The Vulture Fund

by Stephen W. Frey

  He moved slowly down the metal steps toward the door. Each step was painful. The eye would never see again, but loss of sight in one eye was a small price to pay for so much money, he reasoned, as he reached to unlock the heavy door. It creaked as it swung open slowly.

  The lone Wolverine, smartly dressed in his dark blue uniform, moved quickly through the opening. He hesitated for a split second, then raised his automatic weapon and fired. The burst of gunfire nearly ripped the man in two. He wobbled crazily for a moment, then fell to the floor dead, bleeding profusely onto the cement.

  Captain Ellet stared down at Vargus for a second to make certain that he was dead, but there was no doubt. He smiled. The Nyack nuclear plant was back in friendly hands. And all the terrorists were dead, per his direct orders from Malcolm Becker, orders to which even Commander Mcyntire was not privy.

  * * *

  —

  Preston Andrews and Robin Carruthers watched the television as Malcolm Becker climbed the podium for the press conference. Becker was to read a prepared statement that the Nyack plant had been retaken and that it was safe for the citizens of New York to return to the city. Once again the CIA Wolverines had proved themselves invaluable against terrorist guerrilla warfare.

  Andrews rose from his chair, picked up the remote from the hotel room coffee table, and turned off the set. After replacing the remote on the coffee table, he moved slowly to the window overlooking the Los Angeles downtown area. He was in the city for a campaign fund-raiser, but now it didn’t look as if there were any real reason to be here. Becker was going to win the election hands down. He was going to be all over every newspaper, magazine, and television screen in the country for the next six months. He was a hero again. This time he was larger than life. This time he had saved New York City from devastation.

  “He’s untouchable now,” Andrews said quietly. “He’s going to win this election in a landslide.” His voice was almost inaudible.

  Robin did not answer. She knew Preston was right.

  Andrews laughed sarcastically. “He’s the luckiest bastard alive.” He snorted. “To have this happen now, to have it turn out the way it has. I suppose my contacts in the Middle East aren’t as good as I thought they were.” He said the last words offhandedly, almost to himself.

  Robin glanced up. “What do you mean?”

  The vice president turned away from the window. “The man in my room that night at the Doha Marriott, the one you’ve asked me about.”

  “Yes?” She stood, sensing she was about to hear something of great importance.

  “He was an informer for the DEA. He told me that night at the Doha Marriott that this was in the works. Not the Nyack attack specifically, but an attack on an installation in the United States of these proportions. He must have meant this. But he could never uncover more than rumors and innuendo.” Andrews hesitated, as if wondering whether there was anything he could have done. “If only I could have found out, I could have preempted the attack, preempted Becker’s opportunity.” He shook his head. “I had every intelligence unit in the government working for me to find out what was going on. Except the CIA, of course.” Andrews laughed sarcastically again. “Those guys wouldn’t help me. They are loyal to Becker.”

  Robin ran a hand through her hair. The dream was dead. It was over, she knew. As Preston had said, Becker was untouchable now. Becker was going to move into the White House, and Preston Andrews was finished in politics. So was she.

  * * *

  —

  The two agents moved quickly down the hallway of the New York Hilton. They were to locate, detain, and bring her back to Washington, D.C., per Willard Ferris. They were not told why Ferris needed her or what he planned to do with her once they brought her back. But that was not unusual. They were agency veterans and had come to learn to expect the unusual at the CIA.

  They had been told only that Leeny Hunt was here, no more than that. But it had not taken them long to find her room number. After flashing their badges at the night manager of the Hilton, he had quickly relented on his vow of confidentiality for all guests and let the agents see the hotel’s computer register. One agent had remained behind to make certain that the manager didn’t call the room to let the guest know that they were coming.

  The men moved quickly down the hallway to room 1741, inserted the extra key they had forced the night manager to give them into the slot, and burst through the door. She was not in the bed. Instinctively the first agent into the room moved quickly to the bathroom door and thrust it open. But it too was unoccupied.

  The second agent moved into the bathroom behind the first, glanced around, then shook his head. “I guess we got the wrong room,” he said dejectedly.

  “I don’t think so,” the other man said quietly.

  “What do you mean?”

  The first agent thrust at the second agent the pocketbook he had picked up off the double sink in front of the mirror. The men gazed down at the purse. It was stuffed full of pictures of what was obviously a dead man, shot point-blank several times through the face. There was nothing else in the purse but the Polaroids.

  * * *

  —

  Wind whipped Leeny’s hair across her face as she stared down from the roof of the Hilton onto the Avenue of the Americas far below. Forty stories down. How would it feel as her body hurtled toward the concrete? How would it feel in that instant her flesh made contact with the pavement? What would she learn in that last second of consciousness before death? She had always wanted to know.

  36

  The sun shone down brightly on the Nations bank building, a seven-story edifice constructed near the southeast corner of the intersection of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and Interstate 495, the Washington Beltway. Mace stood on the building’s roof, at the northwest corner, as Slade had instructed him, watching the door that led down to the seventh floor below. Twenty minutes ago Mace had climbed up those stairs, half expecting to be shot as soon as he opened the door leading outside. But there had been no one on the roof.

  The bag lay at Mace’s feet. It contained the information Slade had given him, the bargaining chip, as well as the tape he had made of Leeny recounting all she knew about Broadway Ventures, Lewis Webster, and Malcolm Becker. Becker would need to see these things before he would release Rachel Sommers. That was what Slade had told Mace over the phone last night.

  Cars on the Beltway roared continually past the building, but Mace did not hear them. He did not hear anything, so focused was his attention on the roof’s doorway. It could open at any moment. Then he would be faced with the most difficult situation of his life. The other side wanted him dead, and he was trusting his old friend with his life. But this trust could be completely misguided. Slade could be selling him down the river.

  Mace swallowed. Preparation: another key to success. Being fully prepared for a meeting, having anticipated every question, every outcome, everything that could go wrong: that was standard operating procedure for him. But there was no way to be prepared now. It was all going to unfold at the speed of light, and he would just have to react on instinct. Otherwise, as Slade said, he was a dead man.

  The door swung open, and Slade’s hulking frame appeared. Malcolm Becker followed at a distance of ten feet. Then a thin man and Rachel followed close behind Becker. Mace felt a wave of relief as he saw her. He remembered the vulnerability he had seen in her eyes that day at the restaurant. How he had wanted to take care of her. Now that desire was going to be put to the ultimate test.

  As the four of them approached, Mace noticed that the thin man was holding a gun to Rachel’s ribs. Mace’s eyes moved to hers. She was scared, but despite the gun, she managed a smile.

  Slade moved forward, to a position directly in front of Mace while the others stayed back. His face was grim. Then his eyes moved slowly down to the bag at Mace’s feet.

  Mace’s eyes followed.


  “Turn around!” Slade screamed.

  Mace’s eyes flashed up to Slade’s. “What?”

  “Turn around!”

  Slowly Mace did so. This wasn’t part of the act. This hadn’t been choreographed on the phone last night.

  “Hands on the wall.”

  Mace put his hands down on the waist-high cement restraining wall. He gazed down at the ground seven stories below. Slade could throw him over so easily, and then Rachel would be killed. They would bury the bodies, and no one would ever know. He felt Slade’s hands combing his body for a weapon.

  “Turn back around.”

  Slowly Mace rotated back to face the others.

  Slade nodded over his shoulder at Becker. “He’s clean.” He turned back to Mace. “Do you have it?”

  Mace nodded slowly.

  Slade bent down, keeping his eyes on Mace.

  This was it, Mace thought. Slade could end it all now. Trying to push Mace over the restraining wall might have been risky. They had never tested each other physically. They did not know what the other was capable of. At the very least Mace might have been able to pull Slade with him. But Mace had no defense against Slade now.

  Slade unzipped the bag slowly, fumbled through it for a second, and then removed the contents. He rose slowly, his back to Becker, so Becker and the others could not see his hands or what he held.

  Mace eyed Leeny’s gun, which Slade now leveled at his abdomen. This was it, the moment of truth. Slowly Mace brought his eyes back up to Slade’s. There was no emotion on his friend’s face, none at all.

  “Slade!” the waiting general screamed at his soldier.

  Instantly Slade wheeled around, aimed at Ferris, and fired. The Rat Man fell to the ground. Like a big cat, Slade darted behind Becker, and wrapped him in a choke hold with one powerful arm, leveling the handgun at Becker’s head. Becker struggled for a moment, but he was no match for the younger man.

  “Major Conner, release me! Right now!” The general’s eyes were wide open with fear. The expression on his face gave away the terror he felt at the shiny barrel pushed against his temple. “This is treason!”

  Conner paid no attention to Becker but locked him still more tightly in the hold, choking him, venting the hatred that had been building inside him. The man was a criminal, the perpetrator of a heinous crime against the country. And he had respected this man. The veins of Becker’s forehead began to bulge grotesquely as Slade’s grip became even tighter.

  Still holding the bag filled with the information that would damn Becker, Mace sprinted to Rachel and wrapped his arms around her. She held on to him tightly, afraid to let him go. It felt so good to be in those arms again. She had been certain that she would never see him again.

  Seconds later the helicopter dropped down onto the roof of the building, piloted by an old marine friend of Slade’s from the Gulf War.

  As soon as the craft touched down, the passenger door burst open. Slade began to push Becker roughly toward the craft toward the man beckoning from inside. “Come on!” Slade screamed over his shoulder at Mace while he pushed Becker to the side of the craft, bending at the waist when he moved beneath the rotating blades.

  Mace grasped Rachel by the wrist and pulled her toward the craft urgently. He rushed by Slade, who had stopped to handcuff Becker, pushed Rachel into the chopper, and then followed her inside. Slade, having cuffed Becker, pushed the older man toward the passenger door. Together he and Mace forced Becker into the chopper.

  Suddenly the door to the roof burst open, and CIA agents began to pour out of the darkness like aroused hornets from a ground nest. They did not know why their director was being loaded onto the craft like some animal, but they were going to stop the kidnappers if at all possible. Several knelt to fire immediately after making it through the door.

  The pilot of the chopper saw the agents streaming onto the roof immediately and wanted no part of them. He revved the craft’s engines suddenly and directed it upward.

  Just as Slade began crawling into the cabin, the craft pitched forward at the touch of the pilot’s hand on the controls, and his feet slipped out from under him. With both hands he grabbed the landing rod. He hung on to it in desperation, staring up into Mace’s eyes wildly as the craft quickly moved up and away from the roof.

  Mace leaned as far as he could out of the craft, reaching madly for Slade’s wrist. He grabbed for Slade’s fingers—but reached only air.

  The agents’ bullets smacked angrily into the side of the helicopter as it rose, tearing holes in the fuselage as the craft roared quickly away. Only a few more seconds, and they would be out of range of the gunfire, Mace thought. Only a few more seconds, and Slade will be safe. Mace stretched farther out of the door, until he thought that he must fall from the craft. But he almost had a grasp on his friend’s wrist, and then he would be able to pull Slade to safety.

  The bullet tore through Slade’s right shoulder, paralyzing the arm instantly. For a moment Slade was able to hold on to the landing rod with one hand. But the chopper pitched crazily to the side, and his grip was broken. To Mace it seemed that for a moment, even though Slade’s grip had come clear of the landing rod, his friend had remained in the air, suspended in space by some divine force. Then his own huge hand wrapped firmly around the short blond hair of Slade’s left wrist. With one Herculean effort, Mace dragged Slade into the bay of the chopper.

  Mace tumbled backward onto the floor of the helicopter with Slade on top of him. Instantly they sat up, and despite Slade’s shoulder wound, they embraced, laughing and crying at the same time. Then Mace saw Slade’s expression sour, and he glanced quickly over his shoulder toward the front of the helicopter.

  Rachel lay on the floor, grasping her stomach, hands covered with blood. Another bullet had found its target.

  * * *

  —

  Vice President Preston Andrews and his chief of staff, Robin Carruthers, stood on the lawn of the White House as the small helicopter made its descent. At first it was nothing but a speck, but it soon became recognizable.

  Slade Conner had called Robin two hours ago to tell her what had happened, to tell her of Malcolm Becker’s treachery, of Broadway Ventures, of who was responsible for the attack at the Nyack Nuclear Generating Facility. She had listened, in disbelief, but here was the helicopter, just as Slade had told her it would be, coming down at them from the sky. Right on time. And there was the general.

  Mace jumped from the chopper as it was still hovering five feet off the ground. He screamed at the armed guards to help Rachel even as they wrestled him to the ground and handcuffed him, unsure of whether he was friend or foe. But they saw right away that the young woman was in desperate need of assistance, that she had lost a tremendous amount of blood.

  Several other guards wrestled Malcolm Becker from the helicopter, stood him up on the lush grass of the White House lawn, and jostled him to where Preston Andrews stood. For a few moments Andrews simply stared at Becker, saying nothing, his hands clasped behind his back. Then he broke into his candidate smile. “Welcome to the White House, Malcolm, although I’m certain this wasn’t how you intended to get here.”

  * * *

  —

  Lewis Webster slammed the phone down. Where the hell was Becker? He glanced at his watch. Almost five in the afternoon. He had been trying all day to reach the man, but was still coming up empty.

  Something was wrong. Becker hadn’t sounded like himself yesterday when they had spoken briefly. Now he couldn’t raise the man. And Ferris wasn’t around either. He took a deep breath. Perhaps it was time to head to Switzerland—where most of his net worth had been sent over the past few years—and hole up there until he could figure out what was going on.

  The office door creaked opened slowly. As Webster glanced up from his desk, he felt an intense pain shoot through his chest. Mace McLain stood in the doo
rway. Behind him were several unfamiliar men, guns drawn.

  “Good evening, Lewis,” Mace said calmly as he moved into the office followed by four federal marshals.

  Webster stood. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  Mace stopped in front of the huge desk. “You mean those guys?” He pointed back at the marshals.

  “Of course I mean them,” Webster snarled.

  Mace broke into a huge smile. “Funny thing. I just met these guys down on the street. They wanted to see the office of a major Wall Street executive who was about to spend the rest of his life in jail. I said I knew where they could find one. So I invited them up. I hope you don’t mind.”

  The older man’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a cocky bastard. You always were. But you won’t get me. There isn’t anything you can pin on me. One call to my lawyers, and I’ll be out in twenty-four hours. And I’ll never have to go back.”

  “Wrong, Lewis.” Mace’s expression became serious. “These men know everything they need to know, including your part in the conspiracy. And how Becker got you to take part in it.”

  Webster stared into the younger man’s eyes. The conspiracy was dead. He had been able only to delay his date with prison after all, not to avoid it.

  37

  Mace sat stoically in the chair at the end of the huge table, directly opposite Bentley Cox, the new senior partner of Walker Pryce & Company. Cox was not particularly charismatic, but Walker Pryce did not need charisma at the helm right now. It needed someone who could project a strong, stable image to the world outside, a man above reproach. Bentley Cox was that man: a Vietnam veteran, a devoted family man, and a civic leader. He would never be accused of being the brightest man in the world, but that didn’t matter. There were plenty of other rocket scientists at Walker Pryce who could take care of that end.