“I don’t believe that. The picture of you on the riverbank, what do you see?”
“I see me lying dead on the riverbank.”
“But are you?”
“The newspaper said it-”
“But you’re not, and neither will Mia be if we find her. So let’s keep focused on that instead of all this mysterious magic bullshit. Cristos filled your head with nonsense. Quit dwelling on the words of a psychopath. It’s making you sound crazy.”
Jack said nothing, letting his friend’s words sink in. They finally did, and he smiled.
“No offense, Jack,” Frank said, “but the FBI and Cristos weren’t after those drawings of you and Mia. Not to downplay them, but they are not the earth-shattering type that conspiracies are built around.”
Jack nodded. “No, they were after these.” He held up the two red books, handing one to Frank. “Prayer books.”
“Prayer books?” Frank said as he looked through it. “Why the hell would they be after prayer books?”
Jack leaned over the car seat and opened the book. He took a bottle of water out of the cupholder and poured it on a napkin. He rubbed it on the first page, and the prayers disappeared, replaced by elegant handwriting, small and detailed
“How the hell did you know how to do that?”
Each notation was short, and there were thousands of them. Jack kept wetting the napkin, thumbing through the pages, until he came near the end, where he found a missing page, its shredded edge still bound within the book. He looked back and noticed the last date on the page before it was June 23, the week before. Whatever was missing contained pages either written about the present or blank for future entries. But as Jack turned to the next page, he saw that notations had already been made for the next week. He flipped back to the torn section.
“Whatever was written here was torn out for a reason,” Jack said, not looking up from the book. “Someone didn’t want anyone to see these missing pages.”
Jack flipped forward, looking at dates for the next week, and as he scanned the last notation, he was suddenly shocked. There was a name he recognized, completely out of context with everything else on the page. And while the language was Cotis, there was no question of the anglicized name appearing in the text: Mia Keeler.
“What the hell is this?” Jack said, turning the page toward Joy.
“Oh, God,” Joy said, glancing over at the book before looking back at the road.
“What the hell does it say?”
“I’ll see if I can find Professor Adoy,” Joy said as she looked at her watch. “But at this late hour…”
“Why would her name be in this book?”
“Guys,” Frank said. He wet the napkin and rubbed the pages of the second book in his lap.
Joy and Jack turned their attention to the second book. Frank was flipping pages, rubbing the wet cloth on them as he went, revealing Cotis text, but the page he was currently on revealed English.
“Oh, boy,” Frank mumbled.
It was all in a similar fashion, but they understood it. Small notations, dates in the corner, and they went on and on, five, ten, twenty pages.
As they continued to read, they began to realize why the FBI and the U.S. government were after this book. It contained every job that Cristos had done, every assassination, every bombing, every act committed on behalf of people and governments whose world image would be tarnished by such allegations.
As they read, they found several jobs engaged by offshore companies for which Jack knew the dots could eventually be connected back home. But on the last page, it seemed that Cristos connected those dots himself, for anyone who read the red book would find written a list of five names. Jack, Frank, and Joy knew them all; each one filled them with ever-escalating shock: a member of the Justice Department; a high-level FBI agent; two Cabinet-level positions in the current administration. And the final name-none of them would voice it, as it filled them all with confusion.
Jack understood where Cristos’s help came from and why he had certain members of the U.S. government at his beck and call, for the imcriminating evidence would doom not only careers but lives for acts of treason.
He understood how Cristos’s execution was a staged event of subterfuge, how he was just a pawn in prosecuting an assassin in a trial whose outcome was preordained by people pulling strings for show. Jack understood how Cristos managed to get the assistance of certain members of the FBI and the Justice Department in protecting him. If they didn’t act on his precise instructions, he threatened exposure; they had danced with the devil and had become his minions.
This book, the one with more than half of its entries in English, was not being sought for national security, as leverage against other nations who had illicitly engaged Cristos; it was being sought by a select few who were operating on their own within the confines of the U.S. government-arranging hits, assassinations, and who knew what in the name of national security while standing in the face of the constitution and laws of the United States.
And those select few, those five, were listed.
Jack was on his way to the first person on that list, someone who knew where Cristos was holding Mia, someone who would tell him even if he had to resort to unthinkable means.
He personally knew FBI Director Lance Warren; he was with him Thursday night, trading handshakes and smiles. There was no doubt he had sent Cristos’s men after him when they left the party. CIA Director Stuart Turner’s success in dealing with foreign governments and hostile adversaries was now clear. And if Jack was to survive this ordeal, he would pay a visit to FBI Agent Gene Tierney and see to it that he was convicted and made to suffer for the rest of his days.
But it was the fifth and final name that gave him pause, that none of them mentioned, that Jack couldn’t understand its presence on the list. And it caused him the most fear. For that name was Jack Keeler.
Tierney walked out of the Tombs humbled and humiliated. He had lain strapped to the bed for fifteen minutes, struggling with the leather bindings, before the nurse came in to free them. The two men he assigned to guard the room had left two minutes before him after being debriefed.
No one saw anything. Bullshit. Everyone saw everything. They just weren’t going to cooperate.
Tierney had simply followed orders, orders he didn’t agree with, but that’s what agents did all the time. Once someone didn’t follow orders, the entire system would crumble.
Tierney climbed into his white Mercedes. It was his one indulgence, a gift from his wife, who was the real breadwinner, toiling away her days on Madison Avenue creating ad campaigns for sneakers, soda, and erectile dysfunction medication. He started up the car and let Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Number 21 wash away his everrising stress.
He pulled out of the garage and headed for the Brooklyn Bridge, noticing how the bright lights of the city gave it a false sense of innocence.
Although he was told not to contact Warren, the circumstances demanded it. He tried six times but still had received no answer. The lower level of the Tombs was littered with bodies, and although he made the accusation that it was Jack’s doing, there was little doubt that Cristos had lost control of the situation.
Cristos wasn’t looking for the evidence case for them; he couldn’t care less if anyone’s secret agendas were laid bare. Something else was in that box, something far worse that had made Cristos desperate, that had made him scared. And in Tierney’s mind, there could be nothing worse than a scared, desperate assassin.
Tierney hit the Brooklyn Bridge. It was virtually empty, the city masses having already escaped for the long weekend. He looked to his right out at New York Harbor, at the Statue of Liberty, whose lit torch was held up in welcome.
And as he turned to look back at the roadway, the fabric of the night was shredded by an enormous fireball that rolled up high into the sky, the explosion tearing Tierney and his white Mercedes to shreds.
CHAPTER 38
FRIDAY, 1:15 A.M.
A single car sat in the driveway of the stately white colonial home in Riverdale, New York. While Peter Womack was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, earning the wages of a federal employee, both he and his wife, Katherine, came from money, the trust-fund brigade. Because of their station in life, they were encouraged to give back, to work in the service of the country that had afforded their families a life of privilege.
The porch light was on, and several windows glowed at this late hour. Jack knew that Peter was in the middle of a trial, and he never joined his family out in the Hamptons until all work was behind him. Jack had considered Peter a friend, and although they and their wives had dined out, although they had worked together, Jack admitted to himself that he never truly knew the man. They walked in different worlds, not just federal and local but background, financial circles, and privilege. Jack was a DA because of passion, Peter as a result of duty.
He was not a cynic, but when Jack saw Peter’s name in Cristos’s book, he was not totally shocked. As they drove to Peter’s house, Jack grew angrier with every mile. It was Peter who suggested that Jack prosecute Cristos; it was Peter who limited the fed involvement, all the while knowing that Jack would do the right thing and get the conviction. And, Jack imagined, it was Peter who was involved with the false execution of Nowaji Cristos, allowing him to live another day.
Jack tried to banish the thought that Peter would have allowed Jack and Mia’s current situation but would withhold judgment until they spoke. But the bottom line was that Peter was connected to Cristos, and if he didn’t know where Cristos was, he knew the people who would.
Jack rang the doorbell as Frank and Joy stood back on the slate walkway.
He waited a moment. No answer. He rang it again.
After a full minute, no sound came from the home.
Without a word, Frank took off around the house, peering through the windows.
Jack and Joy remained at the front of the house as Jack gave the button one last push. But this time, he heard movement.
Someone approached the entrance hall, the lock was unlatched, and the door was pulled open. Frank stood there, his hand wrapped in his sleeve so as not to touch the knob.
“Back door was open,” Frank said.
Joy and Jack stepped inside the small wainscoted foyer.
“Don’t touch anything,” Frank said.
Jack knew full well what that meant as Frank led them through to the study off the living room.
Peter sat behind an antique partners’ desk, a Tiffany lamp’s glow lighting the dark wood surface. The right side of his head was missing, the maroon curtains behind him covered in bits of flesh and bone. A pistol lay on the floor beneath his left hand.
“Look at his neck,” Frank said.
Jack could see a shade of bruising around his trachea.
“Jack.” Frank waited until his friend finally looked up from the body. “The list in the back of that book, the one with Peter’s name on it, Director Warren’s name, Tierney’s… yours. It’s not the type of list we think. It’s a hit list.”
The heavy bolt of the lock slipped back with a thud, and the door opened to reveal a man balancing a heavy tray precariously on his right hand. He stepped into the room; the sound of the city flowed in before he closed the door behind him. He slipped the key back into the door lock, securing it with a single turn, tucked it back into his pocket, and took hold of the silver tray with two hands.
“Brought you a little dinner,” the man said with a forced smile.
Mia sat on the bed, her head hung low.
“Sorry we don’t have something a bit more appealing, but this is what we’re all eating.” The tray had two plates covered in cold cuts, two apples, a loaf of bread, and three bottles of water.
“I’m Jacob,” the brown-haired man said, trying to get a reaction from Mia, but she remained silent, her eyes distant. “Well, it’s here if you want it.”
When Jacob leaned down, both hands holding the tray, Mia sprang from the bed and snatched the gun from his holster.
Jacob spun around, but Mia already had the gun pointed at him.
“You’re kidding me, right?” There was a mix of fear and humor in the young man’s eyes.
Mia tapped the gun against his head. “Do you want to see how much I’m kidding?”
“You wouldn’t shoot.” Jacob’s words sounded more hopeful than definitive.
“Then you don’t know me very well.” Mia stepped back and pulled back the bedspread to reveal long white ropes, hand-woven from torn strips of bedsheet.
“Lash your legs together,” Mia said as she tossed him a four-foot length.
Jacob reluctantly sat on the floor and tied his legs, laughing as he did. “You don’t have a chance of escaping.”
“You’d be surprised how far a woman will go to save her family.”
“You’ll be surprised, then, because it won’t be very far.”
“On your knees,” Mia snapped.
Jacob shook his head as he complied. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Hands behind your back.” Mia brought the gun close to his eye, reminding him of what she held.
As Jacob held his hands behind his back, Mia grabbed a length of woven bedsheet tied in a noose and, walking behind him while jamming the gun hard into the back of his neck, dropped it over his wrists and pulled it tight, binding his hands together. She yanked it roughly for emphasis, wrapping the excess twice more about his wrists, ensuring that he couldn’t free himself.
“I can’t tell you what a mistake you just made.” Jacob’s humorous tone was completely gone, replaced with a mix of anger and fear. He sneered. “If Cristos has his sights on your family, they don’t have a chance.”
Mia’s temper boiled, and she drew back her arm, smashing the butt of the gun into the man’s temple. He tumbled from his knees and hit the hard floor face-first, out cold. She leaned over and grabbed the elegant cloth napkins from the silver tray and stuffed them into Jacob’s mouth.
She rifled through his pockets, empty except for a single key.
She slipped the key into the lock, and with a quick turn, the heavy dead bolt slipped back into the door with a click. She laid her ear on the door and listened. She wrapped her hand around the brass handle and slowly turned.
As she cautiously opened the door, what she saw shocked her. Despite the constant whine of city noise, the sounds of traffic and people, she could not have been farther away from the image the sounds of the city painted in her head.
Mia stepped into a room, and her captivity immediately took on a whole new perspective. While expecting to be met with a dingy, run-down warehouse, perhaps a decrepit apartment building, she saw before her anything but.
The room she had been held in for the last twenty-four hours was not a room but a closet, an anteroom to a large, elegantly appointed bedroom. The walls were covered with soft floral-print paper, and thick green velvet curtains framed the large windows. A canopy bed dominated the room, while its matching dresser and makeup table sat off to the side. She looked at a small stereo on the floor and felt the fool. A CD was on perpetual repeat, and the sounds of city noise, cars honking, bus doors closing, sirens racing off to nowhere poured from the speakers.
Mia’s fear grew as Jacob’s words began to ring in her ears, you won’t get far.
Jacka stood outside Peter’s house, looking at the dark clouds looming overhead, the orange lights of the city reflected off their underbellies. Flashes of summer lightning burst inside their five-mile-high confines.
There was no doubt in his mind that Frank was right. The list in the back of the book was a hit list. Reports were already coming in that FBI Director Lance Warren was dead. Being on Cristos’s hit list hadn’t fazed him; he was killed once already. He had never been involved in anything recorded in those books. His name was on the list for retribution, for revenge, for putting Cristos to death the year before.
Jack’s cell phone rang, startling
him. He saw Mia’s number come up, but he knew who was calling. He placed it to his ear.
“Heard you escaped.”
“Where is my wife?”
“You betrayed me while I hold the proverbial blade to your wife’s throat,” Cristos raged through the phone. “If I’m not holding the contents of that case, every single piece in my hands by dawn, I will kill your wife… not quickly. Slowly, drawn out, where you will hear her screams no matter where you are in the world. And then I will kill your children. I will do it in front of you as you watch the life slowly seep from their young eyes. Then I will render you helpless, crippled, blind, with nothing but the memories of their cries to keep you company for the rest of your days.”
“You son of-”
“I imagine you’re at Peter Womack’s house trying to track me down. Don’t bother with that list in the back of my book. They’re all dead.”
“Where are you?” Jack begged through gritted teeth.
“You know exactly where I am.”
And Cristos hung up.
CHAPTER 39
1:25 A.M.
Mia slowly opened the bedroom door to find a wide hallway, the ceiling at least twelve feet, the floor covered in a thick burgundy rug. She could see a cloud of dust rising up with her every footstep.
Several doors ran off in both directions, while a sweeping set of stairs lay at the far end of the hall and fell off into an enormous marble foyer. The paneled walls and coffered ceiling left no doubt about the extreme wealth of the home owner.
Mia crept down the hall, thankful for the pair of flats she wore on her feet, glad she had changed from the three-inch pumps when she got into the car the night before. She held tightly to the pistol, taking comfort in its lethal ability and the fact that she knew how to bring it to bear so well. She ejected the clip, confirming nine bullets, before slamming it back into the butt, resolving to use it only as a last resort. Her only thought was getting to her children. Jack said they were safe, but she had seen the look in Cristos’s eyes. She saw the picture that he had taken of them and knew that their innocent lives meant nothing to him except as pawns of leverage in achieving his goal. And while she was terrified for them, she tucked her fear in the back of her mind, knowing that it would do nothing but cripple her and keep her from reaching them before it was too late.
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