but most of the city would remain more or less intact, except for the windows, maybe. However, these smaller devices also tend to be rather dirty. Lots of radiation, lots of fallout, at least if they’re detonated at or above ground level.”
The room was quiet after that, as each attendee considered the possibility of a one-kiloton nuclear blast in the heart of an American city.
There were more questions, and some discussion after that, but the meeting finally broke up. Rubens decided he would check in with the Art Room as soon as he got back to street level and could get a signal on his cell phone.
As he was packing up his briefcase, however, he was aware of a movement beside him.
“Hello, Debra,” he said, not looking up.
“That was damned unprofessional of you, Bill. You made me
He sighed, straightening up and turning to face her. “Debra, you should know me by now. I despise politics, and I do not play these silly turf games. The only thing I’m concerned about here is getting the job done the best, quickest, and most efficient way possible.”
“You could have come to me personally,” Collins said.
“I submitted the usual requisitions through the usual channels,” he told her, “
Crystal Fire since yesterday. You were hogging our two best orbital assets. Wouldn’t it be better if we shared?”
“There … may have been an oversight,” Collins admitted. “Or a delay putting your request through. But we were not ‘hogging’ those satellites, as you put it.”
“Of
Rubens knew all too well how it worked. There would be no policy, no actual directive put out to exclude the NSA from the intelligence loop — but requests to expedite key requests, clearances, director approvals, and the like might accidentally be left in an electronic in-basket, or conveniently ignored for a few hours while other and more pressing matters were addressed.
Such a delay might give the Agency’s analysis teams an extra few hours to develop important intelligence before the NSA had a chance to look for the same hidden gems. And if Agency teams turned up the goodies, it would be the Agency that got the credit — and the funding at the next round of budgetary meetings.
“Don’t patronize me, Bill,” Collins told him.
“I’m not. Don’t
“At the director’s level, politics is a part of the job description. You know that as well as I do. And the only one playing games here this morning was you, sabotaging me in front of the ANSA to build up your own position.”
“Debra, it was not my intent to make you look bad this morning — no more than it was
She stared into his face for a long moment, as though testing his resolve. Rubens didn’t have direct access to the President, but the President’s advisor on national security did.
Then she looked away. “I’ll authorize transmittal as soon as we get out of here,” she told him.
“Thank you, Debra.
She was already walking away.
The two men used the stolen keycard to let themselves into room 225. One held an automatic pistol at the ready as the door swung open, but the room’s occupant was still in the shower. They could hear the rush of water, taste the steam in the air. Quietly, they walked into the room and moved the desk chair to an open space near the foot of the king-sized bed.
Both wore thin disposable gloves. The one with the keycard wiped it carefully with his handkerchief and placed it on the bureau; then the two of them sat down in the remaining chairs over by the closed curtains to wait.
Soon the sound of the water cut off, and a few minutes later Jack Pender walked out of the bathroom, rubbing himself with a hotel towel. In the darkened room, he didn’t see his visitors, not until they grabbed him from either side.
“I am sorry, Mr. Pender,” one of the intruders said. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a knife. Pender’s eyes opened wide, fixed on the blade, which flashed once in a gleam of light from the curtains at his back. He started to struggle, but the man holding him was strong, too strong, his grip on his wrists like steel. Pender tried to kick the guy with the knife, but the man sidestepped the attempt, reached down, and pulled Pender’s left arm from behind his back.
“I really do dislike doing this,” the man with the knife said. He dragged Pender’s arm forward and down until it was pinned against the chair, palm up. “I actually am one of your big … what is the American word?
The intruder slipped the point of the knife into Pender’s wrist and sliced deep, dragging the blade up the struggling man’s arm, rather than across. Blood welled up from the sudden wound, dark and slick. Pender screamed through the sock, thrashing violently now, but the big man behind him kept him pinned as the other made a second deep slice up his wrist … a third …
On the fourth cut, the knife hit the artery, and blood splattered across the unmade bed, across a wall, across white ceiling tiles.
After a time, the intruder began cutting the other wrist; by then, Pender was so weak he could barely struggle.
Ten minutes more, and Pender was no longer moving. The man with the knife felt for a pulse at his throat with a gloved finger, peeled back an eyelid, then nodded.
They released Pender, letting him slump back in the chair, naked, his arms, legs, and torso sheathed in blood. The killer pulled the sock from the man’s mouth, then carefully wrapped the fingers of his right hand around the handle of the knife. When the man let go, the knife dropped from limp, blood-gloved fingers and fell beside the chair. The sock went back on the floor by the bed, next to Pender’s shoes. Very carefully, then, the intruders stepped past the body, watching where they put their feet, careful not to step in the blood now soaking into the cheap hotel room carpet. There was a
They were as careful about footprints as they’d been with fingerprints. Bloody gloves were peeled from their hands and went into their pockets, and they wiped the doorknob clean behind them as they let themselves out.
8
