3 Great Thrillers

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

  Armitage nodded, but he looked less than sure.

  41

  Jack’s first choice would have been Egon, but who knew where he was at this hour. Jack wasn’t about to call the house to find out. That left him but one other option, so he took Alli to Sharon’s.

  He wanted to call her to warn her, but at this point, he was afraid to use his cell phone. Instead, he stopped at a drug superstore, bought a burner—a cheap cell phone with a pay-as-you-go plan. After setting it up, he dialed Sharon’s number.

  As soon as he heard her voice, he said, “I need to come over. Is it okay?”

  “After what happened the last time?”

  “It was just an argument. Don’t make a big deal over it.”

  “Big deal? Jack, don’t you understand? Emma was the central argument of our life together.”

  She was right, of course, but he didn’t have time to get into it with her. “Listen to what I’m saying, Shar. I need your help. Now.”

  There was a slight hesitation. “Is everything all right?”

  “Not quite.”

  “What’s going on?” A different quality in her voice. The saber had been sheathed, the charger’s hooves stilled. “You’re scaring me.”

  “We’ll be there in fifteen.”

  “We? Jack, who are you with?”

  “Not on the phone,” he said, and disconnected.

  He got into the Continental and took off.

  Paranoia running at peak level, Jack checked out Sharon’s neighborhood within an eight-block radius. That seemed excessive, even to him, especially since he could think of no reason why Sharon should be under surveillance. But since he still didn’t know who had sicced the Dark Car on him—or even why—the more thorough he was in his security check, the better he’d feel.

  Having ascertained there was no surveillance in the area, he pulled into Sharon’s driveway. Alli hadn’t said a word since she’d translated the text message from Nina for him.

  With the engine still running, Jack turned to her. “You okay?”

  “I guess.” She put a hand to her temple. “My head hurts.”

  “Sharon’ll get you some Tylenol as soon as we get inside.”

  “You guys broke up, didn’t you?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Are you going to get back together?” Alli asked.

  Jack sighed. “I’d be lying if I said I knew.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Emma talked about you guys a lot because what upset her the most was the fighting. She couldn’t bear it.”

  Jack opened the window a crack. The heated canned air was getting to him.

  “Plus, she thought it was all her fault.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “That’s funny, because she said you were always fighting about her.”

  Jack shut up then. There was a peculiar feeling in the pit of his stomach, as if he’d just overeaten and now had to get rid of the food at any cost. He opened the car door, got out. Leaning against the car, he realized that he was having trouble breathing.

  Alli slid out, came around the front of the Continental to stand beside him. “I’m sorry if I upset you.”

  “Don’t give it a second thought.”

  There had come a moment when, looking back, he saw that their fighting had been incessant. And about what? Nothing. They fought because it had become a habit, because they were locked in combat, like ancient enemies who no longer knew how their enmity began. He was sick of it. There had to be a better way to deal with each other than through the armor of anger.

  He nodded. “You’re just telling me something both Sharon and I should’ve realized long before now.”

  Sharon looked scared out of her wits when she opened the door.

  “Alli!”

  “Hello, Mrs. McClure.”

  “Come on in.” Sharon took a look over their shoulders before closing and locking the door behind them. “Now what’s this all about, Jack?”

  They went into the living room, sat down on the L-shaped sofa.

  “I’ll get you something for your headache,” Jack said.

  “No,” Alli said. “It’s gone now.”

  Jack regarded her for a moment before turning to Sharon. “I need a safe haven for Alli,” he said. “Just for a short time while I take care of some business.”

  Sharon looked skeptical. “Alli, why aren’t you home with your parents?”

  “It’s a long story,” Jack began.

  “I’m asking Alli, Jack.”

  “It’s not for her to answer that question.”

  “I think it is,” Sharon persisted. “Alli?”

  Alli looked down at her hands. “This is what Emma said it was like, being with you.”

  “What?” Sharon said. “What did you say?”

  “You wanted her to answer,” Jack said softly. “Hear her out.”

  Sharon glared at him, but remained silent. Perhaps the rattle of sabers was all she was prepared to deliver. Still, Jack could hear the snorting of her warhorse champing at the bit to head into battle.

  Intuiting the silence as a tacit acknowledgment that she should go on, Alli took a deep breath. “There’s no use arguing over this,” she said softly. “Jack’s right. If he can’t tell you why I’m not with my parents, I can’t either.” She lifted her head. “But it’s important I stay with you, that he’s free to do whatever he has to do.”

  Sharon sat back, looked at Jack. “Did you put her up to this?” Seeing the expression on Jack’s face, she raised her hands defensively. “Sorry. Sorry.” She nodded. “Of course you can stay with me, Alli.” She smiled. “As long as you want or need to.”

  Alli ducked her head. “Thank you, Mrs. McClure.”

  Sharon’s smile widened. “But only if you call me Sharon.”

  Jack found Nina’s car idling at the curb outside Sharon’s house. Before he could open the door, the passenger’s-side window slid smoothly down, and Nina, leaning over from behind the wheel, said, “Backseat, jack.”

  Curious, Jack opened the rear door. Sliding onto the seat, he found himself next to a rather short barrel-chested man with a neatly trimmed beard and the calm demeanor of a sage.

  “Jack,” Nina said, “meet Dennis Paull, Secretary of Homeland Security.”

  “Jack, it’s good to finally meet you,” Secretary Paull said as he briefly enclosed Jack’s hand in a hearty grip. “Nina has told me a great deal about you.”

  “Has she?” Jack caught Nina’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Spying on me?”

  Paull laughed. “Keeping an eye on you is how I see it. Nina works for me undercover. She’s a damn good operative.”

  “I’m in no position to dispute that,” Jack said.

  Paull laughed again. “I don’t trust people without a sense of humor, Jack. And d’you know why? Because nothing murders a sense of humor faster than keeping secrets.”

  “Nina’s a barrel of laughs, I can vouch for that,” Jack said. “She’s the only one I ever met who used a chocolate-chip cookie as a missile.”

  That got an appreciative chuckle out of Nina.

  “Okay, now that we’re one big, happy family, let’s get down to brass tacks,” Paull said. “Jack, I think you’re looking for some answers, and I have them. I sent out the Dark Car manned by two of my agents in order to keep an eye on you. They had orders to protect you should anyone make a move against you. Unfortunately, the National Security Advisor—perhaps with the blessing of the president—countermanded those orders.”

  What have I gotten myself into? Jack asked himself. “Why would anyone want to make a move against me?”

  “We’ll get to the details in a moment,” Paull said. “Now, suffice it to say that you’re Edward Carson’s man. As you might imagine, the president-elect is seen as something of a threat to certain individuals in the Administration. There’s an initiative to get certain matters the president deems pressing sewn up before the twen
tieth.”

  “Like rounding up the First American Secular Revivalists.”

  Paull nodded. “Among other suspect groups.”

  “The FASR’s only crime is that their philosophy is in direct opposition with the current Administration’s,” Jack said.

  “As you no doubt understand, Jack, this Administration has serious perception issues. The world—and the players in it—are what it says they are, no matter the reality.”

  “Don’t you understand that the FASR is being made a scapegoat?” Jack said. “You guys can’t find E-Two, so you’re going after the easy target.”

  “Please don’t confuse this Administration with the truth, Jack.” The secretary shifted in his seat. “Now, I think you may have an answer for me. You know a man named Ian Brady.”

  It wasn’t a question, and Jack’s eyes sought out Nina’s again. “Yes, sir. Twenty-five years ago, he was a major drug supplier in my old neighborhood.”

  “Which was?”

  “Not far from McMillan Reservoir.”

  Secretary Paull passed a hand across his brow. It was clear Jack had delivered his answer; trouble was, it was the answer Paull had been afraid of because it confirmed his dark analysis of who Ian Brady really was.

  “You need to forget McMillan Reservoir, Jack.”

  “That’s a bit hard to do, sir. This man, Ian Brady or Charles Whitman or Ronnie Kray, whatever he’s calling himself today, is the one who abducted Alli Carson and murdered her Secret Service detail in cold blood.”

  “Nevertheless, you must forget him.”

  Jack would have said, What the hell are you talking about, sir? except he knew exactly what Paull was saying. The last piece of the puzzle he’d been assembling in his head—the most crucial one—had just fallen into place. No wonder the IDs of the vics at McMillan Reservoir were never revealed. It was the same reason that the crash of the Dark Car and the deaths of the two agents in it never made the news.

  Jack’s mind replayed the moment at McMillan Reservoir when he’d followed Gus and Detective Stanz, when Gus’s snitch said, “I guarantee you’ll never get the name of the murderer, either from me or anyone else.”

  “Brady’s protected,” Jack said to Paull. “You’re protecting a serial murderer, a kidnapper.”

  “Not me, Jack. The government. That’s why the order to my Dark Car agents was countermanded at the highest level. There was concern that you were getting too close to Brady.”

  “A legitimate concern.”

  The secretary’s face looked like you could pass a steamroller over it without making a dent. “This is a matter of national security.”

  “How many illegal acts have been committed in the last eight years in the name of national security?”

  “Jack, please. This is a friendly memo—the most friendly.”

  “I understand, sir. But I have to do this.”

  Paull breathed out a long sigh. “Look, I’m trying to protect you, you do understand that?”

  “Yes, sir, I do, but that won’t change my mind.”

  Paull looked away. He hadn’t for a moment thought he’d change Jack McClure’s mind, but he had to be absolutely certain of this man.

  “From this moment on, you’re on your own.” Paull said this very softly, very distinctly.

  “I’m prepared for the risk.” Jack knew nothing would be settled inside himself until he hunted down Ian Brady and either brought him in or shot him dead.

  42

  “How I wish you and Jack were my parents!”

  “Good Lord!” Sharon was standing in the kitchen. So astonished was she by Alli’s statement that she dropped the egg she was transferring from its carton to the heated pan. The yellow yolk burst like a water balloon, slowly threading across the stove top, through the clear, glutinous albumin.

  She’d gone with her first instinct, which was to make Alli something to eat, so they had repaired to the kitchen, a room that always made her feel secure. If she was being honest with herself, Alli’s presence here unnerved her, though her nervousness had nothing to do with the fact that Alli was the president-elect’s daughter. It was all down to the fact that Alli had been Emma’s best friend. They were the same age, and though one would hardly be taken for the other, it was difficult for Sharon to look at Alli without seeing her own daughter. She was beset by a profound ache she thought she had put aside. The poisonous stone of Emma’s death was still inside her.

  Mindlessly, she turned off the burner, began to sponge up the mess. “Why on earth would you say such an extraordinary thing?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  Sharon wrung the remains of the raw egg into the sink. She held the broken shell in her cupped palm. “But I’m sure your parents are wonderful people.”

  “Excuse me, but all you know about my mom and dad is what you see on TV or read in magazine articles,” Alli said.

  She stood with her back against the pass-through into the living room. She appeared to Sharon to be poised beyond her years—certainly more poised than Emma had ever been. What I wouldn’t have given for a child like this, a voice inside her wailed. And immediately she put a hand to her mouth, appalled at the thought. God forgive me, she moaned silently. But her quick prayer of penance made her feel no better, just dirty. She panicked for a moment; if prayers no longer worked for her, what would? The truth of it is that prayers are only words, she thought, and of what comfort are words at a time like this? Hollow things like the shell of an egg with the inside drained away.

  “You’re right, of course,” she said, desperately trying to soothe her way back into normalcy. “Please forgive me.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Mrs.—Sharon.”

  Alli came and took the glistening shell out of Sharon’s hand. In that moment, their hands touched and Sharon began to weep. It took only an instant for the dam to burst, for all the feelings, methodically and efficiently tamped down and squashed, to reassert their right to life. Father Larrigan’s assurances of “It’s God’s will” and “Emma’s death is part of God’s plan” crumbled beneath the weight of hypocrisy. Sharon, queen of denial, was quite unprepared for the abyss, so that the dam not only burst but disintegrated entirely.

  She rocked back and forth with inconsolable sobs. Knowledge comes through suffering was one of Father Larrigan’s favorite bromides. But in a flash of knowledge, she saw that it wasn’t a bromide at all; it was yet another way for the Church to maintain control over its increasingly unruly flock. We all must suffer because of Eve’s First Sin, we all deserve to suffer in this life so we may be redeemed in Heaven. What better way to keep people yoked to the Church? Surely God didn’t mean these con artists to speak in His name. Oh, the insidious cleverness of it!

  Now her sorrow was joined by her rage at being duped, her terror at life’s random cruelty. All was chaos, uncontrollable, unknowable. With this came the stark realization that Jack was right. Her newfound religion was nothing but a sham, another way to deny her feelings, to convince herself that everything would be all right. But deep down where she was afraid to look, she knew nothing would ever be right again because Emma had been snatched from her and Jack for no good reason. And then she thought, despairingly, what possible reason could justify her daughter’s death? None. None on earth or in heaven.

  Gradually, she became aware of Alli holding her hand, leading her into the living room, where they sat quietly side by side on the sofa.

  “Can I get you something?” Alli asked. “Some tea, a glass of water, even?”

  Sharon shook her head. “Thank you, I’m feeling much better now.”

  But what a bitter lie that was! In her mind’s eye, she could see the inside of her church, the gloomy atmosphere, the confessional, where priests heard and absolved your sins if you recited the canned blather of Hail Marys or Our Fathers. But Father Larrigan wasn’t full of grace, nor was any priest. The flickering candles mocked those whose prayers they carried in their flaring hearts, the paintings of Christ, bl
eeding, dying while angels fluttered like so many moths over his head. And the gold! Everywhere you looked were gold crosses tinted rose or moss green by the saints in the stained-glass windows. And old-lady tears, old-lady prayers, old ladies with nowhere else to go, their lives over, clustered in the doorway, complaining about their backs and their bladders. She was not an old woman! Her life wasn’t over. It wasn’t too late for her to have another child, was it? Was it?

  Wrenching herself away from her pain, she smiled through her tears. “Anyway, never mind me.” She patted Alli’s knee, and there it was again, that astonishing electric sensation that had made her weep. She managed to hold back the tears this time, but it wasn’t easy. “It’s you we were speaking of. You live a life of such privilege, Alli. You’re admired and envied by so many young women, sought after by so many young men.”

  “So what?” Alli said. “I hate that privilege means the world to my parents. It means nothing to me, but they don’t get it, they don’t get me at all.”

  Sharon regarded her sadly. “I never got Emma, you know. All that anger, all that rebellion.” She shook her head. “There were times when I thought she’d surely burst from keeping so much from us.”

  “The secrets we keep.”

  Sharon clasped her hands together. “I think secrets deaden us in the end. It’s like having gangrene. If you keep them long enough, they begin to kill parts of you, starting with your heart.”

  “Your heart is still beating,” Alli said.

  Sharon looked away, at the photo of Emma on a horse. She could ride, that girl. “Only in a medical sense, I’m afraid.”

  Alli moved closer to her. “You still have Jack.”

  “Seeing you here …” Sharon bit her lip. “Oh, I want my daughter back!”

  Alli took her hand again. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Sharon looked into Alli’s eyes. How young she looks, she thought. How vulnerable, how angelic. She felt all of a sudden a great, an overwhelming desire for solace, for a peace inside her churning self. She wondered whether she possessed the strength to find it. The Church couldn’t provide it, nor all the prayers spoken by all the faithful in the universe. In the end, there was only what she could summon up from inside herself.