End Game

by John Gilstrap

“He can’t stay here.”

  “Let’s do that later,” Jolaine said. “Let’s have the address.”

  Jones gave an address in Defiance, Ohio, and Jolaine repeated it. “Got it, Graham?”

  “Yes,” he said. The kid was blessed with perfect recall—literally, he remembered every word said to him and everything he read.

  Jolaine asked the doctor, “How far is that from Antwerp, Indiana?”

  “Worst, worst case, thirty minutes.”

  Jolaine clicked off, whipped the BMW onto the right-hand shoulder, and hit the brakes.

  “What are you doing?” her passengers asked in unison.

  “I’m figuring out where we’re going,” she said. “Recite back the address, Graham.” As he regurgitated the house number and street, she entered them into the phone’s navigation program. Good news: fifteen miles, seventeen minutes.

  She bet that she could make it in thirteen.

  With an utter disregard for speed limits, it actually took twelve. Doctor Jones lived slightly north of nowhere, off a road that was marked only with a caduceus.

  “What is this place?” Graham asked.

  Jolaine resisted the urge to extinguish her headlights to provide less of a target. To do that would be to commit them to total darkness, which could mean driving into a ditch or a tree.

  “It’s the doctor’s house, sweetie,” Sarah said. Her voice had become breathy, and there was a grunt of pain between “house” and “sweetie.” “He’s going to make me all better.”

  Sarah often spoke to her son as if he were three years old, and the tone made Jolaine wince.

  “Dad’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Don’t talk of such things,” Sarah said. In those words, Jolaine caught the hint of the Eastern European accent that Sarah worked so hard to camouflage. Jolaine thought it was a sign that the woman was becoming weaker.

  Jolaine also noted the absence of an answer to the boy’s question. That could mean any number of things, but in Jolaine’s mind, it only meant one: Yes, Graham, your dad is dead.

  If there was a paved roadway in here, Jolaine couldn’t see it. Navigating—if that was indeed what she was doing—was mostly a matter of not hitting the surrounding foliage. By default, the road was where a bush or a tree was not.

  Judging distance was an exercise in futility, as was assessing the passage of time. After what felt like several long, whole minutes, she saw another caduceus just like the previous one, but this one was underlined by a reflective arrow that pointed to the right. Jones hadn’t mentioned the driving gauntlet during their telephone conversation. Spooks thrived on mind games. She’d known a lot of spooky people when she was tromping through the Sandbox, and most made her want to take a shower after speaking with them. Even “hello” needed to be treated with suspicion.

  Finally, the driveway opened up, and she saw a house in the distance. Barely discernible in the dark, it would have been invisible had a single coach light not burned in the front.

  “How sure are you that this is a good idea?” Jolaine thought aloud.

  “How many other options can you think of?” Sarah responded. The accent was even thicker.

  As Jolaine cleared the woods, with fifty yards or more separating them from the house in the distance, she cut the lights. The risk of getting raked by gunfire from the building trumped any worries about wrecking the car.

  “I’m scared,” Graham said.

  “I am, too,” Jolaine said. The words were out before she could stop them. She wished she had a plan. Back in the day, she and her comrades from Hydra Security would never have made an approach like this out in the open. Of course, she would not have been the only operative wielding a weapon, either.

  They were open and exposed—targets to anyone who wanted to take them out.

  “I’m not liking this,” Jolaine said.

  No one answered, and that was fine.

  As they closed to within one hundred feet of the house, a rectangle of light appeared in the center of the structure. It grew to reveal the silhouette of a man standing in the opening. From his posture, he might have been holding a pistol or he might not have. Jolaine reached under her shirt and drew her Glock from its holster.

  “Do you know this guy?” Jolaine asked.

  “No,” Sarah said.

  “Then how do we know—”

  “We know,” Sarah said, cutting her off. “The system works. Trust it.” She reached across the console and grasped Jolaine’s arm. “And trust your training. All of it.”

  Jolaine jammed the brakes and the transmission, threw open her door. Shifting her Glock to her weak side—her left—she brought it to bear on the figure in the doorway, using the structure of the car for cover.

  “I’m not armed,” said a male voice from the doorway. He sounded a lot like the voice she’d spoken to on the telephone. “Put your firearm away, please. We have a patient to treat.”

  With that, the man approached. The farther he moved away from the light of the doorway, the more invisible he became, but he kept his hands to his sides, his fingers splayed. She broke her aim and lowered her weapon, but she did not re-holster it. Not yet.

  “Where is she?” the man asked.

  “Are you Doctor Jones?”

  “I think we both know that I am not,” the man said. “The real name is Wilkerson. Doug Wilkerson. I’m a good guy.” Even in the dark, Jolaine saw him smile. “I’d shake your hand, but you look like you might shoot me.”

  Wilkerson had a youthful look about him. He had thick dark hair that could have used some serious combing at this hour, and a thin face that looked as if it hadn’t smiled in a while. His voice had a reedy, almost adolescent quality to it.

  “I very well might,” Jolaine said. She tried to keep her tone light, but she was stating the truth. She’d done a lot of shooting tonight. One more wouldn’t hurt a bit.

  “So, since you have the firepower, tell me what you want me to do.”

  The passenger-side door opened, startling both of them. “I’ve been shot,” Sarah said. “Forget what she wants. Patch me up before I bleed to death.”

  Wilkerson acknowledged her with a glance, but otherwise, his eyes remained locked on Jolaine. “And who are you?” he asked.

  “I’m Jolaine Cage,” she said. “And I think this is Sarah Mitchell.”

  “You think?”

  She shrugged with one shoulder. “On a night like tonight, I assume that I don’t know anything. The boy in the backseat is Graham Mitchell. That I know for sure.”

  Illuminated now by the BMW’s dome light, Jolaine saw the doctor’s face darken. “Ah, the boy.”

  Graham opened his door. “Right here,” he said.

  Wilkerson glowered at Sarah. “You didn’t say anything about children.”

  “I thought we agreed to talk about that later,” Jolaine said.

  “I don’t want children here.”

  “I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to be here, either,” Jolaine said.

  “Do you think this is a good time for humor, Ms. Cage?”

  Jolaine didn’t understand the dynamic of what was going on. “We need to get Sarah inside,” she said. “I’ll help.”

  She holstered her pistol, then reached back into the car for her M4, which she slung over her shoulder, muzzle down. She walked around the front of the car to join the doctor. Graham climbed out, too.

  “Stay in the car, kid,” Wilkerson said. “You’re not coming in.”

  “We’re not having this discussion now,” Sarah said. “Not while I’m bleeding to death.”

  Jolaine was prepared to push Wilkerson out of the way if it came to that—the guy had a wiry look to him, like he might have done some time in the military, but he didn’t look like much of a fighter. “I’ll help you carry her inside,” she said. “You can help, too, Graham, if the doctor doesn’t want to.”

  The boy moved slowly. Jolaine wondered if the reality of the situation was just beginning to settle on him—if he
was just beginning to recognize the trouble they were in. His eyes had a look of hyperconcentration, as if examining a particularly difficult math problem. He responded to commands, but he seemed focused on a spot that only he could see.

  Jolaine took Sarah’s left arm while the doctor took her right, and together they hefted her to a standing position and gave her a moment to settle herself.

  “Can you do this?” Wilkerson asked. “Can you walk?”

  Sarah nodded, but Jolaine questioned the sincerity. Pallor had given way to ashen gray, and her eyes seemed recessed into dark holes. Her body trembled with the effort of standing, and her skin felt cool and wet. These were the early signs of shock, and shock was a giant step toward death.

  “We need to move,” Wilkerson said. “While she’s still conscious.” He pointed with his forehead to the door he had just exited. He and Jolaine walked in step as they navigated the walkway, and then the two steps that led to the stoop, and the one step that led to the foyer. It wasn’t until they reached the dim illumination of the porch light that Jolaine saw the blood trail. They were running out of time.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Washington, DC, was a city that wallowed in opposites. Everybody in this town had an opinion, and given twenty seconds and an ounce of alcohol, they’d be more than happy to share it with you. It was a town of blind ambition, flexible ethics, and no sense of either shame or loyalty. For all those reasons and more, Jonathan Grave hated the place.

  Yet here he was at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, dressed like a penguin, paying a ridiculous price for a meal and a show, all in support of the Resurrection House Foundation. Founded anonymously by Jonathan via one of many cutout companies that he’d established for any number of reasons, Resurrection House was a residential school for the children of incarcerated parents. Officially run by Saint Katherine’s Catholic Church in Fisherman’s Cove, Virginia, the main building had begun life as Jonathan’s childhood mansion. Thanks in no small part to the relentless marketing by Father Dom D’Angelo, pastor of St. Kate’s and resident psychologist and headmaster, Rez House, as it was called by the locals, had become one of the “in” charities in Washington. The annual fund-raiser had become a place to see and be seen.

  Among the four hundred people in attendance at the black-tie gala, Jonathan knew of only two who were aware of his involvement with the foundation, and they had been sworn to secrecy. In Jonathan’s worldview, philanthropy that was broadcast through the media was a publicity stunt in disguise. He’d rather be an anonymous guy in the crowd.

  If he really had his druthers, he wouldn’t be here at all, but at home wearing shorts and a T-shirt, either reading a book or retooling his guns.

  Ah, his guns. He missed the feel of the Colt 1911 .45 on his hip. This being the District of Columbia, where security was tight because of the dignitaries in attendance, and only bad guys enjoyed the privilege of being able to defend themselves, he had no choice but to join the ranks of bad-guy bait.

  As ugly as the town was in its soul, he had to admit that it was home to a lot of beautiful places. Among them, he thought, was the Kennedy Center, but there were plenty of folks who would argue the opposite. The most common rap the place took was that it looked on the outside like a giant Whitman’s Sampler candy box, and that the red-on-red-on-red interior made it look like a high-ceilinged whorehouse.

  Clearly, the critics had never visited a real whorehouse.

  Jonathan thought it was lovely and elegant. Presently, he was standing in line for the bar, where an overworked bartender struggled to keep up with the sissy drinks that were favored by most of the patrons. If Jonathan were king, the only ingredients that could be legally added to an alcoholic beverage would be olives and the occasional ice cube. Okay, and twists of certain citrus fruits. If good scotch were involved, even the ice cubes would be illegal.

  His date for the night—because he wasn’t currently in the market for a girlfriend—was Venice Alexander, the brains behind so much of what his company, Security Solutions, had been able to accomplish over the years. Pronounced Ven-EE-chay, the young lady who was currently charming the ambassador of Buttscratchistan over by the base of the stairs to the Opera House had been a friend of his for nearly as long as she’d been alive. The older he got, the less the eight-year age difference meant, but there were still more than a few people tonight who’d noticed that her skin was chocolate brown while his was Polish white. At one level, Jonathan lived for the moment when someone would have the balls to say something out loud.

  Venice deserved a decent man in her life—God knew she’d endured her share of shitheads—and if a fancy-ass black-tie gala could help her find one, Jonathan was all over that. So long as love never trumped her loyalty to Security Solutions. No one on Earth matched her skills for making cyberspace dance to a prescribed melody.

  When it was his turn, he ordered a neat Lagavulin for himself—one of the requirements for an open bar in his universe was to have decent liquor—and a Hendrick’s with orange juice for Venice.

  “Are you two-fisting your drinks this evening?” asked a sweet female voice from behind.

  He turned to behold a pretty thirtysomething dressed in a clingy red gown and the ultimate in stiletto sandals. “Poison in one hand,” Jonathan said, lifting the scotch, “and antidote in the other.” He’d been sniffed at by too many bimbettes over the years to be drawn into her trap.

  She smiled. “I’d offer to shake hands, but you don’t seem to have one available. My name’s Kit,” she said. “That’s what they call the offspring of a wolverine.”

  The words caused Jonathan to pause. Wolverine was the code name for a very senior official in the FBI. “Oh yeah?” he asked. “Do you know a lot about wolverines?”

  “Only what I’ve been told on Ninth Street,” she said.

  Jonathan processed the words. The J. Edgar Hoover Building, FBI Headquarters, resided on Ninth Street, Northwest, in Washington, DC. Whoever this lady was, she had been dispatched by Irene Rivers, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He raised the gin and orange juice, as if part of a toast. “I need to deliver a drink to my guest,” he said.

  “I’ll be waiting right here,” Kit said.

  Jonathan peeled away and worked his way through the shoulder-crushing crowd to find Venice. She was in the sweet spot of her biennial crusade to lose weight, striking a stunning chord in her little black dress that had the power to stop traffic. “Excuse me,” he said, interrupting her conversation with Ambassador What’s-his-name. “This is for you.”

  Something in his tone caught her attention. As she reached for the proffered glass, she said, “Is there a problem?”

  “Ask me again in a few minutes,” Jonathan said. He turned and headed back toward the woman in the red dress.

  Kit stood in front of the tall windows, purportedly staring out at the Potomac River, while in fact, he suspected, studying the reflections of the room. He approached from behind and took a spot next to her. “You got my attention,” he said.

  “My boss says that you’ve been hard to find for the last few weeks,” she said.

  “Apparently not,” he replied. Not nearly enough time had passed since the last time he’d gotten pulled into the kind of political hot spot that threatened his life.

  Kit turned to face him and offered her hand. “My real name is Maryanne Rhoades,” she said.

  Jonathan smiled. “Real enough for tonight, anyway,” he said. “And to think that I could escape cloaks and daggers and spend an evening merely giving huge sums of money to charity.”

  “Being a billionaire must be a terrible burden,” Maryanne said.

  Her sarcasm made him like her less. He waited for her to make her point.

  “We have an issue,” Maryanne explained.

  “Help me with ‘we,’ ” Jonathan said.

  “In this case, all freedom-loving people,” Maryanne said.

  Jonathan laughed before he could stop himself. “How
long did you practice that line before you actually had to deliver it?”

  Her smile evaporated. “Can we find a corner to talk?”

  Jonathan looked at his watch. “Intermission is about to end,” he said. “And I have a date.”

  “Your date is a coworker, and you don’t like opera.”

  He wasn’t going to argue with a stranger, but the fact was that he had recently found a place for opera in his life, thanks to the influence of a woman named Gail, who only recently joined a long line of women who ultimately couldn’t live with the risks that defined his world. As for his date, she deserved better than to be stood up.

  “Tell you what, Maryanne,” he said. “Why don’t you just hang out here till the end of the second act. I’ll be back for the next intermission.”

  He turned and walked away. Irene Rivers would never have been so dismissive of Venice, and there were precious few crises in the world that couldn’t cook for another hour or so. He considered it time well spent if it taught Kit-Maryanne a little humility and manners.

  “Who’s the lady in red?” Venice asked as he rejoined her in the line that was headed back into the Opera House.

  “A friend of Wolverine,” he said. “Lots of attitude. She can wait.”

  Venice turned and glared. “Digger! You can’t do that.”

  He shrugged. “Sure I can. I don’t work for them, and it’s not right for a lady who’s dressed as hot as you to sit by herself in a box seat.”

  Venice pulled to a stop. “Oh, my God,” she gasped, feigning shock. “Did you just give me a compliment?”

  Jonathan felt himself blush. “Oh, come on.”

  Venice grinned. “Go,” she said. “Like it or not, important people have come to depend on you.”

  “But I want to see the end—” His phone buzzed with an incoming message. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and withdrew the electronic leash. The screen read J. Edgar, his little dig at Irene’s professional heritage.

  The text message was simple and to the point: “Don’t be an asshole. She means well. We need you.”

  “Wolverine?” Venice asked with a knowing smile.