The King

by Steven James

  “But,” she acknowledged, “even with Lacey working on that, it might take a while.”

  “Well”—I was already dialing Angela’s number—“then let’s get things rolling.”

  72

  Overall, supper was a disaster.

  Tessa felt so unnatural and gauche in the new dress, and she didn’t really know what to say during the meal with the two other couples. Melody’s boyfriend kept asking her what she was going to talk about at graduation next month, and she wasn’t about to bring up death and oblivion and meaninglessness, not right before prom. So she did her best to change the subject.

  Both of the other couples had been together for a while, and since this was the first time she’d ever gone out with Aiden, that just made things even more uncomfortable.

  It wasn’t her crowd either—admittedly, she didn’t really have a crowd, but everyone else at the table wanted to talk about baseball or track and knew all about pop music and the current viral videos on YouTube and what to laugh at and what not to. Tessa appreciated that Melody was trying to reach out to her, trying to include her, but it wasn’t really working.

  Not to mention how distracted she was—thinking about her argument with Patrick, and how nervous she was about being here with Aiden.

  She kept floundering for what to say, and when she did say anything it just seemed to come out wrong or make her seem like a complete idiot.

  But the worst thing of all was the server at a nearby table.

  Tymber Dotson.

  The girl Aiden had been dating until a month ago.

  She wore a perky little skirt and moved in a way that showed she knew what guys like.

  So why did Aiden choose to come here if he knew Tymber was waiting tables tonight? He had to have known. It didn’t sit right with Tessa.

  Not at all.

  Even though Tymber was supposed to be serving this older couple at the other table, she couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off Aiden, and although he was still being polite and nice and everything to Tessa, she saw his eyes wander in Tymber’s direction way more often than necessary.

  ++

  Lacey was able to find Tyree and the unidentified woman on the security footage at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport last Thursday morning boarding a flight to Frankfurt. From there they continued on to Chennai.

  By analyzing the names of the other passengers on their flight, we figured out the aliases that our two suspects were flying under: Caleb Hayes and Deborah Moss.

  The two names brought up a complete electronic footprint with no hiccups or run-ins with the law.

  If they were working with Valkyrie, as it appeared they were, I wasn’t surprised at all that he’d set them up with comprehensive false identities.

  But now that we had the names they were using, we could track their movements.

  When we ran everything through the system, we found out that the two of them had flown from Chennai to Logan International earlier this week, and then flown down here to DC this morning.

  Lien-hua and I had finished our pizza but Ralph had thrown in another one and was working his way through the third pie by himself. “Why Logan?” he asked, wiping pizza sauce from his chin.

  “Let’s take a closer look at the timing and location,” I said.

  “Timing and location.” Now he had his mouth full. “Imagine Pat suggesting something like that.”

  I found a notepad and drew a timeline as I talked things through. “Last week Thursday, Corey Wellington is killed. As far as we can tell, Tyree removes something from his medicine cabinet.”

  “Probably Corey’s meds,” Lien-hua inserted.

  “Yes. Then he and this woman we know as Deborah Moss fly to Chennai, travel from there to Kadapa, torture these two men, then return promptly to the States.”

  “And someone clears out the facility where they were manufacturing the drugs.” Ralph finished off his last piece. Chased it down with a long guzzle of Mountain Dew.

  “Right. We don’t know who that might have been, but we do know something else about these drugs.”

  “The lot number,” Lien-hua said.

  “Right. If we can identify the distribution services that PTPharmaceuticals uses to transport their drugs from India to the States to move them into our supply chain, we should be able to find out if any of their planes—”

  “Land in Boston,” she finished my thought.

  “Exactly.”

  “Or DC,” Ralph added.

  It was after business hours and we weren’t able to reach anyone from the pharmaceutical company, so Lien-hua hopped online to see what she could dig up.

  “I’ll put an attempt to locate on Caleb Hayes and Deborah Moss,” Ralph announced. “They might still be in the DC area.”

  I had an idea. “Try this: They flew into Dulles; they might have rented a car from there. If they did, we can have Metro start looking for their rental car—or, if it has GPS, locate it through the rental company. Also, have some agents find out if the two of them have checked into any hotels in the DC area.”

  “I like the way you think,” Ralph replied, quoting the words I’d said to him earlier in the week.

  I followed suit: “I’ve been working with you for a decade. ’Bout time you took note of that.”

  “Funny how it just occurred to me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  We split up the calls between us and got started.

  73

  7:28 p.m.

  Valkyrie stood quietly, hands clasped behind his back, watching Alhazur and his two men board the yacht.

  Alhazur’s two hulking freedom fighters were wearing jackets that seemed a little too bulky for the cool spring evening. One man’s face looked like it was molded out of old clay. The other was an enormous, steel-fisted human wrecking ball. Alhazur himself was a broad-shouldered, densely muscled man with a chiseled jaw and hollow eyes.

  Once the three men were on board, they gathered in a small semicircle around Valkyrie. He was on good terms with Alhazur, but there was no doubt that encircling him was an intimidation technique.

  Valkyrie was not intimidated.

  “I would like you to take off your coats,” he instructed the two men who flanked him.

  “We’re comfortable as is,” Clay Face said with more antagonism than necessary.

  “I’m afraid that to be comfortable, you have to be alive.”

  As a flicker of revelation crossed the man’s face, Valkyrie made his move.

  He was quick and before either man could respond, he’d grabbed the guy’s head, snapped his neck, and had his own gun drawn and aimed at Alhazur’s forehead before the dead soldier’s body even landed on the deck of the boat.

  “Kindly remove your jacket,” Valkyrie said to the other man. “Do it slowly. I wouldn’t want to get anxious with my finger on the trigger here.”

  “Take it off,” Alhazur commanded his man. He was trying to sound unaffected, but Valkyrie heard concern beneath his words. Alhazur may have recruited, trained, and coordinated suicide bombers, but he did not want to make the ultimate sacrifice for his cause—at least not needlessly, at least not tonight.

  The man to Valkyrie’s right unzipped his jacket. Slipped it off.

  Yes, he wore a suicide vest.

  Valkyrie knew that style of vest, had organized five attacks with similar ones in the Middle East with suicide bombers of his own. These vests could either be detonated by the suicide bomber himself with a handheld trigger mechanism, or remotely by a cell phone that dialed directly to that vest—and only to that vest.

  There was always one dedicated phone for each vest. It wasn’t just the number you called, the detonation also depended on the actual phone you used. That was very important. Otherwise, you might have someone else accidentally dialing a wrong number and setting off the b
omb prematurely. And that would be inconvenient for everyone involved.

  “Hand me the detonator.” Valkyrie’s voice was soft but firm.

  Alhazur nodded for the man to comply and he gave Valkyrie the handheld trigger.

  “Before we carry on our discussion any further,” Valkyrie said to Alhazur, “there is one thing I am going to require.”

  “What’s that?”

  He nodded toward the soldier. “The mobile phones for both vests.”

  “Why?”

  “Call it insurance.”

  “Do you want me to take my vest off?” the man beside Alhazur asked gruffly.

  “No. Keep it on.”

  He looked suddenly uneasy. “Why?”

  “Insurance.” Valkyrie tossed the detonator off the side of the boat into the Potomac. “The phones.” He leveled the gun at Alhazur’s head. “I’m a relatively patient man, but I don’t like to repeat myself.”

  Alhazur reached for the pocket of his windbreaker for the phones. “Slowly,” Valkyrie warned. “I’ll still make my money if you’re dead.”

  The two cells were nearly identical but each had a unique set of numbers engraved on the back that corresponded to the identification number imprinted on the front of each of the vests.

  Valkyrie placed the phones on the console beside him, out of reach of the two men, and carefully noted which phone would set off which vest. He got the keys to the SUV from Alhazur and evaluated how to proceed.

  “Alright,” Alhazur said, still trying unsuccessfully to sound self-assured. “Let’s discuss the next step. I heard the news about the proposed Calydrole recall. Where exactly does that leave us?”

  Valkyrie gestured toward some nearby deck chairs. “Let’s talk about that.”

  ++

  We were having a hard time finding out which companies PTPharmaceuticals used to ship their drugs in from India.

  But we did find out that Avis had rented a Toyota Corolla to Deborah Moss. It was one of their older cars and didn’t have GPS, but the manager gave us the plate numbers, and while Ralph was on the phone passing along the info to DC Metro PD, I got word from headquarters that Richard Basque was asking to speak with me.

  Most people aren’t aware that the FBI has its own police force, but drive past the J. Edgar Hoover Building anytime day or night and you’ll see two or three of their cars parked out near the main parking garage entrance on 10th Street. Now the officer on the phone said, “He hasn’t been very helpful yet, but he’s saying that if you’ll talk with him he’ll tell you about other crimes that, and I quote, ‘you might have an interest in.’”

  “Other homicides.”

  “It would appear so. Yes.”

  Since Basque wasn’t my problem anymore, I’d stayed away from him for the last couple days.

  “When?”

  “He said it has to happen now. Eight o’clock.”

  He was being held at Headquarters, which wasn’t very far from Ralph and Brin’s place, but even if I left right away I wasn’t sure I could make it there by eight.

  Honestly, I had no desire to talk with Richard Basque. I knew that if I saw him I would be tempted to confront him, to say more than I should—things that I would almost certainly regret.

  Or maybe I wouldn’t regret them at all.

  I knew one thing, though: I wanted to be done with that man, done with all his games and the pain and questions and regrets he’d brought into my life.

  “Have someone else talk with him.”

  “He said this offer only stands for you and only for tonight. If you don’t come over, he says he’s not going to give up the details about the other homicides.”

  Of course.

  More power plays.

  More games.

  “He was insistent. It has to be you, Pat.”

  The family members of other victims deserved to know the truth, and I figured that trumped any reluctance I felt about speaking with him.

  “Alright. I’ll do it.”

  While Lien-hua and Ralph continued the search for distribution companies that PTPharmaceuticals used, and waited to hear back from Metro about their search for the Corolla, I took off to meet with Richard Basque, wondering just how many other homicides he was going to admit to.

  And what he might ask of me in exchange for the information.

  ++

  Keith and Vanessa were finishing a late supper at Ravel’s Steakhouse when he told her that he needed to use the restroom.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply, but rather picked his way through the restaurant until he found the hallway to the bathrooms at the far end of the bar.

  The management had tried too hard to make the men’s room smell nice and it had a faint feminine scent about it, but beneath that, the smell of stale urine had refused to go away.

  Keith locked himself in one of the stalls, took out his phone, and surfed to the hotline number for reporting fugitives and terrorists to the FBI.

  He stared at it for a long time.

  Five million dollars.

  Even more than he’d guessed.

  The Web site stated that informants could remain anonymous, but once again, he wasn’t sure if he completely believed that. The FBI and NSA had exhaustive ways of tracing calls and, though Vanessa had assured him that this cell was untraceable, he had to wonder if the government might have some way of zeroing in on anyone reporting a wanted terrorist as high-profile as Valkyrie.

  Besides, how would they transfer the funds to him if he remained completely anonymous?

  He told himself there had to be a way. There had to be, or else they wouldn’t have posted the claim so prominently on their site.

  And, considering the alternative would mean facing Valkyrie, Keith slid his reservations aside and tapped in the number, reached an agent, and told him exactly where Alexei Chekov, better known as Valkyrie, was going to be at 8:30 p.m.

  74

  Tessa and Aiden had finally left the restaurant and were on their way to school.

  Finally.

  Away from Tymber and all her flirty looks.

  Aiden tried to engage Tessa in conversation, but whenever he did, she ended up saying something stupid and eventually he was quiet as he drove them to the dance.

  During the meal, Melody had invited Tessa to walk to the bathroom with her and, while she was touching up her makeup, had said, “Love the dress.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You two make such a cute couple.”

  “Um, thanks.”

  “Listen, my parents are gone tonight. I have the house to myself. We’re heading back there after prom. If you guys want to come over you’re welcome to party with us.” Her invitation was so innocent, so natural that Tessa actually believed Melody wanted her to come. A wink. “There are more than enough bedrooms.”

  “Oh.”

  “Just saying, he’s a nice guy, you know.”

  “Yeah, okay. We’ll see.”

  Now Aiden swung the car onto the road leading to the high school.

  The night was not at all turning out like Tessa had hoped. Here she was, trying to have a good time with Aiden, but all the while she was distracted about not being responsible enough for her dad to trust her judgment, about not looking nice enough, and about what Aiden might really be thinking about Tymber.

  Tessa let her gaze drift to the sky. The clouds had gathered and were swallowing the light of the setting sun as day unfurled into night.

  And then the sun disappeared.

  And darkness began to crawl across Washington, DC.

  ++

  I was a couple minutes from Headquarters when I heard from Ralph that someone had left an anonymous tip that Valkyrie was in DC and would be at a distribution warehouse near the Potomac at eight thirty.


  “Track the firms that ship there,” I said. “See if PTPharmaceuticals uses—”

  “Already did. It’s confirmed. They sent a semi full of meds down here from Boston this morning. Tens of thousands of Calydrole pills.”

  Man, everything was coming together across town and I was going to be stuck in the lower level of Headquarters meeting with Basque.

  “I’ll turn around,” I told Ralph. “I’ll come over there.”

  “It’s not our party. HRT is lead on this.” The Hostage Rescue Team was the tactical unit of the Bureau’s Critical Incident Response Group. They trained year-round with the military’s most elite divisions and, despite all the interagency rivalries, were pretty much recognized as being on par with Delta Force and the SEALs.

  The HRT’s specialty? Rapid deployment, close-quarters combat, and eliminating two-legged threats without civilian casualties. They were called in on any terrorist activity in the States and were eminently more qualified than Ralph, me, or anyone else in the region to face Valkyrie and whoever he might be meeting with tonight.

  “They’re bringing in the Blue Whale,” Ralph told me. The Blue Whale was the Bureau’s most advanced, and largest, mobile communication command post. It was the size of a semi. “We’ll be three blocks away. You need to meet with Basque, find out about any other victims. Do your job, let the HRT guys handle this.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as I’m done here.”

  Good timing to end the call, because I lost reception as I passed through security and entered the parking garage.

  I found an open space, parked, and stepped onto the elevator to the detention cells deep beneath the J. Edgar Hoover Building.

  ++

  Keith and Vanessa left Ravel’s Steakhouse and walked to the car.

  He had done it.

  He’d made the call. Now he just needed to make sure that somehow he wasn’t there at the warehouse when the FBI surrounded it to capture Valkyrie.

  But how he was going slip away from Vanessa was still unclear to him.

  She positioned herself in the driver’s seat and said to him, “I have something I haven’t been completely honest with you about.”