“You have no idea.”
The two men ate quickly, and when they were done, Larry signaled for the bill. “What kind of time frame are we talking?”
“I’m hoping within forty-eight hours.”
“Wow. That fast, huh?”
“It’s the story of the decade, Larry. Total game changer.”
“You angling for a slice of the book royalties? Because I’m a whore. Name your price.”
“Nah. I’ll be hiding on an island somewhere warm until it all blows over.”
Larry paid the bill and they rose. Sedgewick led him to the front entrance, and they shook hands inside the waiting area. “How do you want to do this?” Larry asked.
“I’ll call, and we’ll do a handoff in person.”
“My phone’s always on.”
“Perfect.”
Outside the restaurant, a dark blue van was parked in a loading zone. In the rear, two men exchanged a glance.
“You heard it. We have it on tape,” the older of the pair said.
“We do,” his partner agreed.
“We have to neutralize him.”
“Agreed.”
“I’ll get authorization.” The older man placed a call on an encrypted cell phone and, when the line picked up, spoke softly: “We activated his cell remotely and recorded the whole thing. It’s as we feared.” He paused, listening. “No, nothing hard, but it sounds like he’ll have something soon. He told the reporter about the daughter, but nothing else.” Another pause. “Roger that. We’ll take care of it immediately.”
The older man hung up and moved into the driver’s seat, leaving his partner to shut down the eavesdropping gear as he started the engine.
Sedgewick retraced his steps and made a right toward the Potomac, preoccupied with the road he’d embarked upon. Part of him felt guilty at betraying the senator’s trust, but another part was exhilarated. He was doing the right thing in a town where that never happened, where people’s actions were overwhelmingly dictated by self-interest and the accumulation of influence and raw power. And it felt good.
He reached the canal and some faint instinct caused the hair on the back of his neck to prickle. A city dweller, he’d developed a keen sense for urban predators, and even in Georgetown, a relatively safe enclave, there was plenty of crime — although nothing like the surrounding areas, many of which had higher murder rates than Detroit. He paused at the corner and glanced over his shoulder, painfully aware of how secluded the area was. All the traffic was on the main streets; the dirt path that bordered the canal was deserted now that night had fallen, even the most motivated joggers having returned home.
Two men in overcoats were walking steadily toward him; overcoats that were out of place on a balmy evening. He tried to resist the impulse to run, but his mind was screaming in protest, clamoring for him to bolt.
Sedgewick opted for a compromise; he turned onto the canal path and began jogging west. He was only a block from the next street, which hopefully would have more traffic. Halfway along the way, he dared a glance over his shoulder.
There was nobody there.
“Little paranoid, aren’t we, buddy?” he muttered to himself as he slowed. His imagination was running away with him — he was jumping at shadows, seeing threats behind every tree.
When he reached the street, he took the stairs two at a time and, after a final look back at the empty path, shook off his premonition and grinned at a pretty girl walking by, who returned his smile before continuing along the sidewalk. Normally not a drinker, Sedgewick felt drawn by the Irish pub he passed, and it took considerable willpower to keep from going in and downing a few pints. That wasn’t an option — he’d have to be in chambers by six a.m. to get everything he needed accomplished for the senator’s morning. A hangover wasn’t in the cards until the weekend.
Sedgewick hurried the six blocks to the townhouse he’d inherited from his father on Prospect Street, a quiet block of ancient, brightly colored three-story homes, and pushed his front gate open. Looking over the postage-stamp-sized front yard, encircled by a wrought-iron fence, he made a note to himself to do some necessary housekeeping on Sunday — the grass was overgrown and the place looked shabby.
Once inside the foyer, he switched on the lights and dropped his keys on a side table. He checked for messages on his cell phone as he mounted the steps to his bedroom on the third floor, his footsteps echoing in the empty house, and was reading a text from the senator when he entered the room.
A gloved hand clamped over his mouth, and he dropped the phone as he tried to twist free. He grunted and elbowed his assailant as hard as he could, and then convulsed as an electric shock seared through him from his scalp, short-circuiting his nervous system.
Sedgewick dropped to the floor, spasming, and barely registered a second man holding a stun gun, its prongs stuck into his scalp, the assailant’s shoes covered by plastic bags cinched around the ankles with rubber bands.
“Not your lucky day, buddy,” the first man said, and then they lifted Sedgewick and carried him into the bathroom.
Thirty minutes later the pair were back in the van, moving toward the Key Bridge.
“Think the coroner will spot the punctures from the stun gun?” the driver asked.
“Nah. We’ll see to it that it’ll be ruled a suicide. Poor guy. The pressure was too much for him, so he slit his wrists in the bathtub. At least he did it the right way — too many botch it by slicing across, instead of up.”
The driver grinned. “Bet he had a hell of a headache before he went out.”
“Should have stuck to fetching pencils and sucking up.”
“The senator will be devastated.”
“A tragic loss.” The passenger flicked the red tip of a safety match against his thumb and lit a cigarette.
“Christ. Do you have to do that in here?” the driver complained.
“Sorry. I didn’t get enough breastfeeding as a child.”
“At least roll down the window.”
The passenger complied and blew a stream of nicotine at the moon. He smiled in satisfaction and turned to the driver. “Nice work, Mr. Smith.”
“Likewise, Mr. Jones.”
Chapter 20
Clouds darkened the night sky as a storm moved north, and the air was heavy with the smell of incipient rain. The airport was still and the surrounding homes in shadows as three figures ran from the brush toward the silhouette of the helicopter parked on the cracking tarmac. All wore muted clothing and moved like wraiths, their footsteps soundless as they neared the aircraft.
Two of the men stood by the fuselage, assault rifles in hand, as the third approached the turbine cowling, a satchel with tools in it hanging from his shoulder.
Fifteen minutes later the three returned to the brush, where their motorcycles had been hidden for a quick getaway. They started the engines and roared off, back toward the porous border from whence they’d come. Their leader, a prominent drug lord, had recognized the helicopter that was working its way toward his meth labs, and had ordered his best men to arrange for it to have maintenance issues. Word had gone out, a small fortune by Myanmar standards had changed hands, and an ex-Myanmar Army sergeant who’d worked on helicopters for four years had agreed to incapacitate the aircraft.
Tomorrow the annoyance would be ended, and the labs could return to normal, their production schedule back on track to meet the endless demand for the stimulant whose annual cash value was estimated to be greater than the entire legal Myanmar economy. With the vast majority of the country’s population living in abject poverty, working in the drug trade was the only way for most to support themselves, be it from growing opium or trafficking narcotics, or on the manufacturing side. For all the effort to quash the trade, drugs remained the only viable solution to endemic impoverishment, and sustained most of the hill tribes that lived in the Golden Triangle.