Cold Frame (41 page)
Authors: P. T. Deutermann
Then he would deal with the high-and-mighty leadership at the Bureau, itself. He would smother them under so much superclassified national security bullshit, special task-force inquiries, and maybe even a special prosecutor, that they'd be digging out for years, from the director on down. He would
bury
them for pulling this stunt tonight, and even dumber, claiming they had a case on
him
.
They thought they had a case. Bullshit. Besides, even if they did, it hardly mattered, because what good's a case without a court? There wasn't a court in the land cleared to hear any part of this, not even everyone's pet panel of judges over at FISA. As any real player in the CT business knew, FISA was a judicial fig leaf and nothing more. No agency with any real clout took serious operational cases to FISAâinstead, they took the litter-box stuff, the hypotheticals, the borderline targets, the international hairball cases, and so many of them that all those learned judges all thought they were being groomed for the Supreme Court.
Through slitted eyes he watched the exit signs for the northern Virginia suburbs flash by in the darkness. In all his years in Washington, he'd never been able to drive faster than ten miles an hour down this stretch of I-95. No, he wasn't worried about any so-called case the Bureau would try to build against him.
Hiram Walker. There was the real threat. Hiram Nightshade was more like it. Clever bastard had been unwilling to deal with Strang. Oh, no, if he was going to hand over some of his black-widow juice, it was only going to be to the man in charge. And, like a dummy, he, Carl Mandeville, had fallen for it, thus giving Hiram a permanent, stainless-steel fishhook into his guts. He still wondered if Strang had maybe arranged that precondition on purpose.
Smug bastard, Hiram Walker, he thought, looming over everyone out there in that park in his Jack the Ripper frock coat, like some kind of Victorian vampire. He glanced down at the little flower in his buttonhole. Something to remember him by? Hiram Walker would be remembered, all right. Evangelino would see to that, personally. What
he
would do to Hiram Walker would be memorable, indeed.
He tried lifting his arms to see if he could dislodge the annoying flower, but the cast on his four-fingered hand was too heavy and the restraining wire made it impossible. Frustrated, he leaned forward so that his unbandaged hand could just reach his chest and then mashed the flower.
There, he thought. That's what's going to happen to you, you fucking freak.
“Hey, Harry,” the agent on his left said. “I think I had too much coffee at the ERâany chance of a pit stop along here?”
“Not until Occoquan,” the driver said. “And two of us have to stay with what's-his-name back here.”
“He'll be good,” the agent said. “Won't you, bud.”
“Cold,” Mandeville croaked.
Â
P. T. Deutermann
is the author of seventeen previous novels, including
The Last Man
and
Pacific Glory,
which won the W. Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction. Deutermann spent twenty-six years in military and government service, as a captain in the Navy and in the Joint Chiefs of Staff as an arms-control specialist. He lives with his wife in North Carolina. You can sign up for email updates
here
.
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CONTENTS
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
COLD FRAME.
Copyright © 2015 by P. T. Deutermann. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Cover design by Young Jin Lim
Cover photographs by Shutterstock
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-05933-8 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-6392-7 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466863927
First Edition: July 2015