BAD DEEDS: A Dylan Hunter Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers) (12 page)

His expression softened, as did his voice.

“You see why we can’t go to the cops. Which is why I have to deal with this myself.”

“I can see why we can’t go to the cops,” she said slowly. “But that doesn’t mean you have to go after them.”

“What are you talking about? Are you suggesting that I just let these sons of bitches get away with this?”

She knew she had to be careful now. She reached out and took his hands. Entwined her fingers through his.

“Darling. Listen to me. You know how I’ve been since … since Christmas.” She hesitated, then pushed on. “You know the trouble I’m having, dealing with that. With what we went through. You know how hard it’s been. I can’t have any more of that in my life. The thought of you involved in that kind of violence. I just can’t. I can’t be waiting at home, knowing that you’re out somewhere risking your life, dealing with—” She shook her head. “With the kind of people that would do things like this.”

“But that’s exactly my point! You’re asking me to allow animals like these to remain on the loose?”

“Listen to me. Listen to me, Dylan. Yes, we came close to dying tonight. But we didn’t. We’re alive, and we’re lucky that we’re alive. Because we still have a future. I want a future for us. A future for us, Dylan. So yes, I’m asking—I’m
pleading
with you: Please let this go. For
us.
Because … because if you don’t, I know I won’t be able to handle it. And … and I know I won’t be able to stay with you.”

She saw in his eyes the battle being waged between the combatants of indignation, pain, and love. She felt his fingers squeezing hers, so hard that they hurt her. But she didn’t dare say anything, didn’t dare take her eyes away from his. She knew that their future rested in the outcome of the battle in his eyes. And she knew that he knew it, too.

She felt his fingers slowly relax. Watched the storm of conflict in his eyes slowly clear. Watched the indignation slowly fade—and the love remain. The love, touched only by a residual hint of the pain.

“I’ll never forgive myself if whoever did this ever harms another soul,” he said, his voice low. Then he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. “But I’ll never forgive myself if I do anything to hurt you. Or to lose you, Annie Woods.”

She felt her chin trembling. She tried and failed to stop the flow of tears as he took her into his arms.

After a while he kissed her.

“You’d better get back over there and keep an eye on the perimeter,” he said. “I think there are just a few things left in the bathroom. And I have to cover that broken window to keep the critters and snow out. After that, we’ll be on our way and find a motel somewhere down the road.”

“Okay, but hurry up. Luna must be freezing again in the car.”

She returned to her station at the door.

“Hell-o,” he said almost immediately.

She turned. He was standing at the entrance to the bathroom with a white towel in his hands. He opened and spread it. She saw red stains on it.

“This was on the floor,” he explained. “I think one of our visitors cut himself. Probably on the window glass when he came in.” He looked at the towel for a moment, then back at her. A slow smile grew on his lips. “Now we have the perp’s DNA sample. I seem to recall that you’re familiar with DNA samples—aren’t you, Annie Woods?”

She laughed. “Yes, I guess I do know a little about those. So maybe that will help the cops—” She caught herself again. “Right, we can’t go to the police. But I bet Grant can use his law enforcement contacts to do that for us.”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking. It’s a long shot that they’d have any record of this guy—I’m assuming it’s a man, not a woman. But still, this might come in handy someday.” He considered it for a moment. “You know, I’ve had a funny feeling about the leader of that gang. He’s a very strange dude. But now because he was arrested, we’ll be able to find out his last name. Wouldn’t it be interesting if this DNA sample matched up with his?”

“You mean that ‘Zak’ guy.”

“Yes,” Dylan said. “That ‘Zak’ guy.”

Avery Trammel stood at the curving gray-tinted window and looked down upon the city of Washington.

Jaded as he was, it still reaffirmed his sense of personal power to see the city from a commanding height. And here—from the thirty-first floor of this glass-walled office tower on the bank of the Potomac in Arlington—one sweeping glance could take in, simultaneously, all the iconic structures that symbolized American government.

They were laid out in the approximate shape of the Christians’ cross. At its head, nearest him on the opposite river bank, the stately Lincoln Memorial. The Jefferson Memorial at the right; the White House at the left; the Capitol dome gleaming in the far distance, representing the foot of the cross. And at the center, at its heart, the Washington Monument, a defiant spear against the gray winter sky.

Even in his sixties, Trammel’s eyes were sharp as those of a bird of prey: They could discern mid-week tourists moving like tiny colored bugs at the base of the obelisk that this country had erected to honor its founder and father.

Turning slightly to his right, those sharp eyes settled on the Pentagon.

The sight of it transported him back to that night in the fall of 1971, when he sat in grim silence with two others in a dark, roach-infested apartment in Takoma Park, just a few miles northeast of here … sat there, waiting for the phone call that never came. The phone call was to signal them that they were cleared to begin their phase of yet another assault on the Pentagon. Out in their driveway sat the VW Beetle that would transport the bombs, soon to be delivered to them by the cell in New York.

But hours earlier, a paid FBI informant betrayed the cell. And when the call didn’t come at the prearranged hour, the trio was forced to scatter back into the underground.

Trammel still felt a tiny pang of anger, rising across the span of almost forty years …

His reverie was interrupted by voices behind him. He turned to see a group entering the sleek, modern conference room. At the center of the pack, turning to his companions like the hub of a wheel, strode Ashton Conn.

Their eyes met, and they both nodded. But as a symbol of their respective power in this city, he remained at the window, waiting for the United States senator to come to him.

“Avery!” the man sang out, angling past the conference table, his right hand outthrust. “It’s been so long!”

He endured the politician’s pumping handshake and too-familiar grip on his shoulder. Conn’s smile was broad, like his face and his waist. Though he was in his mid-forties, not a single strand of gray intruded upon the bronze sweep of his thick, straight hair—a tribute to the meticulous craftsmanship of the Capitol’s stylists. But drink and worse had transformed his face, once lean and tanned and handsome, into something fleshy and ruddy and dissolute. Folds of puffy flesh hid the color of his eyes behind narrow slits; only memory informed Trammel that they were an intense blue.

Still, he thought, Conn looks like he belongs in this town of power and prestige—standing here flashing the perfect teeth, the impressive Cartier Santos watch, the obligatory oval Harvard Law School ring, and the well-tailored Armani suit at least half as expensive as his own. He wondered: Does Conn belong
in
this town or
to
it?

“Ashton, how is Emmalee?” he asked.

“Great, just great. And Julia?”

“Still fielding the occasional screenplay, looking for the right role. Sadly, good ones seldom come along anymore for women over fifty.”

“Fifty? Good God, Avery! She looks a decade younger … Oh, I see Damon over there looking impatient to get underway. We had better grab seats.” He lowered his voice. “Let’s chat a moment after the meeting, shall we?”

They joined the others taking positions in the black, soft-leather swivel chairs surrounding the cherry conference table. A slick green folder embossed in gold with the company logo was centered on the table before each of them. Trammel recognized most of the others, but before they could launch into their own greetings, the man at the head of the table spoke.

“I wish to thank all of you for attending this special meeting at our request,” he began. “For those of you who don’t know, I’m your host, Damon Sloan, CEO of CarboNot Industries.” Sloan was very tall and bony, with a long, horse-like face. His suit, hair, and eyes were all the color of cold steel.

“I know some of you have come from distances, and I appreciate the courtesy of your presence on such short notice. Let’s begin by going around the table and introducing ourselves.” He took his own seat and nodded to the portly, balding man seated on his left.

“Hal Judd, president, Zephyr Energy.”

“Robin Manes, vice-president, GreenSmart Investments.” She was a too-thin, too-tanned woman who dressed too young.

“Gavin Lockwood, executive director, Nature Legal Advocacy,” said a tall, boyish-looking man in his fifties with premature white hair and wire-rimmed glasses.

A burly, beetle-browed man was next. “Chip Crane, deputy administrator, EPA.”

“Lucas Carver, executive director, Vox Populi Communications.” The fiftyish, gray-haired man turned to Trammel and smiled. The smile didn’t reach his pale blue eyes, but then again, his smiles never did. Trammel nodded slightly in acknowledgment. They had worked together before, many times, and of all the people at this table, they understood each other best and had the most in common. They even had friendly nicknames for each other: Carver called him “Geppetto,” while he referred to Carver as “Maestro.”

“Avery Trammel, private investor.”

“Ashton Conn, United States senator from Pennyslvania.”

“Thank you so much for attending, Senator,” Sloan interjected, then nodded at the bald, bespectacled man seated beside Conn.

“Stu Kaplan. I’m the senator’s chief of staff.” Behind rimless glasses Kaplan had eyes that reminded Trammel of a barracuda he’d once caught in Florida.

“Thank you, all. I know you are busy people, so I aim to keep this meeting brief. Let me get right to the point. Before each of you is a copy of the material I sent you last Thursday. I am sure that by now you are familiar with the contents. The report outlines the difficult situation in which CarboNot now finds itself. For those among you who are investors”—his eyes moved around the room, discreetly failing to pause on anyone in particular—“it delivers unsettling financial news. For those of you in the environmental community or on the Hill, this same news may cause political problems. Our purpose today is to brainstorm informally about how we move forward in the light of these circumstances. Would anyone wish to offer preliminary comments?”

Hal Judd leaned forward. “As I understand it, CarboNot has blown through the entire capital put up by the investors
and
the loan guarantees from the Energy Department—is that correct?”

Sloan’s chilly expression became even frostier. “‘Blown through’ suggests irresponsibility. I can assure all of you that such is
not
the case. The situation is simple: European governments have canceled almost all their contracts for CarboNot’s wind-farm construction projects. They claim that their existing green energy programs are failing to prove cost-effective. Because of the recession, they have cut back on subsidies to alternative energy projects and are reverting to importing cheaper fossil fuels. And that, in turn, has left CarboNot in an unexpected cash-flow crisis.”

“Which means that
my
company, which produces your wind turbines, hasn’t gotten paid lately,” Judd continued. “I wonder if you understand what kind of position this puts me in, Damon.”

Before Sloan could respond, Robin Manes jumped in.

“Damon, I appreciate your company’s circumstances, but this has put GreenSmart in a difficult position, too. We’ve been bullish on CarboNot from the outset, and we’ve steered tens of millions in private investment your way.” She paused; her tongue darted across her lips. “In fact, some of our firm’s partners, myself included, have substantial positions in CarboNot. We pride ourselves on putting our money where our principles are. But under these circumstances, how can we continue to recommend CarboNot to our investors? And if
our
firm pulls back, the bottom could fall out of your stock price. That would leave a lot of our clients, including some seated at this table, losing substantial sums. Very substantial sums.” She licked her lips again, tapping the folder. “But now that we have
this
information, my partners and I can’t exactly pull back from our
own
portfolio positions without risking an ‘insider trading’ investigation down the road. So we’re stuck.”

As she spoke, Trammel watched the faces of the others. Few were public about their investments; in this town, it was best to keep such information close to the vest. But he noticed that Gavin Lockwood looked at his hands and fidgeted, while Ashton Conn maintained a stiff, blank expression. He wondered how much they had sunk personally into CarboNot. He had put in plenty himself—though with his billions, he could afford to lose mere millions without great worry. The potential failure of CarboNot troubled him for other reasons, however.

Sloan said, “In fairness, Robin, this problem is not unique to our company. Most domestic alternative-energy companies are in trouble, too—mainly because of the fracking boom.”

“That is the main problem, right there,” Conn interjected, slapping his hand down on the table top. “All that cheap natural gas is sucking the wind right out of those turbines of yours, Damon.” He turned to the man from the EPA. “Chip, what are your people doing about that? Could you give us an update?”

“Sure,” he replied, rocking back in his chair. “We’ve been doing a lot—much of it behind the scenes. As you know, we’ve been concentrating our efforts in your state, up in the Allegheny National Forest. It sits right atop the Marcellus Shale Formation, which crosses several states and contains some of the biggest natural gas reserves in the nation. So, we figure that if we can win some big test cases up there, we have the potential to shut down the entire goddamned fracking industry.” He looked around, saw their expressions. “No, I mean it.” He leaned forward again, lowering his voice. “I’m going to assume that what I’m about to say stays off-the-record, right?” He paused. “Okay, good.”