Blood Trust

Vera gave him a vulpine smile. “You know, Daddy, you really are a sonuvabitch.”

* * *

JACK WAS briefing Paull on the situation back in D.C.—minus Annika’s involvement—when he received the text message from Heroe. Reading it, the hairs on his forearms stirred. Middle Bay Bancorp. Could this be the nexus point that linked all the disparate elements together?

Wondering why Heroe had texted him instead of calling and explaining herself, he punched in her number. The phone rang four or five times before a man’s voice answered.

“Who’s this?” Jack said.

“I’d ask the same of you,” the voice said.

Something was very wrong. “Jack McClure. Where’s Chief Heroe?”

“This is Alan Fraine, Chief of Police. I’m Chief Heroe’s boss. Unfortunately, Nona has been taken into custody by the Feds. She’s been charged with the murder of Secret Service Agent Peter McKinsey.”

“What the hell happened?”

Fraine told him about Heroe’s trip to Roosevelt Island and the discovery of two bodies, one being that of Agent Naomi Wilde.

Jack’s heart sank. He took a deep breath, steadying himself. “That second body is without doubt Arjeta Kraja, an illegal alien and part of the white slave trade business that Heroe and I and Naomi were investigating. McKinsey was involved in the ring in some way none of us yet understand. But it’s clear that he murdered Naomi Wilde because she got too close to identifying certain individuals connected with the ring.”

“Your enemies are exceptionally powerful and well connected, Mr. McClure. Nona’s in serious trouble. When it comes to the Feds these days … well, I don’t have to tell you how difficult it will be even getting to talk to her let alone finding her top-flight representation.”

“Hopefully it won’t come to that. My boss, Dennis Paull, is on his way back to D.C. I want you to hook up with him the moment he steps off the plane and brief him completely. Then I’d like you to compile a list of Middle Bay Bancorp personnel—”

“Funny you should say that,” Fraine said, “Nona had compiled just such a list. Hold on a moment. Ah, yes, here it is.”

“Would you read off the names, please?”

Fraine did. Seventeen names, but none of them rang a bell. Jack wondered what he was missing. “Is there anyone else?”

“Well, you said bank personnel. As you may know, Middle Bay is in the process of being acquired by InterPublic Bancorp.”

Henry Holt Carson’s bank. Jack stood still as a statue while his brain, working at the speed of light, placed Carson and InterPublic alongside Middle Bay at the nexus of the conspiracy universe and began to follow the tentacles reaching outward. He was riding this wave of thought so completely that he almost missed what Fraine said next.

“So, of course, Nona had added the members of the forensic accounting team auditing Middle Bay’s books to the list of the bank’s personnel.”

Jack was dizzy with the sudden swirl of calculations. “Let’s have them all, Chief Fraine.”

“There are five individuals on the team.” He named them. Nothing. “And then there’s the team leader. His name is, let me see, ah yes, John Pawnhill.”

Annika had said, “We’re all soldiers in the night, and because of this, like it or not, we’re pawns.” And at that moment, two disparate things collided in Jack’s head, and the unknown part of the name equation he’d been trying to solve at last swam into focus. Thate’s nickname was Grasi—fat. But his real name—Thate—meant skinny. The kid was neither fat nor skinny, so how was he given the nickname? Jack had been looking at the equation through the wrong end of a telescope. Mbreti wasn’t the unknown in the equation, it was the key. Mbreti meant king. And what was the opposite of king on a chessboard? Pawn.

John Pawnhill was Mbreti!

TWENTY-EIGHT

“VERA, YOU’RE a chip off the old block.”

“A heart like black ice.” Vera crossed one leg over the other. “Like my new shoes?”

Carson didn’t bother looking; he knew his daughter’s tastes all too well. “Tell me about today.”

Vera’s smirk widened. “Let’s see, what happened? Oh, yes, my lover, Andy Gunn, recruited me to help him terminate two lowlifes.”

“Names, Vera, names.”

“Willowicz—though Gunn referred to him as Blunt—and O’Banion.”

Carson wet his lips. “They’re both dead? You’re sure?”

“Could not be deader.” Vera watched his profile, which was vexingly noncommittal. “Why?”

“I’m wondering why he killed them and why now.”

“He was very focused, I can tell you that. Like he’d been given a deadline.”

“Odds are he had been. He’s taking orders from someone other than me.”

“But you knew that already.”

“Yes, but not who he’s playing both sides with.” Carson seemed to be staring at nothing and everything at once. “I had him followed, but he slipped the tail. He must have gone to meet with the person who gave him today’s marching orders.”

“Any ideas who it might be?”

“That’s something you’re going to find out for me.”

Vera closed her eyes for a moment. “Listen, you fixed me up at Fearington so I’d become Alli Carson’s roommate. Alli knew Caroline. You thought Alli might know where she is; she doesn’t. No one knows where that bitch has got to.”

“Don’t call your half sister that,” Carson said sharply. “You haven’t earned the right.”

“She left, just like that. We shared so many things, and then poof she was gone. And after that she never contacted me.”

“She never contacted anyone.”

Vera clenched her fists. “This is all your fault, you shithead.”

“Down, girl. You should see a doctor about that overabundance of testosterone.”

“Ha ha.” There was little mirth in Vera’s voice. “Only if you come with me to see about your satyriasis.”

“Now who’s the bitch.”

“Neither of us can help it, that’s the way you made us.”

Carson made a derisive sound. “Oh, yes, blame it all on Daddy.”

She turned to him, draped one leg over his lap, snuggled up to him, and said in a little-girl-porn voice, “Oh, Daddy, I’m just worried about you, is all. I don’t want you to go into cardiac arrest while you’re plowing away.”

“Vera.” His tone held an unmistakable note of warning.

“So many furrows, so little time.” Her fingers traced the whorls of his ear. “I know, Daddy, time is running out, soon enough you won’t be able to get it up at all.”

“Godammit, Vera!” He pushed her roughly away from him. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

“Nothing a little parental love wouldn’t cure.” She gave him a mock-pout from her corner of the seat.

“Bullshit. You wouldn’t know what to do with parental love.”

“Good thing,” she said, “because you don’t know how to show it.”

This exchange was followed by an oppressive silence.

Finally, she said, “You asked me to get close to Andy. We both knew what that meant, so when you think about it, you’ve been pimping me out.”

“I’m doing what any good spymaster would do, keeping an eye on my people.”

“If you give yourself any more credit I’ll throw up.”

“Don’t get superior. I’m not the whore in this scenario.”