Carver peeked into the living room. Madge was sprawled over Nico, struggling for control of the shotgun. He slipped back into the kitchen, cursing himself for not being more careful. Why hadn’t he disarmed her upon entering? He had actually believed that Madge, of all people, would want to go back to her life in the U.S.
He had clearly miscalculated. She and Nico had come here together and established a life far from the reach of the Americans or Saudis. A bond had formed, and in the process, it seemed that Madge was wearing the pants now. Carver had shown up out of the blue, a hostile force from another time and dimension.
Something made of glass smashed against the wall and shattered. Carver hadn’t come all this way only to lose Nico in a lover’s spat. He had to intervene.
He hoped the bullet-resistant vest he wore under his suit would be enough against Madge’s sawed-off shotgun. By reducing the length of the barrel, she had effectively removed the gun’s choke, giving the weapon a substantially wider spray pattern.
Carver reached inside his jacket and drew the SIG Sauer P226 from his shoulder holster. God help me, he thought. He had never lifted a hand against a woman, and he had no intention of shooting her. He decided to leave the weapon on top of the refrigerator. If he so much as grazed Madge, his working relationship with Nico would be over.
He grabbed a broad iron skillet from the stovetop. It was greasy and it smelled like sausage, but it was a reasonable substitute for riot gear.
Wielding the skillet, Carver rolled into the living room, then sprung forth like an undersized defensive tackle, keeping low as he powered toward Madge, who now stood with one foot atop Nico’s chest and the gun pointed straight down at him. He caught sight of her bare knee, round and moon-like, exposed through slacks that had been torn in the scuffle.
She swung the barrel toward Carver, who charged like a kitchen knight with the skillet covering his face and neck. A blast of pellets strafed his midsection and the bottom of the skillet.
Forward momentum propelled him ahead regardless. He chipped Madge at the knees, their collective mass hurling into the wall, which caved like cardboard. Particle dust mushroomed in the air as Carver wrestled Madge for the shotgun. She managed to fire the right barrel. The heat of the shortened barrel burned Carver’s hands and blasted a soccer ball-sized section out of what was left of the wall.
Carver felt another pair of hands tugging at his shoulders. He threw a donkey kick that landed in Nico’s groin, sending him once again to a useless heap upon the living room carpet. He then bore his knee into Madge’s chest, throwing an open-handed blow to Madge’s forehead. The back of her skull cracked against a wall stud.
She fell limp under him. Don’t be dead, Carver thought. Don’t even be brain-damaged.
Despite the sting of welts rising under his vest, he reached out, feeling her wrist. Thankfully, her pulse was strong. And looking across her chest, he could see that she was breathing. She was just going to have a humongous knot on her head when she woke up.
He got to his feet, grabbed her ankles, and dragged her out of the wall crevice. Then he collapsed onto the sofa, lifted his shirt — which was riddled with dozens of tiny holes — and grappled with the straps of his under armor until the vest could be peeled away from his body. He let out an audible groan as he separated it from his body, letting his skin breathe.
Carver watched as Nico got to his hands and knees and crawled to Madge’s side. He lifted the hand of the crazed lover who had attacked him and kissed it tenderly. Wonders never ceased. The man who had once been considered the world’s most notorious cybercriminal was, emotionally speaking, stripped to the core.
Carver decided then and there that Madge wasn’t coming with them. Volatile as she was, she would have to be restrained for the duration of the trip, and that would only slow them down. He would leave her airline ticket and passport in case she had a change of heart.
He rubbed his rib cage with his fingertips, checking to see if anything felt out of place. “When did Madge start going to fight club?”
Nico’s eyes rolled slowly upwards. Carver expected to see hostility in them, but Nico simply shook his head, as if to imply that Carver hadn’t the vaguest understanding of human temperament. He drew his legs under his body and sat cross-legged.
“Madge is one of the gentlest people I’ve ever met.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“The Xhosa have a saying: There is no beast that does not roar in its den.”
SIS Building
Finding out who owned the massive estate known as Eden, at 9002 River Road, was no easy task. Despite the address matching the collegiate mailing address of both Mary Borst and Nils Gish, there were virtually no public records on the property. Ellis finally had to get Speers to phone a friend at the IRS. Twenty minutes later, he came back with the name of the owner: The Fellowship World Initiative, a 5013C.
The nonprofit organization had no website, no social media presence and no listing on sites that rated charities. Not even a Wikipedia page.
After a lot of searching, Ellis finally unearthed an article that had been published way back in the early 2000s. The website it appeared on was at an obscure web address with spammy ads all over the place. It looked like an abandoned personal site that had been taken over by an ad network.
The article was called “The Country Club Cult that Runs Washington.” Ellis scanned the 300 or so words on the first page.
It appeared to be a firsthand account of power meetings among several high-ranking congressmen at the estate known as Eden. Her eyes grew wide when she saw one of the names mentioned in the article intro: Senator Rand Preston.
It was easy to see how Arunus Roth had missed it. The article was a scanned image of a page out of a defunct print magazine called Inside Washington. Ellis’ hands were starting to sweat. She clicked through to read the rest of the story. To her dismay, the link to the next page was broken.
She hit the back button and found the name of the writer, Nathan Drucker, on the scanned image. His bio read:
Nathan Drucker is a writer for Capitol Herald, covering congressional news and events.
Ellis navigated immediately to the Capitol Herald site, and then to its staff page. Nathan Drucker was still there all right, although he now held the title Senior Editor. He was a curious-looking fellow, with small eyes, a monobrow and a flamboyant, waxed, handlebar mustache.
She wasted no time in dialing the Capitol Herald newsroom, selecting Drucker’s extension from the phone tree.
“Nate Drucker,” a man’s voice answered.
“Hi,” Ellis said. “I’m calling in regards to an article you wrote several years ago, called the Country Club Cult that Runs Washington.”
The journalist didn’t immediately respond. The silence was filled by the dull roar of newsroom chatter.
“Are you there?” she said.
She heard a door shut. Drucker had apparently gone somewhere private to talk.
“Who is this?” His tone had changed completely. Whether it was paranoia or anger, Ellis wasn’t sure.
“My name is Haley Ellis,” she said, immediately regretting that she had given him her real name. “Do you have a few minutes to chat?’”
Drucker exhaled deeply and loudly, as if merely mentioning the old article had touched a nerve.
“That piece was published a long time ago,” he said. “Are you from the Bureau?”
The Bureau? Ellis had found smoke. She was betting that she would find fire, too.
Eisenhower Building
Speers cringed when a video chat invitation from Chad Fordham appeared on his screen. He accepted grudgingly. Although he himself had been an early adopter of video chat way back in the day, a part of him wished it had never been invented. He missed the freedom of multitasking during audio-only calls. He was constantly looking off-camera as he monitored his neverending feed of incoming messages.