Betrayal (21 page)

Wiley felt an unwelcome sense of pride as he noted Stuart’s reaction. “I’m not sure whether Ayden himself is the mastermind or he too is being used. It would not be unusual for terrorist recruiters to keep an eye on Americans in their midst, looking for opportunities to leverage. If such a person were monitoring Ayden’s financial situation, he would have pounced. In either case, whether Ayden is master or pawn, we could probably benefit from cooperation.”

Wiley could see the gears whirring behind Stuart’s dark eyes. He was doing what he did best—figuring out the most productive way to use a man.

“Where is Ayden now?” Stuart asked.

“Since his passport is here, I assume that he is still in Iran …” Wiley trailed off the end of his sentence.
 

Light dawned in Stuart’s eyes. “You want me to find him, don’t you? You want to find him and recruit him to our cause. Give him some spiel about differing ends requiring common means.”

Wiley shook his head and smiled inside. It felt wonderful to be in strategic control. “Not exactly. I want you to find Ayden and feel him out. If he is everything that we suspect he is, tell him that the Director of the FBI would like to meet with him. Keep it general. Just tell him that I’m interested in working with him to achieve mutual goals.”

Chapter 33

Alexandria, Virginia

“F
ORGIVE
ME
F
ATHER
for I have sinned. This is my first confession,” Cassi spoke into the grate. After the first remark, she expected to have to explain that by faith she was Presbyterian. But the priest just said, “Go ahead,” and she concluded that she was not the first non-Catholic to seek holy release.

“I don’t really know how this works.”

“Why don’t you just tell me what brought you here.”

“I saw you preach once. I was here with a boyfriend. He didn’t stick with me, but the wisdom of your sermon did, that and the kind crinkles around your eyes.”

“I see. Well, what I meant to ask was, what have you done? What do you need to confess to our Lord and Savior?”
 

Cassi felt her face redden and was glad to be sitting in the dark. She sat back and faced the door. “It’s not so much what I’ve done, as what I fear I’ll have to do.”

“I see,” the priest replied. “The confessional is not really the place for counseling. I would be happy to sit down with you for that purpose in my office.”

“Thank you, Father. That’s a kind offer. But I need the sanctity of the confessional.”

Cassi heard rustling sounds coming through the grate. She was making the priest uncomfortable. She began to have second thoughts about coming here. Part of her wanted to flee, but she had nowhere to run. And she had to get this out.

Finally the priest said, “Go on.”

Cassi had spent the last eighteen hours in agony, torn between two masters. She quickly determined that she could not share her shocking discoveries with anybody. She would never forgive herself if Odi got killed because she made a call. At the same time, the decision she now faced was too momentous for her to make alone. Around two A.M. she had been struck by the brilliant insight to consult a priest. The very thought of unburdening her soul to a wise man with whom she could speak with impunity had made her feel better and gotten her through the night. But now that she was in the confessional, she did not know what to say. Not so brilliant.

“You may proceed,” the priest prompted.

As she tried to formulate her opening words, Cassi realized that describing her situation in a roundabout way was not going to be so easy. She could hardly tell the priest that she thought her twin brother was assassinating people, even though he was legally dead. The priest would be morally obliged to call either an asylum or the police.

The priest rustled some more. She concluded that what it all boiled down to was this: Someone was either going to slap the cuffs on Odi, or pull a trigger. As painful as that moment would be, and even though it would give her nightmares for the rest of her life, Cassi was damned if she was going to let it be anyone but her. At last she spoke. “I may have to betray someone I love, harm him ... severely.”

“Can you tell me more?” The priest asked.

“I don’t know how much more I can say.”

“I’m here to save souls, not to judge,”

“I’m conflicted by clashing loyalties. I would do anything, anything to help this person, but he has done ... he is doing something terribly wrong. And it’s my duty, both contractual and moral, to stop him.”

“In other words, you feel that you have to betray either this person, or yourself, and you want to know what Jesus would do.”

“Exactly.” Cassi said.

“Are you sure there’s no way to be faithful to both?”

“I fear not.”

“I see ... Then my advice to you is simply this: Whatever you do, do for love. Vengeance, my dear, is the Lord’s.”

Chapter 34

Chesapeake Beach, Maryland

O
DI
WAS
HUNKERED
down at Charlotte’s cottage, again planning his fifth and final hit. “Fifth and final hit,” he said out loud, his feet up on the computer desk, a cup of strong coffee in one hand and a notebook in the other. “Commander Potchak, Mark Drake, Mark Rollins, Mark Abrams, and soon … Wiley Proffitt.” His words came out as a yawn. He emptied his hands and rubbed his eyes.

He considered the list an honor roll, but it was easy to picture a prosecutor reading the names as a list of charges. That thought was undoubtedly torturing Cassi at this very moment. Odi wanted desperately to call her to explain everything and relieve her misery, but he could not permit himself that luxury. Just the sound of her voice might make him weak. He needed to be strong, he reminded himself. For just a few days more he needed to be strong.

Odi knew that security made Wiley an even harder target than Abrams, but he was undaunted. By sinking so low as to deploy his own sister against him, Wiley had Odi doubly committed. Given that they were on to him, however, he had decided to break the pattern. He would not be using slight-of-hand or remote bombs. Before he sent Wiley Proffitt to meet his maker, the two of them were going to have a long talk—man-to-man, tête-à-tête.

He stood, turned up the volume on the TV, and walked out onto the porch. There, beneath whitewashed rafters and a rusting ceiling fan, he paced in the cool sea air with one ear tuned to the news and the other to the sea.
 

He was expecting word of Abrams’ assassination to break any minute, and the waiting was driving him nuts. He hated to have an operation so completely out of his control. Yet it wasn’t relinquishing the operation that flustered him now. The fact that he had left a dose of Creamer at a dead drop for Ayden’s friend was what had his nerves tied in knots. Some anonymous woman now had two ounces worth of his secret explosive, the same amount he had used on Potchak and Drake. The quantity was perfect if you wanted the deterring effect of dramatic, blood-drenching, bone-scattering explosions. But it was much more than you needed simply to kill a man. Half a cc might not completely disembowel a person like a swallowed hand grenade, but it would certainly puree his internal organs and achieve an equally lethal result.
 

Pacing the porch, Odi worried that Ayden’s contact might figure that out and cut the dose like a cocaine dealer. It pained him to think what such a person would then do with the remainder of the dose. In the best case she would use it to kill just one other person. If she was more entrepreneurial, she might take it to a lab. Then the world would never be the same. Once released, a secret like Creamer could never be put back in the bag. It was Pandora’s Box. The thought made Odi shiver.

He had taken measures to prevent exactly that. He had stressed to Ayden that Creamer became inert after twelve hours. Twelve hours did not leave enough time for a lab. Furthermore, to keep her from breaking up the dose, he had explained that the victim had to drink the full two-ounce dose because the reaction required a critical mass. Odi figured that his bluff sounded credible enough to pass muster with both laymen and chemists alike—but he could not be sure.

With those two bases covered, there was still the possibility that Ayden’s friend would take the Creamer and run, planning to use it on an ex-lover or boss. But Odi reasoned that his contingencies could only go so far. At some point he had to trust the judgment of his new friend. Odi did trust Ayden. He would feel the pain in more ways than one if Abrams was not killed tonight.

He continued pacing the balcony while repeating, “Come on” to the news. After a few minutes Odi realized that he was timing his laps to coincide with the nearby warning buoy, doing exactly one length between each bong. His conformity reminded him of a scene from the movie
Dead Poets’ Society
. It was odd, he thought—that innate urge to conform. He altered his pace.

Despite all his worries, Odi liked it out there on the porch. He decided that if he lived through this and kept out of jail, he would take a long vacation and come back to do some reading and make some repairs—assuming that the cottage was still standing. He had installed a sophisticated booby-trap to deal definitively with intruders. He armed it each time he left on a mission. He had enough on his mind without the added worry of returning home to a trap or leaving damning evidence behind. He did feel badly about endangering Charlotte’s cottage, but as with the Creamer, there was only so much he could do. Perhaps that was why he wanted to return on vacation and fix the place up. It would be a karma-balancing act. He figured—

“This just in,” the news anchor announced. Odi turned to see the red Breaking News banner filling the bottom of the screen. He ducked through the open window without taking his eyes off the TV. “While the details are still foggy, we have just learned that an explosion in an exclusive Annapolis suburb claimed two lives this evening. We take you live to the scene where Bob Kenny is standing by.

“Bob.” The image cut to a man broadcasting from atop a news van parked near the lofty iron gate of an enormous estate. Red and white lights were spinning across the stone edifice of a mansion at the distant end of a long drive. Odi recognized it immediately as Abrams’. “Thank you Rita. Mark Ezekiel Abrams III, the billionaire CEO of ASIS whose Annapolis estate you see behind me, was killed here moments ago by an explosion in his bedroom. The police have yet to issue a statement, but sources say that he was in the company of a young woman whose identity is not yet known. While the possibility of an accident has not been ruled out, as our regular viewers will know, Mark Abrams is the third defense CEO to die a fiery death this month, so the authorities are approaching this as a double homicide. We go now to—”
 

Odi felt his stomach drop and his knees began to shake.
In the company of a young woman
. “Cassi! Oh God, no.” He pulled the throw-away phone from his pocket, and dialed Cassi’s mobile number with a trembling hand.

Chapter 35

Washington, D.C.

W
ILEY
LOOKED
IMPATIENTLY
at his Patek Philippe and cursed under his breath before downing his last sip of Dalwhinnie 1981. He felt tense enough without being kept waiting on pins and needles. He caught movement in the corner of his eye and turned his head, pleased to have finally caught one of Stuart’s approaches. Disappointment struck. It was just one of the Horus Club’s observant waiters. Wiley nodded—yes, he’d like a refill—and returned his gaze to the fire.