And so it went.
The moment the door opened, there was an explosion.
Jamie screamed and hurled himself backwards, slamming against the opposite wall, then slid to the ground and tried to scuttle away like a crab.
Jesus H….
That wasn’t a chemical bomb.
The crazy bastard, he rigged a
But not here. There was no fire or smoke. The explosion sounded like it was somewhere else in the building.
Was the bomb set somewhere else?
Christ, was David planning on bringing the whole place down?
Twenty floors down, Vincent Marella dreamed he heard an explosion. He woke up to find that his eyes were bleeding and he could barely breathe.
He also heard a man scream.
Amy released her grip momentarily—there was an explosion, somewhere, and it seemed to puzzle her.
That was all that Ania needed.
The lid of one of her wrist compartments flipped up easily. The blade slid down and landed in her palm. She had taken a chance, releasing her grip on Amy’s wrists to dig out her weapon. But what was true love without risks?
Ania used her injured arm to brace Amy’s body and her right hand to slide the blade into the hollow of Amy’s neck.
Then she sliced down, directly between Amy’s breasts and down her stomach to where her belt used to be.
The bullet that had ripped through David’s brains also struck one of the large conference room windows, spiderwebbing it. That was a nice bit of luck, Nichole thought. It wouldn’t take much to push the rest of it through. Not to call for help. She was too high up to seriously entertain that. And with the explosion down below, well, attention would be scattered, to say the least, for the time being.
Nah. Nichole Wise, code name Workhorse, was thinking long-term.
If she could sever the stubborn piece of flesh attached to her hand—and a jagged edge of the conference room window might do the trick—she could drop her hand out the window. Thirty-six floors down, wave good-bye. It might take a while, but at some point, some investigator would stumble across it, bag it, and eventually do a fingerprint check. Langley would pop up. Questions would be asked. And maybe the story would finally be told. The story of her miserable years undercover at Murphy, Knox.
Maybe she’d end up a black star, chiseled into the slab of white Vermont marble that was the CIA’s Wall of Honor:
IN HONOR OF THOSE MEMBERS
OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES
IN THE SERVICE OF THEIR COUNTRY
Then she died.
Keene paused by the sea to watch the waves. He wasn’t looking forward to the conversation he was about to have.
Farther down on the beach Keene saw another dog—not a three-legged one this time. It was a fully equipped black Lab, and he was running into the crashing waves. A young red-haired mother, no more than thirty, was standing there with two preschoolers, both with reddish-blond hair. They were jumping and laughing at the dog, who rushed into the waves, stopped to relieve his bowels, then raced out of the water again before another wave could wash over him. Speed defecation. Keene had to admire that. The owner needed to be commended. He wondered if the children were trained that way, as well.
Keene’s mobile rang. It was his second source.
“I didn’t think I’d hear back from you,” Keene said.
“I didn’t think I’d be calling.”
“What’s going on?”
“There’s a lot of activity here on my end.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.”
There was a pause.
“Look, just come out with it. Can’t be any worse than what I’m already thinking.”
“Your man is behind it all.”
“What do you mean?”
“David Murphy is a straw man. A burnout case. Your man McCoy plucked him from the wreckage, started to run him. Build him up again. But McCoy was behind everything. Including the financing of a particular tracking device that has been causing us much trouble as of late.”
“I see. You just find this out now?”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s not fair that I’ve been stationed with a traitor. For
“We’re a big dumb animal, Will. You know that. Big and strong, but dumb nonetheless. The important thing is you helped us uncover him. If you hadn’t asked questions, we wouldn’t know. That’s the important thing.”
“Is it?”
The dog bounded up the shore. The mother and children raced after it. Nothing like a good run after voiding your bowels.
“There’s something else.”
“You need me to kill him, of course.”
“We need you to kill him.”
“Uh-huh.” Keene swallowed. “I’ve got a really bad cold, you know.”
“I’m sorry, Will.”
“Not looking for sympathy. It’s just … well, it’s really a pish day for this.”
The mother, children, and black Lab were all headed away from the beach now, the dog’s transaction with Mother Nature complete. If Keene were to return to the same spot tomorrow, he would probably see the same event replay. He wondered how much of this dog’s shit was in his sea.
“Yeah, I know. But is it ever a good day?”
“You’ve got a point there.”
