Little smiled. “I have no intention of killing Jack Carson, Brad. Death is too quick for him.”
Clarence walked over to the television and took out the DVD.
“We have a lot in common, Jack. I’m into S and M and bondage, too, although I prefer to be the bind er and not the bind ee. And I must say, what I saw of your adventures lacked imagination. But I could be wrong. Let’s see what the public thinks when this runs on the Internet.”
Clarence left for a moment. Brad heard water running. When he returned, he was carrying a damp towel and a dry one. He cleaned the blood and brains off Brad’s face, then inspected his work.
“I’m going to call the police,” he said when he was satisfied. “They’ll set you free. All I ask, Brad, is that you tell them about the senator’s confession so I can stop worrying about defending myself for a crime I didn’t commit. And please tell them about Mr. Carson’s part in Miss Koshani’s murder and how he committed treason by telling that lady terrorist state secrets.”
Little patted Brad on the shoulder. “I know I can count on you,” he said, and Brad sensed an unspoken threat.
Then Little turned to Senator Carson. “When I’m settled in my new home, I’ll send you my address, and you can tell me how you enjoy prison life.”
Clarence pocketed the DVD. “Sorry I can’t stay and chat some more, Brad, but I’ve got to run. Give my best to Ginny. I meant what I said in my letters. You two are the best.”
As soon as Clarence was gone, Carson began to sob.
“You can’t tell them,” he begged. “I can’t go to prison.”
“You knew the terrorists were targeting FedEx Field, and you never told a soul.”
“I couldn’t,” Carson pleaded.
“What if the plot had worked?” Brad asked. “You would have been responsible for a mass murder.”
“But it didn’t work. No one was hurt.”
Brad felt sick to his stomach. He looked directly at his boss. “Tell me, Senator, what did you and Lucas have planned for me if I didn’t tell you how I knew about Koshani and Crispin?”
“Nothing. We’d never hurt you. You’ve got to believe me.”
“No, I don’t, Senator. No, I don’t.”
Chapter Forty-eight
The moment Dana gave the transcript to Bobby Schatz, she was plagued by the knowledge that she would be the instrument of Ron Tolliver’s release. By the time Schatz had pressured Justice into dropping the charges against his client, Dana had decided that there was only one way she could absolve herself of the guilt that was overwhelming her.
Tolliver had been booked into jail wearing a sweat suit the FBI had grabbed from his closet. Bobby Schatz had given Dana the job of buying clothes their client could wear when he was discharged from jail. Dana had sewn a miniature tracking device into a seam of Tolliver’s jeans. She’d purchased it from a contact with sources in the intelligence community. When Tolliver left the jail, Dana followed in the nondescript brown Toyota she used for surveillance, using a GPS to track her target. She was carrying several weapons. She planned to end his life with one of them, but she had higher aspirations. Tolliver would be desperate to get out of the country, and he wouldn’t be able to escape without help. Whom could he turn to? The Spook had told her that Imran Afridi was a man who had made terror his hobby and insisted on running his operations personally. The chances were good that Tolliver would ask Afridi to help him get out of the country. Dana knew what Afridi looked like. If he met Tolliver, she would take out both of them.
The GPS showed that Tolliver had stopped somewhere ahead. The landscape was a bleak collection of vacant lots, shops with OUT OF BUSINESS signs in the windows, check-cashing establishments, bars, and convenience stores. On the horizon was a tall building that showed fire scars and gaping holes where window glass had once been. Next to the abandoned building was a hotel, and this is where the GPS led her.
After Dana parked in front of a shuttered Laundromat across from the hotel, she checked her automatic and the revolver in her ankle holster to make sure she would be prepared if any of the local bad guys were unwise enough to bother her. Then she hunkered down and waited for Tolliver to move.
A little after sunset, a cab stopped in front of the hotel, and Tolliver got into it. Dana followed the cab to Georgetown. It stopped a few blocks from the C amp;O Canal, and Tolliver got out. Luck was with Dana, and she found an empty parking space. Tolliver turned into a side street that led to the walking path that ran along the canal. Dana started after him, but then she sensed movement. A black van pulled to the curb and the doors swung open. She reached for her gun and the prongs of a Taser embedded themselves in her chest. Dana spasmed and collapsed. Seconds later, she was hustled into the van; a needle slipped into a vein, and she passed out.
W hen Dana came to, she was in total darkness and couldn’t be sure if she was awake or still drugged. Then she felt the restraints that secured her wrists and ankles. She flashed back to the basement where the meth dealers had trapped her and panicked, fighting her restraints until she realized that her struggles were futile.
Dana squeezed her eyes shut and forced her breathing to slow. When she was calmer, she tried to figure out where she was being held, but she couldn’t see much even after her eyes adjusted to the dark. There was a pillow under her head. It smelled as if it had been freshly laundered, which gave her a little hope. There was also a clean sheet under her hands.
Dana tried to figure a way out, but there didn’t seem any chance of escape unless her captors made a mistake. And who were they? The lights snapped on just as she was starting to consider this question. She shut her eyes against the glare before opening them slowly. She was secured to the guardrails of a hospital bed in a concrete room with bare walls. Directly ahead was a thick steel door with a small window at the top.
The door opened and Dana tensed. A short man in a tweed jacket, brown-and-yellow striped tie, white shirt, and tan slacks walked in. He was partially bald with a bad comb-over, and his pale brown eyes examined her through wire-rimmed bifocals. Behind him were two bodyguards.
“How are you feeling?” the man in the tweed jacket asked with what appeared to be genuine concern.
“Pissed off,” Dana said.
“Yes, I imagine you are,” the man said in a tone intended to be comforting, “but there is an explanation for your abduction, Miss Cutler. We knew you were following Ronald Tolliver, and we surmised that you were planning on taking action that would have endangered a very important intelligence operation. We couldn’t let you do that, so we neutralized you.”
“Are you going to let me out of here?”
“Definitely. You have nothing to worry about on that score, although we are going to hold you for a little while longer.”
“How much longer?”
“Until we’re certain that everything has gone according to plan.”
“And this plan involves Ron Tolliver?”
“I’m sorry, but you’re not cleared to get information about our operations.”
“Whose operations?”
“Sorry again.”
“Would it do me any good to ask to see a lawyer?”
“I’m afraid not.” The man apologized again. “But tell me, are you hungry? I imagine you are. You might also want to use the restroom,” he said, pointing to a door in one of the walls. “If you promise to be on your best behavior, I’ll have your restraints removed and have dinner brought to you. So what do you say? Can we take off the restraints?”
Dana nodded. “I won’t try anything.”
The man smiled. “That’s an empty promise. I’ve read your file, and I know what you did to those meth cooks. But it would be foolish to try anything with these men. You’d be risking serious injury for no good reason. I assure you that you’ll be released quite soon.”
B y the time Dana’s food was brought to her, the effects of the drug had worn off. She was sore where she’d been Tasered, and there was a knot on the back of her head where her skull had struck the pavement when she
