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the calmness and cool take hold. He's calm as death, I thought.
I shouldn't have been surprised. This was the real Jack. This was the
President killer.
"Very good," he finally said, commending us for doing a good job, for our
professionalism. The son of a bitch nodded his approval.
"I'm proud of you. You did your jobs extremely well." It made my blood boil,
but I knew the order of the day: we take him real easy. The gentle beartrap.
He slowly got out of the spit-shined red vehicle. Both his hands were held up
high. He offered no resistance; he didn't want to be shot.
Suddenly, one of the Secret Service agents sucker punched him. The agent threw
a hard roundhouse right that connected with the killer's jaw. I couldn't
believe he'd done it, but I was glad.
Jack's head snapped back and he dropped like a stone. Jack was smart. He
stayed down. There was no provocation for the agent's punch, no excuse
whatsoever--except that the freak sprawled on the ground had murdered the
President in cold blood.
Jack shook his head and worked his jaw as he looked up at us from the
pavement. "How much do you know?" he asked.
We didn't answer him. None of us said a goddamn word. It was our turn to play
games. Now we had a few surprises for Jack.
JACK WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING. We knew he was only part of the puzzle we were
attempting to solve. We had decided to take him down first, but now came the
second crucial stop.
As we rode back to his house on Oxford Street, I felt distant from the scene,
almost as if I were watching myself in a dream. I remembered the few meetings
I'd had with Thomas Byrnes. He'd told us all to have no regrets, but that
advice didn't work out in the real world. The President was dead, and I would
always feel partly responsible, even if I wasn't responsible at all.
I wasn't thinking only about the President's murder. There was
thirteen-year-old Danny Boudreaux. I felt an unsettling connection between the
two cases. I had from the very beginning. The murders and unprecedented
violence were everywhere. It was as if a strange, crippling disease were
spreading across much of the world, but especially right here in America. I
had already witnessed too much of it. I didn't know how to make the nightmare
stop. No one did.
It wasn't over.
We were finally at the beginning of the awful mystery.
This was where it had started.
At this house just coming into view.
Jay Grayer spoke into the car's hand mike. "Dr. Cross and I will go the
front-door route. Everyone cover us like a blanket.
No shooting. Not even return fire, if you can help it. Everybody clear on
that?"
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All the other agents were clear on the procedure and knew the stakes. Beartrap
wasn't over yet.
Grayer pulled the black sedan up beside the front walk to the house. "You
ready for one more shitstorm?" he asked me. "You okay with how this is going
down, Alex?"
"I'm as okay as I'm going to be," I told him. "Thanks for keeping me in the
loop. I needed to be here."
"We wouldn't even be here without you. Let's go do it."
The two of us got out of his unmarked car and hurried up the red-brick front
walkway together. We matched each other, step for step.
This was where it had all started.
The big house, the whole street, seemed so innocent and appealing.
A beautiful, white Colonial stood before us. The house had a big old porch
supported by column pedestals. Children's bikes were neatly stacked on the
porch. Everything out here was so neat. Was it all a disguise? Of course it
was.
Jay Grayer rang the doorbell and it sounded like the "Avon calling" bell. Jack
and Jill came to The Hill But Jack and Jill started right here, didn't it? In
this very house.
The door was answered by a woman wearing a red plaid robe that looked as if it
came straight out of the J. Crew catalog.
A grapevine wreath, one of those peculiar, decorative affairs that looks. like
Jesus' crown of thorns, was hung on the front door for the holidays. It had a
big red bow tied around it. Here is Jill, I was thinking. Finally, the real
Jill.
"ALEX, JAY. My God, what is it? What's happened now? Don't tell me this is a
social visit?"
Jeanne Sterling stood just inside the front door of her house. I could see a
polished oak stairway glistening behind her. A formal dining room was visible
through pocket doors, which were also polished oak. A tall stack of
gift-wrapped Christmas presents lay piled near a desk and a six-foot-high
standing mirror in the foyer.
Jill's house. The inspector general of the CIA. Clean Jeanne.
"What's happened? I just made some coffee. Please, come in."
She sounded as if Jay Grayer and I were a couple of neighbors from just down
the street. A social visit, right? She smiled and her prominent teeth made it
look like a grimace.
What happened? Has someone in the neighborhood been involved in a fender
bender? I just made fresh coffee. Good as the stuff at Starbucks. Let's chat.
"Coffee sounds fine,"Jay said, showing he could chat with the best of them.
We walked inside the house that she shared with her children and her husband.
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With Jack.
I noticed details -- everything seemed important, telling, evidence. The
bright colors and exuberant style on the inside of the house said "American,"
but the accents communicated "world travel." French etchings. Flemish
weavings. Chinese porcelain.
Jill the traveler. Jill the spymaster.
There's an old saying in classic mysteries, which I'd never felt made much
sense -- cherchez la femme. Look for the woman. I had my own catchphrase for
solving many modern-day mysteries -- cherchez l' argent. Look for the money.
I didn't believe that Jeanne Sterling and her husband had acted on their own.
I didn't believe it any more than I had ever bought that Jack and Jill were
celebrity stalkers. Aldrich Ames had supposedly received two and a half
million for exposing a dozen American agents. How much had the Sterlings
received for disposing of a troublesome United States president? A loose
cannon who had gone against the system?
And who had given them the money? Cherchez l'argent. Maybe Jeanne would tell
us if we twisted her arm a little, which I definitely planned to do.
Who would gain the most from the murder of President Thomas Byrnes? The vice
president, now the president? Wall Street? Organized crime? The CIA? I would
have to ask Jeanne about that. Maybe over steaming pewter mugs of coffee.
Maybe that was what we could chat about.
She turned and led the way back to her kitchen. She was so calm and collected. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]