T
hey spent the night in the VIP suite of the golf resort near Piñata Hot Springs that was owned by a long-time friend of Buck Hannafin's. Eden must have passed a relatively peaceful night. When Sherard knocked on her door at eight-fifteen she was already up and gone.
Eden had left him a note and an i.o.u. that made him smile. She had borrowed two hundred dollars from his wallet to buy a few things. He found her on one of the tennis courts wearing a new outfit from the pro shop and playing the resort's resident pro. She had a somewhat erratic but ferocious game; apparently basketball was not the only sport at which she excelled. The pro was Hispanic, short and wiry, on the backside of fifty. He still had most of his game but his legs were about gone, so Eden gave him all he could handle. Sherard ate breakfast on the terrace overlooking the courts and glanced through the
L.A. Times
while he kept an eye on Eden.
After the match she stopped by his table, towel around her neck, face damp, a sparkle in her eyes he hadn't seen before.
"Hope you didn't mind about the money."
"Of course not. You looked good out there. Are you ready to eat?"
"I'm starved, but I want to swim first. Do you play golf, Tom?"
"Eight handicap, usually."
She looked in the direction of the first tee. "They rent clubs here. I could reserve us for nine holes around four-thirty, when it's not so hot."
"Good."
She picked up a glass of water from the table and drained it. Sherard smiled. Eden looked around again. "Nice here."
"Yes, it is."
"Can we stay another night, do you think?"
"That's up to you."
Eden lowered her voice. "When is Bertie leaving for Wisconsin?"
"Tomorrow afternoon, by corporate jet. Another good friend of the Senator's. The plane also will be at our disposal, when you're refreshed and ready to go."
Eden nodded, and he saw tension returning to her body until she threw it off with a shrug.
"Don't think about it yet," he cautioned her. "Play hard, sleep well, recharge the batteries."
"Hard not to think. I'm not so sure I can find it, even with Bertie helping. I couldn't locate the one in Portland during Dreamtime. I don't even know what the fuckin' thing looks like. I can't visualize it. If I miss, we could all die."
"You're everything Gillian was, and more. You will succeed."
"You know that you don't have to go with me, Tom."
"Don't be ridiculous. I may be useless on your playing field, but I have my own talents. Did you dream last night?"
"I always dream."
"Bad dreams?"
"No. Peaceful. I was leading Portia Darkfeather's horse home for her. His name is Dark Valiant. I wouldn't mind owning him. I'd like having a horse and living in Montana. What wonderful skies they have there. Days can go by with nothing to listen to but the wind. I wouldn't mind that kind of loneliness. It's a place where I could feel secure."
"Don't forget that something not so wonderful lies beneath the grasslands."
"Plenty Coups. Where Darkfeather worked, and trained. I'm sorry she's gone. She could've showed me one of those devices. If that's where they keep them. Showed me how to disarm the bastard. By the way, it's Russian."
"How do you know that?"
Eden threw up her hands. "I know a lot of things without knowing
how
I know them! I've been thinking about it, soâ"
"So now it may be up to what your doppelganger can spy out for us. Do you have confidence in her?"
Eden shrugged again, turned away abruptly.
"Last time I sent her out, I had to get her loose from a pit bull. God only knows what she'll be up to this time. She's me; which means she has all of my, ah, shortcomings. Where she stumbles, there I fall. I'd better go change now." She looked back at him, a quick smile. "See ya later."
Sherard watched Eden jog away and mulled over a useful piece of information. If she was right and the nuclear device was of Russian origin, perhaps stolen from their stockpile of portable bombs, Buck Hannafin might be able to quietly obtain an exact description of what the ad hoc NESTers (for Nuclear Energy Search Team) would be looking for, once they all had assembled in Madison, Wisconsin. Buck had considered, then reluctantly ruled out, alerting the government agencies involved in counterterrorism to the potential threat to America's Dairyland. Because MORG would be one of the agencies so informed. MORG would then either cancel the delivery or move their device somewhere else.
Thinking about what they were up against, the deadly risk not only to themselves but to upward of three million innocent people, ruined Sherard's digestion. He left the terrace to find a pay phone from which to call Hannafin.
SAUSALITO, CALIFORNIA ⢠MAY 30 â JUNE 1
T
he assassin once known as Phil Haman had obtained new identities for himself within a couple of hours of making a violent exit from the interrogation room at the FBI's Sacramento field office. Not the least of his talents was picking pockets. As for disguises, a quick trip through a Kmart provided everything he needed for a radical change in appearance, which he accomplished in the handicapped stall of the men's room in a Burger King down the street. He had every confidence that the Bureau would consider his defection and apprehension an in-house project. He traveled south in a rented car charged to a pharmaceutical salesman from Seattle, abandoned it in Oakland, and took a taxi into Berkeley. There he changed identities once more in a third-rate hotel. BART took him across the bay to San Francisco. A Hyde Street cable car delivered him within two blocks of the Sausalito ferry, and by sunset he was walking the six blocks to Poppa Too Sweets', a barge-based waterfront bistro that he owned through a dummy corporation. He maintained an aerie above the restaurant, small but ultra-secure, where he discarded identity number two, showered, drank half a bottle of the North Coast's finest Pinot Noir, and took a nap that lasted for fourteen hours.
H
e dreamed about killing Eden Waring. When he woke up in his safe house she was the first thing on his mind. It was early afternoon, mistily overcast. He looked up through a gray oblong of skylight over his narrow bed. He smelled the sea, heard voices on the nearby wharf, heard the moan of the incoming ferry. He felt calm and secure, not inclined to brood about his predicament and potential disgrace. Even though it was clear to him what he was up against. He had killed the girl, that was a fact, because he didn't miss. She was dead, then she'd come back from the dead. He was willing to accept that now. Supernatural intervention. She'd been resurrected. She had wanted her revenge, but the assassin had seen, looking into the kid's eyes, that Geoff McTyer didn't have murder in him. What a pussy.
So it would be up to Eden Waring's ghost, or whatever it was, if it chose to pursue him. For now, the assassin felt sure, he had eluded it. He did not feel its presence in the safe house. Matter of time, he assumed. He knew he would see Eden Waring, or Eden's shade, again. What then? How could he lay a ghost for good?
In the meantime the assassin was more concerned about his professional reputation. His standing with Impact Sector. Given the opportunity, he could explain about Eden Waring's death and subsequent resurrection. But that wasn't going to happen. They never debriefed him. He had no direct contact with them. There was no phone number to call. They would not bring him in. But they already would know about the botched assignment. They had judged him. It would go into his jacket.
The fear of a less than perfect approval rating burned like a branding iron held to his heart.
Would Impact Sector intercede for him, smooth things over with the Sacramento field office? He'd been a little rough on a couple of the agents while taking his leave. So he couldn't return to Vegas anytime soon. Face was upset about that. Face needed the limelight to survive. All the assassin needed was a clean approval rating.
He got up and took another shower. He felt like being young again.
The assassin selected from his own cache of false identities a new face, a name. The appropriate hairpiece with matching eyebrows and mustache came out of the wardrobe and makeup trunk Face had provided for the safe house. He filled in the lunar wasteland he saw in his lighted makeup mirror. Using the old skills soothed him. When he was finished he looked, in the magnifying mirror, no older than thirty-five. Attractive. His name was now Corey. Corey DeSales.
He fed himself and after dark picked up one of the boys who worked the waterfront and took him back to the aerie, where the lights were seductively low. The boy was winsome and experienced, but although the assassin had given himself a new face neither of them in spite of their labors could give him a sustainable hard-on.
Corey paid the boy off and retired with another bottle of wine, candlelight on his new, lugubrious face, thin chest, and flaccid pecker. He didn't need sleep. He needed an opportunity to redeem himself. But Impact Sector might choose to punish him.
The worst punishment he could conceive would be never to hear from them again.
WASHINGTON, D.C. ⢠JUNE 3 ⢠7:45 P.M. EDT
B
uck Hannafin met with a select group of people whom he had reason to believe he could trust, i.e., important Washington insiders and members of Congress who had no professional blemishes or personal peccadilloes on their records: illegal campaign contributions, vote fraud, perjury, bribery, misappropriation of funds, drug addiction, ill-advised love affairs, or sex with a minor. Anything Rona Harvester could know about and use to her advantage. The meeting was on neutral ground, at a farm near Middleburg, Virginia. The farm was the weekend retreat of Roswell Fullmer, senior partner of a major East Coast law firm. Fullmer had once served the nation capably as Attorney General. His expertise was important, and Hannafin had, invited him to attend.
The remaining nine participants included Wanda Chevrille, head of the CIA, a woman with a nun's peaceful face and a complex mind; Nick Grella, head of the intelligence division of the Secret Service; Admiral Wesley Sobieski, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; and John Wellford McGarvey, who had been Clint Harvester's Chief of Staff for his first two years in office. McGarvey had resigned after one too many personality clashes with Rona.
Buck Hannafin began the conference in his usual blunt beetle-browed manner.
"To borrow Ronald Reagan's conceptionâI believe he borrowed it from someone else, but never mindâwe have an
evil empire
in our midst. The basis for a fascist dictatorship authorized by Executive Orders has been in place for some time. The architects of this seditious conspiracy are, of course, Rona Harvester and her paramour Victor Wilding."
The representative from the CIA shook her head in silent disgust.
Nick Grella said, "This won't be in the news tomorrow, but while Clint Harvester was posing with his golf clubs at Burning Tree today, the Secret Service was formally booted out of the White House. The 'presidential' signature on the change-over memo has to be a forgery, but a good one. We probably couldn't get a consensus on the forgery from the FBI's handwriting experts to take to the Attorney General. Meanwhile I have twenty-four hours to turn over our files to MORG."
Admiral Sobieski had been looking over copies of the Executive Orders that McGarvey had thoughtfully taken with him after losing his job. The Admiral whistled dismally.
"I knew some of these existed, but my God! Where did
this
one come from? EO 13083 wipes out the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution! All state and local authority is revoked." He looked at Roswell Fullmer. "Can this be challenged legally?"
"There is an avenue for challenge, Wes," Fullmer said. "Public outrage, heavily endorsed by the media, prompting a constitutional amendment supported by men of individual honor, personal character, and absolute independence, as Daniel Webster once described our Senate." He smiled, nostalgia in his peacock-blue eyes. "The good old days, we like to think."
"There's still a handful left in Congress to defend the high ground," Buck said. "But the ablest legislator I know on the Hill is leaving after this term to take over the family banking business."
"We've still got you, Buck," McGarvey said.
"Long as my pacemaker holds up, John. Let us not forget how I've survived. My forebears had a good bit of money laid by, so unlike Lyndon and his ilk I never had to steal an election to get my start in politics. And I never did acquire the stink of ambition."
Admiral Sobieski tossed aside his copy of the Executive Orders.
"Hell, the military complex is relegated to managing public transport, utilities, and food distribution!"
"One critical function of martial law," McGarvey said. "Which of course supports the dictatorship disguised as executive fiat. All power is converted to the presidency, overnight; but indisputably we have a captive President, incapable of making rational decisions."
"Quite a setup," Buck commented. "But as things stand right now, Clint Harvester is both Rona's strength and the fatal flaw in her lofty ambitions. Executive Orders can't be countermanded. Therefore Clint has to be removed, legally, from office as soon as possible. And there's no EO granting Rona the right of succession."