ELEVEN
WYATT EXITED FROM THE SUBWAY AND STEPPED INTO UNION Square. Not as bustling as Times or Herald, or as high-toned as Washington, to him Union possessed its own personality, attracting a more eclectic crowd.
He’d watched as Cotton Malone had been wrestled into custody inside Grand Central, then led from the terminal. But he wouldn’t stay a captive long. Not once Danny Daniels learned that one of his fair-haired boys had been involved-and Malone was definitely a member of that exclusive club.
He crossed 14th Street and walked south, down Broadway, toward the Strand-four floors of overstock, used, rare, and out-of-print books. He’d chosen the location for the meeting in deference to his adversary, whom he knew loved books. Personally, he despised the things. Never read a novel in his life. Why waste time on lies? Occasionally he did consult a nonfiction volume or two, but he preferred the Internet or simply asking someone. What all the fascination was with words on paper he’d never understand. And why people would hoard the things by the ton, treasuring them as they would a precious metal, made no sense whatsoever.
He caught sight of his contact.
She stood on the sidewalk, perusing carts of dollar books that lined the Strand’s Broadway storefront. Her reputation was one for being sharp-eyed, distant, and coy. A bit difficult to work with. Which was in stark contrast with her physical appearance, her curvy figure, black hair, dark eyes, and swarthy complexion representative of a Cuban ancestry.
Andrea Carbonell had commanded the NIA for more than a decade. The agency was a holdover from the Reagan years, when it had been responsible for some of the country’s best intelligence coups. CIA, NSA, and just about every other agency had hated them. But the NIA’s glory days were over, and now it seemed just another annoying multimillion-dollar line item in the black-ops budget.
Danny Daniels had always preferred the Magellan Billet, headed by another one of his fair-haired favorites, Stephanie Nelle. Her twelve agents had accomplished many of the country’s recent successes-ferreting out the treason of Daniels’ first vice president, stopping the Central Asian Federation, eliminating the Paris Club, even effecting a peaceful transition of power in China. And all without ever contracting for any services from Wyatt. The Magellan Billet worked internally with no outside help.
Except for Cotton Malone, of course.
Nelle hadn’t seemed to mind recruiting her glamour boy when necessary. He knew that Malone had been involved with nearly all of the Billet’s notable efforts. And, according to his sources, had worked for free.
The idiot.
Wyatt had received his call from Andrea Carbonell three weeks ago.
“Do you want the job?” she asked him.
“What you’re asking may not be possible,” he told her.
“For you? No way. Everything is possible for the Sphinx.”
He hated the nickname, which referred to his tendency toward silence. He’d long ago acquired the skill of being in a conversation, saying nothing, yet appearing fully part of it. The tactic unnerved most listeners, nudging them to talk more than they ever would ordinarily.
“Is my price acceptable?” he asked.
“Perfectly.”
He kept walking, passing the dollar carts, knowing that Carbonell would follow. He turned the corner and headed east on 12th Street for half a block, ducking inside the doorway of a closed business.
“Daniels is fine,” Carbonell said as she drew close.
He was glad to hear that. Mission accomplished.
“How close were you going to cut that?” she asked.
“Where is Daniels?”
He saw she did not appreciate the inquiry, but then again he didn’t appreciate her tone.
“At JFK. Inside Air Force One. I heard before I got here he’s about to make a statement. Let the world see he’s okay.”
He decided to answer her question now. “I did my job.”
“And that meant involving Cotton Malone? The Secret Service grabbed him in Grand Central Station. They were led there by a radio alert. You wouldn’t know who provided that information, would you?”
“Why do you ask questions you already know the answer to?”
“What if Malone had failed?”
“He didn’t.”
She’d hired him to stop the assassination attempt, telling him she could not trust the assignment to anyone in-house. She’d also told him that her agency was on the budgetary chopping block, the official word being that it would be eliminated in the next fiscal year. He had little sympathy for her. He’d been eliminated eight fiscal years ago.
“I did what you asked,” he said.
“Not exactly. But close enough.”
“Time for me to go home.”
“Don’t want to stick around and see what happens? You realize, Jonathan, that if NIA is hacked from the budget you’ll lose money, too. I think I’m the only one who still employs you on a regular basis.”
No matter. He’d survive. He always had.
She motioned at his wristwatch. A Rolex Submariner. “You like it?”
What was not to like? Gilt-faced. Gold lettering. Accurate to a tenth of a second on a battery that lasted practically forever. A gift to himself a few years ago after a particularly lucrative assignment.
He stared hard into her dark eyes.
“Do you know how the Swiss rose to be such superb watchmakers?” she asked.
He said nothing.
“In 1541 Geneva outlawed jewelry on religious grounds, so the jewelers were forced to learn a new trade- watchmaking. Over time they became good at it. During World War I, when foreign competition had factories either seized or destroyed, the Swiss thrived. Today they produce half of the world’s watches. The Geneva seal is the gold standard by which all others are judged.”
So what?
“Jonathan, you and I are not the gold standard of anything any longer.”
Her gaze bore into his eyes.
“But just like those Swiss jewelers, I have an exit strategy.”
“I wish you well with it. I’m done.”
“Don’t want to play with Malone anymore?”
He shrugged. “Since no one shot him, that will have to wait for another day.”
“You really are nothing but trouble,” she said. “That’s what the other agencies say about you.”
“Yet they seem to come my way when they get their asses stuck in deep cracks.”
“Maybe you’re right. Go back to Florida, Jonathan. Enjoy yourself. Play golf. Walk on the beach. Leave this business to the grownups.”
He ignored her insults. He had her money and he’d done his job. Winning a war of words meant nothing to him. What did interest him was that they were being observed. He’d spotted the man on the subway and confirmed his presence when the same face reappeared at street level in Union Square. He was currently positioned on the other side of Broadway, a hundred yards away.
And not being all that subtle.
“Good luck, Andrea. Perhaps you’ll fare better than I did.”
He left her standing in the doorway and did not glance back.
Twenty yards away a car wheeled around the corner and headed straight for him.
It stopped and two men emerged.
“Do you think you could be a good boy and come quietly?” one of the men asked.
