“Gone to ground, Mr. Skorzeny,” repeated Amanda. “Vanished. We have put out every feeler we can, even upped our payments to certain political columnists well-fed on the Georgetown party circuit, men and women who can hold their liquor when all around them are losing theirs. Nothing.” She waited a beat. “Perhaps he’s dead, sir.”
Her observation had the desired effect. Skorzeny suddenly exploded in rage and anger.
“Dead!” he shouted. “Impossible. Impossible! I cannot, I will not let some Fort Meade bureaucrat cheat me out of what is rightfully mine!” He was nearly apoplectic.
“M. Skorzeny—si’l vous plaît,” said Mlle. Derrida, barely looking up from some French fashion magazine she was reading. Mlle. Derrida was very fond of French fashion magazines, mostly because she was very fond of French fashion models. In fact, with her slender body, long legs and cascading hair, she rather looked like one. “Your health.”
Skorzeny took a breath and started to calm. “What I mean to say is, it is not possible that he has been terminated. I would know it—perhaps not in my head but in my heart.”
Miss Harrington let out an involuntary laugh, which she quickly covered with a cough. If this creature had a heart it would have to be donated to science upon his death as a perfectly preserved example of a nonfunctioning organ that had somehow managed to keep its host alive for decades. “Excuse me, sir,” she said.
Fortunately, he hadn’t noticed. “No,” muttered Skorzeny, “he is still out there. Plotting against me. Let this be a lesson to you ladies—never fail to have done yesterday what you cannot do today and may no longer be able to do tomorrow. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Amanda. Mlle. Derrida didn’t bother to respond.
“No secure traffic about this woman, Maryam?”
Miss Harrington pretended to consult some notes on her iPad. “None, sir. Upon receipt of her letter, the entire network went dark. It’s as if neither of them had ever existed.”
“Which is, of course, the perfect proof that they’re still alive,” retorted Skorzeny. He left his seat by the window and moved back into the room. “If there were a God, wouldn’t he be more likely to speak to us by his absence then by his presence? What faith does it require to believe in a being standing right in front of you?”
He sniffed the air, as if seeking either the divine or the diabolical via his olfactory sense. “And President Tyler?”
Amanda let out an inaudible sigh of relief. At last, he was back on ground she could stand on. “President Tyler’s political fortunes are waning and I can say with a degree of high confidence that it is very unlikely he will be returned to office in the American general election next month.”
“Miss Hassett will defeat him? Of this we are sure?”
Amanda consulted her screen. “He is trailing across the board, even in reliably partisan polls that normally favor the other side. She is leading among all age-groups, and among all demographics. If these trends continue, we are looking at an historic repudiation of a sitting president, especially one swept into office so recently on a wave of such electoral enthusiasm.”
“We may have played some small role in that,” said Skorzeny.
“Indeed, sir. For a price. Your subsidies to Mr. Sinclair have been rising steeply, I note.”
That would be Jake Sinclair, the head of the largest media conglomerate in America. Sinclair’s empire was fully behind Angela Hassett, the governor of the smallest state in the union, a woman who guarded both her past and her private life jealously. But, as few contemporary politicians did, she realized that she was not selling the past, but the future. It didn’t really matter who she was, or even what she had accomplished. She was the embodiment of the Future, and the compliant and complicit Sinclair media were with her every step of the way, blocking unwanted inquiries, refocusing the debate when the debate needed refocusing. They carried the water and did the dirty work and no doubt they expected to be rewarded handsomely with policy preferences and Oval Office access once the formality of the presidential election was past.
“An investment, Miss Harrington, an investment.” Tyler didn’t have a Chinaman’s chance, as they used to say in pre-PC America.
“In short, Mr. Skorzeny, President Tyler looks to be a one-term president, his appeal to the ladies notwithstanding, and we should plan accordingly.”
“Duly noted, Miss Harrington, so proceed accordingly.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then perhaps all the rest doesn’t matter. A new president will appoint a new head of the National Security Agency and therefore of the CSS and so will rid us of this meddlesome general, Seelye, and his unholy crew.”
“I would expect so, sir, yes,”
“Very good,” said Skorzeny.
He went to the desk, opened a drawer, and extracted a new laptop computer, which he placed on the clean desktop. It was not his computer, as everyone in the room knew. It was Maryam’s. The computer she had with her in the hotel room in Hungary. The computer issued by the National Security Agency/Central Security Service of Fort Meade, Maryland. God alone knew what secrets it contained.
An astonishing breach of op-sec, thought Skorzeny, as he contemplated the machine. To let such a valuable object fall into a stranger’s hands . . . into his hands . . .
Which is why he was not going to touch it. The damn thing would be booby-trapped six ways from the Sabbath, whichever Sabbath the impudent devil observed. To even lift its lid was asking for trouble. Any number of things could happen, all of them bad. It could explode. It could melt down, taking his hands with it. It could . . . well, it could do whatever the bastard’s mind could conceive of.
For surely he would not have let it be captured so easily. No man, not even one besotted with a woman as lovely as Maryam, would be so blithe. There must be a catch to it—yes, that was it. The devil had wanted it to fall into his hands, had offered Maryam to him, had intended for her to become his prisoner.
Skorzeny took a deep breath.
It was a play worthy of himself. The perfect poisoned pawn. And he had almost fallen for it!
He glanced up at Miss Harrington. Time really was a harsh mistress. The luscious young thing stripping off to her knickers soon enough stood revealed as a withered hag, smothering you in her foul embrace. What if she were to betray him again? He was implicitly sure of his power over her—she was nothing without him—but, still . . . Out of some misguided feminine revenge, although for what he could not think. What if she were to somehow free the woman, double-cross him, sell him out?
Why then, much as it would pain him to do so, especially after all they’d been through, he would have to kill her.
But he didn’t want to kill her. He had tried that, almost, once before, and look what had happened. The whelp had followed the trail right to his lair, and nearly killed him as he’d slithered down his escape hatch. Truly, a viper unto his breast.
Which begged the question: To open or not to open? Treasures untold within, but corrupted. Gratification, followed by death. A window into the soul of the enemy—whose bile would spatter you and take you down the road to perdition.
His hands hovered over the laptop. Damn the woman for closing it as they’d entered the room. Damn her to the hell she was even now experiencing in her place of confinement.
Or was she?
Could he trust Miss Harrington?
The laptop. The woman. The women.
Him.
He looked around the room, at Miss Harrington and Mlle. Derrida. “Now,” he said, “about Apollo 11 . . .”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
New York City
The news was breaking as Jake Sinclair entered the offices on Sixth Avenue. Normally he didn’t come to New York much, certainly not since they’d moved the corporate base of operations to Los Angeles in some choice Century City property he just happened to own.
He’d flown in on his private jet, and if there was one rule he had on his private jet it was tha
t he was not to be disturbed for any reason whatsoever, short of Selenites landing at Bowling Green or, worse, Carbon Beach. Or Elvis, reappearing in Branson on a comeback tour.
“What is it, Benny?” he said to Ben Bernstein as he entered the editor in chief’s office. Once the job had been called executive editor, and to be the executive editor of the New York Times had been the pinnacle of American journalism. So of course that had to go—he, Jake Sinclair, was the pinnacle of American journalism, and there would never be another one of him. Editor in chief was as far as he would go with people whose salaries he paid.
“Cows, Mr. Sinclair,” came the reply. “Lots and lots of cows.”
“So what? We got cows right here in New York state, somewhere. Cows all over the Midwest. Cows in India, sacred cows I think they call them. What’s so special about these cows?”
Bernstein kept a poker face. He had no opinion about his new boss and he did his damnedest to make sure his expression reflected that scrupulous neutrality. “These cows are all dead,” he said.
“Where?”
“On a big cattle ranch up near Coalinga.”
Sinclair’s visage expressed his distaste for Twenty Questions. “Where’s that?”
“Central California, sir,” replied Bernstein, backtracking. “I assumed that, since you’re from there, California I mean, that—”
“You think I drive to San Francisco?” Sinclair was rapidly losing interest in the story. “What does it mean? Is steak going to be more expensive? Is it news I can use?”
In Bernstein’s experience, the only story the chief was really interested in was the ongoing political story, so he quickly reframed. “It means Tyler’s got another disaster on his hands, sir. Somebody’s poisoned the California water supply or something.”
That stopped Sinclair in his tracks. “What?” Then he was moving again, double-time.
Bernstein watched the boss disappear into his private office at the end of the hall. He’d only been inside it once or twice, but from what he’d seen it was more like a fortress than an office, completely secure, with dedicated phone lines and all the latest electronic gadgetry. Not that Sinclair knew how to use most of it, but to men like Jake Sinclair the display of such equipment was at least as important as its actual use.
Sinclair shut the door behind him and turned to the ranks of TV monitors. The sun may have set on the British Empire, but it was always coming up somewhere on his. Sure enough, Bernstein was right—dead cows everywhere. He didn’t much care how the paper played the story the next day—newspapers were so retro they were almost chic—but he very much cared how his news networks were handling it—and so far he was not seeing what he wanted to see.
He reached for one of the secure lines and dialed her secure number. She answered on the second ring. She spoke first.
“Remember what I told you about puzzles? Ciphers? Cryptograms?” He did remember. That was the day they were in the bathroom at his office in Century City, with the shower on, the day she’d pulled him toward her in the steam, kissed him and told him that if he was ever late for another meeting with her she would kill him. “Well, this is the piece of the puzzle we’ve been waiting for. Now use it.”
“I’m not sure I under—”
“How did you ever manage to get anywhere in this life?” came the voice at the other end of the line. He had no idea where she was at this moment, somewhere out on the hustings, as they used to call them, whatever hustings were. Somewhere putting their plan into action. “Honestly, I think you are the stupidest man I have ever met in my life.”
There was nothing to say. His job was to say nothing. So far, so good.
“Have you got the package ready? The October Surprise?”
That would be the complete dossier on Jeb Tyler—every bit of dirt and mud and slur and slander and innuendo that the combined newsgathering forces of the Sinclair Empire could dig up. And was there ever plenty of it. It was so explosive that it would finish Tyler before the voters went to the polls, except that they would not be merciful. The material would not be released all at once. No, it would dribble out day by day, each story more damaging than the last, some on TV, some on the radio, some in the papers and magazines.
Beginning the third week of October, every day would be sheer misery for the incumbent president, but there would be nothing he could do about it. He could not withdraw from the campaign, because it would be too late to replace him on the ballot. He couldn’t concede in advance, because the propriety of elections would have to be observed. Day after day he was going to have to sit there in the Oval Office and take his beating like a man. And then be destroyed the first Tuesday in November.
Now that was something Jake Sinclair was really looking forward to. And he knew two other people who would enjoy the spectacle even more than he did. The first was the woman on the other end of the phone, Angela Hassett, the governor of Rhode Island, whose meteoric rise to power was about to be crowned with the highest office in the land.
The other was a man he had never met, never seen, and never spoken to—only communicated with by cutouts and go-betweens, each similarly invisible. But a very rich man and the man who had made him, Jake Sinclair, a modestly rich man by his lofty standards. This man who wanted Jeb Tyler gone and would spend any amount of money to achieve that objective.
Anonymously, of course. Untraceably, of course. Electoral proprieties must be observed.
“Tell me that you have it. Tell me that you have everything,” she commanded. Involuntarily, he glanced over his shoulder. Even here in his inner sanctum, he could feel her presence, and it wouldn’t have surprised him at all to learn that, somehow, she’d had him bugged.
“I’ve got it—well, almost all of it. There’s still a couple of things we’re trying to chase down, but I have top people on it. Top people.”
Was that a chuckle or a chortle coming through the ether? “I’ll bet you do,” said Angela Hassett, “and I’ll bet I know just who she is, too.”
The line went dead. He was alone.
Sinclair sat in his chair, looking out the window at Midtown Manhattan. That woman did something to him. He could feel it. There was something deliciously erotic in fantasizing about an affair with the next president of the United States. With the first female president of the United States. With her. So what if they were both married? He still hadn’t quite decided Jenny II’s fate yet, and as for Angela’s husband . . . well, he could be dealt with down the line.
Somewhere, a soft chime sounded, like something you’d hear in a Buddhist rock garden. Jake Sinclair hated buzzers and refused to be interrupted by the ring of a telephone, the dull thunk of an incoming e-mail message, or God forbid, one of those Twitter things.
“What is it?” The chime automatically activated a microphone that allowed him to communicate with his secretary, whose name he could never quite remember.
“Ms. Stanley, sir.”
Just the girl he wanted to see. “Send her in.”
The lock on the door buzzed and in walked his favorite television correspondent. Her work during the siege of Times Square had been outstanding, and the fact that she’d gotten herself temporarily kidnapped by, well, they never did figure out exactly who, had been a career enhancer.
“Mr. Sinclair?” she said.
She was beautiful, even more beautiful than she was on television, full-figured but wholesome, sexy but innocent—just the way the viewers liked them. About the only thing that had changed was her hair, but it was growing back nicely. On the air, she wore a wig, so nobody could tell she had been practically scalped.
He didn’t rise. To get up would signal weakness to the help. She didn’t sit down. To sit down would signal servility toward the boss.
“Have you been looking into what I asked you, Principessa?” he inquired. He loved that name, and wondered if it was really hers.
“Yes, Mr. Sinclair,” she said. She moved forward to the desk and now was standing just opposite him, towering ove
r him. “Just a couple more pieces of the puzzle left to gather.”
He smiled. “Very good. How long do I have to wait?”
She smiled back. What a smile she had. “Won’t be long now. In the meantime, there’s this.”
She put an old BlackBerry down on his desk. “What I am supposed to do with this?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “Just listen.”
Who knew that BlackBerrys doubled as tape recorders? That they had little voice-memo doohickies (what did the kids call them today. Applications—yes, “apps”) and that they could record—
The babble coming out the smartphone was like no language he had ever heard before. Arabic or Iranian, rapid-fire, and then, at the end, this:
“Because I am sending you to hell.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, reaching for the phone, but Principessa swept it back up and slipped it into her pocket.
“You wanted a puzzle, I got you a puzzle,” she said. “Now all you have to do is figure it out.”
She was already at the door:
“That’s what I pay you for,” he said.
“Pay me more,” she replied, and then she was gone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Central California
It was just like old times. The phone buzzed softly, in a pre-arranged signal of long and shorts. He knew who it was without even looking at it. He didn’t care. He had better things to do than jump when barked at. He was under suspicion, in the soup, off the job, sent on uncompassionate leave—whatever. The soup was happening here, now.
He had made good time getting up from California City. There had been no reports of poisoned drinking water in the cities—not on the radio, and not from his secure sources back at Fort Meade.
He didn’t have to think twice about who might have done this. It had his fingerprints all over it. All the plots they’d broken up involving water had to do with city reservoirs, with the drinking supplies. Oh, they’d tried, but through a combination of luck and terrorist ineptitude, every last plot had been stopped—some just in time, to be sure, but stopped.
Michael Walsh Bundle Page 76
