The Shop (29 page)

Mike Cardamone parked the old Subaru several blocks away from the safe house. The Subaru rattled and the oil light stayed on permanently, but he’d picked it up yesterday for cash from a man who was as secretive and paranoid as himself.

He put the sunscreen in the windshield, locked up, shouldered his duffle, and started walking.

The subdivision was empty in the steaming heat of summer. Blinds were closed. Cars locked up in garages. Abandoned houses on every street. It was not yet seven a.m., but the heat was already oppressive, and by the time he reached the house on Sea Oats, he was wringing wet.

He stared at the house, 8459 East Sea Oats, closed-up and blank-faced. It gave him a bad feeling. He continued around the block, went into the alley, and hopped the wall. After making sure the neighbors were nowhere in evidence, he unlocked the back door.

A fly zoomed out, clipping his cheek. And another, followed by the smell. Underlying the smell of the hot, closed-up house was the bloated stench of death.

He stepped back out into the yard. They’d need a cleanup crew pronto. But even as he punched in the number, Cardamone realized he had to go in.

He had to know what happened here.

The cleanup crew on the way, Cardamone reached into the duffle and pulled on a jumpsuit, plastic booties, a shower cap, and gloves.

He started with the hallway and checked the back rooms. The corpses were no shock; he’d expected to find them there. Jackson, Davis, and Green were recognizable from the photos he remembered. Professional job. He was only surprised by the third one, Green. Green, of all people, had put up a fight. Glued to the floor by his own gore. Arterial blood had arced up and out, spraying the walls.

Do not go gentle into that good night…

His mother’s favorite poem.

He searched the rest of the house with mounting unease.

Where was Peters?

Another surprise—two bodies in the garage. Neither one of them was Peters.

With a shock, he recognized them: Salter and Bakus.

So where was Peters?

On his way back to the rental house, Cardamone’s thoughts raced. He needed to discipline himself, think this through. The house would be wiped clean. No worries there.

But where was Peters?

A couple of phone calls confirmed what Cardamone already knew: there had been no raid on the compound off Cape San Blas.

Could Peters have done all this?

Cardamone searched his memory banks. Peters’s real name was Cyril Landry. Had Landry connected up with Franklin somehow, or was there someone else?

He would have to call back the second team. It would take time to get them all back together, and an assault on the island right now would not be optimal. Not if Franklin knew about the raid. Not if there were hundreds of reporters with cameras roaming the island. Better hope the storm came in on time and chased the media away.

It all came down to this: was Franklin behind this? It seemed impossible. Franklin was such a screwup.

In fact, it was one of Frank’s adventures that made Mike decide to pull the plug.

Franklin told him about his long-lost cousin, Nick Holloway, who was chronicling Brienne Cross’s reality show for
Vanity Fair
. He told Mike he’d had no choice but to save Nick’s life.

Frank knew a congressman from Colorado who had a son named Mars. Mars lived in Aspen, couldn’t keep a job, and partied all the time. “Kid’s a real sociopath,” Franklin said. “Perfect for the job.”

Frank had had to do it all on the fly, but Mars was easy to find. The kid liked the easy cash, thought it would be a lark. Mars tried to lure Nick away from the party, but that didn’t work. Ultimately he put Rohypnol in Nick’s drink, rolled him down the walkway, and pushed him into the garage and under Brienne’s car.

When Mike found out about it, he sent one of his operatives to scrub Mars. That was how it was: Mike always had to clean up Franklin’s messes.

Turned out Mars was already dead. Someone had gotten there ahead of him.

Or else the kid really did OD.

He needed to get the team back here. He might not use them, but at least he’d have them if he needed them. He called Gulf Homes, his clearinghouse for sensitive communications, and set it up.

He discovered, miracles of miracles, that his jet wasn’t en route to Atlanta, as had been planned. It was still in Tallahassee. A mechanical problem had kept it on the ground—a lucky break. The jet was ready to go, and presumably his team was still in Tallahassee.

It was meant to be.

And
this
time, he’d be with them, to make sure nothing went wrong.

Back at the house, he turned on the TV so he could follow the news while he waited for his team leader’s call.

Something one of the anchors said caused him to look at the TV.

He saw an empty space, trees in the background, some wind. The camera swung to a familiar figure striding across a green lawn and onto a white shell road.

Staring at the television, Cardamone sat down on the bed, his heart rate increasing to jackhammer speed. His ears burned. He stared a hole in the TV set, but the image didn’t change.

The attorney general had thrown down the gauntlet.

When their captor came for Jolie, her first emotion was gratitude. She’d wanted to get out of that room and away from those people in the worst way.

Inside the security center, he motioned her to a chair. Overhead was a bank of LCD screens, three vertical rows, six screens across, capturing images from remote cameras all over the island.

Bringing her out here, wanting her to watch the cameras—he must trust her on some level. Jolie could use this. “You want me to be a lookout.”

“That’s right.”

“I should at least know your name.”

“It’s Cyril.”

“The old man needs medical attention. He’s confused, frightened. Terrified.”

“That’s a shame.”

“He needs to get off the island.”

“How would you do it?”

Jolie tried not to show too much eagerness. “We could take the Hinckley.”

“No.”

“But—”

“Do you know what the stakes are?”

“I know there’s a terrified old man, innocent people are hostages—”

“That’s nothing.”

“
Nothing?
These people did nothing to you.”

“Franklin did.”

“Franklin? What did he do? If we’re going to leave, we have to go now. The storm is—”

He slammed his hand on the desk. “You’re not going anywhere.”

She stared at him.

“You remember Michael Jackson?”

“Michael Jackson?”

“His death blotted out all the news—it was all Michael Jackson all the time. Remember? Nothing else could get through. Cable TV, radio, newspapers—it was all-consuming. Do you remember Iran?

“Iran?”

“The riots? That girl, Neda, who was killed? All of that ended when Michael Jackson died.”

She did remember, but she was confused. “What does that have to do with getting out of here?”

“
Listen to me
. That’s what these guys did. Your uncle and Cardamone—Cardamone owns a security firm called Whitbread Associates. The government outsourced a program to Whitbread that would—every once in a while, not very often—take a high-profile celebrity out.”

Jolie stared at him, unable to make sense of what he was saying.

“They killed celebs to cover up other stuff.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Sure it’s crazy. Doesn’t mean they didn’t do it. Governments act crazy all the time. Wiping out a whole people like the Nazis did? Crazy.”

“What proof do you have?”

“I worked for them. I killed Brienne Cross.”

Jolie heard the
whop-whop-whop
of a helicopter in the distance. The rain falling, dripping from the eaves. The cold air blowing in with the scent of magnolia through the open doorway.

Time seemed to stand still.
I killed Brienne Cross
. Did he really say that?

He held her eyes steady. She noticed the small scar, like a satin stitch, along his jaw. A strong jaw. Some would even say he was handsome.

I killed Brienne Cross
.

She noticed his hand, complete with wedding ring, curling and uncurling. Pictured him—she’d seen the photo of the house—pictured him stabbing those people in the house.

A killer with a wedding ring…

The women screaming, dying. The young men…

He leaned toward her and she cringed. But all he did was remove the duct tape that bound her wrists. She rubbed her hands and looked at him.

Then he bent down and clamped a manacle around her ankle, wrapping the leg chain around the table legs and padlocking them together.

“I’ve got things to do.” He instructed her on what to look for on the monitors, and left her there alone.

The rain came down harder now, but Jolie barely heard it. She was numb.

Cyril had said to her,
I killed Brienne Cross
.

Any hope she’d had that they’d get off the island alive vanished.

Cyril had told her, “Look for movement. Look for something different. If anything looks strange, unusual, let me know. Look at shadows, look at the vegetation, look at anything that would make a good hiding place.” Jolie watched the monitors. Concentrated on them, looking from one to another. An hour went by.

The novelty of watching the cameras began to wear off. The recent hurt, which had been crouched outside her conscious mind while she studied the monitors, came closer. She pushed it away. The sky darkened outside the metal shed. The wind picked up. The air felt like electricity, and sure enough, soon she could hear thunder.

I killed Brienne Cross.

Something moved.

She flicked her eyes to the screen—it was the camera outside the security center shed.

The scrape of a shoe on concrete.

It was Cyril. “Turn on the TV.” He nodded toward the corner of the room. The TV set rested in brackets like one you’d find in a motel. Jolie saw the remote on the desk and hit the power button.

“Cable news,” he said.

Jolie turned to CNN.

As she did so, she caught movement on one of the screens. A figure in a suit and tie walked in the direction of the causeway.

Franklin.

She turned to tell Cyril, but he was gone.

Jolie watched as Franklin walked across the lawn, his face resolute. A wind came up and blew his white hair around his face. He carried something in one hand. A piece of paper.

Jolie could see the sky turning a mixture of gray and an aqueous blue-green. The storm was coming in fast now. Negative ions bounced around, an electric feeling. The smell of rain. And the sound of thunder. And the lightning.

Franklin appeared on the monitor focused on the gatehouse, set on the small spit of land coming out from the peninsula. The news vans and satellite trucks were parked beyond the empty gatehouse and along the road. Franklin made a beeline for the sea of telephoto lenses, booms, microphones, cameras, and reporters. He passed through the gatehouse, walked around the parked Suburbans blocking the causeway, and stood before the cameras, holding the piece of paper out in front of him. Far out in front of him, as if he’d forgotten his reading glasses.

“I’m here to give a statement regarding the death of my wife.” Frank’s hair feathered in the wind. “I will not be taking any questions.”

He cleared his throat and launched into a rambling speech about his wife, the mother of his child, the love of his life. He asked the press to leave the family to share their grief in private.

The wind grew stronger, almost pushing him off his feet. The air darkened as he opened his mouth to speak again. “As I said, I will not be taking questions. But as the former attorney general of the United States and a proud citizen of this country, I feel I have to follow my conscience. As you know, I lost a good friend in the vice president of the United States, Owen Pintek. Because of our friendship, and against the advice of my attorney, I wish to make an additional statement.”

Jolie heard the cameras click—dozens of them.

“As the attorney general of the United States, I sought to preserve the Constitution. I would be derelict in my duties to stay quiet, when I believe…” He stopped, and peered at the paper again. “When I’m
convinced
, that there must be a full and comprehensive investigation into the vice president’s death.”

There was a collective gasp from the news crews, just as a blast of wind shoved through the ranks and knocked a microphone from the hands of a female reporter.

Franklin continued speaking, his eyes never leaving the fluttering paper, his voice quavering. “Due to our long friendship, and the personal debt of gratitude I feel to my dear friend Owen Pintek, it is incumbent on me to state my belief that the possibility exists that his death was…unnatural.”

The camera shutters started clicking again. He stared hard at the paper in his hands. “After certain legal issues have, er…been explored, I promise you I will call a press conference to fully answer your questions to the best of my ability. That is all I have to say at this time.”

He turned, nearly bowled over by another gust of wind, and walked back through the gatehouse toward the main building. A chorus of reporters shouted questions.

Then the skies emptied, and the rain came rolling out in billows. Everyone was soaked. Thunder cracked and boomed, and lightning split the sky. The former attorney general of the United States disappeared into the octagon house, and the reporters ran for cover.

The rain blew in through the open doorway, and Jolie shivered.