target is Sebastian Taylor.” I turned to Ms. Prescott. “Where’s Governor Taylor now?”

  “Probably in the presidential suite. He checked in this morning. Room 611.” She pointed. “The elevators are down the hall.”

  I took off for the door. “Focus on containing this meal,” I called back. “I’m going after Kincaid.”

  Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid knocked exactly four times on the door to Suite 613, and Anita Banner opened the door. “There you are,” she said. “Do you have the rest of my—”

  He handed her an envelope of cash. “You’re sure I can get to his balcony from yours?”

  She nodded, flipping through the bills. “Positive. I checked it out myself.”

  He headed for the balcony. “Be sure to join us for lunch downstairs,” he called back to her. “The roast is to die for.”

  “Sit down, Tessa,” said Officer Muncey. “You and I are going to wait right here for your father. He shouldn’t be very long.”

  77

  “Governor Taylor!” I pounded on the door. “It’s urgent. Open the door.”

  The governor swung the door open, eyed me. “Agent Bowers,” he said, “how’s the fishing been?”

  “No time for all that.” I rushed past him to search the room. “Has anyone been in here, Governor? The kid remembers. The kid from Jonestown. Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid. We have to stop him—”

  “That’s far enough,” said a voice, but it wasn’t the governor’s. Wait a minute, I knew that voice. Whiny. Repulsive. Annoying. I turned and saw Reginald Trembley aiming a .40 caliber Glock at my face.

  Tessa snatched her knapsack from Officer Muncey. “All right, I’ll wait. Whatever! But keep your hands off my stuff!” She began to jam her clothes back into her bag when she heard the front door open.

  “Jason,” called Officer Muncey. “Tessa was planning on leaving us.”

  Footsteps from the hall leading to the living room.

  Tessa glanced out the window. Something wasn’t right.

  “Wait a minute,” she whispered. “No car.”

  “What?” said Officer Muncey.

  Tessa pointed outside. “He left in a car. It’s not here. Besides, we would have heard the engine, the car door slam.” Officer Muncey looked at her curiously. Tessa shook her head. “It’s not him.” She began backing down the hallway toward her bedroom. All she could think of was tha
t treadmill. Those legs.

  Footsteps.

  “That’s not Officer Stilton,” she whispered.

  “What’s going on?” Officer Patricia Muncey had a bewildered look on her face. It was the last expression she would ever have.

  “Listen to me,” I said to Governor Taylor and Reginald Trembley. “Both of you. We need to search this suite. Governor, there’s someone who wants to kill you.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “You do?”

  “Oh yes,” said the governor smoothly. He closed the door and slammed the deadbolt into place. “I’ve been doing a little trolling myself.”

  I noticed a tray of half-eaten hors d’oeuvres. “Did you eat those? Governor, please. Listen to me—”

  “Shut up,” Trembley sneered. “How does it feel to have a gun pointed at you this time, Mr. Federal-Agent-With-The-Bad-Day-And-The-Wicked-Gun?”

  “Gun, huh?” said the governor. He reached into my holster and retrieved my SIG. “Hmm. Very nice.”

  OK. This was not playing out exactly like I’d envisioned it.

  I needed to forget about Kincaid for a minute and just keep from being shot.

  Keep them talking. You have to keep them talking.

  So that’s what it’s come down to: die or give a briefing.

  Wonderful.

  “So, you were playing both sides, weren’t you, Trembley?” I was stalling, of course, trying to think of a plan. “Started off investigating Kincaid for Bethanie’s parents, but then Kincaid found out, didn’t he? He offered you a better deal if only you’d find out some information for him about the crimes. How am I doing?”

  He smiled a wet, slimy grin.

  “Enough,” said Governor Taylor.

  “Kincaid needed details, though, right?” I continued quickly. “In order to stage the murders. So that was you? You used your contacts at the police department to get access to the ME reports and crime scene photos. It all makes sense now.”

  “Jason Stilton has always been a good friend,” he said smugly. “Do anything for a buck.”

  What? Stilton?

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  Stilton’s name was one of the sixty-two. He had access to the case files.

  “Enough!” repeated the governor.

  OK, deal with Stilton later. Right now, stay alive.

  I pointed at Sebastian Taylor but kept talking to Trembley. “Then you found Sebastian too, didn’t you? Through Kincaid, maybe? Did you threaten to expose the governor’s role in Jonestown unless he—”

  “Let’s just say that Mr. Trembley and I have reached an agreement.” Governor Taylor turned to Trembley. “Haven’t we?”

  Grinning that moist grin. “Oh yeah.”

  “Blackmail,” I said.

  “A business transaction,” said the governor. “Now, Dr. Bowers, it’s time for you to die.”

  Tessa’s back found the wall as Officer Muncey turned to look down the hallway to the front door.

  And what happened next happened so fast it seemed like it was all one action and that all the movements were connected through space and time by a deadly, invisible cord.

  The sound of a gunshot ripped through the house. Officer Muncey jerked backward, glanced down at her chest, brushed her hand against her sweater, sighed softly, crumpled to the ground anticlimactically, and sprawled onto the carpet. Alive one moment, dead the next. Just like that. Tessa watched it all happen. Felt the tug of the cord on her soul.

  Then she heard a man calling from the other side of the house. “Do you know how many people are born each day, Tessa?”

  All the time that I was blabbing I was desperately trying to figure out how to get out of this mess. I looked around. We were in the multi-room presidential suite. To my right, a veranda overlooked the fountains and gardens of the atrium. The doors to it were closed. I couldn’t jump, anyway. We were on the sixth floor.

  “Mr. Trembley,” said the governor. “You may shoot him in the head now. Aim carefully, please.”

  Trembley leveled his gun at me. It was all happening too fast. I didn’t even have my escape plan figured out yet. This was not—

  Blam.

  I jolted. Expected to feel the bullet tear into me. Felt at my face, scanned my chest. What? Nothing.

  Then I looked up.

  Trembley lay dying on the carpet.

  “Nice shot, Dr. Bowers,” said the governor, holding my gun. The barrel was smoking. “It looks like you killed him.”

  And in that moment I realized I might have underestimated Sebastian Taylor.

  Tessa ran down the hallway, locked the bathroom door, then slipped into the master bedroom instead and left its door unlocked.

  “387,834 people, Tessa,” called the man who’d shot the woman cop. “And every day 153,288 die. Where are you, Tessa? Today is your day.”

  She heard the killer coming down the hall, trying the doors. Heard him open the door to the room she’d slept in last night.

  “I know you’re down here, Tessa.” He moved to the next door in the hall. The bathroom. Found it locked. “Aha. There you are.”

  She crouched in the corner of the bedroom, next to the dresser, trembled, pulled out her phone, dialed 911.

  “Hello,” said a bored-sounding voice, “please state the nature—”

  Her heartbeat was going through the roof. Her words came out in spurts as she tried to breathe. “There’s a man . . . in the hall . . . has a gun.”

  “Where are you calling from, ma’am?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m in a house, a FBI house. Call the FBI office. Ask for Patrick Bowers.”

  “Ma’am, I can’t—”

  He was bashing on the bathroom door, hollering her name. “Tessa, open the door.”

  “He’s coming,” Tessa whispered urgently. “He killed the cop who was supposed to be protecting me.”

  Then she heard a car pull into the driveway and a car door slam.

  Officer Stilton.

  “Well,” said the governor. “I guess I won’t have to pay Mr. Trembley after all. Shame.” He set down my gun, picked up Trembley’s Glock, and aimed it at me. “And now it’s your turn, Agent Bowers.”

  No, no, no. This was not good.

  My heart began to jackhammer in my chest. “So you’re going to shoot me? Is that it?”

  “Oh no. I wouldn’t do that. No need. Trembley already did, right before he died.”

  Not good at all.

  Tessa heard the bathroom door burst open. The clatter of splintered wood. Cursing.

  Then the killer stopped. He must have looked out the window in the bathroom and seen the car there.

  Oh no.

  She glanced out the window. Officer Stilton was walking up the driveway.

  She had to warn him. If she didn’t, the man in the hall would kill him too. She pulled the window shade back and tried signaling to the cop, but he was fumbling with his pack of cigarettes and didn’t see her.

  She tried opening the window, but it was either jammed or sealed shut. Oh duh, she was in an FBI house! The windows were probably bulletproof and sealed shut for her protection.

  Great.

  She looked back at the phone. The screen read “Call Ended.” Either she’d lost the signal or they’d hung up on her when she stopped talking. Either way it meant she was dead meat.

  Wait. If you can’t get out, how did the killer get in? Did he pick the lock? Was the door left unlocked on purpose? Why would someone have left it unlocked?

  Officer Stilton paused and then turned back to his car. He must have forgotten something.

  78

  “Someone definitely heard that shot,” I said to the governor. “They’ll be coming for you.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t think so.” He let his gaze wander around the suite. “Presidential suite, remember? Bulletproof glass. Soundproof rooms. Welcome to the waters where the big fish swim.” Then he tapped the Glock’s barrel against his palm. “Let’s see .
. . So, how does this sound? Stressed-out FBI agent who lost his wife and got stuck behind a desk for six months finally gets back into the field but hasn’t quite recovered from his bouts with depression. Everyone in the office has noticed his erratic behavior and angry flare-ups. He concocts a wild conspiracy theory about the governor of North Carolina being involved in the Jonestown tragedy some thirty years earlier and despite being warned off the wild goose chase by his superiors, he takes things into his own hands and tries to assassinate the governor in his hotel room just one day after threatening him at his private residence. But thankfully, the private investigator who Governor Taylor had hired to investigate the rogue agent killed him before he could carry out his deadly plans.” Sebastian Taylor looked down at Trembley’s body. “Unfortunately for the PI, Dr. Bowers was able to squeeze off one final round, killing him, before expiring.”

  OK, that actually sounded kind of believable to me.

  “It’ll never fly,” I said.

  “Oh, you seem to be forgetting, I’m very good at what I do.”

  “Gunshot residue,” I said. “It’s all over your clothes, your face, your hands.”

  “I was in the room when you shot him. It would be natural for some residue to be on me.”

  That was actually a good point. How ironic. Location and timing of a crime were going to be the death of me. Literally.

  Keep him talking.

  “I still can’t believe that even you would be willing to sacrifice nine hundred innocent people,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Never part of the plan. You should have figured that out by now. Ryan was the target. We knew we could pin the assassination on Peoples Temple, shut Jones down, show the world how crazy and unstable communists are. His followers were just collateral damage.” He smirked. “We weren’t sure exactly how Jones would react, but we figured he’d self-destruct—which he did. In the end it just went further than we thought it would.”