At Any Cost (23 page)

And he loved Fallon now. He knew that he loved her more than anything—even more than his career. He would resign so they could be together, he thought suddenly. He would do anything.

But first he had to find her.

After half an hour, the Mercedes ramped onto Route 50. Tom was concerned that Mullinax would recognize him and start to get suspicious. He was probably paranoid by now and if he noticed Tom's government car following for too long, who knew what he might do.

He called Cameron Chapman. The surprise and grief in her voice touched him, but he refused to acknowledge it. He was on mission.

“I need a big favor. You available?”

“Of course.”

“I need to do surveillance on someone who has already seen me. I'm on Route Fifty heading west in the District.”

“I can pick him up in about five minutes; I happen to be very close by.”

“Excellent. It's a black Mercedes. Stay close. He won't recognize you. He's scared though, and he's going to be looking for stakeout cars.”

“I'm on my way.”

Tom glanced in the rearview and saw Cameron's blue government issued Chevy Malibu. He called her phone. “Our target is in your lane, about three cars up from me. Black full-size Mercedes sedan. Get up to him and I'll fall back.”

She passed him, keeping her eyes forward as if she didn't know him, and Tom fell back a few car lengths. The Mercedes moved right, exiting on Connecticut, which would turn into Route Fifty again as soon as he got into Maryland. His blinker came on at the Clarendon/Court House exit.

“You follow. I'll take a few streets up and then come back.”

“Copy that,” Cameron replied. Tom watched them exit then exited at the next opportunity. He turned around and circled back.

“He parked at the Motel Fifty on Route Fifty,” Cameron said. “And he just knocked on the door of Room 7. It's on the bottom floor, facing east.”

“Good work, Cam,” he said. “Thank you.” He glided to the west side. “I'm here now,” he said.

“You want me to stay for a while?”

“No, I have this,” he replied.

She hesitated and then said, “Call me if you need anything.”

Tom drove around to the east side and watched Cameron steer out of the lot, back onto the access road. Tom parked in a space under a tree. The sky was dark and a light snow had been falling all day; if Mullinax happened to glimpse the car, Tom would be hidden among the darkness and reflections of the rain and branches.

He turned off the car and zipped up his coat and watched the door.

Nearly two hours later, the door opened and Mullinax emerged. Tom watched him climb inside his sedan and then leave. As soon as he was gone, Tom swung open his car door and hurried to the door. The motel was shoddy and old; the doors were operated with keys instead of cards. He twisted the copper knob, but it was locked pretty solidly from inside. Tom knocked. A rustling soft noise was followed by deliberate silence. Someone creeping to the door to look through the peephole. Tom gave them five seconds. “Open the door,” he growled.

No answer. Tom body slammed the door, the wood cracking up the middle to the jamb. He shoved it again, reached inside and unbolted the door.

The room was dimly lit by a grungy overhead light that cast a sickly yellow pall. In the scant illumination, a woman stood against the wall, terrified. She was naked, her toned flesh and red hair momentarily stupefying Tom.

Claudia Wells, R-Virginia. The Vice President-elect of the United States.

Though he recognized her, she certainly did not recognize him. “Who are you?” she rasped, bringing her arms up to cover her breasts. “Get out, I'll scream ….” Her voice was shrill, the fear mounting.

Tom shut the door, locked it, and said, “Ma'am, I'm with the Secret Service.”

“I told them I didn't want protection until …”

“I'm not your protective detail.”

She grabbed her dress from a hideous puce chair, then hurried into a bathroom and shut the door. Tom glanced around the room. A shoddy place for a lover's tryst. Old cigarette fumes lingering in the wallpaper, water damage on the sagging yellow ceiling, and orange shag carpeting gave him the creeps. Apparently neither Claudia Wells nor Richard Mullinax was the romantic type.

A moment later, Claudia Wells returned with her clothes on. She looked scared: her eyes wide, her arms folded across her chest. She was attempting to feign self-assuredness, but Tom noticed the quiver in her lips before she spoke. “What is this about?”

“Richard Mullinax,” Tom answered simply.

She opened her mouth as if she were about to deny knowing him, but Tom's appearance in her room obviated the need for denials. She slowly sank to the edge of the bed. “What about him?”

“Has he ever mentioned a map of the keys?” She thought about it and shook her head. “No. What is that?”

“How about Antoine Campbell? Has he ever mentioned Antoine Campbell?”

“No. What is this? Who is Antoine Campbell and what is a map of the keys?”

Tom attempted to ascertain whether she was telling the truth. She had something to hide by being here with Richard Mullinax, but he had never met a person who would sacrifice a glorious political career to protect an extramarital affair. She was probably being truthful, but it was best to make his power position clear from the start.

“Aren't you married?”

She pinked to the ears and cast her eyes downward.

“I see.”

She looked up at him, her eyes and cheeks burning. “Are you going to announce this to …”

“I don't care who you're sleeping with, Claudia,” he said.

“Then why are you here?”

“Mullinax is involved in some bad stuff. I don't have enough to ask a judge for a search warrant, so I'm trying to find out more.”

“I will tell you whatever I know. But my husband and Preston Hughes can't know about … this.”

“I don't have any reason to tell anyone about your adultery. Did Mullinax ever mention Fallon Hughes?”

“No, he hasn't. Why? What do you think he has done?”

“Fallon Hughes received a call from a young man who told her that Mullinax was giving away the map of the keys. Half an hour later, that man was thrown off the roof of a building. I believe he was killed for attempting to warn someone about Mullinax's activity. And now Fallon Hughes has been kidnapped. Mullinax has something to do with it.”

Her eyes were wide saucers and her face had gone pale. “He wouldn't,” she whispered.

“I want to find Fallon Hughes.”

Claudia's brows were creased with uncomprehending anxiety. Finally she shook her head, as if becoming clear about something. “I feel very secure in saying he would have absolutely nothing to do with Fallon Hughes or the death of anyone else.”

“You are probably wrong about that,” Tom replied evenly.

Claudia stood up and gathered her coat and purse.

“Where do you have to be?” Tom asked.

“White House to meet with President Ballard and Mr. Hughes. We're trying to avoid war with Russia.”

“But you stepped out to meet Mullinax.”

She looked indifferent for a moment, but the corner of her mouth turned down, and the façade cracked. “Oh God,” she moaned, then put her hands over her face. Tom realized that she was crying. He felt nothing. It alarmed him; just a few days ago, he would have cared about the emotional state of another person, but something had died inside him. Something warm was now small and cold. He watched her, thinking only that she was hindering his progress toward finding Fallon.

“Go to your meeting,” he said. “I'll be in touch. Give me your phone number.”

She wiped her eyes and recited the number while Tom keyed it into his phone.

“If I call, I expect you to answer.”

She nodded. “I will.”

“And if you tip off Mullinax, your little affair with him will be the last thing you ever need to worry about.”

She shook her head and looked up at the water-stained ceiling, wiping the slight smudge of mascara under her eyes. “You don't have to worry about that.”

Tom stood behind the curtains and peeked out the edges. Nobody waiting. “Wait five minutes or so before you leave,” he told her, then strode out.

He got into his government car and got back on Route Fifty and headed back into Washington, D.C. He fumbled with the heater and then sat back in his seat. A light snow continued to fall over the federal buildings and monuments.

Leah Lennox awoke to the sound of a scratching sound on the door. She lifted her head, realizing she'd fallen asleep on the sofa with her chenille throw over her legs. Her whole body was stiff from sleeping on her cramped sofa. Her eyes felt sandy and rimmed in ash. Flinching from a sudden crick in her neck, she sat up. Disoriented, she noticed darkness pressed against the windows. Was it night or morning? She noticed that she had a Word document open; she'd fallen asleep while working.

She listened in the silence, trying to figure out what woke her up. Her breath was labored; she heard its cadence in the cold silence of her living room.

Footsteps outside her door hurried away. Pushing herself up, she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and padded silently to the door.

Through the peephole, she saw a brown package propped against the door. Her instinct was to open the door and grab the package but she hesitated. It was too early or too late for a FedEx or UPS delivery. The United States was on the edge of war with Russia, and closer to home but no less terrifying, Fallon Hughes was ambushed yesterday. She felt raw, perceiving danger and threats in everything. It could be a bomb. The knowledge struck her at once crazy and serious enough to actually pursue.

Why would anyone bomb her? She cracked open the door and peered down the hallway but saw no one lingering.

The package was about the size of one of her Amazon.com book deliveries, but there were no markings on it that she could see.

She closed the door and grabbed her phone from the kitchen. She glanced at the clock on her microwave. It was not yet six o'clock in the morning. She must have slept hard for those few hours; she was still disoriented.

Tom answered on the first ring, as if he was waiting for a call.

“How are you holding up?”

“I'm fine,” he answered stiffly. She knew he wasn't but he didn't want to talk about it. He was action-oriented, not inclined to talk when he was feeling emotional.

“Somebody just left a package for me on my front door. I'm afraid to pick it up.”

“Does it have anything on it?”

“No. I don't think so. It's just a brown box.”

“I'm at the office. I can't come over. I can call the Arlington Police.”

Hearing him say that instantly made her feel foolish. “No,” she said automatically. “No, that's okay. I'm just being overcautious. Don't work too hard,” she said. She meant to sound casual, sort of like “take care,” but once the words were out of her mouth, she realized it was the wrong thing to say. “I mean …”

“It's okay,” Tom replied.

After goodbyes, and wrenching out a promise that he would call her later, Leah hung up and went back to the door. She picked up the package and brought it inside.

She experimentally put her ear to it but didn't hear a ticking bomb. She used her kitchen scissors to cut the tape, and opened the box. A DVD fell out. On the surface were the words LEAH LENNOX ONLY.

The cryptic delivery and the words filled her with trepidation. Fleetingly, she thought of her loneliness: how now, shivering in her kitchen, with a strange package, it would have been nice to have a man to soothe her jangled nerves. To care if she was blown to smithereens. Collin certainly didn't qualify.

Turning from those thoughts, she returned to the living room and inserted the DVD into her ancient MacBook Pro laptop. A movie screen appeared.

It took a moment to understand what she was seeing. A woman was tied to a chair, arms tied straight down against the chair back. Her eyes and mouth were covered with strips of black cloth. Behind her, the room looked indistinct and gray. Leah's first unchecked impression was that the woman appeared to be in a warehouse or some industrial setting.

It was Fallon Hughes. Leah's shaking hand flew to her mouth to hold in a gasp.

“Fallon is okay as you can see,” a voice said. Russian sounding, Leah thought. “This is for the reporter, Leah. As you see we have Fallon Hughes. We are invisible so do not attempt to find us. Our demand is simple. We want Mahomet Ayrzu in exchange for Fallon Hughes. If we do not have an agreement from the president by midnight, we will kill her and the next video you see of her, she will be headless.”

Leah blinked, unsure of what she was seeing and hearing, but panic was spreading through her like an ink stain.

A hand and forearm, appearing to be that of the cameraman, moved to Fallon and removed the gag.

“Tell them your message.”

“Leah, tell Tom I am okay and that I am so sorry for assuming the worst about him.”

The video abruptly ended.

Electrified, Leah shot up and grabbed the phone and dialed Tom again.

“What was in the box?”

“A DVD,” she answered breathlessly. “A movie. It has Fallon on it. She said to tell you she's okay and they asked for somebody I've never even heard of. Why would she say tell Tom she's okay? Please tell me what to do. I am really freaking out.”

“I'm at the Washington Field Office,” Tom replied levelly. “I want you to get here as soon as you can. Bring the DVD. I will pay any speeding tickets you get on the way.”

Both teams were convened in the Situation Room. All their nerves were frayed, but Claudia was so on edge she was practically vibrating with fear. She'd bitten the skin around her thumbnail so that now it was a disgusting, bloody mess. Besides the Russians and Fallon Hughes's kidnapping, she had another issue to be concerned about. Tom Bishop. If he betrayed her, her career would be over, as well as her marriage. Hours later and she could still feel his eyes burning into her skin, his disapproval of her adultery obvious in the way he looked at her. She felt nauseated by it; she needed a shower because Richard was still all over her.

After making such a mockery of her position until this point, she was determined to do better. To be strong and moral and do the right thing. Problem was, she had no idea how to go about it. Should she confess to her husband? Should she demand answers from Richard?

She attempted to avoid Richard's insistent stare throughout the meeting, but now she finally glanced up at him. He looked tense, but they all did. The United States was on serious war footing; everyone in the room seemed to have aged at least five years. He shifted his gaze to her and for the first time since she knew him, she felt cold disgust. At herself, mostly, but Tom Bishop's words were still echoing in her mind. She attempted to analyze the situation objectively. One thing she had found odd was that Richard had so quickly dismissed the possibility that the mole could be in the NSA. It seemed obvious to her that the NSA was one of the first places that would be investigated because the two events that deepened the tensions with Russia were the Russian assets being assassinated, and Israel attacked Russia but said they had no knowledge of how the missiles were launched.

Both of those things would require some kind of electronic interference. Fact: Richard had access to the most sophisticated electronic systems in the world. He had seemed incredibly uneasy that Claudia would even suggest the NSA's involvement. Was he attempting to deflect attention from himself?

Claudia could not fathom why Richard would want to go to war with Russia, but the possibility that he was involved left her disoriented. Had he betrayed those assets? His country? If he was capable of giving information to the Russians, he was capable of anything. Including killing the man who called Fallon Hughes with a desperate message about the map of the keys.

A cold electrical current seized her heart. Richard Mullinax was the mole. She knew it in a flash of epiphany, all the questions suddenly answered, all the pieces fitting together. There was not a doubt in her mind.

She was seized with an irrational desire to simply accuse him, here in the meeting with the president and the president-elect looking on. She forced the discipline to maintain her professional veneer.

“What is the news?” President Ballard asked. Before him was a notebook, pen, and a half-full heavy crystal water glass with a presidential seal. Claudia, across from him and two seats over, stared at it as a focal point, trying to keep her face neutral as the world began to take on a dizzy quality around her.

The secretary of defense said, “Sir, the entire Russian electronic grid is shut down. And we just received a memo from a source inside Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime that they too are in blackout.”

Claudia bit her cheek to keep from blurting out what she was thinking. She needed to talk to Tom Bishop again. Urgently.

The meeting droned on. Finally the president said they'd had enough for today and asked to reconvene at seven tomorrow.

Claudia grabbed her purse and left the West Wing without any of the usual lingering, the rallying for a few moments alone with the president. She wanted out of the White House complex and fast.

At the Kremlin, there was increasingly frantic activity as the reality of the situation became clearer. The official smooth assurances of retribution notwithstanding, there was internal knowledge that delivering on promises of destruction would be met with overwhelming force—possibly nuclear missiles launched either from Tel Aviv or from the United States itself.

But to do nothing was madness. The great nation of Russia could not sit idly by while enemies launched missiles into Moscow. The dead now numbered in the hundreds. Yet in his secret heart, Dmitry Medvedev had not believed a single readiness report in years. The ancient nuclear stores were degrading at nearly five percent per year, and the older ballistic missiles could easily be intercepted by the Americans' missile shield. To launch and fail would be more humiliating than withstanding Israel's original attack.

FSB Chief Moldovan appeared silently in Medvedev's office while the leader paced. The president stopped and regarded him with his infamously furious, rodent-like gaze. “What is it?”

“Sir, our entire missile system has been disabled.”

“Disabled?”

“The entire city has experienced a power outage. Our backups have failed, our entire defensive system is completely black, off the grid.”