Michael Walsh Bundle (30 page)

“Kill him. Launch the experiment.”

Milverton paused. He was used to impossible missions. But this…

Skorzeny heard, no, make that sensed, his hesitation—“You know who he is?”

“I only caught a glimpse of him in Edwardsville.”

Skorzeny saw his play. It was perfect. Solved all his problems at one stroke. “And did he see you?”

Milverton's face betrayed no emotion. There was no right answer. “I don't know.”

“A profession of ignorance is not an answer.”

“Perhaps. I think so.”

Skorzeny smiled and reached once more for the ablution bowl. If it worked once, it would work twice, even in one night. “Then let him come to you.
Make
him come to you. Draw him to your home turf and kill him. What could be easier? You have the defender's advantage.”

For once, there was silence at the other end of the line. Milverton's face betrayed no emotion, but nothing came out of his mouth.

“It's perfect, don't you see?” said Skorzeny, pausing a little longer than necessary for effect. “One last misdirection, while the real work occurs elsewhere.” Milverton wasn't sure if he liked this idea, but stayed silent. “While you two settle an old score…In the meantime, if by any chance you should see Miss Harrington, please ask her to call me immediately. I require her presence tomorrow at the country house in France.”

Amanda. So that was what this was all about. The old bastard was on to them. Had he wrung a confession out of her when he was in London? Milverton realized that he hadn't been able to get ahold of Amanda, either, that she hadn't answered his calls. “The country house?”

“Yes. With the insurance policy.”

The insurance policy. This was getting worse by the second.

“I'm not sure I understand, Mr. Skorzeny.”

Milverton knew that, had they been face to face, Skorzeny would have looked upon him as if he were an idiot child. Or worse, that iron mannequin holding out the begging bowl on Regent Street with the sign saying
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SPASTIC
, or whatever politically correct thing it said these days.

Skorzeny chuckled. “Of course you do.”

He was being set up. Even at this distance, Milverton could smell the stench of desperation on Skorzeny, even as he could smell the scent of Amanda Harrington on him. That was what this was all about.

Her. With the biggest, most audacious play of his life right in front of him, Emanuel Skorzeny was losing focus over a woman.

So unimportant to a man of Milverton's age and experience. So vitally important to a man of Skorzeny's age and experience. And he never saw it coming. What a fool he had been.

“It's him, isn't it? The man whom I seek.”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

Milverton could feel the excitement radiating from the other end of the continental trunk line. Skorzeny had overplayed his hand. He had given something away. His
need
. He had never seen that before. His lust—for money, power, women—of course. But never need. Never desperation. Skorzeny's need, if Milverton played his cards right, would be the thing that kept him alive.

“Then make us both happy. Draw him to you and kill him.”

Even though he knew it was a trap, even though he knew that Skorzeny was setting him up, even though he knew that it didn't matter to the old man which of them killed the other—because in the aftermath it wouldn't really matter—Milverton could feel his own excitement rising. His own lust for combat. His own need to pay back this man for the indignity he had inflicted on him in Paris, and for the countless other frustrations he had had to endure during their long cold war in the darkest shadows of cyberspace.

Which meant that he would get to face him. The shadow. The man who wasn't there. This child whom Skorzeny sought. Protected by the NSA. Given up by Hartley. Very well, then. Bring him on.

And bring on Skorzeny too. He had put up with Caligula long enough, with his barely disguised contempt, with the way he had treated Amanda. He had not survived the training camps of the SAS, not run to ground the deadly operatives of the Provos in Spain, not cut the throats of the IRA men on the streets of Belfast and Londonderry, not dealt with the worst Soviet Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Jewish gangsters to kowtow to a man whose only real claim to fame was that he was a victim. He would show Skorzeny what the word
victim
really meant.

Not a symbolic victim.

Not a possible victim.

Not a putative victim.

Not a potential victim.

A real victim.

A dead victim.

“Yes, sir,” he said, hanging up.

Nobody hung up on Emanuel Skorzeny.

Milverton didn't care. He called Amanda Harrington again.

R
OSSLYN
, V
IRGINIA

Senator Robert Hartley strode to the podium at his hastily called press conference. He was clean, shaved, and sober, and was glad that everybody could tell.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, beaming at the cameras, “I have an important announcement.”

A modest hubbub ran through the modest crowd. Hartley's staffers had done the best they could on short notice, but their IMs were only just beginning to pull in the public. Right now, it was mostly media.

“As you all know,” he continued, “I have spent my career in the Senate, reaching across the aisle, striving for bipartisanship to solve the issues that divide us as Americans. To that end, I have work assiduously with this president, Jeb Tyler, in an effort to protect and serve the American people.” He made what is called a pregnant pause.

“I am sorry to tell you today that that effort—has failed.”

Gasps, especially from what was left of the once-formidable Washington press corps, now reduced through the collapse of most of the major newspapers in the country, to a few pool reporters and a host of cable-TV cameramen and producers. If there was one thing that Americans—at least, Ivy League-educated Americans—believed in more than God, it was bipartisanship. Except when they didn't.

“After all, President Tyler was elected on just such a platform. And after the toxic partisanship of the past sixteen years, we all could see why. But now, certain documents have come to light—”

A buzz ran through the older members of the crowd. It was like a live baby seal thrown to the sharks. “Certain documents” could mean only one thing. The maleficent corpse of Senator Joe McCarthy was about to be exhumed and resurrected once more.

The newsies leaned forward, hanging on every word. Even though Hartley was a bona fide idiot, renowned as a human gaffe machine, called behind his back—and sometimes to his face—the “Senator from the Bar Association”—this was sure to be the lead national story in about two minutes. And, three minutes from now, bloggers from Indiana to India would be writing about What It All Meant.

Hartley beamed at the audience. It was great to see all the gray hair, the ponytails, the facial hair, the Botox, the hair plugs. One particularly ugly old crone in the front row shouted, “Does this mean somebody's finally gonna put the son of a bitch in his place?”

Hartley held up his hands for calm. This was getting out of hand. Television, or what was left of it, was a cool medium. Plus, more and more people were streaming onto the shopping-mall plaza.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Hartley, “ours is a democracy.” Cheers. “A representative, republican democracy.” Boos. “Which is why—which is why—although it pains me to my core—I feel I must come before you today and share what I have learned. For it has come to my attention—”

Quiet, leading to silence.

“—that the events of the past few days…” He paused again. In high school, he had always wanted to play Hamlet, and now he was getting his chance, on a bigger stage than he had ever imagined.

“That the horrible, unconscionable events of the past few years—unprecedented as they are in American history, a history that stretches back to Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and FDR…” Maybe that was going too far. No matter—he plunged on:

“Have revealed the most monstrous…conspiracy is not too strong a word…against the American people. A conspiracy so vast…”

The cheering of the crowd, especially the reporters, was almost too much for him to continue. But he managed.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let me be the first to tell you—no secret, no e-mail, no conversation, almost no private thought, has been safe from your government. The National Security Agency—the one they used to laughingly call ‘No Such Agency'—has been spying on you, all of you, for decades. Since long before September 11.”

He held up his hands for calm.

“Yes, each and every one of you. Every one of you who owns an iPod. Or a BlackBerry. A cell phone. Maybe even a land line. Every one of your conversations has been grist for their evil mill, everyone one of your conversations—yes, even those with your Tante Emma, Grandma Mary, or Bubbi Sadie in Florida—has been intercepted, decoded, digested, logged, and analyzed by a sinister branch of the NSA called the Central Security Service.”

A ripple of outrage ran through the crowd. No one had ever heard of the Central Security Service, but they sure didn't like the sound of it.

“So that's why, today, I'm announcing the formation of an exploratory committee for a possible presidential run for the nomination of my party against my great and good friend, President Tyler. Because, friendship aside, we can't afford politics as usual. We can't afford the ‘system.' We need action—and we need it now!”

The place erupted in cheers. Viewers watching at home were impressed by Hartley's sheer, brave honesty. Bloggers pounded their keyboards. Internet servers hummed. Half the nation, watching at home, seethed.

“Are you aware?” Hartley shouted. Shouting was too hot for Marshall McLuhan's cool medium, but luckily nobody knew who Marshall McLuhan was any more. “Are you aware that the entire ‘War on Terror' has been a sham? A way to divest you of your civil liberties? A way to penetrate your most intimate conversations, your homes, your hearths, yes, even your bedrooms?

“We can't afford four more years of the same failed Jeb Tyler policies. Because we can't afford any change in the tax system, any change in our military preparedness, any change in our relationship with our allies overseas, any change in the polar ice caps, we have to maintain the status quo—and then make it better!”

The crowd lapped up the nonsense and the non sequiturs. Hartley took a deep breath.

“And that's why, even at this late date, I'm asking for your support. I need money and I need your vote. To turn Jeb Tyler out of office, and take back our country!”

Apeshit was not too mild a word to describe the reaction. He was riding the wave now. He held up the folder that Tyler had given him.

“I have here in my hand”—he waved the folder, like the red flag before the bull—“proof positive that our government has been lying to us all along. Their promises of transparency were worthless. That there exists, at the deepest and most hidden levels of the NSA, a rogue agency devoted to the subversion of everything we hold dear as Americans. And personally authorized by President Jeb Tyler to carry out its mission.”

A gasp ran through the crowd. Shouts of “Impeach him!” were heard.

Hartley held up his hands again for quiet. “We don't have to impeach him. We just have to beat him. And when I'm president, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'm going to unleash a full-scale investigation and those responsible will get what's coming to them! Thank you, and may God bless America!”

For a brief, exhilarating moment, he actually believed his own bullshit, until he caught sight of the Whippet and the Refrigerator standing off to one side, out of the view of the cameras. Then he remembered where he was, what was happening, and where this was all likely to end.

“Good job, Bob,” said the Whippet as the Refrigerator fell in behind them. They were both dressed in black, just like real Secret Service agents now.

The Refrigerator handed him a secure cell phone. “You've got a phone call from the Big Guy.”

“Nice work,” came Tyler's voice. “You actually sounded like you meant what you were saying out there.”

“Thank you, Mr. President. But there's one thing I just don't understand—”

Tyler knew where he was going with the question. “Why I'm doing this to myself, right? Simple. In order for me to deal with whatever the hell is going on here, I need to throw the jackals in the press some red meat. You know how they are, Bob. Basically, there's room for only one story at a time in their precious little airheads. And now, thanks to you, the story today is that I'm a dirty low-down, double-dealing, malfeasant skunk who ought to be strung up on the Mall. Which is just fine with me at the moment.”

Hartley swallowed hard. “And I'm the red meat.”

“You more or less nominated yourself, didn't you, Bob?”

“Who dropped the dime on me? I have to know?”

The president ignored the question. “Play this out until further notice and when we're done, then you and I will call it even. The only acceptable answer is yes, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have a nice day,” said Jeb Tyler, ringing off.

They rode back to the Watergate in silence.

Hartley was alone in his bedroom. His babysitters were in the front room. They'd sealed the windows so he couldn't jump out. They'd taken everything sharp away from him. The only shoes he had were loafers.

Hartley lit a cigarette. A plan was forming in his mind—a way for him to get out of this mess with his dignity intact. Sure, he was a douchebag, like almost everybody in Congress, a corrupt hypocrite who preached one thing and did another; a man who constantly brayed about his devotion to his constituents as he went about screwing them as hard as he could. But maybe now he could make up for it in some small way.

He dug the folder marked HARTLEY out of his briefcase and put it in the trash can. Too bad nobody used metal trash cans more, but the gray plastic one would have to do. He opened it up so that there was plenty of air around the pictures and then set fire to it.

It took a few minutes for the smoke detectors to kick in, setting off a screech. Hartley wasn't sure whether alarms would ring all over the complex, but it didn't matter; a localized ruckus would be just fine. As the alarms shrieked, he moved behind the bedroom door and waited.

He'd kept himself in good physical shape for a man of his age and he realized with grim irony that his fitness was finally going to come in handy for something other than a barroom pickup. Well, better late than never. He picked up one of his bookends, a heavy reproduction of the Maltese Falcon that he'd found in Provincetown one summer.

It was the Whippet first through the door, gun drawn, just as Hartley had hoped. He hit him square on the back of his head with the Falcon, fracturing his skull. As the man fell, Hartley quickly slammed the door and locked it. He knew the Refrigerator would burst though, but he only needed a few seconds. He grabbed the gun.

The Refrigerator didn't bother with a knock. Hurling his weight he burst through the door. Hartley shot him three times, once in the chest, once in the groin, and once in the head, just for fun.

The trash can fire was still burning merrily. Hartley ran to the bathroom and sprinkled some aftershave on it, which caused the flames to leap higher. Then he wadded as much paper as could—the
Washington Post
came in handy—and finally the sprinklers went off.

Outside, in the hallway, he could hear shouting, running. Alarms started to whoop everywhere.

He sat on the bed, the water from the sprinklers pouring over him. He hadn't prayed since he was a kid, but it was funny how the prayers came back to you when you needed them most.

His last thought was,
This will really give them something to write about tomorrow
. Then he put the Whippet's gun in his mouth.

“Have a nice day, Jeb,” was his last thought before he pulled the trigger.