He was actually looking forward to Monday.
It was time.
New York
Waldorf-Astoria
Deaver had a Christmas dinner brought up by room service from Peacock Alley. Maine lobster salad, prime grilled sirloin, dry-aged for twenty-eight days, with a wild mushroom side dish and a forty-dollar bottle of Valpolicella breathing on a sideboard—150 bucks, including tip, and worth every penny.
Axel continued with his generosity and Deaver lifted a cut-crystal glass in his honor.
When the waiters had finished setting the meal out on the huge, antique oak desk, and bowed themselves quietly out of the room, Deaver breathed in deeply and savored the moment.
It was all so perfect—the linen tablecloth and napkins, the fine bone china, the heavy silverware, the crystal glasses. The delicious smells of excellent food and clean table linen.
Deaver had grown up in a trailer park outside Midland, Texas. All his childhood, most of his food had been eaten cold, out of a can, and he had had to fight the cockroaches for it. He’d been eighteen, and in the Army, before he knew that forks came in different sizes.
But that was a long time ago, and he’d discovered that he had a taste for living large. This was how he was meant to live.
An hour later, Deaver wiped his mouth with the peach-colored oversized linen napkin and gave a little belch. Perfect. Perfect meal. The first of many.
The rest of his life was going to be like this. Exactly like this—luxurious surroundings, staff, superb food and wine—except he was going to have women around. Lots of them.
No women now. Now it was hunting time.
Wrapped up in the hotel’s thick terry-cloth robe, he opened the laptop he’d bought from Drake. Again, whatever Drake delivered was excellent. It was clearly a laptop that had seen heavy use, but its hard disk had been wiped clean, and it powered up just fine. Deaver connected to the high-speed Internet access port, went to Google, then sat back to reflect, staring at the bright screen.
The Colonel had found Prescott in January of 1996, emaciated, half-dead and half-frozen behind a Dumpster. Deaver had been OUTCONUS most of that winter, freezing his butt off in Bosnia. By the time he got back to base, Prescott was a done deal. The Colonel had adopted him, he’d put on forty pounds of muscle and was studying for his GCE, intent on joining the Army.
Deaver had hated him on sight. The Colonel thought the sun shone out of his ass. Well, he would, considering his own son, the other Jack, had been a whiny wimp who’d started drinking at fifteen and managed to wreck a car he’d stolen for a joyride and got himself killed at the age of twenty, together with a family of four, before his new cocaine habit could do it for him later.
One thing you had to say for Jack—he was as straight as they come, and the Colonel had taken him like a second lease on life.
When the Colonel retired to found ENP Security, everyone had assumed that Deaver would be his second-in-command. After all, he’d served under the Colonel for almost twenty years. It was his due, damn it.
Twenty years in the Army and he had fuck-all to show for it. Everyone else was making a bundle off Homeland Security, and it should have been Deaver’s turn.
But the only thing the Colonel had offered him was a job—and a miserably paid one at that, even though it was double what he’d been making in the Army. Deaver was expecting a managerial position with stock, and he ended up being a glorified hired gun, sent immediately to Waziristan to guard a pipeline, then to Sierra Leone to guard fat mining executives.
And Jack Prescott quit the Rangers and was made executive vice president of ENP Security the next day.
It still burned.
But he couldn’t dwell on that now. No emotion when planning a mission. Love, hatred, revenge—they could get you killed quicker than gunfire. No, Deaver had to think it through, logically and clearly, step by step.
Well, step number one was to be sure that Elvis had actually left the building.
Half an hour later, it looked like he had. Prescott had sold the company to a competitor and had sold his house to Rodney Strong, a CPA, and his wife Cathy Strong, lifestyle coach.
Prescott’s phone had been disconnected, as had all the utilities. There was no record of sale of property, or utility contracts, in the name of Jack Prescott, either in town or in a fifty-mile radius.
Much as Deaver found it hard to believe, since Jack had inherited a big, expensive house and a thriving company—he’d sold everything and disappeared off the face of the earth. He’d even sold his car.
Just to torment himself, Deaver hacked into Prescott’s bank account and stared at the screen, jaw muscles jumping.
On the nineteenth of December, just before leaving for Sierra Leone and fucking up Deaver’s life, Jack Prescott had converted all his assets into a cashier’s check for $8 million and change.
The fucker!
Deaver slammed his hand on the walnut desk, cracking it slightly. He stood up and walked the perimeter of the room, trying to calm himself down.
That son of a bitch had over 8 million plus his diamonds. Deaver was going to take the diamonds back, have Prescott wire all his money to Deaver’s account in the Caymans, then break every single bone in the son of a bitch’s body, before slitting his throat.
Then he’d kill the woman.
It took fifteen minutes before he could settle back down, but when he did, it was with a soldier’s concentration. The beautiful surroundings, the staff on call, quivering to be of service, the lavish meal—they all disappeared as he focused like a laser beam on the mission.
There would be no more indulgences, no more forays into the good life, until Jack Prescott was found.
Turning to the computer, Deaver checked the car rental agencies in town and in the surrounding towns. Prescott hadn’t rented a car. He wouldn’t take a bus—what man with almost $30 million would? So he’d flown out of town, to…where?
Half an hour later, Deaver had the answer. A credit card corresponding to Jack Prescott had been used to buy a one-way ticket from Freetown to Seattle, via Paris, Atlanta and Chicago. He couldn’t find any car rental agencies that had rented him a car.
So Deaver knew two things. One, Jack Prescott was in the Pacific Northwest, and two, he hadn’t bothered hiding his tracks. He’d left a clear trail behind him, which meant he didn’t know Deaver was on his trail.
If Jack hadn’t wanted to be tracked, Deaver would have ended up playing with his dick forever. So Jack wasn’t expecting anyone to follow him. Perfect. Surprise attacks worked best.
So, Deaver thought, leaning closer to the screen showing a detailed map of Washington state, where in Washington are you? Did you go up into Canada? His eyes tracked to the top of the screen, which cut off about a hundred miles north of Vancouver. He let the thought run through his mind, examining it from different directions.
Nah. He had a valid passport, and he wasn’t on the run. If he wanted to go up into Canada, he would have gone straight there.
No, everything pointed to Prescott being a man on a mission and taking a beeline to get there. Just as soon as he humanly could, he liquidated his assets and made straight for…
Straight for the girl—now a woman. Find her, find Prescott. Deaver was sure of it.
Once more, Deaver placed the two photocopied photographs flat on the table and studied them, more intently this time. This time, they had to tell him where Prescott was, and fast.
It was entirely possible that Prescott would find a married woman with six kids, who over the past twelve years had gained fifty pounds and lost teeth and hair and didn’t remember him.
If that was the case, Prescott would disappear and Deaver would never find him, or his diamonds, again.