Nelson Demille - The Lion's Game

Khalil closed the door and went upstairs into the kitchen. He found a carton of milk in the refrigerator and drank the entire contents from the carton, then threw it in a trash bin. He also found containers of yogurt and he removed two from the refrigerator, took a coffee spoon from the table, and ate both yogurts quickly. He didn't realize how hungry he was until he smelled food.

Khalil went back through the foyer to the front door. He unhooked the metal slide from the hanging chain and pressed the slide and its screws back into the wooden frame from which it had been torn. He left the door locked, but unchained, so that the General and his wife could let themselves in.

He looked around the ground floor, finding only a large dining room off the kitchen, a sitting room across the foyer, and a small lavatory.

He went up the stairs to the second floor where a large living room took up the entire floor of the town house, and he could see that no one was there. He continued up the stairs to the third floor where the bedrooms were. He checked each of them. Two of the bedrooms were obviously for the General's children, a girl and a boy, and Khalil found himself wishing they were home and sleeping. But the rooms were empty. The third room seemed to be for guests, and the fourth bedroom was the master bedroom.

Khalil proceeded up to the fourth floor, which held a large den and a very small bedroom, which he guessed was that of the housekeeper.

Khalil looked around the wood-paneled den, noting all the military memorabilia on the walls, on the desk, and on a side table.

A model of an F-lll hung on nylon strings from the ceiling, its nose pointed down, its swing wings swept back as though it were diving in for an attack. Khalil noticed four silver bombs under its wings. He pulled the model from its strings and with his hands crushed and ripped it apart, letting the plastic pieces fall to the floor where he ground them into the carpet with his foot. "May God damn you all to hell."

He got himself under control and continued his examinations of the den. On the wall was a black-and-white photo of eight men, standing in front of an F-lll fighter-bomber. The photo had a printed caption which read LAKENHEATH, APRIL 13, 1987. Khalil read it again. This was not the correct year of the bombing attack, but then he realized that the names of these men as well as their mission were secret, and thus the General misdated the photograph, even here in his private office. Clearly, Khalil thought, these cowardly men gained no honor from what they had done.

Khalil moved to the large mahogany desk and examined the odds and ends on the desktop. He found the General's daybook and opened it to Sunday, April 16. The General had noted, "Church, 8:15, National."

There were no further entries for Sunday, Khalil noted, so perhaps no one would notice that the General was missing until he failed to report to work.

Khalil looked at Monday and saw that the General had a meeting at 10:00 A.M, By that time, another of the General's squadron mates would be dead.

Khalil looked at the entry for April 15, the anniversary of the attack, and read, "Nine A.M., conference call, squadron."

Khalil nodded. So, they stayed in communication. This could be a problem, especially as they began to die, one after the other. But Khalil had expected that some of them might still be in communication. If he acted quickly enough, by the time they realized they were all dying, they would all be dead.

He found the General's personal telephone book beside his phone and opened it. He quickly scanned the book and saw the names of the other men in the photograph. Khalil noted with satisfaction that Colonel Hambrecht's entry was marked DECEASED. He also noted that the address of the man called Chip Wiggins was crossed out with a red question mark beside his name.

Khalil considered taking the telephone book, but its absence would be noted by the police, and this would call into question the motive for the murder that was about to take place.

He put the telephone book back on the desk, then wiped it and the leather daybook with a handkerchief.

He opened the desk drawers. In the middle drawer he discovered a silver-plated.45 caliber automatic pistol. He checked to see that the magazine was fully loaded, then slid back the mechanism, and chambered a round. He moved the safety to the off position and put the pistol in his waistband.

Khalil walked to the door, then stopped, turned around, and carefully picked up the pieces of the F-lll model, putting them into a wastebasket.

He then went back down to the third floor and ransacked each of the bedrooms, taking money, jewelry, watches, and even a few of the General's military decorations. He put everything into a pillowcase, then went down to the kitchen on the first floor, carrying the pillowcase. He found a carton of orange juice in the refrigerator, and sat at the General's kitchen table.

The wall clock said five minutes to nine. The General and his wife would be home by nine-thirty if, indeed, they were people of habit and punctuality. By nine-forty-five, they would both be dead.

We crossed the Potomac River by way of some bridge and got into the city. There wasn't much traffic at 8:30 A.M. on a Sunday, but we saw a few joggers and bicyclists as well as some tourist families on spring break, the kids looking stunned at being rousted out of bed at this hour.

As we drove, the Capitol Building loomed up to our front, and I wondered if the full Congress had been briefed yet. When the shit hits the fan, the Executive Branch likes to present the Congress with a done deal, then ask for their blessings. For all I knew, there were already warplanes heading for Libya. But that wasn't my problem.

We got onto Pennsylvania Avenue where the J. Edgar Hoover Building is located, not far from its parent company, the Justice Department.

We stopped in front of the Hoover Building, a uniquely ugly concrete slab structure whose size and shape defy description.

I'd actually been here once for a seminar, and I'd gotten a tour. You have to take the tour, especially through their cherished museum, or you don't get lunch.

Anyway, the front of the building is seven stories high, to conform to height restrictions on Pennsylvania Avenue, but the rear is eleven stories high. The building contains about two and a half million square feet, bigger than the old KGB Headquarters in Moscow, and probably the biggest law enforcement building in the world. About eight thousand people work in the building, mostly support types and lab people. About a thousand actual agents also work in the building, and I don't envy them, any more than I envied the cops who work at One Police Plaza. Job happiness is directly proportional to the distance you are from the home office.

We pulled up in front of the building and entered a small lobby that looked out onto a courtyard.

As we waited for our host, I wandered over toward the courtyard which had a fountain and park benches and which I remembered from last time. There was a bronze inscription carved into the wall above the benches, a quote from J. Edgar Hoover, and it said, "The most effective weapon against crime is cooperation… the efforts of all law enforcement agencies with the support and understanding of the American people." Good quote. Better than the unofficial FBI motto which was, "We can do no wrong."

There I go again. I tried to adjust my attitude. But it's a male ego thing. Too many alpha males in law enforcement.

Anyway, there were the usual photos on one wall-the President, the Attorney General, the Director of the FBI, and so forth. The photos were friendly-looking and hung in a chain-of-command grouping so that, hopefully, no one would mistake them for America 's Most Wanted Criminals.