The End Game (4 page)

6

BISHOP TO G7

T
hey made their way toward the car, feeling like salmon swimming upstream with all the rescue personnel and cops and firefighters rushing toward the scene.

Nicholas said, “I wonder how COE managed to pull this off—a bombing in our own backyard, at one of the most secure refineries in the country, under close scrutiny and additional security.”

Mike was feeling pain in every inch of her body, screaming at her for aspirin or something much stronger, but she ignored it, no choice. “That first bomb was so powerful, why bother with the small secondary bomb? And no deaths before, but now I'm afraid to know how many people died tonight. Why have they done this? Nicholas, we need to track down Larry Reeves right away, open him up like a can, find out who paid him the big bucks.”

The farther they were from the blast site, the better the air became. She stopped, sucked in deeply. “I hadn't realized—Nicholas, if Mr. Hodges hadn't called us—”

“Then more people would have died, so we did some good, Mike. You know, it strikes me as odd—sneaking someone into this facility is certainly doable, if one were properly motivated, but still
very risky for Reeves. How could a man so drunk he staggered out of the bar manage to pull it off?”

“Well, it doesn't sound like he was faking being drunk—I mean, flapping his mouth like that—sounds like he gave his COE contact access before his little celebration party with his buddy.” She shook her head. “Still, what a moron, shooting off his mouth for anyone to hear. Good for us, though.”

Nicholas looked up at the video cameras on the light poles. Several had been blown off their mountings and were hanging by their wires. “Ah, there are a couple of good ones, thank the good Lord.” He pointed them out to Mike. “Here's hoping they still function after the blast and we'll have enough footage to recover.”

“Good eyes, Nicholas. I'll get Gray Wharton on it. Digits crossed the blast didn't knock out the connections.”

She put her phone to her ear as she walked. Nicholas paused for a moment, looking back, and he sent up a prayer of thanks that he and Mike were both unharmed, a prayer for the health and happiness of Mr. Hodges, and a prayer to mourn the men who hadn't made it.

At the car, Mike reached in for her bag, drew out a wad of hand wipes, started scrubbing at her face, making comical streaks in the black. Nicholas took one from her, swiped it over his own face, felt the grit and dirt and whatever else pebble beneath the wipe. He breathed in the scent of antiseptic mingled with blood and death and acrid smoke. A nightmare, and they'd been in the middle of it, playing with death. Too late—they'd been too late to stop it.

He leaned against the car and watched the orange flames funnel into the night sky, still ferocious and lethal, and he wondered when the firemen would manage to finally kill it. He hoped by morning.
Then all the experts could get closer, find the ignition point, find the elements that could lead them to the bomb maker.

“Too bad we can't summon a bloody hard rain to come down and help.”

Mike said, “With all the oil on fire now, it wouldn't help much.”

“Have I ever told you about the fire in Farrow-on-Grey?”

“You haven't. When was it? Was anyone hurt? I can't imagine your lovely home damaged. Breaks my heart.”

“It was the town itself, not Old Farrow Hall. It happened in 1765, nearly one hundred years after the great fire destroyed London. Our fire damaged many of the buildings, but the town was spared because of several quick-thinking young lads who'd been playing whist in The Drunken Goose. There used to be a large lake on the grounds of Old Farrow Hall, where the gardens are today. Family lore says they emptied the lake to save the town.”

“I assume one of the quick thinkers was the Baron de Vesci at the time?”

He smiled. “The third Baron, yes. Colin Drummond. He quickly organized the whole town—women and children, too—into a fire brigade. They saved the church and the pub, and the lower two-thirds of the town.”

“So you're telling me firefighting's in your blood?”

He coughed out a laugh. “Apparently I am.”

She cleared her throat. It hurt, hurt deep. She was quiet for a moment. “Nicholas, our information was that COE had threatened to take out Rodeo San Francisco next, not Bayway.”

“For whatever reason they changed their minds. You know what? I think they've made a big mistake coming to New York. Now they're here on our turf and shoving their god-awful
destruction right in our faces. They're going to regret ever screwing with the FBI.”

“I agree, Agent Drummond.” SAC Milo Zachery walked out of the night. They hadn't heard him drive up over all the noise—helicopter rotors and car alarms and the shrieks and calls of the first responders and the roar of the fire. Mike realized he was nearly shouting to be heard, supposed she and Nicholas had been shouting at each other as well. The flames outlined Zachery in an orange mantle.

“Sir.” Nicholas pushed off the car, stuck out his hand, realized it was burned and black with soot, and shrugged.

Zachery's voice was flat and angry. “We went to talk to Larry Reeves. Seems someone beat us to him.”

7

PAWN TO D4

Near the Bayway Refinery

F
rom atop a nearby hill, Vanessa stood rigid, numb and disbelieving, as she watched the Bayway Refinery burn. When the tenth ambulance left the facility without its lights and sirens, signaling it was carrying another dead body, she fell to her knees, dropping her ATN NVG7 night-vision monocular to her chest, hugging herself. She had to get it together, had to.

Her Semtex hadn't done this. The small second explosion, that had been her bomb. She didn't want to believe what she was seeing, but the horrific flames, the shouts, the screams were all too real.

No deaths. That was her rule, Matthew's rule. No deaths.

Well, it had been Matthew's rule until tonight. Now they had blood on their hands, real blood. She wanted to scream with grief, with fury. She heard her uncle's voice telling her,
“Nessa, don't blame yourself, sometimes things will simply be out of your control, awful things that you'll simply have to learn to live with. Follow your training, Nessa, you won't go wrong, not in the end.”

But these were innocent people's lives, no way around it. However could she learn to live with that?

And she knew what it meant: Matthew had perfected his small gold-coin bombs and used a tiny part of one as a test. Thank heaven he hadn't used an entire gold coin, it would have wiped out countless thousands and reduced the landscape to rubble.

She knew to her gut it was Darius who'd kept after Matthew to finish perfecting his bomb, Darius who'd decided to test it tonight. It hadn't taken her long to recognize Darius for what he was—a born soulless killer who didn't care how many people died. But this time she knew he'd had a reason. To see for himself how powerful Matthew's new bombs were because he wanted them for himself.

She breathed deeply, again and again, until she calmed. She wondered what Matthew was thinking as he looked out over the killing field and knew it was his creation that had brought it about
.
Was he as horrified as she was, or was he with Darius, and very likely smiling and nodding at the success of his bomb?
All the deaths.
And it was up to her to stop both of them.

She rolled over onto her stomach and raised the monocular again. She'd been watching the two civilians. Now they'd been joined by another man, and she realized who they were. Not civilians, no, they were FBI.

Over the past two weeks, she'd memorized files on all the FBI players. The older man was Milo Zachery, head of the Criminal Investigative Division for the New York Field Office. The younger, taller one was that Brit, Nicholas Drummond. Of course she recognized the woman who could double as a biker chick in her black boots and black-framed glasses—Michaela Caine. She'd watched them on the news after they'd helped stop a nuclear attack in Europe. Of course, even without the media flood, Vanessa would
recognize Mike Caine. Even back in the day, Vanessa remembered her as a burning light, smart, funny, unforgettable.

Of all the people she didn't want to see, these two were at the top of the list, but here they were—not more than a hundred meters away, witnesses to the horror that her group had brought about. And here she lay, one of the anonymous deathmongers. And how would she ever learn to live with that?

She remembered the Matthew Spenser she'd met only a little more than four months before. That Matthew hadn't believed in collateral damage, had abhorred the thought of killing anyone, accidently or on purpose. He'd been gaining more and more attention from the small-scale bombings, as he wanted. And then Darius had come, dumped a million dollars in his lap, and begun manipulating him, changing him. And now this. She knew Darius—or whatever his name was—had a plan, and now he'd sucked Matthew, sucked all of them, into it, made them all murderers, made them all—terrorists. Didn't Matthew realize he was now no better than the terrorists who'd killed his family?

Matthew had told her so little, and she hadn't figured out how to get him to open up to her. Sex wasn't in the cards now, even if he put the moves on her. She simply couldn't bear to think about his hands on her now, not with the horrible stench of blood and death filling her nostrils. The Matthew she knew was quick to anger, just as quick to laugh, a man who could spend hours concentrating his genius brain on something he was creating. She'd believed he liked her, maybe even coming to trust her, at least until Darius came along. But now she realized he was headed toward something unimaginable, something horrific, and that something involved Darius. She had to find out what it was before it happened, and somehow get her hands on Matthew's bombs and his formula, or
her assignment would be a failure. Now, that was a small order to fill, wasn't it?

Matthew had almost told her his plans yesterday at their apartment in Brooklyn. They were talking about the logistics of the Bayway bombing, and Matthew, as was his habit, was skillfully weaving a gold coin through his fingers over and over again, like a magician. Wily, no-nonsense Ian had rolled out the blueprints a night supervisor had provided them—Larry Reeves had cost them the rest of their ready cash, though Andy always got his hands on more; it never seemed to be a problem. Matthew and Vanessa ran through the last of the logistics, drinking Bud Light because that's all Luther from Belfast, one of the boys, had bought at the corner market.

She'd taken a sip from the bottle, eyed him, and thought,
Careful, careful.

“Matthew, what's next? You already have the attention of the world. Every law enforcement organization is looking for us. People are afraid of what you might do next. We'll have much more destruction at Bayway, a much bigger statement. The FBI will be in an absolute frenzy. What are we going to do to top Bayway?”

He'd reached over and tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear. “Tomorrow the plan will be in place, and no one will be able to stop it—”

And then Ian had come back into the room and Matthew backed away from her and once again was weaving a coin through his fingers. She remembered the first time she saw those gold coins, no larger than a fifty-cent piece, remembered how Ian McGuire, her compatriot from Belfast, was so excited to tell her how he'd met a fellow terrorist-hater all those years ago, and he'd recognized his genius, and he'd happily offered her up to make bombs for him.

She could deal with Ian, but what to do about Andy Tate, that
wild ungoverned boy who'd set fires since he was seven years old and, even more, was a computer genius, a hacker of incredible talent, probably more valuable than she or Ian was to Matthew, since he procured the money.

Vanessa saw another ambulance silently leave. Another dead. Had Matthew known what Darius was going to do? Or had Darius simply taken one of Matthew's bombs and used it? Would Matthew be as livid as she was? Or had he changed that much? She'd never forget what he'd said when Ian had brought her into the group, “No innocents can die, Muslims included, Vanessa. I'm not like those terrorists who kill wantonly. I'll make my point without death.”

She looked out over the burning refinery. Everything had changed now. It didn't matter which of them was responsible, or if both Darius and Matthew were complicit. It had to stop.

8

CASTLES

W
here was Darius? He was supposed to meet her, and she hadn't seen him come out of the refinery. She would wait another ten minutes, then she had to clear out because she knew law enforcement would be searching the area soon. Could he possibly be dead, burned up in his own fire? Wouldn't that be fine irony? And one less terrorist she had to deal with.

Darius had caught her once, walking back to their cabin in the mountains near Tahoe, and she knew his intent immediately. She'd said only, “You force me and I'll cut your balls off.” And she'd waited, looking at him, emotionless, to see what he would do.

“So you prefer your brainy little boy to a man, do you?”

“I'd prefer Satan himself to you.” Not smart, given what she knew to her gut he was, but she also realized, the moment the words were out of her mouth, she'd say them again.

He'd laughed and walked off, giving her a little finger wave over his shoulder. “Later, love,” he'd said, but after that, he'd ignored her.

She'd managed to take a full-frontal photo of him, stepping out of a field shower, the only clear shot she'd ever gotten of his face. He was always careful, and why was that? He was dark,
muscular, very strong, his eyes black and cold. Middle Eastern heritage, but he'd been educated in England, given his Brit accent. She'd sent his photo in two weeks ago, hoping for word about who he really was.

Now, as she waited, Vanessa remembered how he and Matthew had been talking together, voices low, before they'd left for the refinery. When she'd come into the room, they'd shut up. In hindsight, she realized of course they'd been finalizing their plans to test the gold-coin bombs, which meant Matthew had been turned and was now a willing murderer.

Vanessa looked at her watch: nearly twelve-thirty. Time was up. She had to get back to the rally point. She couldn't wait any longer to see if Darius emerged like Lazarus from the flames.
Be dead
, she prayed.
Please be dead.

She bagged up her things, slipped her backpack onto her shoulders, started off down the hill at a steady jog, thinking hard.

Caine and Drummond were going to be a problem. Caine especially, since Vanessa knew the woman was a pit bull—a brainy, relentless pit bull. Now that COE had killed, the FBI would redouble their efforts. Time was running out. She had to get Matthew to tell her his plans, what he was going to do with his magic gold-coin bombs, and she had to do it now.

Matthew was waiting in the mud-caked Toyota Corolla. He'd disabled the dome light, so when she opened the door, there was nothing but the squeak of the hinges and his harsh breathing. He'd turned off the scanner, was staring straight ahead, unseeing, into the night.

He nodded to her. “Ian and his boys checked in, all of them safe. We need to send our statement to the media now—”

Her voice was wonderfully calm. “Matthew, you just did a test
run for your bombs. Do you have any idea what kind of carnage you've created? People are dead, Matthew, by your hand, not mine.”

He didn't say anything, didn't look at her. “Send the media statement, Vanessa. Now.”

She kept hold of her temper. “Darius didn't come out of the bombing. You even killed your mentor, Matthew.”