'Your neck, your shoulders, they're so strong,' she said.
'That comes from a lot of golf and tennis,' he told her. 'I also work out with a trainer.'
'It shows,' she said. Her eyes ranged over his torso. 'Broad shoulders, graceful motion, strong hands.'
Her fingers moved to his ear. A moment later, his chin was near the crook of her arm.
'I like outdoor games,' she said. 'Indoor, too.'
'Oh? What kind?' he asked slyly.
Suddenly, the woman pulled her forearm back toward her, hard. Before Bob could react, she put her left hand against the left side of his face and pushed to the right. That drove his throat deeper into the wedge of her elbow.
This particular choke hold blocked the air supply instantly and completely. It also cut off the flow of blood to the brain.
Unconsciousness typically came in less than ten seconds. That was not even enough time for the skin of the neck to bruise.
Bob Lawless gasped silently while tugging and then clawing desperately at her arm. He kicked out with his un-scuffed Ferragamos as the seconds lengthened. The shiny black shoes moved like windshield wipers, in and out, in and out, before falling to the plush plum carpet. An instant later, Bob's shoulders drooped, his arms went slack, and his head rolled to the right.
Cautiously, the woman relaxed her hold. Bob's head dropped forward, his breathing barely audible.
'What kind of games do I like?' the woman said. 'The kind where I make the rules.'
The woman went to a lamp and angled the shade so the light hit Bob in the face. Then she retrieved her purse from a nearby coffee table. She removed the syringe and the handkerchief he had given her. She used the cloth to grip his tongue, raising it and working the needle underneath She poked the tip into the large vein at the root and injected ten milliliters of potassium chloride. Then she stepped back.
She watched, listened as his respiration went from shallow to none.
She tucked the handkerchief and syringe in her purse, retrieved her jacket, then undid one of the buttons of Bob's shirt. She slid her right hand inside and felt his chest. There was no heartbeat. She stood back.
'Sorry, Bob,' she said. 'But at least you died advancing a cause you believed in.'
Bob had removed her scarf. She used it to wipe fingerprints from the solid surfaces she had touched the drinking glass and the wooden armrests of the chair. Then she slipped it back on her head. The woman removed a pair of white gloves from her purse and put them on, along with her sunglasses. She left the room and returned to the elevator, careful to keep her face downturned. All that the cameras in the elevator would see was her jacket and the top of her head.
Just like the night before.
Hopefully, no more killings remained.
EIGHTEEN
Washington, B.C. Monday, 8:30 p.m.
Darrell McCaskey came by to see Rodgers after the meeting with Hood. He invited Rodgers for a drink but the general declined. He said he needed to be alone, to think about the job offer from the senator. In fact, Rodgers did not feel like socializing with anyone from Op-Center.
It was nothing personal, but the odor of disloyalty hung about the place and its people. Rodgers hoped it would pass. He liked McCaskey and Bob Herbert. But he needed to get away from it now. He spent a few hours cleaning his office, deleting personal files from his computer, and storing them on disks.
He reached his ranch-style home in Bethesda, Maryland, at seven-thirty.
He removed his jacket and dropped it over the arm of the sofa. Then he poured a drink and sat down at the small dining room table. As he went through the mail, he sipped the small 'medicinal dose' of Southern Comfort, as his grandfather used to call it. It was exactly what he needed to heal his wounded soul.
The mail was all catalogues and bills, no letters. Not that Rodgers was surprised. He could not remember the
