Last Man Standing

by Cindy Gerard

  Stephanie knew the moment the answer to all their questions finally rose to the surface.

  “That’s how Dalmage plans to repay his debts,” he concluded. “He takes all viable candidates out of the running, becomes sec of state, then grants certain favors to his backers—like turning a blind eye to their genocidal rampages. He lets his despot bankers run roughshod over U.S. interests overseas, and a good time is had by all.”

  Stephanie stood to pace, her anger filling her with restless energy. “He’s been planning and positioning himself for years.”

  “So there may be even more dead senators who would still be alive if Dalmage hadn’t targeted them,” Joe said.

  “And no one has any reason to suspect Dalmage,” Stephanie stated grimly, “let alone be able to prove that he had a hand in the murders.”

  “Or to prove that any of them were murdered.” Joe grabbed her hand as she went by, settling her with a look.

  “He’s good, no doubt about it. One of the potential nominees died in a ‘freak’ accident at his home,” Rhonda said. “Just last week, a scandal broke about another one of the potential nominees, linking him to a child pornography ring. He ended up supposedly committing suicide.”

  “One by one, Dalmage has taken them out,” Stephanie said quietly.

  “And we prove this, how?” asked Rhonda.

  “We need to talk to the families of the victims,” Joe said decisively. “Find out what they know, if anything. Someone’s got to have seen something. Heard something.”

  They each picked up a phone and started making calls.

  21

  Dalmage checked his watch as the commercial jet approached Dulles Airport. It was closing in on 3:30 p.m. It would be dark in another two hours. A light layer of snow covered the runway below, and toy-size plows and trucks scurried back and forth shoving snow into piles.

  He thought about Saidu Bangura. The way the fat man’s face had swelled, the way his eyes had bulged, the way his pork sausage fingers had gripped at the garrote Dalmage had slipped around his throat while his paid attendant stood guard with an assault rifle leveled point-blank at Bangura’s chest.

  His men had found Bangura’s wife. He’d made the police lieutenant watch them kill her first, of course. Dalmage had watched unblinking as she had screamed for mercy, and Bangura had pleaded for her life. He’d felt a satisfying sense of retribution when the bullet had blown her brains all over Bangura’s garishly furnished living room. He regretted that the children had managed to escape. Bangura would no doubt have promised to do any number of humiliating things to spare them.

  They were better off orphans.

  And he was better off with the inept officer dead and gone.

  Bangura had lied. A fatal mistake. He’d been a dead man the moment Green and his accomplice had escaped the country, but to lie? To tell him that Green and company were dead? That deception could not go unpunished. So of course the wife had had to die, too.

  “Mr. Dalmage?”

  The flight attendant’s voice drew him out of his thoughts.

  “We’ve landed, sir. Do you need assistance with your carry-on?”

  “I’m fine,” he said gruffly, unbuckled his seat belt, and stood.

  First order of business: locate Joseph Green.

  Second order of business: eliminate him.

  “It’s all about order, right, son?”

  He could still hear his father’s voice in his head. Would always hear his father’s voice. Always feel his belt against his back.

  “There is no room for failure. There is only one acceptable outcome: victory. So suck it up, boy. Quit your whimpering. One day you’ll thank me for making a man out of you. A man I can be proud of.”

  “I’ll show that warped son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath as he retrieved his attaché case from the overhead bin. Just like he’d show Green, who had become an albatross around his neck.

  Green couldn’t have discovered that he was behind the Task Force Mercy ambush. But on the off chance he had figured it out, there was no way in hell he could prove it. No way Green could tie him to anything incriminating. Green could squawk but he couldn’t prove a damn thing.

  Green’s integrity quotient would have the credibility of Bernie Madoff by the time Dalmage was finished with his smear campaign against the rogue former CIA agent who had gone off the deep end.

  So he was not concerned about Green as he walked down the Jetway toward the terminal.

  The TV news report that greeted him after his arrival at his Georgetown brownstone, however, did concern him. “No. This couldn’t be happening.” He stared at the TV, paralyzed with shock.

  He felt his face grow hot as the report ended. Felt his heart muscles constrict so quickly he didn’t have time to pop a nitro. Excruciating pain lanced through his chest.

  His knees buckled and he dropped into an armchair. His shaking fingers fumbled around inside his chest pocket for his nitro—and dropped the bottle.

  “Goddamnit!” he roared to the cold, empty house.

  He fell to his hands and knees as the tiny tablets scattered all over the polished hardwood floor. He was whimpering by the time he managed to find one and tuck it under his tongue, and sobbing by the time the clutching grip of angina pain finally let go of his chest.

  “Goddamnit,” he muttered over and over, fighting the encroaching sense that his carefully laid plans teetered on the edge of an abyss.

  It took the better part of fifteen minutes to get himself back together, to rally his resolve, to devise a plan for dealing with this latest setback.

  “There is only one acceptable outcome.”

  He had to find Ann Tompkins, fast.

  He had fifteen minutes before the offices at the Department of Justice closed for the day. He picked up his phone. A congratulatory call was in order, after all. A personal call, directly from him.

  After maneuvering the maze of automated prompts, he cursed viciously when he was sent straight to voice mail.

  “You’ve reached the desk of Ann Tompkins. I’ll be out of the office until Monday the twenty-eighth, but will return your call as soon as I can. If this is an emergency, please dial extension 5032 and ask for my assistant, Erin Clemons.”

  He punched in the number. A young, perky, looking-for-advancement voice answered on the second ring.

  “Yes, Ms. Clemons. I’m trying to reach Ann Tompkins and was given your extension. I’m hoping you can help me out and tell me how to get in touch with her.”

  “May I ask who’s calling, please?” the judicious Ms. Clemons chirped.

  “Forgive me. Matthew Bridgefield. Ann’s doctor.”

  “Oh. Her doctor?”

  “I don’t mean to be abrupt, Ms. Clemons, but I really need to get in touch with her. I’ve tried both her home and the cell number she gave me and all I’m getting is voice mail. I’m hoping someone at her office can help.”

  “Dr. Bridgefield, I’m sorry. I’m not at liberty to give out private information regarding Mrs. Tompkins.”

  “Of course.” He made a show of sounding defeated. “I understand and frankly, I anticipated you wouldn’t be able to help me. I’m under strict confidentiality restrictions myself.” He paused for dramatic effect. “In this case, however, I need to make an exception. This is a bit of a medical emergency. I really do need to get in touch with Ann regarding her test results.”

  “Oh. Oh, dear. I hope . . . goodness. Is she okay?”

  He smiled. She was hooked. “I’m not at liberty to discuss her medical condition, but it is of the utmost urgency that I reach her. I know you can’t help, but can you think of anyone else . . . anyone who might not be bound by the same confidentiality restrictions?”

  “Have you tried her daughter?”

  “No, you’re my first call. But I think that Ann may have given me her daughter’s number. Hold on, let me check. I’m not much of a note taker, I’m afraid. Oh. Here it is. Two-oh-two area code, correct?”

&n
bsp; “No, Stephanie lives near New Carrolton. That’s a 301 code.”

  “Damn,” he muttered. “If this isn’t her number then it must be at home somewhere. I hope my wife didn’t figure it for a scrap and toss it.”

  He got silence. A silence that he hoped meant she was reconsidering.

  “You didn’t get this from me, okay?” she said, finally giving in, knowing she shouldn’t yet wanting to help. “I have Stephanie’s cell phone number.”

  “Thank you, Erin,” he said after she gave him the number. “You did a good thing. Good night.”

  He disconnected, then let himself have one brief moment to gloat. He was back on his game.

  “I have something for you,” he said when he reached Carl Wilson on one of the many throwaway cells he kept on hand to ensure his calls couldn’t be traced back to him. Stephanie Tompkins would have no need for such precautions. He was banking on her personal cell phone to lead him to her mother. Calling her was out of the question, of course, but finding her was essential.

  Wilson had been on his payroll since the beginning. He was loyal, efficient, got results, and didn’t ask questions. Wilson was loyal because Dalmage paid him a king’s ransom for his allegiance. He was efficient because he had been trained by the U.S. military’s elite forces to be the best at what he did. He got results because he enjoyed killing. And he didn’t ask questions because he felt no need for justification. Wilson was a machine. Brutal, heartless, without conscience.

  He gave Wilson Stephanie Tompkins’s cell phone number, knowing the former CIA operative would be able to track the phone and pin down her exact location.

  “She is the key to locating her mother. And Ann Tompkins’s unfortunate death has become key in ensuring the endgame. Place your team on standby. You’ll need to deploy at a moment’s notice once you locate her.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “And Carl, I want you leading this operation. No one but the best—this is the money shot. Neither of us can afford for this mission to fail.”

  “Understood.”

  “Report when you have news I want to hear.”

  Stephanie, Rhonda, and Joe spent several long, disturbing hours making long, disturbing phone calls. By the end of the day Stephanie was heartsick, and 100 percent convinced that Dalmage was as dirty as atomic waste.

  Most heartbreaking was her conversation with the wife of Rick Wagoner, the representative from Indiana who’d been named in a child pornography scandal. His family was adamant that it was all a lie and that his unexpected suicide wasn’t a suicide at all. They just couldn’t prove it.

  “Dalmage has no limits.” Stephanie’s stomach churned with a sickening mix of shock and disgust. “He’ll go to any extent to secure that appointment.”

  No one said a word for a long moment. Finally, Rhonda drummed her fingers on the table. “So now what?”

  Stephanie looked at the clock. It was almost midnight. “Now I think we need to sleep on it.” They were all drained. “We’ll decide how to proceed in the morning.”

  Joe’s jaw was clenched tight. It was clear that sleeping was the last thing on his mind.

  “We’re going to nail him,” she said, the conviction in her tone forcing him to meet her eyes. “But we’re going to do it right. We have to do it right,” she reminded him.

  He breathed deep, finally gave her a clipped nod, then walked to the terrace doors and stared silently outside.

  “I’m going to hit the road.” Rhonda sounded as exhausted as Stephanie felt.

  “You should stay here tonight. It’s late.”

  “Thanks, sweetie, but me and my bed . . . we have this special relationship. And I heart my own pillow.”

  Stephanie walked her to the door and hugged her hard. “Thank you. We’d still be at this if not for you.”

  “Is he going to be all right?” Rhonda glanced back toward Joe as she shrugged into her coat.

  “I hope so.”

  Joe watched Stephanie give Rhonda a warm embrace, then lock the door behind her.

  She looked wrung out and sad as she walked back to the dining area. But the set of her chin and her erect posture said she wasn’t letting this thing beat her.

  The way it had beaten him.

  Humiliation washed through him. He’d bawled like a fucking baby. His face flushed hot at the memory. He’d bawled like he hadn’t bawled since he’d been fifteen, sitting in that stark white hospital room wearing a sterile surgical gown, latex gloves on his hands, and a mask on his face, and lied to his kid brother, promising him that he would not let him die.

  He’d been running from Bobby’s ghost ever since.

  He’d been running from Bry’s for far too long, as well.

  Bry was finally going to get retribution. Bobby . . . Bobby was just gone.

  “Leave them,” he said when Stephanie started clearing the dirty dishes. “I’ll take care of the mess.”

  “You cooked,” she pointed out.

  “And I can clean up after myself.”

  “How about we do it together?”

  Short of his yanking away the plates—and he had so much rage bottled up inside that he didn’t dare touch her right now—she was going to have her way.

  “Fine,” he finally conceded. “I wash. You dry.”

  “Deal.”

  For the next several minutes the only sounds in the apartment were of water running, dishes clinking, drawers opening, pans rattling. The elephant in the room waited in the corner, rocking back and forth, trunk swinging, making it clear that no matter how hard Joe tried to ignore it, it wasn’t going away.

  He pulled the stopper, grabbed a dish towel, and dried his hands. All the while, he watched Stephanie avoid eye contact, give him space, give him the silence she’d decided that he needed.

  “About . . . earlier . . . in the shower,” he began hesitantly.

  She shook her head. “Don’t apologize, Joe. Not for that. Not ever for that.”

  Yeah. She always gave him what he needed. Even when it wasn’t in her best interest.

  And when he touched a hand to her hair, brushed it back away from her face, and gently turned her toward him, he couldn’t stop himself from asking her for more.

  She lifted her head slowly, almost shyly.

  And didn’t make him ask.

  Didn’t make him beg or plead, or spill his guts or his blood, or the part of himself that he hadn’t yet figured out how to heal.

  Her mouth welcomed his on a sigh when he lowered his head. Her hand reached out to his and led him to the bedroom.

  Where she let him lay her down.

  Where she let him slowly undress her and press his lips against the welcoming softness of each inch of satin skin he revealed.

  Where he sank into the bed, then sank into her, and without making him feel guilt or regret or even wonder at the gift of her giving, she took him to a place where nothing but soft breasts, sleek limbs, and her wildly racing heart existed.

  A black panel van pulled up a block away from the D.C. apartment building and parked in an empty alley. A man dressed in black got out, looped a coil of rope over his shoulder, double-checked his tool belt, and headed down the snow-covered street. Stephanie Tompkins’s cell phone signal had been pinging off towers and led him straight to this address.

  The target building was ten stories. His target apartment was on the ninth floor. He wasted no time scaling the building by climbing from terrace to terrace—he wasn’t known as the best second-story man on the east coast for nothing—until he landed soundless on the ninth-floor balcony.

  By feel, he removed his specialized tools and quickly disabled the alarm system. He taped a neat circle in the glass door near the handle, pulled his rubber mallet out of the loop in his coveralls, and gave the glass a sharp rap. The glass shattered almost soundlessly and he reached a gloved hand inside, undid the lock, and let himself in.

  Once inside apartment 9C, he waited, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness cut only by a low-
wattage night-light on the refrigerator door. It was enough light to guide him to the hallway. A clock ticked rhythmically in the background as he made his way across plush white carpeting to a closed door. The master bedroom.

  The door opened with a soft snick. A man snored heavily from the right side of a king-size bed. He crept to the man’s side, inserted the needle swiftly into his neck. The man’s struggle was brief and quiet. He would sleep for a good twenty-four hours. Or he would die. Didn’t matter. He just needed to buy some quiet time.

  It took him less than five minutes to affix the contact microphones to the ceilings in each room. The mikes would pick up every nuance of conversation from apartment 10C above.

  Satisfied that everything was in working order, he let himself out of the apartment through the front door and walked out of the building. All any security video would pick up was a man dressed in black with his face turned away from the camera.

  In and out and back to the van in fifteen minutes.

  Once he was behind the wheel, he dialed the cell number, turned on the microphone receiver, and started listening.

  “It’s done,” he said when the man who paid him answered.

  “And you were undetected?” Carl Wilson asked.

  Because he was paid promptly and well, the man forgave the slur on his competence. “I was not detected. I’ll be back in touch as soon as I have actionable information.”

  Wilson disconnected, then went back to cleaning his Kninkov, his new traveling weapon of choice. The AK-74SU had a collapsible stock and fired a smaller cartridge than the AK-47. It was compact, concealable, and controllable. Just like he suspected Ann Tompkins would be controllable when her own daughter unknowingly led him straight to her door.

  22

  Stephanie awoke to the sound of the wind howling outside the dark bedroom window, the weight of Joe’s thigh on hers, and a massive bicep caging her in with gentle possessiveness.

  So much for her line of demarcation.

  But what they’d shared in this bed hadn’t really been about sex. It had been about connecting. About caring. About needs that transcended the physical and delved into far stickier stuff.