At Any Cost (4 page)

Koss shrugged, the movement emphasizing his big shoulders. “Suit yourself.”

The consequences of being discovered were so great that Mullinax wondered which was worse: a twenty-five percent cut of half a billion dollars or going away to prison for life. They didn't hang people for treason anymore, he didn't think. He didn't want to find out. “Okay,” he growled.

Koss did not reply, but Richard knew he was pleased. Koss thrived on money and violence. He was like an animal, a base creature whose only method of survival was to eat what it killed. He was as cold and logical as actuarial tables.

“I will call you at the end of the week,” Koss said. Then for the first time, a smile crept into his voice: “To collect.”

Collin Whitcomb had passed the late afternoon in anonymity, staying out of shopping centers, government buildings and other places where surveillance cameras were common. Not that he expected anyone to be searching for him, but he was a little anxious. Nothing wrong with being a little extra careful. He'd meandered through the Virginia suburbs—at the speed limit—checking the rearview mirror for cops. He eventually found himself at a quiet bar in Falls Church, where he'd finally mustered the courage to call Omar Koss.

He'd spent the last two drinks trying to anticipate what to say to Koss when he finally got here and was no closer to an answer. He glanced up at the television suspended over the skyline of liquor bottles where CNN was featuring a story about Preston Taylor Hughes. The footage of the president-elect hadn't ceased since November, and Collin was sick of looking at his cheesy campaign smile. He was tall and trim, with a full head of brown hair and calm blue eyes. He had that way of speaking that made every person feel as if he were speaking directly to them. News commentators said he was one of the best public speakers in decades, but Collin rolled his eyes at all the platitudes. That Americans ate this guy up spoke to their intelligence—or rather, lack of it.

He focused as Fallon Hughes briefly appeared on the screen with her mother and father. The wide-eyed girl glanced at the camera and stepped back awkwardly, as if the cameras surprised her.

The young president-elect was now in front of a lectern, showing some of the easy charm that had won the election. With that smooth confidence you just knew he'd never had a moment's doubt about his own ability. No sleepless nights wondering if he really was up for the job of being President of the United States. He seemed born for the role. He spoke extemporaneously, with calm certainty. Collin read the closed captioning.

“It is my hope and intention that the United States will continue to improve relations with Russia, but under my leadership, the United States will not be held hostage to any regime anywhere in the world.”

The news anchor returned. “Despite assurances from President Ballard that the US was dedicated to diplomacy, tensions between the US and Russia continued to mount today when the president-elect said that Russia must cease supplying Iran with nuclear materials. Moscow's reply was less than reassuring. The Russian foreign minister said that Washington was provoking Russia and any display of force would be met with force. This could signal two different strategies with dealing with both Russia and Middle East, a possibility that concerns some experts.”

One “concerned expert” spoke for a few seconds in a monotone that could anesthetize surgery patients about how confusing it must be for Russia to receive two conflicting political agendas. Outgoing President Ballard put his full faith in diplomacy, while the incoming president-elect, a rock-ribbed Republican, had begun to talk openly of “stopping the threat with direct action.”

Screw that
, Collin thought. He wanted to see more pictures of the daughter. Images of her never failed to pique his interest. Prim, even prudish looking, he bet she was a wildcat in bed. The buttoned-up ones always were.

The door opened and with a gust of frigid air, Omar Koss stepped inside. Finally. Collin tried not to look too relieved. He was dressed like an American in jeans and a sweater. Collin was clothed similarly to avoid notice, but it still seemed odd to see Omar in jeans instead of his Armani suits, handmade Savile Row shirts, and a platinum watch. Claiming the bar stool beside him, Omar ordered a Negro Modelo from the attractive bartendress. Another American affectation, and one that Collin could not bring himself to commit; he chose a dignified Irish whiskey.

The bartendress slid the beer across the bar with a little smile.

Koss didn't acknowledge the friendliness. He stared at her coldly until she turned away and busied herself behind the bar.

“I'm delivering the map of the keys to Europe tonight. After today's mistake, we can't wait.”

Though he tried to suppress all reaction, like Omar himself, Collin felt annoyed by the rebuke in Koss's words. Collin was, after all, a professional; he felt no guilt for what he had been forced to do this afternoon to that kid. He had foolishly hoped Koss might be pleased, ebullient even, that he had so masterfully handled such an enormous problem. He had been forced to think quickly; the improvised death of Antoine Campbell had seemed both efficient and elegant. Why didn't Koss appreciate it?

Collin lifted his whiskey, holding it under his nose for a second. “You're delivering the map of the keys yourself?” He sensed a lie in Koss's words, though he would never confront him directly. He swallowed the shot, enjoying the fire on the way down, then set his empty glass on the bar. Only then did he dare regard him directly. Koss's blue eyes were so pale they were nearly the color of water. Collin involuntarily shivered, despite the soothing heat from the whiskey.

“This is important enough to handle myself.”

“What about the Hughes girl?”

“I'll take care of her when I return from Europe.”

“Why wait?”

“Because I want to do it myself,” Koss replied with ice in his voice.

Collin shifted his gaze back to the television. Did Koss think it was too big a task for him? Was he losing confidence in Collin's ability? The possibility angered and frightened Collin. His inability to ask Koss directly shamed him.

They drank in silence, and after a short time Omar slid off the bar stool and then dropped a hundred dollar bill on the bar. Wordlessly, he left.

Collin stared after him, wondering how someone could be so utterly inhuman. His cryptic silences and cold, deliberate demeanor were terrifying because Collin knew it wasn't an act, like some suburban guy's interpretation of a badass. It was real.
Psychopath
was the word that rocketed to mind.

Frankly he wasn't sure Koss had his priorities straight. Fallon Hughes knew about the map of the keys; that was a certifiable emergency in Collin's view. He considered calling Koss back to argue the point but stopped himself. Koss had no appreciation for what he had done, and it was likely he would have no appreciation for what he knew must do about Fallon Hughes.

Fallon Hughes sliced through the warm blue water, her breath coming in deep, fast gasps. She gripped the ledge of the pool and flipped on the return lap, glimpsing the athletic figure of Gwen Atwell in the lane beside her. Gwen was suddenly half a body ahead—Fallon could match Gwen's arm strokes but not her perfect leg kicks. Fallon pulled herself through the water, struggling to stay even.

Fallon and Gwen had been friends since they were children in Montana. Their long friendship had survived the period when Gwen, one year older, had left for medical school in D.C. and Fallon stayed on at law school on the West Coast. As they grew older, the differences between them became more marked; they could exasperate each other. Gwen, older by almost a year, enjoyed bossing Fallon about offering professional advice, sometimes relationship advice, though that, admittedly, had not been required lately. Work subsumed any possibility of dating, and she just wasn't very good at it anyway. Her discomfort only intensified when her father began his run for the presidency.

Fallon was amused by Gwen's big sister act and tolerated it—to a point. Each retained an obstinate and unshakable love for the other.

Since she had not seen Gwen in over two weeks, Fallon had agreed despite intense fatigue to join her for an early morning swim at the club. Gwen promised that after an hour in the pool, she would feel featherlight, invigorated, refreshed, and ready to take on the world. The promise of ecstasy was the only thing that kept her going because after another late night at Johnson Sloan Pruitt, she was exhausted. She stayed until after 10 p.m., trying to compensate for her hour at the coffee shop yesterday. By the time she got home, she was jazzed from the adrenaline of seeing Tom again and starving but too tired to eat. She collapsed on the bed and was asleep within seconds.

Cameron Chapman, her midnight-to-six agent, was standing near the doors. Except for the Secret Service, they had the whole pool to themselves. All the smart people were still in bed. Warm and cozy under mountains of blankets and cottony-soft sheets with nary an alarm clock anywhere in sight. Sleep porn, Fallon called it. Lust for the one thing she could not have.

When she reached the opposite end of the pool, she was unsurprised to see Gwen had beaten her.

“You okay?” Gwen asked, teasing her, challenging her fitness.

Fallon rolled her eyes. “Unlike you, I am a busy woman with precious little time for swimming practice.”

Gwen playfully splashed her. “Ten more laps. Let's make it count.”

Fallon lined up at the wall. “Ready.”

“Set,” Gwen said.

Together they chanted, “Go,” and vaulted for the other side.

At the end of the ten laps, with a last mighty heave of breath, Fallon touched the edge of the pool and lifted off her goggles. She was startled to see Tom Bishop talking with Cameron Chapman. Even before the sun was up, Tom looked ready for action. Somehow, he managed to project athleticism even in a formal dark business suit. Tom acknowledged Fallon with a polite smile, then turned his attention back to Cameron.

It was going to be a long while before she got used to seeing him around.

Fallon had not yet had a moment to talk to Gwen about Tom. She didn't know how to bring it up anyway. She'd been too embarrassed to mention him when she returned heartbroken from Greece, so Gwen didn't know about the disastrous affair four years ago that had left her reeling. Small mercy.

Fallon climbed out of the pool, acutely aware that she was nearly naked in front of him and that he seemed to not care less; his focus was intently on Cameron Chapman. Fallon picked up a towel from the chair where she'd placed flip-flops and white terrycloth robes for herself and Gwen.

“I'm going home to shower and change. Do you want a ride to the hospital?”

“Yes, please,” Gwen said, savoring a glance at Tom Bishop, still chatting with Cameron. Under her breath she uttered, “Yes, I definitely would like a ride to the hospital.”

Fallon rolled her eyes. Gwen was engaged; shouldn't pre-marital women have more control? “No sense walking in the cold and dark when there's a nice warm car, right?” Gwen smiled.

And it
was
cold. Snow was forecasted late tonight; the air was black and pure as menthol in the lungs. The two women piled into the backseat of the SUV with their gym bags and purses, grateful for the instant, luxurious warmth of the leather seats. The drive to George Washington University Hospital took only two minutes. Agent Rowland drove the truck directly to the emergency room entrance. Gwen gathered her belongings and jumped out. “I'll call you later,” she said and slammed the door shut.

As soon as Gwen was inside the electronic double doors, Fallon's phone buzzed, indicating a text. Fallon fished it out and read: OMG, HE IS PISTOL HOT!

No kidding
, Fallon mentally answered as she put the phone away.

Presently, the motorcade arrived at Fallon's redbrick building on K Street in the riverfront sector of Georgetown. It was a new building set in an old, stately community of patrician doctors and lawyers and lobbyists. At this hour, the neighborhood was dead silent, dark, and with damp cobblestone streets looked like a place from a different, gaslit era. Fallon pulled the robe tighter around her body and stepped outside with Cameron, who would walk with her to her door to make sure she was safe. Intense halogen headlights of the follow-up SUV illuminated her in the dark morning. She blinked back toward the limo as she hefted her gym bag onto her shoulder, able to make out the silhouettes of the agents—one of which was Tom Bishop—in the front seats. It was nice to have a fantasy, she thought, and walked inside.

After a hot shower, Fallon filled a teakettle with water from the tap and placed it on the stove. Waiting for it to boil, she set out the milk and searched for the tin of chocolate biscotti in her larder she'd bought last time she was in Italy.

She'd like to go again, one day. She missed her travels.

Engrossed in preparing breakfast, she nearly missed it. Something uttered on the television in the living room snapped her attention. It took only a second—a satellite uplink pause—for the name Antoine Campbell to penetrate her erotic daydreamy memories about Tom Bishop. She wandered into the living room, upping the volume with the remote, but the live action segment was finished and the newscasters were back in the studio.

“A terrible tragedy, Plymouth,” the blond news anchor said.

The male counterpart nodded in agreement. “Indeed, Greer. Up next, Dr. Marge tells us the extraordinary story of treating a woman for breast cancer, only to learn it was her own birth mother.”

Fallon switched channels, hoping to catch the name again. The story had evaporated.

She sat down at her computer and navigated to the television station's website. On the right column of the screen, beside a headline announcing president-elect Hughes would be visiting Walter Reed Medical Center today, was a list of local headlines:

Big Rig Falls Off Freeway Ramp, Killing 3
Caught On Camera: Man Takes Toddler To Robbery
After High-Speed Chase, District Man Commits Suicide

Her breath suddenly a little restricted, Fallon clicked the last link and read.

Antoine Campbell, 22, committed suicide yesterday in Washington, D.C., witnessed by midday crowds. After a high-speed chase through Southern Maryland, Mr. Campbell drove to the corner of M Street and 21st Street, where he abandoned his vehicle, then ran into a skyscraper where he leaped to his death. Witnesses say he was yelling incoherently at the time he leapt.

“He was being pulled over for a routine traffic violation but he refused to stop,” said a source familiar with the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. It was learned that methamphetamines and an ounce of marijuana were found in his vehicle after his suicide.

The suicide occurred at about two o'clock, police said.

If the early morning swim had calmed her and grounded her firmly into the sockets of her own body, this news unraveled the work. She was alarmed and unnerved, trying to make sense of the report while Antoine Campbell's desperate voice reverberated in her skull.
They're going to kill me.

The sun had not yet risen over the Potomac when Fallon arrived at Johnson Sloan Pruitt, yet the office was busy as if midday. A pile of phone messages and emails had accumulated overnight, but Fallon ignored them and Googled the name “Antoine Campbell.” Finding three more local news articles about the suicide, she was dismayed to see that each was a repeat of the original Associated Press story with no new details. That was odd. If the story was big enough for the AP, why wasn't it big enough for some enterprising local journalist to dig into?

Fallon began to gnaw her bottom lip. The shock and disbelief had begun to fade, leaving her acutely aware of her own emotional center, a deep reservoir inside her, filling with nervous guilt.
What more could I have done?
The fact that the answer was
nothing
offered no comfort.

She slouched in her seat and looked at her phone, foolishly willing it to ring with Antoine Campbell the other end, telling her it was a hoax or a mistake or something. Shutting her eyes, she could hear his voice again.
They're going to kill me.

Glancing at the clock on her computer screen, she figured she had at least two hours before her boss, Sam Cahill, arrived and her day became devoted to the hedge fund case. Now or never. She pulled on her coat and scarf and walked into to Tom's office.

Seeing him sitting at the desk made her heart kick up a notch. He looked so in control of himself and everything around him. She wished she felt that calm. She operated at a very high frequency, naturally uptight and anxious. It would be nice to simply know, in her bones, that she could handle whatever life threw her way.

“Miss Hughes,” he said amiably.

“Good morning. First, call the limos please. Second, I need to talk to you.”

“Sure,” he replied and called the limos using the radio. “Avalon is departing; line up the cars.” Avalon. She liked her code name, she supposed, but found it a little silly how they named the First Family like pets.

He smiled at her sweetly, as if he were a servant waiting for her next order. “And what would you like to talk to me about?”

“The guy I was going to meet, Antoine Campbell, killed himself yesterday afternoon while we were waiting for him at the coffee shop.”

Tom's face registered mute surprise. His lips settled into a firm straight line and gravity darkened his eyes.

“I heard it on the news this morning,” Fallon continued uncertainly. “Maryland State Police were chasing him and he leaped to his death just three blocks north of us. But that's not really … I don't think that's what really happened. I didn't tell you everything yesterday. Tom, he told me he was being chased. He said they were going to kill him.”

“Who?”

“He wouldn't tell me. He said that Richard Mullinax was giving away the map of the keys. Do you know what that means? Map of the keys?”

“Never heard of it,” Tom replied.

“Well, he was panicked. He said they were going to kill him. That was why I agreed to meet him. He sounded so scared.”

“Why did he call you? Had you ever met him before?”

“No, I never met him and I have no idea why he called me. But I felt strongly that it was a legitimate call, not a hoax or … whatever.”

“So he called you, said someone was going to kill him, and then he killed himself while we were waiting for him …”

Fallon shook her head. “He didn't kill himself,” she said, surprised at the conviction in her voice. The fear in Antoine Campbell's voice, and barely controlled hysteria, came to her again clearly, clanging in her skull. She'd never forget that sound, however much she would pray to. “I heard his voice. He was desperate for help. He was not suicidal. He said they were going to kill him, that they were chasing him.”

Tom's scowling gaze was solidly fixed on her, seemingly with undivided attention. The angular planes of his face made her think of arrogance, but arrogance born from pure, cold competence. She admired that quality. His fair-mindedness was admirable, but it was also frustrating; he was not cheerleading her. The impartial observer was allowing her to figure this out herself, which, she supposed, was the appropriate role of a Secret Service agent assigned to protect her.

He pressed his fingers to his earpiece, then looked at her. “The limos are ready for you downstairs.”

The building where Antoine Campbell leaped to his death was adjacent to the Four Seasons Hotel. It was a six-story historic building of red brick and shining windows; a Chase Bank branch occupied the ground floor.

From the backseat Fallon said, “Stop here, please. I want to walk.”

The SUV stopped and Tom jumped out, glanced down the street with his Death Glare, then determining there was no immediate threat, opened her door. Fallon stepped out, scanning the front of the building, relieved there was no lurid blood or gore marking Antoine Campbell's death on the snow-specked sidewalk. In fact, there was no tarp or police tape. Nothing at all remained of the man who had leapt to his death in this very location only seventeen hours previous. It seemed unreal, except for the faintly buzzing sadness in her chest that confirmed it had really happened; he had called; he had pleaded with her to help.

Fallon proceeded inside and to the elevators.

“Miss Hughes, may I ask what you are hoping to find here?” Tom asked, unerringly polite as always.

“I don't know.” She nursed an irrational hope she would find a note or something that would confirm Antoine Campbell was crazy and his suicide had nothing whatsoever to do with pernicious people following him, tapping his phone, and some mysterious thing called
map of the keys
.