Girl of Vengeance (8 page)

His phone rang. Richard almost pressed the ignore button, because he recognized the number. It was Joseph Bergmann, the senior staffer of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Bergmann had been a thorn in his side for weeks as he’d prepared for his confirmation hearings—hearings that had been scheduled to proceed in the morning, but were now pointless. But the fact was, this scandal wouldn’t last. He’d be cleared soon enough, and then hopefully he’d be able to move on with minimal damage to his career.

“Richard Thompson speaking,” he said, answering the phone.

“Ambassador Thompson, this is Joseph Bergmann.”

Ambassador
Thompson, not
Secretary
Thompson. Clearly Bergmann had gotten the word already.

“I suppose you’ve heard the President is rescinding the nomination?” Richard asked.

“I have, I’m sorry to hear that, Ambassador. Please allow me to offer my condolences. I’m sure when all this is sorted out you’ll be back on top again.”

“Thank you, Joseph,” Richard replied in a dismissive tone. He didn’t need sympathy from a mere Senate staffer. “If there’s nothing more, I’ll—”

“Actually, Ambassador, I was just calling to verify that you’d gotten word the hearing is being moved to the Central Hearing Facility in the Hart building because of the increased interest from the public and media.”

“Excuse me?” Richard said. “
What
hearing? Why would you hold confirmation hearings when my nomination has been withdrawn? Get it together, man.”

Bergmann’s tone went cold. “There’s no need to be rude, Ambassador. In fact, Senator Rainsley insisted on going forward with hearings into your conduct at the Central Intelligence Agency, and specifically events in Badakhshan, Afghanistan in 1983.”

For the first time in years, Richard was rendered speechless. He sat in the seat, phone at his ear, unable to speak, unable to think of what to say.
Your conduct at the Central Intelligence Agency?
He’d never been officially associated with the Agency except in the very early 1970s. Some people in the government were aware of his role at the Agency and the State Department, but they were few indeed.

Chuck Rainsley, the bastard who had seduced his wife, was one of those people.

Bile flooded through Richard Thompson. He wanted to hurt someone very badly.
No one
took what belonged to him. And Chuck Rainsley had been undermining Richard’s marriage and his career for more than thirty years.

“Ambassador? Are you still there?”

Richard shook his head, suddenly aware that Bergmann was still on the line. “Of course I’m here. And I have no intention of showing up for your fishing expedition. As it stands, I’m no longer a part of this government.”

“Ambassador, I wouldn’t recommend that. When you get back to Fort Myers, you’ll find a subpoena waiting. Senator Rainsley is in a rare mood, and I suspect if you fail to appear you’ll be cited with contempt of Congress.”

Richard closed his eyes. He responded in as calm a demeanor as possible. “Fine, then, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Bergmann hung up without further comment. Richard thought through the appalling events of the last few days. Andrea kidnapped—most likely by thugs working for Leslie Collins. That inept son of a bitch was doing everything he could to undermine Richard and prevent him from becoming Secretary of Defense. But he wasn’t the worst of it. His wife—his
stupid bitch of a wife—
had made an international laughing stock of him.
No one
asked for political asylum
from
the United States. People came here to be free. They didn’t run away. Yet that whore had dragged their daughter across the border and asked for
political asylum.

It was all over the networks. The Secretary of Defense’s wife flees, claiming he’s trying to murder her. The Monday morning
Washington Post
had his and Adelina’s photo on the front page. The headline read, “Embattled Secretary of Defense nominee’s wife flees country claiming abuse.”

He wanted to put his hands around her neck and watch her slowly turn blue. He wanted to watch her eyes bulge. He wanted to feel her terror. He
hadn’t
been trying to kill her, but that said absolutely nothing for her future. And her stupid brother Luis should start counting his days. He’d
warned her
. For thirty years he’d warned her.

And not just her. Chuck Rainsley. He remembered how he’d shown up at their condo back in 1984, self-absorbed and fancy in his Marine Corps uniform, all smiles and loud exhortations of his own heroism. As if getting all your men killed made you a hero.

He knew what to do. He took his phone back out and dialed. Moments later, the phone was answered.

“Richard!” The cultured, rich voice of Prince Roshan al Saud was friendly.

“Roshan, how are you? I understand you are in the United States?”

“Only for a few more days. I intended to ask you to dinner, but I know you’ve had a great number of challenges in the last few days.”

Richard waved a hand. “It’s quite all right. However, I’d like to meet for a bit if you have time.”

“Are you free this morning? I’m just leaving a meeting at the Embassy, I’ll be back home in twenty minutes.”

“That’s perfect.”

He leaned forward and said, “Driver, change of plans. We’re going to Langley, Virginia.”

Twenty minutes later, the car pulled into Prince Roshan’s palatial Virginia home. He waited for the driver to come around and open the door, then got out of the car, carrying his briefcase.

Roshan met him at the door. He wore a conservative looking grey suit and red tie, with a pin representing the Saudi flag pinned to his lapel. It bizarrely reflected the de rigueur Washington uniform since September 11
^th
, 2001, which required men in any government role to wear an American flag, as if that somehow proved their loyalty. Roshan’s greying hair and beard served to highlight his dark skin. His fat, puffy body, with rounded cheeks and a prodigious belly, was a caricature of his former self.

Richard weighed no more than he had when the two men met in 1983, and he took Roshan’s weight gain as a lack of self-discipline.

Of course, that wasn’t the only sign of a lack of discipline. The endless parade of call girls was another, as was Roshan’s DUI two years ago. Roshan had been behind the wheel, careening through downtown drunk when he drove his Maserati through the front windows of an old townhouse on 16
^th
Street. The State Department had to go to considerable effort and expense to cover the incident up, and to bribe both the appropriate officials and the elderly widow who owned the house.

However, right now, Roshan looked fine, besides the bloodshot eyes. “How are you, Richard?”

“Good, good!” The two shook hands, then Roshan took his shoulders and grinned. “Come in, please.”

Moments later, Roshan served Richard a gin and tonic without asking what he preferred, pouring the gin from a bottle of Hendricks. Richard sipped. Roshan had made the drink stiff.

“I hear things are rough for you, my friend,” Roshan said in a sober voice.

Richard nodded. “A little, but not as bad as it appears. May I be frank?”

Roshan nodded.

“Leslie Collins is behind much of it. The financial stuff, the accounts in the Caymans? That’s all his work. No one else it could possibly be.”

Roshan leaned forward and said, “We have several mutual problems. Collins is one, I agree. He’s a loose cannon. But that’s not all. You saw the report in
The Guardian?
It’s everywhere now. And you’ve been named in it, along with Prince George-Phillip. You understand how wrong this could go. I’d expect your Congress to announce an investigation within a week.”

Richard grimaced. “Already happened. And I bet you can guess who is behind it.”

Roshan rested an index finger against his cheek. “Rainsley?”

Richard nodded. “He wasn’t satisfied with fucking my wife. Now he wants to destroy me. But I’m not going to let that happen.”

“What will you do to prevent it?”

Richard took a sip of his drink. He loved Hendricks gin. In a dry voice, he alluded to his thoughts. “Roshan, you and I both know that we did everything we could to keep Collins under control in Afghanistan. I was as appalled as anybody that he would commit the crimes he did there.”

“Yes, Richard,” Roshan said in as unnatural a tone as Richard had ever heard. “We both felt that way. But how can we prove it?”

“Believe it or not, Collins received an official reprimand. It was classified, of course. But it’s not beyond belief that it would be leaked now, given the circumstances. Possibly to the special prosecutor, which might divert them from me.”

Roshan chuckled. “I’m not surprised you kept some insurance around Collins, Richard. It makes me wonder what you have on me.”

Richard smiled. “I
trust
you, Roshan.”

Roshan nodded. Richard knew Roshan didn’t believe his polite lie.

“All right, Richard. I will help take care of our mutual friend. You concern yourself with Rainsley and make sure that document gets leaked to the right people.”

The death metal blasting out of the speakers of Marky Lovecchio’s 2014 Dodge Challenger was loud enough that the rearview mirror vibrated with every thump of the bass drum. He liked the music. It drove out the ugly thoughts, and Marky had plenty of ugly thoughts, whether it was memories of his first enlistment (Somalia) or his last (the Sunni triangle), whether it was his failed marriage or the accountant who had seduced his wife while he was in Iraq. Sometimes his ugly thoughts were of prison, where he’d ended up after he beat said accountant within an inch of his life, then threatened to shoot his wife in the face. It had been ugly there for a few minutes, the standoff with the police, but he finally dropped his weapon. Suicide by cop wasn’t his style.

Three years later he’d gotten out. He couldn’t go back in the military, not with a felony conviction, but that didn’t stop a career with a private military contractor, which paid better anyway. Lately he’d been taking on jobs for the mysterious Oz, an Irish gentleman (possibly) who had been keeping Marky busy for more than a year with jobs big and small, some interesting and some not so much.

The latest job was a problem. He’d been ordered to track down a woman and her daughter. It should have been simple. The woman’s house in San Francisco was bombed (he didn’t know by who) and it turned out she was pretty smart, disappearing off the face of the earth. Lovecchio had drifted south out of San Francisco, showing pictures everywhere he could, until this morning, when he saw the woman’s picture on the front page of the paper. She’d gotten away, making it across the border into Canada.

That was a problem, but not as big as the next problem. When they ran across the border, Nick Larsden had been in pursuit, and fired shots across the border after them, which was a big no-no as far as cops on both sides of the international border were concerned. Then Nick had the bad grace to get caught.

He and Nick had gone through basic training together, way back in 1994, and when Nick had told Marky he was looking for work, Marky hooked him up with Oz.

Big mistake. Now Marky was waiting for a phone call, and he had a pretty good idea what that call was going to involve.

For now, he sat in his car along an overlook, watching the ocean far below. He loved the Pacific Ocean. But not as much as he loved getting into the shit. Somewhere along the way in Iraq, he’d gotten the taste for it. He felt invincible—he’d been through five combat tours in three theaters of war. Lesser men all around him had fallen to bombs and bullets, disease and suicide. Marky just kept going.

Sometimes he thought he was immune. He had to be. In October 1993 he and his squad had been separated from the main body of Bravo Company, 75
^th
Rangers in Mogadishu and fought their way through half a dozen city blocks surrounded by literally
thousands
of pissed off Somalis. 18 Americans dead, 80 wounded, somewhere upward of 3,000 Somali casualties, and Marky had walked through it without a scratch. Twelve years later, as a senior sergeant in Special Operations, he’d been briefly captured in Fallujah in the Sunni triangle, only to have a squad of Marines come in fast and dumb into the building he was being tortured in. The result, fortuitously, was four dead Hajjis and one free Marky.

Lately though, he’d been starting to wonder. Like, maybe there was something more to life than all this bullshit. He didn’t like running around shooting at people, and that’s what the jobs for Oz had consisted of, at least in the last couple of weeks. That was bullshit.

But he also knew that once you were on the hook, Oz didn’t take no for an answer. Which was why he was sitting here in the car, waiting for the phone to ring.

Waiting. Waiting.

The volume on the music was so loud that he jumped when the music suddenly cut off, replaced by the ringing of his phone through the car speakers. He quickly turned the volume down then answered.

“Lovecchio.”

“Mister Lovecchio, this is Oz.” Oz—or whatever his name was—did not sound happy. As always, his voice was gravelly, the Irish accent a quarry full of age and aggravation.

“Hello, sir.”

“We have a problem, Lovecchio.”

“Yes, sir. Nick Larsden?”

“That’s right. First, he had the woman in his sights and let her cross the border. Second, he let himself get captured. If he’s in custody, then he can talk.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re going to correct that situation. Do I make myself clear?”

Marky nodded slowly, even though he knew Oz couldn’t see him. He’d had the feeling it would come to this. Marky owed some level of loyalty to Larsden—after all, they’d both served in the Army at the same time, though Larsden was nothing but a paper pusher. But he didn’t owe him
that
much. Larsden had screwed up and he couldn’t be allowed to keep screwing things up.

Worst of all, Larsden knew Marky’s name.

“I’ll take care of him, sir.”

“Good. Let me know when it’s done. It needs to be quick, before he tells the American police anything. Am I clear?”