The End Game

As Callan listened, she walked to the window and looked out at her city. Since the power went down, it had quickly emptied. It looked surreal, a painting of a city without movement, without people. A dead city. She’d nearly forgotten there was a blackout, being inside the White House, where everything still ran smoothly.

“Temp, does anyone other than the FBI know about this?”

“No, only the FBI. Carl Grace told me Savich, Drummond, and Caine were speaking this afternoon with Vanessa. Small world, turns out Vanessa knows Agent Caine from school. Carl said it went well. They won’t speak to the press, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“And Spenser believes she’s dead?”

“Yes, no way for him to know she’s not. We’ve kept it all very quiet.”

Callan said, “Do you think he would be upset were he to find out she’s still alive?”

“I’d say so, after shooting her in the chest and leaving her in the fire, along with his own BFF, Ian McGuire, a minor IRA bad guy he’s been working with for a very long time. McGuire tried to protect her. It was a major betrayal, Callan. You know how some people feel very strongly about betrayal.”

“Who else from the group have we identified?”

“Other than Zahir Damari, the only other major player is a computer guy named Andrew Tate. As for the rest of the group, Vanessa thinks they’re very likely gone from the country by now. So we have Matthew Spenser, Andy Tate, and Zahir Damari on the loose. Yorktown, Callan, that’s got to be the target, and you, of course. Will Zahir Damari try to take you there? It sounds plausible.”

Callan looked at her watch. It was a few minutes past nine o’clock. “Call up someone you trust in the media. If we hurry, we can make the eleven p.m. news. We’ve got to draw Matthew Spenser out as soon as possible. Don’t worry, Vanessa Grace won’t be in that hospital room. Assign another of your people to play her. Get it on the news, Temp, get it on the news right away. Vanessa Grace is now officially bait.”

A pause, then: “Callan, it’s good to know you haven’t lost your chops.”

62

KNIGHT TO E4

Sherlock passed the lasagna to Mike. “A good thing the power came back on as you guys pulled into the driveway. It’s Dillon’s special sauce, which I have to say, being the recipient for lo these many years, is well nigh the best ever made.”

Savich said, “It’s my grandmother’s recipe, actually, with only a few additions.”

Nicholas said, “Savich, could I give Cook Crumbe your recipe?”

“Cook Crumbe runs the kitchen at Old Farrow Hall,” Mike said to Savich, who’d cocked his head. “This ancient shack where Nicholas was born.”

“That’s good, Mike. How many bedrooms, Nicholas?”

He thought about that, then said, “I really don’t know. Now, about the sauce, I think my mother would love it. As for my grandfather? You’ve met him, Mike, you never know. But it’s worth a try.”

“Papa didn’t make the garlic bread,” Sean said, “Mama did. She’s good at garlic bread, and she likes me to tell everyone.”

Laughter, and it felt good.

When di

Sean studied his face. “You aren’t losing on purpose, are you, Uncle Nicholas? I mean, I beat you fair and square, right?”

“Yes,” Nicholas said, “I did lose on purpose. I’m trying to be nice.”

Sean said, “You will not lose on purpose this time. Do you promise?”

“Yes, I promise.”

Sean beat him. Then he pulled an excited, tail-wagging Astro onto his lap, leaned back against the sofa cushions, and frowned at Nicholas. “You weren’t telling the truth. I really beat you all those rounds, didn’t I?”

“All right, you caught me. I was trying to spare my ego.” He said to Savich, “He’s too smart, he saw right through me.”

Sherlock nodded. “I’m the only one he can’t beat, right, Sean?”

“Well, Mama, maybe not this week.”

Sherlock grabbed both him and Astro up and swung them around and around, making Sean shout with laughter and Astro bark madly. She gave him a big smacking kiss. “No, no kiss for you, Astro. All right, my boy, it’s time for bed. You’ve humiliated Nicholas enough for one night. Astro, it’s time for your evening walkabout.”

“Good night, Uncle Nicholas. Good night, Aunt Mike.”

Mike shook his hand. “A pleasure to watch you trounce my partner. He occasionally needs trouncing. A lot of trouncing.” And even though she’d meant to keep her voice light, hey, all a joke, both Savich and Sherlock gave her a look that said everything.

They know there’s something going on. Mike looked over at Nicholas. His face was stone vacant and he was staring at his shoes as if the soft Italian leather held all the answers.

Savich looked from one to the other. “Whatever’s wrong, you two need to fix it.”

“There is absolutely nothing wrong, Dillon,” Mike said, jumping to her feet. “There’s absolutely nothing at all going on, not a single thing. Besides, I don’t want to talk about it. Nicholas, isn’t it about time you checked in with Ben?”

Nicholas nodded, punched in Ben’s cell number. Ben answered immediately. “You’re not going to believe this, Nicholas. We found trackers on both your personal cars and five of the vehicles you’ve used from the pool in the past month. Nice Beemer, by the way, you have to let me drive it sometime. The trackers are small, very small, state-of-the-art, placed in the engine block instead of the wheel well. It took some looking to find them. Someone has definitely been keeping track of your—our—whereabouts. From what we can tell, the trackers send a GPS signal strong enough that the person who’s following can watch your movements on a laptop, remotely, up to fifty miles away. Very sophisticated.” He paused, then, “And that’s how they found Mr. Hodges and our three guys.”

“Any chance you can reverse-engineer the data, see where it broadcasted to?”

“We’re working on it, but it’s a moot point, really. They’ve been turned off now. We’ve taken them all to the lab to be worked over for any DNA or fingerprints.”

“U

“Who?”

“Someone in COE, probably Andy Tate—he’s their computer whiz. Or Zahir Damari, aka Darius. It sounds more like him.

“Any movement on Gray’s end, on the nanotriggers Spenser engineered for his bombs?”

“He’s right here, hold on. Let me put this on speaker.”

There was a click, then Gray came on the line. “The triggers were definitely Havelock technology. Good catch, Nicholas. The only issue is they are on the market, being used by a number of people, legitimately. We’ll have to get a warrant to see who they’ve sold them to, and it will take time.”

Mike said, “Gray, anything on the money trail?”

“Now, here I have more for you. We ran a forensic accounting on the guy Adam Pearce found, name of Porter Wallace. He’s definitely managing a few portfolios on the side. I found a link between him and Larry Reeves—the insider at Bayway. The money was moved into Reeves’s account from an offshore account in the Caymans. It’s closed now, totally untraceable. But Wallace went to Grand Cayman three weeks ago. Stands to reason he opened the account, put the money in, moved it when he was given the go-ahead, then closed the account. We’re going to pick him up in the morning, have a nice long chat, start taking apart his entire world. The warrant was issued an hour ago. We’re pla

“Any ties to organized crime you can find? We could make a nice RICO case against him.”

“On the surface, it looks like he’s only been working with COE. I’ll keep digging into his background.”