Betrayal (15 page)

Again Odi wished he could see Drake’s face, but he did not dare to lower the partition a second time.

“Oh my God. You’ve got to give me the antidote.” His voice was no longer the haughty drone of a faux-British aristocrat. It was a nasal whine born of horrified desperation.

Odi let him dangle for a moment longer at the end of his metaphorical rope and then asked, “Does that mean you’re willing to cooperate fully?”

“Yes, yes, of course I’m willing to cooperate. Just hurry. My fingers. My fingers are already blue.”

Odi smiled. He was not enjoying the violence. He wasn’t the sadistic type. But he loved it when everything went precisely according to plan.

“Who are you working with?”

“Mark Abrams, Mark Rollins, and Wiley Proffitt.” Drake spit out the words as if they were poison.

The first two names Odi had expected. Together with Drake they rounded out the Wall Street darlings known collectively as The Three Marks. The third name stole Odi’s breath away. He was glad that the partition was raised so Drake could not see him shake. Wiley Proffitt was seriously involved with his sister. In fact, if her prediction was correct they were already engaged. What possible motivation could Wiley have for getting in bed with Defense? He had his own island for chrissake, and was the Director of the FBI. What could The Three Marks possibly offer him that he did not already have? “Tell me why,” Odi commanded.

Odi listened to Drake’s panicked account of the defense contractors’ plight, of how the river of cash from the War on Terror was drying up, and they were desperate for another Iraq. It was precisely as Ayden had hypothesized, but Odi still found himself amazed at both the brashness of their plan and the depth of their greed. He was also stunned by the personal connection. The fact that the consortium had selected Wiley for its White-House puppet was an amazing coincidence, and Odi did not believe in those. Drake, however, knew nothing about Cassi. Nor did he recognize Odi’s face or name. The investigation of that coincidence would have to wait.

“Now give me the antidote,” Drake implored, his voice accented by an adolescent crack.

“Coming right up.”

Odi scanned the scenic pull-off again to ensure that they were in fact as alone as you would expect at a location like this come seven A.M. in the rain. They were. He opened the driver’s door and went around to the trunk. He pulled wet-weather clothes on over his chauffer suit and then pulled a small motor scooter from the trunk as Drake pounded away at the windows.

He spoke into the intercom before riding the scooter away with the limo’s keys, leaving Drake locked inside.

“Drake?”

“Yes!”

“Adam Brazer, Flint Mulder, Jeremy Jones, Mitch O’Brian, Derek Doogan, Tony Oritz, and William Waslager.”

“What?!”

“Those are the names of my teammates. Those are the names of the men you killed.”

Drake could not get any paler. He just looked up with pleading eyes, and said, “The antidote … you promised.”

“There is only one antidote for Creamer ... and that antidote is death.”

Chapter 23

The Horus Club, Washington, D.C.

A
S
THE
GRISLY
image of Potchak’s boots faded to black, the four men stared silently at the blank screen. They did not know Potchak personally, but they knew Drake. Now they also knew the circumstances of their friend’s grisly end. Now they also understood the true horror of the threat. And so they sat there, motionless, silent. None wanting to meet another’s eye. None wanting confirmation that the nightmare was real.

Wiley was not surprised that it was Stuart who eventually broke the silence, but nonetheless his words left Wiley choking on his Dalwhinnie.

“It must be Odi Carr,” Stuart said.

Every time, Wiley thought, wiping his chin. He does it to me every frigging time. “Why do you say that?”

“Yes, why?” Abrams echoed, incredulity in his voice. “Carr is dead.”

Nestled amidst the sea of embassies in Dumbarton Oaks, the exclusive club Wiley had selected for their meeting was a flashback to a time when men of extraordinary privilege and means routinely gathered to exchange news and talk business at the end of the day over grossly priced brandy, the very best imported cigars, and whatever else men of unlimited means might desire. The only indulgence not offered at The Horus Club was whores. The deficiency was not a morality statement. It was just their stubborn adherence to a policy maintained for over two-hundred years. Horus was for gentlemen only. As General Manager Oliver Appleton loved to point out whenever he could do so with discretion, even Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Conner’s application had been denied.

Abrams turned to Wiley. “You’re sure we can talk here?”

Wiley took a long, contemplative puff on his cigar. He wanted to present himself as cool and composed while his friends were still reeling from the shock of the video. “Absolutely,” he replied, blowing out a long stream of smoke. “The waiters, you know, are all deaf.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Rollins chuffed.

“Not at all,” Wiley said, teasing out the moment by pretending to study his cigar. “They read lips.”

Rollins and Abrams both raised their brows and nodded.

Wiley savored the moment before continuing. “Still, given this day and age, I brought in the Bureau’s best technician one evening to perform a surreptitious electronic sweep. Rives declared the club to be clean as a virgin’s sheets.” The men nodded their approval, teeing up the kicker. “On the way out that evening, Oliver Appleton pulled me aside. Despite Rives’ expertise, his actions had not gone undetected. Oliver told me that he recognized what my guest was doing because he did it himself—twice a day.”

Wiley accepted another round of kudos, noting that even Stuart actually looked impressed for once. “So yes, I am sure that we can talk. Stuart, you were going to tell us why you think our troublemaker is a dead man.”

Stuart took a sip of his twelve-dollar club soda. “Whoever killed Potchak and Drake was obviously very familiar with explosives. I’m no expert, but I work in defense and I’ve never heard of anything like the device that was used. Yet the killer was familiar enough with the explosive to stay in the room. That requires both intimate knowledge and humungous balls.”

“Like the balls of a CRT leader,” Abrams added.

Stuart nodded and continued. “Odi Carr not only has every reason in the world to kill those two men, but he is also one of the world’s leading explosive ordnance technicians. Furthermore, only seven bodies came back from Iran. Potchak assumed that Carr’s body was incinerated in the explosion, given that there were no reports of survivors. In retrospect, I concede that perhaps that was wishful thinking. At the time it seemed the most reasonable conclusion.”

“It still seems a stretch,” Abrams said.

“Perhaps,” Stuart agreed. “But there’s more. I didn’t mention this before, but Potchak actually had to remove Carr from command mid-mission.”

“What?” Wiley asked.

“Apparently Carr figured out that it really was a clinic and not a training camp. When planning the attack, we figured that there would be no activity in the middle of the night, but were unlucky. A peasant boy got his foot blown off harvesting at night and showed up in an ambulance just as Echo Team was prepping for the attack. Anyhow, when Carr’s body was not with the others and not a peep was heard from him, Potchak assumed that he must have tried to rescue some locals and either succumbed to the smoke or got caught up in the blast.”
 

“That’s a lot of assumptions,” Rollins said.

“He has paid for his mistake,” Wiley replied.

Everyone nodded somberly.

“What about the letter?” Abrams asked after another protracted silence.

“Read it again,” Stuart said. “Aloud.”

Abrams picked up the note that he and Rollins had each received with their copy of the Potchak execution video and read its single sentence. “Come forward, confess all, and resign within twenty-four hours of receiving this, or share the same fate as Potchak and Drake.” Abrams put down the note as everyone pictured the smoking stumps. Then he said, “I don’t see any clues to the author’s identity.”

Wiley was most curious about that himself.

Stuart said, “Carr was the leader of Counterterrorism Response Team Echo. Consider what that tells you in terms of character profile. He is a man of action, violent and intense. You are all defense guys. You know that Special Forces soldiers tend to be men of few words. I’m sure that is exactly the kind of letter that an FBI profiler would expect Odi Carr to write.”

Wiley nodded in response to the other men’s inquisitive looks.

“So what do we do?” Abrams said. “I sure as shit am not going to resign and turn myself in.”

“Nor I,” Rollins said. “But I’m not going to be fatally egotistical about this either. If he could get to Potchak and Drake, we should assume that he could get to us too.”

“You have several advantages they did not have,” Stuart said. “First of all, you know that someone is after you. Potchak and Drake were caught unaware. Secondly, you know your stalker’s identity. That means that we can launch both offensive and defensive countermeasures.”

“I’ve got no problem with that,” Rollins said. “Defense is what I do. But I don’t want to have to hide out forever. Bunkers are boring.”

“I second that thought.” Abrams said. “I don’t know if Hitler gave up or he just needed a change of scenery.”

“What do you suggest?” Wiley asked Stuart.

Stuart told them.

When he finished, Abrams said, “I like your approach, Stuart, especially your clever use of that secret weapon. If you are confident that it will work, we are willing to go along—but only as long as Rollins and I are not the only ones with skin in the game.”

Wiley met Abrams’ eye with a calm gaze, although he knew the coming words would shake him to the core.

Abrams continued. “We won’t be organizing any more terrorist attacks until you take Odi Carr out of play—and put him in a box. Consider your campaign on ice.”

Chapter 24

Alexandria, Virginia

A
N
ADRENALINE
SURGE
accompanied the doorbell’s chime, making Cassi feel an odd mixture of longing and fear. She missed Wiley dearly despite his decision to sacrifice their relationship for his political ambition. She got up from the sofa, set down the latest issue of
The Journal of Child Psychology
, and walked to the door.

The last time she had seen Wiley she was still in the hospital, confined to a bed and sporting an inch-thick cap of gauze on her head. He had left her after saying that he needed to let things cool down before he would attempt to salvage her career, and she had not seen him since. Then out of the blue he had called an hour ago to say that he was coming over with news. Did that mean she was in the clear? Or declared radioactive?

Cassi had struggled to get through the job suspension with her sanity intact. With no Wiley or work to distract her, she had been alone with the demons of her mind—and the ghosts of two dead kids. Every time she looked out her window, she only saw what wasn’t there. She loved her loft, but she was going to have to move. Her family, her career, and now her home—she had lost them all. Yet as depressing as her situation was, when she thought of Masha and Zeke, Cassi knew that she was better off than she deserved.

She opened the door to find Wiley wearing what she had come to know as his politician’s face. That was not a good sign. With little else to do but sleep-in, read books, and watch the news, she had been following the rumors of his impending campaign—rumors that she knew to be true. She still had mixed thoughts.

In her heart Cassi hoped that Wiley would not get the job. She wanted him for herself. She acknowledged that this was selfish, but knew better than to try to deny her own emotions. It did not look like she was going to get him, however. Since the recent round of terrorist attacks—the same blitz that took her brother—Wiley’s name recognition and public opinion ratings had soared. She tried to be happy for Wiley, but it was no use. For a six-foot-one over-thirty female with a PhD and a badge, finding a meaningful match was a next to impossible task. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Wiley, no doubt about that, but it might be for her as well. “Are you alone, or did you bring the Secret Service?”