End Game (3 page)

Sarah nodded, but Jolaine questioned the sincerity. Pallor had given way to ashen gray, and her eyes seemed recessed into dark holes. Her body trembled with the effort of standing, and her skin felt cool and wet. These were the early signs of shock, and shock was a giant step toward death.

“We need to move,” Wilkerson said. “While she’s still conscious.” He pointed with his forehead to the door he had just exited. He and Jolaine walked in step as they navigated the walkway, and then the two steps that led to the stoop, and the one step that led to the foyer. It wasn’t until they reached the dim illumination of the porch light that Jolaine saw the blood trail. They were running out of time.

W
ashington, DC, was a city that wallowed in opposites. Everybody in this town had an opinion, and given twenty seconds and an ounce of alcohol, they’d be more than happy to share it with you. It was a town of blind ambition, flexible ethics, and no sense of either shame or loyalty. For all those reasons and more, Jonathan Grave hated the place.

Yet here he was at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, dressed like a penguin, paying a ridiculous price for a meal and a show, all in support of the Resurrection House Foundation. Founded anonymously by Jonathan via one of many cutout companies that he’d established for any number of reasons, Resurrection House was a residential school for the children of incarcerated parents. Officially run by Saint Katherine’s Catholic Church in Fisherman’s Cove, Virginia, the main building had begun life as Jonathan’s childhood mansion. Thanks in no small part to the relentless marketing by Father Dom D’Angelo, pastor of St. Kate’s and resident psychologist and headmaster, Rez House, as it was called by the locals, had become one of the “in” charities in Washington. The annual fund-raiser had become a place to see and be seen.

Among the four hundred people in attendance at the black-tie gala, Jonathan knew of only two who were aware of his involvement with the foundation, and they had been sworn to secrecy. In Jonathan’s worldview, philanthropy that was broadcast through the media was a publicity stunt in disguise. He’d rather be an anonymous guy in the crowd.

If he really had his druthers, he wouldn’t be here at all, but at home wearing shorts and a T-shirt, either reading a book or retooling his guns.

Ah, his guns. He missed the feel of the Colt 1911 .45 on his hip. This being the District of Columbia, where security was tight because of the dignitaries in attendance, and only bad guys enjoyed the privilege of being able to defend themselves, he had no choice but to join the ranks of bad-guy bait.

As ugly as the town was in its soul, he had to admit that it was home to a lot of beautiful places. Among them, he thought, was the Kennedy Center, but there were plenty of folks who would argue the opposite. The most common rap the place took was that it looked on the outside like a giant Whitman’s Sampler candy box, and that the red-on-red-on-red interior made it look like a high-ceilinged whorehouse.

Clearly, the critics had never visited a real whorehouse.

Jonathan thought it was lovely and elegant. Presently, he was standing in line for the bar, where an overworked bartender struggled to keep up with the sissy drinks that were favored by most of the patrons. If Jonathan were king, the only ingredients that could be legally added to an alcoholic beverage would be olives and the occasional ice cube. Okay, and twists of certain citrus fruits. If good scotch were involved, even the ice cubes would be illegal.

His date for the night—because he wasn’t currently in the market for a girlfriend—was Venice Alexander, the brains behind so much of what his company, Security Solutions, had been able to accomplish over the years. Pronounced Ven-EE-chay, the young lady who was currently charming the ambassador of Buttscratchistan over by the base of the stairs to the Opera House had been a friend of his for nearly as long as she’d been alive. The older he got, the less the eight-year age difference meant, but there were still more than a few people tonight who’d noticed that her skin was chocolate brown while his was Polish white. At one level, Jonathan lived for the moment when someone would have the balls to say something out loud.

Venice deserved a decent man in her life—God knew she’d endured her share of shitheads—and if a fancy-ass black-tie gala could help her find one, Jonathan was all over that. So long as love never trumped her loyalty to Security Solutions. No one on Earth matched her skills for making cyberspace dance to a prescribed melody.

When it was his turn, he ordered a neat Lagavulin for himself—one of the requirements for an open bar in his universe was to have decent liquor—and a Hendrick’s with orange juice for Venice.

“Are you two-fisting your drinks this evening?” asked a sweet female voice from behind.

He turned to behold a pretty thirtysomething dressed in a clingy red gown and the ultimate in stiletto sandals. “Poison in one hand,” Jonathan said, lifting the scotch, “and antidote in the other.” He’d been sniffed at by too many bimbettes over the years to be drawn into her trap.

She smiled. “I’d offer to shake hands, but you don’t seem to have one available. My name’s Kit,” she said. “That’s what they call the offspring of a wolverine.”

The words caused Jonathan to pause. Wolverine was the code name for a very senior official in the FBI. “Oh yeah?” he asked. “Do you know a lot about wolverines?”

“Only what I’ve been told on Ninth Street,” she said.

Jonathan processed the words. The J. Edgar Hoover Building, FBI Headquarters, resided on Ninth Street, Northwest, in Washington, DC. Whoever this lady was, she had been dispatched by Irene Rivers, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He raised the gin and orange juice, as if part of a toast. “I need to deliver a drink to my guest,” he said.

“I’ll be waiting right here,” Kit said.

Jonathan peeled away and worked his way through the shoulder-crushing crowd to find Venice. She was in the sweet spot of her biennial crusade to lose weight, striking a stunning chord in her little black dress that had the power to stop traffic. “Excuse me,” he said, interrupting her conversation with Ambassador What’s-his-name. “This is for you.”

Something in his tone caught her attention. As she reached for the proffered glass, she said, “Is there a problem?”

“Ask me again in a few minutes,” Jonathan said. He turned and headed back toward the woman in the red dress.

Kit stood in front of the tall windows, purportedly staring out at the Potomac River, while in fact, he suspected, studying the reflections of the room. He approached from behind and took a spot next to her. “You got my attention,” he said.

“My boss says that you’ve been hard to find for the last few weeks,” she said.

“Apparently not,” he replied. Not nearly enough time had passed since the last time he’d gotten pulled into the kind of political hot spot that threatened his life.

Kit turned to face him and offered her hand. “My real name is Maryanne Rhoades,” she said.

Jonathan smiled. “Real enough for tonight, anyway,” he said. “And to think that I could escape cloaks and daggers and spend an evening merely giving huge sums of money to charity.”

“Being a billionaire must be a terrible burden,” Maryanne said.

Her sarcasm made him like her less. He waited for her to make her point.

“We have an issue,” Maryanne explained.

“Help me with ‘we,’ ” Jonathan said.

“In this case, all freedom-loving people,” Maryanne said.

Jonathan laughed before he could stop himself. “How long did you practice that line before you actually had to deliver it?”

Her smile evaporated. “Can we find a corner to talk?”

Jonathan looked at his watch. “Intermission is about to end,” he said. “And I have a date.”

“Your date is a coworker, and you don’t like opera.”

He wasn’t going to argue with a stranger, but the fact was that he had recently found a place for opera in his life, thanks to the influence of a woman named Gail, who only recently joined a long line of women who ultimately couldn’t live with the risks that defined his world. As for his date, she deserved better than to be stood up.

“Tell you what, Maryanne,” he said. “Why don’t you just hang out here till the end of the second act. I’ll be back for the next intermission.”

He turned and walked away. Irene Rivers would never have been so dismissive of Venice, and there were precious few crises in the world that couldn’t cook for another hour or so. He considered it time well spent if it taught Kit-Maryanne a little humility and manners.

“Who’s the lady in red?” Venice asked as he rejoined her in the line that was headed back into the Opera House.

“A friend of Wolverine,” he said. “Lots of attitude. She can wait.”

Venice turned and glared. “Digger! You can’t do that.”

He shrugged. “Sure I can. I don’t work for them, and it’s not right for a lady who’s dressed as hot as you to sit by herself in a box seat.”

Venice pulled to a stop. “Oh, my God,” she gasped, feigning shock. “Did you just give me a compliment?”

Jonathan felt himself blush. “Oh, come on.”

Venice grinned. “Go,” she said. “Like it or not, important people have come to depend on you.”

“But I want to see the end—” His phone buzzed with an incoming message. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and withdrew the electronic leash. The screen read
J. Edgar,
his little dig at Irene’s professional heritage.

The text message was simple and to the point: “Don’t be an asshole. She means well. We need you.”

“Wolverine?” Venice asked with a knowing smile.

Jonathan sighed and took a healthy pull on his scotch. “Enjoy the show,” he said.

The doctor’s house looked much bigger on the inside than it did from the exterior—and far more opulent. A wide, round foyer led to a sweeping staircase to the second floor. The floor beneath Jolaine’s feet appeared to be marble—some sort of white stone. Now in brighter light, Sarah’s blood seemed even redder—not just where it flowed from her body, but where it smeared on every surface it touched.

The rooms that Jolaine could see screamed serious money. Overstuffed furniture atop Oriental carpets. From the masculinity of the décor and darkness of the color palette, Jolaine suspected that Wilkerson did not have a woman in his life. The place looked more like a country-club cigar room than a home.

She considered asking where they were taking Sarah, but didn’t when she realized that she’d know soon enough. “Are you still with us, Graham?” she asked without looking back. When he didn’t answer, she threw a glance over her shoulder. He seemed dazed by the crimson smears on the floor.

“Graham!” she shouted. It startled him. “Please come with us. Come help your mom.”

“We should clean this,” he said.

Jolaine felt a tug in her chest. The kid was losing it. Maybe she owed him a hug and a shoulder to cry on, but they didn’t have the time, and the doctor wasn’t slowing down.

“Later,” she said. “I really need you to come with us. Please.”

Wilkerson pulled on a giant picture on the wall that swung open to reveal a hidden panel, which in turn led to an elevator door. “There’s only one way down,” he said as they stepped into the elevator. “You’re coming or you’re staying, but I’m not waiting for either one of you.”

“Graham!”

That seemed to break his spell. He looked up.

“Now. Please.”

He started walking again.

Wilkerson reached past Jolaine to pull the door closed without them, and she pushed back. She didn’t get why he needed to be such an asshole, but she’d kill him before she left Graham alone.

Five seconds later, Graham joined them, and Jolaine pulled the door closed herself. Wilkerson pushed the bottom of two buttons, and the car jerked. It wasn’t till they were moving that Jolaine noticed the size of the elevator car. Like the house itself, it was bigger than she was expecting. Big enough to accommodate a stretcher.

The elevator jerked to a stop, and Wilkerson nodded to the doorknob near Jolaine’s hip. “Open it, please,” he said.

The door opened onto a doctor’s office—a surgical suite, really, complete with tile walls and floors, lights suspended from the ceiling, and an operating table.

“Wow,” she said. An understatement.

“I have a very limited yet lucrative practice,” Wilkerson said. “Uncle Sam likes to take care of his own.” He led Sarah to the table, turned her, and then hoisted her faceup onto the stainless-steel surface.

She winced and yelled at the jostling. Jolaine thought it good news that she could respond to stimuli.

“Be careful!” Graham said. “You’re hurting her.” He rushed to the table to be near her head. “You’re going to be okay, Mom.”

Wilkerson pivoted to a nearby sink and turned on the water by nudging the knee-operated valve. “We’re going to need you to say your good-byes and move away,” he said. “I need to evaluate the wound.”

“Are you working alone?” Jolaine asked.

“For the next few minutes, yes. I have a team on the way.” He nodded to a pair of blunt-tipped scissors on the counter next to the sink. “Cut her shirt off for me, will you?”

Now Jolaine saw why he didn’t want a kid around. To care for wounds, they needed to be exposed, and no boy needed to see his mother’s naked torso. More than that, no child needed to see a parent’s bullet wounds.

“Can you please stand over there?” Jolaine said to Graham as she returned with the scissors. “I need to take your mom’s shirt off.”

“No,” he said. “I want to stay with her.”

Sarah turned her head to face her son and smiled. “I’ll be okay, sweetie,” she said. “They just need to work on me a little. You don’t want to see that. Besides, they’ll be giving me something soon to help me sleep.”

Graham’s face turned red. “Are you going to die?”

“No, I’m going to be fine,” she said. “The doctor is going to take good care of me.”

“I don’t like him,” Graham said.

She smiled again. “Some doctors are just like that. It’s late and he’s tired.” She ran a bloody hand through his hair, streaking it. “I love you.”

Tears tracked his cheeks now. “I love you, too,” he croaked.

Sarah lowered her hand. “Go on now,” she said.

Graham looked up at Jolaine, who put a hand on his shoulder and pressed just a little in the direction of the plastic chair in the corner. He seemed smaller than he was before. Younger.

Jolaine jumped when Sarah’s hand clamped her wrist. The grip was stronger than she’d expected.

“Bring him back,” she said. “Never mind. Graham!” she shouted. “Come on back, baby.”

He all but leaped back to his mother’s side. “I’m here, Mom,” he said. “Right here.”