The Next President (27 page)

Which was just plain wrong.

Political junkies developed their habits early. Goddamn Cade hadn’t even been registered to vote until a few weeks ago. And all of a sudden he bought his way in at the top? Uh-uh, didn’t pass the smell test.

Except the fucker came right out and said that this was the first time in his life he ever felt an interest in politics. And what could DeVito say about that?

Go up to Rawley and tell him, “Sorry, Senator, even you’re not that magnetic and wonderful and awe-inspiring. Nobody is.”

Sure, that’d go over big.

A thought crept up on DeVito exhausted mind. Caught him when he wasn’t looking and disappeared. It was the answer, or a possible answer, anyway, and he had to get it back. But he was so tired now that his head was swimming. He reached for the water glass again.

Fine motor control, however, had gone the way of sharp vision for DeVi to

He overreached. Pulling back, he knocked the glass over. It went rolling and rattling off the desk.

“Fuck,” DeVito muttered.

He bent over to pick up the glass, wondering if he’d fall out of his chair.

Just then a round from a high-powered rifle shattered the window behind him and tore through the file on J. D. Cade that he’d been attempting to read one second earlier. Energized by a flood tide of adrenaline, DeVito rolled away from the desk, chased by a second shot. He huddled in a corner.

Safe.

But DeVito knew at that moment he was just as lucky as Del Rawley to be alive.

Evan Cade was deeply asleep at 2:45 A.M.—it had been an hour and forty-five minutes since he’d last been checked to make sure he hadn’t slipped into a coma—when the knot of yelling cops, nurses, and others burst into his room, throwing on the overhead light.

Evan tried to blink away what seemed like a very bad dream. Which promptly got worse when Chief Edwards blurted, “Evan Cade, you’re under arrest!”

“What?” he managed to croak in disbelief.

A cop holding an open handcuff reached for Evan’s arm, but a doctor

intervened. The physician was very young and so puffed up and red-faced with anger that he looked as if he might start venting lava. Instead he let fly with a dire medical warning to the police chief.

“This patient presented with a head injury, the extent of which is still not known. He’s being closely monitored to see that his condition does not worsen. If you forcibly remove him from this hospital and submit him to the rigors of arrest and incarceration, you may well jeopardize his health and even his life. If you proceed with this outrage, disregarding my advice to the contrary, my colleagues and I will be only too happy to testify at whatever criminal proceedings and civil actions are brought against you and your department

Evan was completely awake now, cheered by the doctor’s ferocious defense and ready to offer a thought of his own.

“Besides all that,” Evan told the chief, “anything bad happens to me, a great many people named Cade will be extremely unhappy with you.”

The chief understood: Risk Evan Cade’s life and his own jeopardy could well be mortal. Let that vengeance happen, there’d be no stopping a resumption of the feud. While Billy Edwards tried to decide what to do, Blair McCray stepped forward and whispered urgently into his ear.

The chief wasn’t happy with what he heard but in the end he assented.

“Evan Cade,” the chief told him, “you are under arrest and you will remain in this room under police guard until such time as you are fit to be taken into custody.” Then he informed Evan of his Miranda rights.

Evan thought it was time to ask, “What’s the charge, anyway?”

“The murder of Ivar McCray.”

Evan looked at a grim-faced Blair for support but the Kentucky lawman held up a hand, pleading for Evan to be patient. When everyone else had left the room he talked to Evan.

“I don’t think you did it. The chief does.”

“Why?” Evan demanded.

“Why now?”

Blair sat in the visitor’s chair, clasped his hands, and hung his head.

“What happened?” Evan asked anxiously.

Blair looked up at him and said softly, “Barton Laney was killed. Shot in the head.”

“Oh, Jesus!” Evan gasped. Then he turned pale and shook his head.

“Oh, no! Don’t tell me … please don’t tell me…”

But Blair did.

“Prudence Lanev was also shot in the head. She’s alive and has been in surgery almost the past three hours. But… what I heard, the damage is terrible.”

Tears streamed down Evan’s cheeks. He couldn’t speak. Blair put his hand on Evan’s shoulder and then delivered more bad news.

“It happened at Giant City. The responding officers found your shoes in the trunk of the Laneys’ car. The shoes that made the footprints next to Ivar’s body. They were in a plastic bag.”

“Evan Cade has been arrested, sir,” the Toad told the Gardener after he’d woken him.

“He’s being held under guard in a hospital room.”

The Gardener pulled himself upright in bed.

“Why was he arrested?”

The Toad relayed the report he’d received from Farrel in Illinois.

“That bastard Farrel panicked,” the Gardener said, his anger building.

“He saw a single hick lawman poking around and he panicked.”

}7 ‘ Yes, sir.

“The Laneys had to be killed, but not this soon. They were to disappear after Evan Cade had been arrested for Ivar McCray’s murder, to make it look like his family had disposed of them to keep them from testifying against him.”

“Farrel was not your hire, sir,” the Toad reminded him.

“Neither were Roth and Danby.” The Gardener swung his legs out of bed and planted his feet in his slippers. He stood and pulled on his robe.

“Do you think Blair McCray will be content to stop his snooping now, Harold?”

“No, sir.”

“Neither do I. And now we also have to contend with this person who saw Farrel kill the Laneys and then tried to kill him.”

“What do you propose to do, sir?”

“I propose we take the situation in hand,” the Gardener said, heading for his bathroom.

“You’re going to Illinois. I’m going to California.”

The Gardener stopped abruptly, bringing the Toad up short.

“This is going to hit J. D. Cade hard. We’d better contact him again, Harold, and suggest all this is another turn of the screw. Wouldn’t do to let Cade think that control of the situation is slipping away from us.”

Dixie Wynne was driving east on the Blue Ridge Parkway that Sunday morning.

The rising sun made him squint as he pointed his CMC 4x4 toward Asheville, North Carolina. He hadn’t come down off his mountain to keep holy the Lord’s Day. Neither had he left his redoubt to stock up on food, water, or ammunition. He was fixed just fine for those necessities, and he figured he could hold out in the mountains indefinitely.

What was bringing Dixie back to civilization was the fact that today his favorite football team, the Jacksonville Jaguars, was playing the Green Bay Fucking Packers, who’d beaten his Jags in the Super Bowl back in January.

Dixie would be dipped in shit before he let a little thing like smoking D’antron Nickels keep him from seeing this rematch.

In fact, the tremendous gravity of the NFL season was tugging him back in the direction of home. Sure, he could make do with some sports bar to day, but he longed to spend the remaining weeks of the season watching from his own easy chair, as was the God-given right of any American male.

Not having heard a single news report on his radio that a search was under way for him in connection with the Nickels shooting, he was inclined to believe he’d be allowed to exercise that fundamental right.

But just to be on the safe side, before he got to Asheville he pulled into a service station and put in a call to his next-door neighbor. Tag Olethy. Tag’s daughter, Nikki, had married a psycho who refused to recognize their divorce decree until as a favor to the family Dixie had counseled him on what a .50 caliber round from his Barrett M82A1 would do to the psycho’s head. At that point the gift of reason returned to the young man and he departed, never to be seen again.

Dixie’s call was answered on the first ring.

“Hey, T. O.” how’s it going, buddy?” he asked.

“Dixie, is that you?”

“None other. My house hasn’t burned down while I’ve been away, has it?”

“No, no. It’s right there where you left it.”

“Anybody been by asking questions about me?”

There was a hesitation that Dixie didn’t like, and then his friend said no, not lately.

“Not lately?” Dixie echoed.

“Well, there was this one fella, you know. You musta forgot to stop your mail or something’, and one day I saw this fella go up to your box and start pullin’ things out. I went over and asked him what the hell he thought he was doin’. He showed me a badge and said he was a postal inspector. Your carrier told him about all the mail buildin’ up and he come out to see for himself. Said he was puttin’ a thirty-day hold on all your mail. Nobody’s been around since him.”

“That was nice of you to check, T. O. Fact is, though, I did forget to stop my mail.”

“Don’t you worry about your place, Dixie. Don’t worry about nothin. I’m keeping a good eye on things for you.”

“Thanks, buddy. I appreciate it. So long.”

Tag Olethy hung up his phone to break the connection. Then he lifted the receiver and, without punching in a phone number, shouted into it, “You hear that, you miserable sonofabitch?”

But the fact was, Alachua County state attorney Colman Crisp had only hinted that he would be tapping the phones of Dixie Wynne’s neighbors.

What he’d promised was that he would charge any of them who had contact with Dixie and didn’t report it to his office with hindering prosecution and see that they did hard time.

Feeling he was a worse traitor than goddamn Benedict Arnold, Tag Olethy called the state attorney’s office. Nobody was there on Sunday, of course, so he had to leave his message on Crisp’s voice mail. He hoped the damn machine went down and the message never got through. Wouldn’t be his fault if that happened; he’d have played his Judas part.

He also hoped Dixie took his message not to worry about a thing as the warning to stay away he’d meant it to be. But Tag Olethy felt so shitty about what he’d done he got drunk and didn’t even watch the Jacksonville-Green Bay game.

J. D. lay in bed awake under the still-dark California sky. From the nightstand next to the bed came the screen glow of Pickpocket’s laptop computer.

J. D. had left it there, up and running with the AC adapter on, locked onto the secret chat room. He’d checked a thousand times during the night to see if Red or the little thief would get back to him, and each time he’d been disappointed.

Then, just as the first streak of predawn gray appeared in the sky, Pickpocket came online.

I’m back.

You’re recovering? J. D. asked.

Yeah. Red says my scars look sexy.

I need your help.

I know. I have a clone of your cloned PCR. I’ve read all your e-mail.

J. D. remembered Red telling him that.

Sonofabitch who shot me thinks I’m one of Santa’s little helpers, huh? He’ll learn.

Despite everything, J. D. had to smile.

Got the information you wanted on Roth and Danby. Timmons next. Plus I have a few other thoughts to pursue.

Thanks for your help.

Thanks for saving, my ass. I’ll get back to you. Download R6-D file now.

J. D. did and read the file immediately.

According to the data Pickpocket had collected, Roth and Danby were the Bobbsey twins in olive drab. Classmates and teammates at West Point, they had spent their entire military careers together. From postings with the 82nd Airborne at the beginning of their service to a two-year stint with the Defense Intelligence Agency at the end, they’d marched in lockstep.

Then, having topped out in rank, Roth a colonel and Danby a lieutenant colonel, the two men abruptly switched to the civilian side of government, the Treasury Department. They signed on with a newly formed unit called Departmental Internal Management and Oversight

(DEIMOS).

Pickpocket informed J. D. that so far he’d been unable to find a description of this unit’s responsibilities or the name of the person who headed it.

The little thief said he’d keep on looking for that information.

Whatever nominal job description Pickpocket might find, J. D. knew in his bones that Roth and Danby were waiting to take him out. They had a perfect cover. Working among the Secret Service, it would be their job to shoot him as soon as he killed Del Rawley. Those two fucks, they’d probably get medals for smoking him.

Not to mention the personal satisfaction.

J. D. returned Pickpocket’s computer to the safe in the den, showered, and was getting dressed when the PCR beeped: e-mail. Had to be from the blackmailer, he thought. He called up the message.

Your son is now in custody. Worst yet to come.

J. D. felt a killing rage surge through him… then he remembered Pickpocket had set up the clone to send e-mail as well as receive it. He clicked the reply icon and spoke clearly for the voice-recognition software.

“You’ve just made a very bad mistake,” he told his blackmailer.

“I was close to achieving our goal. Now you’ve left me no choice but to break away from my effort. If there is a second contractor, if you make it impossible for me to succeed, then my life’s work will become finding you—only you won’t know it when I do.”

J. D. hit the send button and clicked off the PCR.

“Because you never hear the shot that kills you,” he said aloud.

Before he could take his next step, the phone rang. It was his mother.

” J. D.” something terrible’s happened. Evan’s been arrested and ..

.”

He listened closely to his mother’s recitation of events. He became so angry he began to shake.

“I’m coming home, Mom. Tell Evan I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

J. D. managed to charter an executive jet for the flight and threw two changes of clothes into a garment bag. Just as he was ready to leave for Santa Monica’s small airfield, where the plane stood waiting, his doorbell rang.