by Stephen Frey
“Hear, hear,” an Asian man chimed in. “I’m tired of seeing the rich get richer, especially when they cheat.”
“She’s not guilty!” Sofia shouted. “She’s a good woman, and she’s being—”
“All right, all right,” Racine interrupted loudly as the situation barreled toward a brick wall. “We’re officially in recess for the weekend,” he said, standing up, “so boxers, back to your corners until Monday.”
WASHINGTON, DC (GEORGETOWN)
“This is fantastic,” Lehman said excitedly as he checked his laptop. “I’m up twenty points on Angela Gaynor now.”
“I don’t understand why her people haven’t made her drop out yet.” Martha gazed at the screen over her husband’s shoulder. “It bothers me that she’s staying in the race.”
“Why? Because she’s deluded herself into thinking that somehow she can still beat me from behind bars?”
“No, because she must be innocent. That’s the only reason she’d stay in, Chuck. And, if she is found innocent, she’ll turn it to her advantage and come roaring back at you.”
Lehman slipped his arm around her. “You’re reading too much into this, honey. Angela Gaynor is guilty. She’s simply lost touch with reality. We see this with white-collar criminals all the time. They get swept up in the money; they can’t stop themselves from continuing the scam, and then the way they rationalize what they’ve done when they finally get snagged is by insisting they’re the victim.” He pointed at Angela’s picture on the screen. “She’s probably been bribing public officials for years. What the authorities have uncovered now is probably just the tip of the iceberg.” He pulled Martha down onto his lap and then kissed her deeply for the first time in a long time. “Don’t worry,” he whispered when he finally pulled back, “you’re going to be the First Lady. I promise.”
She smiled at him sweetly. “You’re right. You’re always right. I shouldn’t worry so much. You’ve been Teflon ever since I’ve known you. You win at everything you do.” She shook her head. “I feel sorry for Angela. She’s worked very hard to get where she is. She’s an American success story.”
Lehman kissed her again. “Not anymore, honey, not anymore.”
CHAPTER 46
NORTH WOODS OF MAINE
Rockwell and the lone Gray he hadn’t identified yet moved through the north woods night, toward the helipad.
The five of them had just finished a hastily called meeting, but the other three had stayed behind in the cabin. The chopper would return for the others after taking Rockwell and this man home.
Rockwell assumed he would land first—for obvious reasons. This man wouldn’t want Rockwell to know where he lived. The other Grays were still keeping a tight lid on personal information. He grinned smugly in the dark.
“Have you figured out who we are yet?” the Gray said as they passed from the trees into the clearing.
Was this guy clairvoyant? “Pardon me?”
“You’ve dedicated a good bit of effort trying to determine our identities. By nature, intelligent men are curious. Curiosity in any context cannot be considered a sin. It’s the key to mankind’s ascension to the top of the food chain. It’s what sets us apart from the animals.”
Rockwell laughed self-consciously. “I’m curious, sure.” The chopper lights were illuminated, but the blades weren’t rotating. He would have felt the breeze, heard the engine. But the forest was still and silent. “I know who some of you are.”
“And?”
“NSA, Homeland, CIA,” Rockwell answered. It seemed safe to admit this. He was one of them now. “The usual suspects.”
“Very good,” the man said as they stepped onto the concrete and neared the large chopper. “What about me?”
Rockwell hesitated, but he had yet to even form a guess. “No.”
The Gray stopped a few feet from the helicopter and turned to him. “Have you ever heard of Majestic Twelve?”
Rockwell leaned away from the man, stunned. “The shadow government President Truman supposedly created in the late forties?”
“So you have.”
“MJ-Twelve is real? I thought that was all just a hoax.”
The Gray cracked a thin smile. “You’re right,” he said as he reached for the helicopter’s door handle. “It’s just a hoax. Good-bye, Mr. Rockwell.”
Rockwell felt his eyes bulge as a familiar figure hopped down in front of him from the chopper. “Oh, no,” he cried, throwing his arms up. “No. Wait!”
A moment later Philip Rockwell lay sprawled on the helipad, dead from a single bullet to the temple.
“Bury him somewhere in the woods up here,” the Gray ordered as the chopper rotors began to turn. “Make sure it’s at least twenty miles away and at least six feet down.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good lad.” The man gestured down at Rockwell’s body. “Now get him out of here.” The Gray caught JD by the shoulder as he passed. “You shot Mr. Rockwell because he asked too many questions. You get my drift?”
“Yes, sir. I’m an execution asset, and that’s all.”
“Good lad,” the man repeated. “By the way, when you get back to Virginia, there will be two hundred thousand dollars in your account. Keep up the good work and you can expect more, much more.”
CHAPTER 47
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
“Where is Mr. Racine?”
“It’s Saturday,” Bart Stevens replied from the other side of the Excel Games conference-room table. “He could be anywhere.”
“Well, he should be sitting in front of me, Mr. Stevens. That’s where he should be.”
“We’re looking for him everywhere, Mr. Xilai. I … I don’t know what to tell you.”
“This is an outrage. You’ve had days to find him. I gave you plenty of warning that I was coming down here after finishing my business in Washington.”
“I know and I’m very, very sorry.”
“And I thought I made myself very, very clear.”
“Everything is going so well, Mr. Xilai. Revenues and profits are going through the roof now that we’ve been able to advertise using the money you invested.”
“Unless you locate Mr. Racine in the next five minutes, everything is definitely not going well.”
Stevens stared across the table at Mao Xilai. He didn’t like the nasty, bordering-on-evil expression he was getting. “Let me try David again,” he suggested desperately, rising from his seat. Trying again was an exercise in complete futility, but he didn’t know what else to say.
“Use your cell to call him,” Xilai ordered angrily, pointing at the phone Stevens had just grabbed off the table. “There is no need for you to leave this room.”
“I was going to see if David’s assistant had heard anything.”
“His assistant is here? It’s Saturday.”
“Oh, right. I forgot.”
“Did you really?”
“I—”
“Do not leave this room, Mr. Stevens. Not until I tell you to.”
As Stevens eased back down against the chair, perspiration drenched his shirt. Xilai had brought two men with him on this trip. They were outside in the parking lot, dressed in matching dark suits and sunglasses, smoking up a storm as they leaned against the limousine. He’d seen them through his office window blinds before finally getting up his nerve to walk in here. They were outside … but it wouldn’t take them long to get inside.
“Go on,” Xilai demanded, gesturing at the phone, “call Mr. Racine.”
“Okay.” Stevens cut the connection when the call went straight to Racine’s voice mail—again. “I’m sorry, I—”
“I told you to treat this company as if it were your child.”
“I am, sir. I do.”
“But your chief executive does not. How can he go missing like this? Would he really do this to Claire?”
Stevens grimaced. It shouldn’t surprise him that Xilai knew the name of Racine’s daughter. What terrified him was that it meant Xilai
knew the names of his children, too. The quiet warning was coming through with deafening clarity.
“Let’s start going over the numbers while we wait for David,” Stevens suggested, sliding his laptop in front of him. “They’re tremendous. We’re on pace to do more than twenty million in revenues this year, up from five last year. If we keep pumping the ads, we might do as much as fifty million in top-line dollars next year, maybe even a hundred. We’ve got thousands of people signing up every day. It’s incredible. I’ve got New York and San Francisco investment bankers calling me off the hook. The IPO figures they’re talking about are insane. Your four million could be worth a billion in the next eighteen months. That would turn the dial even for a man as wealthy as you, Mr. Xilai.”
“Why are the investment bankers calling you and not Racine?” Xilai asked coldly.
“I’m the CFO. Why wouldn’t they call me?”
“I detest when people lie to me, Mr. Stevens. I told you that,” Xilai hissed. “I gave you fair warning.”
“Mr. Xilai, the company is doing so well.”
“I do not like being disrespected!” Xilai shouted, springing up out of his seat. “I invested four million dollars in you and Mr. Racine. Not in the company. Do you not understand that?”
“I’m taking care of your money,” Stevens said pleadingly as he started to stand, then hesitated, worried that he wasn’t supposed to. Worried that Xilai might call his men in here. “I swear to God I am.” He pointed at the laptop screen. “The proof is right here.”
“Where is Racine?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is David Racine? If you know, if you have any idea at all, you better tell me right now, Mr. Stevens!”
NORTH WOODS OF MAINE
“Mr. Rockwell is dead,” the fourth Gray announced as he reentered the cabin. “JD just executed him.”
The other three stamped the floor hard. “Hear, hear!” they shouted in unison.
“Good riddance,” the man from DHS growled.
“He botched the Commonwealth Electric case,” the CIA official hissed, “and he was a traitor for trying so hard to find us.”
“Which, apparently, he did. Rockwell knew where each of you worked.”
“Did he find you, Walter?”
“He said he didn’t. But does it really matter now? Within the hour, his body will be six feet down in this never-ending pine forest. Maybe some future civilization will stumble on his skeleton after the next ice age. But we don’t have to worry, even if George Garrison does identify Rockwell as his connection from his jail cell in northern Virginia. The connection to us is cut. I’ve already had a man visit his house and remove some belongings. Without his body, the FBI will think he’s on the run.”
“Here’s another thing we don’t have to worry about,” the NSA official said as he tapped his phone. “Angela Gaynor is twenty points back of our man and fading fast.”
“By this time next week, she ought to be in jail. Can’t get any farther back than that.” The man chuckled. “Unless she was dead.”
“Can you imagine if she’d upset Lehman and the avalanche had started? They would have passed all kinds of legislation that would have undermined the efforts we’ve taken to influence juries.”
“And undermined the money we make.”
“Now we’re safe. And we can keep the country safe. Our side of it, anyway.”
“It’s a great day, and we should—” Walter Morgan interrupted himself. “Does anyone else hear that?”
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
“I’ve had enough of this,” Xilai hissed, pounding the table. “I come all the way down here from Washington, and Mr. Racine ignores me? This is a terrible insult. I will not forget this, Mr. Stevens.”
Stevens was terrified. Once incensed, Xilai was merciless—according to the stories—and might go after everyone. If he died, so be it. But he couldn’t bear the thought of his children being murdered.
“Mr. Xilai, I’m begging you not to—”
“Hello, Mao. Hello, Bart.”
Stevens’ gaze raced to the conference-room door. Racine stood there, looking his usual calm, cool, collected self.
Stevens fell back into his chair at the sight of his best friend, shock and relief surging through him in wave after powerful wave.
“Sorry I’m late,” Racine said with an easygoing smile, moving to where Xilai stood to shake hands. “We’ve got a lot of good news for you, Mao. I can’t wait to tell you about it, so let’s get started.” His smile widened as he pointed at Stevens. “You look like you saw a ghost, Bart.”
Stevens was still too relieved—and scared—to banter back a worthy response. In fact, he could think of only one thing at this moment: Victoria Lewis had made good on her promise. Racine really would be allowed out when Xilai came calling.
Stevens had insisted to Racine that Victoria would never come through on the deal. That, in the end, she would turn traitor on a transaction that could prove disastrous for her if she honored it, as any experienced politician would.
He couldn’t remember being happier about being wrong in his entire life.
“Yes,” Xilai said firmly, “I can’t wait to hear all the good news.”
CHAPTER 48
NORTH WOODS OF MAINE
“Chopper up!” Mitch shouted from the passenger seat as the SUV raced down the long gravel driveway through the darkness. He pointed excitedly at the running lights rising above the trees. “Got to be what that is.”
“No doubt,” Dez confirmed as he punched the accelerator, then punched the steering wheel, begging the V-8 for more speed when house lights appeared as they flew around a curve. “Come on, baby!”
They’d tracked the silver Charger to a secluded grove of trees just off the county road that cut a thin swath through the massive Maine forest. Finding no one in or around the car, they’d headed frantically down the nearest driveways they could locate, figuring the young man with the closely cropped blond hair had set out on foot—probably because whoever he was meeting was taking careful precautions in terms of approaching.
They’d already been down two other long driveways to dark, empty cabins—and dead ends. Suddenly, it seemed, they’d hit the jackpot. But were they in time?
“He’s coming back down!” Mitch shouted, pointing again at the chopper. This felt remarkably like Afghanistan. The terrain was dramatically different, but the tension and the adrenaline were exactly the same. It felt surprisingly good to be back in the chaos.
“Somebody must have heard us coming and called him back,” Dez replied. “We aren’t gonna have much time. Careful out there, Mitch!”
“I’ll be fine, my man!” He and Dez had become very close very quickly. But combat always did that.
Dez pulled the SUV to a skidding stop in front of the cabin as four men spilled out through the front door—illuminated by the truck’s headlights—and scattered in different directions.
Mitch grabbed his pistol off the dash and jumped from the SUV, chasing the two men who’d headed in the helicopter’s direction. A full moon cast an eerie glow on the landscape, and, despite the prosthesis, he was able to keep up, catching quick flashes of them dashing through the trees ahead.
As the roar of rotors turned deafening and the winds rose to gale force, Mitch raced across the leaves on the forest floor—despite the sharp, stinging pain knifing through his right knee with every badly limping stride. Spurred on through the torture by his intense desire to try to set things right.
Mitch understood why his uncle had allowed this to happen—Judge Eldridge was willing to compromise himself and not have Mitch arrested for the bigger picture, for the chance of destroying the men who’d tried to destroy the judicial system—successfully for a time. Mitch wanted to make his uncle proud. Thankfully the wife, and more importantly, the children, would be safe in Witness Protection—even if he didn’t make it back to join them. Everything had been arranged.
One of the men tripped at the
edge of the helipad. Mitch put a bullet in his back as he raced past and lunged for the chopper, which was lifting off with the second man he was chasing aboard. Out of reflex, he grabbed the landing skid, and within seconds was dangling a hundred feet above the earth.
With a Herculean effort, he lifted himself up and onto the skid, and pulled at the door handle desperately—but it was locked. After shooting it twice, he grabbed the handle again and yanked the door open—only to come face-to-face with the young blond man he and Dez had been tracking from Virginia.
Before Mitch could react, the man fired a single shot.
Mitch tumbled backward—dead before he hit the ground.
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
Racine glanced up as the door of his Excel Games office opened, and Frankie Federov entered.
“Hello, Frankie.”
“David.”
“Have a seat,” Racine said, gesturing at the two chairs before the desk.
Federov, aka the White Russian, was responsible for catching and killing the nasty bug that had haunted Excel Games’ software for so long—a bug no else could find, though many had tried. A bug, Racine was convinced, which would have kept Xilai from investing had Federov not exerted his legendary skills on the software and the company network.
“What do you have for me?”
Federov chuckled in his deep, rolling laugh. “It was the Dragon Lady from North Korea,” he answered in his heavy Russian accent. “She’s very sly, but I recognized her dainty footprints. It didn’t take long.”
“Explain.”
“As you asked me to, I hacked into the Gaynor Corporation network. I was able to determine that the Dragon Lady had planted the e-mails there.” Federov grinned. “Almost impossible to tell, but I’ve seen her masterpieces before. It is very beautiful, as she is supposed to be. I would like to meet her in person one day,” he said wistfully. “She made it look as if Ms. Gaynor had sent the e-mails. But it was her. It was the Dragon Lady.”
“Can you prove that?”
“I have the proof already.”
“I need you to get it to Angela Gaynor’s attorneys in Virginia Beach, immediately. Your time is valuable, so Excel Games will pay you five thousand dollars for your trip down there. I’ve already spoken to Bart about it.”