suddenly shocked. There was a name he recognized, completely out of context with everything else on the page. And while the language was Cotis, there was no question of the anglicized name appearing in the text: Mia Keeler.
“What the hell is this?” Jack said, turning the page toward Joy.
“Oh, God,” Joy said, glancing over at the book before looking back at the road.
“What the hell does it say?”
“I’ll see if I can find Professor Adoy,” Joy said as she looked at her watch. “But at this late hour…”
“Why would her name be in this book?”
“Guys,” Frank said. He wet the napkin and rubbed the pages of the second book in his lap.
Joy and Jack turned their attention to the second book. Frank was flipping pages, rubbing the wet cloth on them as he went, revealing Cotis text, but the page he was currently on revealed English.
“Oh, boy,” Frank mumbled.
It was all in a similar fashion, but they understood it. Small notations, dates in the corner, and they went on and on, five, ten, twenty pages.
As they continued to read, they began to realize why the FBI and the U.S. government were after this book. It contained every job that Cristos had done, every assassination, every bombing, every act committed on behalf of people and governments whose world image would be tarnished by such allegations.
As they read, they found several jobs engaged by offshore companies for which Jack knew the dots could eventually be connected back home. But on the last page, it seemed that Cristos connected those dots himself, for anyone who read the red book would find written a list of five names. Jack, Frank, and Joy knew them all; each one filled them with ever-escalating shock: a member of the Justice Department; a high-level FBI agent; two Cabinet- level positions in the current administration. And the final name-none of them would voice it, as it filled them all with confusion.
Jack understood where Cristos’s help came from and why he had certain members of the U.S. government at his beck and call, for the imcriminating evidence would doom not only careers but lives for acts of treason.
He understood how Cristos’s execution was a staged event of subterfuge, how he was just a pawn in prosecuting an assassin in a trial whose outcome was preordained by people pulling strings for show. Jack understood how Cristos managed to get the assistance of certain members of the FBI and the Justice Department in protecting him. If they didn’t act on his precise instructions, he threatened exposure; they had danced with the devil and had become his minions.
This book, the one with more than half of its entries in English, was not being sought for national security, as leverage against other nations who had illicitly engaged Cristos; it was being sought by a select few who were operating on their own within the confines of the U.S. government-arranging hits, assassinations, and who knew what in the name of national security while standing in the face of the constitution and laws of the United States.
And those select few, those five, were listed.
Jack was on his way to the first person on that list, someone who knew where Cristos was holding Mia, someone who would tell him even if he had to resort to unthinkable means.
He personally knew FBI Director Lance Warren; he was with him Thursday night, trading handshakes and smiles. There was no doubt he had sent Cristos’s men after him when they left the party. CIA Director Stuart Turner’s success in dealing with foreign governments and hostile adversaries was now clear. And if Jack was to survive this ordeal, he would pay a visit to FBI Agent Gene Tierney and see to it that he was convicted and made to suffer for the rest of his days.
But it was the fifth and final name that gave him pause, that none of them mentioned, that Jack couldn’t understand its presence on the list. And it caused him the most fear. For that name was Jack Keeler.
Tierney walked out of the Tombs humbled and humiliated. He had lain strapped to the bed for fifteen minutes, struggling with the leather bindings, before the nurse came in to free them. The two men he assigned to guard the room had left two minutes before him after being debriefed.
No one saw anything. Bullshit. Everyone saw everything. They just weren’t going to cooperate.
Tierney had simply followed orders, orders he didn’t agree with, but that’s what agents did all the time. Once someone didn’t follow orders, the entire system would crumble.
Tierney climbed into his white Mercedes. It was his one indulgence, a gift from his wife, who was the real breadwinner, toiling away her days on Madison Avenue creating ad campaigns for sneakers, soda, and erectile dysfunction medication. He started up the car and let Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Number 21 wash away his everrising stress.
He pulled out of the garage and headed for the Brooklyn Bridge, noticing how the bright lights of the city gave it a false sense of innocence.
Although he was told not to contact Warren, the circumstances demanded it. He tried six times but still had received no answer. The lower level of the Tombs was littered with bodies, and although he made the accusation that it was Jack’s doing, there was little doubt that Cristos had lost control of the situation.
Cristos wasn’t looking for the evidence case for them; he couldn’t care less if anyone’s secret agendas were laid bare. Something else was in that box, something far worse that had made Cristos desperate, that had made him scared. And in Tierney’s mind, there could be nothing worse than a scared, desperate assassin.
Tierney hit the Brooklyn Bridge. It was virtually empty, the city masses having already escaped for the long weekend. He looked to his right out at New York Harbor, at the Statue of Liberty, whose lit torch was held up in welcome.
And as he turned to look back at the roadway, the fabric of the night was shredded by an enormous fireball that rolled up high into the sky, the explosion tearing Tierney and his white Mercedes to shreds.
CHAPTER 38
A single car sat in the driveway of the stately white colonial home in Riverdale, New York. While Peter Womack was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, earning the wages of a federal employee, both he and his wife, Katherine, came from money, the trust-fund brigade. Because of their station in life, they were encouraged to give back, to work in the service of the country that had afforded their families a life of privilege.
The porch light was on, and several windows glowed at this late hour. Jack knew that Peter was in the middle of a trial, and he never joined his family out in the Hamptons until all work was behind him. Jack had considered Peter a friend, and although they and their wives had dined out, although they had worked together, Jack admitted to himself that he never truly knew the man. They walked in different worlds, not just federal and local but background, financial circles, and privilege. Jack was a DA because of passion, Peter as a result of duty.
He was not a cynic, but when Jack saw Peter’s name in Cristos’s book, he was not totally shocked. As they drove to Peter’s house, Jack grew angrier with every mile. It was Peter who suggested that Jack prosecute Cristos; it was Peter who limited the fed involvement, all the while knowing that Jack would do the right thing and get the conviction. And, Jack imagined, it was Peter who was involved with the false execution of Nowaji Cristos, allowing him to live another day.
Jack tried to banish the thought that Peter would have allowed Jack and Mia’s current situation but would withhold judgment until they spoke. But the bottom line was that Peter was connected to Cristos, and if he didn’t know where Cristos was, he knew the people who would.
Jack rang the doorbell as Frank and Joy stood back on the slate walkway.
He waited a moment. No answer. He rang it again.
After a full minute, no sound came from the home.
Without a word, Frank took off around the house, peering through the windows.
Jack and Joy remained at the front of the house as Jack gave the button one last push. But this time, he
