Irene seemed to sense their approach and turned in her seat to see them. She stood and extended her hand. When Jonathan took it, she covered it with her left. “I thought she deserved a little company,” she said, answering the look she saw in Jonathan’s face. “She’s tough. I wish we still had her on the payroll.”
Jonathan smiled at the compliment, then eased past her for a closer look at Gail. Her face was swollen and bore purple highlights, but he’d seen worse. He knew to look past the drain lines and the intravenous tubes, and was heartened to see that the dressings and bandages were pure white. That meant she wasn’t bleeding and she wasn’t leaking cerebrospinal fluid, both good signs.
“Shot in the arm, the chest, and the head,” Irene said over his shoulder. “And she was still able to take out four bad guys.”
Jonathan turned to face Irene. Again, his face spoke for him.
“We don’t know the details,” she said. “I’m not sure we ever will. A worker at the Crystal Palace heard noises in the stairwell and stepped out to investigate. He found a blood trail and followed it to Gail. The worker called nine-one-one from his cell phone, and thank God he did, because if he’d called on a landline, it would have gone to the same security desk that turned away the police that responded to my first call. Scottsdale Police and Fire responded and because I had been knocking around for information, they dialed me in, too. Our people followed the same blood trail back up the stairs, and we found the guys she’d killed.”
Irene paused to make sure she had Jonathan’s full attention. “Wait till you get this,” she said. “Your girlfriend made it down eleven floors with those injuries.” She looked back to Gail. “One tough, tough young lady.”
Jonathan had known that since the day they’d first met. But he’d known a lot of very, very tough people who’d lost their battles against bullets.
He moved back to her bedside and threaded his way through the IV tubes to grasp her hand. As he entwined his fingers with hers, he noticed traces of blood in the crease where her manicured nails met the nail beds.
Gail stirred at his touch, and he smiled, gently raising her hand above the bed rail and bending to kiss it.
“It’s Digger,” he said. “I’m here.”
Her uncovered eye opened for just a second or two, and then closed. He sensed that the lid was just too heavy.
“Harriett,” she said.
Jonathan scowled as he scoured his memory.
“I don’t understand,” Jonathan said.
This time, Gail didn’t waste energy on her eyelid. “How is Harriett?”
Dom whispered, “Gail was trying to save her. She didn’t make it.”
“Don’t worry about her,” Jonathan said, stroking her hand with his thumb as his fingers gripped a little tighter. “You worry about getting well.”
“She was my responsibility,” Gail said. “Did she get out?” As she spoke, the rhythm of the blips on her heart monitor increased.
There were some things about which Jonathan could not allow himself to lie. “No,” he said. “She was killed.”
Gail’s chest heaved as she took a huge breath. “My fault,” she said.
Jonathan wanted to correct her, but didn’t. If Gail had not gone to the Crystal Palace, lots of people would still be alive. The fact that most of them deserved killing didn’t remove the burden of the one who didn’t.
“Digger?” Gail said.
“Right here.”
“Kiss me,” she said.
He leaned across the bed rail and did just that, pressing his lips gently against hers. She did her best to kiss him back.
As he pulled away, he stroked her hair. “I love you,” he said. It was the first time he’d ever spoken the words aloud to Gail.
Gail winced. “I wanted to quit,” she said. “You talked me out of it.”
“That’s because you’re too good at what you do,” he said. They’d had this conversation a thousand times.
“This time for real,” Gail said. “I quit. I can’t hurt anyone else.”
“This time, I won’t say a word. You do what you need to do.”
Gail nodded slightly, but even that tiny movement seemed to hurt. “More,” she said. “I need you to quit, too.”
Jonathan didn’t care all that much about the details of what became of the Crystal Palace Cathedral, but from what he’d gathered from the news, Jackie Mitchell and her executive committee would spend the rest of their lives in prison if they didn’t end up on the wrong end of a needle in the death chamber.
The government’s case against Felix Hernandez- and, by extension, their case against Trevor Munro-died with Maria Elizondo.
And without a case against him, Munro still remained poised to advance within the Agency. It was the nature of their business in Langley to cross ethical lines. Convincing people to betray their own country to provide intelligence data was a dirty business-certainly no dirtier than abetting a drug trade in return for special favors. Besides, Uncle Sam had the ATF and the DEA to take care of drugs and weapons. And occasionally the Army.
The levels of cynicism and general dysfunction within the U.S. government had sickened Jonathan for years. Over time, he’d learned to look away, wrapping himself in his own cloak of cynicism. It’s the way of politicians and bureaucrats to feed on the blood of others in order to advance their careers. He’d learned to live with it.
Until now. Until Trevor Munro. He was a peculiar brand of mass murderer who killed randomly and efficiently without ever pulling a trigger or throwing a bomb. He did it with full deniability.
His bosses in Langley had the power to stop him, but instead chose to promote him. Soon he would be the third-highest-ranking spook in the CIA, with a bloated paycheck that was financed by honest Americans. It wasn’t right.
Jonathan had never done well at managing anger. Some injustices were so out of proportion that he couldn’t live with the imbalance.
Over the years, Jonathan had seen too many of his Special Ops pals slide the slippery moral slope toward hired killer, and he’d vowed to himself and to God and to everything holy that he would never become an assassin. It would just be too easy a line to cross, and once crossed, there could be no return.
These thoughts-this rage-tormented him as he sat in Trevor Munro’s rigorously neat living room with its clean lines and right angles, awaiting the man’s arrival home from work. He told himself that justice and assassination were two different things.
Tonight would be all about justice, meted out by the subsonic rounds he’d loaded into the suppressed.22-caliber pistol in his lap.
The living room wall hummed as the garage door opened.
Jonathan waited until the overhead door rumbled closed again, and then he stood. He didn’t make his move, though, until he heard the interior garage door open and close and the sound of mail slapping down on the table.
Jonathan stepped into the foyer, and from there straight into the kitchen.
Munro actually made a yipping sound as he sensed Jonathan’s presence, and he whirled to face his attacker.
The man Munro saw was dressed all in black, and his face was covered by a black mask.
“I hear you’ve been looking for me,” Jonathan said. He smiled at the sight of the spreading stain in Munro’s trousers. “Well, here I am.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Family is always first. Thank you, Joy, for always being there, and always understanding. I love you.
Chris, you rock. I’m so proud of you.
I owe special thanks to a couple of genuine war heroes who invited me into the world of U.S. Navy SEALs for a couple of days and let me see stuff and play with toys that I would otherwise never have had access to. Steve “Dutch” Van Horn is a terrific tour guide for the SEALs compound in Virginia Beach, and the hour or two I spent on the shooting range with Stephen “Turbo” Toboz as my instructor was truly special. I shot the HK416 (Jonathan Grave’s M27), the HK417, the sweet little MP7, and the granddaddy of the day, a.300 WinMag sniper rifle. Great day. Thanks, guys.