by Vicki Hinze
“No, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”
Had Austin buried a secret message in that remark? Cap let the inference slide, not certain it was wise to know. In the silence, strains of Bach came through the line. Cap hated Bach. Give him ragtime any day. “Keep me informed.”
“You, too.”
Cap cradled the receiver. Nervous energy coiled in his chest. He opened the wall safe, reached inside, then pulled out the white envelope that had been anonymously delivered to his office two months ago. His hand trembled, his mouth dried out, and his breathing shallowed. Shaking out a silver key, he recalled the phone message he had received the day the Ground Serve messenger had delivered the package: When the time comes, you will know how to use it.
Two long months of agonizing, wondering and worrying who had sent him the damn thing, and why; of waffling between whether the sender had dirt on him personally and professionally; of waiting to fall from his office in disgrace. Oh, he hadn’t deliberately dealt dirty in his professional life, but no one survived on the Hill and remained lily white. Not for one year, much less thirty. Cap had done his share of stepping into the shadows. True, he had been damned cautious, but he had crossed the line now and then. Blackmail wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
The rumor mill had it down that PUSH had sabotaged Sybil Stone’s plane. But for months Cap had felt that Ballast, Gregor Faust specifically, had sent the key. He was the master strategist. Yet maybe Cap was overreacting. Maybe the key he found in the package had nothing to do with the veep’s plane exploding. Maybe his certainty that the incidents were connected and that Faust had created them was just the product of fear and a guilty conscience.
Christ, he hoped that was the case. Because the alternative meant that, through the key, he could be directly tied to Gregor Faust, and whether that tie had been intentional or accidental didn’t matter. People on the Hill would believe it was intentional, and that would cost Cap the Republican nomination for President of the United States.
Dizzy, Cap dropped down in his seat. There was no way to explain away his reasons for not following procedure and reporting receipt of the key. He’d established the damn policy. No. No acceptable excuse whatsoever. Everyone who was anyone would be looking for someone to blame— for anyone to blame—and Cap had left himself wide open to be sacrificed.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Okay, he had made a huge mistake. Yet without knowing who had sent the key or what it meant, how could he have reported it? He couldn’t have an independent council appointed to execute a discovery process against him. No one survived those damn things with their dignity intact. Holding on to the key had seemed right and easy to do at the time. Right. Reasonable. Rational.
Now he felt like a damn fool. Sybil’s plane exploding and his receiving the key were likely related incidents. Actually, they were most likely interrelated incidents. The gnawing in his stomach doubled him over and the truth hit him like a sledgehammer: PUSH was hyping the media. Gregor Faust had set him up.
And Cap, for all his wheeling and dealing and political savvy, had made setting him up damned easy.
How the hell was he going to get out of this?
Chapter Nine
Thursday, August 8 First-Strike Launch: 49:59:01
Darkness swallowed them and the rain persisted, arrogant and bone chilling. Sybil was so tired that putting one foot in front of the other was a major challenge. She brushed against some sort of thorny vine. It snared her right leg, stabbed into her flesh and clung, and she stumbled. “Damn it!”
Westford grabbed her arm, held her upright, and then cut her loose from the tangle with his knife. “Smilax.” “Smilax, hell. It burns like fire and feels like claws.” “That’s why it’s nicknamed catbrier.” He rubbed the blood away from the long, thick scratches on her leg and examined it. “They’re not too deep.”
She frowned at him. “Do you know everything?” He frowned back at her. “No, not everything.” Remorse set in. “I’m sorry I snapped. I’m tired and cranky.”
“Let’s take a break.”
It had been hours since they’d stopped. But if they stopped, he might kiss her again. Worse, he might not. “We shouldn’t. We can’t afford to lose the time.”
“What we can’t afford is to walk into the opposition because we’re so damn tired we’re bitchy and punch drunk.” He stopped inside a small circle of large pines. “This is a good spot.”
Sybil stepped inside the circle and didn’t think twice before collapsing on the muddy ground. She couldn’t get any more waterlogged or dirty, and if a snake wanted her spot, it was going to have to fight her for it. “When we get home, I’m going to double my treadmill time.”
“Right.” Westford stretched his jacket between two tree trunks then secured it with the parachute cord he had pocketed. Its edges created a waterfall that splattered the ground just beyond her back. Amazing, but the rhythmic splats weren’t annoying. They soothed her.
“That’s the best I can do without losing my pants.”
Surprise rippled through her chest. “Keep your pants, Westford, and sit down.”
He dropped down beside her and their arms brushed. “You’re welcome to lean on me.”
She searched his gaze. “I’d love to be human and let go. Actually, I’ve considered having a nervous breakdown—my neuroses are conquering me—but I’m just too tired to work up the steam to do it.”
“I meant physically, Sybil.” Braced against the tree, he bent his knees and motioned for her to come to him. “I’m softer than the ground.”
“Ah, then I accept.” As noncommittal as remarks come, he’d told her nothing, but grateful for the opportunity to feel anything but numb and cold and wet, she snuggled between his thighs then leaned back against his chest. He wasn’t much softer than the ground, but his scent was familiar and far more comforting. Too comforting. And too reminiscent of his kisses. Recognizing that line of thought as dangerous, she veered to safer ground. “Has Intel reported further updates?”
“Not yet.” Westford yawned deeply. “Try to rest for a while.”
Sybil closed her eyes and relaxed against him, promising herself she’d only rest a moment. Think only of the danger and the briefcase cuff that now had abraded her wrist and made it raw, and how absurd it was that she considered their current situation to be less dangerous than merely thinking of him. Settling in, she felt his heart beat against her back. “Nice.”
Jonathan agreed but held his tongue. He felt the tension drain from her body, knew the moment she fell asleep. She didn’t slide into sleep peacefully; she tumbled, hard and fast. The woman was going to need some time to get used to the idea that he was a man and more time to accept what was going on between them. He shouldn’t have kissed her. And he shouldn’t feel guilty for not telling her everything Sayelle had transmitted. She had enough on her shoulders without worrying about things she couldn’t control, too. And she would worry about them. Nothing good could come from telling her, so why did he still feel guilty?
The terrorists had given the president seventy-two hours from their initial contact to get the briefcase back to Washington. That was Sybil’s phantom deadline. But what the hell was in the case? And why had the terrorists taken it to her in Geneva in the first place?
Perplexed, Jonathan glared down a curious raccoon until it backed off and took refuge under the bushes, then stroked Sybil’s hair away from her face and ran through various scenarios. But he couldn’t find a rationale for Geneva… unless the package already had been there. If that proved true, then the security breach she had mentioned earlier may have occurred in the United States but the terrorists were working in Europe—in Eastern Europe, specifically. Eastern Europe wasn’t PUSH territory; Ballast owned it, and this entire incident carried Gregor Faust’s classic signature—including government infiltration at the highest levels, which would explain the security breach. Jonathan stiffened. All of this originated in Faust’s backyard. Why hadn’t Conlee or Lance put the
pieces together?
According to Sayelle’s transmissions, some presidential advisors considered Faust the logical candidate. Yet Intel was muddying the waters with evidence of PUSH horning in on Ballast turf, and they considered PUSH’s responsibility claim credible and authentic.
Damn. Jonathan dragged a hand over his face, rustling his stubble of beard, and blinked hard to clear his tired eyes. Lance couldn’t know where to apply the most pressure; not with what he had. PUSH levying the attack would make things easier for the United States. It could attack PUSH without creating an international incident. But there was no touching Faust without such an incident. Faust also had the resources and connections to disappear underground indefinitely in a number of different nations, and if he failed to reach his objective, he would kill millions without thinking twice. Faust had sold his soul a long time ago. He had no conscience, no compassion. He wasn’t loyal to any man or any country. To him, anyone was expendable, and manipulating nations into war was just a profitable game. With him at the helm, Ballast was far more dangerous than PUSH, even if it had allied with China, as recently reported through Intel.
“Jonathan?” Sybil’s voice sounded strained, tight.
He thought she’d been sleeping. Jonathan, not West-ford. “Mmm?”
“Can we go on now?”
He needed to hold her. Just for a few more minutes. He’d waited years to hold her, and now that he knew what it was like, they might not survive to see where they ended up. Surely he could have a few lousy minutes. “We need to rest.”
“I know.” She rubbed her cheek against his chest. “But it’s more important to get the briefcase back to David.”
Something in her tone worried him, and she was shaking like a leaf. He looked down at her face and waited for her to explain.
“If he doesn’t use the contents of this case in time, it’s going to be bad.”
Even rain-drenched and muddy, she was beautiful to him. “How bad?”
“By Sunday, the United States will be fighting World War III. And President Lance will have started it.”
“What?” Jonathan couldn’t hide his shock.
“If we don’t get back and stop it, he’s going to be launching the first-strike missile.”
Holy Mary, Mother of God. “How strong are the odds our allies will let that happen?”
“About a hundred percent.”
His bitch of an ex-wife was either dead, or she wasn’t. Either way, he wanted proof so he knew whether to celebrate or exact revenge.
Downing another double scotch, this time to the sounds of Mozart, Austin stared out of his co-op window at a black sedan parked under the streetlight. Lance’s men. Waiting with bated breath on the off chance Austin stepped over any of their lines. He was desperate for news, but he wasn’t stupid enough to provoke them. In forty-nine hours, when the bastards got blown to hell, they would realize the mistake they had made in underestimating his power. It was a pity Lance wouldn’t be killed, too, but he would be evacuated and airborne on Air Force One long before the explosion. Of course, that left him alive to suffer the guilt. Austin found that even more gratifying than seeing the president dead.
There were fates worse than death. Austin knew it, and soon Lance would know it, too. When he had to look into the eyes of survivors and try to explain to them why their parents and kids were dead …
Stepping back from the window, Austin again checked his Rolex: 11 P.M. No confirmation of Sybil’s death from Lance, nothing from Cap, and not a word from Barber. Out of patience, Austin lifted the cell phone and dialed the number he had sworn he would never use.
Gregor Faust answered on the first ring. “Yes?”
Austin’s question rolled out. “Is she dead or not?”
“We’re on the ground, attempting to verify that now.”
Frustration and rage mounted inside Austin. “You mean she wasn’t on the plane when you hit it?” Why would Lance have called, saying she had been?
“She was on the plane. But just before the explosion, she bailed out.”
“Westford.” Austin spat the arrogant bastard’s name. “He got her out, didn’t he?”
“Actually, prelim reports say she got him out. He didn’t have a parachute. She did.”
“Son of a bitch.” Austin slammed his glass down on the bar. It tipped, fell to the floor, and shattered. “Those two have caused me more trouble—”
“I know Westford once threatened you, Austin. Why?”
Austin resented the question, but he had to answer it. Faust wasn’t a man to lightly refuse. “Sybil and I were arguing over the property settlement. I lost my head and said I was going to slap her. Westford overheard me.” Remembering the incident outraged Austin all over again. “When I left, he followed me. He made damn sure there were no witnesses around and then made the threat: ‘You ever lay a hand on her in anger and I’ll kill you.’ ”
“Did you believe him?”
“Hell, yes, I believed him.” Austin grunted. “Westford doesn’t mince words or exaggerate.” Faust wasn’t as smart as he thought, or he would have known that.
“How did Sybil react to this?”
“I don’t think she knows it. I didn’t tell her, and you can bet Westford didn’t. He transferred off her detail right after that, but he’s still watching us both.”
“What do you mean?”
“Right after he was reassigned, I woke up in the middle of the night, and he was standing beside my bed. He told me.” Austin paused. “I guess he thought once he was out of the picture, I’d pick up where I’d left off, arguing with her.”
“Have you?”
“We’ve talked about my stock, but I’m not crazy enough to push her or him.”
“So you think she would kill you?”
“No, she’d just make me wish I were dead. Vice President Stone carries a lot of clout. She’d keep me globally constrained. Westford would be the one. He’d kill me.”
“But he hasn’t been following you or anything.”
“No,” Austin said quickly. Faust obviously feared the secret of his identity had been compromised. Since he killed anyone he considered careless or disloyal, Austin quickly disabused him of the idea. “Nothing like that. I’ve been cautious.”
“Good. With or without Westford, I can’t see Sybil Stone tolerating physical violence.”
“She wouldn’t.” If Austin had slapped her that night, he probably would still have a wired jaw. Her father had taught incidental shooting and hand-to-hand combat to FBI agents as a sideline business. He had also taught his daughter those skills, and if pushed, odds were, she wouldn’t hesitate to use them.
“I take it everything is ready to go on your end.” Faust sounded amused. Maybe a little bored, though Austin knew the man was anything but. He was storing details on Westford and Sybil, and on Austin.
“Of course. What about you?” He removed his tie, tossed it onto a white brocade chair. “If she’s alive, you won’t be keeping your end of the deal.”
“Do I detect a threat in your voice, Austin?”
Faust’s cool and calm tone didn’t fool Austin. He had pushed the terrorist too far. But, damn it, Sybil’s death wasn’t negotiable. “No threat whatsoever. We made an agreement. You hold up your end, and I’ll hold up mine.”
“We have forty-nine hours. Any deadline delay would not be healthy”
The bitch couldn’t even die without causing him problems. “Veiled threats are unnecessary, Gregor. All I want is what you promised.”
“Fine.” Gregor hung up the phone, listened to an incoming satellite inquiry from Alpha Team’s field leader, Adam, and responded to it. “Yes, ET Three. The lack of verification on the chuters does create problems. I want them resolved.”
Pacing the command center, Gregor kept his gaze locked on the Florida monitor. News crews and police helicopters were braving the storm and filling the sky north of the Everglades. The ground was just as active. Professionals searched with bloodhounds; pr
ivate citizens with good intentions but ignorant of investigative tactics and methods tromped through the area, destroying any evidence that would have been there. A moot point, really, since they were searching too far south of the last coordinates the relief pilot had radioed in.
Alpha Team, though in the area where Liberty and Westford had bailed out, had failed to locate them or their remains. The time lag between his men bailing out of the plane and the explosion had been sufficient. They could be alive. Yet they hadn’t reported in.
“We’re walking the grid now,” Adam said. “Doing everything by the book.”
“Don’t drag your feet. You’ve got a mob of pros and novices on your heels—or they will be, in a couple hours.”
“No problem, sir. So far, all we’ve found is a woman’s shoe. Same color, size, and a visual match to the ones Liberty was wearing at the airport. But we can’t use normal tracking methods to determine potential landing sites. The storm has done a lot of damage to the terrain.”
Destroyed evidence. Gregor ran a frustrated hand over his forehead. “ET and his team are on the chopper now. They should be there within an hour. I want more than odds, I want certainty” Austin Stone was a genius, interested only in Sybil Stone’s death. While Gregor personally didn’t give a tinker’s damn if the woman lived or died so long as she wasn’t talking peace with Peris and Abdan, he didn’t want Austin doing anything to surprise him. That was an unavoidable risk in forging alliances on weaponry or new technologies with scientists and designers. They knew the loopholes. Gregor had made every possible attempt to cover his assets, yet he was no fool. Austin Stone had the ability and the access necessary to create serious havoc. If Gregor missed a step, Austin would seize control of the mission. And if Sybil was alive, he would be even more dangerous and more deeply motivated to do so.
Gregor grabbed his yellow stress ball and squeezed it. That was the problem with recruiting scientists. While they were geniuses capable of great feats, they were also unreliable pains in the ass because they entered into strategic alliances with their own private agendas that often had nothing to do with his agenda. They were a lot like politicians really.