The Echo of the Whip Read online

  McGill heard a voice in the background say, “Hey!”

  “Mr. Whelan disagrees with my evaluation,” Tall Wolf said. “How would you like me to handle things?”

  McGill said, “Maybe between Whelan, Mira Kersten and Eugene Beck, we can finally get some kind of resolution to this case. Where are you?”

  Tall Wolf told him. Then he added, “Hold on a minute.”

  McGill heard some muffled voices speaking. Tall Wolf must have obstructed his phone’s speaker somehow. Then he came back. “I just negotiated a point with Mr. Beck. I told him before you enter the room, he puts his weapon on the floor and kicks it to me. He’s agreed.”

  “The Secret Service will approve of that. So do the president and I. See you soon.”

  What worried McGill for the moment was telling Patti he had to go out.

  Talk about the ruination of what might have been a beautiful night.

  He used the facilities, splashed water on his face and slipped into his clothes in his dressing room. When he returned to the bedroom, he saw his wife was sitting up and had her presidential face on. Romance was definitely out of the question, not solely because of him.

  She said, “Yes, thank you for calling. You did the right thing. I’ll see you at eight in the Oval Office. Goodbye.”

  McGill gave Patti the moment she needed to organize her thoughts.

  She led with the headline: “Joan Renshaw has recanted her accusation that I put her in Erna Godfrey’s cell to kill her.”

  For a split second, McGill was ready to cheer. Then he realized there had to be a catch, and a heartbeat later he even knew what it was. “Somebody threatened Joan.”

  Patti nodded. Let McGill continue to analyze.

  “They’re going to say you threatened her.”

  “Not personally, of course,” Patti said, “but I had it done.”

  “Is there any evidence of a threat?” McGill asked.

  “A bouquet of flowers with a note.”

  “That no one saw delivered, I’ll bet.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What are you going to do?” McGill asked.

  “Get Galia out of her bed. Talk with her in the Oval Office in fifteen minutes.”

  McGill wanted to ask if Patti thought Galia had authored the threat, but he knew even between the two of them some questions were better left unasked.

  Patti took advantage of McGill’s silence to ask, “Why are you dressed?”

  “John Tall Wolf grabbed the guy who was supposed to kill me.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “He wants to see me.”

  “Tall Wolf?”

  “No, the alleged assassin. He wants to tell me his side of things.”

  Patti frowned.

  McGill said, “What?”

  “If I didn’t have to speak to Galia immediately, I’d go with you.”

  McGill laughed, thinking Patti was as different from his first wife, Carolyn, as she could be. He surprised himself by saying, “Maybe you should see it. Bring Galia along.”

  Patti got out of bed and kissed McGill. Gave him a taste of what he’d be missing that night. “No, what I have to say to Galia can’t wait, and is best said just between the two of us. But you do make me so happy.”

  McGill said, “I have a few more ideas on that subject, if we ever find the time.”

  Punta del Este, Uruguay

  “You’re in trouble now,” Tyler Busby told Abra.

  He was still handcuffed but had rolled on his right side. SOB was still hard. He was enjoying the hell out of things. The situation must have been more exciting than any fantasy game he’d ever played. Nobody would ever have told him how much fun he could have playing the damsel in distress, waiting for his heroine to arrive and save him.

  Abra stood at an open window, gun in hand, looking out on the street below. She’d been splitting her attention between watching Busby and hoping to see the woman with the baby buggy whom she thought was a cop. Even at the risk of embarrassing herself, Abra wanted to call out for help. But the old saw pertaining to the subject looked to be true.

  Anytime you needed a cop, you could never find one.

  “Won’t be long now,” Busby said with glee.

  Abra had been thinking the same thing herself. That cold Asian broad should have come charging in by now. If that was her style. For all Abra knew, though, she might have a way to vent some kind of incapacitating gas into the room. Abra might wake up to find the Busbys at a whetstone, sharpening their cutlery, getting ready to serve up filets of Abra.

  As if he could read her mind, Busby began to giggle.

  She whistled a shot past his ear, close enough to make his head snap back, his laughter stop, and his damn erection wither like a vampire exposed to sunlight. Shooting the thing was going to be a lot harder now, but that made Abra smile.

  Busby shouted, “Ah-lam, hurry, she’s going to kill me!”

  Abra thought she very well might do just that. She sure as hell wasn’t going to go down alone. She focused her attention on the bedroom door. Until a feminine voice from outside called out, “Oye. ¿Qué está pasando?” Hey, what’s going on?

  Abra turned and looked down. She saw the nanny with her buggy.

  The special agent yelled, “I’m an FBI agent, trying to arrest a fugitive. Christ, do you even speak English?”

  “Damn right I do,” came the reply.

  Abra thought she heard a Texas twang.

  “Are you a cop?”

  “I am.”

  “I need help fast. Call for backup.”

  “I got all the backup I need right here,” the cop said.

  She pulled an M-4 carbine out of the buggy and ran for the front door.

  Abra thought to yell, “Hey, what about the baby?” Only she realized there was no baby. Not down on the street anyway. But the door to the bedroom flew open and there at last was the hard-looking Asian woman.

  She had a baby with her.

  Holding the squirming kid up in front of her like a shield.

  Advancing on Abra like she meant to cut her heart out.

  The Oval Office — Washington, DC

  Chief of staff Galia Mindel entered the room looking as rumpled and apprehensive as the president had ever seen her. Even in the wee hours of a primary campaign trip when an election was too close to call, she hadn’t looked like this. Worse, the kind of fear in Galia’s eyes wasn’t the kind that could be shrugged off with a handy rationale.

  “We might lose this primary, but we’ll win the next three. The nomination and the White House are going to be ours.”

  Galia had used those very words, and Patti Grant would never forget them.

  Now, all Galia had to say was, “How bad is the trouble we’re in?”

  The president gestured Galia to a chair opposite the love seat where she sat.

  She didn’t want her desk between them now.

  This was a woman-to-woman, one-old-friend-to-another conversation

  The president said, “That’s what I want you to tell me.”

  “Did anyone kill Joan Renshaw?” Galia asked. “I didn’t have the time to check.”

  “Not that I know,” the president said. “Joan did, however, recant her accusation that she was acting as my agent when she killed Erna Godfrey.”

  Galia figured out the reason for the disavowal even faster than McGill had.

  More to the point, she figured out how the change of heart applied to her.

  Galia shook her head and said, “Wasn’t me.”

  The phrasing was deliberately vague. Galia had not arranged the delivery of any threat to scare Joan into being truthful. She had also not specifically commented on the subject. If the president was ever required to respond under oath she could honestly say that she and her chief of staff had never spoken of the situation.

  Continuing in the same elliptical fashion, Patricia Grant asked, “Any ideas?”

  As to who might have frightened the the opposition�
�s only witness.

  “Not at this time,” Galia responded.

  “Any worries?”

  That this might come back to bite us.

  Galia thought about it. “Meaning no disrespect, ma’am, I think that’s more my concern than yours.”

  I’m the logical person to fall under suspicion.

  “Whatever the other side thinks, let see if we can get to the bottom of this first,” the president said. “I’m not going to have anyone in my administration impugned.”

  Especially you; I need you.

  Galia nodded. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  The president stood and the chief of staff also rose.

  “If anyone tries to consume my presidency, Galia, I want them to choke on it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I also don’t intend to let anyone sue my caterer.”

  I’ve got your back.

  Punta del Este, Uruguay

  Special Agent Abra Benjamin moved to her left as the Asian woman holding the baby moved to her right, closer to the bed. Abra was trained in Krav Maga, Hebrew for contact combat, a discipline originated by Imre Lichtenfeld. Developed in Israel, it borrowed from boxing, wrestling, judo and aikido. The first principle of Krav Maga, if a fight could not be avoided, was to end the fight as quickly as possible.

  By winning it, of course.

  That meant counter-attacking immediately or even attacking preemptively. The primary way to assure victory was to strike your opponent’s most vulnerable points: eyes, throat, groin, knees and so on. In case you were overmatched, it was also important to look for avenues of escape and objects that might come to hand and be used to attack or defend.

  The problem facing Abra at the moment was that none of her training had instructed her on how to deal with a sociopath using an infant as a human shield. The kid, too young to have a tooth in his head, was squalling almost as if he knew the woman holding him was fully prepared to sacrifice his life to win this little set-to.

  As Abra flashed through a list of possibilities of how she might land a blow or kick that would disable the woman without hurting the child, a gruesome thought occurred to her. The woman might use the kid as a projectile. Throw the little beggar at her and attack as Abra reached out to catch him.

  Something along that line must have occurred to Tyler Busby, as well. He was kneeling on the bed behind the Asian woman, his hands still bound at the wrists. He called out in a panicked tone, “Ah-lam, what are you doing? Jonathan is our son.”

  The woman was the kid’s mother? Abra asked herself.

  Retreat was not a Krav Maga technique, but Abra took a step back in horror.

  “He is but one child,” Ah-lam said. “If we survive, we can make others.”

  “He’s my son, goddamnit!” Busby roared.

  Ah-lam turned her head, as if to look for an attack from her rear.

  Just a glimpse of her Gorgon’s expression froze Busby.

  While still pinning the billionaire with her basilisk stare, she threw her arms forward and let her son go. He flew through the air, shrieking in terror, and Ah-lam turned and followed, less than a heartbeat behind. She intended to strike while Abra had her hands full.

  Only Abra didn’t catch the kid so much as propel him back the way he came. As Mom charged forward, little Jonathan sailed over her head going the opposite way. Ah-lam couldn’t stop herself from sparing a glimpse at her shrieking child doing his imitation of a shuttlecock. When she did, Abra struck.

  Not with a punch or a kick. She lowered her head and charged. Drove the top of her skull into Ah-lam’s solar plexus. It was an unorthodox blow to be sure, but it followed an old martial art maxim: strike a soft surface with a hard surface. The breath exploded from the Asian woman’s body and she jackknifed backward, colliding with Busby, who had plucked his son from the air and deposited him on the bed.

  Busby looped his manacled hands around his wife’s throat and pulled her hard against him. She didn’t have the strength to resist and he would have crushed her windpipe in a matter of seconds if not for the barrel of an M-4 carbine being inserted into his ear.

  The cop who’d been pushing the buggy had arrived at last.

  “Let the lady go,” Lieutenant Silvina Reyes told Busby.

  He released the pressure on Ah-lam’s throat without hesitation and she collapsed in a heap at his feet.

  Abra said to Silvina, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the woman has some kind of weapon on her.”

  “She usually carries a knife,” Busby said.

  “Then you will very carefully and gently get down on your knees and search her,” Silvina instructed Busby. “Remove anything nasty and toss it over into that far corner. You understand me?”

  Busby nodded.

  Sparing a glance at Abra, she asked, “You’re really FBI?”

  Abra was also keeping her eyes on Busby and Ah-lam. “Yes.” She nodded at Silvina’s assault rifle. “Is that your standard duty weapon down here?”

  Busby found a knife and tossed it into the corner.

  Silvina told Abra, “No, the rifle is not standard, but I couldn’t fit anything bigger into the buggy. And if you are FBI, please don’t tell me you walked into this room unarmed.”

  Abra inclined her head to the Beretta on a table near the window.

  “I put it down when I saw the baby. Didn’t want to take any chance I might hit junior by mistake.”

  Silvina liked that, and little Jonathan, having had enough excitement for one night, rolled over onto his stomach and was quickly falling asleep. Silvina smiled at him.

  “With luck, he won’t remember a thing,” she said.

  “I was going to arrest Tyler Busby and take him back to the United State,” Abra said.

  Silvina replied, “After observing all of Uruguay’s extradition requirements, of course.”

  “Yeah, sure. Did I forget to mention that? Anyway, with the woman and the child involved, it’s more of a mess. They’re all yours, if you want them.”

  Silvina had spoken with her father. He’d told her there were those in the national government who loved los estados unidos and those who were not so kindly disposed. His considered opinion was that Busby would be returned, eventually.

  So the young police lieutenant, who was working on her own time, made an executive decision. “I’ll tell you what, Ms. FBI, let’s take your naked countryman and the other two to your embassy. Your government can pay for their room and board while my government decides if they should travel north.”

  Abra nodded her head and extended a hand.

  “Special Agent Abra Benjamin.”

  “Lieutenant Silvina Reyes.”

  They shook on the deal.

  Montevideo, Uruguay

  While the government of Uruguay had a well-deserved reputation for honesty, corrupt individuals labored within its precincts just like any other place. Desperate and possessing a keen eye for flawed personalities, Philip Brock, congressman and fugitive, spotted what he considered his last chance for freedom in the person of Candelario Gonzales, the head jailer of the police lockup where he was being held.

  Gonzales was an otherwise thin man with a large belly overhanging his belt. Clearly, he liked to indulge at least one kind of appetite. One look in his eyes told Brock the man had other cravings as well. Before Brock was shoved into his cell, he managed to both observe the deference the other guards showed Gonzales and to whisper a simple message to him.

  “One hundred thousand dollars, half up front.”

  He delivered the message in Spanish so there would be no confusion.

  Gonzales’ only immediate response had been to cast a quick, reptilian look at Brock. For several hours, Brock sat alone in his tiny cell thinking he had failed. He was sunk. He would be returned to the United States and would stand trial for conspiring to kill the president. There was no way around it. His attempt to throw Tyler Busby to the wolves and save himself had failed.

  How the hell could he have known
that goddamn nanny was really a cop?

  Still, he might simply have made an anonymous call from Buenos Aires. That would have been the safe way to hand Busby over to the feds. Only he’d wanted the pleasure of peeking out his window and seeing Busby hauled away. That would have been a gleeful memory to last a lifetime. Now, he was going to spend the rest of his life alone in a supermax prison cell.

  If the prosecution didn’t find a legal justification to execute him.

  After hours of languishing in despair, Gonzales stepped into Brock’s cell, alone.

  In English, he said, “Fifty thousand now. How?”

  Trying not to get his hopes too high, Brock said, “I give you the name of the bank, an account number and a password. I speak into a phone for voice recognition. The money is then available to wire into the account of your choosing.”

  Gonzales stared at him, as if searching for a lie.

  “And the other half?” he asked.

  “Once I’m out of the country, we do another transfer.”

  “I should trust you?” Gonzales asked.

  “Travel with me, if you want. Once I’m somewhere safe, though, it would be better for me to make you happy than have you want to lock me up again.”

  Gonzales showed no expression, but Brock thought the man saw the sense in what he’d said. “I may be back or I may not,” Gonzales said.

  The chief jailer made Brock wait an hour, no doubt hoping that uncertainty would make his prisoner more pliable. Gonzales told him, “All of the money now.”

  Brock shook his head and said, “Half. The rest when I’m safe.”

  “I could torture you. Make you scream until your heart or your mind gives way.”

  “Then you’d get nothing. The voice recognition system works only when a person is calm. If there’s stress from fear or pain, it locks the account. It’s a security feature.”

  Gonzales scowled and left again, not promising to return.

  He did come back, though. Opened the door and gave a brusque gesture. “Come.”

  Brock got off his concrete bunk and stood. He was unsure what fate he’d meet outside the cell: freedom, torture or extradition. He hesitated, and that made Gonzales smile. The jailer grasped the edge of the door and raised his eyebrows inquisitively.