The End Game

by Catherine Coulter

  He shot her a grin with a raised eyebrow, his teeth shiny white against his soot-black skin. “Have I ever told you you’re fierce?”

  She gave a small laugh. “You want to tell me what you mean by that?”

  “Let’s say if you were my mom, I’d know to my core you’d keep me safe.”

  She felt a warm glow all the way to her belly. “Thank you.”

  Once over the bridge, he said, “What’s the fastest way to your place?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Well, yes, of course. Despite the three agents, we’re going to make certain Mr. Hodges is safe and sound and hasn’t thought of anything else useful. But if Zachery finds out, I’m telling him it was all your idea.”

  10

  PAWN TO D5

  Richard Hodges’s house

  Bayonne, New Jersey

  Nicholas retraced their steps to Bayonne. Mike, her face set, stared back at the burning refinery.

  “We weren’t in time, Mike, but we did good. Are you all right? No broken bones you’re keeping from me?”

  “No, nothing,” she said, still staring back.

  “I ask because you’re practically vibrating.”

  Mike gingerly pressed the ice pack back to her cheek. “Yeah, I guess I am. I’d like to hit something. I hate what we saw tonight. So much death, so much destruction.”

  He gave a humorless laugh. “I feel precisely the same way.”

  She turned to face him, drawing her legs up on the seat. “I’m sorry, of course this would remind you of your past as well.”

  Some things were better left unsaid, so he simply shook his head. “You’ve seen this kind of destruction before?”

  So he didn’t want to talk about the huge betrayal in Kabul. She knew enough. She said, “My dad was in Oklahoma for work when McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. I was ten. I spent hours watching it on television, and when he came home, he showed me some of the pictures his team had taken, not of dead children, of course, even though I knew of their deaths, just as I knew he’d taken out many of the really bad photos, but it was still too much. All of it brought about by a misguided madman.

  “I was sixteen when Nine-Eleven happened.” Her voice rose, and she smacked the dashboard with her closed fist. “These sons-of-bitches and their bombs and attacks, it still makes me so mad I knew if I had them in front of me, I’d blow off their worthless heads.” She sucked in her breath, knew her blood pressure had spiked to the stratosphere. “Sorry, but it really pisses me off. Unlike you, I haven’t ever been in the middle of it, but I’ve seen enough.”

  “Is this why you became a copper?”

  “Not really. You know my dad’s a cop, so I knew the life, knew I wanted it. Dad was all for it. But my mom, do you know she’s still known in Omaha as the Gorgeous Rebecca? Yes, Nicholas, unhoist your eyebrow. Mom was a beauty queen, Miss Nebraska, as a matter of fact. My mom the beauty queen had great plans for me, her only daughter. She wanted me to be some sort of model or maybe a movie star, although I could never act my way out of a paper bag, or maybe marry a rich guy and have beautiful kids. But even as a bratty teenager, I never gave her vision of my future serious thought.” She paused. “When I was accepted to Yale, she decided maybe a highfalutin education would be just the ticket. She saw me marrying some eastern politico, I think.

  “But she’s come around, likes to talk about her daughter, the FBI special agent who lives in New York City. She and Dad come to town at least once a year and see an endless round of Broadway shows and eat at fancy restaurants where all the waiters gawk at my mom, and my dad just sits there, shaking his head, and grinning.”

  “You look like your mom?”

  “Ha. In my dreams, but I guess I look like her more than Dad. And she still looks like my older sister.”

  “And then there’s your younger brother, Timmy, who also lives here in New York. You said he’s a wannabe actor, right?”

  Where were all these coming from? To distract her, Mike realized. He was good, she had to admit it. “Timmy—well, he’s another matter entirely.” And she shut it down, as he had before.

  Nicholas saw that she was relaxing, that she was rebooting, getting back her balance. “And then you went to the FBI Academy and blew everyone away. Yes, I read your dossier. You made the New York CID office at twenty-six, one of the youngest agents to fill such a position. From personal experience I can add that you’re pretty hot stuff, Agent Caine.”

  Hot stuff? She’d rather be fierce. “How in the world did you get ahold of my personnel file?” She smacked his arm, his bare arm, which was as black as his face. “You and your hacker talent. Don’t whine, you deserved the punch.”

  “Well, that, plus your instructors in Quantico loved to talk about you. I think you might have broken a couple of hearts. Believe me, I grilled them, since no way I wanted to be partnered with a slacker. They said you were pretty good, Agent Caine. Actually, Mr. Filbert, the shooting range supervisor, said I’d have to bust my butt to keep up with you.”

  “Those instructors, Mr. Filbert especially, they’re jokers, experts at spotting gullible marks, plus you’re the freaking Brit who rescued the Koh-i-Noor diamond. They figured you had to be full of yourself and wanted to cut you down to size. Trust me, they were putting you on. Now, talk about making his bones at the Academy, you walked away with an award or two yourself.”

  “Only one.” That got him a smile. At last.

  But the laughter died a quick death when Mike looked out the window yet again to see the orange plume of flame still reaching into the sky.

  He said quietly, “We’re going to stop them, Mike. They don’t stand a chance against the two of us.”

  He reached over and took her hand, gave it a squeeze.

  He rocked with surprise when she said, in the most vicious voice he’d ever heard, “If Reeves isn’t dead when we find him, I’m going to slam his ass up against the wall, maybe knee him a couple of times to show him how serious I am, and he’s going to split right open and tell us everything in that pea brain of his.”

  That’s my girl. “Remind me not to get on your bad side. See, like I told you—fierce.”

  Five minutes later, Nicholas pulled in front of Richard Hodges’s house. It was quiet. No lights were on. No draperies twitched, no shadows moved into defensive positions because of an unscheduled visitor. Even the air had stilled. The silence was eerie.

  Both of them went on red alert. Mike already had her Glock in her hand, and fear in her belly.

  She whispered, “Do you think maybe they already moved him to a safe house?”

  He didn’t answer, he was calling it in, speaking low. He hung up, shook his head. They stepped quietly to the red front door. Nicholas tried the knob. The door opened easily. Not good. He mouthed, One, two, three, and they went in.

  11

  QUEEN TO B3

  On the road to Brooklyn

  Matthew drove like a Sunday grandmother, always on the alert for cops.

  Vanessa turned in the seat to face him. “Matthew, talk to me. Do you think Darius died in the fire?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t worry about Darius.”

  Everything inside her sharpened to pinpoint focus. The way he’d said those words. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “You might as well know. Darius is alive and well and moving into position for our next step. He’s done everything I asked tonight.”

  Or you did everything Darius asked? She felt pounding rage; she wanted to tear his throat out. No, she had to be calm, she had to keep it together, she had to find out what was going on. Next step of what?

  Time to try the spurs. “I see. First, you didn’t bother to tell me that you were going to test out your bombs tonight and kill people, and then second, you didn’t bother to tell me Darius was just fine, thank you? This s
mall detail somehow slipped that genius brain of yours? I laid on that hill for an hour waiting for him to come out, watching the dead and the injured being ambulanced out, and it was all for nothing because you couldn’t be bothered to tell me?” He looked taken aback. She poured on more, slammed her fist on the seat. “Didn’t it occur to you that I could have been taken? The FBI was there, and wouldn’t they have done a happy dance if they’d nabbed me? Why didn’t you tell me, Matthew? About the bomb? That you’d finally perfected it? That you were going to test it out? About Darius? Why?”

  He had the gall to laugh at her. “Oh, I perfected it a while back. What, are you jealous, Vanessa?”

  “No, you moron. What I am is sick and tired of being kept out of the loop, always trying to prove myself, which I have, over and over, always trying to make you trust me. I’ve done everything you wanted and done it well, yet you treat me like some sort of outsider.

  “Then Darius shows up with a bag of money and you fall all over him. Who is he? Do you even know? I know, I know, I’ve heard his rhetoric—he hates the terrorists as much as you do, wants them to choke on their oil. I’ve heard the both of you having a cursefest against them, but so what? I’m your bomb maker. I’ve been with you since Belfast when Ian brought us together. You always said you needed me because this bomb you were building—you weren’t going to use it because you didn’t want to take any chances you might hurt someone, you wanted it for leverage, to force our government into stopping oil imports.

  “So what happened, Matthew? Darius changed your mind, obviously. Where is Darius and what is he doing? What are you two planning?”

  His hand shot out and gripped her knee, hard. She felt equal parts surprise and pain. Should she break his hand? She wanted to, but she didn’t move, said only, her voice perfectly calm, “You’re hurting me.”

  “I need to make my point clear, apparently. You are a soldier, Vanessa, my soldier, to be told where to go and what to do. Don’t you understand? We are at war with radical Islam, with all the jihadist fanatics who would destroy our world and us with it. I had to make a big point tonight that if our country continues to import their freaking oil, they’re as bad as the terrorists. And I made it, and it’s about time I made it.

  “And like you said, sweetheart, I didn’t search you out, Ian brought you to me, promised me you wanted in, promised me you were good.”

  “And you trust Ian. You worked with him for years. Why don’t you trust me? Ian does. Even crazy Andy does. You didn’t search out Darius, either. He came to you, like I did.”

  “Come on, Vanessa, you told me yourself you wanted a chance to right the wrongs, to mete out well-deserved punishment to the terrorists and those fools who import their oil. I’m the leader of our group and what I do with Darius is none of your business. I make the decisions, select the targets, whip up the media and hopefully the public. Not you. You do what I tell you to do. Do you understand me?”

  Had Darius pumped him up into this little Hitler? “I’m not your enemy, Matthew. Why are you treating me like one? After three months together, we were getting close, but then Darius showed up and everything started to change. You were closeted together for hours at a time. Some of the guys wondered if you were cozying up, screwing your brains out.”

  He laughed. “No one thinks that; you’re making it up because you’re pissed at me. Darius didn’t want to screw me, he wanted to screw you, but you didn’t screw around with any of us, including me, even though you know as well as I do we’d be good together.”

  Where had he gotten this scenario?

  “You want to know what I told him? ‘Good luck, man, but know she’d yank out your eyeballs if you tried to force things.’ So, tell me, Vanessa, did Darius have the nerve to try anything with you?”

  “Yes, once. I left his eyeballs intact. That’s not important, it was nothing.” Try again, try again. “Matthew, listen to me. I’ve worked hard for you and the cause, done everything you’ve ever asked, and more. Stop treating me like this. Other than Ian and Andy, I’m your only friend. Not Darius, and if you believe he gives a crap about you, you’re as crazy as Andy. He’s using you; he’s manipulating you. He has his own agenda, you’re simply too blind to see it. Or he’s blinded you too much to see it. Or he’s got you to buy into what he wants to do. And tonight? It was really your idea, Matthew? Or his?”

  “Enough of your whining. COE is not about friendship or lovers. It is not about trust. We’re on a mission, and we each have our jobs to do. Get in line, Vanessa, or you’ll regret it.” More Hitler.

  Now he was threating to kill her? Then, fast as lightning, he grinned, his hand once again on her knee, now caressing rather than hurting.

  “Come on, babe, you’re getting all upset for no reason. You’re special, Vanessa. I’ve never said otherwise. You know I care about you. You’re a great talent, easy on the eyes, too, and you’re fun to be with, until now anyway. Be patient, okay? You’ll come around because you’ll see the payoff is worth it. Then who knows? Maybe you and I can have some time together. Maybe I’ll tell you everything you could ever want to know.”

  He’d turned on a dime. He’d done it before, but never this fast, this radically. What has that monster made you? Who are you now, Matthew?

  But she couldn’t let him see she was both afraid and killer angry. She said nothing more.

  • • •

  In another twenty minutes, in the dead of night, Matthew parked the car in the derelict lot next to the building—a car repair shop with an apartment on the second floor. It was a dump, but perfect for his uses. He looked over at Vanessa, still and silent, and got out of the car. He looked up at their darkened apartment, above the auto repair shop with its smelly bays. The whole place stank of gasoline and oil and old sandwiches and dirty men, but it was out of the way, and the owner of the shop had been more than happy to take the wad of cash Matthew had pressed into his greasy palm and shut down the business for an extended European vacation.

  Matthew hoped the owner was enjoying himself, since if it came down to it, if necessary, he’d have Andy torch the building, and whoosh, no more business.

  He hoped all his other men were cozied in their three different assigned motels in Brooklyn, none more than a mile away from here.

  He didn’t like Vanessa’s silence. He knew she was pissed, sulking, but he also felt it was something more. This silence of hers—after a bombing, she was usually on top of the world, but not tonight. Well, things had changed. She’d get used to it. She’d come around. Then he realized that Ian, Andy, all of the men were quiet after Bayway and all the deaths. No, he realized they’d all been on edge before tonight, and he understood now it was because of Darius. He knew all Ian’s men were afraid of Darius, and they were right to be. Matthew knew there was a killing lust in Darius that ran deep, and was as automatic as a snake striking out.

  No, it would be all right. They would stick to the plan, the grand plan he and Darius had devised.

  But still, Matthew worried about Ian, his best friend, the one man he’d trusted for so long. He thought of those long-ago days when the two of them had traveled through Europe, guns and bombs in their backpacks, targeting those electrical grids and oil refineries that relied heavily on Middle Eastern oil. But now he’d come to see that destroying them in his perfectly executed little bombings had been petty, nearly meaningless in the grand scheme of things, and they hadn’t accomplished very much at all.

  But Darius had showed him the way, the new way, and he wanted it so bad he could taste it, the final revenge for his family. Close, so close now. No looking back, only forward, ever forward. He and Darius would stop the madness once and for all, and because of them the world would change. It made him tremble to think about what he was going to do. And he felt, deep down, where it counted most, fear and pride and a sense of infallibility. What he would do was righteous.

  He called Vanessa to
help him. Silently, they unloaded the car, pulled a dirty tarp over it, and placed a large rock on the hood so it blended in with the other cars on the dingy repair lot, and then went up the oily, stinking stairs to the apartment. It was the middle of the night, no one to see them.

  There were blackout curtains on the windows, a good thing, because inside, the apartment pulsed with gleaming monitors and equipment that took up every available flat surface, their screens glowing blue in the night. Andy Tate, firebug and computer expert, too young to be as crazy as he was, always wired, no coffee necessary, was leaning back in a broken leather chair, his legs crossed on top of the kitchen table, alternately playing with a Zippo lighter and eating an apple.

  He saw them, raised a fist, and shouted, “I am the master of the universe!”

  Matthew felt his heart pound as he hurried over to him. “Does that mean you’re in?”

  “Tango down, bitches. Oh, yeah, dude, I pulled down their drawers and slipped it right in. My baby has already infected all the terminals and servers, corrupted all their precious files. I have control of the master boot records. Everything’s offline and I should have all the data downloaded in another hour, two tops. They won’t know what hit them. They’ll be scrambling for days trying to track us, and we’ll be long gone, with everything we need in place.”

  “Good. Good. Well done, Andy.” He turned to Vanessa. “Go shower and start packing. We leave as soon as Andy has the information downloaded.”

  She gave him an emotionless look and went down the narrow hallway, fear scoring deep at Andy’s announcement. This, at least, she’d known about, but now it was reality. Andy had gotten into all the major oil companies’ computer systems. Truth be told, she hadn’t imagined he’d be able to do it. Well, she’d been dead wrong. She had to send in an alert right away that it was no longer a plan, it was done. It would happen.

  She nearly ran into Ian as he came out of the bedroom, his hair still wet from his shower. He gave her a loud smacking kiss on each cheek, hugged her tight.