“Daddy. What’s happening? Everything’s burning. I can’t breathe.”
He had to get to her, but there was no way. The second-floor hall was gone, fifty feet of air loomed between the doorway and his daughter’s room. In a few more minutes the bedroom where he stood would be gone. The smoke and heat was becoming unbearable, stinging his eyes, choking his lungs.
“Mary. You still there?” He waited. “Mary.”
He had to get to her.
He rushed to the window and stared below. Pauline was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he could help Mary from the outside. There was a ladder in the barn.
He climbed out through the window and stretched his tall frame downward, gripping the sill. He released his grip and fell the additional nine feet, penetrating the shrubbery, landing on his feet. He pushed through the branches and ran around to the other side of the house. His worst fears were immediately confirmed. The entire second floor was engulfed, including his daughter’s room. Flames roared out the exterior walls and obliterated the roof.
Pauline stood, staring upward, holding one arm with the other.
“She’s gone,” his wife wailed, tears in her voice. “My baby is gone.”
“That night has haunted him for thirty years,” Davis said, his voice a whisper. “The Daniels’ only child died, and Pauline could not have any more.”
She did not know what to say.
“The cause of the fire was a cigar left in an ashtray. At that time Daniels was a city councilman and liked a good smoke. Pauline had begged him to quit, but he’d refused. Back then, smoke detectors were not commonplace. The official report noted that the fire was preventable.”
She comprehended the full extent of that conclusion.
“How did their marriage survive that?” she asked.
“It didn’t.”
WYATT ENTERED THE SECOND-FLOOR OFFICE OF DR. GARY Voccio, who’d answered the intercom and released an electronic lock only after being provided the appropriate password. The doctor greeted him from behind a desk cluttered with paper and three active LCD monitors. Voccio was in his late thirties with a Spartan vigor and reddish hair cut in a boyish fringe. He appeared disheveled, shirtsleeves rolled up, eyes tired.
Not the outdoor type, Wyatt concluded.
“I’m not a night person,” Voccio said as they shook hands. “But the NIA’s paying the bill, and we aim to please. So I waited.”
“I need everything you have.”
“That cipher was a tough one. It took nearly two months for our computers to crack the thing. And even then, it was a little luck that did the trick.”
He wasn’t interested in details. Instead he stepped across the cluttered office to the plate-glass windows, which offered a view of the front parking lot, wet asphalt glistening beneath the sodium vapor lights.
“Something wrong?” Voccio asked.
That remained to be seen. He kept his eyes out the window.
Headlights appeared.
A car turned from the entrance lane, wheeled into the vacant lot, and parked.
A man emerged.
Cotton Malone.
Carbonell had been right.
Another car materialized from his left. No headlights. Speeding straight for Malone.
Shots were fired.
HALE LISTENED TO ANDREA CARBONELL. HER TONE WAS NOT THAT of someone cornered, more the frivolity of somebody genuinely bemused.
“You realize,” he said, “that I can easily turn Stephanie Nelle loose after I make some arrangements with her. She is, after all, the head of a respected intelligence agency.”
“You’ll find her difficult to work with.”
“More than you?”
“Quentin, only I control the key to the cipher.”
“I have no idea if that is true. You’ve already lied to us once.”
“The mishap with Knox? I was simply hedging the bet. Okay. You won that round. How about this. I’ll provide the key to you. And once you find those missing two pages, then we’ll both be in a better position to negotiate.”
“I assume that, in return, you would want what I have stored eliminated?”
“As if that’s a problem for you.”
“I’m not immune to that particular charge, even if I find the missing pages.” He knew she was aware that the letter of marque did not protect against willful murder.
“That hasn’t seemed to bother you in the past, and there’s a man at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean who would agree with me.”
Her comment caught him off guard, then he realized. “Your informant?”
“Spies do come in handy.”
But she’d tossed him a bone. He now knew where to look. And she knew what he’d do.
“Cleaning up loose ends?” he asked.
She laughed. “Let’s just say I can be quite generous when I want to be. Call it a demonstration of my good faith.”
The hell with Stephanie Nelle. Maybe she was more valuable dead. “Give me the key. Once I have those two pages in hand, your problem will go away.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
master bedroom, the room decorated as a cozy den. Perched on a settee, upholstered in a bright chintz print, sat Pauline Daniels.
The female Secret Service agent outside had closed the door behind her.
They were alone.
The First Lady’s dull blond hair fell in wisps over dainty ears and a short brow. Her features cast a more youthful appearance than the early to midsixties she had to be. Octagonal glasses without rims fronted attractive blue eyes. She sat in an unnatural pose, back straight, veined hands folded in her lap, wearing a conservative wool suit and flat-soled Chanel ballet slippers.
“I understand you want to question me,” Mrs. Daniels said.
“I’d prefer we just talk.”
“And who are you?”
She caught the defensive edge in the question. “Someone who doesn’t want to be here.”
“That makes two of us.”
The First Lady motioned and Cassiopeia sat in a chair facing the sofa, two meters separating them, like some sort of demilitarized zone. This was uncomfortable on a multitude of levels, not the least of which was what Edwin Davis had just told her about Mary Daniels.
She introduced herself, then asked, “Where were you when the attempt on the president’s life happened?”
The older woman stared down at the rug on the wood floor. “You make it sound so impersonal. He’s my husband.”
“I have to ask the question, and you know that.”
