Дэвид Балдаччи - Absolute Power

He tried on his new coat. It felt good. The pants were a little loose on him; he had lost weight. He would have to eat more. He might even start with buying his daughter an early dinner. If she’d let him. He’d have to think about that one; he didn’t want to push it.

Jack! It must’ve been Jack. He had told her of their meeting. That her father had been in trouble. That was the connection. Of course! He had been stupid not to see it right away. But what did that mean? That she cared? He felt a tremble start in his neck and it ended at his knees. After all these years? He swore under his breath at the timing. The fucking timing! But he had made up his mind and nothing could change that decision now. Not even his little girl. Something terribly wrong had to be set right.

Luther was certain Richmond knew nothing about his correspondence with the Chief of Staff. Her only hope was to quietly buy back what Luther had and then make sure no one ever laid eyes on it again. Buy him off, hoping he’d disappear forever and the world would never know. He had verified that the money had arrived in the designated account. What happened to that money would be their first surprise.

The second surprise, though, would make them forget all about the first. And the best part was that Richmond would never see it coming. He seriously doubted that the President would actually do any time. But if this didn’t meet the criteria for impeachment he didn’t know what did. This made Watergate look like a third-grade prank. He wondered what impeached ex-Presidents did. Withered in the flames of their own destruction, he hoped.

Luther pulled the letter out of his pocket. He would arrange for her to receive it right about the time she’d be expecting the last set of instructions. The payoff. She would get her payoff. They all would. It was worth it, letting her squirm like he knew she had all this time.

No matter how often he tried he couldn’t erase the memory of the woman’s leisurely sexual encounter in the presence of a still warm body, as though the dead woman was a pile of trash, not to be bothered with. And then Richmond. The drunken, slobbering bastard! Again the visions made Luther seethe. He clenched his teeth, then abruptly smiled.

Whatever deal Jack could cut him he would take. Twenty years, ten years, ten days. He didn’t care anymore. Fuck the President and everybody around him. Fuck the whole town, he was taking them down.

But first he was going to spend some time with his daughter. After that he really didn’t care anymore.

As he walked over to the bed, Luther’s body took a jolt. Something else had just occurred to him. Something that hurt, but which he could understand. He sat on the bed and sipped a glass of water. If it were true could he really blame her? And besides, he could just kill two birds with one stone. As he lay back on the bed, it occurred to him that things that looked too good to be true usually were. Did he deserve any better from her? The answer was absolutely clear. He did not.

When the money transfer had reached District Bank, automatic prewire instructions kicked in and the funds were immediately transferred out of the account to five different area banks, each in the amount of one million dollars. From there the funds followed a circuitous route until the total sum was once again assembled in one place.

Russell, who had put a tracer on the flow of money from her end, would find out soon enough what had happened. She would not be particularly pleased about it. She would be far less pleased about the next message she received.

The Café Alonzo had been open about a year. It had the usual array of outdoor tables with colorful umbrellas in a small space on the sidewalk enclosed by a waist-high black iron railing. The coffee was varied and strong; the on-premises bakery was popular among the morning and lunch crowds. At five minutes to four only one person sat at the outdoor table. In the chilly air the umbrellas were collapsed down resembling a column of giant drinking straws.

The café was located in the ground floor of a modern office building. Two stories up hung a scaffolding. Three workers were replacing a glass panel that had cracked. The entire facade of the building consisted of mirrored panels that gave a complete image of the area directly opposite it. The panel was heavy and even the burly men struggled with the weight and bulk.

Kate bundled her coat around her and sipped her coffee. The afternoon sun was warming in spite of the chill, but it was fading rapidly. Long shadows had commenced to creep over the tables. She felt the rawness in her eyes as she squinted at the sun suspended directly over the tops of a number of dilapidated row houses that sat diagonally across the street from the café. They were destined for demolition to make room for the continued renovation of the area. She did not notice that the upper-story window on one of the row houses was now open. The row house next door had two windows smashed out. The front door on another was partially caved in.

Kate looked at her watch. She had been sitting there for approximately twenty minutes. Used to the frenetic pace of the prosecutor’s office, the day had dragged interminably. She had no doubt there were dozens of police officers in the vicinity waiting to pounce once he walked up to her. Then she thought about it. Would they even have a chance to say anything to each other? What the hell could she say anyway? Hi Dad, you’re busted? She rubbed her raw cheeks and waited. He would be there right at four. And it was too late for her to change any of it. Too damned late for anything. But she was doing the right thing, despite the guilt she was feeling, despite breaking down like that after calling the detective. She angrily squeezed her hands together. She was about to hand her father over to the police, and he deserved it. She was through debating it. She now just wanted it to be over.

McCarty did not like it. Not at all. His usual routine was to follow his target, sometimes for weeks, until the assassin understood the victim’s patterns of behavior better than the victim did. It made the killing so much easier. The additional time also allowed McCarty to plan his escape, to allow for worst-case scenarios. He had none of those luxuries on this job. Sullivan’s message had been terse. The man had already paid him an enormous sum on his per diem, with another two million to follow upon completion. Under any yardstick he had been compensated — now he had to deliver. Except for his first hit many years ago, McCarty could not remember being this nervous. It didn’t help matters that the place was crawling with cops.

But he kept telling himself things would be okay. In the time he had he had planned well. He had reconnoitered the area right after Sullivan’s phone call. The row house idea had hit him immediately. It was really the only logical place. He had been here since four in the morning. The back door to the house opened into an alleyway. His rental car was parked at the curb. It would take him exactly fifteen seconds from the moment the shot was fired to drop his rifle, make his way down the stairs, out the door and into his car. He would be two miles away before the police even fully understood what had happened. A plane was leaving in forty-five minutes from a private airstrip ten miles north of Washington. Its destination was New York City. It would carry one passenger, and in a little over five hours McCarty would be a pampered passenger on board the Concorde as it descended into London.

He checked his rifle and scope for the tenth time, automatically flicking away a grain of dust on the barrel. A suppressor would have been nice, but he had yet to find one that worked on a rifle, especially one that was chambered with supersonic ammo as his weapon was. He would count on the confusion to mask the shot and his subsequent departure. He looked across the street and checked his watch. Almost time.