“Shit,” whispered Jax.
For a moment he stilled, his knee in the guy’s back, his breath coming in quick pants. If he’d kept the guy alive, he could have asked him some very important questions. Like, Who sent you? And, How did you know I was here? Instead, he had no answers to his questions and a dead body to deal with.
Looking up, he stared at the security camera at the far end of the hall and said, “Shit,” again.
Pushing to his feet, Jax opened the door to room 615. Propping open the door with his bag, he grabbed the body by the feet and dragged it into the room. He ducked back out into the hall for the Walther and the guy’s newspaper, then quickly shut the door.
Jerking out his phone, he went to sit on the edge of the bed and punched in the number for the American embassy.
“I’d like to speak to Peter Davidson, please,” he said. “Peter Davidson” was the code name for the CIA Operations Officer on duty at the embassy. The CIA loved to play these little cloak-and-dagger games.
There was a pause as the person at the other end of the phone drew in a quick breath. “Did you say, ‘Peter Davidson’?”
“Why? Did they change the code?”
There was a clucking noise. The voice said, “Just a moment, please.”
A minute ticked past. Two. A woman came on the line. “This is Petra Davidson. May I help you?”
Jax squeezed his eyes shut. “Jason Aldrich here. I’ve just flown in from Washington and I need a list of agricultural contacts in Bavaria.” You had to wonder who came up with this stuff. “I need a list of agricultural contacts in Bavaria” was code for There’s a dead body I need you to make go away.
The other end of the phone went silent.
“Hello? Miss Davidson?”
“I’m here,” she said in a heavy Bronx twang. “I think I can come up with that. Where would you like it delivered?”
“The Royal Berlin. Room 615.”
“You should have it in a few hours.”
“Hours? How many hours are we talking about here?”
“What you’re asking for is complicated,” she snapped.
“Complicated, but urgent,” he said patiently. “There’s a security camera that needs to be taken care of.”
“Where?”
“In the corridor.”
“At the Royal? Those suckers haven’t worked for months.”
“You’re sure?”
“It’s my job.”
“But complicated.”
There was a long pause. She said, “You want the list of agricultural contacts in Bavaria, or not?”
Jax looked at the guy in the tweed coat sprawled in an ungainly heap across the hotel-room floor. “Yes, please.”
“Then I’ll see you in a few hours,” she said and hung up.
“Great,” said Jax, his gaze still on the silent corpse. “Looks like you and I are going to be keeping company for a while.” He reached for the folded newspaper, curious to see which edition Tweed Coat had been reading. As he picked it up, a printout of a photograph of Jax fluttered to his feet.
Jax froze. This was no anonymous snapshot captured with a telephoto lens. This was an official photograph taken shortly after Jax’s incident in Colombia for inclusion in his file at Langley.
Jax’s gaze traveled from the photograph to the dead assassin’s impassive face. The implications were beyond ominous.
“How the hell did you get that?”
14
St. Martin, the Caribbean: Sunday 25 October
8:00 A.M. local time
The massive doors of the airplane hangar rolled open, filling the cavernous space with a suffocating blast of tropical heat and the deafening roar of the approaching jet.
From the air-conditioned comfort of his limousine, James Nelson Walker watched the Gulfstream roll inside. Ten months of careful research and planning-not to mention a substantial investment of funds-had brought him to this moment.
Up until now, Walker’s role had been largely financial, with Boyd drawing on his years of special operations, and his many contacts, to provide them with the paramilitary expertise they needed. But the next segment of the operation would be under Walker’s control.
The jet pivoted smartly, and a blessed silence fell over the hangar as the engines shut down. Absently kneading his lower lip with one thumb and forefinger, Walker waited while the pilot and copilot removed their headphones. They had no knowledge of their cargo, or the use to which it would be put.
He waited while the two men casually joked with each other, then left the hangar without a backward glance at either the limousine or the white van that waited at the other end of the hangar.
At a nod from Walker, his driver pressed the remote control, closing the big hangar doors and shutting out the bright tropical sunlight with an echoing bang.
“Now,” said Walker to the small, olive-skinned man with a hawklike nose and acne-pitted face who sat beside him.
Dr. Juan Garcia nodded. At his signal, the back doors of the waiting van opened. Two technicians in hazmat suits leaped out.
“How long will it take before we know if the shipment is still viable?” Walker asked while the two technicians opened the jet’s cargo hold.
Garcia shrugged. “We should have a preliminary report within twenty-four hours.”
Walker’s eyes narrowed as he watched the guys in hazmat gear carefully lift the first of the decades-old canisters between them. “We have three days to get this ready to go.”
“If it’s still viable, that won’t be a problem,” said Garcia, turning toward the van. “We’ll be ready.”
Washington, D.C.
Sunday morning dawned clear and sunny and wickedly cold, with a blustering wind that scuttled the small puffy white clouds across the deep blue sky over the nation’s capitol. General Gerald T. Boyd went for a three-mile run along the Potomac, then showered and changed into his dress blues in preparation for the reception being held that morning at the White House.
“Any word on the shipment yet?” he asked his aide, Phillips.
“Not yet, sir.”
Boyd reached for his hat and slipped it on. “The instant something comes through, I want to know about it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Half an hour later, the General was standing beneath the portico overlooking the White House Rose Garden watching the President of the United States try to coax a scowling New York senator in a skullcap into conversation with the Palestinian Archbishop of Jerusalem when the DCI, Gordon Chandler, walked up to him.
“Our commander in chief doesn’t appear to be having much success there,” said Chandler, dropping his voice so that only Boyd would hear.
“I don’t know about that. At least they’re not killing each other.”
“Not yet. Although rumor has it the reason we’re freezing our collective nuts off out here in the Rose Garden is because half of today’s honored guests have sworn never to be in the same room with each other.”
Boyd kept his gaze on the two men beside the President, and smiled. One more week, you bastards, he
