The Echo of the Whip (37 page)

Chief of staff Galia Mindel entered the room looking as rumpled and apprehensive as the president had ever seen her. Even in the wee hours of a primary campaign trip when an election was too close to call, she hadn’t looked like this. Worse, the kind of fear in Galia’s eyes wasn’t the kind that could be shrugged off with a handy rationale.

“We might lose this primary, but we’ll win the next three. The nomination and the White House are going to be ours.”

Galia had used those very words, and Patti Grant would never forget them.

Now, all Galia had to say was, “How bad is the trouble we’re in?”

The president gestured Galia to a chair opposite the love seat where she sat.

She didn’t want her desk between them now.

This was a woman-to-woman, one-old-friend-to-another conversation

The president said, “That’s what I want you to tell me.”

“Did anyone kill Joan Renshaw?” Galia asked. “I didn’t have the time to check.”

“Not that I know,” the president said. “Joan did, however, recant her accusation that she was acting as my agent when she killed Erna Godfrey.”

Galia figured out the reason for the disavowal even faster than McGill had.

More to the point, she figured out how the change of heart applied to her.

Galia shook her head and said, “Wasn’t me.”

The phrasing was deliberately vague. Galia had not arranged the delivery of any threat to scare Joan into being truthful. She had also not specifically commented on the subject. If the president was ever required to respond under oath she could honestly say that she and her chief of staff had never spoken of the situation.

Continuing in the same elliptical fashion, Patricia Grant asked, “Any ideas?”

As to who might have frightened the the opposition’s only witness.

“Not at this time,” Galia responded.

“Any worries?”

That this might come back to bite us.

Galia thought about it. “Meaning no disrespect, ma’am, I think that’s more my concern than yours.”

I’m the logical person to fall under suspicion.

“Whatever the other side thinks, let see if we can get to the bottom of this first,” the president said. “I’m not going to have anyone in my administration impugned.”

Especially you; I need you.

Galia nodded. “Thank you, ma’am.”

The president stood and the chief of staff also rose.

“If anyone tries to consume my presidency, Galia, I want them to choke on it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I also don’t intend to let anyone sue my caterer.”

I’ve got your back.

Special Agent Abra Benjamin moved to her left as the Asian woman holding the baby moved to her right, closer to the bed. Abra was trained in Krav Maga, Hebrew for contact combat, a discipline originated by Imre Lichtenfeld. Developed in Israel, it borrowed from boxing, wrestling, judo and aikido. The first principle of Krav Maga, if a fight could not be avoided, was to end the fight as quickly as possible.

By winning it, of course.

That meant counter-attacking immediately or even attacking preemptively. The primary way to assure victory was to strike your opponent’s most vulnerable points: eyes, throat, groin, knees and so on. In case you were overmatched, it was also important to look for avenues of escape and objects that might come to hand and be used to attack or defend.

The problem facing Abra at the moment was that none of her training had instructed her on how to deal with a sociopath using an infant as a human shield. The kid, too young to have a tooth in his head, was squalling almost as if he knew the woman holding him was fully prepared to sacrifice his life to win this little set-to.

As Abra flashed through a list of possibilities of how she might land a blow or kick that would disable the woman without hurting the child, a gruesome thought occurred to her. The woman might use the kid as a projectile. Throw the little beggar at her and attack as Abra reached out to catch him.

Something along that line must have occurred to Tyler Busby, as well. He was kneeling on the bed behind the Asian woman, his hands still bound at the wrists. He called out in a panicked tone, “Ah-lam, what are you doing? Jonathan is our son.”

The woman was the kid’s
mother?
Abra asked herself.

Retreat was not a Krav Maga technique, but Abra took a step back in horror.

“He is but one child,” Ah-lam said. “If we survive, we can make others.”

“He’s
my
son, goddamnit!” Busby roared.

Ah-lam turned her head, as if to look for an attack from her rear.

Just a glimpse of her Gorgon’s expression froze Busby.

While still pinning the billionaire with her basilisk stare, she threw her arms forward and let her son go. He flew through the air, shrieking in terror, and Ah-lam turned and followed, less than a heartbeat behind. She intended to strike while Abra had her hands full.

Only Abra didn’t catch the kid so much as propel him back the way he came. As Mom charged forward, little Jonathan sailed over her head going the opposite way. Ah-lam couldn’t stop herself from sparing a glimpse at her shrieking child doing his imitation of a shuttlecock. When she did, Abra struck.

Not with a punch or a kick. She lowered her head and charged. Drove the top of her skull into Ah-lam’s solar plexus. It was an unorthodox blow to be sure, but it followed an old martial art maxim: strike a soft surface with a hard surface. The breath exploded from the Asian woman’s body and she jackknifed backward, colliding with Busby, who had plucked his son from the air and deposited him on the bed.

Busby looped his manacled hands around his wife’s throat and pulled her hard against him. She didn’t have the strength to resist and he would have crushed her windpipe in a matter of seconds if not for the barrel of an M-4 carbine being inserted into his ear.

The cop who’d been pushing the buggy had arrived at last.

“Let the lady go,” Lieutenant Silvina Reyes told Busby.

He released the pressure on Ah-lam’s throat without hesitation and she collapsed in a heap at his feet.

Abra said to Silvina, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the woman has some kind of weapon on her.”

“She usually carries a knife,” Busby said.

“Then you will very carefully and gently get down on your knees and search her,” Silvina instructed Busby. “Remove anything nasty and toss it over into that far corner. You understand me?”

Busby nodded.

Sparing a glance at Abra, she asked, “You’re really FBI?”

Abra was also keeping her eyes on Busby and Ah-lam. “Yes.” She nodded at Silvina’s assault rifle. “Is that your standard duty weapon down here?”

Busby found a knife and tossed it into the corner.

Silvina told Abra, “No, the rifle is not standard, but I couldn’t fit anything bigger into the buggy. And if you are FBI, please don’t tell me you walked into this room unarmed.”

Abra inclined her head to the Beretta on a table near the window.

“I put it down when I saw the baby. Didn’t want to take any chance I might hit junior by mistake.”

Silvina liked that, and little Jonathan, having had enough excitement for one night, rolled over onto his stomach and was quickly falling asleep. Silvina smiled at him.

“With luck, he won’t remember a thing,” she said.

“I was going to arrest Tyler Busby and take him back to the United State,” Abra said.

Silvina replied, “After observing all of Uruguay’s extradition requirements, of course.”

“Yeah, sure. Did I forget to mention that? Anyway, with the woman and the child involved, it’s more of a mess. They’re all yours, if you want them.”

Silvina had spoken with her father. He’d told her there were those in the national government who loved
los estados unidos
and those who were not so kindly disposed. His considered opinion was that Busby would be returned, eventually.

So the young police lieutenant, who was working on her own time, made an executive decision. “I’ll tell you what, Ms. FBI, let’s take your naked countryman and the other two to your embassy. Your government can pay for their room and board while my government decides if they should travel north.”

Abra nodded her head and extended a hand.

“Special Agent Abra Benjamin.”

“Lieutenant Silvina Reyes.”

They shook on the deal.

While the government of Uruguay had a well-deserved reputation for honesty, corrupt individuals labored within its precincts just like any other place. Desperate and possessing a keen eye for flawed personalities, Philip Brock, congressman and fugitive, spotted what he considered his last chance for freedom in the person of Candelario Gonzales, the head jailer of the police lockup where he was being held.

Gonzales was an otherwise thin man with a large belly overhanging his belt. Clearly, he liked to indulge at least one kind of appetite. One look in his eyes told Brock the man had other cravings as well. Before Brock was shoved into his cell, he managed to both observe the deference the other guards showed Gonzales and to whisper a simple message to him.

“One hundred thousand dollars, half up front.”

He delivered the message in Spanish so there would be no confusion.

Gonzales’ only immediate response had been to cast a quick, reptilian look at Brock. For several hours, Brock sat alone in his tiny cell thinking he had failed. He was sunk. He would be returned to the United States and would stand trial for conspiring to kill the president. There was no way around it. His attempt to throw Tyler Busby to the wolves and save himself had failed.

How the hell could he have known that goddamn nanny was really a cop?

Still, he might simply have made an anonymous call from Buenos Aires. That would have been the safe way to hand Busby over to the feds. Only he’d wanted the pleasure of peeking out his window and seeing Busby hauled away. That would have been a gleeful memory to last a lifetime. Now, he was going to spend the rest of his life alone in a supermax prison cell.

If the prosecution didn’t find a legal justification to execute him.

After hours of languishing in despair, Gonzales stepped into Brock’s cell, alone.

In English, he said, “Fifty thousand now. How?”

Trying not to get his hopes too high, Brock said, “I give you the name of the bank, an account number and a password. I speak into a phone for voice recognition. The money is then available to wire into the account of your choosing.”

Gonzales stared at him, as if searching for a lie.

“And the other half?” he asked.

“Once I’m out of the country, we do another transfer.”

“I should trust you?” Gonzales asked.

“Travel with me, if you want. Once I’m somewhere safe, though, it would be better for me to make you happy than have you want to lock me up again.”

Gonzales showed no expression, but Brock thought the man saw the sense in what he’d said. “I may be back or I may not,” Gonzales said.

The chief jailer made Brock wait an hour, no doubt hoping that uncertainty would make his prisoner more pliable. Gonzales told him, “All of the money now.”

Brock shook his head and said, “Half. The rest when I’m safe.”

“I could torture you. Make you scream until your heart or your mind gives way.”

“Then you’d get nothing. The voice recognition system works only when a person is calm. If there’s stress from fear or pain, it locks the account. It’s a security feature.”

Gonzales scowled and left again, not promising to return.

He did come back, though. Opened the door and gave a brusque gesture. “Come.”

Brock got off his concrete bunk and stood. He was unsure what fate he’d meet outside the cell: freedom, torture or extradition. He hesitated, and that made Gonzales smile. The jailer grasped the edge of the door and raised his eyebrows inquisitively.

Perhaps you’d like to remain where you are,
señor?

No, that was the last thing Brock wanted. He hurried out of the tiny cell. He was no sooner across the threshold than Gonzales grabbed him by the back of his neck. Now, Brock was scared. People who’d been bought off didn’t treat their benefactors that way.

But Gonzales whispered to him, “We will be taking a short ride to my bank. It is closed for business, but a door will be left unlocked. You will contact your bank. You will be so happy to be free, your voice will all but sing.”

Brock tried to assess what he’d been told. He wouldn’t have expected Gonzales to have the necessary contact at a bank to arrange the scenario. Or the sophistication to come up with such a plan in the first place. But what other choice did he have but to play along? Go back to his cell? No thanks. They stepped through the doorway out of the back of the lockup. A car with its motor running waited for them.

The lure of freedom was too strong for Brock to resist.

Even so, he asked, “What happens after you get the first half of your money?”

Gonzales said, “A helicopter flying very low takes you to Argentina. Not Buenos Aires, but a small town near there. You will wait in a safe place a day or two and then you will get me the second half of my money. After that, you may come or go as you wish.”

“I’ll need some documentation to travel,” Brock said.

Gonzales opened a rear door of the car. He took a small dark blue object out of a pocket.

“Your passport,
señor.
”

A forged American passport in the name of Darren Anderson, but with a photo of Brock affixed to it.

Brock snatched the passport from Gonzales’ hand. For the first time, he felt as if he might truly get away. He asked the jailer, “Aren’t you coming with me to Argentina?”

Gonzales shook his head. “I am leaving you here. I can not say I trust you, but you would be a fool to betray me. Fate allows a man only so many misdeeds. Then it bites him right on
la
cula.
” His ass.

Brock thought, yeah right, you superstitious moron. But he kept a straight face. Nodded gravely. He got into the car, pulling the door shut before anyone could change his mind. The driver pulled away and the sense of relief Brock felt made him shiver.

So close to disaster and now …

He noticed that an interior light in the car was on. He saw two 8x10 glossy photographs on the seat next to him. Head shots. When it registered whose likenesses he was looking at his stomach knotted. The first picture was of Bahir Ben Kalil, his one-time friend and co-conspirator in planning the assassination of the president. Brock had killed him so there would be one fewer person to implicate him if things went wrong.

The other photo was of Bahir’s twin sister, Hasna Kalil, a surgeon.

Rumored to be a terrorist interrogator able to inflict unimaginable pain.

Scrawled across her photo was an inscription:
The doctor will see you soon.

Brock screamed in terror. He would have jumped out of the moving car but both of the rear doors were locked. The privacy screen between him and the driver did not yield to repeated pummeling. Tears formed in Brock’s eyes as he realized Gonzales had been bargaining with someone besides him. No doubt someone who could pay cash in advance.

The jailer’s story was meant only to pacify him, usher him eagerly into the death trap.

Brock intended to start kicking at a door when he heard a soft hiss. A bittersweet aerosol began to fill the rear of the car. Brock began to feel heavy-headed. He realized to his horror that he was being sedated. He gave up fighting and gulped as much of the gas as he could, praying for an overdose.

His only hope now was that he’d never wake up again.