Letting her hand drop away from Dennis’s chest, Victoria looked at Micki, who was still as immobile as a statue except for her eyes, which flicked from Victoria to Dennis and back. There was an intensity about her that was so high-pitched, Victoria could practically hear it hum.
“Micki, call Miami and get that hangar locked down immediately. I want a list of everyone who went in or out of there from the time that plane arrived there on Thursday. Then get on the phone to our embassy in Washington. I want them to scramble an emergency response team to the hangar today. Right away. We need a press release prepared, so find out who is handling the media up there. But the release doesn’t go out until I say so, and there are to be no leaks. None. And we need to contact the neighbors,” she ordered, using her shorthand for the neighboring countries of Cuba, the U.S., and the Bahamas. “I won’t be surprised if they already know, given how much they love surveilling us, but we should inform them officially that there’s been an accident. That’s it. No speculation, no hints.”
Victoria reached up to brush a stray hair from her forehead and was surprised when her hand came away wet. Fisting her hand, she loosely crossed both arms across her chest and glanced at her assistant, who stood in the doorway, crying silently.
“Gemma,” Victoria continued, rapid-fire, addressing the assistant, “I need you to get the passengers’ names to the embassy staff in Washington and have them start tracking down next of kin. We’ll need to airlift any survivors to Miami, so tell the guys here to get the Gulfstream ready to serve as an ambulance. Ask the U.S. State Department if we can coordinate with the NTSB to send the recovered aircraft parts to them for a joint investigation. We don’t have the right facilities for it here. But under no circumstances do we want any of their ships or personnel entering our waters unless we directly request their presence.” She looked at Dennis. “We’re going to have to release the passenger manifest within the next few hours. There will be hell to pay when that happens.”
He nodded, and Victoria thought that suddenly Dennis didn’t look so good.
I was supposed to be on that plane.
But for a snap decision born of boredom I’d be dead now. Incinerated.
As he stood listening to Victoria bark out orders, Dennis felt a curious detachment wrap itself around him. He felt as if he were hearing and seeing things in slow motion, as if time had sped up while his brain and body had slowed down.
He’d been in enough death-defying situations in his lifetime to recognize shock when he felt it, and Dennis knew that the enormity of what had just happened would take a while to sink in for any man. But he was more than just a man—he was the head of state of his little paradise. He couldn’t afford to waste time recovering. Taking action, taking control, was imperative. Yet his brain was frozen in place.
“Come on.”
Dennis heard Victoria’s voice and knew she was speaking to him but couldn’t find the words to respond. Then she stepped closer and was peering up at him.
“Dennis,” she said, her voice gentle as she gave his arm a tug. “I want you out of here. We’ll take care of it.”
He nodded. Then, shaking off her hand, he turned and walked stiffly to the door.
She caught up with him as he stepped into the bright subtropical sunshine. The colors, the sounds of the insects and birds, the swish of the palms, the intense heat—the entire setting was as serene as it always was and seemed a cruel betrayal of the horror that had just happened.
The sky ahead of him was a scintillating Caribbean blue unmarred by clouds. He didn’t turn around to see the eastern sky behind him. He didn’t need to see the trails of dark smoke billowing from the sea only to dissipate to the palest gray and then to invisibility. As if nothing had happened. As if no one had died.
“Dennis? Dennis, we need to put you somewhere.” Victoria’s voice was low and urgent and her hand encircled his bicep in a firm, gentle grip. “I don’t want anyone to see you like this. Will you go to the bunker?”
Dennis looked down at her. She seemed so far away. So small. Her long-dark hair and pale, drawn face only seemed to draw attention to her haunting and surreal, slanted blue eyes.
It took some effort to shake his head and form the words. “No. I’ll go to my cottage.”
“No, Dennis. Let’s go to mine.” And she urged him toward the palmetto-lined path that led to the small compound of cottages.
CHAPTER
6
12:30 P.M. EDT, Saturday, October 25, 32,000 feet above the North Atlantic
Garner Blaylock looked up from the Financial Times and glanced at his watch.
If the bitch followed through, the world should be hearing about it now. Micki would see to that.
There was one way to find out.
He pressed the call button. Almost instantly, the stunning flight attendant who had greeted him when he’d boarded slid open the door that closed off the crew area from the cabin and approached him. He hid a smile as he noticed that her flawless makeup was smudged; her dark eyes were red-rimmed and watery. But her tiara, that blatant symbol of the extent of Dennis Cavendish’s arrogance, remained perfectly positioned and sparkling in her carefully tousled nest of dark hair.
“Yes, Monsieur Blaylock?” she said in an accented whisper.
“Dear me, is something wrong?” he asked, feigning concern as he met her eyes.
She immediately lowered her eyes, and her full, movie-star lips quivered for a second before she pressed them together. He watched her take a quick, deep breath and blink back fresh tears before she returned her gaze to his face.
“Just some bad news about some friends, sir. It is of no matter,” she replied, stumbling over her words.
He frowned. “Pity. How distressing for you.”
“It is of no matter,” she repeated, a little too rapidly. “I apologize, sir. Please, what can I do for you?”
“I’d like some more ice water, if I may.”
“Certainly. Right away,” she replied, and reached forward to pick up the heavy, cut-crystal tumbler from where it sat near his elbow. He allowed his eyes to linger on her voluptuous breasts, showcased magnificently by her uniform jacket’s snug fit and low neckline. Everything about her was meant to tantalize, and succeeded brilliantly.
“No.” Garner held up his hand to stop her as she began to straighten up, and she looked at him quizzically.
“Sir? Is there something else you’d like? A light snack, or perhaps some lunch?”
“A light snack would be lovely, thank you. No animal products, if you please. And, actually, I’ve changed my mind about the ice water. I’d prefer Champagne.”
She nodded. “Of course. I can offer you the Krug Clos du Mesnil 1995. I also have the Bollinger Blanc de Noirs Vieilles Vignes Françaises 1998, if you prefer.”
“I believe I’ll start with the Krug.” After all, what better send-off for Dennis Cavendish’s sorry ass than to toast it with the most expensive Champagne he has on board?
“An excellent choice, Monsieur Blaylock. I shall bring it immediately.” Forcing a smile, she executed an elegant turn and he watched her walk back to the galley, her fine ass, snug in her skirt, swaying perfectly above long legs that balanced on hooker-height stilettos.
Garner knew he could have her if he wanted her. Perhaps later. Right now, what he wanted was to revel in yet another triumph.
Feeling deep contentment steal over him, Garner leaned back in the plush seat and smiled more widely than he had in a very long time. Turning his head toward the window, he looked past the scattered clouds, tinged with the candy colors of Europe’s early sunset, to the Atlantic Ocean, dark blue and sparkling below him. The fish off Taino were feasting right now on an unexpected bounty, and the Earth was getting that much closer to freedom from human tyranny. Sixteen bodies closer.
1:45 P.M., Saturday, October 25, Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.
The first time that former intelligence operative Tom Taylor saw the footage of Dennis Cave
ndish’s plane exploding, the sight triggered a very typical human reaction: a sharply held breath, an instant emotional numbing, a few seconds of disbelief. Then his training and experience regained supremacy and his brain simply placed the incident at the top of a very long list of twisted, fucked-up things that twisted, fucked-up people did to other, possibly less twisted and even occasionally undeserving people.
But now, after he’d seen the footage twenty or so times, it had lost much of its impact and was just a series of images of yet another plane shattering in an otherwise peaceful sky. Aesthetically, the silent, violent images had a sort of surreality to them. They formed a harsh, arrested-motion instance of beauty, like a pyrotechnic display without the ooh-ahh dazzle. If it weren’t for the fact that he knew fifteen probably unsuspecting people had been blown apart in the seconds following the detonations, he would have enjoyed the footage more.
Tom turned to the woman standing nearby. While he had been studying the monitor, she had been looking out the window, which was flanked by the American flag on one side and her diploma from Harvard Law School on the other. Her name—for now, anyway—was Lucy Denton. She was unreasonably sexy in that scary sort of way that Tom had always appreciated. Tall, slim, blond, and icy, with a taut, agile body made bulky by all the custom-fitted body armor she wore, Lucy possessed a formidable intelligence and guts of pure steel, both of which were routinely hidden from public view.
He and Lucy had had some exposure to each other in the past, back when she was on the ground in the intelligence community. That was a long time ago, though, and time had changed almost everything about her except the look in her eye.
Back in the day, Tom used to infuriate Lucy by calling her Rosa Klebb, of From Russia with Love fame, or, occasionally, Scary Spyce. Neither nickname had been affectionate or appreciated, but both had been accurate.
Lucy had always been terrifying as hell when she needed to be. Despite her obvious femininity, she had none of the self-doubt or hesitation that tripped up most women, even women involved in deeply covert intelligence operations. Lucy could focus like few other people could. Tom had never known her to avoid doing what needed to be done, to let irrelevant details get in the way. He’d watched her stare down a dead-eyed, bomb-wrapped nine-year-old who had a sweaty trigger finger and a disinclination to disarm. She’d made the kid blink, and in the space of that blink, she’d blown off his hand and popped a neat, round hole between his eyebrows. Afterward, her report coolly described the outcome as a win-win: Paradise had one more martyr in residence; the U.S. had one less asshole to worry about.
Lucy Denton was a woman to be admired. And feared.
Tom wasn’t sorry to be working with her again, though they made a bizarre team. These days, she lived on the front page, above the fold, where everything about her—her social life, her fashion sense, her word choice during Senate hearings, and occasionally her meetings with the president—was critiqued by media gasbags and political has-beens. Tom, on the other hand, had become the kind of guy people would rather not know, or even know about. He’d long preferred shadow to light, anonymity to full disclosure. Nobody knew what his real story was and he’d made sure to forget some critical truths about himself. It made his job and his life—and lying about both—easier.
As the image on the screen faded to black, Tom turned to see Lucy’s dark eyes fixed on him with an intensity that was seductive and legendary. “Well?”
“No one survived.”
“No kidding,” she said dryly. “And Cavendish?”
“He wasn’t on the plane.”
“How do we know that?”
“The usual channels, and we have a source on his maintenance crew who confirmed that Cavendish took off before dawn in one of his other planes. We aren’t sure why, but we know he got out of Miami at about four-thirty and touched down on Taino not long afterward.” He paused minutely. “We have pictures of him on his dock a few minutes after the explosion.”
Her expression didn’t change. “You’re sure neither of those was the body double he uses?”
“Yes. Dennis is a great guy, a nice boss, and a warped paranoiac, but he doesn’t let his flunkies cruise around on his planes without a good reason or go on submarine rides period,” Tom replied and received a cool, unamused look in response. “He had his security chief, Victoria Clark, with him on the dock, so it must have been something big that made him want to go south. He doesn’t take her along that often.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to go that often,” Lucy replied. “It’s pretty stupid of her to go with him at all. Who’s watching the farm when they’re both down there?”
“Victoria’s second, Micki Crenshaw. We don’t have a lot on her, but she didn’t make it into the CIA and she flunked out of the FBI after two months. She went to MIT after that, played around in England on a Rhodes Scholarship, and then sort of fell off the radar screen. She’s American, Southern, smart.”
“Why did she flunk out of the Bureau?”
“Slept with an instructor. Or two.”
Tom watched as Lucy let the shadow of a smirk cross her lips for just a second. “Very smart. What about Victoria Clark? Is she a good-guy wannabe, too?” she asked.
“No. She grew up in an orphanage in the Midwest, made it to college on scholarships. Developed a real gift for high-tech network security in the early days. Got through grad school on scholarships. MIT.”
“Is that how the two of them know each other? MIT?”
Tom crossed the room and poured himself a glass of water from the carafe on her desk.
“No. They were there at different times. Clark took her talent to Wall Street and rose very quickly to become head of security for two major banks. Then Cavendish made her an offer she didn’t refuse and she headed to the island. She hired Crenshaw a few years later. Brought her over from London.”
Lucy lifted an eyebrow. “Is that significant?”
“Well, Ms. Crenshaw is also a vegan, and ten years ago was issued a citation for participating in a protest outside of a research lab.”
“Is that code for ‘we think she’s a bad guy now’? Or are we just glad she likes animals?” Lucy asked bluntly.
“She could be. The trail goes cold after that. Until she surfaced on Taino.” Tom shrugged. “I wouldn’t discount anything.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” Lucy replied dryly, then paused. “So if Cavendish wasn’t on that plane, why haven’t we heard from him directly? The secretary of state said she spoke with Taino’s ambassador here in D.C., who deflected all questions about whether Cavendish survived. So far no one has officially heard from the man himself. Why?”
“He was probably the key target so Ms. Clark has whisked him out of sight. I’d lay money that she’s behind the silence, waiting to see who pops out of the rat hole and takes credit for the fireworks. Victoria Clark is nobody’s fool.”
“Okay. So, in advance of the rat’s emergence, who blew up that jet? And why?” Lucy asked evenly as she unfolded her arms and walked the few steps to her chair. She seated herself gracefully.
Her lack of dithering made Tom want to smile. Even in those first few seconds of seeing the footage, when he’d reacted like a normal human being instead of the spook he was, he’d never considered that it might have been an accident. That Lucy thought the same thing was just going to make being around each other that much easier.
“GAIA,” he said flatly.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Don’t blow smoke up my skirt,” she snapped.
“Truly an act I’ve never considered.” He was rewarded with a disgusted frown.
“GAIA couldn’t pull off something like this. The last thing they tried to blow up was that dam in southern Turkey last summer. If you’ll recall, some local farmers got to the would-be geniuses before the police did, and what remained arrived at the forensics lab in a few quart-sized Ziploc bags.” Lucy leaned back in her chair, her elbows resting on the arms. “GAIA is full of brutal bastards, but they�
��re not known for their brains. They’re the three stooges of the terrorism industry.”
“They were,” he conceded.
“From what I hear, pigs still rely on four legs to get around and Hell is still a hot place, Taylor.”
“Micki Crenshaw attended Oxford the same time Garner Blaylock did. And we have footage of Garner Blaylock with the pilot of the plane a few hours before she took off.”
Lucy’s eyes widened, but only a little. She remained sitting easily in her chair, her body relaxed, her eyes locked in LASER ON mode. “Garner Blay-lock is in prison.”
It was an effort for Tom not to smile. “He was, in England. But apparently he’s been rehabilitated to the Crown’s satisfaction. He was released four months ago.”
Tom counted four heartbeats before Lucy responded.
“Where was he held?”
“Her Majesty’s Prison at Full Sutton, with all the other naughty terrorists and assorted really bad guys. I’d say he learned a lot in his five years inside.”
Her look turned more acidic, if that was possible. “Spare me the commentary. Go on.”
“The pilot was Wendy Watson. First in her class at the Air Force Academy, three tours in Afghanistan, lots of ribbons. Resigned as a lieutenant colonel. Damned good flyer but apparently as stupid as hell when it came to men. She and Blaylock had been seeing each other for about three months. She spent last night at one of the ‘secret’ apartments GAIA keeps in a pretty nasty part of Miami called Overtown.”
Lucy blinked, looking at him as if she didn’t hear him correctly. “Are you serious? She stayed with him in Overtown? God Almighty.”
“You know it?”
“Unfortunately.” She shuddered and brushed the topic away with a flick of her hand. “Why was Blaylock staying there? Where did Watson live?”
“GAIA insists on a high return on investment. They spend their pennies on items like pilots, instead of decent safe houses. But it’s also a pretty clever security move. Anybody we’d send in to lay down equipment would be pegged instantly as being on what’s considered the wrong side of the law in that neighborhood.”
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