The Successor (29 page)

She removed the car keys from her purse, unlocked the car, then stopped and banged the roof. She’d been so stupid, asking him what his favorite movie was. She’d seen in his eyes right away that he thought it was a strange question. She’d seen in his eyes that he was connecting the dots. He hadn’t given any indication at the hospital or later at the restaurant that he had connected anything, but you never knew with Christian. He was as cool as they came.

Melissa felt tears coming to her eyes, real ones this time. Not those crocodile drops she’d shed before. Christian had been so sweet to that poor woman they’d found to play her mother—who really was sick. He’d bought her all those flowers and everything else, made her feel so good. Like the Lionhearted should have done for her mother eight years ago on her deathbed. But, of course, he hadn’t, he’d ignored both of them. He wasn’t a man like Christian Gillette who noticed and cared for those around him. Her father was selfish, completely into himself. Of course, that was 50 percent of who she was so maybe she needed to worry. Maybe that’s why she was willing to screw up Christian’s life in exchange for a few dollars. She swallowed hard. Maybe even
take
his life. They hadn’t told her yet exactly what this was all about, but if they were threatening her life, it had to be just as serious for him.

She took a deep breath, thinking about how she’d actually suggested the hospital idea, suggested the whole thing about a dying mother. As a way to really reel Christian in, as a way to dig that barbed hook into his mouth as deeply as it would go. They’d looked at her as if she were crazy when she’d come up with it, as if they couldn’t believe she’d have the emotional strength to pull it off. After all, she’d gone through exactly the same thing eight years ago. But she’d told them she was an actress, an
Oscar-winning
actress, and that she could pull anything off. Still, they’d shaken their heads. Maybe they were right after all. Maybe it wasn’t just acting, maybe she really was that cold.

“I hate you, Beth Garrison,” she muttered angrily, unlocking the car door and throwing it open. “I hate you, you bitch.”

16

TONIGHT THE SECRET SIX
were meeting by the beach where Padilla typically met alone with General Delgado. Padilla had waited until just a few minutes before five this afternoon to drape the paper napkins over the bushes in the park with that single spot of superadhesive glue he always used—which made them stay in place even if a breeze blew in off the ocean. He was always careful to take the napkins off the bushes early the next morning, before he went to the hospital, so the prisoner crews that infrequently sauntered through the park occasionally picking up trash wouldn’t get suspicious and alert their guards. He’d been worried that not everyone would see the signals on the bushes, but they had. All six of them now stood in the darkness beneath the swaying palms that lined the beach like a row of sentinels. The banker, Alanzo Gomez, had been the last to arrive.

“What was so urgent that we
had
to meet tonight?” the attorney demanded.

“It’s going live,” Padilla answered directly, his voice strained. “This is it.”

More and more Padilla worried about what he’d gotten himself—and his family—into. More and more the romanticism of being part of the Incursion had been replaced by the reality—and a horrible dread. He’d hardly slept in three days—it was as if he were doing his first few weeks of residence again. Every time he closed his eyes his mind conjured up awful images of what might happen if the attorney—or Delgado—turned out to be a spy for the Party and the conspiracy was uncovered. Or if the Incursion didn’t work because the United States didn’t deliver on its promise of support—as it hadn’t at the Bay of Pigs—or not enough of the FAR rank and file turned their allegiance and followed Delgado. He shuddered, thinking about his wife being tortured to death in a prison cell, about his children being slowly and systematically dismembered—fingers and toes first, then arms and legs—over several hours until they bled to death. He’d heard rumors that those were the consequences for the families of men convicted of treason against the state. Suddenly, he was hearing a lot of things like that. Maybe it was just because he was listening more, or maybe somebody was trying to tell him something.

“It’s all actually starting to happen,” he whispered.

“When will you meet with Christian Gillette?” the banker asked.

“In two days.”

“Where?”

Padilla glanced at the banker through the night. Now
he
was asking a lot of questions. Padilla’s shoulders slumped slightly. He hated this, suspecting everyone of turning on him. God, maybe even his wife would turn on him to save the children. “Miami. In a hotel there, I think.”

“After that it’s here in Cuba, right?” the banker asked. “With all of us and the general. That’s the next meeting, yes?”

Padilla glanced at the attorney. He was stroking his chin, looking at the ground as if deep in thought. “Yes. We’ll meet at the Cruz ranch that night, then it will be only a day or two later that the Incursion begins.” Padilla gestured at them. “Do you all have your codes?” He was referring to the codes they would need to relay to the U.S. military if they called the emergency numbers on their satellite phones. If they needed to get out quickly because the Incursion was failing. He suddenly realized that those numbers probably wouldn’t be much good at that point. But it was something to hang on to psychologically—which they all needed at this point. At least, five of them did.

They all nodded somberly.

Padilla turned and looked out to sea, at the breakers rolling up onto the beach. The white foam roiling the waves was visible in the moonlight. He’d never been more scared in his life.

DORSEY WAS MEETING WITH
the two older men again. Like before, he was meeting with them in their mansion on the Maryland Eastern Shore. Like before, he’d been forced to drive himself over here, concocting another story for Bixby—who he could tell was suspicious at this point. But the two older men had warned him against relaying to
anyone
what was going on. Dorsey half-suspected that Bixby had followed him—or had him followed—tonight. He appreciated Bixby very much, but the man was a paranoid son of a bitch. Of course, now that Dorsey thought about it, maybe that was one reason he was so good at being chief of staff. Because he
was
paranoid.

“We thought you were close to Victoria Graham,” the man who’d interviewed the naval officer last time said in a challenging tone. They were all sitting in the mansion’s tastefully decorated living room in the dim light cast by a single banker’s lamp sitting on an antique table in a far corner.

“I
am
close to her,” Dorsey shot back defensively, noticing for the first time that the house had a musty smell to it. As if it wasn’t used much.

“Then why in God’s name isn’t she telling you who she has keeping an eye on Gillette?” the other one barked. “That’s what you asked her to do, didn’t you? What we told
you
to tell her to do.”

“Yes,” Dorsey said quietly. “You did. I understand why you’re—”

“And she did tell you she’s got someone close to him, right?”

“She did,” he confirmed. “Someone
very
close to him.”

“But she won’t tell you who it is.”

Dorsey rubbed his forehead. He was starting to feel one of those migraines he’d been getting more and more often. He’d asked Victoria three times to tell him who the person was, and each time she’d given him a different excuse. “Look, she told me the second Gillette moves, she’ll call me. Like she’s already done. She’s been right so far, hasn’t she? About him going to Washington, then to Baltimore. That all checked out, didn’t it?”

“We want the name,” one of the men said fiercely, chin out.

“All right, all right,” Dorsey answered quickly. “I’ll get it out of her, I promise.” But he wasn’t so sure he’d be able to. For some reason, Victoria was holding out. No amount of coaxing seemed to be working.

“Well, you better do it fast.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

The man who’d interviewed the officer jabbed a thumb over his shoulder toward the back of the house, toward the room with the one-way glass. “We spoke to our guy here an hour ago. It’s happening. The thing’s going down in the next forty-eight hours.”

Dorsey shook his head and held up his hands. “Why are you two so worried about having someone close to Gillette if you’ve got that guy in your hip pocket? Telling you everything that’s going on? I don’t understand.”

“We can’t be sure he’s giving us the right information.”

“Hasn’t he been right so far?”

“So far,” the second man agreed, “but now we’re getting down to the end. He might be a plant, or the higher-ups might be using him to throw us off track. We haven’t been able to triangulate.”

“Frankly we’re
very
worried about that,” the other man added. “About not being able to get an independent confirm. You never know, you just never know. When
we
were in charge of missions like this, at this point in the operation we had everybody watching everybody else. A guy like the one we’re working with wouldn’t have been able to pick his nose without somebody seeing it and reporting back. Unless, of course, we were using him to plant disinformation.” He let out a heavy breath. “We can’t figure it out.”

Dorsey nodded again, more to himself than the other two this time. He knew this was how spooks got near the end of a mission. They worried about disinformation and plants and what was real and what wasn’t—and for good reason. Dorsey’s years on the Armed Services Committee had taught him that. At this level you couldn’t take anything for granted. When you did, that’s when you got burned. Even when it was something that seemed innocuous.

“You’ve got to find out who it is.”

“
I hear you.
I hear you.” Dorsey eased back into his chair and scratched his head. “This is just Gillette meeting with the one man, correct? The doctor? Padilla?”

“Yes.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Dorsey knew the men hated Gillette for screwing up the nanotech plan a couple of their buddies were going to get rich from. And for the death of Sam Hewitt—an establishment legend who they’d been close to and who had helped them with more than a few of their missions through U.S. Oil, the huge company he ran. But it seemed as if they’d have plenty of chances for revenge later, plenty of time to take Gillette down after the Cuba thing was done. “I mean, I know you hate Gillette,” Dorsey spoke up. “But are you worried you won’t have another chance to kill him or something?”

The man who’d been sitting with Dorsey watching the interview with the officer last time folded his arms over his chest and smiled cynically as if the senator were crazy. “
Kill him?
Why would we want to kill him?”

Dorsey swallowed hard, suddenly feeling as if he were groping in the dark. “I just thought because of—”

“We need him
alive,
for the love of Pete. At least for now.”

“That’s the whole problem,” the other one chimed in. “We’re worried that someone might get him before he gets to Cuba. That
somebody else
might kill him. Christ, if that happens, we’re all screwed.” He jabbed a bony finger at Dorsey. “If that happens, you can forget about being president because then we won’t have anything to hang Jesse Wood with. We need the coup to happen, we need the SEALs and the Rangers to go in there and assassinate these people on the list, and we need video of it. Then we’ll have Wood right where we want him. The coup doesn’t go down, we’ve got nothing.” The man paused. “But rest assured, Gillette won’t be coming back from Cuba.” He exchanged a knowing glance with the other man. “In all the confusion, somehow he’ll be lost.”

“You mean—”

“I mean the Rangers will take care of Gillette, too. Christ, do I have to spell out
everything
for you?”

Gillette had to realize how dangerous the mission was going to be, but he couldn’t have any idea that the real danger came from inside his own government, not the Cubans. “Who are you worried about?” Dorsey asked. “Who’s the ‘someone else’ going after Gillette?”

The two older men glanced at each other again.

“We don’t know,” one of them admitted. “It’s just white noise coming through the speakers at this point. You never know about these things, but our source is credible. That’s the problem, that’s why we’re worried. It’s someone we’ve gotten good information from before, on other matters. A person we used when we ran the Company.”

“We’ve got to protect Gillette,” the other one said strongly, “at least for the next two days. At all costs. But it’s going to be damn hard to protect him if we don’t know where he is.”

“You know he’s going to Miami,” Dorsey pointed out. “Granted, Miami’s a big city, but if you know that’s where he’s going, that makes your job a little easier, doesn’t it?”

“Sure. If we could really count on him going to Miami.”

“I thought it was all set.” It was Dorsey’s turn to point back toward the room with the one-way glass. “I heard that naval officer say it myself.”

“Actually, he said he was—”

“Just find out what’s going on with Victoria Graham,” the other man interrupted. He hesitated for a few moments. “Have you ever heard of a woman named Allison Wallace?”

Dorsey nodded. “Of course. She works at Everest with Gillette. She’s from one of the wealthiest families in the Midwest. Victoria talks about her a lot. Likes her. Says she’s very capable.”

“Any chance she could be involved in this thing? Could she be the one Victoria Graham is using?”

CHRISTIAN AND BETH
were back at the Italian restaurant in Manhattan, halfway through their entrées. Beth had come up this afternoon from Washington on the spur of the moment. A call at three this afternoon to him at his office out of the blue to tell him she had to see him, that she was going crazy thinking about him. He’d tried to tell her he had an important dinner with the CEO of one of Everest’s biggest portfolio companies, but she’d told him she was already on the train before he could explain.

Instead of saying he was sorry and there was nothing he could do, he’d canceled dinner with the CEO. Putting it off for a week even though the guy had come all the way in from St. Louis just for the dinner and was sitting in the lobby of the St. Regis cooling his heels. Christian had arranged for the guy to fly back to St. Louis immediately—apologizing profusely—by giving him a lift out of New York on the Everest G4, which was hangared at La Guardia.

He’d actually met Beth at Penn Station—they’d agreed on the phone that, as usual, she’d catch a cab and come straight to the restaurant. But he’d surprised her instead, picking her up and twirling her around when she ran to him as he stood beneath the schedule board in the middle of the station. And he hadn’t felt the least bit self-conscious about it—even with three of Quentin’s men watching. Now that everything was going into motion, Quentin was stepping up the bodyguard count. This morning Christian had picked up a coded e-mail from JRCook that the final order covering the first meeting would come soon.