by Nina Mason
What was she going to do? By now, tomorrow’s edition would already be on press. She took a deep breath and blew it out. Her heart was pounding and her intestines felt like macramé. Gathering her resolve, she punched in the three-digit extension. The phone rang several times before somebody answered.
“Press room,” a man shouted over the background thunder.
“This is Glenda Northam in the newsroom,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the presses. “Who’s this?”
“It’s Mac, the foreman.”
The sound coming through the receiver was so deafening, Glenda had to hold it away from her ear. “Well, Mac,” she began, clearing her throat. “After more than forty years in the newspaper business, I’ve never had occasion to say this, but here goes: Stop the presses!”
* * * *
Milo Osbourne, sweating bullets, stood in the doorway of his BBJ, gaze shifting between the tarmac and his wristwatch. It was 10:25 p.m. What in the name of God was keeping the Prince? If he wasn’t there in the next five minutes, they were going to lose their runway position.
Osbourne took a breath to calm his nerves, reflecting with satisfaction on the successes of the past few hours. The takeover had been thwarted, the deal with Babylon had been approved, those prying journalists had been eliminated, and the recording of Connolly’s interview was now safely in the Prince’s possession. At least he hoped it was. Everything appeared to be proceeding according to plan—with the notable exception of Zahhak’s aggravating tardiness.
When he saw the Bentley barreling toward the plane, his heart jolted. Was it the Prince? The car came to a stop at the bottom of the airstairs, but nobody got out, making him fume. Finally, after an interminable delay, the rear door swung open and a man sporting a classic black trench stepped onto the tarmac. He was too slim to be the Prince, so who was he? He strained to get a better look at the face. And then, he saw. It was Robert Sterling, the Black Knight.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he called down to the hubristic punk.
Sterling looked up at him, but didn’t answer. There was a black leather laptop case hanging from his shoulder. He began ascending the stairs, feeding Osbourne’s rage. When he was halfway to the top, the Bentley’s front doors popped open. Osbourne watched with a mixture of fury and fear as two men in tan suits jumped out. What the hell?
“Why are you here? What do you want?”
“The Prince won’t be coming.”
Rage spiking, Osbourne demanded, “And why not?”
“Because he’s dead,” Sterling said coldly. “And so are you.”
“Are you mad?” he demanded, even as a shiver of terror crept up his spine.
“If I am,” Sterling hissed, “it’s because of you.”
Osbourne was petrified, but still incredulous.
“Because of me? I don’t even know you.”
“That’s the problem,” Sterling said, pulling a gun out of his coat pocket.
Osbourne backed away, looking from the gun to the man’s ice-blue eyes. The feeling of recognition niggled again. And then it hit him, like a bullet between the eyes. The eyes were a mirror of his own. His sister never got the abortion he’d arranged.
“She lied to me,” he stammered, struggling to spew the truth in the desperate hope it might save his life. “I didn’t know. If I had, I would have taken care of you. You must believe me.”
“You’re the liar,” Sterling snarled, face twisting in hatred as he stepped closer.
Osbourne’s heart slammed against his ribs so hard he feared it might break his age-brittle bones. “Is that why you went after Global? To get revenge?”
Sterling nodded, stepping closer.
“Don’t do this, I’m begging you,” Osbourne said, back bumping the wall. “I’ll make you a wealthy man. Give you anything you want—money, shares, an inheritance, just please, let me live.”
“You don’t deserve to live.”
Osbourne heard something then. Squealing tires, out on the tarmac. Glancing out the hatch, he saw a black SUV barreling toward the plane. Was it the Prince? Had Sterling lied about killing him? Just as he opened his mouth to speak, something in his chest kicked like a mule. His breath left him suddenly. He gasped and choked, tugging at the knot in his tie as the SUV screeched to a stop right in front of the airplane’s nose.
“This is the FBI,” a voice boomed from a microphone on the vehicle, “come out of the aircraft with your hands in the air.”
It felt as if time moved in slow motion, then everything started to spin. The mule kicked again, even harder this time. Searing pain shot down his left arm. Gasping, he clutched his chest just as his legs went out from under him. The next thing he knew, he was tumbling head over heels down the airstairs.
* * * *
Buchanan watched in mute shock as Robert Sterling and his twin thugs charged down the airplane stairs, hurdling over Milo Osbourne, who now lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom. Jumping into the Bentley, they peeled away in a squealing burst of white smoke.
“Punch it,” Hamilton bellowed, pointing between the seats, “they’ve got nowhere to go!”
The Cadillac lurched forward, throwing Buchanan back against the seat. He gripped the door handle, keeping his eyes on the tarmac—roughly the length of an American football field. On the left was a row of abutting hangars; on the right, a parking lot full of private planes. The Bentley was still a fair distance ahead, but they were gaining.
The driver, an agent named Crawford, reached up to his visor and took down a microphone. His amplified voice squawked, “Stop or we’ll be forced to use our weapons!”
The Bentley sped on.
Crawford replaced the microphone.
The agent riding shotgun lowered his window. His gun discharged with a deafening crack, hitting the Bentley’s left rear tire, which exploded with a bang. The limo swerved and the rear began to fishtail. With a sudden veer, it screeched to a halt. The back doors swung open. The twins dropped behind them and started blasting. Bullets sprayed the tarmac, zinging and popping as they struck the Escalade. Crawford slammed on the brakes. As the Cadillac skidded to a stop, Buchanan smashed against the front seat before taking cover as the agents opened fire.
“There he goes,” Hamilton screamed over the deafening melee.
Buchanan raised his head just enough to look out. Sure enough, Sterling, carrying a shoulder bag, was hauling ass down the tarmac toward the terminal. Rage reared and took him over. Sterling was getting away. And he couldn’t let that happen. Not after the terrible things he’d done to Kenny and Thea.
Flinging open the door, he jumped out and started humping down the tarmac in pursuit.
* * * *
Sterling stumbled in a pothole and nearly went down. Buchanan, hot on his heels, pounced, tackling him to the pavement. They landed hard. Sterling rolled and Buchanan came down hard on his chest, seeing red as he thought of his brother.
“This one’s for Kenny,” he bellowed, smashing his fist into Sterling’s nose. Wham. As blood gushed from Sterling’s nostrils, Buchanan landed more blows. Wham, wham, wham. “And that’s for Thea.” Wham, wham. “And that’s for her grandfather and for squeezing my balls.”
Sterling reared up, knocking him off. Buchanan, rolling, got up on all fours just as Sterling’s foot slammed him in the gut. The blow lifted him off the ground and rolled him onto his side. Sterling started kicking him, his foot hammering again and again until Buchanan couldn’t breathe. Kicking him onto his back, Sterling dropped on him, grabbed him by the head, and started bashing his skull against the pavement. Buchanan heard a crack, saw a flash of white light, felt knives of pain in both eyes. And then, a swirling dark current pulled him into its inky depths.
* * * *
Jack Hamilton, pinned down by the gunfire, could only watch as Robert Sterling sprinted toward the Signature terminal, leaving Buchanan on the tarmac, pale, motionless, and bleeding from the head. Was the journalist dead? If he were, he’d never f
orgive himself. Nor, he was guessing, would Thea.
The thought of her gave him pain. At the very least, he hoped she’d give him a chance to explain—really explain—why he’d made the choices he had, how difficult it had been for him after the divorce, how he’d thrown himself into his work to avoid dealing with his feelings. She might not understand, might not be able to forgive him, now or ever, but at least he’d feel a little better for having said his piece.
Buchanan still hadn’t moved. Please, let him not be dead. For Thea’s sake, if nothing else. She’d lost everyone now—her brother, her mother, her grandfather. She deserved to have someone in her life, someone who could make her happy, someone who could make her feel loved and wanted.
Sterling had reached the terminal. The spectators lining the windows, eyes glued to the unfolding drama, parted like the Red Sea to let him pass. Hamilton, shaking his head, felt a darkening despair. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go down. They were the good guys. (Or used to be, anyway.) And the good guys were supposed to win.
* * * *
Georgi Aminov, crouching behind the open rear door of the limousine, stopped a moment to reload before firing off another round. The FBI was barraging them with a relentless spray of machine-gun fire. Bullets were flying every which way, banging, zinging, and sparking as they struck the car. Sterling, like the pussy he was, had run off, leaving him and Ivan to fend for themselves.
Tossing an anxious glance toward his brother, Georgi was pleased to see Ivan holding his own. Even so, their odds didn’t look good. Would he ever see his beloved Tatyana again? Probably not. He strained to picture her beautiful face, twisted by the tragic news of the loss of her devoted husband. As grief tightened his chest, a torrent of bullets ricocheted off the tinted window, jerking him back to the shoot-out.
* * * *
Buchanan’s first awareness as he came around was that the shooting had stopped. He was lying on a gurney while two uniformed paramedics attended to his injuries. One of them was shining a beam of light in his eyes while the other wrapped a strip of gauze around his head, which was throbbing with a dull, unrelenting ache. It was as if the pain were attached to his vision, since the beam of light only made the throbbing worse.
“What’s your name?” asked the paramedic with the light.
“Buchanan. Alexander.” His mouth felt like cotton.
“And what day is it today, Mr. Buchanan?”
“Erm…Friday?” With all that had transpired since Monday, he’d lost track.
“Do you know where you are?”
“The airport,” he replied. “And my head hurts like a son of a bitch.”
Closing his eyes, the journalist listened to the sounds around him. Except for the murmur of voices and the roar of a distant jet engine, it was quiet.
“What happened?”
“You cracked your head,” the paramedic told him. “In a fight, apparently.”
“No, I meant: where’s Sterling? Who won?”
“That, I couldn’t tell you,” the paramedic answered.
Opening his eyes, Buchanan struggled to sit up. The effort was making his head feel worse, so he stopped. The paramedic who was bandaging him put a hand on his chest and eased him back down.
“You should take it easy,” he said. “You’ve probably got a concussion.”
Except for the pain, Buchanan didn’t care. He only cared about learning the outcome. Was Sterling still alive? Had he been arrested? And what about Georgi and Ivan? Glancing around for Jack Hamilton, he found him talking to a couple of agents in windbreakers.
“What happened?” he called out to the federal attorney.
Excusing himself from the agents, Hamilton came over. “Sterling’s inside,” he said, nodding toward the terminal, “still at large.”
“And the twins?”
“Turns out they were Bulgarian mercenaries tied to a notorious terrorism network,” Hamilton explained. “We’re pretty sure Sterling found them through an ad in Soldier of Fortune magazine. They’re wanted in connection with a car bombing a few months back in Prague that killed a minor diplomat.”
“Where are they now?”
“One of them is dead,” Hamilton said. “Shot through the head. The other, unconscious, is on his way to the hospital, where we’ll put him under guard. If and when he comes around, we’ll question him, of course. Not that I expect to learn very much. Hired guns are rarely much help.”
“Which one is dead? Do you know?”
“The one called Georgi,” Hamilton said, giving Buchanan a glimmer of relief, “according to the passport we found on the body.”
* * * *
Robert Sterling, out of breath and dripping sweat, ducked inside the first “family” restroom he came to and threw the bolt on the door. He was almost certain no one had seen him come in. They were all too caught up in the scene on the tarmac.
He took a deep breath to steady himself. He hated complications, but was prepared for just about any contingency. He looked around him. The restroom, thankfully, was big enough for three or four people. There was a single toilet, a sink and counter, and a drop-down changing table. Everything he needed.
After hanging his shoulder bag on a hook on the back of the door, he unzipped the front compartment, and took out his ThunderBolt and a Ziploc bag full of untraceable SIM cards.
Opening another compartment, he pulled out a blond wig and pair of eyeglasses and put them on. He then took off his trench and changed his tie. When he was finished, he dumped the contents of the trash bin onto the floor and dropped his coat and tie into the bottom. He checked his appearance in the mirror, pleased to see he now looked like a completely different person.
“You’re a chameleon,” he told his reflection with a wink. “A true master of disguise.”
Returning to the bag, he pulled out a bogus passport—one of many he kept on hand to provide convenient cover identities. Flipping it open, he compared the photo to his reflection. Satisfied, he tucked it into the inside breast pocket of his jacket. Finally, he put the bag in the bin and replaced all the trash.
Now ready, he opened the door and poked his head out into the terminal. There were FBI agents everywhere, but so what? He was Robert Harrison now, just an ordinary frequent flyer on a business trip. As he headed down a corridor of soaring gothic arches, nobody gave him a second look. Entering the ticketing area, he scanned the signs until he found the American Airlines counter, relieved to see no queue.
He stepped up to the counter, where a smiling young woman waited to assist him. He pulled out the passport, then took out his wallet, removing a driver’s license and credit card bearing the same alias. Laying all three on the counter, he asked, “When’s your next flight to the Cayman Islands?”
The woman, looking down at her computer, started punching keys. He glanced tensely around, but saw nothing to concern him.
“There’s a flight departing for George Town in a little over thirty minutes,” she said, still punching keys. “You might be able to make it—if you don’t get hung up on your way through security.”
As she met his eyes, he smiled appreciatively. “Is there anything available in first class?”
She consulted the computer again. “There is,” she said with a quick, upward glance. “Would you prefer a window or the aisle?”
“A window,” he said, although he had no real preference either way.
This time, when the woman raised her eyes, they sprang open in surprise. Spinning, he saw at once the cause of her reaction: two FBI agents stood right behind him with their weapons drawn.
“Hands in the air, Sterling,” one of them demanded. “It’s over.”
Chapter 31
Saturday
Washington, D.C.
Jack Hamilton, sighing with exasperation, exited the observation room and strode down the echoing hallway, this morning’s edition of The New York News tucked under one arm. When he reached the door, he butted it open with his shoulder and stepped outside
. The late-morning sky was murky and sodden, but at least it had stopped storming—more than he could say about himself.
He sucked in a breath of fresh air. He needed to clear his head, to get his emotions under control. For the past several hours, he’d been watching Judy and her partner questioning Robert Sterling. Not that it was much of an interrogation. Mainly, Sterling sat mute as his attorney—some hotshot celebrity lawyer from Los Angeles—loudly declared his client’s innocence. Not that he’d expected anything less. It was all just so goddamned frustrating, he felt ready to punch someone.
He took another breath as he struggled to put things into perspective. As maddening as it all was, at least the truth had come out about Osbourne and the Prince. Pulling out the paper, he snapped it open. His mood instantly improved when he re-read the banner headline under the masthead.
Global Brainwashing Scheme Thwarted by FBI
Already, the story was spreading across the media like dysentery. Every cable network, every news channel, every blogger, was having a field day—even many of the outlets owned by Golden Age and Babylon. Consequently, the public was in an uproar, screaming for an immediate re-evaluation of the regulations governing media ownership and monopolies. Some people, including a handful of senators, were even making noise about impeaching the new president.
Meanwhile, the attorney general was tap dancing as fast as he could in an effort to shield himself from any culpability. For his opening number, he’d decided to crucify Robert Sterling, who now faced charges of treason, conspiracy, murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, and battery. His fast-talking lawyer might still get him off, but the preponderance of evidence against him looked daunting: the interview with Connolly, the testimonies of the reporters, even the surviving Bulgarian had agreed to be a witness for the prosecution in exchange for immunity and, oddly enough, a permanent visa for his brother’s widow.
