“Do you understand the point I am making, Nasir?”
“Yes.”
The bed was empty. And she was nowhere to be seen.
Harry came awake, staring around the small back room of the trailer. She was gone. It couldn’t be possible. No. He rose from the chair where he had been sleeping, wincing as pain shot through his stiff ribs.
Ignore it. He staggered toward the door, sliding his Colt from the polished leather of its holster.
He thought of calling out, rejected it just as quickly. If there was an enemy, he would accomplish nothing more than giving away his own position.
And there she sat, in front of the computer, its luminescent glow reflected in her weary eyes.
“What are you doing?” he asked, the question coming out more brusquely than he had intended.
“Powers,” Carol responded, not even looking up. As he moved closer, he could see she had been crying. “I have their address — it’s in Summerlin, outside Vegas. I looked at her Facebook.”
“And?”
“They’re expecting their first child.” He could see the pain, the exhaustion in her eyes.
“You need to get some rest,” he whispered, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“I can’t.” She paused, her body shuddering. “I close my eyes, and I see his face.”
Harry found himself whispering a prayer, dreading her next question. “Does it…ever go away?” she asked, looking up into his eyes in the semi-darkness.
He didn’t ask what. Didn’t need to. He knew. The stain of blood. The scars left upon the soul by the taking of a life.
It seemed as if it was forever before he responded, a silent figure standing there behind her chair.
“No,” came the soft reply, cutting to the very fibers of her being. She could feel his fingers brush at her hair, his hands kneading the taut muscles of her shoulders through the soft fabric of her blouse. “It never leaves you — not really. But you can overcome it. And you will.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t. But I believe.”
Carol closed her eyes, the image of Pyotr’s shattered body once again flickering across her mind. A tear escaped, running down her cheek as she leaned back into his hands. “Why?”
She could feel his hesitation, the tension in his fingertips. “Because I need you,” he whispered finally, his lips almost touching her ear. “Like nothing else, I need you.”
By the time she turned around, he was gone.
Head down, the chill morning wind whipped around her ears, stabbing at her lungs as she breathed. Marika ignored the sensations, never breaking her stride as she ran down the side of the road.
Her morning run, a defiant routine against the increasing demands of “getting older.”
A routine that was becoming less so. Her phone vibrated against her ribs and she swore in frustration, unbuttoning the light windbreaker she wore. “Altmann,” she gasped out, realizing just how out of breath the run had left her.
“Where are you?” Russ.
“Running,” she shot back, glancing at the watch on her wrist. “I’ll be there by seven.”
“You need to get in now.” There was tension in the negotiator’s voice, something rattling his unflappable calm.
Marika sucked in another breath of icy air. “What’s going on?”
“Just got a flash from D.C and things have exploded around here. Haskel was found dead in his Georgetown home this morning.”
“Murdered?” She cast a glance down the road as a car flashed past. A mile back to her car.
“No idea. No one knows yet. Just get in here. And, Marika…”
“Yes?”
“Your tech buddy got the results of the cell trace back. The phone is off-grid now, but the last time it communicated with a tower was moments after placing the call to you. Near Vegas.”
She swore angrily. It was him. Had to be.
“I’ll be there.”
“No,” President Hancock whispered, glaring across the room at Cahill. “It can’t be true. I just talked with Eric yesterday.”
“And the ME’s preliminary reports indicate that he suffered a massive stroke shortly before midnight,” his chief of staff replied calmly, as if speaking to a child. “I know the two of you were close, Roger. I’m sorry, but he’s gone.”
Hancock turned away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He couldn’t show fear — not in front of Cahill. As ruthless a political player as the Irishman was, he would never sanction the lengths to which the President had gone. Haskel’s death was no accident.
“Has Metro uncovered any new developments with Shapiro?”
“Not yet,” came the chilling reply. “One of the Jesuits remembers him entering the church with his kids before the rehearsal. Doesn’t seem like anyone saw him leave.”
First Andropov. Then Haskel. Shapiro?
He was dead, Hancock realized suddenly. Dead or on the run. Dead might, in fact, be preferable — in light of all that had happened.
His fingers shook as he poured himself a drink, a finger of brandy in a crystal snifter. Blood. His dream came washing back over him in unsettling clarity. A vision of death.
He hadn’t dreamed the danger. He tossed back the brandy, swallowing hard. “Has the media caught wind of any of this?”
“Not yet.” It was only a matter of time — they both knew that. D.C. was the city of leaks.
“Keep me in the loop…on everything, Ian. We can’t have our intelligence community compromised again. Shapiro has to be found.”
“You can trust him,” Harry observed, placing his equipment bag in the trunk of the car, underneath a tarpaulin.
Tex straightened, looking him in the eye. The sun was just beginning to stream over the hill overlooking the oil field. “What do you mean?”
“Saw the way you looked at Sammy. I know how you felt when he left the team.”
The big man shook his head. “Doesn’t matter how I feel. Trusting him again is another story. Not even sure I can trust you.”
“Yeah.” Harry closed the trunk with one hand, zipping up his leather jacket against the cold. “About that. I never intended to draw you into this.”
“I know,” came the slow reply. “You were following orders, same as always. But what happened to that boy in Beverly Hills?”
“I didn’t kill him.”
“I know…that’s what Carol told me. Still your op.” Tex paused. “We’ll roll with your play for Powers. Long drive, longer odds — but it might pay off.”
He could feel the tension. Harry let out a deep breath, watching it billow into the chill morning air. “Thank you,” he said finally. Didn’t seem like much of anything else to say.
“I don’t have any other options. Just pray it works.”
“As ever.” Harry had just started to turn away when the Texan spoke again.
“How’d it ever come to this?”
“One betrayal at a time…”
“Look, D.C. is breathing down my neck…the freakin’ director is dead, and you want me to go hunt down a wrong number?” The look on Greg Buhler’s face was one of incredulity.