3 Great Thrillers

by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric

“That is correct.”

  In the background, I heard Victor say, “Tell … him … the … rest.” Hugo attempted to cover the mouthpiece with his hand but it was a small hand and I could still hear them talking, plain as day.

  Hugo said, “He’ll laugh at me.”

  Victor said, in a commanding voice, “Tell … him!”

  Hugo removed his hand from the mouthpiece and told me he was something, but his voice was so small I had to ask him to repeat himself.

  “You’re the what?” I asked.

  “Supreme commander of his army.”

  “I’m trying to think of something funny to say,” I said, “but you’ve rendered me speechless.”

  Hugo said he and Victor had amassed an army of little people all over the country. “We have soldiers everywhere,” Hugo said. “Hundreds. Some are captains of industry. Others have access to information surpassing all but the highest pay grades. We’ve even got a little person on the White House kitchen staff,” he boasted.

  “What is he,” I asked, “a short order cook?”

  He covered up the mouthpiece again and I heard him tell Victor, “Say the word and I’ll kill the bastard. Turn me loose on him, that’s all I ask. I’ll cut out his liver and dance on it.” He was shouting now: “I want to dance on his liver!” Victor took charge of the phone.

  “Mr. … Creed … you … have up … set my … gen … eral.”

  “C’mon, Victor, cut the crap,” I said. “I need to know if Monica’s alive. If so, I need to kill her. Thanks to you, it’s become a matter of national security.”

  “We … should … meet,” he said. “There … is much … ground … to … cover.”

  We agreed to meet Tuesday morning at Café Napoli in New York City. “You got an address for me?” I asked.

  “Hes … ter and Mul … berry,” he said. “In … Little … Italy.”

  “Little Italy,” I said.

  “You … see I’m … not … without … a sense … of hu … mor, Mr. Creed.”

  “You gonna have soldiers at the restaurant?”

  “Eight o’ … clock be … fore the … place … opens up,” he said.

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  31

  After completing my conversation with Victor and Hugo, I placed a call to headquarters and told Lou Kelly that the hotel bomb wasn’t a terrorist strike. “It was a personal attack against me by Joe DeMeo,” I said.

  I gave him all the embarrassing details regarding my tryst with Jenine, told him about Coop the driver getting killed and about Jenine and Star and how their house had been sterilized.

  “This Jenine, she the one you’d pegged for Callie’s body double?”

  “She was, and she’d have been perfect.” I didn’t tell him about the birthmark photos I’d taken. It seemed like an intrusion, somehow.

  “What you’re saying,” Lou said, “Jenine and her friends, and most of the prostitutes in LA …”

  “The pretty ones,” I said.

  “All the pretty prostitutes in LA: working for Joe DeMeo?”

  “Not working for him as in being pimped, but yeah, he finances their Web sites, has his people monitor the sites and the girls, and pays them for information.”

  “Information he can use to buy influence with politicians, maybe the Hollywood elite?”

  “Otherwise, how would he know where and when I was planning to meet Jenine?”

  “He’d set this up even before your meeting at the cemetery,” Lou said.

  “Otherwise his guys would have shot me there.”

  “Not the easiest thing to do with Quinn guarding you.”

  “Yeah, but DeMeo had nine guys there the night before. DeMeo told me they spotted Augustus. Still, Quinn would have killed a couple, and I might have done the same, but we were out-manned and on Joe’s turf. He could have killed us both. And should have,” I said.

  “Why have a big shootout in the middle of the day? Better to use Jenine to bomb you,” Lou said. “He already knew you planned to visit a hooker in Santa Monica.”

  “Make it look like a terrorist attack,” I said. “Kill Jenine, let her take the fall. They’ve got her computer, which ties her to me, and they can make it look like she was working with terrorists.”

  “And Joe DeMeo gets away with pinning the hotel bombing on the terrorists.”

  “Joe’s a slick one,” I said.

  We were silent a moment while Lou’s mind worked it. “You tell Darwin about DeMeo yet?”

  “I wanted to bounce it off you first.”

  “Uh huh. Well, we better let him be the one to tell the world,” Lou said.

  “Or not tell them.”

  “You think he’ll try to cover it up?”

  “I think he’ll keep the blame focused on the terrorists. He left the possibility open with Monica, and this is a logical extension. It’s easy to believe, and it’s good politically; it justifies his job and budget and brings the country together.”

  “He’ll have to tell the Feebs something,” Lou said.

  “Whatever he tells them, our focus is Monica. After we confirm her death, we’ll give them the hotel bombing and let them take the credit for solving it.”

  “That’s worst case scenario,” Lou said. “We might get lucky, find and rescue Monica. Then we give the Feebs all the glory and get a ton of future favors in return.”

  I said nothing.

  There was a short pause and then he said, “Oh, right. I got it. There will be no rescue.”

  I said, “Just so we’re on the same page.”

  Lou sighed. “This business,” he said.

  “Don’t get me started.”

  I told Lou to get some full-timers working on any connection they could find between Baxter Childers and Victor.

  “Tell me about Victor,” he said, and I told him what I knew, except for the part about the spy satellite.

  Then I asked, “How long you think it’ll take to find a connection?”

  Lou laughed. “Five, maybe ten minutes.”

  “You’re joking,” I said.

  “Donovan, you and I each have our specialties, and for both of us, some jobs are harder than others. When you tell me that on the one hand you’ve got a world-famous surgeon, on the other an angry quadriplegic midget with dreadlocks, and you know there’s a connection and want me to find it—well that’s like asking you how long it would take to kill a hamster with a shotgun.”

  “So that’s a yes.”

  “It is.”

  I told Lou to also contact the LAPD and bomb squad techs and get back to me ASAP. The more we learned about the bomb, the more we’d know about Joe DeMeo and the extent of his power.

  “No way the attack on you could have been an inside job?” Lou asked.

  “I don’t think so. If our guys, including you, wanted to kill me, it would be a lot easier to just poison me.” I glanced at Quinn and noticed him watching me with amused indifference. “Of course, Quinn knew about both Jenine and the hotel,” I said, “but it’s hard to pin it on him.”

  Quinn pricked up his ears.

  “Not because he’s my friend,” I said, aiming a smile in his direction, “but because he didn’t know my plans for after the DeMeo meeting. I didn’t tell him about the hotel or Jenine until a few minutes before we got there. And he didn’t know her name or what she looked like until she arrived. None of that really matters, because Augustus could kill me anytime he wants when we’re testing the ADS weapon.”

  Quinn nodded and closed his eyes, glad to know he wasn’t a suspect. Now maybe I wouldn’t try to murder him in his sleep.

  “One more thing,” Lou said. “They’ve got your cell phone number.”

  I hadn’t thought about that, but sure, if Jenine had my number, DeMeo’s team had it.

  “If he’s got whores and bombs, he’s probably got connections to a radical fringe element as well,” Lou said.

  “So?”

  “You might want to shut down your cell ph
one, just in case.”

  “In case what?”

  “In case DeMeo’s aiming a Stinger missile at your cell signal right now.”

  “Shit!” I said. I hung up and ripped the battery out of my cell phone. The jet had a secure phone, and Quinn had one, too, so I didn’t need mine anyway. I took a deep breath, thinking, Jesus, there’s so much to think about in this business! I let the breath out slowly, kicked off my shoes, and turned my attention to Quinn, hoping for conversation. However, my deadly giant was snoring away. I had to admire anyone who could fall asleep so quickly, especially at a time like this.

  I couldn’t sleep; I felt trapped inside the jet’s luxurious cabin. Felt impotent, too. Stuck in this metal cocoon, I couldn’t do anything about Janet or Monica or Kathleen or the hotel bombing. I couldn’t even read the book I’d started on the flight here—it had vaporized in the hotel along with the rest of my personal items. I tapped my fingers on the burl wood table and glanced around the cabin for a newspaper. Started flipping through a People Magazine, hoping Augustus wouldn’t catch me doing so, but I couldn’t get into it. When you’ve survived a bomb blast and more than a hundred people didn’t, it’s hard to focus on rumors of a possible hickey on Paris Hilton’s neck.

  I was going stir-crazy. I checked my watch for the third time since Lou’s call and tried to fall asleep, but the monotonous thrum of the turbofans kept mocking me. I tapped my fingers some more and tried to think about what sort of relationship might exist between Joe DeMeo and Victor, if any. Then wondered how to go about stealing twenty-five mil from Joe DeMeo. Then I worked on the problem of how to find and kill Monica Childers, assuming she wasn’t already dead.

  I’d never had trouble concentrating on business before, but here, locked in this environment, nothing was working. Listen to me: environment! Hell, who was I kidding? It wasn’t the environment. I knew exactly what it was: whether I was having sex with Lauren or saying good-bye to Jenine or sitting alone bored out of my gourd on a luxury jet, all my thoughts eventually turned to Kathleen. There was something about her infectious laugh and winning personality that touched my heart and made me itch to know what might have been. That was over now and probably couldn’t be salvaged. In dumping me, she’d made the right decision, because in the final analysis, I was no better than Ken Chapman. We’d both managed to hurt her in our own way.

  Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  32

  “Daddy, thank God you’re okay! I mean, I knew you would be, but whenever something like this happens, I can’t help but worry.”

  We’d been in the air forty-five minutes, long enough to feel comfortable putting the battery back in my cell phone. I’d been thinking about the boy I saved earlier and the girl who might have been his sister, the one who didn’t survive. It made me think about Kimberly, how precious she was to me.

  “Daddy? Are you okay?”

  And how lucky I was to have her in my life.

  “Dad?”

  Kimberly doesn’t know the details of my job, but Janet had told her plenty over the years. She had some sketchy knowledge about the killing I’d done for the CIA, and she knew my current position had something to do with counter-terrorism. Still, I never realized until now what I’d been putting her through. I hadn’t realized that every time a bomb detonated or a bridge collapsed, she automatically wondered if I might be injured or dead.

  “I love you, Kimberly,” I said. “I’m sorry you were worried.”

  “Well, at least you called this time.”

  I felt guilty. Up to now, I’d thought Janet would call and I’d reassure her first, then I’d talk to Kimberly. My daughter is so together; I always seem to think of her as the parent and Janet as the child.

  “I’m good,” I said. “How’s your mom?”

  “Daddy, I’m worried. That hotel bomb, was it a terrorist attack? Are there going to be more?”

  I looked at the color monitor on the wall panel. It showed our air speed, altitude, and ETA. We were making good time. If the computer was accurate, Quinn and I should be in Virginia by midnight. “We don’t know much about the hotel yet,” I said, “but I’m sure Homeland Security is doing everything they can to stop any further violence.”

  Kimberly groaned. “Jesus, Daddy, you sound just like that FBI bimbo on TV. I’m your daughter, remember? I can’t believe you don’t trust me enough to tell me what’s really happening with all this.”

  Kimberly was a sophomore in high school. No way could I give her the type of inside information she wanted. If she told a friend and word spread, the wrong people could trace the story back to her and that would put her and Janet’s lives in danger. Since I couldn’t allow that, I decided to change the subject.

  “How come you’re not in school?”

  “I knew it!” she said. “You’re on the West Coast! It’s nighttime here. Not that you’d know,” she added, “but it’s also winter break.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I thought that was in December.”

  She sighed. “That’s Christmas break.”

  I loved my daughter, but what Janet had accused me of was true. I wasn’t an involved father. Maybe someday I’d have the time to become one—at least that’s what I keep telling myself. I knew Kimberly was experiencing some abandonment issues that were pretty much all my fault, and I’d eventually get around to solving them. But that would mean committing significant blocks of time to her, time I didn’t have at this point in my life. I wasn’t completely absent; I saw her once or twice a year, but in point of fact, where Kimberly was concerned, I was pretty much one and done.

  Now I was about to do it to her again, because I knew Janet was hurting and I had to ask about her. Specifically, I wondered if Janet had told Kimberly about the breakup with Chapman. I decided to jump right in. “How are the wedding plans coming?”

  She paused a beat. “Okay, I guess.”

  “Have the announcements gone out yet?”

  “No, they’re not at that stage.”

  “Have you picked out a bridesmaid’s dress?”

  “That comes later.”

  “Are you uncomfortable talking to me about this?”

  “What do you think?” she said. “I’d rather she didn’t get married, okay? I’d rather you didn’t ask me about it. I’d rather have you both in my life. If you want to know about her wedding so much, why don’t you talk to her about it?”

  I heard teenage voices in the background.

  “Where are you?” I asked. “At the mall?”

  My daughter made a sad sound, the kind a teenager should never have to make. It was a sound that told me that in her eyes I was not only clueless as a father, but hopeless as well.

  “Just call Mom,” she said. Just like that, she was gone.

  Janet regarded me as poisonous. Her take on our marriage: the single biggest mistake of her life. Had she the opportunity to do it over again, she’d have lived in sin and walked out on me the day she gave birth.

  I’d be the first to admit things weren’t always perfect, but really, whose marriage is? I attribute the bad times to the crazy hours I kept, the high stress component of my job, my anger issues, the void in my chest where a heart would normally be located, the lack of sympathy and tact most people expect to find in a spouse, and the depression I suffered when the opportunity to kill people for the CIA ended so abruptly.

  However, these last few years had made me a better person. I’d been far less moody lately and wanted a chance to prove to Janet how much I’d changed since the divorce. Not because (as Lauren had said) I wanted her back—I didn’t—but because of Kimberly, who was hitting the age where having an involved father was more important than ever. I just wanted to get to a place where Janet might be able to find it within her power to have some decent things to say about me to our daughter.

  I glanced at the sleeping Quinn and hoped he wouldn’t wake up in the middle of an argument between Janet and me. Talking out loud to Lou about my date with Jenine
had been embarrassing enough. I took a chance and dialed Janet’s number.

  “What do you want?” she snapped, as if she was hours into a bad mood and suddenly turned to see me standing beside her. I ignored her tone, knowing Janet had to rev herself up in order to deal with me. I didn’t blame her for keeping her guard up. According to her shrink, she may have divorced me, but she had never been able to drain “the reservoir filled with unresolved pain from the relationship.”

  Janet’s question had been a good one. What, in fact, did I want? Down deep, I guess I wondered if her breakup with Chapman could somehow provide the catalyst for friendship. Maybe she’d thought about it this afternoon and realized I wasn’t the bad guy in all this, that by making her aware of Ken’s shortcomings, I was the one who’d been looking out for her and Kimberly. If Quinn hadn’t been sitting there, I might have casually mentioned some of the good things I’d done since the marriage, like the way I helped save some lives today. I wondered if she’d develop a greater appreciation of my character if I did so.

  “Did you hear about the hotel bomb in LA?” I said.

  “Was that your doing?”

  Or not. “Jesus, Janet.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  Janet wasn’t the most classically beautiful woman I’d ever known, but she was certainly the prettiest who ever professed to love me. While some might not care for her thin, cruel lips or sharp facial features, everything about her appearance used to tantalize me.

  “I’ve obviously caught you at a bad time,” I said.

  “Are you for real? Any time spent talking to you is a bad time, you son of a bitch!” She screamed, “I’d rather spend ten days strapped to a machine that sucks the life out of me than spend ten seconds talking to you!” Then she hung up on me.

  I thought about what she said. The part about the life-sucking machine. I wondered if such a device could be built. If so, how would it work? How large would it be? What would it cost? Would it have much value as a torture device? I couldn’t imagine anything better than the ADS weapon. It was relatively portable now, but the army was already working on a handheld version that could be functional in a matter of months. Also, with ADS, the pain is instant and so is the recovery. Now that I’d compared the two in my head, I’d have to put the ADS weapon way above Janet’s life sucking machine idea. Then again, Janet probably hadn’t heard about the ADS weapon.