David Baldacci - Stone Cold

Annabelle sat back, not looking very confident. “You know this is suicide, don’t you?”

“I will never let you come to harm at the hands of Jerry. But I have to do this. I swear that to you on your mother’s grave.”

This last remark did something to Annabelle she never thought any words could ever do. She actually started feeling something for her father. She wasn’t sure if it was sympathy, pity, or maybe even something more.

“Then maybe I can find the good guys to help us,” she said quietly.

ANNABELLE LEFT HER FATHER and walked to Stone’s room.

“He wants to team with me to con Jerry into confessing to my mother’s murder,” she said bluntly and then collapsed on the small couch next to Stone’s bed.

“You think you can trust him?”

“Damn it, Oliver, you just spent all that time telling me to forgive the man.”

“Forgive him, yes, not trust him.”

“I have no reason to trust him at all.”

Stone looked at her warily. “I sense a but coming.”

“But with all that I do trust him. I don’t know why, just call it my gut.”

“But you need the cavalry?”

“That’s what he says.”

“I might be able to help.”

“I thought so. I mean, they owe you after the last time.”

“They never owe you, Annabelle. Or at least they never think they do. But let me see what I can work. So what do you do with your father in the meantime?”

“I was sort of hoping he could come back to D.C. with us.”

“And stay with you? That might be a little dicey with Bagger in the same town.”

“Any help there would be appreciated.”

“Tell your father to get his things together.”

Paddy didn’t have anything to get together. Everything he owned was already in his battered truck. He insisted on following them down. “Truck’s all I’ve got left. I ain’t letting it go.”

With Paddy behind them, Stone and Annabelle drove south to Reuben’s house in one of the few remaining rural areas of northern Virginia. It was very late when they arrived there, but Stone had called ahead.

They pulled down a gravel drive that was more path than road and bracketed by thick woods. They passed leaning shacks and rotting cars as the wilderness and poverty grew with each click of the odometer. A few minutes later the Nova’s headlights flicked across a weed-filled yard and spotlighted a garage with its single overhead door open. The interior was bursting with tools and car parts. Parked beside the garage were six cars, two trucks, three motorcycles and what looked to be a dune buggy, all in various states of being rebuilt. Next to the garage was a mobile trailer that was no longer mobile, being set firmly on cinder blocks.

“Reuben just moved here recently,” Stone remarked.

Annabelle gazed back at the garage. “Does he run a chop shop on the side?”

“No, the man’s a mechanical genius. I think he’s closer to his machines than he is to most people. That’s why he loves his motorcycle so much. He says it’s far more reliable than any of his three wives ever were.”

“Oliver, do you have any normal friends?”

“Well, there’s you.”

“Oh, God, are you in serious trouble.”

Stone noted Reuben’s truck in the yard and a light on in the trailer.

“They’re waiting for us,” he said.

Reuben met them at the door and then stared over at the pickup truck, Paddy at the wheel.

“Who’s that?”

“A friend,” Annabelle answered quickly.

“I thought he might be able to stay here, at least for tonight,” Stone said.

“What the hell’s one more? He can have the presidential suite. It’s right next to the bathroom.”

“Where’s Milton?” Stone asked.

“Crashed. Apparently winning a shitload of money at a casino and then nearly getting whacked is really exhausting.”

“We’re going to return Caleb’s car now,” Stone said. “And then tomorrow I want to meet at my cottage, put all our facts together and see where we go from there. And I’m going to call in Alex to help us.” He shot a glance at Annabelle. “With a new angle.”

Reuben looked from one to the other. “Okay,” he said slowly.

“Thanks, Reuben.”

An hour later Stone and Annabelle pulled into the parking lot of Caleb’s condo building in D.C. and rode the elevator to the man’s apartment. Stone knocked and they heard footsteps approaching the door. It opened. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Caleb standing there.

“THIS REALLY IS INTOLERABLE, CARTER,” Senator Roger Simpson said.

The two men were in the CIA bunker, seated in leather armchairs and nursing glasses of cabernet.

Simpson continued, “For something like this to raise its ugly head now. When in a few years I’ll be sitting in the White House if things go according to plan.”

“Roger, if this comes out, you won’t be in the running. You might actually be in prison.”

Simpson flushed at Gray’s stinger but only stared moodily into his wineglass before saying, “Ray Solomon. Who would’ve thought that would come back to haunt us?”

“It was always a possibility. It was a calculated risk. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. I’m sure you did what you thought was right at the time.”

“You sound like you weren’t involved at all. You were up to your neck in it, same as me.”

Gray snapped, “ I didn’t order Ray’s death. He was my friend. You are the reason he’s dead.”

“The man committed suicide, in Brazil.”

“No, you sent John Carr and his team to kill the man because you were afraid if he found out the truth, he’d expose you.”

Simpson stared at Gray over the lip of his glass. “Expose us , Carter. Don’t ever forget that.”

“Ray Solomon was a good man, and a top agent. And now he’s called a traitor. His memory has been besmirched.”

“Sacrifices are necessary all the time, for the greater good.”

“Funny, why do I think you’d never be willing to sacrifice your life for the greater good?”

“Fate has a way of preserving those who can truly make a difference, Carter. The great men always persevere.”

“Well, you should call upon the fates now, because someone clearly wants you dead.”

“And you too. Don’t forget that.”

“The fact that the killer thinks I’m already dead gives me a certain latitude with which to operate. Yet in one sense you can’t blame the person. Indeed, what you did was inexcusable.”

Simpson flushed angrily. “I did what I did for the right reasons. And it was a long time ago. The world was very different. I was very different.”

“None of us are that different. And it wasn’t really that long ago. In fact, it’s not past, it’s now the present. It’s a lesson in never burning bridges or doing stupid things.”

Simpson said nervously, “Donna will go ballistic if any of this comes out.”

“And can you blame your wife? Your action could be seen as abominable.”

“My action! You had people killed, Carter. Killed.”

“We were running the Triple Six Division, Roger, not a preschool for wannabe spies. Every target we were given was duly authorized, often right from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It was our duty to execute on those orders, because the other side was playing the game for all it was worth. Anything less on our part would have been akin to treason.”

“Not every killing was authorized, Carter, you know that.”

Gray stared pointedly at the senator. “Sometimes it’s better that the politicians don’t know everything. But Ray Solomon should not have been one of those times, Roger. You shouldn’t have done it.”