hospital. He’d intended from the beginning to fall back on an assault against Wildwood if the hospital bombing plan had to be abandoned. From the pack, he drew out his Beretta 92F and the suppressor, a 7.4-inch M9-SD silencer. He fitted the suppressor into the muzzle of the Beretta and gave it a quarter turn to lock it in place. He slipped off his T-shirt and donned a dark blue Kevlar vest. It was uncomfortable against his bare skin, but it was essential. He pulled his T-shirt back on over the vest, hefted the pack onto his back, and began to track the agent who’d passed only a minute before. He knew the agent had night-vision goggles. Nightmare carried nothing of the kind, for to him the dark was an old friend.
The agent had no idea an intruder was at his back and made no sound when the silenced round entered the back of his skull. Nightmare knelt and from the belt of the fallen agent unclipped the transmitter that sent a location signal back to the Op Center. He pulled a battery-powered vehicle the size of a loaf of bread from his pack. It was a mechanism of his own construction, built from components he’d ordered from Radio Shack. It consisted of a powerful little motor and receiver on a chassis that would roll across the ground on small tank tracks. The receiver was set to follow the signal of a tiny homing device Nightmare had secured to an overhanging tree limb near the end of the orchard a few days earlier. He’d adjusted the tanklike mechanism so that it would travel at about the speed a careful agent might keep in making rounds. With a bit of duct tape, he affixed the agent’s transmitter to the chassis and sent the device rolling forward under its own power along the same course the agent had been walking. For approximately eight minutes, the dot on the screen of the Op Center that monitored the agent’s position would continue to move. Once the little tank passed under the tree limb where the homing device had been secured, it would stop. Three minutes later, the Op Center would try to make contact to ascertain the reason for the agent’s pause. That gave Nightmare eleven minutes to complete his mission.
He sprinted across the orchard, ducking branches that bent low under the weight of ripening fruit. He knew that although the agents varied their rounds along the perimeter, they attempted to maintain their position relative to each other. Knowing the location of one, Nightmare could make a good assumption about the location of the other, and he moved to intercept.
He took the second agent down from the side with a single shot through the temple. As he’d done before, he snatched the location transmitter and taped it to a second motorized vehicle that he sent rolling through the orchard toward a homing device on the same heading the agent would have followed. Then he turned toward the main house.
He knew the range of the cameras mounted around the compound, and he’d already selected the best location for the next shot that night. He took up a position behind a gnarled old apple tree at the edge of the orchard behind the house. Sighting carefully on the camera mounted under the eaves that gave the Operations Center a view of the back door, he squeezed off a round and the camera jerked. He waited. Within a minute, the door of the guesthouse opened and an agent emerged. The agent went to the barn and came out with a ladder that he carried to the back corner of the house. He placed the ladder against the wall and shined a flashlight up at the camera. He unclipped a small walkie-talkie from his belt.
“Russell here. I can’t tell what the problem is yet.” He lifted his foot onto the first rung.
Nightmare put a round squarely between the man’s shoulder blades. The agent went forward, as if shoved from behind, bounced off the aluminum ladder, and fell back in a heap. Nightmare ran to him and put another round between his eyes. He grabbed the walkie-talkie and spoke in a rough approximation of the agent’s voice. “Squirrel damage.”
“I copy that,” the Op Center replied.
The locks on the back door took him only moments, and he was quickly inside the house, standing in the darkened kitchen. He knew that the agent on duty inside preferred the comfort of the living room, and he began to creep in that direction. He’d taken only a few steps when an old board beneath his foot sent a squeal into the quiet of the house. A moment later, a gray shadow touched the door frame. Nightmare knelt in a firing position. The agent stepped into the doorway and reached for the light switch. Nightmare fired twice at the silhouette, the silencer thumping as it spit out the rounds, the lead slugs thumping again as they slammed into flesh and bone. Nightmare put a new clip into the Beretta. He stepped over the downed agent and started up the stairs to the second floor. Slipping along the hallway, he passed the rooms he knew were occupied by Annie Jorgenson, Earl Jorgenson, and Nicole Greene, and he stood finally at the threshold of the First Lady’s bedroom. Light from inside filtered under the door. On the monitor in the van parked on the highway, he’d watched her prepare for bed, slide under the covers, and lift a book from the nightstand. He figured she must still be reading. The knob turned easily and silently in his grip. He edged the door open.
She sat propped up against a pillow. The book lay open on her lap. Her eyes were closed. Her chin rested on her chest. The headboard that framed her was walnut, an antique. A beautifully carved angel with spread wings hovered above each of her shoulders. Nightmare smiled grimly. A fat lot of good they would do her now.
Her eyelids fluttered open at the touch of the silencer against her forehead.
“Waking you with a kiss seemed so cliche,” he whispered.
She spoke not a word, but her eyes seemed to struggle for some kind of understanding as they stumbled between the barrel against her forehead and the face of her assailant. A small gasp escaped her lips. He put a finger to them, a warning against crying out.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head, barely more than a quiver against the silencer.
“You ruined my life and you don’t remember.”
“Who…” she began, but her voice failed her.
“David Moses,” he answered.
It took a moment to register, but he saw that it did, and that pleased him.
“No,” she pleaded softly. “Please, no.”
“Oh, yes,” he answered. “But not here. We’re going for a walk, you and me. We’re going to look at the moon together one last time.”
Bo pulled out of River Falls, heading southwest toward the bridge at Prescott. The moon was just about to set. The night was dark, and the sky was full of stars. He drove with the windows down. The wink of fireflies filled the fields along the road, and from the marshes came the bellow of bullfrogs. It would have been a lovely night if Bo hadn’t been so troubled by what he’d learned from the priest.
He’d been looking for a connection between Tom Jorgenson and David Moses, something powerful enough to be a motive for murder. He believed he’d found it-the confrontation long ago between the two that had brought an end to any hope Moses might have had for a normal life. Still, a lot of questions remained. If the motive was an old grudge held by a disturbed man, why act now? Why, after all these years, after a whole lifetime of opportunity, was Moses only just now making his move? And why all the complications-the hospital job, the charade of Max Ableman, the “accident” in the orchard? Why hadn’t he just killed Jorgenson and been done with it?
His cell phone chirped. It was Coyote.
“Where are you, Bo?”
“Crossing the river into Minnesota. I’m heading back to Wildwood.”
“I’ve got some interesting news.”
“Shoot.”
“Luther Gallagher’s credit cards show a lot of unusual activity in the last month. Expensive purchases of sophisticated electronics. We’re talking monitors, receivers, minidome cameras, pinhole cameras, audio transmitters, telephone transmitters.”
“Surveillance,” Bo said.
“Bingo.”
“Of whom? Jorgenson?”
“Well, so far he’s the only item on the menu.”
Bo thought a moment. Things began to click. “Stu, I’ve got to go.” Without waiting for an answer, he broke the connection and punched in the number of the Op Center at Wildwood.
“Agent Foster.”
“Adam, this is Bo Thorsen.”
“Evening, Bo. What’s up?”
“Let me speak with Jake Russell.”
