T. Bunn - Drummer in the Dark

“Right.” She slung her purse over her shoulder, winced as it hit her wound.

“You okay?”

“Fine.”

“You’ve toughened up, Jackie. It looks good on you.” As she started to rise, he reached for her hand.

Jackie jerked back so hard she slammed into the wall behind her. Then cried aloud as the pain shot through her shoulder.

Instantly the guard was moving toward them. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, sir. Everything’s cool, right, Jackie?”

“I’m out of here.”

“Wait, please. Just a minute.”

She was halted by the seemingly genuine plea, the look, the way he held himself, one hand open and outstretched. The handsome knave turned beggar.

“You think a lot in here. There’s nothing else to do but think. About how I got addicted early on to the trade and the floor.” He rushed through the words, as though he had spent months waiting for this chance to tell her, “The adrenaline drug killed everything good I had in me, I know that now. I lived on ashes and anger. Whenever I let myself be around normal people leading normal lives, I could actually feel the cancer growing inside me. Probably why I hated them so much.”

Jackie released the loathing with the words. “You put yourself in here. Nobody else. And it isn’t half the punishment you deserve.”

“You’re right. I know you’re right.”

“What is this, your latest charm offensive?”

“No. Just a guy who’s come to see how important it is to tell you how sorry I am. For everything.” He backed away from any further confrontation. “Hoping maybe saying the words will help me forgive myself.”

Jackie fought a losing battle for control as the guard led her back outside. In a prison-hard voice, the guard told her, “Tough to watch a man hide his evil behind a mask of God.”

Jackie swiped hard at her face. She’d shed more tears in the past three days than in twice as many years. She felt eroded by weakness she could not fathom. “Excuse me?”

The guard moved with the light-footed grace of much hidden muscle. “A lot of them take to the religion kick in here.” He pushed open the gate for her, stepped aside, and added, “I don’t have no trouble with it. Anything that keeps them docile is fine with me. But it don’t mean a thing on the outside, not till the day they step through those big main doors. Not a thing. You just remember that.”

Saturday

At five o’clock that afternoon, Wynn was seated in his office dealing with the attack’s aftermath. An agent manning his front room stepped inside to say, “Senator Trilling is on line two.” Addressing not Wynn but the two senior agents across from him.

It was the pretext Wynn had been looking for. “You gentlemen will have to excuse me.”

“Just a few more questions, sir.”

“You’ve been repeating yourselves for almost an hour.”

“We need to have a word with the senator.”

“Fine. Call her.” Then he just sat there holding the phone, watching them finally get the message and leave. As soon as his door closed, he punched the button. “Kay?”

“Was that a Fibbie who answered your phone?”

“Them and Secret Service both. They’ve been crawling all over me for hours.”

“Guess it’s to be expected. My turn next, now that I’m back. Nabil was on my flight, laid out on a stretcher across three seats. He’s resting at Georgetown Hospital. Happy to be out of that one, let me tell you.” The voice honeyed. “I won’t ask how you are because I think I already know.”

“They got Jackie, Kay.”

“Yeah, Esther told me. At least she managed to land a punch. First one so far. Looks like I was wrong about her.” A pause. “As well.”

“The Fibbies want to put a security detail on me.”

“It’s your call, Wynn. They can’t force you.”

“Are you taking one?”

“I can’t afford the risk. Just more loose ends, people I don’t know talking into mikes and phones to people I can’t see.”

“I don’t want one either.”

“I’ll take care of it, then.”

“Kay, I need something to do.” When the senator did not respond, he went on, “Please. This is vital.”

“You know St. John’s Church?”

“I can find it.”

“Episcopal church on Lafayette Square, across from the White House. The parish house was the British Minister’s residence back in the bad old days. We’re meeting there tomorrow.”

“When?”

“Nine o’clock. Right after the evening Easter service.”

“I’ll be there.”

Sunday

Sunday afternoon, Hayek came out of his back door and walked down the length of his paddock. He carried his cellphone with him, in case his secretary finally located the Brazilian banker. Obviously the man knew of the catastrophes in Rome and Egypt and had gone into hiding. But Hayek’s secretary would track him down. It was only a matter of time.

His staff knew not to show themselves when he was home at weekends. His gray stood saddled and stomping in impatient readiness. Hayek had never bothered to name the horse. To do so would imply an attachment. Hayek swung into the saddle and took the sawdust trail along the paddock and into the forest. Through the trees he caught brief glimpses of the manor’s peach-colored stone. Anywhere else on earth the estate would have been wildly garish, but in central Florida, where even Disney’s castle looked appealing, it simply belonged. The house was far too large for him, especially now that he was between wives. But the lie of permanence needed to be convincing and stated very visibly.

Hayek employed eleven staff to keep the place and his ninety-seven acres in perfect order. And it meant nothing. He was merely passing through. The transfer to Orlando was a feint, nothing more.

His true residence was to be in Liechtenstein. He was already in negotiations to buy a breeding and racing estate currently owned by the Shah of Oman. Liechtenstein was a place that understood the power of money. It had thirty thousand inhabitants and six hundred and twenty banks. The country’s ruler was a distant cousin who had personally designed the country’s new motto: “A Clean Tax Haven.” The country was too small and too dependent on its neighbors to publicly defy Europe’s dictates for financial disclosure. So the legal system had been designed to bury any case in years of bureaucratic muddling. When European prosecutors had found half a billion dollars belonging to the former Nigerian dictator stashed in a Liechtenstein bank, it had taken the court system three years just to set a trial date. The judge who was finally assigned the case was also a banker. Hayek knew he was going to be very happy calling such a place home.

The trail wound up a gentle slope, the wind and the whispering pines his only company. Which was as it should be. Triumph was not found in the right mate but rather in needing none. Hayek pushed through the forest and emerged on a hillside’s verdant slope. Ocala possessed a few rolling hills, a genuine luxury on the Florida peninsula and one of the reasons why Hayek had selected this particular estate. Another reason was the grass. The region around Ocala was the only area outside Kentucky where bluegrass grew without fertilizers or other contaminants. Bluegrass was known to be the finest natural diet for young horses. An estate with pastures of natural bluegrass could cost five times more than one not holding the proper nutrient level. Some of the world’s finest yearlings were now gamboling about the paddocks Hayek rented to his less fortunate neighbors. For now, the gray would do him just fine.

As he set a leisurely pace along the hillside, his phone chirruped. He pulled it out, took a long moment to review his strategy, then answered with a clipped, “Yes.”