“Now that’s what I call an exit,” Scarlet said.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jack Brooke watched the Californian sun sparkling on the water as his government jet made the final approach into San Francisco International. Somewhere down there in the center of the city his staff were preparing for him to make his speech the following day. Was it a crazy idea? Maybe, and the weight of the covert Mexico mission just increased the pressure. Even now as the plane touched down on the hot tarmac he still wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing.
His ex-wife wanted him to do it, but his daughter Alex was against the idea. He understood why — his political career had eclipsed his job as a father and taken him away from her during her childhood. Now they were finally getting close again and he was running for President of the United States — what other reaction could he expect?
Charles Grant was a good man and a great president, and his kidnapping at the hands of Klaus Kiefel had only increased his massive popularity with the American people — but thanks to the Twenty-Second Amendment to the US Constitution no one was allowed more than two terms in the Oval Office and Grant’s eight years were up.
Brooke hadn’t made the decision to run lightly. His family was a major consideration — as was his ranch in Idaho. Sitting on the Hill listening to committees and steering groups his mind had wandered more than once to his sprawling property in the mountains. He was an outdoors kind of guy who liked nothing better than fishing out in the rivers or riding his Appaloosa into the hills. Bred by the Nez Perce Indians of western Idaho, the Appaloosa was the perfect horse for trail riding and even some mountain hunting and that ticked all of his boxes. But what kept his heart in the mountains was the same thing that boosted his popularity with the electorate, and it was clear that he was the party’s best chance at securing the Oval Office.
Now the plane was trundling off to a gate on the south side of the airport. Soon they would whisk him away in a line of state government Escalades all the way to the hotel at the Embarcadero Center for the speech of his career. Scott West was a dangerous opponent in the primaries and it was neck and neck in California. But everything rested on the Golden State now — whoever won here would secure the party’s official nomination and go on to fight Bill Peterson for the White House. Brooke thought Peterson was weak on defense at a dangerous time for America, and it was that belief that had finally driven him to run. It was a tense time.
Worse still was the Mexican business. Deploying Kim, Doyle and Jack Camacho down there was risky but unavoidable. The intel was minimal but clear — Morton Wade had paid tens of millions of dollars to an unidentified arms broker in Astana but what he had bought and where it was currently located were still two massive and lethal ‘known-unknowns’. Someone had to get to the bottom of it, and working with Eden’s ECHO outfit seemed a great way to keep things well under the radar.
He glanced at his watch and frowned. He hadn’t heard from Kim Taylor yet, and hoped all was okay. Running a semi-covert mission in Mexico could ruin his chances if there was any blowback, plus his daughter Alex was in the region, on the Eden Consortium’s private island in the Caribbean. He knew what she was doing down there, even though she had never spoken to him about it, but he had no power to tell her what to do. Even if he got into the Oval Office he knew she still wouldn’t listen to a damned word he said.
He cracked a brief smile at the thought. That’s Alex…
When the crew opened the airplane door the hot air flooded in and washed over him. Outside on the tarmac was a gathering of journalists. Jack Brooke gave his famous crooked smile, slipped on his sunglasses and made his way down the steps. A long day of small-talking, glad-handing and grip-n-grins was ahead of him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
On the flight to Rome, Joe Hawke was struggling to focus on the issue at hand. He thought maybe it was just too long since he’d been a full-time soldier, but no matter how up in his face the Wade business was, he couldn’t stop thinking about Liz, and the grisly trail that had led all the way to Matheson. Avenging her death hadn’t felt anywhere near as good as he’d thought it might, and there was still Lazaro to consider.
Alfredo Lazaro, known to his victims as the Spider, was the Cuban hit-man who had pulled the trigger and killed his wife. He was acting on the orders of various middlemen stretching back like puddles of slime to James Matheson, and he too would pay the price for the part he played.
Now, Hawke cast a tired eye through the tiny window of Eden’s private jet and winced at the pain from the wound in his shoulder as he watched the speeding aircraft descend through the broken cloud. Below he could see glances of the famous olive-covered hills of Tuscany and beyond them rose up the Appennini Mountains of Umbria and Abruzzo. This was somewhere he could lose himself when all this madness was over, but would that be with Lea Donovan?
Before he could think about that future, visions of James Matheson rose again in his mind like a rotten corpse punching its way out of a shallow grave. He was right to kill him. There was no doubt of that. Matheson had ordered Operation Swallowtail against his wife. No matter what truths she had kept from him, he knew she had loved him once… and that was why Matheson had to pay the final price. But with Matheson gone, the thought of why Swallowtail was ordered began to gnaw at him.
What the old man had said about how he was just following orders was nagging at him, pulling on his mind like a claw. What was that name again — the Oracle? Hawke shook his head. Who could be so powerful that he secretly directed the policies of entire governments? As for the claim that this Oracle was tied up with the murder of Lea’s father — Hawke didn’t know what to think. At first he thought he had to tell Lea straight away, but then he decided against it. If that old bastard Matheson had been lying it would only stir up painful memories for Lea with no benefit at all.
But if he was telling the truth, then whoever the Oracle was had a lot to answer for — not only ordering Matheson to execute Liz, but now some sort of involvement in the murder of Harry Donovan. The thoughts swirled in his mind but he decided to keep Matheson’s final ramblings to himself, at least for now. He was lost deep in thoughts of tracking down the Spider when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to see not Lea, whom he had expected, but Maria Kurikova.
“Lost in the woods?” she asked with a fresh smile. Before he could reply, she sat down opposite him and handed him a coffee. “I know the feeling. I get lost in my thoughts all the time.”
“Can we talk?” he said, taking a short sip of the coffee. He glanced up and saw Lea and Ryan were sleeping at the back of the plane and decided to take the moment to speak with her.
“Sure.” She flashed that smile of hers.
“I wanted to thank you, Maria.”
“What for?”
“You read the news today?”
“Only Pravda. I don’t trust the Western press.”
He gave her a look. “Any stories stand out?”
“Matheson,” she said with a knowing look. “I presume ‘dying peacefully in his sleep’ isn’t exactly how it went?”
“I got to him in the end, Maria, and I could never have done it without you. What you told me about Liz being a Russian double agent on the flight to Luxor that day was painful, but I had to know and it was brave of you to tell me. Without what you told me about Matheson being behind Operation Swallowtail I would never have been able to avenge Liz, so thanks, Maria.” Before she could reply, he leaned forward over the desk and kissed her on the cheek. “I mean it. With me I’m either your best-friend or your worst-enemy, and we’re friends.”