Downfall

by Jeff Abbott

  “Why?” I stopped, reaching for the fresh cell phone she’d tossed me.

  “He’s just a pill. Asks a lot of questions that don’t pertain to his work. I mean, we’re a tight group. The managers talk. We’re friends. But not Felix.”

  I told Gigi a very abbreviated version of what had happened at the Mystik. Her cherubic face paled. “I saw the news at the Mystik,” she said.

  “What are they saying?”

  “At least three people dead, others injured. There was a rush in the evacuation and some other folks got hurt. Most of the news has been about Lucky Lazard, he’s famous here. Like this was an organized crime hit or something. They haven’t given more details. The police tend to be very tight-lipped here. They don’t like to panic the tourists.”

  I paced the floor. She said, “Let’s get you to Chicago, you have to get out of Vegas. You can’t stay here. I will find out where Mila is.”

  “Felix must have come here first,” I said. “He was equipped.”

  “I don’t even get here until three,” she said. “I don’t know how he would have a key.”

  “Mila would,” I said. “Check the video history.”

  She did on her laptop. “It’s Felix.”

  I watched the video feed. He came in, using a key, stayed for less than four minutes, left with a bag of gear.

  “Where would Felix have gotten a key to this bar from?”

  “Mila has a key to every bar,” she said. “So does Jimmy, although I’ve never met him.”

  “I haven’t been to the Chicago bar yet. Who’s the manager?”

  “Benny. You haven’t met him?” I heard a shift in her voice.

  “Is he good?”

  “Well, yes, he’s just a bit different.”

  I couldn’t worry about idiosyncrasies right now. “For some reason, Felix Neare has betrayed us. I don’t know if he wants to destroy Belias on his own or what his motive is. But someone in the Round Table, whoever vetted him, is going to tell me everything that he knows.”

  We went into emergency mode. Felix would know that I had other bars, other resources, but he would be running. I didn’t think he’d come after me at the moment; he was a man on a mission against Belias. Belias must know by now I was alive and coming after him.

  Gigi arranged for a private jet for me to Chicago; again I tried every phone number, every e-mail account. Nothing.

  “Sam,” she said from behind the laptop.

  “What?”

  “Every one of your bank accounts is frozen,” she said. “I was just looking to move some money for you into a Chicago account tied to the bar. It’s locked. I can’t get a response from the bank.”

  Belias was tightening his grip on me, pinning me so I couldn’t move.

  What else would he do? I felt like my head would explode.

  My only hope was that Belias didn’t know that I knew about Rawlings in Chicago. He’d run before Lazard shared that sliver of knowledge. He might think I’d just drop out, give up, go home to the family.

  I could do that. Or I could end this threat. There was no one else, with me unable to reach Mila and Jimmy. There was only me. “Let’s go.”

  Gigi drove me to the airport. “I’ll find Mila.”

  “Rawlings. Chicago. I need to know every prominent person in Chicago with that surname.”

  “I’ll get Benny on it.” She surprised me by squeezing my hand. “We’ll find Mila. I promise you.”

  “If I don’t come back, you find Belias, Gigi; the Round Table has to find him and kill him. End him. He can’t have a direct hand in running this country.”

  “I promise,” she said. She watched me get onto the plane and she stayed by the car as the plane left, the phone pressed to her ear.

  70

  Sunday, November 7, evening

  Outside Chicago, Illinois

  WADE RAWLINGS PARKED the car behind the house, blinking at the scattering snow. The old house loomed up against the night sky. To a stranger’s eyes it was a bit Gothic, but to him it was grandmotherly hugs and summer lemonade and winter cocoa. He felt safe here.

  You need to get out of town, the voice on the phone had said. Just go to your old family home. I’ll be there in the morning. Just wait for me.

  He had learned long ago not to argue with Belias. So he went there, and he waited. He was tired. He’d just gotten back from a trip to London, and while the summons was disturbing (like a call from Satan himself, Belias scared him and would any normal-thinking person), it was not unusual. Belias needed something done and so he would do it. And then he’d benefit, and life went on its merrily predetermined course.

  He was certain this meeting had to do with Marjorie Henderson. The newspapers in London had been full of the story that she was the leading pick to fill the vacant vice presidency. Oh, that would indeed be sweet. He had helped build Marjorie Henderson and now he would reap his rewards. Belias would see to that. Because power built power, everyone knew that.

  Wade put on the kettle and he puttered about the kitchen. He was a small, slightly pudgy man and he felt the jet lag from his return from London. He’d stopped on the way and bought some groceries, in case Belias was hungry tomorrow. So he began to fry up two eggs and some toast, and he didn’t hear the quiet footsteps over the sizzle of the butter and the frying hiss of the eggs.

  But then his face slammed downward, the left side right into the cooking breakfast, and the pain was beyond imagining; it was horrific even with his head yanked back immediately from the sizzling skillet. Wade’s skin was seared and his eyes were swelling. And the pain made him scream instead of answer, and the man gripping his head said, “You are going to tell me everything you know about John Belias and the next vice president.”

  He made a noise, not an answer, and his face hit the skillet again.

  71

  Sunday, November 7, evening

  THE PRIVATE JET LANDED in Chicago, unexpectedly early snow dancing across the sky. The plane taxied to a private hangar, where a car with a man inside waited for me.

  Benny proved to be a thin, spare bald man in his sixties, dressed in jeans and a military-looking sweater and a Chicago Bears baseball cap. “Mr. Capra.”

  Benny was more than double my age so I said, “Please, call me Sam.”

  “I understand that some of the bars have had difficulties this evening with frozen accounts,” Benny said. “I have taken certain liberties. There are no cash or weapons or false ID papers still at the bar.” His tone of voice was very formal, like a butler’s.

  As Benny drove into the night, I asked, “Have you heard from Gigi?”

  “Yes. She gave me a number for you to call.”

  I took the phone, dialed the number. It rang twice.

  “Hello?” I said when I heard an answering click. “Mila?”

  “No, it’s not Mila. Well. The famous Sam Capra.” The voice was steely, male, English.

  Jimmy.

  My heart froze. “Where is she?”

  “Mila is in a hospital in Las Vegas. She was shot once in the chest at the Mystik Resort. She is in critical condition.”

  I closed my eyes. The ambulance, the wailing of the sirens. “Is she all right?”

  “I don’t know. She may live or she may die. And I blame you.”

  I said then about the stupidest thing I could muster in my shock. “We’re…we’re all on the same side.”

  “This…folly of yours was not approved by the Round Table. Or by me. Mila gave you a little room to maneuver but you took it too far. Now the bars are under attack. Our computer systems, tied back to the bars, are under attack. You’ve brought a war on us and you had no right.”

  “It became critical. This man Belias was aware of us.”

  “He was aware of you. Not us. Huge difference.”

  “So I’m useful only to a point.”

  “The only thing you’re useful for today is getting Mila shot”—and here rage tinged his voice—“and making a spectacle of yourself
on the news. You left a crime scene. You better hope they can’t tie your prints to it.”

  “I don’t have prints on file anymore. The CIA took care of that.” The words bounced in my head. Mila. Mila was lying hurt and we were worrying about my prints.

  “What would happen to you if you didn’t have us or the CIA to hide behind? One wonders.”

  “Felix must have shot her. Belias was with me before Felix came up to the penthouse…” I said. “Who vetted Felix to be a bar manager?”

  Silence. “Well?”

  “I did,” Jimmy said. “I did.”

  “Your man betrayed us. Where was Mila when she was shot?”

  Silence again. “She was in a storage room in the employee area.”

  “Felix was dressed like an employee. Felix must have shot her to keep her from coming up there with him. He considered shooting me, but he left me to create a distraction for the cops.”

  “Sam…”

  “Jimmy, please, this doesn’t matter right now. I am going to find both Belias and Felix. They’re both after a guy here named Rawlings. I need…”

  “I need you to stop this and to come back here.”

  “Belias is going to own the next vice president, and I think the odds of her becoming president are not inconsequential now. I can stop them.”

  “I am ordering you to stand down.”

  “No. I can stop Felix.”

  “You will do as I say.”

  “Only Mila gives me orders.”

  “Well, she gets her orders from me.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I’m tired of not knowing what the Round Table is exactly. Maybe you’re as screwed up as this group of Belias’s.”

  “You chasing them isn’t going to fix Mila,” he said. “You’ve done enough damage.”

  “I am going to stop Felix and Belias.”

  “I don’t care,” Jimmy said. “Mila could die. And if that happens, Sam, run. Run far and as fast as you can because I will find you and I will kill you for this. I. Will. Kill. You. Do you understand me?”

  “I won’t run,” I said. “Are we done?”

  A long pause. “Yes. I have to see how she’s doing. She’s back in surgery. There were…complications.”

  Please let her be okay. “Daniel and Leonie…look, you and I are having differences, but…”

  “They’re perfectly safe.” He made a choked noise. “What did you think, I was going to threaten your family to get you to obey me? You are unhinged.”

  My heart felt blackened, like it had burned. She was my boss (as much as I could be bossed), she was my friend, she was the reason I had my son back. She could not die, she couldn’t. My face felt hot.

  “Why would Felix do this? Loyalty to Janice Keene?”

  “I don’t know. I have no idea. Sam…” he said. “But…”

  “What?”

  “If you’re going after them…then kill Felix. Kill him for shooting her. Bring me Belias. We’ll break him together.”

  His attitude certainly had shifted in the past minute, but I didn’t care to argue. “I’ll call you when I have news.”

  Jimmy hung up.

  “His lordship feels strongly about things,” Benny said. Lordship, I thought, what a weird nickname. Jimmy could sound imperious but right now I didn’t blame him. “Okay. Rawlings. I need to find this guy.”

  “Here’s a file. Gigi and I think he’s Wade Rawlings, a former political strategist. We don’t know where he is right now, but we’ll find him.” Benny handed me a tablet computer with a file displayed and I began to read as he drove through the thickening snow.

  72

  Sunday, November 7, late evening/Monday, November 8, early morning

  IT HAD BEEN the hardest trip of her life.

  Holly tried to sleep on the plane but the delayed shock of what she had done made her hands shake. Janice said sensibly, “You should have a drink,” and Holly thought, Now I have to drink with her. It was unimaginable. But she nodded and Janice ordered them each a bourbon, and Holly tasted its smoke very slowly, careful not to slam it down and relinquish control, but to sip at it like it was medicine.

  “So you have kids,” Janice said after their drinks were brought.

  “Yes.” Of course, Holly thought, moms always discuss their kids. “Two. A girl, just turned eight, a boy, six.”

  “I have one daughter. Diana, she’s twenty-three. She’s my heir apparent. Taking over my business.” She looked at Holly. “I’ve got less than a year if the doctors are right.”

  “I…I am so sorry.”

  “When your clock’s done, all that matters is making sure your kid will be okay. It’s why I did…what I did.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I want John…to take care of Diana. I think the world today’s too hard without some help from him. From the others. Like us.”

  Shut up shut up shut up. “I can understand your concern.”

  “I…I think he’ll take care of her. And I hope she’ll understand. It’s all worth it.”

  “Yes,” Holly said, hoping the word didn’t sound as dead in the air as it felt in her mouth.

  “I hope I made the right decision. As a mom. I didn’t really have another mom to talk about it with. You know.”

  Oh, please don’t ask me for advice. The flight attendants slammed a galley door and for a moment it sounded like Diana’s neck cracking against the mahogany bar. “I’m sure you did. I’m sure John will be good to her.”

  “You’re right. Thanks.”

  She wondered how bent Janice Keene had become under those years of secrets, to think drafting her daughter into the network was a maternal gesture. This isn’t a sane life, she thought. We start to crack under the pressure. We can justify anything. Like bringing our kids into Belias’s orbit is somehow protecting them.

  Like you’re still a good person if you accidentally killed a young woman.

  “This Felix guy…”

  “He’s a friend. I thought he was. Now I think he must have been targeting me. He must’ve known, you know, about us.”

  “How? How would he?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Belias ruined him years ago, and he’s been looking for us.”

  The thought horrified Holly. The people they’d wronged, coming back for revenge.

  Janice said, “There were so many people Belias ruined. All that matters now is we have to deal with Felix. He lied to me, so I’ll take care of him.” And then Janice looked out the window, as though the void of night held the answers. She finished her drink. Holly did not touch hers again.

  “I think I’d like to sleep,” Janice said. “Wake me if I start to talk in my sleep. I don’t want the world to hear what I have to say.”

  The text message from Belias that appeared on Holly’s phone after landing read, tomorrow morning at 8 am drive north of Chicago, with directions and an address. Alone in her hotel room, she listened to two voice mails, one from her mom, one from the kids. Emma’s voice, bright in her ear but a little worried, a little tense: “Hey, Mom, when are you going to be home? We miss you. Tried Dad’s number but he’s not answering. We’re having fun with Nana and Aunt Martha. Love you.”

  She turned off the phone.

  The next morning they got up early and drove to a storage unit near Midway Airport Belias had told them about. The key was taped above the frame of the unit’s door, and inside it was a duffel bag, loaded with two pistols, capped with suppressors, and ammunition and a thousand in cash. Either Belias left stocks of this scattered around the country, or a network member in Chicago was helping them out.

  I don’t even know who’s pulling my strings, she thought.

  Janice drove.

  “How many people has Belias had you kill?” Holly asked.

  “Before now? Three.”

  “You say it so calmly.”

  “How do I know they would have had long, full lives? They could get hit by a bus the next day. They could get sick with cancer, like me. Death can co
me at any second for any of us. That’s the box I put it into. That’s how I sleep.”

  “And you’ll kill this guy Rawlings today.”

  “I will if you won’t. I can carry it. No need for you to.”

  Holly’s chest ached. “And then you’ll go home.”

  “Yes. I will tell my daughter I’m sick, and there’s little hope for me. And then I’ll explain Belias and the network to her, so she’ll understand.”

  “What if we get killed?”

  Janice hesitated, then confessed, “I made a videotape for her. So she’ll understand. So she won’t be afraid of him. Coming from me, she’ll know it’s true.”

  You really should not have done that, Holly thought. That has ruined us all. “You’ve thought about how to explain it to her?”

  “Sure. Haven’t you, if you were ever caught? How would you tell your kids?”

  “Deny. Deny everything,” Holly said.

  “Children appreciate honesty,” Janice said. “Maybe you could help me explain to Diana.”

  “Maybe,” Holly said after a few moments, staring out the window.

  They arrived at the house’s address, but they parked a half mile away, on a side road, and hiked through a heavy dense grove of oaks. The house was grand but gray, with a wraparound porch. The snow had stopped skittering down from the leaden skies. Janice gestured her toward the side of the house.

  I don’t know what I’m doing, but I’ll follow her lead. And then what? We call Belias, we tell him he’s dead, and then what? Janice goes home to discover a missing daughter.

  You have to kill this Felix guy first. Felix knows you killed Diana. Kill him first. Before he can say a word to Janice.

  73

  Sunday, November 7, late evening

  BELIAS LIED.

  He didn’t go to Washington. He flew to a small private airport outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, because as it became clearer that Senator Marjorie Henderson would be named the new VP, Henderson and her husband had come home and hunkered down. Within days it was assumed they’d fly to Washington and join the president and Vice President Camden’s widow for the announcement.