by Leon, Judith
Chapter 8
Sixty-three-year-old U.S. Supreme Court Justice Suleema Johnson stooped slowly to the sofa. She picked up and cradled her calico cat, Hypatia, and headed for her bedroom. “I’m tired, my dear. It’s been a long one,” she said, bone-weary but smiling. Hypatia was named for the famous mathematician who had lived in ancient Alexandria and was stoned to death by a mob led by the Catholic priest, Cyril. She was Suleema’s closest confidante, privy to Suleema’s most private thoughts and desires. Suleema considered Hypatia to be as wise as the woman for whom she’d been named.
After an especially tedious, work-filled day, Suleema had decided to retire early. Tomorrow she would hear arguments in the case of Wade v. Lemonn—very technical stuff on the patent rights of biopharmaceutical companies. Although it was barely eight o’clock, the arthritis in her hips and lower back cried out for her to lie flat.
Fortunately, this house suited her aging body perfectly, since the previous owners had redesigned it to place the master bedroom on the first floor. She’d purchased the house a little over a year ago, just before her swearing in as the first black woman to serve on her country’s highest court. The location was ideal for getting to and from her office at the court and was only an hour and a half’s drive from her daughter’s lovely home right on the Chesapeake Bay.
Suleema had calculated that on occasion, Regina and Clevon might want to stay in Washington for an evening at Lincoln Center for a fancy dinner or show, so in her home, they had an upstairs bedroom to themselves. But sixteen-year-old Alex was getting too old to visit Grandma anymore.
She flicked off the living room floor lamp and eased down the hallway. Alex was, at this very moment, off someplace in the Amazon birding with his buddy, Ronnie Obst. Suleema had met the young Obst once, at Regina’s house. She had liked him, and thought him a good friend for Alex. Alex, so exceptionally bright and mature for his age, was too serious. Ronnie was outgoing and adventurous and had traveled all over the world with his rather famous father. Ronnie encouraged Alex, who had been more devoted to his computer than to nature before their friendship, to get out and explore life.
She used the wall switch to light her nightstand lamp. Another night of sleeping alone. Her gaze was drawn to her favorite photograph of Raymond, gone from a heart attack for just over five years. He’d not lived to see her elevated from the Ninth Circuit Court, but he’d always believed she had a good chance to be “the one.”
Hypatia wiggled, and Suleema let her drop onto the quilt.
“I know it’ll happen,” Raymond had said. “You’re the smartest woman, the smartest person, I’ve ever known, Sulee. You’re a natural for the Supremes.”
He’d been right. He was a building contractor, the practical one, she the one who lived a life of the mind. They’d been a great match. The place in her chest where her heart had been ripped away by his death still throbbed with longing and loss.
It took no more than ten minutes to undress, snuggle into a cotton nightgown and down under the covers. Hypatia curled up at her hip. She’d never had trouble sleeping, and quickly drifted into the state of fractured thoughts that came just before full unconsciousness. Then she heard a sound.
What was it?
Silence. She let her mind drift again.
Another sound, a definite click. She stiffened in the bed, eyes open, peering at the dark ceiling, ears straining.
Hypatia lifted her head from her paws and looked toward the bedroom door. Suleema sat up halfway on one elbow, peering into shadows formed behind moonlight flooding through the bay window, and then a shadow, dark as a cave, blocked off the pale glow. A gloved hand grabbed her throat and shoved her back down into the bed.
The man, it had to be a man, knelt so that he forced one leg between hers, right through the covers. He grabbed Hypatia by the scruff and lifted the calico into the air.
Suleema clawed at the gloved hand, unable to suck in even a tiny breath. She raked her fingers down his sleeve. He leaned on her, his weight that of a man at least as tall as Raymond’s six feet.
“If you don’t want me to kill your cat,” the dark shadow said, “lay still.”
Lie still! Shouldn’t she fight for her life?
Could she even fight for her life? She was sixty-three years old! His hand felt huge, his body enormous. He was probably going to rape and kill her, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
She tried to say, “Can’t breathe,” but no words would come out.
“You gonna lay still?” he said. He spoke softly, an ominous near-whisper, but clearly and with authority. He moved so that some light fell on him and she saw that his head was bald and he wore only one gold earring.
He wasn’t masked, not hiding his identity. Yes, he was going to kill her.
He let up enough on her throat for her to drag in a choked breath, then another.
He sat Hypatia on her chest. “I could kill this cat right now. I could kill you right now. Right?”
She nodded. Clever Hypatia leaped off the bed and headed for a safer place.
“I got in here, I can get to you anywhere. I have a message for you. You listening?”
Again she nodded. That seemed to be all he wanted from her so far. To listen. Her mind was going lickety-split, thinking what a woman was supposed to do. Try and talk to him.
“The Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Sharansky versus the United States Government is due in eight days. On the twenty-seventh of December. I’m telling you that you are to vote against Sharansky.”
This is insane. It doesn’t make any sense. What the hell is he saying?
“You hear me? In Sharansky versus the U.S. Government, you are to vote against Sharansky. And if you don’t, your grandson, Alex Hailey Hill, will be killed.”
She got it. He was here to make her vote for the U.S. Government in this bitterly fought case brought by New Hampshire’s lieutenant governor and the lieutenant governors of seven other states. The court was split. Their deliberations were secret, but it was widely assumed that the decision would be up to the new justice, Suleema Johnson, the swing vote, the tiebreaker. And this assumption was, in fact, correct. And someone choking off her breath claimed to be able to kill Alex unless she voted against her conscience and her judgment.
But Alex wasn’t even in the country. The threat seemed preposterous.
“Now here’s the way it’s going to be,” he said. He leaned his knee hard into her groin. “You will not tell anyone—and I mean anyone—what I’ve just told you. You will vote for the government. That is why I’m here. To make sure you do. If you tell anyone, the boy will be killed. You understand?”
She nodded, wondering who she could safely tell. Someone would have to be told.
“I know that when I leave, you’ll want to call your daughter to check whether the boy is safe or not. Don’t. She won’t know yet that we have him. Your calling would tip her off you know something you shouldn’t, and we will be listening.”
The very mention of Regina from this thug sent Suleema’s mind bounding off in a rabbitlike panic.
“You just wait a day. Watch the news. Maybe give your daughter a call tomorrow. She’s in for a nasty surprise.”
“Get off me!” she managed to hiss out.
With his free hand, he pulled something from his pocket. A knife. The blade—short and thick and serrated along the top—gleamed silver in the moonlight.
One quick stroke toward her chest. She felt nothing at first, then a stinging sensation and then liquid trickling warmly across her skin.
“That’s just a little taste,” he said, his voice still that ominous whisper, “of what could happen to the boy. And to you.”
He released her, stood, turned and strode out of the bedroom.
Suleema lay still, afraid to even move enough to touch her chest. How badly had he cut her? Maybe he was still in the house.
No. He’d want to get out.
She forced her hand to move, touched the
cut beneath the cotton, and felt a surge of relief that it was sticky but superficial.
She should get up. Call 9–1-1. Call the federal marshal’s office.
But what if he, or whoever had sent him, did have Alex? How could that possibly be? Maybe Alex hadn’t gone on the trip. Maybe they had taken him from school. Kidnapping was FBI responsibility. She must call the FBI, of course, not 9–1-1.
But the FBI could only help if Alex was in the States. Wasn’t that so? What if Alex wasn’t? She crossed her hands as if lying in a casket and hugged herself, still terrified to get out of the bed, nightmare images and thoughts scrambling through her head. How could they know how much Alex meant to her? The man had been so confident that he wasn’t even wearing a mask.
What if she didn’t call the FBI at once, if she waited until tomorrow to call Regina to find out if the threat was real? If she called the federal marshals, they would insist on putting a bodyguard on her, even when she was away from the court. Except occasionally at high-profile speaking engagements she had never felt the need for a bodyguard, provided when requested to Supreme Court judges by the marshal’s office. Until now. Having her driver, Sam, with her had been reassurance enough. Asking for protection now would wave a red flag.
Someone was trying to influence the vote of a justice of the United States Supreme Court. Surely duty required her to call in the authorities at once.
But at the risk of Alex’s life?
Chapter 9
Smith’s raised eyebrows indicated genuine surprise. “Come on, Nova,” he said. “You don’t expect me to take your dislike of VP Ransome seriously. When has politics ever affected the Dove’s decision to take on a job for Langley?”
She allowed herself a soft laugh. “Dove” was her Company code name. “I do seriously dislike the vice president’s politics.”
Smith grinned and lifted his glass as if in a toast of agreement and then continued, all business again. “Surely I needn’t point out that these poor people are all innocents. And Colette Stone certainly can’t be blamed for her uncle’s bad political judgment. In fact, the word is that Ms. Stone and the VP don’t get along. And she loves birds. She’s a bird painter, Nova. They all love birds. Shit, it was a goddamn birding trip!”
She smiled at his urgent attempt at persuasion. But it was true that it did tick her off that people who simply took a trip to the jungle to soak up some of the Earth’s beauty were being brutally mistreated. And she knew the Bennings. They were real to her, names and faces and voices. She could not say no and live with herself. She gave Smith an exaggerated smile. “Oh, well then, that decides it.”
He grinned and leaned back. “Just jerking me off, right?”
“Right.”
Smith set his glass on the table and clasped his hands together as if warming them over a fire, ready to get down to business. “Okay, then. Your cover will be that you are the sister of one of the San Diego women, Linda Stokes, and you’re looking for her on your own dollar. You don’t trust the government, and so on. I have people setting up your cover as her sister as we speak. Another reason you’re ideal for the op is that you already know San Diego, which will save the preparation time we’d otherwise have to spend with someone else.”
“It does look like saving time would be a good idea,” she said in understatement.
“Absolutely. Today is the nineteenth of December. The kidnappers have given us two days, until midday Washington time on the twenty-first, to wire-transfer the fifty million to an offshore account in the Bahamas before they start killing a hostage a day.”
“Will the government or her family pay the ransom?”
“I don’t know. The negotiators are taking a position initially that they won’t pay any ransom and will not negotiate with terrorists. To stall for time, they eventually will start negotiating. But no one is actually counting on the bastards releasing the hostages whether a ransom is paid or not.”
Smith took another shot of his drink. “They claim they’ll save the VP’s niece until last, but no one’s counting on that either. The State Department has been assured complete cooperation by the Brazilian authorities. At least four FBI men are on their way to Manaus. The Company has only one man on station there. Until now there’s been no big action we needed to watch; one pair of eyes has been sufficient.”
“I want to do a quick stop with whoever is in charge in Brazil to get their stats on Brazilian terrorists or other illegal operations. I presume that person is not in Manaus.”
“That would be Leila Munoz, head of station in Rio.”
Nova felt mental gears hitching up, her pulse increasing. “If I’m to stay completely undercover, I’ll have to avoid being honest with the FBI guys or anyone official. So who will you get to cover my back and worry if I don’t check in?”
“Your backup is in the works. Joe Cardone again. You two already know each other, always a plus when you’re undercover and in a rush, as we are. No time wasted getting familiar with your partner’s habits and MO. We’ve already contacted him.”
Smith said it casually, but she thought he was studying her. She kept a straight face, but her pupils had likely done a quick dilation from an extra-sudden squirt of adrenaline. Smith was a trained observer. Did the Company know about her affair with Joe after their last op together? Was Smith expecting her to be pleased? Or did they also know that her budding romance with Joe had ended in a head-on collision of wills?
Neither she nor Joe had made any special effort to hide their intimacy from the Company, or anyone else. But they hadn’t volunteered information on the subject, either.
God, sitting right in this hotel she suddenly smelled cinnamon and apple pie, felt again the panic tightening her chest. She was back in Julian on that last day. Joe had said, “Marry me or it’s over,” or words to that effect. To marry meant loss of freedom. Compromise. Always compromise. So many things could go wrong if they tied the knot that bound their lives together, presumably until “death do us part.”
Joe had said, “You can’t always control everything.”
She’d fired back, “I can’t control the creeps of the world, but I do control my private life. And giving that up scares me.”
“You’re saying no because you’re scared? I don’t buy it. You aren’t afraid of anything.”
That’s what he’d said. And he’d taken off angry and hurt because he’d believed that and thought she didn’t love him. He’d been wrong.
“Cardone,” she said to Smith in what she hoped was a sufficiently neutral tone.
“Right. It also works out well because we can get him there quickly. He’s currently in Texas, not on the other side of the globe. But this time we want the two of you to use separate identities. Make no public contact. Joe will be doing a freelance article on terrorism and money laundering. His cover name will be Joseph de los Santos. He speaks Spanish and Portuguese fluently.”
She couldn’t sit still, not while thinking about seeing Joe again. Hell, working with him again. She stood and went to the makeshift bar Marvin had set up and added two ice cubes and fresh Scotch to her drink. To protest would look strange and unprofessional. Joe was a top agent. She should be relieved to have him back her up.
Piss all.
She sat again. Both Smith and Marvin were waiting for her reaction, no doubt about it. For years she’d felt that someone at the Company kept close tabs on her private life. Joe had more than once claimed that Claiton Pryce, the deputy director of operations, had the hots for her. Maybe so. Or maybe this was all just her imagination and no one from the Company had any idea how much she loved Joe.
She stirred her drink with the tip of her finger, making a concentrated effort to do it oh so casually as Smith added, “We’ll have him on his way ASAP directly to Manaus.” To Marvin, Smith said, “Let’s see the map.”
Marvin rose and flipped open a laptop sitting on the table, already booted up. One click and a screen showed a map of South America. Smith pulled his chair around s
o he could also see the map. Her eyes went first to one of her favorite places, Iguazu Falls, located on the spot where the northern border of Argentina, the eastern border of tiny Paraguay and the western border of Brazil met, halfway down the continent, right below the bulge—the tri-border area, famous for rampant crime. Her first trip to South America had been to Iguazu Falls, so she tended to use it as her South American orientation point.
Her gaze quickly moved north, though, to the equator, to the Amazon River, which lay just below the equator and ran parallel to it. Smith pointed to Manaus, a rundown city that hugged the north shore of the Rio Negro seventeen miles up from the Amazon.
“You ever been to Manaus?” she said, looking first at Smith and then Marvin.
Marvin shook his head. Smith said, “God, no. It’s in the middle of nowhere.”
“It’s a surreal experience. Here you are, dead in the heart of the world’s biggest jungle in a city that has beautiful black and white inlaid stone sidewalks, elegant old mansions and a central market with wrought ironwork that looks like something designed in Paris. But everything’s gone totally to seed. Rubber built Manaus, and when someone smuggled out some rubber tree seedlings to Southeast Asia, the boom busted. And the place is always hot as Hades with a miserable ninety-five percent humidity.”
“So you won’t need much luggage,” Smith said, smiling. “Only light clothing.” He set his glass down, earnest again. “The kidnap took place on the Amazon River, not far below something called the Meeting of the Waters, a few miles downstream from the last little town that has a road into Manaus.”
“Ceasá,” she said.
“Correct. So tell me what you’ll need.”
“This is an isolated area.” She turned ideas over in her mind a moment. “I need to anticipate whatever might come up. There’ll be no getting anything special quickly.”