King had taken a seat at the table in the corner of the one-king-bed hotel room—the only room they had available. He already had two glasses placed side by side, and with a slight smile he began to pour the Eagle Rare bourbon from the bottle he’d paid three hundred dollars cash for. He’d found the roll of money in his go bag, which Sam had managed to grab from the stairwell where he’d left it at the previous hotel before the shootout.
The scent of the bourbon as he poured was already helping him relax. As it always did. Eagle Rare was one of his favorites. The smell of vanilla, caramel, and oak reminded him of another time and place. One that didn’t involve so much hate and violence. The bathroom door opened, and steam wafted out. Sam emerged in the white robe he’d exchanged for her clothes. Her long dark hair was wet down her back. She was beautiful in the dim yellow light of the bedside lamp.
“So, where are my clothes? And yours?”
King looked down at the robe he was wearing. Then back to Sam. “I had housekeeping come get them for a wash. Yours were starting to stink.”
Sam tried to hide a smile.
“Was that a smile? The ice queen has a soul?”
“Been into that bottle already, have you?”
“No. I’m a gentleman. I waited for you.”
For the first time in over a year, he got the classic Sam eye roll, and it couldn’t have made him happier.
“Come here and have a drink with me, you old cow.”
Sam walked over and took a seat on the edge of the bed. “You’re no spring chicken. Thirty-one this year, right?”
“Still a decade younger than you.” King held up his glass.
“Not quite. But close,” Sam said, smiling. Then she picked up her glass.
“Cheers,” King said. “To never growing up.”
Sam clinked his glass with hers. “You’ve got that toast in the bag. Though I was beginning to have my doubts. You’ve been awfully dark at times this year.”
King thought about it for a moment as he took his first sip. The familiar burn was a glorious indulgence. He supposed he had lost his boyish charm as of late. “Been a tough year.”
“How’s your arm?”
He’d suffered a road rash when Husaam slammed him to the ground.
“Nothing a little bourbon won’t numb.”
They were quiet for a moment as they sipped.
“It’s good to see you, Sam. It’s been way too long.”
“I agree. I’ve actually missed you.”
“Well . . . never thought I’d hear that. Cheers to Sam’s mushy side.” He flashed her a big smile as he took the bottle from the table and poured a little more.
“I guess I’d better fill you in on Bobby Gibbons.”
King frowned. “Always right back to business. You almost set a record this time, though.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“I’ll get you to relax one day.”
Sam took the rest of her drink in one slug, then held out her glass for more. “If we were here selling insurance, I might be more apt to let my hair down. As it stands, someone is trying to rig your country’s next presidential election.”
“How the hell could you possibly know that?”
“I’m putting pieces together,” Sam said. “Bobby Gibbons was the last person to meet with Mary Hartsfield at CIA headquarters before she was murdered.”
“Why would he meet with her?” King was trying to make the connection. “And was it after hours?”
“It was. He called her worried about the car bombing in London.”
“What?” King set down his glass.
“Have you ever heard of an ex-CIA agent named Doug Chapman?”
“Of course. Who hasn’t? Guy’s a legend. And an asshole.”
“I’d use the term infamous, but yes, he has quite the history. Anyway, since the CIA ousted him a couple of years ago, he’s become known in circles as a political ‘fixer.’”
“Fixer?” King said. “You mean like Ray Donovan?”
“Don’t know who that is,” Sam said. King wasn’t surprised. She never did anything but work, much less watch Showtime. “But Doug is a fixer in terms of when there is a problem in Washington that needs to be ‘handled,’ apparently he’s become the guy to call.”
“Okay, what does that have to do with Bobby Gibbons and the car bomb I saved Bentley, or I guess Althea, from?”
“Bobby Gibbons hired Doug Chapman because Bobby had stock in Everworld Solutions.”
King picked up his glass and took a drink. “Damn. I’m getting awfully tired of hearing that company’s name.”
“You and me both.”
“I’m surprised. I didn’t think Gibbons was like Senators McDonnell and Thomas. Always heard he was one of the good guys.”
“I believe he is,” Sam said. “I’ve talked with Mary in the past about him. She said he’s a stand-up guy. When I talked to Bobby again after he and his wife left their house, he said McDonnell and Thomas just told him Everworld was a good investment. He said that was all he ever knew about it.”
“But he knew how bad it looked to be seen as involved with a company that funded terrorists, so he wanted himself scrubbed from the records before the media found out about it.”
It was starting to come together. Except the part about Bentley.
Sam continued. “Gibbons said Doug told him about the car bomb after it happened. Doug told him that Bentley, because of her presumed work on the numbers side of the Everworld business, was the only credible person left who could tie him back to the company.”
“How did Gibbons react to hearing Doug would go to such lengths as to murder a seventeen year-old girl?”
“Not well. Apparently, that’s when Doug put a gun to Bobby’s head and told him to let him do what he was hired to do.”
“Wow.”
King let that sink in. All of it was a lot to process. He had to back up for clarification. “So what does all this have to do with rigging an election?”
Sam set down her empty glass. “I don’t think Doug Chapman only works for Bobby Gibbons.”
“Land the plane, Sam. You’re making some huge leaps here.”
“Mary and I had dinner and drinks last week before I left for Athens. She told me that President Williams was worried about the presidential candidate running against Bobby Gibbons.”
“John Forester?” King said. “From the Forester family? Why would Williams ever be worried about him? He’s only the son of the most politically corrupt family this country has ever known.”
“Right, your sarcasm is well placed,” Sam said. “Well, Mary told me that President Williams was so convinced that Forester was trying to cheat that she actually put a top secret three-man task force together just to investigate him.”
“Mary did that? Really? That’s ballsy. She gets caught doing that, she’s a goner. I can’t believe she told you that.”
“We’ve grown—had grown—close over the last year.”
“I’m sorry, Sam.”
“Anyway, I think that’s why she was killed. She told me she wanted some advice when I got back from Athens, because she wanted me to look at some things they’d dug up on Forester. I never got a chance to see the file, but I’m guessing Doug Chapman found out what Mary was doing. I think he might be actually working for John Forester, and never was really working for Bobby Gibbons.”
“You think Doug Chapman killed Mary? To keep info from coming out about John Forester? This is crazy.”
King’s head was spinning. He needed to break it down, one detail at a time. “Okay, so, speculation aside, you think Doug Chapman tried to have Bentley killed, and after I saved her, you think he continued to run her down all the way to the safe house in Belgium?”
“It certainly lines up,” Sam said. “Doug is ex-CIA. Which means he’s one of only a handful of people who could have known about that safe house.”
That definitely rang a bell for King. He’d thought when it happened that it wa
s probably an inside man.
Sam continued. “And my theory is that once Bentley was kidnapped from the safe house, Doug didn’t have her killed because he was probably worried, since you’d saved her from the car bomb, that someone else was onto him. So now he’s going to hold on to Bentley until he can make sure he isn’t in danger of being outed.”
“You think that’s why the phone number was left on Agent Karn’s shoe?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense to me. Like I said, if you called the number, he’d know he still has a mess to clean up. Now he thinks he’s home free.”
“I still don’t get it,” King said. “If Doug is not actually working for Bobby Gibbons, then why try to kill Bentley Martin? If he really thought it was her that knew Gibbons had money in Everworld, wouldn’t he want her alive? If Doug is working for John Forester instead, and trying to sabotage Gibbons, Bentley would be one way to help him pin terrorist funding to Gibbons.”
“You’re right,” Sam said. “We’re definitely missing something.”
“Unless Doug was never really trying to kill Bentley.”
“I don’t follow,” Sam said. “You saved her from a car bomb meant for her. Paid for by an American.”
“But actually I didn’t. I saved Althea Salameh. Saajid’s niece. Maybe Doug was working for Saajid and double-crossed him? There are holes everywhere, but maybe Doug’s target was this woman posing as Bentley.”
King poured them both another drink.
“Damn,” Sam said.
“My head hurts.” King held up his glass once more. “To tangled webs.”
“To untangling them,” she said as they clinked glasses.
Both sipped their bourbon. King was trying to pull at least one thing together for certain. “So how do you think this all ties back to Husaam and Saajid Hammoud? To Andonios Maragos and Althea Salameh?”
Sam shook her head. “Not sure, but they are clearly linked. This is why I said your election might be getting tampered with. I just spoke with intelligence before my shower, and they confirmed what you uncovered in the stairwell at the hotel, that Althea Salameh was Jamila Salameh’s daughter. Saajid and Husaam Hammoud’s niece.”
“This is insane. But shows even more that the Maragoses and the Hammouds have definitely been working together for a long time.”
Sam shook her head. “Something still seems to be missing. And I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
“A lot of things are missing. We’ve been doing a lot of reaching to make things fit. Bottom line is, we have to start pulling some things together. Where is Bobby Gibbons now? If Doug is crazy enough to do all the things we think he’s done, why wouldn’t he just kill Gibbons? Then it would be a free run to the White House for John Forester. If that is who Doug is really working for.”
“I think in the beginning he thought it would be cleaner to have the media take Bobby down for all the scandals. Especially with being the last to see Mary Hartsfield alive. But now that Bobby has gone into hiding, and someone like you is out in his world mucking things up, he might find killing Bobby is the easiest option.”
“Where has Bobby gone into hiding?” King said.
“Kentucky.”
“You sent him to my house, didn’t you?”
“And he should be there anytime now.”
King looked down at the bourbon in his glass and gave it a swirl. He could feel the alcohol running through his veins now. Maybe that’s why the thought of home brought so much emotion.
“Miss it, don’t you?” Sam said.
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He set down the glass without finishing the drink.
“Maybe if we clean all this up you can go back?”
“I don’t think I can. I can’t put my sister and my niece in danger like that again. I almost lost them both because of what I do. This was my choice, to fight, not my sister’s. I have to live with the consequences. And if me staying away keeps them safe . . . then it’s worth it.”
“I understand.”
There was a knock at the door.
“That’s probably our clothes,” King said, his head still swimming in his own sadness.
“Perfect timing,” Sam said as she stood to get the door. “You up for a little field trip? For old times’ sake?”
King looked up. He found an eager look on Sam’s face.
“Come on, there are few things you love more than revenge.”
That got his attention. “The traitor CIA agent who gave Husaam your location at the hotel?”
“You got it.”
King couldn’t help but think that was exactly what he needed to stop feeling sorry for himself. He stood up and walked over to his go bag sitting beside the television. He reached in, pulled out his Glock, and checked for the chambered round.
“Field trip it is.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Rafina, Greece
“I want blood, Saajid! They’ve taken everything from us!”
Saajid had seen his sister Jamila upset plenty of times. It was her personality. But the fire in her eyes at the moment was something new. Of course he understood why, and he felt the same way. She’d just lost her daughter, and now they’d killed her brother. But Husaam getting himself killed was exactly what Saajid told him would happen if he didn’t listen. Saajid had been explaining to him, to the point of exhaustion, that defeating the United States was something that didn’t happen at the one-agent-at-a-time level. It happened as a result of a slow and perfect planning process. Like what he currently had in place with John Forester, erasing his political opponent, Bobby Gibbons, so that Saajid could control the highest office in the land.
“Are you listening to me?” Jamila continued. “Althea is dead! My own daughter! Husaam is dead! Our brothers and sister Maragos are all dead! Our father is dead! All by American operatives. And you just sit here. No retaliation at all!”
“Enough! You sound just like Husaam. And look what happened to him!” Saajid shouted as he stepped toward her. “Do you not remember what happened when I gave in to all of your shortsighted plans a year ago? I told you the nanotechnology Gregor produced would not work. Their defenses are too good! The only way to beat them is to control their defenses. We cannot fight fire with fire with the war machine!”
Jamila took two steps toward him, getting right in her older brother’s face. “And you think your plan is going to work, Saajid? Are you kidding? You really think that once this presidential candidate that you will have helped reach the top of the American political food chain is actually going to listen to you once he becomes the most powerful man in the world? Wake up! He’s using you. If what you say is true, and American forces are impenetrable, once this John Forester is president, he won’t listen to you. He’ll be untouchable. And he knows about you and our operation now, so he will just have you erased. Probably by the same man who killed your own brother today!”
Saajid held up his hand, ready to slap his sister across the face to shut her up. Instead, he turned away and paced the office. He refrained from lashing out mostly because what she was saying actually made sense. And he didn’t like it.
“You know I’m right, Saajid.” Jamila had softened her tone. “You are the smartest person I have ever known. But you are naive if you think some political chess piece in America is going to serve you once he has all the power in the world. You can threaten him, his family, whoever you want. It doesn’t matter. He will make sure it’s like you never existed.”
All the work Saajid had done to get this plan in place began to feel like quicksand. Like each move he made had buried him and his family even further. Now he had lost so much. He still had his wife and his kids, but the cause was more important. Saajid’s father had made sure he understood that before he died. But he didn’t want to lose them. Not for nothing.
“Maybe,” Saajid said, turning to face his sister, “maybe you are right. But you shouldn’t have come here. You have put my family in danger by doing so. You
are on every terrorist watch list that exists. You know they are watching you. How could you risk bringing attention to yourself here?”
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I just didn’t know what else to do. I lost Althea, Saajid. My baby girl. You have no idea what that feels like. She had such a bright future with us. She had so many skills. Do you want this to happen to your family? Do you want to feel the agony I feel right now?”
“Of course not,” Saajid said.
“Then let’s act now. That’s why I have come. The American agents are still in Athens somewhere. We must find them. And kill them both. I know you have seen the videos, Saajid. The man who was standing next to Althea when she was shot is the same agent who was fighting with Husaam at the Plaka today.”
“You may be right. They do look similar. But the man standing next to Althea in that video in London didn’t kill her. She was killed by a sniper.”
“Exactly,” Jamila said. “This is exactly what I am talking about. Who did you hire to kidnap Andonios’s other daughter, Bentley?”
“The same man who killed the director of the CIA.”
“The same man who is helping you propel John Forester into the presidency?”
“Yes.”
Jamila shrugged her shoulders. “You see, my brother, this Forester has already turned on you. Before he has even become president.”
Jamila’s words hit home. Was it possible that Doug Chapman had double-crossed him? Was he actually working for John Forester? Saajid’s blood was boiling. He couldn’t believe he had already paid Chapman. It had always been about the money for Doug, not getting Saajid power. He walked over to his desk, picked up his phone, and dialed Doug’s number.
“Hello?” Doug answered.
“How did you know where to send your man to find Bentley Martin in Belgium?”
“I don’t have time for this, Saajid. Why does it matter? We have her.”
“Yes, but I don’t have my niece. She’s dead. You are the only person other than her father, Andonios, who knew her connection to me, and that she was posing as Bentley to confuse Bentley’s involvement in Everworld.”
Alexander King Thriller Series: Books 1-3 Page 16
