High Treason (21 page)

“I gave the flash drive to Steve, who had brought a laptop with him, so he made a copy for Albert. Between the two of them, we were sure we would find out what was on the drives. When that was done, we partied for a while longer, and then my Secret Service detail insisted that it was time to leave.”

“What happened when the shooting started?” Jonathan asked.

Her eyes glazed with tears. “That was terrible. Those poor people. The shooting started when I was nearly to the car. It started with an explosion, and then I was pushed and shoved and I don’t know what all happened. I found myself back inside the bar, and then Steve had his arm around me, and we were on our way out the back door. We sneaked away in all the confusion.”

The room remained silent for the better part of a minute when someone knocked lightly on the door.

Boxers opened it to reveal Sam Franco standing on the other side.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said. “But two people downstairs say they have to see you right now.”

Jonathan cocked his head.

“Their names are David and Becky.”

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

“D
ad! There’s—” Josef’s words were cut short by Dwhat sounded like a slap.

In the fog of the assault, Nicholas couldn’t react fast enough. He raised his hands to fight his attackers, but a kick to his testicles followed by a blow to his belly made his knees sag.

The men said nothing, but when they spoke, it was in Russian. Just a few words at a time. They worked with what seemed to be a practiced efficiency. They slipped a hood over his head, and cinched it in place. Even as that was happening, they planted a foot in his back and stretched his arms painfully behind him. He knew from the sound and the feel that the bindings on his wrists were handcuffs, but then it felt as if they’d wrapped another length of rope around his elbows.

In less than fifteen seconds, he’d been completely immobilized.

“Where is Josef?” Nicholas grunted. They kicked him again in the balls, but they wouldn’t let him fall. “Please don’t hurt my boy,” he said. “He’s only thirteen. He’s done nothing.” Nicholas had done nothing wrong, either, but he’d confess to the crucifixion of Jesus if would spare his boy this kind of treatment.

They’d
hit
Josef, for God’s sake. Men beating on a little boy. How could anyone—

Still without a word exchanged between them, the attackers pulled on the rope at his neck, leading him out of his bedroom and into the hallway.

“Josef!” Nicholas cried. “Joey! Are you—”

This time the punch landed in his right kidney, hard enough to make him think that something had maybe ruptured. It was a command to be silent.

“Joey!”

The next punch had to have broken a rib. The pain from the kidney shot lit up his entire torso, from his hip to his shoulder.

“Dad!” It came more as a shriek than a word, and it sounded muffled. The boy yelped in pain after that and fell silent.

But at least he was alive.

And Nicholas was powerless to protect him.

He fought the urge to beg for mercy. Not only would it be useless, but it would give even more of an upper hand to these brutes who already held all the cards. Whatever was going on, Nicholas would be even less a protector—no, he’d become a burden—if he were crippled by these people.

They led him from the front, pulling on the rope as if he were a recalcitrant dog on a leash. Because he’d walked this path countless times over the years, he knew to expect the stairs, but they still arrived before he was ready. A captor in the rear grabbed the triangle formed by his bound arms to keep him falling face-first, but the pace never slowed.

He reflexively counted the thirteen steps to the tile foyer. It all felt so cold on his bare chest and bare feet. He wondered if they’d left the door open.

Then he was outside, surrounded by cold. Combined with the fear, it triggered convulsive shivers. He wanted to ask where they were taking him, and whether they were taking Josef to the same place, but he realized the futility.

Nicholas told himself that there was no reason to kill Josef. Whatever this was about, it had to be Nicholas that they were angry with. Josef was merely—what? In the way, perhaps.

He hadn’t realized that it had snowed until they marched him through it. It didn’t feel more than ankle deep, but after only a few frigid steps, his feet started to cramp from the cold.

Good God, was Josef enduring this same treatment? This same fear and this same pain? He knew they had struck him, but how hard? Was he still conscious?

Was he still—

It made no sense to consider the worst outcome until he had some idea of what was going on.

Among the thousands of thoughts that raced through his head as his body tried to adjust to the cold and the pain, the one that registered more clearly than any other was how angry Marcie was going to be when she found out what had happened during Josef’s visit to his father.

The thought brought sadness, and the sadness displaced much of his fear. If Nicholas had been a better father, they would still be a family. And if they were still a family, then none of this would have happened. If he were a stronger man, he would be fighting back and his son would be safe.

His kidnappers pulled him to a stop, and then he was airborne, lying faceup in the air with hands firmly around his torso and his legs. They were lifting him.

Seconds later, air barked out of his lungs as they dropped him roughly onto a hard surface. He landed on his side, and as his handcuffs hit the floor, he heard a metallic clank. Metal on metal. And the surface felt corrugated. It felt as if he were on the floor of a van. Or a workingman’s truck.

Panic seized his gut as he thought through the possibilities. They could take him anywhere. Or they could push the vehicle over a cliff, or they could set it on fire with him inside.

Whatever it was, he would be powerless—

He felt something sharp hit his thigh, and then he felt the spreading coldness that could only come from an injection.

Then he felt nothing at all.

 

 

Yelena looked confused. “Who are David and Becky?” Jonathan explained. “According to the man who tried to kill them, they were collateral damage.” He gave a brief recap of his interview with the two assassins, leaving out the gory details.

“Do I want to know how you got them to give all of that up?” Irene asked when he was done.

“You know where your people took them, right?” Jonathan asked.

Irene looked at the floor.

“Then you know how we got them to talk. If it makes a difference, I had nothing to do with the methods chosen.”

He shifted his attention back to the First Lady. “So, Mrs. Darmond. Where have you been and what have you been doing since the time of the shooting at the Wild Times?”

“I’ve been trying to get my bearings,” she said. “Trying to make sense of the world. In the confusion after the shootings, Steve and Albert rushed me out a back door. I gave them each a copy of the files I couldn’t decode, and they dropped me off out in the suburbs, in a Hampton Inn.”

This time it was Venice. “Oh, come on. You mean you checked into a hotel and no one recognized you?”

“I already told you,” Yelena said. “I’m very good at disguises.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Then, the next morning, when I was watching the news, I heard that DeShawn Lincoln had been killed and I started to panic.”

Jonathan kept his poker face. “Who’s DeShawn Lincoln?” he baited.

“He’s a DC cop,” she said. “Was. Such a shame. He was friends with Steve, who probably told him more than he should have. We were just so desperate to find out what our options were. Steve told him what we suspected was going on, and he, DeShawn, promised to keep an eye out. Then, what happened happened, and DeShawn ended up killed.

“I tried calling Steve when I heard the news, and when I couldn’t get through, I knew something terrible had happened to him, too. I called Albert Banks, and he had already heard about Steve and he was in a panic. The White House knew what we were trying to do, and they’d put the Secret Service up to cleaning us all out. I was terrified.”

Irene said, “We’re all here, right now, because I got a call from General Grand, chief of staff of the Army. He told me that he had heard from Mrs. Darmond that there was trouble. In fact, he called it a dire threat to the nation.”

“So why are you in Fisherman’s Cove instead of in some situation room somewhere?” Jonathan asked. “Why haven’t you activated some counterterrorism task force to expose the plot and bring the bad guys to justice?”

Irene said, “Accusations are not evidence. If we were to come forward with what we have, the administration would merely deny everything, cancel whatever they had in motion, and make us a laughingstock. And as a flag officer in the United States Army, General Grand would be guilty of high treason.”

Whatever burden Jonathan was feeling before quadrupled. “So, again. Why are you here?”

A long pause.

Irene broke the silence. “You’re a patriot’s patriot,” she said. “We knew you could provide a safe haven.”

“And then what?” Venice asked.

“That’s where it starts to get sketchy,” Irene said with a smile that was clearly designed to disarm.

A double-tap knock on the door prompted Boxers to rise and open it.

David and Becky stood on the other side, and they both looked like hammered shit.

“Welcome back,” Jonathan said. “Did you have a nice escape?”

David led the way into the library. “Oh, man,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe—” He caught his first glimpse of the First Lady and stopped so abruptly that Becky collided into him.

“Oh. My. God,” he said.

It took only a few more seconds for the color to drain from Becky’s face. “Mrs. Darmond?” she said.

Yelena flashed the smile that the tabloids knew so well. “The one and only.” She extended her hand.

Becky took it in both of hers. “It’s an honor to meet you,” she said. “But I’m so sorry about your family.”

Yelena’s face turned to stone as everyone in the room froze. “What about my family?”

“Oh, shit,” David said. “You don’t know.”

Yelena stood. For the first time, Jonathan saw real emotion in her eyes. And the emotion was fear. “What about my family?”

David seemed shocked to be delivering the news. “Your son,” he said. “Nicholas. He’s been kidnapped.”

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

“W
ho?” Yelena asked. Her tone was just this side of Wpanic. “Who kidnapped him?”

“A Russian,” David said. “That’s all I know.”

“And how do you know that?” Irene asked.

For the first time, David took in the faces he saw in the room. His shoulders and jaw both sagged in unison. “Holy God,” he said. “Are you Director Rivers? Of the FBI?”

“I was this morning.” She shot a look to Jonathan.
Can I trust him?

Jonathan shrugged.
We’ll find out together.

“I believe you have the advantage,” Irene said as she shook hands.

“Huh? Oh. My name is David. David Kirk. I work for the
Washington Enquirer
.”

“Oh, shit.” That came out before Irene could stop it.

Jonathan tried to defuse the moment. “And this is Becky Beckeman,” he said. “Also with the
Enquirer
. For what it’s worth, they have both pledged not to report anything of what they see.”

Yelena connected the dots in her head. “You’re the boy Mr. Grave was telling me about. You knew Officer Lincoln.”

David brightened. “You knew Deeshy?”

She demurred. “In a manner of speaking. Please tell me about my family.”

Davis fished a reporter’s notebook out of his back pocket. “I’m really sorry to have been so blunt,” he said as he fished through for the right page. “We’re talking about Nicholas Mishin, right?”

Yelena paled and sat heavily in her chair.

“Okay,” David said. “Well, my source told me—”

“Stop there,” Jonathan commanded.

David’s head snapped up.

“Names,” Jonathan said. “At this stage, we need names. Who is your source?”

David looked to Becky, who looked at a spot on the ceiling. It took the better part of a half-minute for him to search his conscience. Jonathan got that he was conflicted, but he also got that there were too many secrets on the table now to start holding back selectively.

“It’s a guy in the White House press office,” he said, finally. “His name is Billy.”

“Billy Zanger?” Yelena said. She seemed startled.

“Yes, ma’am,” David said. “He told me that they’d just gotten word. Apparently, you were—” He stopped himself.

“Candor, Mr. Kirk,” Irene said. “That’s really all we’ve got at this point.”

He nodded. “Okay. Apparently, you were supposed to be killed last night,” he said to the First Lady. “That, or you were supposed to be brought back to the White House. That was Douglas Winters’s preference, so you know. Being brought back, I mean.”

“How does this Bobby what’s-his-name know this?” Jonathan asked.

“Billy Zanger,” David said. “And I don’t know how he knows. I forgot to ask him.”

“But he’s telling the truth,” Becky added. “I could tell. He was like totally relieved to get this off his chest. I think he’s really scared.”

“Billy Zanger is Douglas’s press liaison,” Yelena explained. “They work very closely with each other. The two of them thought each other’s thoughts.”

“All well and good,” Jonathan said. “But what does this kidnapping have to do with anything?”

Becky said, “It was some kind of quid pro quo. Billy said he didn’t understand the details, but apparently the kidnapping was in retaliation for something Mrs. Darmond had done. Billy didn’t know what that was.”

But Jonathan did. Except for the latecomers, the entire population of the room knew. The kidnapping had been triggered by the First Lady’s decision to spirit the flash drive out of the White House.

Jonathan looked to Wolverine. “This sounds like a job for your shop,” he said.

“Do you have any idea where they took them?” Irene asked.

David shook his head. “No. But Billy seemed to think that it would be out of the country.”

“Shit,” Jonathan said. “Any idea where? Even which country?”

David looked down at his feet. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry I don’t.”

Yelena scanned the group with her gaze. “We have to get him back,” she said. “He has my grandson with him this week.”

“Oh, damn,” Boxers said. He wasn’t all that fond of small children, but he had a special hatred for those who abused them.

“How old is he?” Jonathan asked.

“Josef is thirteen,” Yelena said. “And a half.”

Jonathan nodded as he considered the ramifications. At that age, kids were far from rational, but they were able to respond to commands and participate in their own rescue. That was a good thing.

“Where were they kidnapped from?” Jonathan asked David.

Yelena answered, “Vail. In Colorado. David has a home out there.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “They must be terrified. We have to get them back.”

Easier said than done
, Jonathan didn’t say. “First, we have to figure out where they are.” He looked to Wolverine. “Is this your op or is it mine?”

“So far, I don’t have a vector into the case,” Irene said. “If this goes international, it all gets very complicated.”

“We should call the police,” Yelena said. “They should be out looking for them.”

“Did this Billy guy give any indication of how long ago the snatch went down?” Jonathan asked David.

“We were waiting for him when he got back to his house at about one this morning,” David said. “And by then, it was already a done deal.”

“And why didn’t
they
call the police?” Venice asked.

David cleared his throat. “From what I could tell, the police are the last people that any of them want to talk to.”

Jonathan faced the First Lady. “Mrs. Darmond, think. Does any of this make sense to you? Do you have any idea who would want to put you in this kind of jeopardy?”

Yelena closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. With her eyes still closed, she said, “You seem to know about my past, Mr. Grave. If that is the case, then you know there are a great many people who would want to hurt me through my family.”

“Does any one of them float to the top?”

She waited long enough to answer that Jonathan thought she was formulating a lie. “Dmitri Boykin would be one,” she said.

And just like that, it all came home. “I’m hearing that name a lot,” Jonathan said. “Do you want to tell us the rest of the story?”

She closed her eyes again and seemed to transport herself to a different place. As she spoke, her cheek muscles tightened, creating a countenance of pain. “Back then,” she said. “Back before, when we were all dissidents, Dmitri was among the worst of the worst. While I wanted to bring down institutions, he wanted to kill people. He believed, I think, that the Soviet Union could be avenged through violence in America. I think he never grew past that.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Irene interrupted, “but that’s too easy. I don’t recall a mention of this Dmitri Boykin in any of your testimony.”

Yelena’s eyes opened. “I might not have mentioned him,” she said.

“Might?”

“I did not mention him.”

“But your deal with the government—”

“I know what my deal was, Director Rivers. I signed it, remember? I gave you everyone else.
Everyone
else. But Dmitri was different. He was a crazy man. Capable of anything. And by then, I was a mother and I had greater concerns. I always worried that he would—”

The words caught in her throat, and she dislodged them with a cough. “Come after my family.” She finished the sentence at barely a whisper.

Irene leaned in closer to Yelena. “Mrs. Darmond, this is the time to be one hundred percent forthcoming. We cannot help you if you don’t give us all of the details.”

“I don’t have details,” Yelena said. “It’s been too long. Your predecessors wanted me to turn on the co-conspirators I worked with, and I did that. Except for Dmitri. He was just too connected and too unpredictable. Even if he was in prison, he would have found a way to get even.”

“Was this a negotiated arrangement?” Jonathan asked. “Did you make a deal with him that if you withheld his name he would give you a pass?”

“I wish it had been that direct,” Yelena said. “I was young and stupid and scared. I thought that if I just didn’t mention him he wouldn’t come looking for me.”

Venice asked, “Have you been in touch with him at all since then?”

Yelena shook her head. “No. Of course, as the campaign kicked in, and I got more and more exposure on the news, I knew that he would see it and that there might be repercussions, but there was never a confrontation.”

“Didn’t that surprise you?” Jonathan asked.

She considered the question. “No, not really.” She paused to reconsider. “Well, yes and no. I knew that he would be aware of the fact that he had a pressure point against me and by extension against my husband, but I also thought he would see that as his free pass for the rest of his life. Which it could have been.”

“You let a murderer go,” Boxers summarized, “so that you could feel safe.”

Yelena seemed ready to do battle for just an instant, and then she calmed herself. “Do you have children, Mr. . . .” she clearly had forgotten his name.

“None that I know of,” Boxers replied. “But if I did, I’d be sure to set a good example.”

“What you’d do is protect them,” Yelena said. “And you’d do it at any cost.”

Her answer could not have been a more perfect way to disarm the Big Guy.

Yelena went to a place in her head that did not include anyone in the room. In the accompanying silence, Jonathan felt his anger swell.

“Yelena,” he said, deliberately reverting to the name she didn’t like, “you’ve been deceitful tonight, and I don’t appreciate it.”

She looked offended.

Jonathan leaned in close to the First Lady. It was a gesture designed to make her pull back. She responded just as she was supposed to. “You just finished walking us through this song and dance,” Jonathan said, “about a gray-haired man who met with Douglas Winters and happened to turn out to be Dmitri Boykin. And through that entire story, you knew that this guy had a vendetta against you and your family. If David and Becky here had not come forward with the fact of their kidnapping, you would have kept that to yourself.”

Yelena’s eyes had a hard time finding a spot to settle on as she worked through the accusation. “It’s not like that,” she said. “You don’t understand—”

“I understand that you’re a woman of many secrets, ma’am, and that when you live with secret upon secret, life becomes extraordinarily complicated. But that’s never an excuse to lie to the people who may very well be the only allies you have left in the world.”

Yelena made a waving motion with both hands. “I didn’t think—”

Jonathan turned to Irene. “Okay, Wolverine, what are our options?”

Irene took a deep breath and looked to the newcomers. “David, is it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Did this Billy person say anything to you about a ransom, or conditions for release?”

David cleared his throat. “I actually asked that,” he said. “Or essentially that. Billy didn’t know.”

That made perfect sense to Jonathan. “Their demand is to be left alone,” he said. “And the First Lady’s family is the leverage to make that happen. That means that this Dmitri guy doesn’t know that you’re not in the White House, ma’am.”

Yelena scowled.

“If he thought you were on the run, as you are, he wouldn’t assume that the president’s chief of staff would have any sway in this. Winters couldn’t talk to someone who wasn’t there.”

Jonathan asked Irene, “Can’t you put HRT on this?” The FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team.

“Where would I put them?” she asked. “We can check out the family’s residence in Vail. I guess we should do that anyway, but there’s really not much doubt what we’re going to find.”

“And there’s the fact of the law enforcement connection,” Paul Boersky said, his first statement of the evening. “The whole reason we brought Scorpion into this in the first place was the fear that we couldn’t trust our own to keep things secret.”

“I think that horse has left the barn, hasn’t it?” Venice asked.

“Not necessarily,” Jonathan said. “It’s your call, Wolfie—my job is already done—but if the control of information is the endgame here, I’m thinking it might be a mistake to involve the real authorities too soon. They leak. You and I both know that.”

“The whole world knows that,” Boxers said. “Our enemies all count on it.”

Irene rubbed her eyes, then looked at Yelena. “Ma’am, how much of this do you imagine that the president knows?”

Yelena shook her head slowly. “Tony and I have literally not spoken in two months. Not even hello in the morning. I have no idea what he knows.”

“Is he close to your son?” Venice asked.

“Oh, good heavens, no. They hate each other.” After the words were out, Yelena retreated. “By that, though, I don’t mean to imply that he would consider hurting them.”

“Good heavens no,” Boxers mocked.

“You know,” Irene said, “I think it speaks volumes that my cell phone has not been going crazy with reports of the kidnapping. Especially given that the White House knows.”

“What are you suggesting?” Jonathan asked.

“I’m suggesting nothing,” Irene said. “I’m merely observing. And at this point, my observations are leading me to believe that Scorpion is correct. It may well be too early to involve official Washington in any of this.”

Yelena’s face became a mask of disbelief. “But what about my family?”

“We’ll get them back for you,” Jonathan said.

“There’s the words I’ve been dreading,” Boxers grumbled.

“How?” Yelena and others asked in unison.

Jonathan smiled as he looked at Venice. “Let me get back to you on the specifics,” he said. “After we do a little research.”

Venice groaned. When Jonathan said
we
he actually meant
she
.