“Go fuck yourself.”
He straightened, his jaw clenching.
“How many people would have died, Constantine?” Agent Goddard asked for about the thousandth time.
She wanted to say that she was the one who had prevented those deaths, but she didn’t. They didn’t want to hear it. They had their own plan. That plan was to get her to confess to being a terrorist so they could be heroes.
“You should be thankful we stopped you when we did,” Agent Goddard said. “You would have been a murderer. What does that say about you? You should be grateful we stopped you from becoming that kind of person.”
“If you sign the confession,” Agent Holgado said, somewhat more gently, “it’s kind of like going to confession at the church and confessing your sins to the priest, who then asks God to absolve you of those sins. It cleanses your soul. That’s what we’re doing here. We’re like priests, helping you to cleanse your soul.
“Are you Catholic, Constantine? Your name is Italian, so I think maybe you are, so you know what we’re talking about. You know we’re only trying to help you. Confessing your sins is your only way to salvation.”
Angela was already back in her distant place. These men were nothing but meaningless voices mumbling in the distance.
Agent Lumley’s phone rang. He pulled it off the clip on his belt and glanced at the caller ID.
“I gotta take this,” he told the other two.
He went out of the room, but had been gone for only a short time when he stuck his head back in the door.
“Both of you, get out here.”
Angela was suddenly alone for the first time since they’d thrown her in the back of that black SUV. It was the first time that at least one of them wasn’t in the room hammering away at her. Sometimes one or two of them left for quite a while. She figured that they had gone out to snatch a little sleep while one of the others took a shift working on her, keeping her awake. But they never left her completely alone.
They were gone for so long that Angela’s eyes closed and she nodded off. Because they had her handcuffed to the chair she couldn’t fall, so when her eyes closed her head sagged forward as she dozed off.
She didn’t know how long she had been asleep when they came back in, but it seemed like it was at least a couple of hours—not nearly as much sleep as she needed, but welcomed, nonetheless.
When Agent Holgado unlocked her handcuffs and leg-irons, she didn’t know what was going on. She wouldn’t put it past them to beat her to death down in that basement and say she tried to escape.
Agent Lumley put a full bottle of water down in front of her. Angela rubbed her wrists as she looked up at him. She suspected the water was a trick, or more likely drugged.
He opened it and gulped down nearly half of it, then set it down in front of her again. “There. It’s not poisoned. Go ahead and have a drink.”
His voice sounded different. He sounded defeated. The other two looked rather sheepish as well.
Angela didn’t trust any of them, and she was not about to take the water no matter how thirsty she was.
“Some new information has come to light.” Agent Goddard ran his hand back over his buzz-cut hair. “We’ve just learned that you had absolutely nothing to do with those terrorists. This was all a big mistake due to … an abundance of caution.”
Angela was still rubbing her bruised wrists. She didn’t say anything.
Four more men in dark suits and ties came into the room and approached the other side of the table to face Angela.
“You’re free to go,” one of them said in an official tone. “You have been cleared of any wrongdoing.”
“It seems that you have friends in very high places,” Agent Goddard said. “A guardian angel.”
Angela didn’t trust any of them. She didn’t get up. She didn’t say anything.
One of the four new men pulled something from the breast pocket of his dark suit coat. It was about the size of a credit card. When he set it down it sounded like plastic, too. He slid it across the table to her.
She glanced down just long enough to see her photo on it. Holographic seals partially covered her face and signatures she couldn’t read. She saw the word “Federal” but couldn’t read the rest of it.
Another of the four men in suits, a big black guy with a shaved head, laid her Walther P22 down on the table beside the card with her photo. Her gun still had the suppressor on it.
“Here is your weapon back, Ms. Constantine,” he said. “Nice choice, by the way. You don’t have to worry about overpenetration, yet lethal if you know what you’re doing, and with the subsonic rounds it’s loaded with, I would guess you do.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to take the weapon and give them an excuse to shoot her. She stayed in the chair.
He gestured to the card and went on. “That’s a special federal weapons permit. It authorizes you to carry any gun you choose. That includes things like suppressors and fully automatic weapons. Anything. And of course, your knife. Another smart choice.”
He was sounding more like a weapons instructor than anything else.
One of the other men, another big black guy in a dark suit that fit him well, handed over her knife, handle-first. She stared at it in his hand for a moment, then took it and slid it down into the sheath in her boot.
Agent Lumley, looking beat, gestured to her gun and the permit card. “It’s not a trick. You can have your weapon back. You’ve been completely cleared of all charges. We’ll escort you safely out of the building. I would assume that it’s your guardian angel who is waiting outside for you.”
Angela finally stood. Keeping her eyes on Lumley, she picked up the gun and slid it back into her grandfather’s holster at the small of her back. She could tell by the weight that it was loaded.
She held her hand out, palm up.
“Oh,” one of the other men said. He reached in the side pocket of his suit jacket and brought out three loaded magazines. He placed them in her palm. Angela slid them into a pocket.
She picked up the federal weapons permit, glanced at it briefly, and then slipped it into her back, left pocket.
With the four new men in front and the three agents who had been interrogating her following behind, they led her up the stairs and out of the building. It was somewhere in the middle of the night. She’d lost track of time.
At the top of the stairs, Agent Lumley grabbed her wrist to stop her.
In a heartbeat she reversed the grip, levered his hand over, and twisted it to the side, stopping just before it broke the bones. He went to one knee, contorting his body sideways to try to take the pressure off his wrist. If he tried anything she could break it.
“Jesus, Constantine, I was only going to say ‘no hard feelings.’ ”
Still holding his hand twisted within a hairsbreadth of breaking bones, she leaned down toward him. “Use some mouthwash, would you, Lumley? Your breath smells like dick.”
A couple of the men in dark suits chuckled.
“Angela.” It was a voice behind her that she recognized. “Leave him be and let’s go.”
Angela released Agent Lumley and after giving him a dark look turned to see a welcome face. It was Jack.
He smiled, and everything suddenly seemed all right.
The dread of what was to become of her suddenly lifted. He was the friend in high places, her guardian angel.
FIFTY-EIGHT
As Jack led her down the steps, they left the agents standing up at the top of the stairs in front of the dark federal building lit by streetlights. The three who had been interrogating her looked like schoolboys who had been reprimanded by nuns and sent to Mother Superior’s office.
They walked calmly to Jack’s car, parked on a side street. He held the door for her and shut it after she sat down. She wasn’t used to men with manners. Jack had manners.
“What time is it?” she asked as she looked around the dark streets.
“It’s about one thirty,” he s
aid as he pulled away from the curb. “I’m sorry it took so long. I was trying my best to get you out of there sooner.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m used to getting slapped around by guys.”
“I’m glad they didn’t do worse. I’m especially relieved they didn’t take you to Washington. It would have greatly complicated matters if you’d have gone down that rabbit hole.”
Angela rode in silence for moment.
“They said that I have a friend in high places. They said that friend vouched for me.”
Jack smiled along with a one-shoulder shrug. “I talked to some people and convinced them to do the right thing and release you.”
“You told me that you were off the grid and everyone thought you were dead. You would have had to come out of the shadows to get me out of there. That’s bound to cause you problems.”
He glanced over at her. “Getting you released was more important to me than staying dead. They would have fed you to the wolves. I’m guessing they wanted you to sign a confession?”
“Yeah, they did. I could tell they thought this would make them big shots. But I wouldn’t do it.”
“In the end, they would have simply signed your name and in short order you would have been tried, convicted, and executed.
“They would have given a big press announcement that they had captured the right-wing terrorist mastermind behind the recent attacks. The case would be sealed a few tiers above top secret. No one would know the truth.
“They would not have mentioned a word about any atomic bomb. With you dead and buried, and that confession sealed, no one would ever see it or dispute it, that would have been the end of the story, the end of Angela Constantine.”
“Except those assholes who got my ‘confession’ would end up heroes.”
He smiled again. “That’s the game they were playing. None of the intel agencies knew squat about the nuke until we told them about it, so to redeem themselves they needed a scapegoat.”
Angela frowned over at Jack as he drove through the dark, deserted streets. “What did you have to do to get me away from them?”
“I vouched for you—let them know you were the one who actually stopped the terrorist.”
Angela looked out at the dark, empty streets. “I think you must have done something more than that.”
“Hey, let me see the card they gave you,” he said, changing the subject.
Angela pulled it out of her back pocket and handed it over. “What, exactly, is this, anyway?”
He looked at it a moment and then handed it back. “It’s a very special federal permit. Think of it as a double-oh-seven kind of thing. It means you can legally carry any weapon you want. Your suppressor is now legal. You can carry a machine gun if you want. With that permit you could get on an airplane with a gun.”
“Wow,” she said in a whisper as she studied the card.
“Keep the phone number on the back in a safe place. Commit the number of the card on the front to memory. If you ever lose the card you can call, give them that number, and get a replacement. It’s good for life, too. Did they also tell you that you’ve been blessed?”
Angela scrunched up her nose. “Blessed? No, they didn’t mention that. What does that mean?”
“It means you’ve been vetted and given clearance at the highest levels. If there is ever an investigation of something, you will be left out of it. You’re already blessed. It will keep anyone from going after you again.”
She looked at his face lit by the instrument panel.
“Why would you do all this for me, Jack?”
“Because you’re a very special person, Angela. You can recognize killers, and you stopped an atomic bomb from going off in America. My ability is to see in people’s eyes that they can recognize killers. That’s what I do. That’s all I can do.
“But you are a whole order of magnitude more than any other person I’ve found with that ability. I know because I’ve worked with people like that for a very long time. Like I say, you’re a very special person, Angela.”
She looked down at her hands in her lap for a long moment.
“Not so special. I was born broken.”
He frowned over at her. “What are you talking about?”
“My mother used all kinds of drugs when she was pregnant with me. Whoever my father was would have been a drug addict as well. All those drugs in her system when she was pregnant with me messed me up. I’m not like normal people. I’m a freak.”
Jack was silent, thinking about it as they drove through the city toward the bar.
Finally he said, “I don’t know if that’s true, Angela. Your natural genetic ability may simply be more advanced than it is in other people—like people who are born smarter, with a higher IQ than anyone else. You may be the first of a better kind of human—better than those of us who can’t do what you can. You’re special, Angela. Don’t you ever forget that, and don’t you ever doubt it. You’re not a freak. The world needs you.”
“You mean you want to use me for what you do, like you do in Israel. Use me like the other people you find who can recognize killers?”
“None of them ever knew what killers had done, or what they were thinking. Only you, Angela, can see into their minds. That’s incredibly special.”
“Not so special,” she said as she looked out her window again. “Seeing into the minds of killers is like being part of their world of madness. Seeing the things they’ve done and how it makes them feel is not special. It’s a curse. I have to live with the things I’ve seen.
“I see those things when I try to go to sleep. I see them in my sleep.
“It’s a lonely kind of insanity.”
“I can only imagine,” he said in soft consolation.
When they got to the bar where her truck was parked, the bar was just closing.
“Nate was the one who told me what happened to you. He will want to know that you’ve been released and that you’re safe.”
“Would you mind going in and telling him? I’m really tired.” She hesitated. “Besides, I’m kind of embarrassed that he saw me being handcuffed and carried away like that.”
“Sure,” Jack said. “Wait while I run in and tell him so I can follow you to make sure you make it home safely. But you shouldn’t be embarrassed. You did nothing wrong. They did.”
Sitting in her truck waiting, Angela saw Nate pop his head out of the door with Jack and wave. She waved back.
She rolled down the window when Jack reached the side of her truck.
“He was pretty relieved,” Jack told her. “He was really worried for you.”
She glanced back at the bar. “He’s a nice guy.”
“Maybe the guy for you?” Jack asked.
“I’m not a nice girl,” she said as she started the truck.
She was still wired from her anger over those men snatching her, so at least that kept her awake on the ride home. At her road off the highway, after she’d driven her truck in, Jack helped her put the cable back up across her drive. She didn’t think she had the strength to do it by herself. Now that she was home and safe, her eyes kept closing.
“Your second wind is running out,” he told her. “Get some rest.”
“What’s this?” she asked as he handed her a phone.
“It’s a disposable phone no agency knows about, so they won’t be listening in on it. It has my number programmed in. Just hit the first speed dial if you need me.”
Angela nodded. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Have a good sleep, Angela. We’ll talk then.”
He waited until he saw her truck go up the road through a meadow and then vanish into the trees. Twin mountains, lit by the moonlight, looked to be welcoming her home.
FIFTY-NINE
Angela was in the sleep of the dead when her eyes suddenly popped open and she sat bolt upright in bed.
She didn’t know why, but her heart was hammering.
The room was pitch black. She coul
dn’t have been asleep for more than an hour or two. It was still somewhere in the middle of the night.
She had been so tired she hadn’t bothered to shower or take off her makeup. She simply took off everything but her panties and fell into bed. She had been asleep before she’d had a chance to savor the feel of being all alone in her own bed in her own house.
Even though she was suddenly awake, her brain was still having trouble emerging from a mental fog of sleep deprivation. She couldn’t quite figure out what had made her wake up so suddenly. For a fraction of a second, she thought that maybe she was dreaming. But as soon as she’d had the thought, she already knew she wasn’t dreaming.
Something was wrong.
In her dead-tired state, her normal thought process wasn’t up to speed and she just couldn’t figure out what was out of place.
She carefully put her bare feet on the floor and stood in one fluid, quiet motion. She waited for a second, listening, thinking that maybe it had been a deer coming close to the house. Still in somewhat of a mental haze, she took the three silent, familiar steps to the light switch at the right side of the doorway.
Wiping her face with her left hand, trying to banish the sleep from her eyes, she turned on the light with her other hand.
There was a man standing in the doorway.
A big man.
Angela froze, standing naked except for her panties right in front of him. A slow smile contorted his cruel features as he looked down the length of her.
He had on a baggy, collarless, V-neck, long-sleeved linen shirt. His loose-fitting pants seemed to be made of the same light linen material. His hair and beard were both black and short, framing his compacted, square features and the deep lines of his face. Even though he had on a shirt, she could tell by his bull neck and the width of him that he was big-boned and heavily muscled.
She had seen his photo. Two of them, in fact. She knew without a doubt that this was the international serial killer, Cassiel Aykhan Corekan.
Angela had seen plenty of scary guys. Cassiel was the king of scary.
She wasn’t sure what other people saw when they looked at this man, but what she saw was a deadly predator, a killer without a shred of remorse or mercy. This was death itself in the form of a living man.