by J. B. Turner
He wasn’t too sure how long he’d been in there for.
He’d been out of the game for quite a while. But he still had what it took. The way he had taken out the stranger in the TV room had told them that.
He had no qualms. Never had.
After a warm shower, he got dressed and switched on the radio. Classical music was playing low. It reminded him of his sister, her love of Bach and Beethoven. She would often drift off to sleep for an hour or so with the stolen transistor radio, listening to her music, before their father would return in a drunken rage. Nathan would stroke her hair.
His father wouldn’t allow them to leave the house. They were prisoners. Just children. He would watch from the scratched, grimy windows for their father to return. For hours he’d stare down their Lower East Side street. A few longhairs. Black guys selling weed. Some Bowery bums.
Sometimes—very rarely—he headed up to Fifth Avenue to beg for money. He got loose change as he tried to avoid getting caught by cops. He remembered one cold winter’s day, fingers freezing, he managed to get ten dollars in change. He went to Katz’s Delicatessen and bought a pastrami sandwich and hot matzo ball soup. Nathan ran home with it in a bag and shared it with his grateful sister, half-starved, having not eaten for days.
His cell phone rang.
“Nathan.” The voice of his handler. “We’ve got a real-time feed into the target’s bedroom. Turn on your TV. We’ll stream it for you.”
Stone picked up the remote control and switched on the TV. “Just some game-show stuff.”
“Switch to Channel 898.”
Stone punched in the numbers on the remote. The screen switched to high-definition footage showing the senator adjusting his cuff links, humming a tune. Stone watched, transfixed. The strong jawline. The handsome features. The impeccable suit.
“You got it, Nathan?”
“Yeah, I’m watching him.”
“You’re on the clock now. We’re watching this remotely too. But study him closely.”
“You mind telling me when I’m going to neutralize this fuck and how?”
A long sigh. “Patience, Nathan. All in good time.”
Twenty
A tangerine sun peeked over the Washington skyline, flooding light onto the Lincoln Memorial as Jessica Friel pounded the path circling the National Mall. She picked up her speed and felt adrenaline surge through her body. She ran her usual seven miles. It was long enough to challenge her, but not so much as to leave her exhausted.
Just over an hour later, she was back in her apartment, showered and finishing her orange juice, coffee, and cereal. She switched on the TV and channel-surfed until she got to Fox News. The screen showed a yellow-taped-off police cordon with an inset picture of an overweight white guy with a beard and a mug shot of a young black woman.
She stared at the image long and hard.
Her cell rang.
“Morning, honey.” It was her mother’s ever-cheerful voice.
Friel was glued to the TV. “Mom, how’re things?”
“Pancakes, maple syrup, and sweet white coffee.”
Friel focused on the screen as the Fox reporter spoke to eyewitnesses. “Mom, what did I say? How’re you ever gonna lose weight if you’re stuffing two thousand calories into your body first thing in the morning?”
The TV showed a medical examiner’s van leaving an abandoned warehouse on an isolated part of the Potomac.
“Gimme a break, honey. When you get to my age, it all looks different. Besides, you have a high metabolism.”
“Helped by exercise. Jogging. Running. Are you still swimming on Tuesdays and Fridays?”
A long sigh. “I try, Lord knows I do. But it’s not easy. You know what the Michigan weather is like. All I want to do eight months of the year is eat carbs. Everyone does.”
Friel picked up the remote control and turned up the sound slightly. She felt herself being pulled to the gruesome story.
“How’s work?”
“Busy, busy. Crazy busy, actually.”
“You need to relax, honey.”
“I work. I exercise. That’s how I relax. Besides, I need to work twelve- to fourteen-hour days just to keep my head above water. I’m drowning under a mountain of paperwork, emails I haven’t answered . . .”
“Saw the senator on C-SPAN. Talks real good. Talks a lot of sense. Small government. It’s the American way. At least it should be.”
Fox showed a close-up of the dead man’s home. Then his name flashed up on the screen: Drug-induced death of libertarian writer and blogger Jeff Patterson.
“Mom, gotta go. Talk soon.”
Friel hung up and stared at the screen. Before she had time to process the information, her cell rang.
“Jessica, are you watching Fox?” It was Derek Forgan, one of Senator Crichton’s political advisers.
Friel stared at the TV as if in a trance. “I know.”
“Is that the guy who . . . ?”
“Yeah, that’s the guy. Jeff Patterson.”
“Fuck.”
Friel went numb with shock. “What do we do?”
“This is the guy who said something was going to happen to Brad? Said he was going to be killed?”
“I’ve got to check if it’s the same one. But there can’t be too many libertarian bloggers in DC called Jeff Patterson, what do you think?”
“Tell no one. Not a soul. Am I clear?”
“Right. Of course, yeah. What about the senator?”
“What about him?”
“He needs to know.”
Silence.
Friel said, “You want me to tell him?”
“Probably best.”
She blew out her cheeks. “This is bad.”
“This is worse than bad. If the press got wind that this Patterson guy’s been in touch with us and the senator, saying he was on some sort of hit list, the Washington press corps would have a meltdown.”
“We have to let the senator know ASAP.”
“Deal with it. Then we’ll talk again. Remember, not a soul.”
He hung up and her apartment buzzer rang. “Goddamn.”
Friel picked up the intercom. “Yeah.”
“UPS Express Critical parcel delivery.”
“From who?”
“Legal firm in DC. Frenton Associates.”
“I don’t know any Frenton Associates.”
“Well, they’ve sent you a parcel via UPS, ma’am. You need to sign for it.”
Friel sighed. “I’ll be right down.”
Twenty-One
Three days out
Nathan Stone was on his third coffee of the morning at the isolated cottage when he received a text. Go for a run down the wooded trail behind the rear wall of the cottage. At least an hour. More to follow.
He pulled on a navy hooded tracksuit and sneakers, then headed out the back door, down the garden path, climbed over the wall, and jumped to the other side. A dirt trail through the woods. He did a five-minute warm-up, breath turning to vapor in the cold. He turned left and ran and ran, picking up speed, pumping his arms hard. Through the forest, the smell of sodden leaves and tree bark and moss lingered in the air.
His heart was pounding. Deeper and deeper into the woods. The harder he ran, the more focused he felt. The foliage was dense and dark.
He checked his watch. Just over thirty minutes, so he took a short breather. Then he turned around and jogged all the way back, with a heightened sense of excitement for the operation ahead.
The more he thought about it, the crazier he felt. He didn’t just get a thrill out of his work. He needed the work to make him feel vital. Strong. Charged. Without it, the tension and adrenaline rush, he was just a shell.
Just over an hour after he left, he was back in the cottage.
His cell rang immediately. “Nathan, look out the front window.”
Stone did as he was told. Instead of the SUV there was a VW Golf. Metallic blue.
“Yeah, I see it.”
/> “Your new set of wheels.”
Stone knew the logic of changing vehicles.
“Go upstairs and look inside the wardrobe. At the very bottom.”
Stone walked upstairs and checked the base of the wardrobe. “What am I supposed to be looking for?”
“You tell me.”
Stone looked closer. He saw that the wood grain here was slightly different than on the other shelves. “I see. This isn’t the bottom of the wardrobe.”
“Clever boy.”
Stone went downstairs and got a knife from the kitchen and prized open the wooden base. He pulled back the wood and revealed a sealed plastic bag stuffed with clothes. He pulled the bag out of the hole and ripped it open. Inside was a full set of hiking gear: waterproofs, hiking boots, a huge backpack with a compass, flares, Nikon camera, and maps of northwest Scotland. “OK, I see what we’ve got. Where am I going now?”
“Tomorrow you’re going to be checking on the target.”
“Recon?”
“Precisely. GPS coordinates to follow. Early night, Nathan.”
Twenty-Two
The Gulfstream carrying Clayton Wilson touched down at a landing strip on a private island off Florida’s Gulf Coast. He was picked up in a duck-egg-blue Bentley and whisked straight to the huge colonial house overlooking the ocean. He was escorted into the library and greeted by reclusive multibillionaire John Fisk Jr., a third-generation Texas oilman. Fisk had approached Wilson five years earlier about setting up the Commission. He had grown increasingly concerned, as had Wilson, that America was withdrawing from large-scale military interventions overseas to protect national political and economic interests. They both saw the dangers in the lack of political will to confront American enemies at home and abroad. Wilson had undertaken due diligence on Fisk before he decided to get involved. Fisk and his family controlled a web of shell companies to hide their true wealth, mostly based in the Caymans, although Fisk Oil still operated across the Gulf, the North Sea, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean.
His connections to politicians were legendary. Men of power often sought him out. Mostly for donations to their campaign funds. Sometimes for their private foundations. Educational, faith-based, whatever.
Fisk didn’t give a damn. He handed over hundreds of millions every year. He lined the pockets of powerful lobbyists working exclusively for his companies. But also American politicians, both Democrat and Republican, who had an interventionist mind-set. Fisk wasn’t shy about getting his people to set up influential lawmakers with offshore bank accounts, getting jobs for their kids at one of the blue-chip companies he owned or was a majority shareholder in. Offering the use of his Manhattan penthouses to impress people. He loaned them all out. He didn’t charge a dime. Never. But no one was in any doubt that if he asked a favor, it would have to be reciprocated. Even a small favor.
He golfed with presidents past and present. His financial muscle was useful in Hollywood. He was a link between the American government and the world of commerce. But his contacts within the State Department and Pentagon were extensive.
Fisk didn’t visit anyone. They visited him.
It was the way he liked it.
Wilson smiled as the pale-skinned man wearing a light-blue shirt, rumpled chinos, and boaters stepped forward, cigar in hand. “Sir, it’s a pleasure to meet you at last.”
Fisk used his cigar to point to a claret-colored sofa as a warm breeze blew through the silk drapes.
Wilson sat down as Fisk pulled up a seat opposite him.
Fisk sat quietly for a few moments before he spoke. “I’m glad I could finally see you in person. I’ve barely had a moment to myself in weeks. Back-to-back meetings with God-knows-who about God-knows-what. You know how it is.”
Wilson nodded. “How’s your family?”
“They’re good. I think. I haven’t been home in nearly a week. Ironing things out.”
Wilson smiled.
“And your family?” Fisk asked.
Wilson crossed his legs. “My wife has taken them off to Naples for a week.”
“You like the Gulf Coast?”
“My brother owns a house in the Pelican Bay community. Overlooking the nature reserve.”
Fisk stared at him long and hard. “That’s very nice. Safe.”
“How long have you lived here, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Fisk blew out his cheeks. “Thirty years. No one bothers me. I see only those I want to see.”
“Helluva place.”
Fisk’s eyes were hooded. He was unimpressed by platitudes and bullshit talk. “You hungry?”
“Sure.”
“Good. Let’s have lunch.”
Fisk got up and Wilson followed him through to an adjacent oak-paneled dining room, fan whirring fast overhead. Staff wearing white gloves served steak, fries, and some greens, washed down with a perfect glass of chilled Chablis. They made small talk for over an hour.
The weather. The Yankees. Fisk’s love of his new iPhone. Baseball. Softball. Soccer. On and on.
Fisk was an impeccable host. He allowed silences to open up when they should. But he wasn’t averse to being more expansive when and if he wanted. He was very intuitive, as if he knew when to speak and when to shut the hell up.
He talked about the opening of a new gallery in Miami his wife had attended. Then he went off on a tangent and spoke in conspiratorial tones of a cocaine-addicted Democratic senator who was recuperating at his ranch in Montana after a drug bust that had been hushed up.
Wilson listened intently as he sipped his wine and smiled as the conversation flowed. Fisk never once broached the subject of his visit. And neither did Wilson.
Wilson knew that if Fisk wanted to ask any questions, he could ask them. But he wasn’t going to volunteer information unless he was prompted.
Wilson was a guarded man. His decades of service in the military had ingrained that in his psyche. Even close friends never got too close. It was just the way it was.
After lunch they retired to a game room. They played snooker, smoked great cigars, drank brandy, but still didn’t talk shop.
Just after four, Fisk looked across the table at Wilson.
“Let’s head down to the beach, why don’t we?”
The sand was fine and white, the turquoise waters lapping up onto the shoreline. Fisk took off his boaters and walked barefoot. Wilson kept his shoes on as they strolled, the sun warming his skin nicely after the long lunch.
Fisk stared off into the middle distance, his face hardening. “OK, I believe things are under way.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I understand that I don’t get to know every last detail of what is and isn’t going on, but I’d appreciate a few tidbits on where we are.”
“There was a unanimous vote in favor, as you may have heard, and we got a finalized date.”
Fisk nodded but said nothing.
“There are some complications. I think it’s only fair to be up-front.”
“What kind of complications?”
“A journalist. A blogger of sorts, libertarian, has become aware of a list of targets. A list that was on some backup CIA server, which should have been permanently deleted.”
Fisk said nothing.
“We’re trying to establish through back channels with the CIA and the NSA how this came about.”
“And?”
“Some CIA contractor apparently took a log of names from the previously assumed deleted files, and this somehow got into the hands of the blogger.”
“Where is the blogger?”
“He’s been taken care of.”
Fisk turned his face toward the sun and closed his eyes. “Is that the end of the matter?”
“We hope so. My only concern is if the Feds start sniffing around.”
“So we’re in the clear?”
“I believe so. There’s no trace to you, me, or the Commission.”
“Tell me about Brad Crichton.”
“As I said,
we’re good to go. We have a team working on this.”
“Point man?”
“Brigadier Sands is on the ground in Scotland.”
“Good man.”
“He’s got us an asset who will carry out the task. But who is also disposable.”
“Do I need to know any more about this asset?”
“CIA operative at one time. He was believed to have died a few years back during an operation.”
“Believed to have died?”
“He was deemed to have died in the Everglades. But an exfiltration team on standby, posing as a federal medical team, took the lead from the cops and dragged his body away in a chopper.”
Fisk nodded. “So officially he’s already dead?”
“Precisely.”
“Great cover. Good thinking.”
“Thank you. But we’re now on the clock.”
Fisk sighed and stared at the ocean. “No more fuck-ups, Clayton. Am I clear?”
Twenty-Three
Senator Brad Crichton was sitting at the bar of the country house, enjoying a glass of whisky and chatting about economic liberalism and globalization with a World Bank suit, when his cell phone rang.
“Excuse me, Pierre,” he said, “gotta take this.”
Pierre Bordin smiled and sipped his white wine. “Of course.”
Crichton slipped away to a quiet alcove. Satisfied he was out of earshot of the other delegates, he spoke. “Yeah, Jessica, what’s happening?”
She sighed. “Senator, we’ve got a real problem.”
Crichton’s heart sank. “What kind of problem?”
“The guy who was calling you.”
“What guy?”
“The libertarian.”
“Oh him. What the hell does he want now?”
It seemed like an eternity before she answered. “Senator, his name is Jeff Patterson. He was found dead this morning at an abandoned warehouse, needle in his arm, dead hooker no more than five yards from him.”
Crichton took a few moments to digest the information. He felt his throat go dry. He knocked back the rest of the whisky, put down his glass on a bookshelf. “My God.”
“Here’s the thing: that in itself is tragic and terrible. But bearing in mind that he contacted you, we’re concerned you could get dragged into this as the investigation gathers pace. We have to think about this. We have to think strategically. We have to think about your career. And close down any links.”