Дэвид Балдаччи - Hell's Corner

The former Marine looked apoplectic. “Fun! You call what you did fun! You are a complete psycho.”

She turned back to Stone. “Why? Why did you do it?”

“I had a woman I loved. I had a daughter I cherished. I wanted to go home to them.”

Friedman didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Well, I didn’t have any of that,” she finally said.

“Okay,” said Weaver. “Cuff her and read the lady her rights. Let’s do this by the book. No mistakes. She’s not missing out on her date with a lethal injection. In fact, I think I’ll hit the trigger myself.”

She looked at him disdainfully. “I’m not going to prison and I’m certainly not being executed by you .”

Weaver smiled maliciously. “Well, lady, I’d sure as hell like to know how you’re going to avoid it.”

“I already did.”

She staggered a bit as she said this. She reached out and steadied herself by placing a hand against the door of her rental.

Stone was the first to realize what had happened.

He rushed forward and seized her left hand. He saw the pinprick of blood on the inside of her left wrist, right in the middle of a blood vessel. He grabbed her right hand and twisted it upward. The stone on the ring she wore there was gone. In its place was a short, thin needle sticking upward.

“I would be careful around that, if I were you,” Friedman said. “Nasty, extremely fast-acting stuff. Leaves old cyanide in the dust on the toxicity ladder.” Her voice was slow and her words a bit garbled. She staggered again. Stone held her up and then let her slide back against the car and descend to the ground.

They all stood looking down at her. Weaver’s face was a mask of fury.

“How?” he demanded.

Friedman smiled. “As soon as I saw him.” She pointed at Stone. “I knew it was over. So I took care of business, Riley. A good spy to the last. And all good spies go out on their own terms. Not anyone else’s.”

She looked back at Stone and drew a long, painful breath. “I bought the island.”

He said nothing.

Her chest started to heave. “I think we could have been happy there.”

Everyone looked at Stone, and then back at Friedman.

She said, “I think we could have been. Tell me we could have been.”

Stone remained silent, looking at her.

Her body clenched and then relaxed. Stone thought she had passed at that moment. But she managed to say, “We’re more alike than you’ll ever be willing to admit, John Carr.”

Now her eyes grew still. And then glazed. And Marisa Friedman slid sideways, her lovely pale cheek coming to rest against plain gravel.

Stone didn’t see this.

He had already turned and walked away.

The Camel Club crowded around Alex Ford’s bed to see the agent staring back at them. Annabelle was gripping his hand, tears easing down her face.

Reuben and Caleb exchanged smiles. Reuben whispered to Caleb, “Remember, no flowers for the man.”

Stone moved closer to the bed and looked down at his friend. Alex still couldn’t speak and the doctors had warned that the extent of his injuries was as yet unknown because part of his brain had been impacted.

“He may fully recover. He may only partially recover,” the surgeon had told them.

“But he’ll live,” said Annabelle.

“Yes,” said the doctor. “He’s going to live.”

Stone put a hand gently on Alex’s shoulder. “It’s... good to have you back, Alex,” he said in a faltering tone.

Alex blinked back at him, his mouth remaining a thin unmoving line.

Annabelle bent her face closer to his. “We’ll be with you every step of the way, Alex, every step.”

He squeezed her hand.

Late that night Stone sat at his desk at his cottage. He had a lot to think about but really didn’t want to dwell on any of it. He had a standing offer to return to work for the government in any capacity he wanted. He’d told the FBI director he’d get back to him on that, without saying when.

Carmen Escalante had been put into WITSEC just in case Carlos Montoya decided to take out his anger on her. Stone doubted she had much to worry about. The world now knew the truth about Montoya being behind Lafayette Park and all the rest. Stone assumed the man would not be alive that much longer. Either someone in his organization would seize the opportunity and take over his cartel, the Russians would murder him for trying to pin all these crimes on them, or else the Americans would take him out.

In the end, Stone didn’t care who killed him.

And the nanobots that could change the trace footprints of bombs and drugs? Well, it would give the ATF and the rest of the crime-fighting world many a sleepless night.

Finally, despite not wanting to do so, his thoughts turned to Marisa Friedman.

A desert island she’d bought for them.

We’re more alike than you’ll ever be willing to admit, John Carr.

She was wrong about that. They were not alike at all.

Or are we?

As he gazed at his desktop, his mind reeling with the implications of these sudden doubts, he saw the little red dot skitter across the old, scarred wood, like a gnat ablaze. It continued to skip across the wood until it reached him. He looked down and watched it climb his chest, scurry across his face and then stop, he presumed, in the middle of his forehead.

He said calmly into the darkness, “I was actually expecting you earlier.”

Chapman appeared in front of him, her Walther with attached laser sight pointed at him.

“Sorry, I’m usually punctual. When did you figure it out?”

“I know that MI6 does not have the luxury of their best agent loitering abroad for no good reason. You should have been reassigned a long time ago and gone home. The fact that you weren’t told me you had another assignment. And it wasn’t just keeping an eye on me. There are plenty of others here who could do that.”

“Well done. But I also hung around to help you solve the case, and keep you from harm. Wasn’t that Watson’s role with Holmes? To carry the gun and shoot the occasional shady character? And offer up oohs and ahhs over the master’s deductions?”

“You said you hadn’t read the stories.”

“I lied. I actually loved them. But I do have to tell you, in all sincerity, I enjoyed playing Watson to your Holmes.”

“Who assigned you to kill me? McElroy?”

“Sir James genuinely likes you. He believed I was simply watching you. I have to keep some things even from my godfather. No, I’d try closer to home if you’re looking for those responsible. We and the Yanks do play well together. You know that.”

“So Weaver then?”

“What do you Americans say? That’s neither a confirm nor deny. But I won’t deny it all that hard.”

“So the NIC chief contracted with British intelligence to kill an American citizen?”

“Don’t you love how the bloody world works these days?”

“How about the president? Does he know about this?”

Did the man lie to my face at Camp David? And after I saved his life? Again?

“That I truly don’t know. But if Weaver is doing it without his knowledge or consent it’s pretty ballsy. You must’ve been a really bad boy.”

“I give as good as I get.”

“I don’t blame you in the least.”

“So you’re an official assassin on the other side of the pond?”

“Sort of like you were. I do the occasional investigation or saving the world for the queen sort of thing from time to time, but mostly I do the bang-bang on a troublesome opponent.”

“I’m sure you’re good at it.”

“So were you. Maybe the best there ever was.” She cocked her head and smiled at him.