Her life had been ruined in more ways than one. And why?
There was no way in hell she’d offended someone, or done something wrong that could have brought this level of revenge raining down on her head. She simply hadn’t been powerful enough.
And as for doing something this past year—it was impossible. She’d spent three months in a coma and then nine months basically in the house, with music and her books for company, seeing no one but her doctors.
And yet, and yet. A monster was on her tail, wanting her devastated, wanting her dead.
The only way out of this was to find out who was behind all this violence and why.
The only good thing to come out of this whole mess was that electric jolt of white-hot anger coursing through her body. She had no tools and no help outside gallant former Gunnery Sergeant Dan Weston. But they had his courage and strategic ability and she had her mind back again. Anger was already firing her synapses, like a super computer, powering up. Whoever the hell this guy was, he’d raised the stakes so high that she had to get to the bottom of this or die. Because otherwise he’d kill her first.
Rage was going to have to be her super power.
“There he is,” Dan murmured. Claire hadn’t recognized any of the streets they travelled down. When Dan pulled into a side street along a small park, she had no idea where they were. The park had streetlights ringing it. One streetlight was broken. Under it, a pickup was parked.
Dan parked behind the pickup and got out. A man was leaning against the front fender of the pickup, straightening up when Dan got out of his SUV. Claire followed.
“Hey man.” The gave each other those hard manly thumps on the back that would have staggered her. Dan looked up at the dark streetlight. Claire could see that the big halogen bulb was broken. “Good thinking, bro.”
Dan reached for Claire, grasping her hand. Then he put his arm around her shoulders and gathered her to him as he turned to the other man. The body language was very clear. This is my woman. The other man acknowledged that with a sober nod of his head.
He was as physically unlike Dan as it was possible to be. Tall, whippy thin, with eyes so pale blue they looked white, and a light blond crewcut so severe he looked bald. And yet the two of them shared a look—tough and competent and hard. Not men to be messed with in any way. Good men to have at your back.
“Claire, I want you to meet Jesse Conn. Jesse, Claire Day.”
“Ma’am.” Jesse took her hand in his big, raw-boned one and squeezed gently. “Pleased to meet you.” He came from somewhere in the deepest, deepest South. The “ma’am” had at least eight syllables in it.
“Jesse,” Claire smiled. She looked swiftly up at Dan then back at him. “I think we’re going to be needing your help.”
“Yes, ma’am. Dan’s like a brother to me. I’ll help you bury the bodies.”
She laughed. “That won’t be necessary. To tell you the truth, we came very close to being the bodies, but we’re here, thanks to Dan.”
“Roger that.” The pale eyes flicked over to his friend. “Nothing will happen to you, ma’am, as long as Dan is alive.”
It was a nice thought. But Dan was one man, made of flesh and blood. One man, however good, was not going to stop an army. They had to get to the origin of the monstrous shadowy force. They couldn’t win this blind.
“So, man,” Jesse said to Dan, “what’s up?”
Dan told him, concisely and clearly. He was obviously used to giving field sitreps. As he talked, a furrow etched itself between Jesse’s brows.
“Bad juju, bro.”
Dan nodded. “Yeah. We don’t know who’s after us, and we don’t know why. We just know he’s got major resources and we’re going to have to regroup until we can get ourselves more intel. So we’re going to need the cabin for a while. I don’t know for how long.”
Jesse was already digging into his jeans pocket and pulling out a set of keys, together with a wad of bills. All hundreds, from what Claire could see. “I thought you might. Cabin’s a good place to go to ground. Stay as long as you need it. There’s some basic foodstuffs there, but there’s a small grocery store about ten miles down the road. Bill’s a good guy. If someone comes sniffing around asking for you, he won’t talk.”
Dan took the keys and the money. “Thanks, man. Appreciate it. I’ll get the money back to you. I’ve got some with me but I don’t know what we’ll be needing and they could trace a credit card.”
Jesse shrugged. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. Call—no, stop by Roxanne’s and tell her to go visit her mother in Chicago for a few days. Tell her to buy a ticket on the company account and not come back until I send word. Her husband’ll understand. He’d be the first not to want her in the line of fire.”
Oh God, Claire thought. Roxanne. Gentle, kind Roxanne, possibly in danger because of her. And Dan’s business. It hadn’t even occurred to her what the cost to Dan would be. He was involved in her mess now. For the duration, until they figured this out, his company had to grind to a halt. She knew enough about the business world to understand what that meant. Angry customers who would never come back, advances that would have to be repaid, new customers finding an empty office.
Dan glanced at her quickly, then did a double take as if reading her mind. He frowned and shook his head slightly. Don’t worry about it.
Jesse nodded. “Count on it. That it?”
“Yeah, we’re good to—“
“No,” Claire said crisply.
Going to ground wasn’t going to help them uncover what was behind all this. Until they knew, they were vulnerable. Prey. She turned to Jesse.
“I’m going to need a laptop, mine was stolen. It has to be top-of-the-line. I don’t need encryption, I can download a good app for that, but it’ll have to be preloaded with a good spreadsheet program. I don’t need Word, Google docs will do. Then I need a Thuraya satellite phone. Buy it anonymously. Or put down a false name as the purchaser.” Thuraya phones were run by a company headquartered in Saudi Arabia and their phone records were sealed to the end of time. Not even the NSA could penetrate. It was the phone drug lords and terrorists used. And now Claire Day.
She opened her purse and had a sharp pang of pain. The breath simply whooshed out of her lungs as she looked inside. Wallet with a little cash and credit cards and ATM card, cosmetics case, keys to a burned husk of a home, flash drive, passport, day planner with a year of blank pages.
It was everything she owned. The only personal possessions she had left in the world. There was nothing else.
It would all have to be reconstituted, together with her broken-down self.
Claire Day 2.0.
She slid out her ATM card and held it out to Jesse. “Here. The PIN is 2153. I have a special arrangement with my bank and I can take out up to a thousand dollars a day. Put on a baseball cap with the longest bill you can find, the thickest coat you own to disguise your silhouette and wear sunglasses. I’d like for you to drive as far as you can away from where we’re going and take the money out in $200 increments from five different machines. Space the ATMs as far as possible. Don’t choose them on a vector, but mix up the locations. And tomorrow morning, do the same. Take out another thousand in two hundred dollar amounts. Dan, give me your ATM, too.”
He already had his out. Jesse took it. “PIN’s 7310,” Dan said before Claire asked.
“Do the same with Dan’s ATM card, only in different places.”
“You won’t have far to go,” Dan said wryly. “Unlike Claire, I can’t take out more than $300 a day.”
“Well then, Jesse should at least split it into two withdrawals of $150 each. Don’t let the security cameras catch your face, Jesse. They usually have a 45° angle, so from 7 feet out, make sure your face is as covered as possible. Come to think of it, do you have a laser light?”
Jesse nodded, frowning.
“Good. Use ATMs that are deserted. Shine the laser light in the security camera as soon as you get c
lose enough, it’ll wipe the camera out, drive them crazy. And wear gloves. They’re going to be checking the security cameras of the ATMs and if there’s one where there is very little traffic, they’ll try to pick up some prints. Meet us tomorrow morning in a place only the two of you know about with my computer and Thuraya phone and make sure you’re not followed.”
Jesse was staring at her, slack-jawed, then closed his mouth with a snap. “Yes, ma’am.” He blinked at Dan.
Dan shrugged. “DIA,” he said, as if that explained everything.
“Ah, a spook.” Jesse looked at Dan and Claire. “Okay. There’s a diner twenty miles east of the cabin on the county road. It doesn’t have security cameras and the owner’s a former Marine. Buddy of mine. Let’s meet there at noon tomorrow. I’ll bring the money and the computer and the satphone.” He addressed Claire directly. “Anything else?”
“Yes.” Claire looked down at herself. “Go to one of the big box stores and get us a change of clothes. Several changes. Go for warmth because we don’t know what’s going to happen and where we’ll be going. Get me a couple of short-sleeved and long-sleeved tee shirts and two wool turtleneck sweaters and two fleece hoodies. Track suit pants, that way you don’t need to worry about sizes. Just get a small everything. Warm boots, size six and a half. And buy me a parka.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Can you buy women’s underwear?”
His eyes rounded and he took a step back as if she’d asked him to French kiss a rattlesnake. “No, ma’am.”
Claire sighed. Pity. Though God knew what he’d choose. She was a fanatic about nice underwear, but sending Jesse into a la Perla store would probably give him a heart attack. She’d just have to wash her undies until they got to a clothes shop without security cameras. If such a thing even existed. “Can you buy clothes for Dan, too?”
He nodded his head energetically. “Yes, ma’am. That I can do. From the skin out.”
Well, at least Dan would have new underwear.
“You need weapons?” Jesse asked Dan.
Dan shook his head. “No, I’m good. I’ve got my Springfield and my Desert Eagle in the Cherokee. And a long gun in the back. Plenty of ammo, too.”
Jesse looked more settled now that he was back on familiar terrain. “Check the gun locker in the cabin. There’s plenty of firepower there if you find you need it, plus a couple of K-bars, just in case. I’d like to bring in Frank Rizzo and Dave Sawyer. We might be needing some manpower here. They’re good men to have at your back.”
Claire was alarmed. Any new element could be dangerous, a way for their unseen enemy to hone in on them. “Is there some institutional tie there? Between you and Dan and Frank and Dave? Something someone can trace? Anything linking you guys up?”
Jesse looked uneasy. “Well, yeah. We were all in the same battalion. Dan and I were stationed in Okinawa together and Frank and Dave and I were in Guatemala.”
“Can someone trace that connection?” Claire glanced at Dan, then Jesse. “Whoever is after us can probably access military records. How many former Marines do you think are in the greater Washington area?”
“Well, that’s easy,” Jesse said. “I’m head of the Jarhead Club. There are about 500 former Marines in a radius of about a hundred miles. I think that should muddy the waters a little.”
It would. She hoped. “Can you contact them in a secure way? Untraceable? I don’t think they’d be able to follow every retired Marine, but maybe they could follow every retired Marine who was in Dan’s battalion.”
Jesse nodded, face grim. “I’ll make sure the contacts are secure. Good point.”
“Claire.” Dan put his arm around her waist. She leaned back for just a second, just long enough to feel that solid chest against her back. The rage that had welled up had fired her with energy, but the adrenalin was depleting and she felt exhausted. “We should be going,” Dan said gently. He looked at Jesse. “Thanks for everything.”
Jesse waved at him as he got back into his own vehicle. “See you tomorrow at the diner. I’ll bring your gear and the money.” He drove off and silence settled over the little park.
It would soon be first light; the sky would turn pewter in the east. The residential area was dark and quiet. Claire simply stood for a moment, her back resting against Dan, trying to gather the energy to do the next thing, whatever that was.
Dan turned her around, dropped a quick kiss on her mouth, then steered her to his vehicle. “We need to get going,” he said, his deep voice low. “Jesse’s cabin is about six hours away.”
“Where is it? Can someone track it down?”
He answered while switching on the engine.
“The cabin’s about forty miles from New Hope, Pennsylvania. It’s in real rugged country, the last two miles to get to the cabin are hardly more than a rutted track. You need a four-wheel drive when it rains. And no, nobody can find it. Jesse’s stepfather left it to him, but the title never changed. No one would ever contest it, so Jesse just left it. And Jesse’s mom and stepfather had a common law marriage, so even if someone knew about Jesse, they couldn’t trace the property to him. The cabin was never declared so on paper it’s just a piece of swampland. Jesse’s stepfather was a Vietnam vet and paranoid as hell, so he went into the deed office in New Hope and when no one was looking, he changed the coordinates.”
Paranoid, huh? As opposed to Dan, who kept CIA-level security in his home, together with a small arsenal.
Still, Dan’s paranoia was the reason she was alive. She wasn’t going to quibble.
They were driving down deserted streets, starting to exit the city limits. There was something hypnotic about watching Dan drive. He obviously felt no one was following them, because he wasn’t doing the incredible stunt-driving gyrations he’d gone into on the way to meet Jesse. His driving now was smooth and steady, movements precise, like clockwork.
The sound of the powerful engine was muted by the bodywork which she now knew was armoured. And no doubt the windows were bullet-resistant. It gave the cabin the feel of an airplane. She loved flying, and right now, it was like being utterly safe in a plane, in the hands of a pro at 35,000 feet.
Safe. Warm. Watching the buildings become spaced farther and farther apart, with long stretches of woodland in between.
Her eyes drooped.
A slight whir and the back of her seat went down. Dan reached behind him and a soft blanket fell over her.
“What’s this?”
“You should rest.”
“I should rest? What about you? You’ve still got a lot of driving ahead of you.” She should keep him company, keep him awake.
“Uh huh. Close your eyes.”
“What?”
“Humor me. Close your eyes for just a minute.”
Claire rolled her eyes, then closed them, just to humor him. She had no intention of sleeping.
Two seconds later, she was out like a light.
CHAPTER 13
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
Back home, he couldn’t believe it when Heston called in failure. Bastard! Heston had been a decent soldier but civilian life had made him soft.
One ex-Marine and one loony bitch had gotten the better of him and his men. Twice. One more failure and Heston was going to find himself at the bottom of the Tidal Basin with a couple of holes in his chest to make him stay down.
He texted Wizard. Find Daniel Weston and Claire Day. Check names of friends. Find Weston’s employees. I want to know if they buy anything or travel. Top priority.
A minute later a text came from Wizard. $$$$$????
He sighed. Goddamned mercenary son of a bitch.
100 K was the response. There. That should keep Wizard happy.
Okay. He was doing all he could on that front. Keeping his finger in the hole in the dike. But in the meantime, there was progress to be made on the other front.
He had hired a publicist, one of the best. Ostensibly to highlight his charity work in Africa, but actually to promote him. The publicist had unde
rstood that perfectly.
Each month, the publicist sent an update of articles on his work, mentions he got on blogs, videos of his interviews. This month there was the write-up in Vanity Fair, a WaPo interview, he’d made the list of HuffPo’s Movers and Shakers, and Time did a special on development and did a sidebar on Drugs for Africa with a nice photo where he had his face tilted upward into the sun, a man who was seeing the future and making it happen.
And best of all, the top political blog discussed possible successors to the senior Senator from Virginia, Jeffrey Neff, now mired in a corruption scandal.
The usual suspects and a few outsiders were mentioned as possible successors. The last of the outsiders, a man known for his philanthropy. There was a little profile of each possible candidate. His read:
A possible dark horse is former Homeland Security officer Bowen McKenzie, a man who quit his job after the bombing of the US Embassy in Laka, Makongo, last year to dedicate himself to eradicating disease in West Africa. Mackenzie is widely respected for his fund-raising for the New Day Foundation, which operates out of Laka, Makongo, and distributes antiretroviral drugs, antimalaria drugs, and antibiotics throughout West Africa. Mackenzie would be a breath of fresh air among the usual tired old pols whose names are being pulled out of the usual hat.
That was thanks to his publicist.
Neff was like an old bull elephant wounded by the corruption scandal. There was also word that Neff frequented prostitutes, and his men and Wizard had a standing order to find them.
Bowen was going to bring the son of a bitch Neff to his knees.
Senator, he thought, you’re a dead man walking.
He sat back in his chair, pleased, contemplating his future. He had big, big plans, and one loopy former DIA analyst and one former jarhead were not going to stand in his way.
Near New Hope, Pennsylvania
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