The End Game (6 page)

11

QUEEN TO B3

On the road to Brooklyn

M
atthew drove like a Sunday grandmother, always on the alert for cops.

Vanessa turned in the seat to face him. “Matthew, talk to me. Do you think Darius died in the fire?”

He shook his head. “Don't worry about Darius.”

Everything inside her sharpened to pinpoint focus. The way he'd said those words. “Why?”

He shrugged. “You might as well know. Darius is alive and well and moving into position for our next step. He's done everything I asked tonight.”

Or you did everything Darius asked?
She felt pounding rage; she wanted to tear his throat out. No, she had to be calm, she had to keep it together, she had to find out what was going on.
Next step of what?

Time to try the spurs. “I see. First, you didn't bother to tell me
that you were going to test out your bombs tonight and kill people, and then second, you didn't bother to tell me Darius was just fine, thank you? This small detail somehow slipped that genius brain of yours? I laid on that hill for an hour waiting for him to come out, watching the dead and the injured being ambulanced out, and it was all for nothing because you couldn't be bothered to tell me?” He looked taken aback. She poured on more, slammed her fist on the seat. “Didn't it occur to you that I could have been taken? The FBI was there, and wouldn't they have done a happy dance if they'd nabbed me? Why didn't you tell me, Matthew? About the bomb? That you'd finally perfected it? That you were going to test it out? About Darius? Why?”

He had the gall to laugh at her. “Oh, I perfected it a while back. What, are you jealous, Vanessa?”

“No, you moron. What I am is sick and tired of being kept out of the loop, always trying to prove myself, which I have, over and over, always trying to make you trust me. I've done everything you wanted and done it well, yet you treat me like some sort of outsider.

“Then Darius shows up with a bag of money and you fall all over him. Who is he? Do you even know? I know, I know, I've heard his rhetoric—he hates the terrorists as much as you do, wants them to choke on their oil. I've heard the both of you having a cursefest against them, but so what? I'm your bomb maker. I've been with you since Belfast when Ian brought us together. You always said you needed me because this bomb you were building—you weren't going to use it because you didn't want to take any chances you might hurt someone, you wanted it for leverage, to force our government into stopping oil imports.

“So what happened, Matthew? Darius changed your mind,
obviously. Where is Darius and what is he doing? What are you two planning?”

His hand shot out and gripped her knee, hard. She felt equal parts surprise and pain. Should she break his hand? She wanted to, but she didn't move, said only, her voice perfectly calm, “You're hurting me.”

“I need to make my point clear, apparently. You are a soldier, Vanessa, my soldier, to be told where to go and what to do. Don't you understand? We are at war with radical Islam, with all the jihadist fanatics who would destroy our world and us with it. I had to make a big point tonight that if our country continues to import their freaking oil, they're as bad as the terrorists. And I made it, and it's about time I made it.

“And like you said, sweetheart, I didn't search you out, Ian brought you to me, promised me you wanted in, promised me you were good.”

“And you trust Ian. You worked with him for years. Why don't you trust me? Ian does. Even crazy Andy does. You didn't search out Darius, either. He came to you, like I did.”

“Come on, Vanessa, you told me yourself you wanted a chance to right the wrongs, to mete out well-deserved punishment to the terrorists and those fools who import their oil. I'm the leader of our group and what I do with Darius is none of your business. I make the decisions, select the targets, whip up the media and hopefully the public. Not you. You do what I tell you to do. Do you understand me?”

Had Darius pumped him up into this little Hitler? “I'm not your enemy, Matthew. Why are you treating me like one? After three months together, we were getting close, but then Darius showed up and everything started to change. You were closeted together for
hours at a time. Some of the guys wondered if you were cozying up, screwing your brains out.”

He laughed. “No one thinks that; you're making it up because you're pissed at me. Darius didn't want to screw me, he wanted to screw you, but you didn't screw around with any of us, including me, even though you know as well as I do we'd be good together.”

Where had he gotten this scenario?

“You want to know what I told him?
‘Good luck, man, but know she'd yank out your eyeballs if you tried to force things.'
So, tell me, Vanessa, did Darius have the nerve to try anything with you?”

“Yes, once. I left his eyeballs intact. That's not important, it was nothing.”
Try again, try again.
“Matthew, listen to me. I've worked hard for you and the cause, done everything you've ever asked, and more. Stop treating me like this. Other than Ian and Andy, I'm your only friend. Not Darius, and if you believe he gives a crap about you, you're as crazy as Andy. He's using you; he's manipulating you. He has his own agenda, you're simply too blind to see it. Or he's blinded you too much to see it. Or he's got you to buy into what he wants to do. And tonight? It was really your idea, Matthew? Or his?”

“Enough of your whining. COE is not about friendship or lovers. It is not about trust. We're on a mission, and we each have our jobs to do. Get in line, Vanessa, or you'll regret it.”
More Hitler.

Now he was threating to kill her? Then, fast as lightning, he grinned, his hand once again on her knee, now caressing rather than hurting.

“Come on, babe, you're getting all upset for no reason. You're special, Vanessa. I've never said otherwise. You know I care about you. You're a great talent, easy on the eyes, too, and you're fun to be with, until now anyway. Be patient, okay? You'll come around
because you'll see the payoff is worth it. Then who knows? Maybe you and I can have some time together. Maybe I'll tell you everything you could ever want to know.”

He'd turned on a dime. He'd done it before, but never this fast, this radically
. What has that monster made you? Who are you now, Matthew?

But she couldn't let him see she was both afraid and killer angry. She said nothing more.

•   •   •

In another twenty minutes,
in the dead of night, Matthew parked the car in the derelict lot next to the building—a car repair shop with an apartment on the second floor. It was a dump, but perfect for his uses. He looked over at Vanessa, still and silent, and got out of the car. He looked up at their darkened apartment, above the auto repair shop with its smelly bays. The whole place stank of gasoline and oil and old sandwiches and dirty men, but it was out of the way, and the owner of the shop had been more than happy to take the wad of cash Matthew had pressed into his greasy palm and shut down the business for an extended European vacation.

Matthew hoped the owner was enjoying himself, since if it came down to it, if necessary, he'd have Andy torch the building, and whoosh, no more business.

He hoped all his other men were cozied in their three different assigned motels in Brooklyn, none more than a mile away from here.

He didn't like Vanessa's silence. He knew she was pissed, sulking, but he also felt it was something more. This silence of hers—after a bombing, she was usually on top of the world, but not tonight. Well, things had changed. She'd get used to it. She'd come around.
Then he realized that Ian, Andy, all of the men were quiet after Bayway and all the deaths. No, he realized they'd all been on edge before tonight, and he understood now it was because of Darius. He knew all Ian's men were afraid of Darius, and they were right to be. Matthew knew there was a killing lust in Darius that ran deep, and was as automatic as a snake striking out.

No, it would be all right. They would stick to the plan, the grand plan he and Darius had devised.

But still, Matthew worried about Ian, his best friend, the one man he'd trusted for so long. He thought of those long-ago days when the two of them had traveled through Europe, guns and bombs in their backpacks, targeting those electrical grids and oil refineries that relied heavily on Middle Eastern oil. But now he'd come to see that destroying them in his perfectly executed little bombings had been petty, nearly meaningless in the grand scheme of things, and they hadn't accomplished very much at all.

But Darius had showed him the way, the new way, and he wanted it so bad he could taste it, the final revenge for his family. Close, so close now. No looking back, only forward, ever forward. He and Darius would stop the madness once and for all, and because of them the world would change. It made him tremble to think about what he was going to do. And he felt, deep down, where it counted most, fear and pride and a sense of infallibility. What he would do was righteous.

He called Vanessa to help him. Silently, they unloaded the car, pulled a dirty tarp over it, and placed a large rock on the hood so it blended in with the other cars on the dingy repair lot, and then went up the oily, stinking stairs to the apartment. It was the middle of the night, no one to see them.

There were blackout curtains on the windows, a good thing,
because inside, the apartment pulsed with gleaming monitors and equipment that took up every available flat surface, their screens glowing blue in the night. Andy Tate, firebug and computer expert, too young to be as crazy as he was, always wired, no coffee necessary, was leaning back in a broken leather chair, his legs crossed on top of the kitchen table, alternately playing with a Zippo lighter and eating an apple.

He saw them, raised a fist, and shouted, “I am the master of the universe!”

Matthew felt his heart pound as he hurried over to him. “Does that mean you're in?”

“Tango down, bitches. Oh, yeah, dude, I pulled down their drawers and slipped it right in. My baby has already infected all the terminals and servers, corrupted all their precious files. I have control of the master boot records. Everything's offline and I should have all the data downloaded in another hour, two tops. They won't know what hit them. They'll be scrambling for days trying to track us, and we'll be long gone, with everything we need in place.”

“Good. Good. Well done, Andy.” He turned to Vanessa. “Go shower and start packing. We leave as soon as Andy has the information downloaded.”

She gave him an emotionless look and went down the narrow hallway, fear scoring deep at Andy's announcement. This, at least, she'd known about, but now it was reality. Andy had gotten into all the major oil companies' computer systems. Truth be told, she hadn't imagined he'd be able to do it. Well, she'd been dead wrong. She had to send in an alert right away that it was no longer a plan, it was done. It would happen.

She nearly ran into Ian as he came out of the bedroom, his hair
still wet from his shower. He gave her a loud smacking kiss on each cheek, hugged her tight.

“We did it, Van, we did it.” His Irish accent was thick tonight, but then he frowned. “But all those men, dead. I didn't like that at all. I mean, they weren't those wanking Muslim gits taking over Belfast.”

“No, they weren't,” she said. “They burned to death; innocent people shouldn't have died. Too much death, Ian, too much, and we all swore we never wanted that.”

“It wasn't your doing, Van, or mine, so don't feel guilty. It was that maniac Darius, he's the one who pushed Matthew into using one of his new coin bombs at Bayway. At least we now know what a tiny part of one of Matthew's coins can do. Still, it was too close. I nearly didn't make it out in time since that arse Darius put the bomb too near the room I was in. Nearly burned to death—now, what a thought that is. And I heard the screams.” He shook himself. “Hey, come help Andy and Matthew load the cases in the van.”

Say something, say something.
“I'm very glad you made it, Ian. I'll be out in a minute to help.”

“Listen, Van, we'll make it to Tahoe, and maybe things will go back to the way they were before, since Darius is gone now. We'll lay low and plan our next attack, the right kind of attack.”

Matthew came into the hallway, heard Ian, and nodded. “Yes, we need to leave, but we're not going back to Tahoe, we're heading south. It's time to take this to the next level.”

Ian eyed him. “You mean you still want to do Yorktown?”

“Oh, yes.”

Ian shook his head. “I don't know, Matthew, I don't know. Tonight was—bad.”

“I promise you and Vanessa, no major bombing like tonight at Bayway.” Matthew pumped his fist in the air. “Life's an adventure, Ian, our adventure. Don't turn coward on me now.”

The power plant at Yorktown? Vanessa hadn't known. Neither Ian nor Matthew had told her. Did Andy know?

Matthew was still pumped, thrilled with himself. “Andy is breaking down his computers, then you can help him get everything into the van. You know what he did, right, Ian?”

“I know all I need to know—he crippled the buggers. Hey, even if you explained it all to me, I wouldn't understand it.” He grinned, clapped Mathew on the back and left him and Vanessa alone in the dim hallway.

12

PAWN TAKES C4

V
anessa turned away from him, said over her shoulder, “I'm going to shower and pack. Five minutes.”

“We need to talk.”

“Later, Matthew. We have plenty of time to talk on the road south. To Yorktown.”

She left him, already writing her text message in her head as she went into the bedroom to get clothes and her special phone she'd stashed in a tampon box, the safest place in the universe when surrounded by men. She was scared, excited, knew at last things were coming together. Yorktown? Was that where Darius had gone? But why split apart from the group?

She took the tiny phone out of the box, grabbed a towel and clothes, and went into the small bathroom. She turned on the shower, leaned into the noise, turned on the phone. She saw there was a response to her last text, the one she'd sent with Darius's photo.

Need more information. Nothing in databases. Ghost.

She couldn't believe it—no records at all? She knew Darius was a criminal. Surely he'd been arrested at some point, fingerprinted and photographed. He'd even once told her about a prison in Turkey—had they contacted Interpol? Of course they had.

She texted back.

911, coin bombs already perfected, Bayway test run. Darius did not return with us. Don't know where he is. Heading south.

She hit send and waited. And waited. The signal was bad in the bathroom. Even though the phone was secure and encrypted, it still needed a decent LTE connection to go through. She couldn't have a satellite phone on her, too suspicious if she was caught with it. This baby was a very small smartphone, beefed up by her people, all improvements under the hood. Since one of Matthew's rules was no phones, she was very careful with it.

The text still hadn't gone through.

“Come on, come on, come on.”

She'd started to strip down when there was a knock on the bathroom door. She was so hyped up she nearly dropped the phone. She called out, “I'm getting into the shower now. Three minutes and I'll be out, ready to leave.”

Matthew's voice, soft and sexy, his coaxing voice: “I want to come in, Vanessa. I think it's time you and I finally had that talk.”

Her heart froze.
What talk?
He was thinking about sex now? She quickly grabbed the big bar of soap from the shower, wet it, and started working the phone into it, pressing hard. Was it still showing? She kept squeezing it into the soap, praying for time. It was inside, finally, fully covered.

The doorknob jiggled. Her heart thundered in her chest.

“Come on, Vanessa, open up. I know you're mad at me, but I want to make it up to you. Now's our chance, let's—”

She had to stop this. “Now, Matthew?” She played with the bar of soap—yes, it looked harmless. She quickly set it back into the shower. “You think now's a good time because your best friend Darius isn't here to tell you not to talk to me?”

The door crashed inward. Matthew stood there, breathing hard, his eyes dark and hot. Then, fast as a blink, he smiled. “Hey, what's with locking me out? You're the one who wanted me to share, to tell you all I'm planning.”

These mood swings of his were becoming more frequent.
Is it also because of Darius? He wants to talk? Now? No, he wants sex.
Her shirt was open and she quickly buttoned it. “Come on, Matthew, not now. I thought we were in a hurry. Go away and let me shower in peace so we can get out of here.”

His smile never slipped, but she knew if she looked close enough, she'd see the pulse pounding in his neck.

“I didn't come in to talk—well, not right away.”

Was he for real? He knew she was angry with him, knew she'd hated all the deaths at Bayway, so what was on that genius brain of his? Did he believe pushing her for sex was the way to get her back under control? She realized what she wanted more than anything was to kick him into oblivion. She held herself steady, even smiled at him. “No, Matthew. Go away.”

“Come on, Vanessa, we'll have some quick fun, we deserve it, to celebrate. You're mad at me right now, but that will change.” He wasn't blind, he saw the contempt on her face, but he chose to ignore it. He added, his voice cajoling, “Hey, after, you and I can talk. You're right, it's time I told you all my plans.”

Think, think.
He'd tell her all his plans? She forced herself to soften her voice. “This isn't a good time, Matthew, you know that. We need to get out of here.”

He ignored her, unbuttoning his shirt, never looking away from her. Then his fingers were on his belt. “We can take a shower together, save some time. It'll be fun, you'll see.”

No, he can't get in the shower, he might try to use the soap, might see that something is different.

He pulled off his belt. His fingers went to the button of his jeans, paused. “Vanessa, I'm sorry, I should have told you about Darius, what we planned together. I should have told you about everything. I do trust you, and I want you by my side when I finish this.”

He was playing her, she knew it. She watched him unzip his jeans, watched him step to her, didn't move when he kissed her neck.

She forced herself not to kick upward, to hold perfectly still. “Finish what, Matthew? What is there to finish?”

“You didn't think I was going to spend the rest of my life bombing small-time refineries and electrical grids, did you? Tonight was just the beginning.” He pushed her up against the wall, kissed her hard, one hand holding her head still. He slid a leg between hers.

She said into his mouth, “Come on, Matthew, what are you planning? Tell me, so I can find the best way to help you.”

He was kissing her face now, light feathering kisses. “Everything's in motion; Darius and I have planned out every move. You are helping me, Vanessa. All the way, baby. You and me, all the way.” He kissed her hard again, whispering into her mouth, “Now it's time for us.”

Why? Because Darius isn't hanging around watching you?
She
forced herself to kiss him back, let her hand slip inside his jeans as she whispered into his mouth, “Tell me now, Matthew. I want to know. Tell me.”

He raised his head, his smile dazed, rubbed his fingers over her mouth, said between kisses, “You want to know what's next? We're going right to the top, Vanessa. No, wait, I'll fill you in on all of it later. You won't believe who we're going to kill—”

There was a loud ding from the phone wedged into the soap. The text had gone through.