by Gayle Lynds
Then Creighton smiled. He reminded himself his secret plans were going even better than he'd hoped. Vince was to be congratulated for using his position in the Company with such adroitness. He'd earned the right to be the next director of Central Intelligence. There was a long precedent of promoting from inside, and the traditional honeymoon period right after the election should make Senate confirmation a breeze.
As Redmond thought about it, his victory began to seem inevitable. Events were going so well that the only glitch—Marguerite's death—had rebounded in his favor.
As the Midwest's starry canopy was displayed beyond the jet's windows, he closed the thick briefing book he'd been studying. This one prepared him to discuss in depth some of California's most pressing problems—military base closures, arguments over timber harvesting, and federal protection of wildlife. His brain had been honed by dense law tomes and convoluted opinions, obscure citations and thick case reviews. He found the briefing books his political experts prepared as easy to read and retain as a novel. For him, the brain was an asset like any other—always to be honed and used.
"I've got the numbers, Judge." Mario Garcia, his media specialist, padded toward him down the jet's aisle.
"It's about time."
"Yes, sir." Mario fell into the chair across from him. The stringy man's personality was completely dominated by his fascination with statistics.
"What're the poll results tonight?"
"After your press conference this afternoon, you jumped another half point."
That was news. "Good."
"But Powers held his own press conference an hour after yours," Mario continued. "The evening news ran excerpts of his speech as well as yours—"
"And?"
Mario sighed. "Powers came across as sympathetic and concerned. He publicly expressed his condolences to you and your family. He looked sincere, and he had his family all around to symbolize the importance of the country's rallying for one of its own. For you—"
"What's the goddamn bottom line?"
"You've lost the half point you picked up this afternoon."
"Damnation!"
"Doug Powers is a natural, Judge."
Creighton nodded and grimaced. "He has that touch, like Reagan and Clinton."
"Yes, Judge. He has. It's a fucking shame." Mario's thin face was morose. "I don't know what we can do about it. Today's Saturday, so maybe we should have a memorial service for Mrs. Austrian on Monday at Saint Patrick's?" His pale eyes brightened at the thought of the photogenic Gothic cathedral with its long history of front-page weddings and funerals. "We wouldn't need her body for it. We could have the usual angelic-faced choirboys and the cardinal in his robes. You could stand at the altar and look presidential as you memorialized her. Then we could get Julia to play something on the organ that'd wrench everybody's heartstrings." His voice was growing excited. "If we did it right. . . you know, put on a real show, it'd be front-page news from Bangor to San Diego. All the networks would cover it. Everybody with a sister or an aunt would bawl their eyes out. You'd get a sympathy-factor echo that might catapult you another five points!"
Creighton blinked. His fine features were set in their usual wise expression. His salt-and-pepper hair shone in the overhead reading light. He laced his fingers over his midriff, considering the idea.
At last he said, "It's a good idea, but we're too far behind. We're around forty percent, which means a five-point increase is no guarantee of victory, and your poll numbers have an error of three to four percent anyway. We need at least a fifteen-point jump to guarantee a win. Besides, Powers would simply counteract it in some way. Probably appear at the memorial service himself with that damn family of his and probably his whole scrubbed-face campaign staff, too. He'd stand on the steps of Saint Pat's and make another statement supporting me in my time of grief with all of them around looking teary eyed. The voters would admire his generosity of spirit and his ability to rally everyone for me. He might not neutralize my gains completely, but we both know he'd easily hold onto enough to win."
The media specialist nodded wearily. "Yes, sir. That's exactly what'd happen. I'd hoped this would be that miracle you were talking about. That quote of Sadat's—"
" 'You are not a realist unless you believe in miracles.' "
"That's it."
Creighton wasn't given to impulsive gestures. In fact, they went against everything he believed. So when he reached across to pat Mario Garcia's arm, it was calculated to make the media man feel at the center of that chosen arena of insiders who were the only ones who knew what was good for the country.
"Don't give up, old friend," Creighton told him with an understanding smile. "Who knows what else will transpire to help us? Keep your ears and eyes open, and let me know immediately if something strikes you."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, Judge." The media specialist nodded soberly, but his eyes glowed as he accepted his leader's confidence.
As Creighton watched him leave, he thought again about his plan. Powers's recovery in the polls was just one more reason it was vital. He and Vince had carefully orchestrated a series of devastating revelations that would send Powers's campaign onto the garbage heap with no hope of ever regrouping, neutralizing, or recovering in so short a time. There were now less than three days until the polls opened on Tuesday.
When the cell phone vibrated against his chest, Creighton pulled it out. It was scrambled and untraceable, its signal bouncing around the world like an impossible-to-follow Ping-Pong ball.
His voice was low. "Yes?"
He listened as Maya Stern reported the events since her trip upstairs to the psychologist's office. His stomach sank. His chest tightened. She'd inadvertently killed the therapist.
He snapped, "Julia can see again? She recognized you?"
She was silent. "Yes, sir."
Inwardly he groaned. The news was not only bad, it could be devastating.
"But there's good news, too. I returned to the building," she was saying. "Grapolis's widow was hysterical. She says she heard Julia Austrian yell that she was going to kill the psychologist. The police found the gun next to where Austrian was sitting, which is where I left it. So now they're looking for her. They don't have a motive yet, but they think Austrian did it."
Creighton began to relax. "Good. We have to maximize on that."
She hesitated.
Creighton heard it. "What else?" he demanded.
"There was a man trying to help her. He said he was with the Company and his name is Sam Keeline." She didn't tell him she'd recognized Keeline from some old Company operation, and that he could just as easily have recognized her. Creighton might take her off the job, and she wanted Austrian and Keeline. They were hers.
Creighton was stunned. Then furious. Sam Keeline? Vince had said he'd taken care of Keeline. Dammit!
Stern said, "Do you want me to contact Vince?"
Creighton frowned, his mind working quickly over the situation. "I'll take care of it. We can arrange to make certain that if they capture her, they'll hold her at One Police Plaza for us. The NYPD won't like it, but the commissioner owes me, and Vince will give him plenty of ammunition to keep her isolated and then get her out of there immediately." He paused, and he could feel worry settle into his entrails. "But it'd be one hell of a whole lot better if you found her first."
"Where do you suggest I look?"
He considered the problem. Julia had recognized her mother's murderer, and now she was heading north from Sixty-eighth. He blinked as he thought and analyzed. And then he knew: She had to be going to Brice's house.
Brice would have to help him. But Brice would resist. He always did. It was not only his nature, but he'd been fond of Marguerite and regretted her death a lot more than Creighton or David did. Creighton would have to think more about Brice, but he knew there had to be a way. Despite everything, the family lived by the rule of Tokugawa's Fist—together they were strong. Their father had pounded it into their heads, and in the end,
it was why they'd been able to defeat him.
He told Stern where to find Julia. "Find her and kill her." His voice was harsh. His future could depend on Stern reaching Julia first. "But goddammit—make it look like an accident!" And then he smiled. "No, wait. I've got a more effective way, something that will back up a motive for her to have killed Orion Grapolis. . . ."
21
8:15 PM, SATURDAY
NEW YORK CITY
Brice Redmond lived in a marble and limestone mansion near Central Park in the heart of New York's Upper East Side. Here were some of the nation's most coveted street addresses and a concentration of wealth to make even Bill Gates envious. The renowned Guggenheim Museum was nearby, and so was St. David's, where well-heeled WASPs sent their children to school. Private clubs in the area had membership rules so stringent and secretive no one was really certain what they were.
Despite his maverick streak, Brice needed this silk-stocking piece of real estate for all those reasons, and for some reasons strictly his own. He thrived on the frowns of those who didn't approve of him or his big Harley-Davidson motorcycle with its noisy muffler. He enjoyed rubbing their noses in his denim jeans, Tony Lama cowboy boots, and blue work shirts. And then there were his thoroughly indiscreet liaisons, and his ability to buy and sell most of his neighbors.
When you were born rich and you made yourself even richer, it was a small but gratifying pleasure to be socially heretical. With his high-flying computer company, Redmond Systems, and its billion dollars in annual profits, Brice could afford to relish his neighbors' furious disapproval of his private amusements. And he did.
But now he sat alone in his den staring into the great cavern of his fireplace, where orange and blue flames crackled and licked. On the opposite side of the room hung a wall-sized Picasso. Tall beveled-glass windows looked out on a rare commodity in the crowded city—a spacious garden. The scent of wood smoke and wealth perfumed the air, and Brice was depressed.
This morning's gathering at Arbor Knoll had made him acutely aware of how bored he was. His passion for Redmond Systems was dead. He was an entrepreneur, not a plodding managerial type. Just as revolutionaries seldom made good heads of state, risk-taking entrepreneurs usually couldn't slow down to the day-to-day monotony of simply managing a booming corporation, which was what Redmond Systems needed from him for it to thrive in the twenty-first century. He'd been smart enough to recognize that, retire himself, and put a hand-picked group of fine managers in charge.
Now he had nothing to do but play.
This morning at Arbor Knoll he'd looked around at his brothers, sons, daughters, nephews, and nieces and had been astonished at his envy. Their lives were busy. Interesting. Now as he thought about it, he saw the changes over the past year that indicated the depths of his misery: He'd lost thirty pounds from his usual healthy 220. He had chronic insomnia. And his marriage had finally dissolved. Not because of his womanizing, but because his wife couldn't take his depressions.
The telephone rang, and he stared at it with little curiosity. No one called with exciting deals anymore. But the ringing was insistent. He picked up the receiver.
"Are you alone?" Creighton stared out his jet's window, his gaze focused down on the flat, wintry landscape of Nebraska with its brown irrigation circles and dusting of silvery snow. To anyone on the aircraft who happened by, this would look like a casual call. It was anything but. He was on his scrambled telephone, and he needed Brice's help. Quickly.
"Unfortunately, yes." Brice's tone was heavy, tired.
"The family has a problem. We need you with us."
Brice sighed. "Of course I'm with you. Why wouldn't—?"
Creighton cut him short. "Do you remember the last time I called on Tokugawa's Fist?" He had to move cautiously to what he needed, and the first step had to be to get Brice to once again acknowledge this family fundamental—
In the vast den of his mansion, Brice sat up quickly. Tokugawa's Fist was their father's standard for making the toughest family decisions. Old Lyle would tell the story with a ringing voice and fire in his eyes. His hands would pump the air for emphasis as he described late sixteenth-century Japan when gigantic feudal struggles nearly destroyed the warrior island. This long, bloody period was called the Age of the Country at War. Revered religious shrines tumbled. Farmers couldn't plant or harvest. City finances were sacrificed to war matériel. People starved, and the nation was in anarchy. If China attacked, Japan would fall.
Ruthless and intelligent, Tokugawa Ieyasu looked around. It's alleged that he compared the country with its battling feudal lords to a hand. Alone, each finger—each lord—was weak. But working together, the fingers could form a great fist. So he organized a coalition of feudal lords who won control of the island in the historic Battle of Sekigahara in 1600. The nation was unified. Tokugawa became shogun. For 265 years his descendants ruled, and no outside force won a single skirmish on Japanese soil. Tokugawa's mighty Fist had driven Japan—and his family—to unassailable power.
"The last time was stopping Dad's insane schemes and putting him into the high-security nursing home," Brice acknowledged without hesitation. "I never want to have to do anything like that again, and I still wonder whether it was really necessary."
Creighton made his voice sharp and curt: "It was absolutely necessary, and you're as sure of that as David and I. We'd all be paupers by now, if not worse, and you don't want that, no matter how different you like to think you are."
Brice bristled, knowing his maverick nature had always annoyed Creighton. But he kept his voice calm. "Playing big brother, are we? This must really be bad."
"Extremely bad," Creighton told him grimly. "Julia's been dishonest with us. Her sight returned spontaneously in London. She witnessed her mother's murder."
Brice was puzzled. "That's great She can identify Marguerite's killer."
Now it was time for Creighton to reveal what had really happened. He had to do it swiftly, without giving Brice much time to dwell on the details. Brice must be made feel he would've been as badly hurt as everyone else Marguerite had read what was in the package.
Creighton said, "No, it's not great, Brice. You don't want her to identify the killer, because the killer was working me. Or, more accurately, for us." Over the phone line, Creighton heard Brice's shocked intake of breath. He continued quickly with the salve: "I had nothing to do with actual murder. My woman acted on her own against instructions. It was supposed to be a street robbery, nothing more. It went terribly wrong, and I'm sick about that. But wasn't me, it was Dad who caused it all." He told younger brother about the packets the old man had sent Marguerite and Sam Keeline. "Vince intercepted the packet to Keeline, and I sent my agent to take the packet from Marguerite. But Marguerite fought back. She tore agent's mask off, who reacted instinctively to being exposed. She killed Marguerite."
Brice was in turmoil. Memories of Marguerite flashed through his brain. In their childhoods when the old man sent the servants to find Brice to punish him for some infraction, Brice had always run to Marguerite. She'd hide him. Try to protect him. And sometimes she'd even succeeded. He'd always been grateful for that. But right now his heart beat rapidly with growing fear.
Creighton had killed her. The idea lodged in his throat like a piece of broken glass. It didn't matter that the killer had pulled the trigger. Creighton had set the whole sordid affair in motion. Brice had suspected for years Creighton had muscle beyond the usual family connections, which were based on favors and secrets the family knew about others. Creighton's other resources hadn't mattered Brice. Brice had never needed them.
"I know what you're thinking, Brice," Creighton softly. Now was the time for delicacy. He'd handled it right so far. He'd accepted responsibility, but now he had to point Brice in the direction where real accountability lay. It'd give Brice a compelling reason to cooperate. "You're blaming me. Of course you are. I blame myself. Because of Marguerite's death, you probably wouldn't mind my candidacy going into the dumper.
But believe me, her death was the last thing I wanted. And now it's initiated a situation that's about to go ballistic. Out of our control. It could destroy all of us. If you hold anyone responsible, it's got to be the old man. Those damn journals of his told the world everything about his shady dealings. . . and our own."
A large hand seemed to grip Brice's heart and squeeze. The sudden fear was a bucket of cold water drowning out his horror and anger about what Creighton had done. "Jesus! How in hell could the old man write a journal? Who the hell's watching him in that damned home! Are there any more packets?"
Creighton smiled. Brice's self-interest was triggered. "No, and there won't be. I've taken care of that for all of us. Now our problem's Julia. She recognized my agent an hour ago when my agent tried to eliminate her." Without pause, he told Brice how he'd had Maya Stern substituted for the real Norma Kinsley and how Stern had inadvertently killed Orion Grapolis. "Julia's turned out to be as big a danger as the old man. Now that she can see, she can identify our agent to the police. Or she could personally find out that 'Norma' is really an ex-CIA agent named Maya Stern, and who sent her and why. That'd be the end of the lives we've all worked so hard to create."
Brice understood what Creighton was really saying. "A murder charge wouldn't help your chances to be president either."
Creighton quickly countered: "We can't bring back Marguerite, much as I'd like to." That was the real basis of his reasoning. Now it was time to turn Brice's thoughts back to the current issue: "We have to think of protecting what we have."
Brice felt suddenly heavy. He knew he wasn't a good man in the traditional sense, but he'd always prided himself on being brutally honest with himself. To him, that was a far higher calling. To build Redmond Systems, he'd wheedled, lied, forced buyouts, bribed to get information from competitors, and savagely undercut prices, and he'd never regretted any of it. In fact, he'd reveled in his ability to accomplish so much against such great odds.