Lady Liberty (17 page)

Even rain-drenched and muddy, she was beautiful to him. “How bad?”

“By Sunday, the United States will be fighting World War III. And President Lance will have started it.”

“What?” Jonathan couldn’t hide his shock.

“If we don’t get back and stop it, he’s going to be launching the first-strike missile.”

Holy Mary, Mother of God.
“How strong are the odds our allies will let that happen?”

“About a hundred percent.”

His bitch of an ex-wife was either dead, or she wasn’t. Either way, he wanted proof so he knew whether to celebrate or exact revenge.

Downing another double scotch, this time to the sounds of Mozart, Austin stared out of his co-op window at a black sedan parked under the streetlight. Lance’s men. Waiting with bated breath on the off chance Austin stepped over any of their lines. He was desperate for news, but he wasn’t stupid enough to provoke them. In forty-nine hours, when the bastards got blown to hell, they would realize the mistake they had made in underestimating his power. It was a pity Lance wouldn’t be killed, too, but he would be evacuated and airborne on Air Force One long before the explosion. Of course, that left him alive to suffer the guilt. Austin found that even more gratifying than seeing the president dead.

There were fates worse than death. Austin knew it, and soon Lance would know it, too. When he had to look
into the eyes of survivors and try to explain to them why their parents and kids were dead …

Stepping back from the window, Austin again checked his Rolex: 11 P.M. No confirmation of Sybil’s death from Lance, nothing from Cap, and not a word from Barber. Out of patience, Austin lifted the cell phone and dialed the number he had sworn he would never use.

Gregor Faust answered on the first ring. “Yes?”

Austin’s question rolled out. “Is she dead or not?”

“We’re on the ground, attempting to verify that now.”

Frustration and rage mounted inside Austin. “You mean she wasn’t on the plane when you hit it?” Why would Lance have called, saying she had been?

“She was on the plane. But just before the explosion, she bailed out.”

“Westford.” Austin spat the arrogant bastard’s name. “He got her out, didn’t he?”

“Actually, prelim reports say she got
him
out. He didn’t have a parachute. She did.”

“Son of a bitch.” Austin slammed his glass down on the bar. It tipped, fell to the floor, and shattered. “Those two have caused me more trouble—”

“I know Westford once threatened you, Austin. Why?”

Austin resented the question, but he had to answer it. Faust wasn’t a man to lightly refuse. “Sybil and I were arguing over the property settlement. I lost my head and said I was going to slap her. Westford overheard me.” Remembering the incident outraged Austin all over again. “When I left, he followed me. He made damn sure there were no witnesses around and then made the threat: ‘You ever lay a hand on her in anger and I’ll kill you.’ ”

“Did you believe him?”

“Hell, yes, I believed him.” Austin grunted. “Westford doesn’t mince words or exaggerate.” Faust wasn’t as smart as he thought, or he would have known that.

“How did Sybil react to this?”

“I don’t think she knows it. I didn’t tell her, and you can bet Westford didn’t. He transferred off her detail right after that, but he’s still watching us both.”

“What do you mean?”

“Right after he was reassigned, I woke up in the middle of the night, and he was standing beside my bed. He told me.” Austin paused. “I guess he thought once he was out of the picture, I’d pick up where I’d left off, arguing with her.”

“Have you?”

“We’ve talked about my stock, but I’m not crazy enough to push her or him.”

“So you think she would kill you?”

“No, she’d just make me wish I were dead. Vice President Stone carries a lot of clout. She’d keep me globally constrained. Westford would be the one. He’d kill me.”

“But he hasn’t been following you or anything.”

“No,” Austin said quickly. Faust obviously feared the secret of his identity had been compromised. Since he killed anyone he considered careless or disloyal, Austin quickly disabused him of the idea. “Nothing like that. I’ve been cautious.”

“Good. With or without Westford, I can’t see Sybil Stone tolerating physical violence.”

“She wouldn’t.” If Austin had slapped her that night, he probably would still have a wired jaw. Her father had taught incidental shooting and hand-to-hand combat to FBI agents as a sideline business. He had also taught his daughter those skills, and if pushed, odds were, she wouldn’t hesitate to use them.

“I take it everything is ready to go on your end.” Faust sounded amused. Maybe a little bored, though Austin knew the man was anything but. He was storing details on Westford and Sybil, and on Austin.

“Of course. What about you?” He removed his tie, tossed it onto a white brocade chair. “If she’s alive, you won’t be keeping your end of the deal.”

“Do I detect a threat in your voice, Austin?”

Faust’s cool and calm tone didn’t fool Austin. He had pushed the terrorist too far. But, damn it, Sybil’s death wasn’t negotiable. “No threat whatsoever. We made an agreement. You hold up your end, and I’ll hold up mine.”

“We have forty-nine hours. Any deadline delay would not be healthy”

The bitch couldn’t even die without causing him problems. “Veiled threats are unnecessary, Gregor. All I want is what you promised.”

“Fine.” Gregor hung up the phone, listened to an incoming satellite inquiry from Alpha Team’s field leader, Adam, and responded to it. “Yes, ET Three. The lack of verification on the chuters does create problems. I want them resolved.”

Pacing the command center, Gregor kept his gaze locked on the Florida monitor. News crews and police helicopters were braving the storm and filling the sky north of the Everglades. The ground was just as active. Professionals searched with bloodhounds; private citizens with good intentions but ignorant of investigative tactics and methods tromped through the area, destroying any evidence that would have been there. A moot point, really, since they were searching too far south of the last coordinates the relief pilot had radioed in.

Alpha Team, though in the area where Liberty and Westford had bailed out, had failed to locate them or their remains. The time lag between his men bailing out of the plane and the explosion had been sufficient. They could be alive. Yet they hadn’t reported in.

“We’re walking the grid now,” Adam said. “Doing everything by the book.”

“Don’t drag your feet. You’ve got a mob of pros and novices on your heels—or they will be, in a couple hours.”

“No problem, sir. So far, all we’ve found is a woman’s shoe. Same color, size, and a visual match to the ones Liberty
was wearing at the airport. But we can’t use normal tracking methods to determine potential landing sites. The storm has done a lot of damage to the terrain.”

Destroyed evidence. Gregor ran a frustrated hand over his forehead. “ET and his team are on the chopper now. They should be there within an hour. I want more than odds, I want certainty” Austin Stone was a genius, interested only in Sybil Stone’s death. While Gregor personally didn’t give a tinker’s damn if the woman lived or died so long as she wasn’t talking peace with Peris and Abdan, he didn’t want Austin doing anything to surprise him. That was an unavoidable risk in forging alliances on weaponry or new technologies with scientists and designers. They knew the loopholes. Gregor had made every possible attempt to cover his assets, yet he was no fool. Austin Stone had the ability and the access necessary to create serious havoc. If Gregor missed a step, Austin would seize control of the mission. And if Sybil was alive, he would be even more dangerous and more deeply motivated to do so.

Gregor grabbed his yellow stress ball and squeezed it. That was the problem with recruiting scientists. While they were geniuses capable of great feats, they were also unreliable pains in the ass because they entered into strategic alliances with their own private agendas that often had nothing to do with his agenda. They were a lot like politicians really.

“We’re doing our best, sir,” ET Three said. “Conditions are slowing down the process, but we’ll find them.”

“You’d damn well better—before your next report. I want—”

“Excuse me, sir,” ET Three interrupted. “Just a second.” Gregor paused. Maybe if the morons who hadn’t been able to find their asses with both hands had found West-ford’s path, they could—

“Sir,” ET Three transmitted. “We’ve located one of the chuters.”

“And?” Gregor stilled.

“He got hung up in the trees. He’s dead, sir. Broken neck.”

“Who is he?”

“Captain Dean, sir.”

So the captain was dead. Gregor grimaced. If PUSH wiggled loose from blame, the United States could tag Dean a traitor. “Leave him hanging, and have ET report as soon as he hits the ground. In the meantime, your top priority is finding out if Liberty is dead or alive.”

Gregor removed his headset and poured himself a glass of milk. Dean being dead put a wrinkle in his plan. He had anticipated that the captain might lose his resolve, which was why he’d had the family abducted. But dead men can’t cooperate, so now Faust didn’t need Dean’s family. His widow and children were useless, and they could be a liability, depending on how much Mrs. Dean knew about her husband’s activities. Questioning thus far had proved that the woman had commendable stamina under torture, and she was totally ignorant of her husband’s activities. Gregor supposed he should have her and her children eliminated to free up Bravo Team, which was guarding her. But Lance probably had no idea she was even missing… yet.

Watching the A-267 monitor, Gregor took a long swallow of cold milk. A group of frantic engineers were discussing possible actions they could take to halt the crisis. He felt a pang of sympathy for them. They were lost souls, too analytical to accept it, and Commander Conlee resolutely refused to bring in the system designer.

Smart man, Conlee.

On the monitor to the immediate left, locals tromped through the swamp, wearing miner’s helmets with lights that cut streaks through the moonless night. A man’s scream snared the others’attention and the observers stood mesmerized, watching an alligator clamp its powerful jaws around his left leg.

The man wasn’t a Ballast member. He was American. Gregor harrumphed. Stupid bastard should have known it was feeding time. Their briefing had covered native wildlife.

These Americans were as weak-stomached as they were weak-willed. Gregor set his glass down on the desk. But David Lance wasn’t weak-willed, and a diversion that divided his focus could prove beneficial. Gregor picked up the phone and dialed the
Washington Herald.

When a woman answered, he affected an American, southern drawl thick enough to cut with a knife. “Evening, ma’am. I apologize for disturbing you, but is Sam Sayelle still there? I have some urgent information for him.”

“He is in the building, sir, but he isn’t at his desk. May I take a message?”

“Naw, I don’t think Sam would appreciate hearing this in a note, but thank you kindly for the offer. If he isn’t available, I’ll just phone a friend of mine over at the
Post.”

“Wait,” she said in a rush, clearly worried about sending someone with a hot tip to the
Herald’s
chief competitor. “Let me try to page Sam for you.”

“Why, thank you so much. That would be very kind of you, ma’am.” He smiled to himself and waited.

“Sam Sayelle. Line two. Urgent. Sam Sayelle. Line two. Urgent.”

On his way to the parking garage, Sam heard the page and nodded at Sniffer. Fresh out of college, the kid was working double time, trying to make a name for himself. He had the nose. A little seasoning and he would be a helluva reporter. The
Herald’s
own Jimmy Olsen; only Sniffer wasn’t stifled by ethical red tape or innocence. He didn’t have Jimmy’s innocuous appearance, either. Sniffer was built like a Mack truck: barrel-chested, well over six feet, dark coloring, and a face full of sharp angles. Not the kind of guy you want to meet in an alley late at night. “Can I use your phone, Sniffer?”

“Sure.” At the desk, he turned to face his computer screen and give Sam a little privacy.

He propped the receiver with his shoulder and punched down line two. “Sayelle.”

“Hey, buddy, I’ve got a hot one for you. You know the veep’s plane went down, right?”

Who was this? The man talked as if Sam should know him, but he didn’t. Yet he wasn’t about to ask his name and blow a hot tip to hell and back. “I’ve heard.” Who hadn’t? It had been on the wire and plastered on every news channel around the world.

“They’re saying she’s dead, but who knows? Either way, that’s not relevant.”

Sam frowned. The second most powerful person in free-world government, and this genius claims her death isn’t relevant? Sam hated the woman because she was a fraud pulling a snow job on the public, but hated or beloved, her death was noteworthy. “What is relevant?”

“It’s connected. You’ll have to put together how on your own. Ken Dean was piloting the plane. Word is, his wife and kids have disappeared. You might want to check that out.”