Zhao ordered his voluptuous Ukrainian secretary to alert his limousine driver to start the vehicle. His private jet would be leaving from Bamako Airport shortly. Zhao entered his private express elevator, one of the fastest in the world, built by the Japanese firm Toshiba. By virtue of its computerized lift and braking system, it rocketed him directly between his penthouse suite and his exclusive parking area in the subbasement at nearly forty miles per hour. It took only 7.27 seconds to travel the forty floors—a distance of four hundred feet.
Zhao was scheduled for a meeting in Beijing tomorrow with the president of China himself, first among equals on the ruling Standing Committee. It was the greatest honor of Zhao’s life. A new, broader Africa initiative was under way and Zhao was rumored to be the man to head it up. No doubt this was the next logical step in his progression toward leadership in the CPC. His meteoric rise to the pinnacle of national power might soon make him the youngest president in China. The elevator doors shut as Zhao’s spirits soared.
Just 7.27 seconds later, the entire building shook with an explosion as the elevator doors in the subbasement smashed open. It sounded like a plane had crashed in the elevator shaft.
The limo driver ran to the wreckage and tried to pry open the bent stainless-steel doors. He couldn’t. The concrete structure surrounding the elevator shaft had cracked on impact. Tons of concrete wedged the crushed doors in the frame. All the driver could do was peer inside. The flickering LEDs inside flashed like strobe lights on the blood-drenched interior. Zhao’s body had been pulverized by the high-speed impact, then shredded by the shards of shattered glass that had lined the interior walls.
Ian’s virus had worked perfectly. Penetrating the Toshiba mainframe had been relatively easy, putting the elevator completely in Pearce’s control. He recorded Zhao’s brutal demise on the elevator cameras.
Pearce watched the video on his transatlantic flight. He only wished Mossa could have seen it, too.
63
Fiero residence
Washington, D.C.
15 July
It was the party of the year. If you weren’t there, you weren’t anybody.
Senator Fiero was practically the president-elect, or so it seemed, though the election was still over a year away. Greyhill’s “do nothing” governing style was wearing thin, while Fiero rode higher and higher in the polls thanks to a carefully orchestrated and well-funded advertising campaign, aided by the willing compliance of a Democrat-dominated media.
Early on, Fiero had amassed so much cash in her campaign coffers from all of the big donors that no serious challenger within her party rose up to campaign against her. The only other Democrat in the primary race that was registered in all fifty states was Congressman Lane. He may have been rising in the polls, too, but he was woefully underfunded and lacked any credible endorsements from party leadership. Thirteen members of the Kennedy family denounced his use of JFK’s inaugural Ask not phrase as unbecoming and, possibly, actionable in a court of law. Five Kennedys had publicly announced their support of Fiero’s candidacy, and the three most powerful among them were here at the party tonight.
Pearce centered the crosshairs squarely on Fiero’s upper lip. She had floated like a butterfly between guests all night—foreign ambassadors, Hollywood celebrities, hip-hop artists, and media pundits had all passed through the glass in his scope as he tracked the senator from room to room. Fiero hadn’t stood still long enough to take a clear shot.
Until now.
Pearce’s fingertip rested lightly on the trigger. It required less than two pounds of pull to fire. He slowed his breath, counted his heartbeats. Sent the signal from his brain to his finger to begin the smallest contraction, building pressure slowly, not allowing a jerked finger or a ragged breath to alter the shot trajectory. The pressure in his fingertip built. It was nearly sexual. The climax would be a solid thud from the tip of the suppressed sniper rifle; the release a spiderwebbed windowpane three hundred yards away and a spray of blood pluming from Fiero’s Botoxed face.
The expectation tingled the length of his arm all the way down to his index finger. Any moment now.
And then a woman stepped into view.
Margaret Myers.
The former president stood in front of Fiero, completely blocking his shot. The hand-loaded .300 Winchester Magnum round was powerful enough to tear through Myers’s skull and plow into Fiero’s. But that wasn’t an option.
He and Myers hadn’t spoken in over a month, but she had communicated her opposition to his killing spree through Ian. Myers knew Fiero was on his list. You can’t just go around murdering politicians you don’t like. The rule of law protects all of us. If you shoot Fiero, who’ll shoot me?
He ignored her. Johnny, Early, Mossa, Balla, Moctar, Mano. The rule of law didn’t do them any good. Why should a lawbreaker like Fiero benefit from the law?
Damn it.
He withdrew his fingertip from the trigger completely, glanced away from the scope. He nearly vomited. Myers had escaped death by the slimmest possible margin. One more heartbeat and she could have been Jackson Pollocked all over Fiero’s stainless-steel Sub-Zero refrigerator.
“Ian,” he whispered in his mic.
“She made me do it,” Ian replied.
“Who made you do what?”
“Don’t blame him,” Myers said. Her voice was in his earpiece.
Pearce put his eye to his scope again. She wasn’t in the kitchen. He moved the scope around, window to window. Found her in the second-story bathroom glancing out of the window, searching, but not in his direction. He watched her lips move. Her voice arrived a split second later, the briefest of time delays.
“I can’t see you out there, Troy, but I know you can hear me.”
“How?”
“Sorry, old man. But I owed her one,” Ian said. Clearly, he had told Myers what Pearce planned to do that night.
“You’re fired,” Pearce said.
“You’re hired, Ian,” Myers countered. “And I’ll double your salary.”
“You think this will stop me?”
“No, Troy, I don’t. But I’ve notified the Secret Service that there might be a problem. They’ll be on you as soon as I give the order.”
“Give it.”
“I’d rather not.”
“What do you want?”
“A word.”
“Shoot.”
“Nice punning, former employer.”
“Shut up, Ian.”
“I understand you want justice, Troy. I can give it to you. But not at the end of a gun.”
“I’m listening, but I’m also aiming.” Fiero had wandered back into his scope. She stood in the living room now, laughing too hard at something Alec Baldwin was saying.
“A bullet through the brain would be far too painless of a death, and far too quick, for someone as loathsome as Barbara Fiero,” Myers said.
“I like the way this is sounding.”
“I have a better way to make her suffer. She’ll be tormented every waking breath.”
“Tell me what to do.”
“Stand down. Do nothing. I’ll take care of it,” Myers said. “You have to trust me on this.”
Silence.
“Troy?”
“Trust issues, remember?”
“If I’m not telling the truth, you can always kill her later, right?”
More silence.
“How soon?”