His face tightened. “I do. I think Hector had backing from rogue elements in the CIA, an agency I dedicated my life to.”
That was the part she found almost impossible to believe. She’d spent her entire adult life in politics and thought she could no longer be surprised by anything but...this surprised her. Shocked her, even, though she’d have said she was unshockable.
Maybe if Jack had said that the Washington Massacre was organized by purple aliens from Aldebaran, she’d have believed it. But the CIA?
If that was true, she was about to get the scoop of a lifetime, but it didn’t excite her. If it was true, it made her sick to her stomach. If it was true, it made her want to take a month long shower then move to a remote hilltop and take a vow of silence.
Jack shook his head sharply, as if getting rid of unwelcome thoughts. “My boss analyzed the data I sent and was quietly carrying out an internal investigation. I stayed in Singapore as long as I could, but of course I had to come home. Dad was announcing his candidacy. I arrived the day before the Massacre. Mom was a little miffed that I cut it so fine, but not too much.”
Jack smiled sadly and Summer understood. Mary Delvaux had spoiled Jack rotten. She wouldn’t have stayed mad at Jack for long. She couldn’t.
“What did you tell her?”
He lifted a massive shoulder. “That I was in the middle of negotiations of an important deal.”
“And the truth?”
His lips tightened. “The truth was that we had just lost our informant as I said, and we were trying to backtrack his movements. I infiltrated Shanghai, stayed as long as I could and flew back on a CIA private jet, though officially I was on Singapore Airlines flight SA 327.”
“So you landed and went straight to the Burrard Hotel?”
“No, I landed and was debriefed by my boss at a safe house. My informant was clear that the Fourth Directorate had moles in the CIA so we had to operate outside the lines of command.”
“You trusted your boss?” Summer asked.
“Absolutely.”
That was good enough for her. Jack might not be an analytical thinker but he grew up in a huge family network and he understood people on an instinctive level. Much better than she did, actually.
“Okay. So you holed up in a safe house. What then?”
“We went through a list of people who could conceivably be moles. Traitors.”
“What were the criteria used?”
“I guess the same for every traitor since the beginning of time. Money. And ideology. Money was the easiest. We found a list of people whose lifestyle had suddenly taken an upward swing.”
Summer frowned. “They spent off-the-books money openly? That’s not smart.”
“No, it’s not.” Jack sighed. “And in most cases, with a little digging we found that most of them inherited some money when their parents died, or they married someone richer than they were or they’d made some decent investments.”
“Not too many good investments in this climate,” Summer said. She had some money from Area 8 she wanted to put in a safe place and she couldn’t find any. Not one. Not one place where she could swear to the investment not being rigged.
“No. But we found people whose extra money made sense. Flipping a good piece of property. Bought shares just before a successful IPO.” He shook his head with a half-smile. “One analyst had starred in five bestselling porno films.”
“Whoa.” Summer tried to wrap her head around that. Around a CIA analyst good-looking enough to star in pornos. Most looked really nerdy—pale and hunched and furtive. Not porno material at all. “How much was she paid?” She bit her lips. “Purely out of curiosity.”
“He.” Jack smiled into her eyes. “And a cool million.”
“Wow. I’m clearly in the wrong business.”
“No.” Jack’s big hand shot out and covered hers, squeezed lightly, then let go. Crazily, her heart gave a massive thump. “It’s a terrible world, like a swamp.”
“As opposed to the good clean fun at the CIA,” she replied testily, angry that her heart would thump at a touch of his hand.
“Touché.” Jack hung his head for a moment and suddenly he looked a thousand years old. Summer was ashamed. He’d lost his family and he’d been through hell. And he’d dedicated his life to an agency that might have betrayed his country.
“Okay.” She blew out a breath, preparing herself for whatever was coming next. She had no doubt that it would be devastating for her and even more devastating for Jack. “So tell me about that night. You and your boss—I’m assuming that would be Hugh Lownie. D/NCS.”
Jack sighed. “The name of the Director of the National Clandestine Service is classified info.”
Summer rolled her eyes. “Jack. Please.” Just because the D/NCS wasn’t on the CIA website didn’t mean that everyone and his dog didn’t know his name.
He sighed again. “Yes. Hugh Lownie.”
Summer nodded. “He died the day after the Massacre. Of a heart attack.”
“He was murdered the day after the Massacre,” Jack responded angrily. “I never got near the body so I don’t know how they faked it, but there was absolutely nothing wrong with Hugh’s heart, in any sense of the word.”
Wow. If Hugh Lownie had been murdered... “The Washington Massacre. Seven hundred dead. And the next day the Director of the National Clandestine Service, who presumably is always well-protected, is killed. This is scary.”
He shot her a glance. “Yeah. Why do you think I’ve been in hiding these past six months? Do you still want to investigate this?”
“Yes.” And she did. “It burns to think of people getting away with the Massacre and with all that followed.”
“The blackout.” Jack nodded. “Going to Defcon III.”
“Yes, but that’s not all of it. Over three trillion dollars were drained from the US economy after the Massacre. That’s not well known, but it almost collapsed several major industries and plunged us into another recession. You’ve been undercover and probably missed it.”
“I haven’t missed it,” he said grimly. “If ever there was a time to go undercover as a homeless person, it’s now. You have no idea how many formerly middle class people are begging on the streets. The couple of times I slept in shelters I slept next to teachers and nurses and office workers who’d lost their jobs and couldn’t find another one.”
It was another reason she couldn’t let go of the Massacre story. Not only had so many died, but so many suffered economically. “Okay. Let’s backtrack a second. Whatever your Chinese CI told you wasn’t enough to stay away from the rally?”
Jack stiffened, sitting up ramrod straight, staring narrow-eyed at her. “Do you honestly think that if I’d had a clue, even the slightest intimation, that they were going to shoot down everyone at my father’s rally and then blow up the Burrard, I wouldn’t have stopped the whole thing? Forced my father to call it off?”
She was ashamed of herself. Of course. Any idea at all of the real plans—plans that included his family in the crosshairs—and he’d have intervened. “I’m sorry, Jack,” she said sincerely. “That was amazingly stupid of me. Of course you would have.”
He blew out a breath and narrowed his eyes. “You’re still seeing me as the skirt-chasing asshole who wasn’t thinking much beyond the next woman and the next beer. I hardly remember him.”
Bingo. Well, he certainly looked different from the lightweight womanizer she’d known. Different gaze, different vibe. Almost a different person. “So tell me about that night,” she said quietly.
“My parents fought right up until they arrived at the Burrard. The rumors that they were fighting were right. But they were fighting because my mom was terrified of losing my dad. The parallels to Jack Kennedy were startling.”
Including the enormous, a
ttractive family. Summer nodded. “But on the podium your mom looked thrilled.”
He smiled faintly, sadly. “She was a real trouper. Once he declared, she was going to ask for leave from her job and work like a mule for him. She said if she couldn’t change his mind, then she was going to do her damnedest to see he got what he wanted. And she would have smiled every minute of every day of his presidency and then heaved a huge sigh of relief when his term was over.”
Alex Delvaux, President. Summer was more aware than most of the forks life took and she’d trained herself to never look back, ever. So with Alex Delvaux dead, she’d simply carried on. But now she took a moment to imagine him as president. He’d been a good man, an honorable man. But really smart with it, too, and deeply dedicated to the protection of the environment. It wasn’t just lip service. He’d have battled the coal and oil lobbies with every fiber of his being and he’d have swayed people. He had the gift of communication. He’d have left the country a better place. Right now, the loss of his presidency shook her.
“He’d have made such a great president,” she said quietly.
Jack nodded, eyes glistening. “He would have, yes. And the country would be a different place. So believe me when I say that I will find who was behind the Massacre if I have to die trying, because I lost not only my father and my entire family except for Isabel, but the country lost a great leader. A man who would have made a difference.”
“That night,” she reminded him, throat tight.
He nodded. “Okay. That night. I arrived late. My mom had called twenty times. I ended up just switching my cell off. But not my work cell. Hugh and I had spent the day going over possible traitors and it was sad how many people in the Company I wouldn’t put a hand to the fire and swear that they were loyal. At the last minute, I called a cab to pick up me a few blocks from the safe house. I knew they’d be running late at the Burrard anyway. My dad was many things, but punctual wasn’t one of them.”
“The announcement was slated for 7:30.” That had been in the press briefing.
“Yeah, but like I said, they were running really late. I got to the podium, hugged my parents and Isabel and the twins and my phone started ringing.”
“Presumably the one Hugh gave you and not the other one.”
He dipped his head. “The one Hugh gave me. I felt it vibrate and I knew something was up. I’d left him less than an hour before, why would he be calling when he knew I was at my dad’s rally?”
Summer could see it. She leaned forward on her elbows. “He’d just found something out. Something that you had to know as soon as possible.”
“He’d discovered something, that was for sure. I walked out of the auditorium because I couldn’t hear him. There were people shouting and the rally music was playing really loud on speakers. Not even my goddamned ear buds could filter out the noise. We couldn’t hear each other, so he switched off and sent me a text.”
“You remember what that text was?”
He speared her with his glare. “You think I could ever forget? He texted Get out of there. Run. Hide. Now. And then the phone went dead. But whatever Hugh thought was going to happen, I wasn’t leaving without my family. I was running back to them when I heard shots fired. AK-47s. A lot of them. A firefight, in a crowded auditorium. Hugh had insisted I attend unarmed. I broke land speed records trying to get back to my family.”
Summer was watching his eyes, brilliant blue, blood-shot whites. “So you saw—” she whispered.
“Everything.” His jaws clenched. “I saw fucking everything. They doused the lights but there were candles everywhere. I saw. Men in ski masks opening fire on the crowd, working from the back to the front. They took care of security first. Amateurs, I don’t know who hired them. My dad wouldn’t have Secret Service protection until he declared so some bozo on his staff hired some clowns. They went down immediately. The attackers just mowed them down. They were the first to go. The rest—it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Ridiculously easy. The fuckers met with no resistance at all.”
She held her breath. She could almost see the scene, smell the blood.
“People were screaming. The assaulters were efficient. In the time it took me to run into the auditorium, their work was almost done. I was running flat out when they got to the podium.”
The podium. Where his family was. Not only his close family but aunts, uncles, cousins. God.
Jack’s head hung down. She saw the stubble on the top of his head, the sharp blade of nose and jutting cheekbones as he stared at the tabletop.
“In a few minutes it was over. I couldn’t see Isabel. I saw my father and mother turn to shield my brothers, arms outstretched. But it was useless. They fell in a heap. A bloody mass of flesh and bones exploding. Dead in an instant.”
He stared at his hands, still and calm, though a vein beat fast in his temple.
He was silent so long she finally spoke. “And then?”
“And then the whole place blew up. I found out later charges had been placed around the ballroom. No one knows how that could have happened.”
Summer knew. “Hector Blake was a silent partner in the Burrard. He owned a controlling share. Personnel later testified that there was a lot of unscheduled maintenance work the week before.”
Jack’s head lifted. “Is that true?”
She nodded somberly. Something else to lay at Blake’s door. “It was hushed up. One of the waiters spoke to me and I recorded his testimony but when I checked back with him, he was nowhere to be found. When I asked, no one knew where he was and there was no record of his ever having worked there. The Burrard staff was let go, of course, the hotel simply shut down. Someone said they thought my waiter had gone back to Costa Rica but no one was sure. I don’t publish supposition. The rule of Area 8 is that nothing is published without two pieces of corroboration. And all I had was the video of the interview. I didn’t even realize what I had until later, when I started putting the pieces together.”
Jack’s jaw tightened. “When I woke up in the rubble it was pitch black and I was completely disoriented. I couldn’t remember where I was, who I was. At first I thought I’d died, but not gone to heaven.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “It didn’t occur to me that I might have gone to heaven, not after the last fifteen years in war zones. And it felt like hell, too. Hot, black, stinking of cordite and blood and death.”
Her heart hurt to think of Jack stumbling in the darkness, covered in rubble, disoriented, grieving. “Were you wounded?”
“Concussed. Broken wrist. Lacerations and contusions. I’d inhaled a ton of cement dust.” He looked down at his left arm and for the first time she noticed scar tissue and a slightly crooked wristbone. Had he had no medical treatment at all?
She had a sudden vision of him, having watched his family mown down by machine gun fire, wounded in the blast, lurching out of the Burrard into darkness. Tentatively, she touched his wrist, feeling ropy scar tissue and hard muscle.
Jack sighed and put a big hand over hers. He looked weary beyond belief. She remembered in a rush that just a few days ago he’d been in Portland, that he’d been there as Hector Blake had drowned.
So many questions.
Jack had gone silent, staring at his big hand over hers, a million miles away.
Summer understood trauma, understood bad memories. They had to work their way through your system, like shrapnel works its way out through the skin from deep muscle tissue. She said nothing and waited.
Finally, Jack stirred.
“What happened after the Massacre?” she asked quietly. “How did you get away?”
“There was the blackout.” Jack’s mouth tightened. “And our cells were jammed. You had to get a hundred yards away before reception started. It was total chaos outside the Burrard. The only lights were the ambulance headlights but they had overestimated the
survivors.”
“They had to ship body bags up from Fort Detrick,” she said. A source had told her that. There had been pitifully few survivors. “Did you see Isabel?”
He nodded. “Yeah. With that last message from Hugh I knew I had to get out, but first I made sure that the medics loaded Isabel onto an ambulance. I was covered in dust and I kept my head down. Security cams had been taken offline.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and swallowed. “I thought—” His voice had gone tight and he waited a moment. “I thought at first she was dead. She was on a gurney and she was so...white. And still. God.”
He’d seen his entire family killed. Isabel would have been his last family member. “I can imagine how you felt,” she said quietly. She herself had never had anything like a family structure around her and her parents had never paid her much attention. They’d been feckless druggies. But she’d lived among the Delvauxes and she’d seen happy families. They were like multiple organisms with one beating heart. The Delvauxes had been closer than most families. “But she wasn’t dead.”
“No.” Jack shook his head. “She wasn’t. Though she was badly injured. The medic said her pupils were unresponsive to light. I made sure I knew where she was being taken and left her in the ambulance. Hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“You needed to investigate,” Summer said. “Particularly when you knew something was coming and the Massacre was it.”
“Yeah. I needed to disappear. No one looks for a dead man. Once out of range of the jammer, I called Hugh and he said to meet him at the safe house. That he had proof of who was behind the Massacre.”
“Proof?” Her journalist part of her brain pinged. “He had proof? Why didn’t he—”
“Because he was killed,” Jack growled. “With the blackout and all traffic lights out, the streets were jammed. I ended up running to the safe house through the dark city. Took me four hours. When I got there I waited for Hugh, but he never showed up. He was killed right after the Massacre, right after talking to me, in fact. They said it was a heart attack but it wasn’t. His body was never autopsied, either.”
Midnight Fire Page 5