Sam slipped out of bed. She toyed with the idea of waking Brock, but decided against it. His broken foot and battered body were likely to make him a liability. And if things went sour, she didn’t want him in the line of fire. She wanted him to survive, to live his life, to move on, to grow old and be happy.
She dressed silently and slipped out of the room.
49
Homeland Secretary Cullsworth’s house was dark and quiet. Only the security detail stirred. Sam smiled at one of the guards as she approached the door leading to Cullsworth’s five-car garage. “I don’t know how you guys don’t lose your minds,” she said, “standing here in the dark for hours on end.”
The guard smiled in return. “What makes you think we don’t?”
Sam laughed as she reached for a set of keys from the holder adjacent to the door. “I’m suddenly in need of some feminine particulars,” she lied, choosing the key emblazoned with the familiar BMW logo. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”
“We’re not supposed to let you out of our sight, ma’am,” the guard said.
“I know, and I appreciate that. So you’ll follow me to the store, then?”
He looked around, uncomfortable. “It would leave a hole in our perimeter, ma’am. I’m really afraid I can’t let you go.”
She leaned in and lowered her voice. “Mother nature’s kicking my ass,” she said with the air of a confession. “I noticed there’s a convenience store just a couple of miles away. It really shouldn’t take that long.”
“Couldn’t you just, um, borrow something from Mrs. Cullsworth?”
Sam shook her head. “Menopause.”
The guard nodded his understanding. “There’s nothing else you can do about, er, it?”
“You married?” Sam asked.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Then you know it’s not quite life-and-death, but it’s damn close.”
The guard mulled, spoke into the radio, listened for the response of the team lead – also married, the guard told her – and ultimately relented.
“Thanks a lot,” Sam said, stepping past the guard and into the warehouse-sized garage. “Be back in a sec.”
Sam drove fast down the long, wooded road leading out of Cullsworth’s exclusive subdivision full of elaborate custom homes. Night’s recent descent had quieted all neighborhood activity, which didn’t strike Sam as being terribly lively in the first place. It was an older, moneyed neighborhood, with lots of physical space between homes, and even more psychological space between homeowners.
She fished into her jacket pocket to fetch her new burner phone, which she had prevailed upon Dan to purchase during their trip to Homeland headquarters earlier in the afternoon.
Sam dreaded making the call. At this hour, after what she’d put Dan’s family through over the past week, she would have preferred to call almost anyone else on the planet. But there was no one else on the planet she trusted.
Sam cringed when Sara answered.
“I was happy when Dan told me you pulled through,” Sara said, “but now I’m rethinking.”
Sam laughed. “I can’t blame you in the least. I hesitate to make promises, but I think we’re getting very close to the end of this little soap opera.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Sara said. “It’ll just be something else next weekend.”
“God, I hope not. My nerves couldn’t handle it.”
“Mine either. Anyway, I’m glad you’re alive. Mostly.” Sam heard rustling as Sara handed the phone to her husband.
Dan sounded groggy and strung-out. “Up for a little adventure?” Sam asked.
“What’s wrong with you? Don’t you sleep?”
“Nightmares. Anyway, this probably won’t be easy, but I need it in the next fifteen minutes. And then I need you to join me.”
Sam described her hunch, her request, and her plan.
“Sure thing,” Dan deadpanned, after Sam filled him in. “I’ll turn water into wine, then whip up that address for you.”
“Good plan,” Sam said. “As an aside, you should be flattered. I wouldn’t have called you if I didn’t know what you’re capable of.”
“Thanks, Sam. No matter what Sara says, we’re glad you’re still around to ruin our lives.”
She laughed, hung up, and made her way into the city. She didn’t have the exact address, but she had a good idea of the general vicinity, and she wanted to make good use of the time while Dan worked his cybermagic to find the precise location.
Her route through the city took her north on 14th Street, past its intersection with D Street, two blocks west of the Homeland Security headquarters. She continued north beyond Independence Avenue, and looked idly at the Washington Monument as it passed by on her left side. It was under renovation, and the entire obelisk was surrounded by a cocoon of scaffolding, strangely beautiful in the light of the powerful floodlights arrayed at the monument’s foot. Despite its many, many inconveniences, DC was a gorgeous town.
Except for all the assholes, she reminded herself. If her intuition was correct, and if fortune smiled on her, there might be a couple fewer of them on the prowl when the sun rose.
On the other hand, the odds weren’t in her favor. She needed backup – a small army’s worth, she reckoned – but that was impossible. The trust problem again. There was nobody to ask for help, nobody who could be trusted not to use their power and access to finish her off, once and for all.
But for Dan, she was alone. He was a capable ally, to be sure, but she still didn’t much like their chances.
There was no use crying over the hand she was dealt, Sam knew, and she had long ago resolved to play it well and not worry about much else. But she couldn’t help but wonder whether she was enjoying the iconic DC view for the last time.
Despite the obvious danger, it felt nice to finally be on the offensive. She’d been on the run for the last nine days, forced to react to one disaster after another, and Sam was sick of playing defense. Damn if she was going to sit around waiting for some other misfortune – or satanic, murderous bastard – to show up in her life.
Time to change the game up, she thought, feeling a surge of adrenaline flow through her veins.
Her burner buzzed. An address, from Dan. She looked at the clock on the dashboard of Cullsworth’s big, powerful BMW sedan. It had taken Dan all of seven minutes to find what she needed.
I really should give that guy a raise. It would be her first priority, assuming they both survived the night.
Sam parked illegally at the curb of an expensive downtown apartment complex, climbed gingerly into the backseat of big BMW, and settled into her visual scan routine. She loathed this element of investigative work, and often dreamed of assigning these types of surveillance efforts to her various slack-jawed subordinates who were infinitely better suited to endure the monotony and boredom, but the work was too important to leave to the sheeple in the Homeland bureaucracy.
It was the details that mattered, the finer points, the things that the check-collecting dullards would never even notice. Sam solved more than her fair share of difficult cases because she noticed those key details with enviable regularity.
Unarmed and unprotected, Sam awaited Dan’s arrival with weapons and other goodies. Her position in the backseat allowed her to take full advantage of the sedan’s tinted windows. It was important that she not be seen, by anyone at all.
She worried that she might already be too late, that the Venezuelan bastards and their numerous American errand boys might already have struck a fatal blow against the person she was confident would be their next victim.
It would be a high-profile murder. Another statement. And as the past week had demonstrated, the VSS apparently believed in making statements. They had struck against the powerful American empire with a boldness that bordered on desperation, Sam thought. Dropping bombs on American houses, mutilating prominent government contractors, kidnapping federal agents in broad daylight just a few miles from the heart of America’
s capitol city…
And the torture, Sam recalled with a shiver.
If she was correct, they’d already added another victim to their list this evening. Senator Wharton, the pro-intelligence conservative from Texas.
Two staunch votes. Cullsworth’s words echoed in her head. Though sentiments were sharply divided, the controversial intelligence measures were certain to pass the closed Senate vote, Cullsworth had reckoned.
One down, Sam thought. And one staunch vote to go.
She was certain the second vote belonged to Senator Frank Higgs, lifetime hawk and longtime member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and now the powerful committee’s iron-fisted chairman. It was his apartment building entrance she now surveilled.
There wasn’t time to debate with herself about the accuracy of her hunch. Besides, such a debate would be pointless. If her suspicion was correct, Higgs’ life was in immediate danger. If she was wrong, she had nothing to lose but a night of restless sleep.
Sam’s stomach churned. She was concerned that the VSS had already struck, and that Higgs, like the esteemed gentleman from the great state of Texas, was already floating in a pool of his own blood.
There was only one way to find out. Sam had to enter the building.
But before she dared to do that, she had to be confident that no one else was watching the upscale address. Walking into another trap wasn’t on her agenda, and she had resolved to take her time and do things the right way.
So she scanned the street in a disciplined pattern, dividing the world into twelve separate thirty-degree sectors, turning her head to dwell for several seconds in each sector. She allowed her eyes to move naturally around the features visible in each of her scan regions, knowing that humanity’s hunter-gatherer heritage had wired her to naturally detect movement and other telltale signs of approaching quarry.
Or approaching danger. In Sam’s case, the two things were one and the same.
She’d just begun her third full visual sweep of the street when her burner buzzed again. She cursed the flood of light its screen produced, and ducked down in the seat to take the call.
“How far out are you?” she asked.
“Couple of blocks,” Dan replied. “I’m in my minivan.”
“There’s no place to park, but you can block a driveway on the northwest side of the street. I’m in the black Bimmer to the southeast. See you in a sec.”
A set of headlights rounded the corner. Definitely not a minivan, Sam thought, watching a large plumbing truck drive slowly down the street. She ducked as the truck approached.
It stopped in the loading zone near the entrance to Higgs’ building, its headlights pointing directly into Sam’s front windshield.
Sam lay flat and motionless in the backseat, hidden behind the front seats, until the driver switched off the headlights. She heard the sound of the truck’s door opening and closing, and she peeked just above the center console to catch a glimpse of the driver.
Her blood froze.
It was him.
Sam knew that for as long as she lived, she would never forget the man’s gait. It was crooked and halting, yet somehow intense, inexorable.
By the dim light of the street lamps, Sam watched as the man who tortured and killed her walked brazenly toward the lobby door and rang the bell.
Where the hell are you, Dan? A girl could use a gun right about now.
Sam saw the shadow of the doorman approach the apartment entrance. Her killer held up a piece of paper and placed it flat against the glass door. The doorman examined the paper, then turned the key to unlock the entrance.
Just as Satan walked inside the building, Dan’s minivan passed on Sam’s left. About time, she thought.
They had seconds to act.
She slid out of the rear driver’s side door, then crouched low as she ran, using the cover of the car to hide her retreat across the street. Once there, she ducked behind the row of parked cars along the curb, and hustled to Dan’s minivan.
“Dan!” she whispered.
He jumped. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“He’s here.”
“What?”
“The assassin. He’s here. Just arrived a second ago. You brought vests and weapons?”
Dan handed her a ballistic vest and a government-issue 9mm pistol. Not her preferred sidearm, but it would do in a pinch. She put on the harness containing the shoulder holster, adjusted the strap length, chambered a round, set the safety, and placed her pistol in its holster under her left arm. “Flashlight?” she asked.
Dan nodded, brandishing a billy club full of D-cell batteries with an afterthought of a lightbulb at one end. “I brought the drunk thumper. Are you sure it was him?” he asked.
“Not death-penalty sure, but positive enough to be seriously concerned. What floor is the senator on?” Sam asked, walking briskly back across the street, still in the shadows and out of view of the apartment complex entrance.
“Fourth,” Dan said, in a near-run to keep up with Sam’s long strides.
“Showtime,” Sam said. She stepped up to the door, peered through the glass to the inside of the lobby, and scanned for any sign of the psychopath who’d just gained access to Senator Higgs’ residence. Seeing no movement, she rapped on the glass door.
She held her badge up for the doorman to see, and Dan did the same. The doorman pressed a button on the inside of his desk. They heard a buzzing sound, then a click as the latch retracted into the door frame. The door opened.
“You have a universal access key?” Sam asked the doorman.
“Ma’am?”
“A key. Do you have a key that lets you into residents’ rooms?”
“Ma’am, I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Give her the key, sir,” Dan said menacingly, holding his badge beneath the doorman’s nose.
“It’s all electronic.”
“Apartment 401,” Dan said. “Code it. Now!”
“Don’t you have to have a warrant?”
“Do you want to be responsible for the death of a senator?” Sam asked.
“Mr. Higgs?” the doorman asked.
“Key. Now.”
The doorman disappeared behind the counter for what seemed like ages, clicking computer keys.
“Jesus, we’re losing time here. Hurry up!”
A shaking hand with liver spots finally protruded from behind the desk, holding out a keycard. Sam snatched the card and ran toward the stairs. “No time to wait for the elevator.”
“You’ll want to turn to the right when you get up to the fourth floor,” the doorman called. “Last door on the left.”
Sam and Dan charged through the doorway and bounded up the stairs two at a time. Every muscle in her body protested. She couldn’t remember ever being so sore. It was nearly debilitating, and her muscles threatened to cramp at every step, but she kept charging up the stairs as fast as the pain allowed. Dan followed.
Finally, the fourth floor landing appeared. Sam peered through the window into an empty hallway. It was wide, decorated in Modern Filthy Rich, and devoid of movement and people. She pushed on the doorway, but found it locked.
“Swipe the key,” Dan offered. It worked. They made their way quickly but quietly to the end of the hallway.
“No cop shit,” Sam said in a whisper. “We just use the key and go in. If we give him any warning, he’ll slice the senator’s jugular.”
They listened for a brief second at Frank Higgs’ door, but heard no commotion inside. Sam took a deep breath, unholstered her pistol and turned off the safety, swiped the keycard through the electronic reader, and prayed for a quiet lock.
Lucky day, she thought as the door yielded noiselessly. She and Dan entered the senator’s posh apartment.
The place was huge. That wasn’t unexpected, but it wasn’t a welcome development. Searching through all of the rooms in the spacious upper-crust apartment wasn’t going to be easy.
They tiptoed through the f
oyer, which ended at an intersection with a perpendicular hallway. Sam motioned for Dan to take the right, and she veered left, forcing herself to loosen her death-grip on the pistol in her hand.
She snuck toward a gargantuan Schwarzwald cuckoo clock at the end of the hallway, and Sam noticed that its enormous pendulum caught a warm yellow light with each swing. Her pulse quickened. There was a lamp on somewhere in the apartment.
She peered around the corner, and her heart leapt into her throat. Senator Higgs sat in a posh leather chair at a mahogany desk roughly the size of a tennis court, his back to the room, his nose buried in a book.
Behind the senator’s head, the assassin was raising a gun.
“Freeze! Hands up!” Sam shouted at the top of her lungs, lunging out from around the corner and leveling her pistol in the direction of the short, stocky demon of a man.
He pulled the trigger.
Sam heard a whisper of a report, saw the senator’s arm swing up to his neck, then saw a blur of motion where the assassin had stood.
The killer dove onto the floor, rolled behind an overstuffed leather armchair, and kicked it in Sam’s direction. She dodged the chair, leveled her gun, and moved her finger to the trigger as he dashed toward the opposite door, the strange-sounding pistol still in his hand.
Dan appeared in the doorway, directly in the assassin’s path, spoiling Sam’s shot.
Balls. Sam lowered her gun and watched helplessly as the two beefy men collided in Senator Frank Higgs’ study.
Still in a crouch, the assassin’s shoulder connected with Dan’s chest, and Sam heard all of the air leave her deputy’s lungs. He flew ass over teakettle, and the killer scrambled over the top of Dan’s flattened body.
The assassin sprung to his feet, raised his heel, and stomped viciously toward Dan’s face. Dan moved his jaw out of the way just in time, but the killer’s boot connected with Dan’s collarbone, and Sam heard a sickening crack. Dan howled in pain.
The assassin moved with surprising quickness out of sight into the dark room adjacent to the study.
She heard a loud thump from the vicinity of the senator, and turned to see that he had fallen from his desk chair onto the floor. Still alive? She had no time to assess his condition. The assassin could easily circle back around through the apartment and shoot them from behind.
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 52