All Due Respect (35 page)

Julia watched him wallow on the floor, feeling a giggle threaten her throat. A totally inappropriate response—to giggle. Ridiculous. Nerves, she figured. Had to be nerves.

Karl tested his chest with his fingertips, seemingly amazed to find them bloodless. “You didn’t shoot me.”

Where the hell were Matthew’s guards? “Given a choice, I’ve decided you’re not worth the bullet. But push me, and you’ll be a corpse.” She motioned with the gun. “Get up.”

Julia led him to the bathroom and locked him inside. Bracing a chair under the doorknob, she silently swore that when she married Seth Holt, he was damn well going to have to get used to having locks.

She grabbed her cell phone and called the lab.

Seth answered. “Dr. Holt.”

“It’s me,” she said. “You’d better get home.”

“I’m right in the middle of the simulator study—”

Julia snapped. “Karl Hyde is camping out in the bathroom as we speak, Seth. I debated killing him, but I didn’t want to have to mop the damn floor again. Now, are you coming home, or do I need to call Matthew to get rid of this guy?”

“He got into the house?”

“He sure did.” She kept an eye on the hallway leading to the bath. Karl had a penchant for attacking from behind, but he wasn’t going to get the chance. Not this time.

“Where are Matthew’s men?”

“Good question. Why don’t you call and shout at Matthew and stop shouting at me, because I don’t have a clue, and I don’t like the yelling.”

“I—I’m sorry.”

“To hell with sorry, just get home.” The adrenaline rush was subsiding fast and it was all that was keeping her. frayed nerves together. “He moves and I’m shooting him, Seth. We’ll have to find another way to get Benedetto. I mean it. I swear, I do.”

“Three minutes. That’s all I need.”

Matthew arrived in two. He hit the pavement running, and nearly paused at the car where his two men had been stationed. Empty. Where the hell were they? He started shouting. “Julia!”

She opened the front door. “Karl’s locked in the bathroom. I don’t know what happened to your men.”

“Are you okay?”

“I hurt like hell, Matthew,” she said honestly, watching more and more of Grayton’s Security Police cars arrive.

“Is Karl armed?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so, or he would have challenged me when I aimed the gun at him.”

Matthew walked down the hall, drew his own gun. “Hyde, I want you to come out of there, nice and slow. Arms behind your head. Hell, you’re a cop. You know the drill.”

Silence.

“Do it now, Hyde.”

Julia’s nerves sizzled. “Careful, Matthew. He’s up to something.”

“Hyde, I’m counting to three.”

Seth came up behind Julia. “He’s not there.”

“Yes he is.” Julia frowned. “I locked him in, Seth.”

He didn’t quite meet her eyes. He didn’t have to; the sinking feeling in her stomach said it all. Julia slumped back against the wall. There were no locks. On the doors, or on the windows.

A man dressed in camouflage gear cleared his throat to let them know he was there. Matthew looked back at him. “What is it, Paddy?”

“Cramer and Thurston, sir.” His grim expression mirrored his tone. “We found them.”

“The guards watching the house?” Seth speculated.

Matthew nodded and cursed softly.

“What?” Julia looked from Seth to Matthew and then back to Seth.

He let his head loll back, paused and swallowed hard, then met her gaze. “They’re dead, Julia.”

“I’m moving you both to a safe house.”

Matthew said it before she could openly react, but not before guilt that these men had died while guarding her assaulted Julia. She slumped against Seth.

“Not necessary, Matthew. Karl won’t be back,” Seth said. “Not here.”

“You’re being stupid.”

“Look, Hyde’s a coward. A sorry-assed, woman-beating, kid-burying coward. He won’t be back. Not while I’m here. He takes out Julia and me, and he’s got no one left around to grieve.”

Matthew slid Seth a what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about look. But Julia understood perfectly. “I want to see the men.”

“That’s impossible. They’re off-limits until after forensics completes its investigation, Julia.”

“Don’t protect me.” Julia looked Matthew right in the eye. “I know I’m responsible. I have to see them.”

“You’re not responsible,” he insisted.

“They died guarding me.”

“Yes, they did. Because they relaxed and got sloppy,” Matthew said. “They were professionals. They knew their jobs and the risks and considered them worth taking.”

“They died for me,” she stubbornly insisted.

Seth turned to her, gripped her by the shoulders. “Yes, they died guarding you. But the reason they were here had nothing to do with you personally. It had to do with the job. The ideals.”

Like Benedetto’s loyalists. Tears brimmed in her eyes. “To-the-death dedication?”

Seth nodded.

“It’s a hell of a way to find out that, eligible for food stamps or not, your side measures up.”

“Yeah.” He rubbed her arms, shoulders to elbows. “Yeah, it is.”

THE council was there.

In his house. In his own house, talking about him.

They knew that hellhound Hyde had buried Julia and Jeff. And they were holding Anthony responsible. You have no honor, Anthony …

He looked around the Green Room, made eye contact with each of the seventeen, and let his gaze stop on Jason Franklin, who was addressing the council. He looked disciplined, sounded authoritarian. Dangerous combination— for Anthony.

“Considering the flagrant violations,” Franklin said, turning his gaze to Anthony, “I don’t see how the council can request any remedy short of your resignation.”

Anthony’s blood ran cold. From the corner of his eye, he checked Roger’s reaction. It had always been an excellent gauge of the council climate.

Stone-cold remote. Roger agreed with them.

“Shortly, you’ll understand that things are rarely what they seem,” Anthony said. “And that asking me to step down is not in the coalition’s best interests.”

“I beg to disagree,” Franklin said.

“You would.” Anthony put an empathetic edge on his tone. “Understandable, considering the circumstances. But within twenty-four hours, even you, Mr. Franklin, will grasp the truth.” Anthony looked away, to the other members. “Is twenty-four hours an unreasonable request from a man who has devoted his life to serving you?”

The council members mumbled among themselves and finally agreed to the wait. Then they departed.

Roger followed Anthony to his office. “Mr. Benedetto, what happens within twenty-four hours?”

“Armageddon.” Anthony dismissed Roger, then lifted the phone and dialed the lab. When their friend from Grayton got on the line, he issued the order. “Activate Plan B.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s that or Leavenworth.”

“Yes, sir.”

Anthony hung up the phone, opened his desk drawer, and pulled out the prescription bottle of pills. He started at the bottle and then gave it a little shake. About sixty or so tablets, he estimated.

He poured himself a glass of water, put his father’s photo directly in front of him on the desk, and then swallowed down the pills, one by one, reliving all the high points of his life. His happiest moments, greatest triumphs, and most sterling successes. Elise giving him her vows at their wedding, her eyes shining love and admiration. Daisy’s birth, her first step, the first time she called him Daddy. His mother’s gratitude the night his father had died. God, but she’d had courage. His father’s had faltered, but his mother had been right there to help him. She’d curled her fingers over his, kissed him goodbye, and then pulled the trigger, keeping his honor intact. Anthony had taken the gun and had held her while they wept and mourned.

Without hesitation, if not without occasional regret.

The bottle of pills stood empty. Anthony went up to bed.

Elise was already asleep. He snuggled to her warmth between the silk sheets, under the comfortable weight of the satin comforter, buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair, and then closed his eyes.

The battle would not be won in his manner of choice, but it would be won. The United States had cost him his father. Cost him the respect of his people and the love of his family. It had isolated him. Made him a widower in his heart.

Now many Americans would be widowers. And widows. And orphans. And many, many more would simply be dead.

On that final thought, Anthony Benedetto went to sleep.

At three a.m., the phone rang.

Seth shook loose from the scented, tangled sheets, reached over Julia to the nightstand, and answered. “Holt.”

She scooted toward him, nuzzling and complaining at the interruption with a little groan. He couldn’t blame her; they hadn’t slept much.

“Dr. Holt, this is Lieutenant Swede at the Battle Management Command Center. You and Dr. Warner need to report STAT, sir. THREATCON Delta.”

Threat Condition Delta was reserved for the most severe threats. “We’ll be there in ten.” Cradling the phone, he shook Julia awake. “Julia, get dressed. All hell’s broken loose.”

She tossed back the covers, slid to the edge of the bed. “What’s happened?”

“I don’t know.” There wasn’t a secure-phone line to the house. “THREATCON Delta.”

“Delta?” She snagged some clothes on her way to the bath. “It’s got to be Benedetto.”

Jerking on his slacks, Seth agreed with her.

THE command center was hopping.

Three rows of continuous desks stretched across the dimly lit sixty-foot room. Men and women, wearing a mix of traditional blue uniforms, Class-As, and fatigues, filled every seat, staring at computer monitors. Seth automatically looked to two large illuminated screens on the front wall. Pinpoints flashed red on the world map, depicting current hot spots and active operations. The second screen displayed a map of the northeastern United States and Seth focused on it. That was the location of their immediate challenge.

Colonel Kane shouted at some major, picked up the receiver to the red phone—a hot line to the honchos—and began giving a concise briefing. Could be the general, the commander of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, the Joint Chiefs, who were no doubt in the Pentagon’s Tank, or the President.

Matthew stood beside Colonel Kane, and his expression said more than Seth wanted to hear. Bluntly put, he was scared shitless and, knowing Matthew’s penchant for being cool under fire, that made Seth worry more.

Seth and Julia caught Matthew’s eye. He rushed over and launched into briefing them. “Benedetto’s gone off the deep end.”

Seth braced, knowing what was coming. So, he noticed, did Julia; she was already clutching at her left arm.

“The loyalists demanded Benedetto resign.”

“Resign?” That didn’t fit.

“Do the honorable thing.” Matthew cast a worried look back at Colonel Kane, who was still on the red phone. “Suicide.”

Seth grimaced. Events were unfolding as expected, and as feared.

“Benedetto refused. He got them to give him twenty four hours to turn things around,” Matthew went on. “They pushed him, and the crazy bastard pushed back.”

Julia sucked in a sharp breath. “He launched the Rogue.”

Matthew nodded and, though Seth expected it, hearing it acknowledged had his heart slamming against his ribs. “From where?”

“The Chesapeake Bay.” Matthew’s expression soured from grim to morbid. “They launched from a commercial tug. Morse assisted, Seth. That’s verified. One of our operatives was on the boat and reported in before it went down.”

“Benedetto’s loyalists blew up the tug?” Julia asked.

Matthew nodded.

Seth scanned the map. Little change. “With our people on it?”

“No, they evacuated before the hit.”

“What’s the distance between D.C. and the launch site?”

“It’s within a hundred kilometers, Seth.”

Could the news get any worse? “Has the Puzzle Palace been notified?” Seth automatically reverted to the slang name for the Pentagon.

“Kane’s on the phone with the Joint Chiefs now. The President will be on line with them momentarily.”

He should be on Air Force One, out of the line of fire. Why the hell hadn’t he evacuated?

Kane hung up the phone. “GPS,” he shouted to the global positioning system satellite monitor. “Status report.”

The third man in the first row of desks answered. “Nothing’s showing up, sir. I’ve got a clear screen.”

The GPS system was supposed to offer an early warning that a hostile missile had been launched and alert the ground-based radar systems.

“Ground-based radar?” Kane shouted out.

“Nothing, sir.”

Seth’s stomach curled. Nothing on the GPS or the ground-based radar systems?

Kane stared at the GPS monitor. “Do we have a satellite in the appropriate sector, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We got visual confirmation of the launch from the tug. So why the hell can’t we track the damn thing?”

“I—I don’t know, sir.” He gave Kane a perplexed look. “There’s nothing there.”

Julia answered, shouting over to Colonel Kane. “I can fix that.” Seth looked at her and Julia met his gaze. “They’ve enabled the stealth feature.”

“Can you do that, Dr. Warner?” Colonel Kane yelled back.

“Yes, I can.” She turned to look at him. “I designed it.”

Kane nodded. “Then please remedy this situation now. I’d like to know where the son of a bitch is going and how it’s armed.”

Chemical, biological, or nuclear. That she couldn’t fix or tell him. Where, she could manage. Tense, she looked at Matthew. “I need a computer with full access.”

“Pick one,” Matthew said. “They’re all wide open in here.”

Julia went to the first desk. The lieutenant scrambled out of his seat and she sat down and went to work. She wound through the firewalls, the safeguards and encryptions, and finally got to the Rogue, then disabled its stealth.

“We got it, sir!” the GPS monitor bellowed.

Julia looked to the large screen, saw the red blip.

“We’ve got to intercept that missile, Seth.” Matthew stared at him.

“If we do, it’ll detonate.” Seth glanced over at Julia. “If the warhead is WIND, millions are going to die.”