“Exactly so,” replied the aide, who was the political professional in the office.
“Anything from home yet?” Keenan asked.
“It’s too early for the press back there,” the aide replied. “I’ve alerted staffers from other members of the Nebraska delegation about what’s going on. They can put together statements of their own.”
The congresswoman found a lipstick tube in her desk, got a small mirror, and organized herself. “Let’s go see his highness the Speaker,” she said.
“Come on, Orville. I can take anything but your silent treatment.” Coastie was propped against a thick old maple tree that still bore slashing scars from the years during which it had produced syrup. Nero was sniffing the ground nearby after finding the faint scent of muskrats. “You’ve hardly said a word since the parking lot. Tell me where we’re at. What did you mean that I passed some test?”
Double-Oh Dawkins was watching the dog get around, unaware that it had lost a leg. The retired marine had a thermos of coffee for himself and a plastic-wrapped bone in case Nero couldn’t find and finish some unlucky varmint.
“Why did you want to kill those two characters, Coastie? Seems a little extreme, you ask me.”
“They were drug dealers,” she replied simply.
“Oh, so you’re a self-righteous vigilante now? Out to scour the world of drug dealers? God knows we have enough of them in Vermont to keep you busy for a while.” He scowled. “Now, try telling me the truth.”
Coastie peeled a thick leaf and returned his hard look. “You won’t like it, Double-Oh. After what they did to Mickey, yeah, I wanted revenge, sure. Who wouldn’t? I can’t take down a cartel by myself, but I can take them off the board one asshole at a time. I hold each of them personally responsible.”
“So this wasn’t your first time. You started before you got here.”
She nodded and straightened her shoulders. “Yes. Down in Mexico, I made them start killing each other because they assumed it was a turf war, when it wasn’t.”
“Nobody up here yet, right?”
“Those two at the bar would have been my first.”
“So you haven’t committed any crime in the U.S.”
“No.”
“You can’t have both things now, you realize that. You cannot be the partner of Kyle Swanson and go around helter-skelter murdering drug peddlers.”
“And if I don’t want to stop?”
“Then you get the hell out of here and don’t look back. You were little league last night, Coastie. I’ve had you under surveillance since you got here. Everybody here is a former special-ops type, and you painted a bright line straight to your hide. In other words, my dear, you aren’t ready for prime time again. And you were really going to use a little AR-15? Jesus H. Christ.”
That stung. She hadn’t seen anybody trailing, and Nero had been a lousy guard dog because he knew everybody who was following her. “Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘Oh.’ So no more freelancing.” He leaned forward and put his big hands on his knees. “Do you think Kyle and I have forgotten about Mickey Castillo? Can you really be that dumb? We wanted you to come with us, train up, and eventually we’ll make whoever was responsible for that abomination pay in full. Think about landing the whale, not the minnows.”
Beth Ledford willed herself not to cry. Nobody would make her cry, ever again. “Nero, come on,” she said. The big dog wheeled around and loped over to her. “Okay, Orville. Maybe I just needed to purge some demons from down there, you know? No more minnows, I promise.”
“You wanted to know about the test? Well, Kyle and I wanted to see if you had the guts to still pull the trigger and take life. You answered that.” He polished off the last sip of coffee and screwed the lid back on the thermos, unwrapped the bone, and tossed it to Nero. “But you’re a lying little bitch right now, lying straight to my face, pulling your pretty little lost-girl act. If we can’t believe you, we sure as hell won’t trust our lives to you. So you go somewhere else and run your little scams and get over yourself, Beth. Anyway, Kyle already has a guy who looks like he might make a good partner. Too bad it couldn’t have been you.”
19
The senior jumpmaster WAS in constant radio contact with the aircraft commander as he worked the ramp-control panel to open the paratroop door, and the 120-pound hatch slid back on its rails to expose the night sky beyond. When all systems had stabilized, a hard wind hammered through the door, whipping against Kyle Swanson, who was firmly in the grasp of another jumpmaster. Luke Gibson was right behind, held by a third crew member.
Both snipers were weighed down with equipment, but in a few seconds that would no longer matter. The senior jumpmaster stepped aside and snapped his hand toward the door, and Swanson stepped into the profound abyss, ten thousand feet up and ten miles east of the target landing zone.
He clamped his arms at his sides and tightened his legs together to knife forward at terminal velocity, as fast as he could fall, counting off fifteen seconds before adjusting to bleed off airspeed and pop the chute. The canopy of the RAPS gliding system came to life with a smooth flair instead of a jaw-breaking jerk after he gained control of the free fall. The plane had already disappeared from view, beyond any threat of detection, leaving two dark shapes falling through the inky sky. Swanson tugged on his risers to make a tight pivot, picked up the faint blinking red light attached to Gibson’s backpack, and flew toward it. Gibson was also successfully deployed under canopy, and they swung into a tandem glide toward the sprinkled lights of Girdiwal, passing through nine thousand feet and skittering along at about thirty miles an hour as gravity pulled them back toward the planet.
Swanson almost smiled in pleasure during the drift through the night sky, swinging like a pendulum beneath the silk, reading the compass, clock, and altimeter. Somewhere down there was Nicky Marks, who needed to die tonight after answering some questions. Swanson’s normally impassive face tightened into a grimace, despite himself. He knew some very creative ways of making men talk and wouldn’t hesitate to use them if Marks started getting brave with his answers.
Down through eight thousand feet, coasting over the Wakham valley. Getting ready.
This reminded Lucky Sharif of the “begats” in the first book of the Bible. By scraping away the details, the authors of Genesis were able to trace the big picture, starting with Adam and Eve and quickly begetting through many generations. In his own search, he now had Brigadier Sir Horatio Kingsley, who begat Horace Kingsley, who begat Royce Kingsley, who hadn’t begat anyone, because he stopped existing somewhere along the way.
“I want you to come home so we can try to begat a baby,” his wife, Janna, teased while he explained the search by telephone.
“You hear anything from Kyle?”
“Not a peep,” she said. “Chances are he’s gone dark on the job until it’s done.”
“I saw on the TV that Sir Jeff called the charges against Excalibur rubbish. That your work?”
She laughed, and the sound was the most pleasant thing he had heard all day. “It was all him, Lucky. Excalibur is clean and he knows it, so he’s going to have some fun with them. The Congress critter from Nebraska will rue the day. When you coming home, big guy?”
“I shouldn’t be more than another day. I got a hunch about Royce.”