The End Game by Catherine Coulter
KNIGHT TAKES E4
Nicholas’s Brownstone
East 69th Street
Upper East Side
Nicholas woke without an alarm at six. He felt good, rested, despite only a few hours of sleep. He turned on the TV as he stretched and listened to the local weather. It appeared the weather agreed with his mood, sunny and clear and warm, a perfect spring day shaping up outside. Quite different from his usual mornings in London—rain, rain, and more rain. He did miss London, but New York’s weather was hard to argue with. The city was growing on him.
His good mood swept him through a shower, shaving, dressing. His ruined clothes were nowhere to be seen, which meant Nigel had been in his rooms already this morning.
He took care selecting his clothes; he needed to look shipshape and in control since there would be cameras and press and meetings with other agencies. A gray three-button suit from Barneys, a white Turnbull & Asser shirt with a hint of cream stripe, his grandfather’s cuff links, polished wing tips. Yes, he would do. He started to put on a red tie, then opted for a muted purple. Zachery would be wearing red, no sense competing.
He went to the kitchen for his breakfast. Nigel was nowhere to be seen, but a surprise—he’d made oatmeal. It was much better than Cook Crumbe’s bitter excuse for oatmeal at home.
While he ate, he read the headlines on his iPad. The Bayway bombing was the lead, as expected, the photos from the scene in daylight even more devastating and graphic than he remembered. He glanced at his palms. The burns weren’t bad this morning, what with all the burn cream he’d used. He thought of Rex Cedarson, Bob Ventura, and Kenneth Chantler, the waste of it, and Mr. Hodges, a good man, now dead. No reason for any of it, a show of arrogance.
He drank two strong cups of Earl Grey—sent directly from Fortnum & Mason, thanks to his mum, Mitzie—had a second bowl of brown sugar–laden oatmeal while he checked his e-mail. Nothing from Adam Pearce yet, but it had been only a few hours. Give the boy a chance to make the appropriate inroads.
He got into his car, a sporty, very maneuverable BMW 335i. His new baby was sapphire black with a gray leather interior and dark burl walnut to announce the final touch of class. Though he missed his Jaguar, buying the BMW was cheaper than having the Jag shipped over from England. Well, almost. He loved the way the BMW drove. He’d named the car Freya after his first ancient Fiat from his parents when he was sixteen.
He checked traffic on his mobile, knew it would take him less than twenty minutes to get to Federal Plaza.
Mike called before he hit FDR Drive.
“Are you on your way?”
“I am. ETA ten minutes. What’s happened?”
“Nothing yet,” she said, “though I’ve only been here a few minutes. We’ll sit down at the threat table as soon as you get in. The video feeds are ready, and the families have been notified. Word is out we lost three men last night. This whole place is boiling mad. It’s not going to be a good day here. Ah, did you get everything worked out with our friend?”
“I did. He’s up and running. He’ll report in when he has entry. Is Zachery in his office?”
“I don’t know, but I bet he is, all ready to rock and roll. There’s a press conference scheduled for ten. No news yet on Larry Reeves—all the bodies have been recovered from Bayway, though they haven’t all been identified—he’s up and vanished, left his family without a word. There’s a chance he’s dead. Gray has something for you—important, he says, so hurry up.”
• • •
When Nicholas got to his desk on the twenty-third floor, he saw Mike first thing, hunched over her computer, face close to the screen, tracing something with her finger. She took off her glasses, rubbed the bridge of her nose, then leaned back and closed her eyes. He bent down to see what she’d been looking at and was distracted by that jasmine scent of hers—alas, overlaid with a bit of smoke smell this morning. He imagined he was still on the smoky side as well.
He straightened, touched her shoulder. “Nothing yet?”
She blinked up at him. He saw her face sported a colorful array of bruises, but she still looked sharp and ready to annihilate—quite a combination. He wished he had a bad guy to throw into her cage.
“Good morning to you, Michaela. You look better this morning, though that bruise is purple and looks like Rhode Island.” He lightly outlined the bruise with a fingertip. “Does it hurt?”
“Only a tiny bit.” She put on her glasses and looked him up and down. “You look like James Bond, super-macho in cool clothes. Wow, even French cuffs—you look ready to play high-stakes poker and take the table. Makes me think if you took over the Bond franchise, it’d explode.”
He had to laugh. “And I like that jumper. Black is your color. It sets off your hair.”
“Come on, Nicholas, stop trying to jolly me up. Hey, I’m proud of Rhode Island. How are your hands?”
He shrugged. “Not bad this morning.” He leaned back against the blue felt wall of Mike’s cube, his arms crossed. “I’ve been thinking. COE needed massive amounts of money to pull off the cyber-attacks last night. Gunther’s fee alone would be in the millions. Where is all this money coming from? That’s what we need to find out.”
Mike nodded. “Yes, of course you’re right. We’ve also got to be certain COE is behind this.”
“You know they are. Have you looked at any of the video footage yet?”
“Yes. Take a look at this, Nicholas.” Mike pointed to her screen. Nicholas saw blurred dark images, barely visible. Then he saw the edge of a jaw flashing white in the moonlight, and full lips, nothing else under the brim of a baseball cap.
“Brilliant, Agent Caine. Let’s find out who this woman is and track her down.”
27
BISHOP TAKES E7
Mike said, “I’ve got more. She shows up on all three videos. She never takes off the ball cap, so all I can capture is the jaw. We’ll need more for the facial recognition, since the feed itself isn’t so hot.” She paused for a moment. “In one of the shots she looks up toward the camera. It’s like she’s letting herself be seen, and what does that mean?
“There’s something about her that’s familiar to me, but unfortunately I can’t tell you what it is yet. I have this gut feeling she could be our key. Maybe when we find out who she is, all the pieces will fit into place.”
Nicholas shook his head. “I don’t think the database is going anywhere with these images, but who knows? I’ll start running the program immediately, see if I can’t adapt the parameters to work with the angle.”
Mike’s phone rang. It was Zachery’s secretary. “He wants both of you.”
Mike hung up and stood. “It’ll have to wait. It’s Zachery. Showtime.”
They walked down the hall to the conference room, heard Zachery call out, “Drummond, Caine, get in here.”
They stepped in, faced the threat matrix board that tracked all of the ongoing and recently thwarted operations their office was working on. A quick glance showed Nicholas that they stopped attacks in Atlanta, New Jersey, California, and New York in the past twenty-four hours.
Their team usually started their workday with the threat assessment, sitting around the threat table, as they called it, going through their analysis of the threat matrix, and every single morning, the actual volume of threats astounded him. But Bayway hadn’t been on the matrix as a possible action. There’d been no chatter, no threats. Nothing. How many more plots were being planned that they didn’t know about?
Nicholas saw COE had moved to the immediate threat column. No wonder, after last night and fifteen deaths. No, nineteen deaths. COE was small, he knew it in his gut, probably no more than ten members, all told. He also believed COE wasn’t affiliated with another group, which made them more unpredictable. They were lone wolves, and lone wolves scared him more than the large organized groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda. Groups
Everyone in the room was talking: agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force compared notes with Homeland Security agents, NSA tap-danced with the National Intelligence Agency. Nicholas didn’t recognize many of the agents, but he knew they represented an alphabet soup of agencies, all wanting to be part of this team, jockeying for who would be named lead agency and run the show.
An NSA agent raised his head, saw Nicholas and whistled, then clapped his hands. “Hey, Drummond, we already applauded Wharton, now it’s your turn. Well done.”
All the agents at the table clapped, but not that loudly, particularly those with other agencies. Nicholas grinned.
Zachery said, “Gray and Nicholas saved the oil companies’ bacon. In addition, let me add that both he and Mike were in the middle of the explosion at the Bayway Refinery last night. They saved lives.”
The claps were louder this time. This was something they all understood.
“A moment, people,” Zachery said, and waved Mike and Nicholas to the hall.
He took them to his office, only a few doors down the hall.
“I have a job for you. No, no briefing, it isn’t necessary. We may have another line on COE.” He handed them a file. “There was a fire last night in Brooklyn. A body was found inside the building once the place had cooled down enough to check. NYPD is assuming it’s the body of the owner; they’re running DNA and dental records to be sure. The ME called, said the dead man had been shot in the chest. Thing is, a witness has an interesting story to tell about some people she claims were staying there.
“I want you two to go to Brooklyn and talk to her, take a look around the place. See what you can turn over.”
He looked at their faces. “No, Mike, Nicholas, you’re not going to Bayway for evidence recovery. I’ve already sent Jernigan and a team out to work with the fire department and the bomb squad to determine the point of origin.”
“But the tapes, sir,” Mike said. “Really, it’s possible to do facial recognition on a partial face of a woman who appears in all three of them.”
Zachery held up his hand. “I’ve got a feeling about this fire and the murdered man in Brooklyn.” He waved toward the conference room. “I need you more in Brooklyn than in there. Go, find out what this all means.”
Mike knew Zachery hadn’t become the head of the Criminal Investigative Division in the New York Field Office because he was a good politician, which he was, a bonus. No, he was sharp, had been one of the most skilled field agents in the FBI. He knew his stuff. Mike had learned to trust his instincts.
Zachery saw Nicholas was about to argue and sighed.
“Listen, this isn’t a throwaway assignment. I’m not looking to get rid of you to cut down on the distraction because of what the two of you did last night. No, this is for real. I know in my gut this is something important.”
Nicholas nodded. “We’re on our way, sir. We’ll call in with anything we find.”
“Good. Now make yourselves scarce before people start asking questions. And Agent Caine, do try to keep Agent Drummond out of trouble.”
Mike went back to her desk, gathered her bag, unlocked her weapon. Nicholas was next to her, doing the same thing.
“A moment, Nicholas,” Mike said, and waved down Agent Ben Houston.
“Hey, Ben, I need you to run some film footage for me.”
“Sure, Mike. What do you need?”
“The video feed from the Bayway cameras shows a woman in a baseball cap. In one she’s looking at the camera. Can you upload her into the NGA database, see if we get a hit?”
“I’ll let you know the minute I’ve got something.”
“Thanks, Ben. We’ll be on the radio if you need us.”
In the elevator, Nicholas said, “What else is on the to-do list?”
“A big-time examination of the video feeds, the bomb analysis, and figuring out who killed our agents and Mr. Hodges.”
“Yet Zachery wants us in Brooklyn to interview a witness.”
Mike pulled her hair out of the ponytail holder, shook it out. It was giving her a headache. “If Zachery thinks there’s something here, I’ll bet my best biker boots there is.”
Ten minutes later they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and Mike began winding the Crown Vic through the Brooklyn neighborhoods. When her GPS sang out, she stopped at the curb in front of a Laundromat sandwiched between a Chinese takeout and a small bodega.
Nicholas asked, “And the name of this tremendously critical witness is?”
“Mrs. Vida Antonio. She owns this Laundromat. Oh, yes, before I forget, you didn’t mention Adam Pearce’s assignment to Zachery, did you?”
Nicholas grinned at her. “When Adam finds a line into COE, we’ll take it to Zachery immediately. If he doesn’t, as you say, no harm, no foul.”
As they climbed out of the Crown Vic, Mike looked him up and down. “Nicholas, I think you should Brit it up for our laundress. That posh accent of yours plus your French cuffs might make Mrs. Antonio talk more.”
“If she has anything to say,” he said, without much hope.
“Have some faith,” Mike said, and punched his arm.
28
QUEEN TO B6
George Washington University Hospital
Washington, D.C.
Vanessa felt weightless, as if she were rising, rising into whiteness, soft, like clouds, barely touching them, passing through. She felt no pain, no discomfort at all. She was dying. Or she was already dead and this was her introduction to Heaven. Her brain turned on at the slow insistent beep beside her head. What was it? Why wouldn’t it stop? She suddenly felt her breath, in and out, in and out, copying the rhythm of the beep. But where was she? She felt a sudden lick of pain, then another, more like a tsunami this time, deep and hard. Her ribs were grinding with each breath.
No, this sure wasn’t Heaven, and since it wasn’t, then that meant Hell. No, not Hell, either. The pain meant she was alive and she was in the hospital, not sprawled on the asphalt while the building burned around her.
“Nessa, you’re awake? Yes, I see your eyelids moving. It’s about time. Listen, listen, you’re okay, you’re safe, sweetheart. Come on, Nessa, show me your beautiful eyes.”
The voice was familiar, though she couldn’t place it.
She forced her eyes open. The room was swimming, as though she were underwater, and wasn’t that strange? She managed to turn her head toward the voice. There was a man sitting next to her bed. Bald, for the most part, where he used to be blond. Blue eyes behind thick glasses. A funny-looking mustache. Slumped shoulders. Pale skin. Brown slacks, white shirt.
“Uncle Carl,” she whispered, and saying that one word nearly hurled her into so much pain she didn’t want to breathe anymore. He was holding her hand. Now he rose and bent over her.
“It’s going to be all right, Nessa, I’m here. You’re going to be okay, you’re going to be fine. You gave us quite a scare.”
“How did you find me?”
“Someone called in on your phone, several times in a row. We knew something was wrong immediately, sent a team into the GPS coordinates it broadcasted for an emergency extraction. Thank God in Heaven we did. You were shot in the chest, fell off the roof of a burning building, and thankfully survived the fall. We medevaced you to D.C. when you were stable. I didn’t want to leave you anywhere near the scene, for your safety. What happened? Clearly someone found the phone, but how?”
It was so hard to talk. She managed to whisper. “Long story. Matthew heard your text come in. He shot me. He shot Ian, too.”
Carl’s heart stopped. He’d gotten his only niece shot, nearly gotten her killed. “Here, take a little water, it might help.”
She tried to suck on the straw. “It hurts. Really bad.”
“I know. You ha
He did. While they waited until the world grew hazy again and the pain pulled away, he said, “The NYPD found Ian’s body. Thankfully, the bullet missed your heart by a fraction.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “You were so lucky, Nessa, so very lucky. Is the pain better now?”
“Yes, I know it’s there, but it’s sort of standing across the room. Waiting.”
He smiled at her and began to stroke her hand. “You’ve had surgery. It was very long and I was so scared.” He paused, getting himself together. “Your blood pressure, well, it’s still a worry. Do you remember falling off the roof?”
She tried to remember, but it wouldn’t come.
“It’s all right, don’t worry about it. The fall broke a few bones. Your left tibia had a clean crack, but your femur and ulna on the right arm will need surgery when you’ve stabilized, probably a few screws and pins. Okay, I can see the morphine is taking you back to dreamland. Let it all go now, Nessa, let it all go. You can tell me the rest of it later. Sleep, sweetheart, sleep now.”
She thought she heard him say she wasn’t going to die like her father had when he’d been undercover during the height of the Troubles in Belfast.
She whispered, “My cover is gone, and that means—”
Her uncle put a finger over her lips and shook his head. “Not now, don’t worry about it.”
She let her eyes close again and let the morphine take her back to float in the white clouds. She was warm, she was safe, and best of all, her uncle was here and he’d protect her. She felt him squeeze her hand. As she floated away, she thought things could be worse.
But then it hit her, she had to tell him, had to—her eyes opened. “Uncle Carl, they’re going to assassinate someone, someone big.”
The machines beeped faster, insistently now.
He smoothed her hair off her forehead. “Calm down, Nessa. We’re going to stop them. We’re on their trail already. Now I want you to get some rest.”
“No, no, there’s going to be another attack—and an assassination, someone important—” She was gasping for breath, fighting to stay awake.