He pushed tentatively on the tavern door and it swung inward on squeaky hinges. Because the front windows were covered with plywood he had thought it would be completely dark inside the place, but it wasn’t. The plywood had been ripped off one window on the west side of the building, and the main room was dimly illuminated by the weak evening light coming through the opening.
He looked around. He was standing on a scarred linoleum floor and there was a long bar on one side of the room. Behind the bar were a broken mirror and empty shelves. There were no chairs or tables in the room. On the ceiling was an unmoving, two-blade fan. Even though he didn’t expect an answer, he called out, “Hello. Is anybody here?”
“Yes,” a voice said.
Rudman let out a yelp, his heart hammering, and spun around— and saw a man standing there, a broad-shouldered, dark-complexioned, cruel-looking man holding a pistol. The pistol was pointed at his chest. Rudman backed up, holding his hands out in front of him, and said, “Please. Don’t shoot me.”
“What do you want?” Rudman asked. “Money? I have three hundred dollars in my wallet, credit cards, too.”
DeMarco didn’t say anything; he just continued to point the gun at Rudman’s chest. The video of Mahata dying flashed in his mind and he had an overwhelming urge to pistol whip the man.
He didn’t have to act like he hated Ray Rudman.
“Do you know who I am?” Rudman said. “I’m a United States congressman. If you kill me, the FBI will come after you.”
When DeMarco still didn’t say anything, Rudman added, “Is Tully afraid I’m going to talk? Is that why you’re doing this?”
Finally, DeMarco spoke. “Mahata Javadi was my sister.”
“Oh, God,” Rudman said. “Look, you have to believe me. I had nothing to do with her—”
“Turn around,” DeMarco said. When Rudman didn’t move, DeMarco grabbed him roughly by the arm and spun him around. Rudman let out a girlish shriek when DeMarco touched him.
“Get down on your knees—the way she was when they shot her.”
“No, you can’t…”
DeMarco kicked Rudman hard in the back of his right knee and the congressman fell to the floor. He reached down, took Rudman by the hair, and pulled him to a kneeling position. Then DeMarco pressed the barrel of the gun against the back of Rudman’s head. The gun belonged to Angela and it was unloaded because DeMarco had no intention of shooting Rudman accidentally or on purpose. But Ray Rudman didn’t know that—and he pissed his pants in fear when the barrel touched his head.
“I know you told Rulon Tully about Diller’s trip to Iran,” DeMarco said. “I want to know why.”
“But I didn’t. I swear. I never—”
“Do you know how my sister died? They beat her face to a pulp before they shot her. They tortured her for days. So answer my question. Why did you tell Tully about Diller after Mr. LaFountaine told you that disclosure of that information could jeopardize a CIA operation? Why did you do it?”
When Rudman didn’t respond immediately, DeMarco jabbed him hard in the back of the head with the gun barrel. “I’m not going to ask you again,” he said.
“Because he hates Marty Taylor! I just figured Tully would like to hear that Taylor was doing something illegal and later on he’d get in trouble for it. I never thought he’d leak the story to the press.”
“You’re a liar,” DeMarco said. “I think you’re the one who suggested he tell the media. Did you arrange for Dale Acosta to impersonate a CIA agent?”
“No. I swear. I never met Acosta. I didn’t know anything about him until I read in the papers that he was dead. Look, you have to believe me. I had no idea…”
“I’m not going to kill you today,” DeMarco said, “but if you don’t resign from Congress by the end of the week, I will. And before I kill you, I’m going to beat you half to death, the way they beat Mahata. You’ll die as hard as she did.”
DeMarco backed up to the door of the tavern, opened it, and stepped into the twilight. As the door swung shut, he could hear Rudman retching.
“Rudman did it,” DeMarco said.
“Goddamnit,” Mahoney muttered. “Sometimes it’s a bitch to be right.”
DeMarco had wanted to show up at Mahoney’s condo in the Watergate complex in his Iranian-killer disguise and scare the hell out of Mahoney, but he realized that would be rather childish. Instead, he went back to the Sheraton where he and Angela were still staying and spent an hour scrubbing his face with soap and hot water until he was his handsome Italian self again.
By the time he arrived at Mahoney’s it was almost midnight but his boss was still awake and waiting for him. Mahoney’s wife, Mary Pat, was a sane person who valued her health and was already in bed. And unlike her husband, she didn’t ingest half a bottle of bourbon before going to bed, so the next morning she would wake up looking daisy-fresh, as opposed to Mahoney who would look like a day-old corpse.
After he finished telling Mahoney about his encounter with Rudman in Middleburg, DeMarco asked, “What are you going to do if he doesn’t resign?”
Mahoney pondered the question for a moment. “My gut says ol’ Ray ain’t gonna resign. He can’t tell anyone he was threatened by
Mahata’s brother because that would lead to speculation that he leaked the story. But what he’ll probably do tomorrow, after he stops shaking and throwing up, is go to the Capitol police and tell ’em a tale about someone threatening him, and the cops will provide round-the-clock protection for a while.”
“So, like I said, what are you going to do if he doesn’t resign?”
Mahoney shrugged. “The party will support some other Democrat when his term’s up. And since every district adjacent to his in Orange County is held by a Republican, there’s a good chance he’ll be replaced by one—but I can live with a Republican more than I can live with Rudman.”
“I recorded what he said. I could send the tape to the media.”
“No way. I’d end up with a fuckin’ circus on the Hill. Rudman will say that he confessed only because you held a gun to his head, and he’s not going to get expelled, much less convicted, based on a forced confession. But the media won’t believe Rudman and they’ll punch me silly, saying that Congress can’t be trusted with a secret, and every spook outfit in town will have a permanent excuse for not telling us what they’re doing. So I don’t want anyone hearing that tape, but tell your little CIA buddy that I’ll make sure Rudman doesn’t serve another term. That’s the best I can do.”
“Yeah, well, my little CIA buddy and her boss have another idea. Unless you stop them, they’re going to send the recording to Rulon Tully.”
Mahoney tilted his head and made an I-hadn’t-thought-about-that face. Then he nodded, as if, after thinking about it, that didn’t sound like a bad idea.
“Did you hear what I said? If they send the recording to Tully, there’s a good chance he’ll have Rudman killed, and that’s not what I had in mind when I made him admit that he talked to Tully. I mean, I know if Rudman’s exposed that’ll be embarrassing to you and the party, but do you want—”
Mahoney interrupted him and made one of the longest speeches DeMarco had ever heard him make. “Did it ever occur to you,” he
said, “that this isn’t about me being
embarrassed
? I’ve served this country my whole life. I’ve fought for it. I’ve been wounded fighting for it. And in spite of some of the things I do, I’ve never betrayed my country, and I despise the people that do. And you know that old cliché about how you can be shot for treason? Well, it’s bullshit. When was the last time somebody in this country was executed for treason? If they catch somebody giving away secrets to the Chinese or the Russians, they send ’em to jail, but that’s all that happens. And when it comes to rich bastards like Marty Taylor and Rulon Tully … well, you can forget about them even doing time. But these people betrayed their country and they got an agent killed. And this agent, like LaFountaine said, was providing us intelligence on a regime that wants to give nuclear bombs to terrorists. So, Joe, if these guys kill each other, do you really think I give a shit?”
Mahoney jerked his big chin at the door and said, “Keep me posted.”
“Why did you do it? I’m not going to ask you again
.”
“
Because he hates Marty Taylor! I just figured Tully would like to hear that Taylor was doing something illegal and later on he’d get in trouble for it. I never thought he’d leak the story to the press
.”
Xavier Quinn hit the stop button on the recorder. “What would you like me to do?” he asked.
Quinn said these words without the slightest trace of emotion— and this, as usual, annoyed Rulon Tully. It annoyed the shit out of him. It would be nice if just once Quinn could at least
pretend
to care about his employer’s welfare. He despised Xavier Quinn.
But he despised everyone.
It was a case of which came first, the chicken or the egg. As a boy, Rulon Tully was shorter than most other kids his age and had a head that was incredibly large in proportion to his narrow-shouldered, scrawny body. He had rubbery lips that were the color of earthworms, protruding eyes, and a small, red lump for a nose that provided an unsightly perch for his glasses. At the same time, he was smarter than
everyone
—including his parents and his teachers. He had an incredible memory—not quite photographic, but almost—and a facility for math and science that was preternatural. By the time he was twelve, he was doing differential equations while the rest of the morons in his class were struggling with elementary algebra. The end result of
all this was that he was disdainful of his peers because they were stupid—and they made fun of him because of the way he looked. He hated them when they wouldn’t accept him—and they hated him because he was unattractive, smart, and obnoxious. But which came first? Did the other children turn Rulon Tully into a misanthrope or was he a misanthrope the day he emerged from his mother’s womb?
And he
was
a misanthrope. He knew this because a very expensive psychiatrist had told him so. He had seen the psychiatrist three times a week for a six-month period when he was in his thirties, each hourly session costing him nine hundred dollars. At the end of six months he had learned the clinical name for his condition but he learned nothing to change his view of his fellow man. He simply added the psychiatrist to the long list of people he hated.
Xavier Quinn, on the other hand, wasn’t misanthropic. He was simply disinterested in anything not directly related to his job and he didn’t sympathize or empathize with anyone—not even his employer. He also rarely showed joy or anger. Rulon Tully’s expensive ex-psychiatrist probably had a name for Quinn’s condition, too, but Tully didn’t care. He wanted his head of security to be competent, brutal, and loyal—and Quinn met all those criteria.
But Rulon Tully still despised him.
“I suppose Rudman could die,” Tully said, “but at this point that would be too risky.”
Quinn just stood there; his employer had neither posed a question nor given him a task.
“And you still don’t have any idea who killed the reporter?” Tully said.
“No,” Quinn answered.
Just “no”—the word uttered with no indication that Quinn was sorry he was unable to answer Tully’s question—and Tully wanted to scream at the man. He knew from past experience, however, if he started screaming Quinn would just stand there, his face completely impassive, as Tully ranted.
Quinn was ex-military, and maybe that was why he was impervious to Tully’s rages. He had short, dark hair; was good-looking in an
unremarkable way; and had a compact, muscular body—a body he maintained in the million-dollar gym that Tully had built for his ex-wife, that adulterous bitch.
“And you have no idea who made this recording?” Tully asked.
“No. But there are other things we do know. We know that Mahata Javadi didn’t have a brother—I still have a few contacts at Langley— so whoever talked to Tully was lying. We also know this person didn’t send the recording to the press or the Bureau—they just sent it to you—which leads me to believe that whoever is behind this doesn’t want to publicly expose Rudman. Finally, we know that the recording can’t be used to convict Rudman of a crime because it was a coerced confession, so convicting Rudman isn’t what they want.”
Tully spun his stool around. He liked the drafting stool for that reason: he could spin it all the way around and if no one else was in the room, he liked to see how many revolutions he could make it spin with a single push. He even oiled the mechanism to make it spin faster. His record was four and a half spins, although no one knew that but him.
“So why do you think they sent the tape?” Tully asked, although he already knew the answer to this question.
“I think,” Quinn said, “that the person who sent this recording has deduced that you had Acosta killed and would like for you to kill Congressman Rudman.”
“I agree,” Tully said. “And I think that tells us who sent us the recording.”
“Who?”
“The CIA. They want somebody to pay for the death of their spy.” Tully spun the chair around again, then continued. “And you know what
that
means?”
“No,” Quinn said.
“It means they’ll be coming after me next.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Tully smiled. “I’m not going to do anything. Rudman may have confessed with a gun to his head but he’s not going to testify in court.
He’s not going to implicate himself and he’s too afraid to implicate me. And the cops can’t prove I had Acosta killed. So I’m not going to do a damn thing.”
After Quinn left, Tully’s anger—which was always smoldering at some level—swelled to the point where he felt like breaking every object in the room. This whole mess had started because of Marty Taylor and now, because of what he had done to destroy Taylor, he was being targeted by that vengeful prick who ran the CIA. He shoved off as hard as he could with his short right leg and his small right foot, and did a three-turn spin on his drafting stool. He spun around and around and around—hating Marty Taylor.