Pray for the Innocent

by Alan Orloff

There were too many people in the way to get a clear view of the ride itself, but King didn’t see any commandos dressed in SWAT gear hanging in the limbs of the trees near the carousel.

  Maybe Hemingway wasn’t working with Locraft and hadn’t tipped him off.

  Yeah, and maybe monkeys would come flying out of his butt. King wasn’t about to blindly trust anyone in this mess, not after all the lies and deception. He’d proceed according to his plan.

  King scuffed along one of the many dusty pebble-and-gravel paths that bordered the splotchy grass rectangular sections of the Mall. On his left was the iconic Capitol. On his right, the Washington Monument. Off to the side, in a little clearing, a group of kids in a circle kicked around a hacky sack. Except for the monuments in the background—and the hundreds of thousands of people celebrating the Fourth of July—he could have been on the Mason campus, on the library quad watching the undergraduates blow off steam after a hard day of shirking assignments.

  And all the people surrounding him were oblivious to the terror going on in King’s life.

  He blended in to the crowd and pressed on.

  Glancing at his watch, he picked up his pace. It was getting close to four o’clock, and he still had a few blocks to go.

  #

  In the Ops Center, PAM’s latest projections flashed on the video wall:

  Carousel: 97%

  No other option greater than 1%

  “Enlarge the map,” Locraft said, standing on the command platform, hands behind his back, as if he were an old-time mariner searching the horizon for a speck of land. The blinking dot that marked King’s location had tripled in size and stopped, right near the circle marked “carousel.” King had almost reached his destination, and PAM had predicted it. Success tasted sweet, even when it was expected. Locraft keyed Slattery. “Will, it seems the carousel is a definite. King is within one hundred yards. Get all tac teams there now.”

  “Roger. I’ve got it all under control.”

  “Do you have a visual?”

  “No, not of King. But I do see Christian Ehreng.”

  “What’s he doing there?” Locraft asked.

  “Just sitting there. He must be Hemingway. Which makes sense. Gosberg trusts him. He’s in some kind of disguise.”

  “Any sign of Gosberg?”

  “No.”

  “What’s Gosberg’s angle here, Will?” Locraft knew men, and men always had an angle. Money, fame, and sex often topped the list, but sometimes the angle was as primal as self-preservation.

  “I don’t know. I expect we’ll find out soon enough—I’m going to have a word with Ehreng in a minute.”

  Locraft had confidence Slattery would get to the bottom of it. He didn’t brook disloyalty. “I don’t suppose Dragunov has shown his face.”

  “No.”

  “Do you think he senses a trap?” Locraft asked.

  “I’m sure he’s being very cautious. But if he wants King, he’ll have to come out sooner or later.”

  “Can you get me a video feed?”

  “I’ll see what I can do. I tried earlier, but there was some sort of interference.”

  Technology was great until it wasn’t. “Keep me posted.”

  “Roger. Need to go silent now. Slattery out.”

  Locraft opened his mouth, then closed it. Something was off, he could feel it. He knew men. Slattery’s voice had that subtle, yet unmistakable, tone men got when they said one thing but were planning another. “Locraft out.”

  He sat down heavily, contemplating his next move.

  Chapter Forty

  Slattery stood behind a tree near the carousel, a gray Jansport backpack slung on one shoulder, watching and waiting. Hordes of people—kids mostly—gawked and gaped at the carousel as it spun around. The line was quite long, but Slattery figured waiting in it was as good a way as any to kill time before the fireworks display.

  Five minutes earlier, he’d dispatched tac teams one, three, and five on a wild-goose chase to the National Gallery of Art, across the Mall, and now there was only one other person who seemed out of place at the carousel.

  Christian Ehreng, in a big straw hat, sitting on a bench watching the carousel go round and round.

  Gosberg had recruited Ehreng to join Locraft’s program from a previous project they’d worked on together, and Slattery never had any problems dealing with the man. Efficient. Smart. Affable, despite his ominous appearance. But Slattery had never really trusted him, knowing that if push came to shove, Ehreng would fall in with Gosberg, without question.

  And now that couldn’t be tolerated.

  Slattery didn’t know why Ehreng was sitting by himself; he was probably waiting for King. Slattery knew they wanted to negotiate with Dragunov rather than use force, which was Locraft’s ham-handed preference.

  Slattery didn’t really care about their difference of opinion. He had other plans altogether, and those plans did not include harming Dragunov. Too valuable.

  Way too valuable.

  Quietly, Slattery approached Ehreng from behind, then slipped around the side of the bench and plopped down next to him. He moved the backpack from his shoulder to his lap. “Hello, Chris. Nice hat.”

  For a moment, Ehreng seemed like he was going to bolt, but he recovered quickly. “Uh, hello, Will.”

  “Where’s King?”

  Ehreng turned to face Slattery, a sheen of perspiration on his face. “Listen, I know how things have transpired, but we’ve got the same objective here. Neutralize Dragunov. Maybe we should all discuss strategy. We don’t have much time, you know, and presenting a unified front would be to our advantage.”

  Slattery had his own agenda, and presenting a unified anything would definitely not be to his advantage. “I’ll ask again. Why isn’t King with you?”

  “He’s supposed to meet me.” Ehreng glanced at his watch. “Should be here soon.”

  “That’s all you can tell me?” Slattery tried to keep his voice down. He’d had enough of Ehreng’s bullshit. He’d had enough of everyone’s bullshit. “Have you seen Dragunov yet?”

  “No.”

  Slattery didn’t have more time. He unzipped a side pocket in his backpack and pulled out a small syringe. “Sorry, Chris, but this can’t be helped.” Slattery jabbed the syringe into Ehreng’s side and depressed the plunger. It wasn’t Bivex-N14, but it would do the trick, nevertheless.

  Ehreng stared at Slattery, not seeing. It was the same lifeless stare Robinson had displayed when Slattery had killed him. Sometimes cleaning up was messy. Slattery couldn’t let anybody associated with the project—anyone who knew what had happened to Dragunov—remain alive as a witness against him. Slattery had failed to kill Gosberg when he’d blown up the man’s house, but according to a report he’d gotten an hour ago, he didn’t need to worry about Gosberg anymore. Dragunov had killed him in an incident at Jane’s house during the night.

  Slattery repositioned Ehreng’s hat to cover his face and made sure his body didn’t slump over. Just a guy on a bench watching the carousel go round.

  At some point, someone would surely figure out what he’d done, but by that time, Slattery was betting he’d be on a plane delivering his priceless cargo—Dragunov, the Optic Nerve Adapter, and all the lab data and equipment—to his buyer in the Middle East.

  Slattery was going to be a wealthy man, as long as he could deliver the goods. With a final look back to make sure Ehreng’s body hadn’t tipped over, Slattery left the scene, carrying his backpack by the handle. Fifty yards away, he stopped in the shade of the nearby Smithsonian Castle. He set the pack down, removed his smartphone from a side pocket, and called Locraft.

  The colonel answered after the first ring. “Christ, Will, what the hell is going on? Why haven’t you been in contact? I’m sitting here, ready to kick Dragunov’s arse, and I don’t even know the situation!”

  Slattery was ten seconds away from never having to hear that blowhard’s voice again. He tried to tamp down his excitement. “Where are you
right now, colonel?”

  “What? In the Ops Center. Waiting for your updates! Have you seen—”

  “Colonel?”

  “What?”

  “Ciao,” Slattery said, then tapped a button on his phone, which sent a signal to a relay back at the Ops Center, which, in turn, detonated a series of plastic explosive charges configured to destroy the entire Ops Center.

  The phone line went dead, along with everything else at Locraft’s hacienda hideaway.

  Slattery smiled to himself. Now everyone associated with the top secret aspects of the project was dead.

  He didn’t have time to relish his latest accomplishment. He called up the GPS tracker app on his phone and homed in on King.

  Three hundred fifty yards east and moving east. Slattery shouldered his pack and jogged after King, keeping an eye on his quarry’s direction—moving toward the Capitol along the Mall.

  Two minutes later, Slattery obtained visual contact with King, who was walking fast fifty yards ahead. Despite the masses of people milling about, he wouldn’t be hard to stick with; King was old and out of shape, and the hot, humid afternoon was bound to take its toll.

  King slowed as he approached the Air and Space Museum. Was that the exchange point? Among all those people? In an ordinary circumstance—if there were such a thing as an ordinary abduction—no hostage taker in his right mind would attempt something in a place like that. There were simply too many variables and too many opportunities for something to go wrong. Slattery knew how essential control was in these situations. But this wasn’t an ordinary kidnapping, and Dragunov didn’t care about collateral damage.

  What if Dragunov had rigged himself to be a suicide bomber?

  Panic started to overwhelm Slattery; he fought it back with logic. First off, it would be too difficult to get into the museum with a vest of dynamite strapped around one’s chest. Second, Dragunov wasn’t the suicide bomber type. Dragunov knew he was too valuable as an agent to give it all up for one mass casualty event. Also, Slattery knew that in Dragunov’s time frame—the early eighties—suicide bombers weren’t as prevalent as they were today. And really, what would killing a bunch of museum-going tourists do to destroy America? Hurt tourism for a few months?

  No, Dragunov was after bigger game; Slattery was sure of it. He gazed down the Mall, toward the Washington Monument. Hundreds of thousands of people in close proximity, unsuspecting. He shuddered. All Slattery had to do was find Dragunov, capture him, and transport him to his waiting buyers overseas. Oddly, Slattery welcomed the challenge. Of course, knowing there was a payday of $160 million waiting for him was pretty damn good motivation.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Sweat soaked the underarms of King’s inside-out T-shirt, and his stomach felt as if he’d just gotten off a sixth consecutive roller coaster ride. Could he pull this off alone? He’d spotted Hemingway—and his ridiculous hat—sitting on a bench near the carousel, and he’d hung back and observed. Not more than five minutes later, Slattery had come by and taken a seat right next to Hemingway. That’s all the proof King had needed; Hemingway had been working with Slattery and Locraft as the point man in a plan to get King to lead the way to Dragunov.

  King hadn’t stuck around. He’d turned and hightailed it toward the exchange point.

  The knife in his pocket wasn’t helping his confidence any. If anything, it reminded him of how woefully outmatched he was against Dragunov, the man he’d whisked together for a novel.

  Having a vivid imagination wasn’t always a blessing.

  King tried to quell those nervous thoughts as he half walked, half jogged east along the Mall.

  He passed the Air and Space Museum and risked a glance over his shoulder. No obvious pursuers. Just a long row of tour buses parked at the curb: Atlantic Express, Destinations Unlimited, Windstar Lines, and others, all waiting for their passengers to emerge from the museums. He relaxed a bit, although he knew his most stressful moment was still lurking in the future. When he finally got a chance to turn the knife on Dragunov.

  On his right was the Museum of the American Indian, which was one of the newer museums on the Mall. Clumps of tourists gathered on the front walkway, ready to climb onto their buses for a trip back to their comfy hotels for a nice hot shower before venturing out again to watch the fireworks. King hadn’t ever visited that museum but had heard good things about it. Maybe someday he’d get a chance to take Amanda there.

  He felt himself choking up.

  King crossed Third Street and kept right, following a dirt path winding under a few trees. Dust kicked up from the path stuck to his sweaty limbs. The cool water of the reflecting pool in front of the Capitol beckoned to him.

  Maybe some other time.

  A hundred yards away, on his right, was his destination. He’d always dragged Amanda to the carousel, but her favorite place was the Botanic Garden. She just loved all the exotic plants, and they’d spend hours wandering from room to room, allowing Amanda to examine the flora. On their second visit, she’d brought a little sketch pad, and she drew the different plants. King smiled at the memory of his little girl with the tip of her tongue sticking out of her mouth as she concentrated on her artwork.

  From the outside, the distinctive conservatory looked like a throwback from the Victorian era. Tucked into a little corner within spitting distance of the Capitol Reflecting Pool, it didn’t really belong with the rest of the art galleries and museums ringing the Mall. But it offered a tranquil change of pace to the tourists who stopped in to check out the unusual plants.

  Next to the parking lot, twenty yards before he reached the entrance to the Botanic Garden, King glommed onto the back of a large tour group for cover. He mopped his brow and smiled at the couple next to him and once again checked over his shoulder. Nobody he recognized behind him.

  It took him a moment to discover the tour group wasn’t moving; they seemed to be using that spot as a staging area before their assault on the Capitol. King circled around them and angled toward the garden.

  He followed the flagstone path through the garden in front, past the giant flower sculptures, and walked in the front entrance.

  The building wasn’t exactly air-conditioned—bad for the plants, King assumed—but it wasn’t nearly as humid as it was outside, and it was a good deal cooler. A line of people funneled toward a security checkpoint. No scanner, just a couple of guards checking packages. Another guard stood by the inner door, across from the information desk, but he wasn’t doing anything more than glancing at people as they entered the exhibit area.

  There didn’t seem to be any added security, no phalanx of armed guards in battle gear. Which meant one of two things. Dragunov wasn’t there and they’d been wrong, or he’d made it through the security checkpoint without raising anyone’s suspicions—which would have been hard to do, toting around a hostage. A third possibility occurred to King—maybe Dragunov had managed to find another way in. Which wouldn’t have surprised him in the least; when King had created Dragunov, he’d given him some serious skills.

  King held his breath as he got the once-over from the guard standing by the inner door. When the guard’s eyes moved on to the next guest, King exhaled and moved along.

  He passed the information desk and pushed his way through a set of glass doors into the Garden Court, a rectangular room filled floor to ceiling with vegetation. Lush green tropical plants in pots and planters filled the middle, with taller trees around the sides and a walkway that circled the entire room, with a few benches for visitors seeking a peaceful place to rest weary feet. A long low fountain provided a water feature.

  On the floor, in the center of the room, was a mosaic tile compass rose. Standing smack dab in the middle, on an actual copper rose inlay, was Emily.

  “Professor King!” She came rushing over, pumping her fists in the air, as if she’d just scored the winning basket. “I knew it! I knew this was the place!”

  King guided her to the side by her elbow. “What are you
doing here?”

  “This is it, isn’t it? Amanda’s favorite place?”

  “Yes, but . . . how did you know to come here?”

  “I read Amanda’s diaries, and she went on and on about the Botanic Garden and about all the beautiful plants. And I overheard some men while I was in your daughter’s bathtub talking about Dragunov being at Amanda’s favorite childhood place, and—”

  “Bathtub? What are you talking about?”

  “Never mind. This is the place, right? Where Dragunov wants to exchange you for Amanda.”

  “This is too dangerous, Emily. You need to leave.”

  “I can help you.” She blinked a few times. “What if Amanda’s hurt or something? I can take care of her while you deal with Dragunov.”

  “No. You need to go. Now.”

  Emily stiffened. “Maybe we should tell the guard. He can call for backup.”

  “No cops. All Dragunov wants is me. If the cops get involved, who knows what will happen. They’ll just endanger Amanda.”

  “I think I’d better tell them anyway. Seems like the prudent thing to do.”

  King eyed Emily. Was she blackmailing him? He didn’t have time to argue. “Okay, listen. You can come with me, but stay well behind. Pretend like you’re a tourist or something. If Amanda needs help, I’m counting on you. Don’t go near Dragunov.”

  “Roger that.” She smiled. “Do you have any idea where he’ll be in here?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did she have a favorite room?” Emily asked.

  After every trip, King would ask her which her favorite exhibit was. And after every trip, he’d get a different answer. Back then, he’d thought it was cute. Now . . . “Nope. We’ll have to look around, I guess.”

  “Maybe we should split up. You know, just until we find him.” Emily said. She quickly added, “And her.”

  And her. Of course, the possibility had occurred to him that this was all a trap, a setup, that Amanda wouldn’t even be there. But if he believed that, he might as well pack it in and give up all hope. No, King had to believe Dragunov would be true to his word, that he’d make the swap. At least that was what King had been telling himself, every ninety seconds, for the last few hours. There was no alternative he cared to entertain.