“You and I have a lot of catching up to do,” Valerie hissed as she took the bat and held it under her chief of staff’s chin, painfully bending it back.
“Take your time,” she said as Barbara struggled to catch her breath. “But you be thorough, like you’ve always been, old
friend
, when you tell me where my babies are. Get it right the first time.”
Valerie paused, releasing the younger woman’s chin and leaning in so close that Barbara could smell the rage on her when she spoke.
“We have the rest of your life.”
Tony Grimes was a pillar and leader of the horsey set of northern Virginia.
Tony Grimes was a man of breeding and culture, an example proudly pointed to by the poor people of Bricks Hollow, South Carolina—the scene of his humble beginnings.
Tony Grimes was an internationally renowned artist, sculptor, composer. A man whose works had never pleased the critics but received an almost unprecedented public acceptance … giving him a “simple, humble platform on which to hold forth on everything from the Super Bowl to international relations.”
And, as he looked out across his large farm from the back of his prize American saddlebred stallion, he smiled.
Everything as far as he could see was his. The old-growth trees, the ten-thousand-square-foot mansion with the priceless Edwardian antiques, the vintage barn that held the even more vintage car collection, the small collection of guesthouses—barely visible in the distance through the trees—with his aspiring ballerina mistress and wannabe sculptor mister. It was a multiglutton’s paradise constructed from the blackness of a mind that still saw itself as shoeless, voiceless, powerless, amid a youth of terror.
As he gently urged the big horse on, the smile grew as he thought of the days to come, the days at hand.
Within a year he would be a nightly commentator on the largest network news show. Within three years, the de facto head of one of the most powerful communications networks in the world. Within eight years, the “de facto” replaced by permanence.
And all those from the years before Apple Blossom—those who had ignored, dismissed, or brutishly silenced the arrogant little boy who
knew
he was better than the rest—would be forced to listen! To obey! To follow!
All because he’d opted to attend college for a brief time in England.
The horse hesitated, sensing the electronic cable that ran just under the ground in front of it. Grimes dismounted, tied the animal to a nearby bush, and went on by foot.
Twenty minutes later—in a hollow of trees and rock in a left-wild part of the farm—he nodded at the guards. “Good morning.”
“Mr. Grimes,” one of the heavily armed guards said into his radio. He nodded at the response that came through his earpiece. “Go ahead, sir.”
Grimes pulled out a Havana Blanca Montefiore, carefully wet the end between his lips, then took his time lighting it. Ritual satisfied, he continued on into the first of five—connected—concrete and metal outbuildings in front of him.
“Sir,” the guard just inside the door said as he opened the interior door for him. Grimes just nodded and walked on, the door shut and locked behind him.
The room was small—almost an antechamber—with three steel doors on the far wall, a desk with a television monitor on the near wall.
“How are they?” he asked the guard at the desk.
“Still not eating right,” the guard said as he logged Grimes in. “Stubborn. The boy’s lost maybe fifteen pounds since he got here. The girl just sleeps, mostly.”
Grimes bent over the monitor, watching the split-screen picture of a young boy and a younger girl—both staring blankly across their bare room of a cot and little else.
“What about ice cream?” he offered. “Kids love ice cream.”
“How would you know? a voice asked him from behind.”
“I was a kid once.” Grimes smiled as he turned and held out his hand. “How’re you doing, Jeff?”
DeWitt looked angry. “How the fuck do you think I’m doing? Taking a chance like this at this stage!”
Grimes led the vice president designate into a comfortable side room and poured them both a drink.
“What’s to worry about? The great man needs a moment of retreat in his moment of trial and triumph. What more natural way than to spend the night with an old friend—a national treasure—who by just standing next to you gives you the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.”
DeWitt downed the drink in one long gulp. “If the Secret Service got wind of what’s going on…”
Grimes sighed and shook his head. “You always worried too much.”
DeWitt poured himself another drink. “Why the meeting, Tony?”
Grimes settled into an overstuffed chair. “It’s decision time, old friend. And certain, well,
others
thought you ought to be included.”
“Go on.”
“The committee votes in three days, the full Senate the following Monday. Our Eastern friends feel that all loose ends should be wrapped up before then.”
Now DeWitt made a show of sitting down in a deeply relaxed way. “And…”
“Well,” Grimes said easily, “there’s still the issue of your
playmates.”
DeWitt sipped his drink. “Any of them even
seem
to be about to cause trouble and they’re gone.” Period. He smiled; a pleasant thing, yet filled with sharp teeth and the slightest drool. “They’re just pussy anyway.”
“And my houseguests?” Grimes looked steadily into the handsome man’s eyes, wondering what he would’ve done if the positions were reversed.
“Get rid of them.”
Grimes shook his head. “Whores are one thing. Kids are another.” He paused, leaning close to the other man. “No euphemisms, Jeff. You want something done, you’re going to have to come out and say it.”
DeWitt studied the artist for a long moment, then nodded. He leaned forward, then suddenly grabbed the man by the throat, throwing him to the ground. His left hand held Grimes down while the right roughly searched every inch of the man’s body for a hidden microphone. When he was done, he pushed his face into the other’s and virtually growled.
“You wouldn’t be doubling on me, would you, Tony?” “There’s no wire.”
DeWitt nodded and thrust his hand into the man’s groin. “I know,” he said as he felt around. “But convince me anyway.”
“I’m not wired,” Grimes almost whispered. “But I’m also not going to take the responsibility for killing two kids—high-profile kids—on my own.”
He took a deep breath. “And fucking Canvas says one of us has to. So I figure it might as well be you.” Another pause, this followed by an expression of commitment and fear. “There’s some things I’m not real comfortable doing, you know?”
DeWitt nodded, patronizingly patted the man on the cheek, then got off him. “I do know.” He straightened his clothes, ran his fingers through his hair, then reached down and helped the artist—would-be media king—up. “That’s why I’m going to be president and you’re just going to watch.”
Grimes didn’t move. “You still haven’t said anything,
Mr. President,”
he said with bite and vitriol.
DeWitt smiled and nodded. “Then listen to this. After my confirmation, after my swearing in as vice president, as soon as I’m in a position to move on the old man”—he seemed to consider something—“Tuesday, Wednesday would be even better.” He picked up his drink. “Kill the little fuckers.” His voice was calm and steady. “Grab them
by the hair, pull their angelic little faces up to Heaven, and cut their fucking throats.”
He raised his glass in a toast. “God bless America.”
In another room, less than twenty feet away, another man—a man who seemed to always be there (in an invisible sort of way)—stopped the video recorder that was connected to a tiny camera in the ceiling light, then pocketed the “edge he’d promised Steingarth, to help keep DeWitt in line.”
“Amen,” he said softly as he started out of the room. “Amen.”
One by one they met with Xenos, told their stories, and conveyed their information, given their assessments. They’d walked into his small workroom, spoken briefly, answered terse questions, then been asked to send in the next. No questions entertained by the man who continued to sketch as they talked.
He kept the room dark, illuminated only by a pale blue bulb, the sound of midnight jazz quietly filling the air. He never looked up at them, never changed expression, took no notes. Remained a blank cipher with no key—with no reactions—to even
begin
interpreting.
Herb ignored it. He’d known the man the longest and had at least a rudimentary education in “Xenos 101.” Years ago, Xenos had called these moods
sponge time
, and the veteran of all of America’s cold wars had come to respect them. He saw it as a time of sifting, shifting, screening. A time that would eventually lead to action… and someone’s death.
So he busied himself reworking
the package
he’d prepared at Xenos’s direction, trying to decide which order what facts should be in for maximum effect. Knowing that the man in the room would have still more changes when the time came. Knowing that the requirements his former star pupil had given him were next to impossible to fulfill. But knowing that his dedicatedly amoral staff would somehow fill them.
And he never looked up at the clock.
Because times like this just couldn’t be rushed.
Franco had briefed his friend on the arrival of the Corsican hit teams. Twenty-six of the toughest, most violent, most feared men in the world. All wanted by the police of most of Europe. He’d personally selected the eighteen he would work with, assigning the others to Fabrè.
No specific plans could be made yet—actually Franco expected only to be involved in the final details of the planning—but their time was well spent… breaking down and cleaning their weapons, whetting their blades and appetites.
Valerie and Vedette had jointly reported to the Four Phase Man. Barbara’s admission had been vague but probably truthful. She knew the children were being held on a farm in northern Virginia. The Corsican surveillance expert knew that the trace on the call Barbara had made led to one of five farms in that part of the state.
But beyond that… nothing.
It was frustrating beyond belief for Valerie. To be so close to her children—all the while not wholly believing they were still alive—was maddening. She alternately felt energized and exhausted. Filled with hope and despairing beyond gloom. But her assistant had sworn through broken ribs and spit blood and teeth that they
were
alive.
Valerie clung to that.
As she was sure that the clock had stopped moving out of pure spite.
Albina’s had been the strangest briefing of them all. The infiltration master—who they said had gotten into more places than Mediterranean cockroaches—had arrived at the warehouse in a spectacularly expensive suit, leather briefcase to match, and credentials around his neck showing him to be
Eleventh Floor Special—Cleared
, bearing the seal of the Department of Justice.
He’d been brought straight in to see Xenos, had stayed the longest of any of them. When he’d finished, he hadn’t waited around for the coming meeting. Instead he’d quickly changed into a maintenance man’s uniform, then
sat for an hour at an embroidery machine, comparing his work with several pictures from a magazine or program. Finally, with Velcroed shoulder patches that said
Veterans Stadium—Event Staff
, he’d hurried away.
Fabrè had taken his eight men in to see Xenos for three minutes only. They exited almost as soon as they’d arrived and now sat in the back of the warehouse—calmly reading pornographic magazines while occasionally readjusting the knives or guns strapped to their waists and ankles.
Waiting like the cocked weapons that they were.
The waiting was the hardest for Avidol. He’d nothing to contribute beyond his emotional support; had no clear idea of what was happening around him. But he could smell the tension, the fear, the unknown demon that floated through the large room, tapping them each on the shoulder at unexpected moments, then moving on.
He knew the stakes: he knew that two small children waited to die or be reunited with their mother. He knew that a world stood poised at the brink of a war that could kill hundreds of thousands. He knew that America—the place that his father had called
the world’s only hope—
was faced with a betrayal that would go unnoticed by the over 250 million that would suffer for it.
He knew that a God less generous than Avidol had always believed had given his son this burden.
So he would sit, wait—ignore the pain that radiated down his neck, the growing numbness of his arms and legs, the occasionally blurring vision—and he
would
be there for his boy, his Chuni.
His immortality.
Inside the small room, Xenos put the finishing details on his sketch.
The facts, figures, possibilities, and abstractions floated somewhere in the back of his mind. Things that some other part of him dealt with. His
consciousness
was directed down to the sketch in the half-light. To the delicate flicks of the pencil, the slight smears of the eraser, the blank expression of the face that looked back up at him.
Then he was done.
Letting the pencil drop from his hand, he stared down at the portrait, curiously examining its twists, turns, knolls, and crags. It was less an expression of the man who was the subject than it was a representation of the man’s mind. A thing of angles, turns, false paths, and unlimited options.
Xenos looked into the eyes—so much his own—tried to feel the man who might have been his brother. Tried to know his soul.
If he still possessed one.
For Xenos no longer did, he was sure of that.
But souls were for dreamy-eyed poets and limp-wristed priests. People that had no measurable experience in the
real world
of living demons and killer angels. People who still believed that life was superior to death and that the differences between good and evil mattered.
He cried.
Oh, the pain that still racked his healing body could have been the cause. The guilt he felt over the death of innocent orphans or the near killing of his family would have been more than enough to evoke the tears. And the pain he’d inflicted on the world in the last twenty years or so
did
well up in him as a wrenching reminder of a lost God and life.