for theLos Angeles Times, with her lawyer, and finally with the president of Harvard University, who was obviously a good friend. Except for her daughter, to whom she spoke gently and lovingly, she communicated in a manner that conveyed power. Nightmare liked that. Bringing down powerful people had always made his work more satisfying. Before he himself had been betrayed and left for dead, he’d been assigned to kill for many reasons, and sometimes for no reason that he could see. He never wondered about a sanction he carried out against someone in a powerful position. Power was itself reason enough to draw a sanction. It was when he was told to kill someone who was no one that he wondered. Why end a life that was no life at all?
In South Africa once, he’d tracked a man for a month to learn the patterns and rhythms of his life. He did it to make a clean kill. In his surveillance, he found a lowly government clerk with a wife and three children, a man who liked bow ties, who drank Indonesian black tea under a kapok tree at lunch while he read the LondonTimes, who visited his mistress every Wednesday afternoon, and who, in his position, wielded only the power of a rubber stamp. He also discovered that the wife was herself a mistress to an important political figure. He killed the clerk with poison, a few milligrams of aconitine in his black tea, and he was out of the country on an afternoon plane. The killing didn’t bother him. By then, there’d been so many. It was the why of it, to remove a small man from the path of a greater man’s desire, that ate at him. Murder as a political favor, granted as easily as an invitation to an embassy ball.
On the monitor, he watched the First Lady head upstairs. He switched to the camera he’d put in her room two weeks earlier, on a bookshelf, inside a hollowed-out copy ofLittle Men. He watched her undress, prepare to take a bath, and stand for a moment in front of the mirror on her vanity. She turned and studied her profile, drew in her stomach, lifted her breasts, shook her head in a disappointed way, and relaxed. She stepped toward the bathroom and out of range of the camera lens.
Nightmare sat back patiently. He was used to watching and waiting. However, he knew that on this kill, waiting could be a problem. The First Lady wouldn’t stay at Wildwood indefinitely. And there was Thorsen. The man was a complication, one Nightmare would have to consider carefully. He would probably have to neutralize Thorsen. But later. Now he had to focus on his purpose, which was to sanction the lying abomination called Tom Jorgenson and his daughter Kate, whom Nightmare had once called his friend. It had been his intention to kill them both together at the hospital with the C-4 explosive. Because the security guard had caught him, the plan was ruined. At first, he’d been angry with himself. Weakness, he’d chided. After further reflection, he decided he’d unconsciously sabotaged his own strategy because he wanted the man and his daughter dead in a different way. Most of his life, he’d killed for reasons tied to politics, to economics, to the expediencies of closet diplomacy. This was different; this was personal. He wanted to confront the man and the daughter face-to-face before they died. Not to gloat, as he had at Jorgenson’s bedside. That was a mistake. No, he wanted to be sure they went to their deaths with a full understanding of their guilt. This would probably mean killing them separately, and probably Thorsen somewhere along the way.
A knock on the van door startled him.
“Open up. Police.”
Nightmare quickly turned off the monitor, shoved his Beretta into his belt at the small of his back, and opened the back doors of the van. Outside, it was twilight. The sheriff’s deputy stood looking at Nightmare, his thumbs hooked over the leather of his gun belt. Behind him, at the side of the highway, stretched a line of parked vehicles, mostly media vans and cars.
“ID.” The deputy held out his hand.
Nightmare gave the deputy his wallet.
“MCC,” the deputy said. “Never heard of that one.”
“Metro Cable Communications,” Nightmare replied. “Usually we stick with city council and school board meetings, but this is too big to pass up.”
“Parking here all night?”
“Unless the First Lady leaves.”
“You know the rule. You let her motorcade pass, then you can follow at a reasonable distance.”
“I know.”
“All right, Mr.”-he double-checked the ID-“Solomon. Good evening.”
The deputy moved to the next vehicle in line, a white van that carried the call letters KSTP on the side. Like Nightmare’s van, it had a small satellite dish mounted on top and a short broadcasting antenna.
Nightmare glanced across the road at the entrance to Wildwood. A Washington County Sheriff’s Department cruiser was parked behind the stone arch, controlling access. Nightmare smiled at the futility of the effort.
chapter
fifteen
The fax came through a little before 9:00P.M. Deputy Williams from the Washington County Sheriff’s Department had moved quickly on Bo’s request. Luther Gallagher had no criminal record. He was employed as an attendant at the Minnesota State Security Hospital in St. Peter, and the photograph on his hospital ID card was included. Bo only had to glance at the photo to see that it wasn’t Max Ableman. Gallagher had a large square face and a bald head that reminded Bo of a professional wrestler. The presence of Gallagher’s pickup truck at the motor court probably had nothing to do with Ableman.
Camera eight, mounted on the north side of the main house, went dead as Bo was studying the fax. He left the Op Center to check it out. A squirrel lay on the ground directly beneath the camera, stunned but not dead. It had happened before. For God knew what reason, the squirrels liked to chew on the camera cables. When they bit through the insulation, they shorted out the connection and zapped themselves in the process. He’d suggested to the Jorgensons that something be done to get rid of the squirrels, but they rejected the idea. The squirrels, Annie pointed out, were there long before the Jorgensons. Bo radioed to the Op Center and said he’d fix the cable himself. He spent half an hour installing new wire. In the meantime, the squirrel staggered to its feet and stumbled off into the orchard.
Bo had just finished and was folding up the ladder when Diana Ishimaru drove up and parked in front of the guesthouse. Jake Russell followed in his own car. Bo hung the ladder in the barn, then headed to the Op Center, where he found his boss, Manning, and Russell in conference.
“A change of plan, Bo,” Ishimaru said when he joined them. “I’m pulling you off Wildwood. Agent Russell will be assuming responsibility for the Op Center.”
“Why?” Bo asked.
“I’m reassigning you.”
“To what?”
“Investigating Tom Jorgenson’s accident.”
Bo glanced at Manning, who gave no sign of how he felt about this turn of events. “I thought we’d agreed that wasn’t our jurisdiction.”
Ishimaru replied, “When the director of the United States Secret Service calls us personally and gives an order, we find a way to make it our jurisdiction.”
Bo thought about Annie’s final comment as he left the main house late that afternoon: You don’t know Kate. It was true. He didn’t know Kathleen Jorgenson Dixon. But he was beginning to.
“While the First Lady is at Wildwood, any concern regarding Tom Jorgenson’s safety is to be viewed as a concern that involves the First Lady’s safety as well.”
“When do I start?” Bo asked.
“Immediately.”
Russell offered his hand. “Good luck, Bo.”
“Thanks.” Bo flashed Manning a brief smile. “Looks like you got your wish, Chris. I’m out of here.”
“Looks like you got yours, too,” Manning said.
Bo gathered his things. Diana Ishimaru accompanied him to his car.
“Are you okay with this, Bo?”
