The End Game (31 page)

51

The October Surprise.

I knew about it already, of course. Not just as a concept, but in terms of its most notorious occurrence—specifically, from the Reagan-Carter election year.

1980.

The expression referred to any major, unexpected news event that could—deliberately—affect the outcome of the presidential election, which takes place in early November. In the days before both the 1968 and 1972 elections, claims that the end of the war in Vietnam was in sight were used to boost popularity, but those were minor instances of it. The expression really referred to the conspiracy that was thought to have taken place in 1980 to secure Ronald Reagan’s defeat of the incumbent, Jimmy Carter.

The facts were that, almost a year to the day before the election, fifty-two Americans had been taken hostage in Iran. This had been a major trauma for the nation and was on every voter’s mind. Heavy negotiations were ongoing to win their release, with the Carter administration correctly hoping for their own “October Surprise”: bringing the hostages home just before the election, which would provide an immense boost to Carter’s re-election prospects. The hostages weren’t released and Reagan won the election. They were eventually released, on the day of his inauguration. Not just on the day, but—literally—five minutes after Reagan took his oath of office.

Suspicions soon arose of a secret arms-for-hostages deal brokered by Reagan’s men—a deal designed to delay the release of the hostages until after the election, to help ensure Carter’s defeat.

The suspicions were dismissed until the Iran-Contra affair exploded five years later, during Reagan’s second term. It transpired that senior administration officials had arranged for Iran to secretly receive American weapons—an illegal act, given that it was subject to an arms embargo. Iran would pay for the weapons in two ways: in cash, which would then be funneled to the Contras in Nicaragua—another illegal act, given that funding the Contras had been banned by Congress—and in influencing the release of seven American hostages who were being held hostage in Lebanon.

The Iran-Contra affair firmly established the links between the Reagan administration and the Iranians and underlined the former’s readiness to play dirty and break the law. This revived suspicions about what had happened during the 1980 campaign. After increased media scrutiny, both the Senate and Congress eventually held inquiries to look into the allegations. Both failed to produce an indictment. However, in the years since, several senior figures who were in positions of power at the time including Abulhassan Benisadr, the former President of Iran, Yitzhak Shamir, the former Israeli Prime Minister, and Barbara Honegger, a former Reagan campaign and White House staffer, have all confirmed the allegation.

My mind raced back to my chat with Faye, my dad’s—I cringe at the word—mistress. What had she said? That she felt the whole country was under his watch, that he took it all to heart.

Was there more to it than that?

Was he aware of what was going on in the shadows? Was he fretting about getting the hostages out in time—and did he know about some dirty tricks that were going on behind the scenes?

My dad was a registered Republican. He was a fan of Reagan’s. Which could mean he might have been killed to silence him about exposing the truth, if he’d found out about it and wanted to blow the whistle—or simply to keep him quiet, if he knew about it by virtue of being part of the dirty plot.

I knew I was grasping at straws—but something felt right, like gears that had meshed into position and were now propelling my mind forward.

I didn’t have much time to dwell on it, though. I was slamming back a shot of that tequila Theo brought me when my phone buzzed in my pocket.

It was Kurt.

Kurt sat with his back slumped against the bedroom wall. Gigi lay on the floor in front of him, still out cold. The intruder had bound them both with plastic cuffs, wrists and ankles, and had just finished ensuring there was nothing within reach that they could use to free themselves. Apart from a soft glow from the bedroom and some faint ambient light from outside, the loft was dark.

His heart sank as he watched Gigi’s chest rise and fall slightly as she breathed. At least they were both still alive, he thought, which meant there was hope. Separate from the throbbing pain, which had spread across the center of his face, he felt a piercing ache in his chest so intense that he knew it had to be what people referred to as love. It had taken Gigi being cold-cocked into unconsciousness to trigger the feeling, but he knew exactly what it meant—he would do anything, anything at all, to keep her alive.

The intruder stepped back, visibly satisfied that Kurt and Gigi were secure. “Reilly. Call him.”

Even though he suspected it would be ultimately fruitless, he knew he had to try lying. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The intruder let out a cold, dry chortle. “You really want to play it that way?”

Kurt felt his chest cave in as the bastard just stared at him. “No,” he said meekly.

“Good. Where’s your phone?”

“I think—I’m not sure. Maybe in the bedroom?”

The intruder walked off and disappeared out of view, leaving Kurt to try and focus his mind.

He needed to buy some time. There was no way Reilly could help them unless he knew they were in trouble. Added to that, from what Reilly had told him and Gigi, the agent had already out-thought and out-gunned the sadistic motherfucker who held them captive. They’d helped Reilly at every turn, ignoring the risk to themselves. It was time for him to help them. But what if Reilly did come back? Wouldn’t the guy just get what he needed and kill all three of them anyway?

The intruder was going to kill him and Gigi either way. And without them around to help Reilly, it was probably only a matter of time before he wound up dead himself. At least this way they had a chance, however small.

The intruder appeared again, holding two phones. “Which one’s yours?”

Kurt pointed it out.

“It’s one half of a secure pair, right?” the man asked.

“Yes. I hacked them. Reilly has the other.”

“OK.” He held out the phone, but before Kurt could take it, the intruder held it just out of reach. He aimed the gun that was in his other hand straight at Kurt’s eyes. “Tell me exactly what you’re going to say.”

“What am I going to say? ‘Reilly? It’s Kurt. We just got a hit. You need to get back here.’ That’s it.” Kurt said it without thinking, but as he said it, he knew it would work, even if it risked unraveling their plan to unmask Corrigan.

That wasn’t the priority any more.

“‘A hit?’ On what?”

“We’ve been helping Reilly with something.” He hesitated, then added, “We posted a couple of mug shots on some forums. Asked if anyone knew them. We haven’t got anything back yet. And probably won’t. But that’s what he’s waiting for.”

The bastard nodded to himself, then smiled. “You mean the sketches?”

Kurt’s mouth went dry. They’d known all along that it was just as likely that an ex-CIA agent or asset who recognized Corrigan or Fullerton would warn them as it was for someone with a grudge to give them up. There was little point in denying it.

“Yes. But we haven’t had a hit.”

“I know you haven’t,” the intruder said. “OK. Make the call”.

“Reilly? This is Kurt.” He paused for a moment, then said, “We just got a hit. You need to get back here.”

A rush of elation consumed me—then it was instantly flushed away by the feeling that a yawning chasm had blown open beneath me.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

Kurt had never, ever referred to himself as Kurt in any of our communications. It was part of his extreme paranoia about the heavily surveilled world we lived in. He’d used Mrs. Takahashi, Cid Raines, Green Arrow, Snake of course, Crown Prince Arthas Menethil and even once, when he was particularly excited, Lord Humungus, his hacker name from before he got himself onto the FBI’s cybercrime watch list in a commendable seventh spot.

But never Kurt.

I needed to buy some time. Fast.

“Fantastic, man. I’ll head on back, I’ve walked all the way up the park.”

“Central Park?” Kurt asked.

“Yeah. I lost track of time. I’ll hop in a cab. Should be back in twenty minutes or so.” I tried to sound as enthused as possible. “Great work, Curtis. Really great.”

I hung up, pretty sure that I’d managed to keep the doubt from my voice and hoping he’d got my little hidden counter-message, but as I ended the call, the rush of elation had been replaced by a crushing avalanche of dread.

Kurt’s brilliantly hidden-in-plain-sight message could only mean one thing. Baseball Cap was there—and he had Kurt and Gigi.

At least I’d bought some time.

Now I needed to make use of it.

52

I churned through a few desperate ideas before quickly settling on the one I thought had the least chance of turning into a disaster. I quickly put it through the wringer a few times, made sure I hadn’t missed anything, and decided I had to go for it.

I pulled out the burner phone and called Deutsch’s personal phone. She answered immediately.

“It’s me.”

Her voice jumped, even as it went lower. “Where are you?”

“I’m close. Listen, Annie. I’ve got a hostile holding two friends hostage here in the city. Not far from Twenty-Six Fed. It’s the same motherfucker who killed Kirby and I think he killed Nick too—”

“What?” she interrupted, in shock.

“I’m convinced they killed him, Annie. And a bunch of other people too. And this guy wants me, and you can imagine how badly I want him, but I can’t take him alone. Not with him holding them. The guy’s a pro. A black ops pro. And he’s sanctioned. I need your help, but we have to do it my way. My friends’ lives are at stake.”

“Jesus, Sean—”

I didn’t have time for any kind of debate. “Annie, are you in or out? I need to know right now.”

Even as I said it, I knew she would help. She’s already gone out on a major limb for me by getting me the drawings instead of handing in the Bureau. For reasons only Deutsch could explain, I guess—and in spite of my inflicting the worst kind of humiliation on her when I escaped from her custody—it was clear she believed my version of events.

I heard her take a steadying breath. “I’m in.”

“OK. I need to get a SWAT team to West Twenty-third, between Seventh and Eighth.’

“A SWAT team?”

“Yes. And I need them there in the next fifteen minutes. The guy’s good, I can’t take him alone, not when he’s got my people in there with him.”

“How am I going to get them to push the button, Sean? It can’t be a tip-off from you.”

“I know. Here’s how we’ll play it. A call will come in from one of the informants me and Nick had with the Joint Terrorism Task Force. A Lebanese guy, Ramsey Salman. He’s in the database, works at a deli in Brooklyn. He was keeping tabs on a couple of preachers for us. He’s been dark for a while, but he’ll say there are a couple of guys in that apartment about to launch a hit on the city. It’ll justify a red alert about a credible incoming threat.”

“Hang on, hang on.” She thought about it fast. “OK, but I can’t just say I got the call. I need an actual call to come into the Bureau switchboard, a call for you or Nick. And it can’t come from you, obviously.”

Obviously—since it would be taped, and Deutsch needed it to stand up to scrutiny after the fact. I’d thought about this. If I made the call, there was the very real possibility that my voice print would be recognized, which would put her in a serious jam. My eyes wandered aimlessly across the joint as I looked at my solution. He was wiping down a table in the far corner.

I waved Theo over to my table. “I know. I’ve got it covered.”

“You’ve got someone who can make the call?”

I watched as Theo walked over, hoping he’d be up for it—and that he’d be as good as he’d been in that audition. “Yes.”

“OK, let’s get going. But better he ask for Nick. They’re routing all his calls to my BlackBerry.”

Gigi’s head felt like it had after her one and only time at Coachella. She’d fulfilled a bucket list ambition by seeing Portishead live—their first two albums had been the soundtrack to her teens—but it had taken her a full week to recover from the experience. By the time Roger Waters had finished his trip back to
The Dark Side Of The Moon
, she’d felt like someone had drilled a hole in her cranium, filled it with silly putty and razor wire and left her on the cold lump of rock. The putty felt comfortably numb, but the second she moved—even a micron—the blades would score the inside of her skull and she’d want to die.

As she blinked her eyes open and tried to pull focus, the situation that had put her on the floor of her own apartment came cascading back.

Fuck.

That pretty much summed it up.

“Gigi,” she heard Kurt whisper. “You OK?”

She pushed herself up on her elbows, ignoring the screaming anguish that was quickly filling the left side of her head. Kurt was turning toward her from a slump against the bedroom wall, eyes locked on hers. They were full of a chaotic storm of relief, terror, confusion and—she’d seen it only once before but knew she’d recognize it again—genuine care.

“What’s happening?” she asked with a groan.

“It’s going to be OK,” Kurt told her.

“OK how?”

“Reilly’s on his way.”

This didn’t sit well. “What do you mean? How?”

“I called him.” Kurt paused, seemingly embarrassed, then said, “He made me call him. Tell him we had a hit.”

Gigi thought it through quickly and groaned. “You fucking pinhead!” she hissed. “Jesus Christ, Jaegers. Don’t you realize the bastard is going to kill us anyway?”

She heard the intruder say, “Shut up. Both of you.”

She turned and spotted him sitting in the living room, defiling her sleek Italian sofa, the one that had taken four months from order to delivery, and watching over them. Her expression soured with disdain. “Whatever, dickhead.” She twisted her face back at Kurt, shaking her head slowly, trying to block out the despair.

She looked at Kurt. He just looked like he wanted to weep. Right then, she thought of how she loved the pinhead and how it would be nice to hear and say the words—she never had, not once—but first they needed to survive the night.

The bastard checked his watch. “You two should kiss and make up. You don’t want to go out like this, do you?”

“Up yours,” she spat back as she slithered backward toward the wall, closer to Kurt. She reached out and squeezed his forearm in what she hoped was a gesture of support, finishing up slumped right next to him.

She inclined her head toward him and whispered, “Reilly’ll get him.”

The movement was so painful she felt like she was going to puke. And she wasn’t sure she even believed what she’d just said.