People wasn’t the Enquirer. This would be believable. In the interview, the prostitute, who was amazingly photogenic, said he feared Pintek.
And where was Owen? Down in Florida, choking the life out of a young man as if nothing had happened.
And so Whitbread deployed its A-Team to Aspen before the People article hit.
Mike was stationed in Kuwait during Desert Storm. He saw his share of oil rig fires, and he saw how KBR dealt with them—by setting off massive explosions that sucked the oxygen from the fire, thereby giving it nothing to feed on. Fight fire with something bigger—an explosion.
They’d needed to manufacture a virtual explosion to take up all the media’s considerable resources, something that would suck the air out of everything else in the news—
And it worked. The media always chased the Next Big Thing—one bright shiny object after another. The murders in Aspen swallowed the news week whole, like a python swallows a pig.
One thing Mike took away from it, though, was the realization that Indigo was bad mojo. Place was like a black hole, swallowing up all the good they had done, almost as if it were cursed. When you thought about it, where did the veep get carried away and actually kill a young man? On Indigo Island.
Franklin was a liability. Mike was sure Grace knew about the unit. Right there, that was enough. Not only that, but you couldn’t rely on Frank in any way. He’d turn on you as easily as he’d turn on his worst enemy. He was kind of endearing in a bumbling way. But the man had nothing inside him that was constant or reliable. It was all about self-preservation with Frank—he went on pure instinct. Like a cockroach.
Mike took his lunch at his desk, a chicken Caesar sandwich from Cosi. Outside, the traffic was picking up. Horns honking. Cars whooshing by after the light. Mike could smell Filigree’s perfume—patchouli oil mixed with the scent of sandalwood. He’d told her to stop burning that fucking incense! The last thing he wanted to do was make the place smell like there were foreigners doing business with his firm, even if Whitbread worked mostly with foreign governments now.
He wondered for the thousandth time why he put up with her. Realized that if he ever fired her, she’d probably lay a curse on him.
But nothing could spoil today. He was relieved to have finally made the decision. It would be easy to erase all traces of the Shop. He’d set the unit up so there would be no blowback. From the beginning, the operatives had been kept in the dark. They didn’t know exactly where their paychecks were coming from. They only knew their employer was associated in some way with the United States government, that they were working for God and country. But they didn’t know the who or the how or the why. The company was concealed—again, like the Russian dolls, dummy company inside dummy company.
Long ago, Mike had drawn up a cover story in case he ever needed it, revolving around Grace Haddox’s church. The weird but charismatic minister, speaking in tongues and making the news regularly with his antics. He fit the mold—the Jim Jones/David Koresh mold. There was even a rival Congolese church with ties to human trafficking and money laundering—a group that would be easy to blame.
One last black op for the unit, and they would be disbanded and sent to one of the foreign divisions.
Keep it simple. Use both teams. Two targets—the cultist church and the attorney general’s compound. Take care of everything in one swift motion. The result would be a dangerous cult consumed by a cleansing fire. By sunrise, he would have wiped out every trace of the Shop.
The phone rang. Filigree came on the line. “Franklin Haddox, sir. Do you want to talk to him or should I make an excuse?”
Franklin? Was he a mind reader?
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. “It’s okay, Fil, put him through.”
Frank’s voice came on the line. “Mike.”
“How are you doing, Frank?”
“Not so good.”
“What do you mean, not so good?”
“I think the FBI is onto us.”
“Calm down. What makes you think the FBI could possibly know anything about what we’re doing?”
“I think…I think they’re watching me.”
“You’re paranoid.”
“Someone followed Grace home last weekend, from Tallahassee.”
“From the church?”
“What does it matter where she was? Jesus! You need to come down here. We need to have an emergency meeting.”
“I can’t come now. I’m in the middle of—”
“Right now, Mike. I’m this close to calling my lawyer and seeing what kind of a deal I can get.”
“For Christ’s sake, man, get a grip! No one can prove anything.”
“For all I know they’re tapping us right now.”
“This is a secure line, remember?”
“It’s time to pull the plug.”
“Well, we’re going to need to talk about—”
“You need to come down here, Mike.”
“No can do, Franklin.”
“There’s a jet waiting for you.”
“I thought you sold your jet.”
“Netjets. You’d better be on that plane, or you just might be the last man standing. If you’re not here by five p.m., I’m calling my lawyer. And we’re going to throw you to the wolves.”
“Frank—”
“Be on the plane, Mike. If you aren’t, if you aren’t here at Indigo by five p.m., you can kiss your ass goodbye.”
He hung up.
Mike looked at the phone in his hand. He had never heard Franklin Haddox talk that way.
He had no illusions. Frank meant every word he said. He was probably speed-dialing his lawyer right now.
Mike thought maybe he should go. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get down there where the action was, but he’d prefer to maintain control by taking his own jet.
Unfortunately, both of Whitbread’s jets were already in Florida, one in Tallahassee, the other at a private airfield near Port St. Joe. They would stay there until early tomorrow morning. The jets were on standby. They would be used to get his teams out of harm’s way as soon as possible.
Both operations were scheduled for the small hours of the morning. Ultimately, it would be up to the teams when to go in and what resources they would use to complete the mission. He didn’t want to second-guess them. But now Mike was worried.
Clearly, Frank had some kind of sixth sense. Like a cockroach, scuttling out of the light just before you bring down your shoe.
Eight hundred miles away, Frank breathed in and out, trying not to hyperventilate. He’d taken the big step—no going back now. Mike Cardamone was ruthless. If he hadn’t been coming for them before, he was coming for them now.
Frank had enjoyed playing him like a fish on the line. But now it was over, it wasn’t so much fun anymore.
Frank looked at Salter. “You’re sure all your men are in place?”
“We’ve got them positioned on the island and on San Blas, but you’d never know they were here.”
“Because I’m telling you, this guy doesn’t fool around.”
“See that fishing boat out there?”
Frank nodded. He felt queasy.
“Our best snipers are on that boat. So, do you think it worked?”
“It worked,” Frank said.
“How do you know?”
“I just know.” He looked down at the phone tucked into his palm. His hand was shaking.
Landry said, “Tell me everything you know about Mike Cardamone.”
“W-what do you mean?”
“His attitude toward warfare. Would he send someone after you or come himself?”