Peter drew his head back as if staring at a serpent rising off the forest floor. “Do you know who I am?”
“It is of no moment who you are.” The man with the steel-gray eyes twisted the knife point into Peter’s side. “Only what you are doing here.”
“I’m looking for tennis lessons.”
“I’ll walk you over to the pro shop.”
“I would so appreciate that.”
The man bared his teeth. “Fuck you. You are following Richards.”
“I don’t know what—” Peter grimaced suddenly, as the knife point grazed a rib.
“Soon enough you won’t need the pro shop,” the man said, close to his ear. “You’ll need a hospital.”
“Don’t get excited.”
“And if I puncture a lung, even a hospital won’t help you.” The knife point ground against bone. “Understand?”
Peter grimaced and nodded.
“Now, why are you following this man you say you don’t know?”
Peter breathed in and out, slowly, deeply, evenly. His heart was racing, and adrenaline was pumping into his system. “Richards works for me. He left the office prematurely.”
“And this prompts you to follow him?”
“Richards’s work is classified, highly sensitive. It’s my job to—”
“Not today,” the man said. “Not now, not with him.”
“Whatever you say.” Peter prepared himself mentally while willing his body to relax. He slowed his breathing, turned his mind away from the pain, the increasing loss of blood. Instead, he fixed his thoughts on what needed to be done. And then he did it.
Bringing his left arm down, he slammed his forearm into the man’s wrist. At the same time, he twisted his upper torso, driving his right elbow into the bridge of the man’s nose. Briefly, he felt the fire in his side as the knife point scraped along his rib, slashing open a horizontal wound. Then the full heat of battle rose up, and he forgot all about it.
The man, forced to let go of the knife, drove the ends of his fingers into Peter’s solar plexus. Peter breathed out, then in, and stiff-armed his adversary. The man’s shattered nose spouted blood like a fountain, and he took an involuntary step backward. Peter moved into the breach, drove his knee into the man’s groin, then, as the man doubled over, smashed his fist into the back of his neck. The man went down and stayed down.
Retrieving the knife from where it had fallen, Peter knelt down, put the bloody point to the man’s carotid as he rolled him over. He was unconscious. Quickly Peter rummaged through his pockets, found car keys, a thin metal-mesh wallet with almost $800 in cash, a driver’s license, two credit cards, all in the name of Owen Lincoln. He also found a Romanian passport in the name of Florin Popa. Peter had a good laugh at that one. Popa, which meant priest in Romanian, was by far the most popular surname, the Romanian equivalent of Smith.
Staring down at the man with the steel-gray eyes, he knew only two things for certain: first, his name was neither Owen Lincoln nor Florin Popa. Second, whoever he was, he worked for the man Richards had come here to meet. Not enough, not nearly enough.
Soraya found Secretary Hendricks in a briefing with Mike Holmes, the national security advisor, and the head of Homeland Security. High-level stuff. The highest, in fact. Her credentials got her into the White House grounds, through several layers of security with exponentially increasing scrutiny, and into the West Wing, where she sat in a tiny, exquisite Queen Anne chair opposite one of Holmes’s press officers—a speechwriter, actually—whom she knew on a casual, nod-at-each-other, basis. The officer kept his head down, his fingers plucking away at his computer terminal. She rose once to get herself a cup of coffee from a heavily laden sideboard, then sat back down. Not a word was spoken.
Forty minutes after she sat down, the door opened, and a clutch of suits marched out, glassy-eyed, still in the grip of the power of the Oval Office. Hendricks was talking in low tones to Holmes. Hendricks, who had himself ascended from the position Holmes now held and who had recommended Holmes to be his successor, was no doubt passing on a well-considered kernel of accumulated wisdom to his protégé. He saw Soraya when she stood up. He was almost abreast of her and appeared surprised to see her. He raised a forefinger, indicating that she should wait while he completed his conversation with Holmes.
Soraya bent and put her coffee cup down on the sideboard. When she straightened up, she winced at the pain that lanced through her head. Immediately she broke out into a cold sweat, and, turning away from the men, wiped her brow and upper lip with the back of her hand. Her heart was pounding, whether in fear for her own life or for that of her unborn baby, she could not say. Instinct drove her to place one hand on her belly, as if to protect the fetus from whatever was happening inside her skull. But there was no protection, she knew, not really. Every option available to her was fraught with dire peril.
“Soraya?”
She started at the sound of Hendricks’s voice so close to her, and when she turned, she was afraid that her face was ashen, that her boss would see what was happening to her. But his smile seemed unclouded with doubt. He projected only mild surprise and a certain curiosity.
“What are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you.”
“You could have called.”
“No,” she said. “I couldn’t.”
His brow furrowed. “I’m not following.”
“I need to talk with you, someplace secure.” She was appalled to hear how breathless she sounded.
“Ride with me to my next meeting.”
He took her elbow lightly and escorted her out of the West Wing, out of the White House, to his armored, custom Escalade. A Secret Service agent opened the rear door. He signed for Soraya to climb in, then followed her inside. When the door slammed shut behind them and they were settled, he pressed a hidden button. A privacy wall rose up, cutting them off from the driver and an eagle-eyed Special Forces bodyguard who was riding shotgun. They began to move out through the gates. The world looked blurred and indistinct through the blacked-out bulletproof glass.
“We’re perfectly secure here,” Hendricks said. “Now, what’s on your mind?”
Soraya took a deep breath, then let it out, trying to slow her pulse, which was galloping like a terrified horse. “Sir, with all due respect, I need to know what the fuck is going on.”
Hendricks seemed to consider this for some time. They had left the White House grounds and were gliding through the traffic on the streets of DC. “Putting aside the oxymoronic usage of ‘respect’ and ‘fuck’ in the same sentence, Director, I think you’re going to have to be more specific.”
She had gotten his back up, but she’d also gotten his full attention, which was the point. “Okay, straight up, Mr. Secretary,” she said, mimicking his brusque formal tone. “Ever since you briefed Peter and me on this Djinn Who Lights The Way, strange things have been happening.”
“What kind of strange things, Director?” He snapped his fingers. “Details, please.”
“For one thing, I’ve discovered that there seems to be a continuing connection between Nicodemo and Core Energy. Only I can’t fathom what it is. Core Energy’s president is Tom Brick.”
Hendricks turned to look at the ashy city outside the window.
“Brick. Never heard of him,” he said. “Ditto for—what was it again?” “Core Energy.”
And there it was, Soraya thought. Hendricks lied. He had a steeltrap mind; there was no way he would need to ask her to repeat the company’s name. He must be familiar with Core Energy. Did he know Brick as well? And if so, why was he lying to her about it? They crossed over the Key Bridge, into Virginia, and the Escalade picked up speed. Soraya wondered where Hendricks was headed. The secretary sighed. “Is that all?”
“Well, then there’s Richard Richards.”