Reciprosity Read online

  “You own a movie log, or whatever? Why?”

  Adams smiled, somewhat proudly. “I am a collector of old movie memorabilia. Quite a good one, I might add.” He reached out and tapped the gun she was now studying with greater care. “Since Luke gave that to you, I would like to buy it from you. Say, fifty thousand dollars.”

  Virna nearly dropped the weapon. “Stai scherzando?—sorry—You’ve got to be kidding?

  “I’ll write you a check right now. Good at any bank.”

  Virna pushed it back into his hands. “It belongs to Luke. I’m sure he will want it back.”

  Adams shrugged. He had earlier changed into a blue business suit. He dropped the Walther PPK into his right pocket. “I’m not a thief. Maybe you’ll change your mind.” He looked at his watch. “We’ll be refueling in Denver shortly, then on to San Francisco, your new hometown. The offer will be good for at least six more hours. After that, one of us won’t be able to execute the deal.” He stood and walked to the front of the plane and fell into a seat.

  * * *

  President Christoph was screaming at everyone in the cabinet room. “It’s not true! It’s fake! I would never do anything like that! Someone find the fucking source and shut it down! I’ve never been to Las Vegas! It’s fake, I tell you!” A handful of loyal cabinet members, his Chief of Staff, a campaign manager and two senators, were all sitting quietly as he raged and paced the room. “What time is it? When is the next one supposed to hit?”

  His Chief of Staff said, “Three minutes.”

  “Put it up on the big screen.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Three minutes passed, then the bottom dropped out of their combined worlds.

  Fifty-three miles to the south, two other interested parties were also not sleeping.

  * * *

  I think I only slept for two hours and I was groggy. Mark was also awake. We figured the TV broadcast would be delayed for editorial reasons on TV so we sat at the table with his laptop. The next episode dropped right on schedule.

  This time, President Christoph’s co-star was Barnabas Nunnelly, United States Attorney General. They were sitting opposite each other in a large hotel suite. The angle was from a wall, looking across the room at the two stars. Through the balcony windows, the unmistakable skyline of Las Vegas was visible. It was daytime.

  “Same hotel, next day,” Mark observed.

  “Or later the same day,” I added.

  Nunnelly was talking.

  “Dom, you’re in a shitload of trouble and burying the girl out in the desert won’t make it disappear.”

  “Why? Only you and Oliver and Laenker know.”

  “Fuck, Dom! You know, and you’r fucking big mouth has gotten you into trouble more than once. It’s only a matter of time before you say something and some wiseass reporter is going to pick up on it and start digging—the story, not the grave.”

  “Kill the bastards, then. You’re my AG, right? I pay you a God awful boatload of money to have my back so do your damn job.”

  Nunnelly stood and walked toward the camera, until his face filled the entire screen, and straightened his hair and ran his tongue over his teeth.

  “Mirror,” I said.

  Mark grunted agreement.

  Nunnelly continued to admire himself. “Are you suggesting I have Laenker and Oliver killed? Fuck, man, Laenker is the chairman of our foundation. Why don’t you just pay them off like you do everyone else?” Nunnelly turned to face the president.

  Christoph’s face was red with anger. “God damn Oliver is richer than me, and Laenker has way too many allies. Plus, he got rid of General Wayne for me.”

  Across the bottom of the video a crawler stated:

  U.S. Air Force General Pat Wayne was assassinated in Colorado Springs last December.

  Resign by midnight, Mr. President and Mr. Attorney General,

  or the full Looking Glass recordings will be released.

  Next episode in three hours. Stay tuned.

  The date, time, and map coordinates were again clearly visible. The video progress bar stopped at the halfway mark, once again indicating more minutes of unseen footage.

  I turned to Mark, “That’s new. Adams is going to expose Looking Glass.”

  “That could place Kate Novak in danger,” said Mark. “I’d better call ray.”

  I agreed. “Can you put extra security on her mansion?”

  “Yea, but it’s the media I’m worried about now.”

  “Not just the media, Mark. Exposure will make an awful lot of folks real unhappy. General Wayne had a lot of friends. If they start putting two and two together, they could bring all sorts of legal action against Kate, not to mention the president. He deserves everything coming his way, but Kate is innocent. It was her husband who started this whole fucking mess.”

  The media storm circling the video dumps was swift and uncompromising. Calls for the president and the AG to resign were headlined across all platforms. Angry protesters were already marching on the White House and on streets around the globe. Legal scholars and pundits were outlining possible legal charges against the pair. Mark and I were on the Gulfstream G550 when the six o'clock video dropped. The navy brass on board were visibly angry. Some knew General Wayne. All of them hated the draft-dodging bastard they were sworn to call Commander in Chief. Everyone on the plane was watching a laptop or a pad or a phone.

  The third video was short and to the point. The AG was speaking to a gathering of The Endowment members in a private residence in San Francisco. I recognized it immediately as the home of Thomas Novak.

  AG Nunnelly was talking.

  “Everything we are undertaking with this project is unconstitutional and illegal. Let me repeat that so we have no misunderstanding. No matter how vast the array of secret powers the president has at his disposal—the one he signed into being last month authorizing our Looking Glass project, is unconstitutional and illegal. If it ever comes to light that we have broken every domestic and international privacy law, we will all be running for the exits. God forgive us—now, let’s have a drink and toast our success.”

  Across the bottom of the video a crawler stated:

  Members of the private foundation known as The Endowment. The president and the AG are the last surviving members.

  Resign by midnight, Mr. President and Mr. Attorney General,

  or the full Looking Glass recordings will be released.

  Next episode in three hours. Stay tuned.

  As with the previous videos, the date, time, and map coordinates were clearly visible. The video progress bar stopped approximately one-third of the way, a tantalizing promise of more damaging unseen footage.

  Our flight was scheduled to arrive at nine in the morning in Alameda. I leaned back and closed my eyes and thought of Virna and what I was going to do to John Adams.

  * * *

  Oliver Diamond, owner of the Diamond Casino and Hotel, and founder of the Diamond hotel chain looked up from his desk in the penthouse suite.

  His security chief, Jake Danvers, was standing six-feet away, assuring his master that the girl’s body would never be found. The President had nothing to worry about. The handful of staff that knew of the president’s stay in the hotel were now on an extended, all expenses paid vacation. All hotel CCTV records for the forty-hour period had been mysteriously corrupted. The suite the president had occupied was being renovated due to an unfortunate sewage back-up that caused extensive flooding throughout the suite. Their friendly local building inspector had already signed off on the plan. And influential witnesses will indeed swear that Mr. Diamond was dining with them at the time in question.

  Oliver Diamond nodded. “Well done, Danvers. That should keep the Feds busy for a while. Does my body double know what’s in store for him?”

  “Yes. He’s more than satisfied with the three-million. He has his story down and will tell the Feds he always stands in for you while you are away.”

  Diamond dismissed Danve
rs with a nod and returned to his paperwork.

  11

  If you look it up on Wikipedia, you will find a description of the location John Adams implied we should meet—see you at city hall.

  City Hall is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s and early 1900s. The structure's dome is taller than that of the United States Capitol by 42 feet. The present building replaced an earlier City Hall that was destroyed during the 1906 earthquake. The building sits at the far west end of the Civic Center in San Francisco, California. An area that contains many of the city's largest government and cultural institutions. It has two large plazas, the Civic Center Plaza and the United Nations Plaza.

  The Civic Center is also home to the Superior Court where John Adams’ sister died.

  I walked casually down the central plaza toward my target. It was a typically mild morning in San Francisco. Crowds of people were lounging around on the grass sport courts situated on either side of the pathway. Early lunch for some. Full time hangout for others. A few cops were patrolling.

  As I drew closer to City Hall I could see one of those ubiquitous lunch wagons parked on my side of Polk Street. People were standing in line to order. A few tables and chairs were set out for customers who didn’t care to sit on the damp grass or dusty pavement. There were a number of tourist milling around, taking pictures and videos with their phones. Cars were driving by on Polk or parking in a vacant metered slot.

  I was thirty-feet from the lunch wagon and thinking about breakfast—how much Virna liked the junk food—when I spotted her. She was sitting at a table off to my left. A man was sitting beside her. She looked nervous. She saw me and slowly shook her head.

  I took her warning and stopped and scanned the crowds of people. I could feel the weight of the 44 in my shoulder holster. My sports jacket was buttoned to prevent the wind from accidentally exposing the weapon to a passersby. I undid the single button and tried to relax.

  My assessment was fast and obvious. Way too many innocent people could get injured if shots were fired. Probably what Adams counted on. I caught a glimpse of Mark. He was approaching slowly on my left flank, about forty-feet from me and ten from Virna. One of his operatives was on my right flank about twenty-feet away. As I drew nearer to the wagon, Mark and his man also moved in like casual members of the lunchtime crowd.

  I took a breath and stepped toward Virna. I was twenty-feet away when a man separated himself from the lunch line at the wagon and stepped between us. He was eating a sandwich, just like the first time we met in Lugano. Adams spoke first.

  “Welcome, Luke. As you can see, Virna is unharmed and will stay that way as long as you don’t do anything rash. I don’t know if you’ve seen the latest news. I’m happy to announce that AG Nunnelly has tendered his resignation, effective at noon today—our time.”

  I shook my head. “Congratulations. Half-way to your goal. What about the rest of the recordings?”

  “Oh, they have paused for the moment. My people have instructions to dump the whole lot for the world to digest if the president reneges.”

  “So, what now John? You have your revenge for Maddie’s death. What are we doing here?”

  “Well, Luke. I wasn’t entirely honest with you on that boat when I gave you a pass for saving her life in Mexico. I know you told Virna it was karma that led Maddie to her ultimate death—to sacrifice herself for you. And I gave that a lot of consideration. But I am a man of my word, and what’s fair is fair. Reciprocity has not been completely satisfied.”

  I was beginning to understand where his mind was going and I didn’t like it because he was starting to sound a lot like me. I said, “You mean the measure of retaliation you’ve extracted so far from the president and the AG are not proportional to the things your sister was supposedly forced to do and ultimately died for?”

  “I like the way you think, Luke. We’re a lot alike—orphans, military service, murdered loved ones, single-minded quest for justice and revenge. Plus, I really like Virna. You two were meant for each other, so let’s not risk that. As the aggrieved parties, we get to determine the degree of retaliation. You obviously agree it must be proportional, therefore, Christoph and Nunnelly still need to pay the going exchange rate for Maddie’s death. Not to mention their fingerprints are all over the massacre at your farm.” He had me there, but I remained silent so he could finish his dissertation. “So I want you to be our debt collector—finish the job you started in the Maldives in February. Make Christoph and Nunnelly pay the ultimate price our loved ones did.”

  I guessed he was finished because he looked tired. Like a man who had run out of time. But I wasn’t finished.

  I asked, “Tell me about the tattoos, the praying angel, John. Adrasteia or do you prefer Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution and revenge?”

  Adams perked up. “We don’t have an official name like SPECTRE or SMERSH,” Adams laughed. “We do have a common purpose, and are willing to die to see that purpose fulfilled. We aren’t that different, Luke, from that Italian organization you used to serve—The Family, or is it the CREED?”

  I could feel people gathering in small groups, cameras and phones out, sensing something dangerous about the two men standing and talking like two gunslingers facing each other in an old western.

  I started to say, “I’m not going to...” but Adams gave a slight hand signal to the man sitting next to Virna.

  The man moved just enough for me to see the gun he had pressed against Virna’s side.

  Adams took three steps toward me and whispered low enough that only I could hear.

  “Kill me now or Virna dies now.”

  Then he smiled and backed away to his previous position.

  I drew my 44 and aimed it at Adams’ head and cocked the hammer.

  A woman in the crowd screamed and the rest stumbled backward to give the gunslingers room. Some of them were still pointing their cameras and phones at us as they backed away.

  The man seated next to Virna relaxed. He started to stand and turn away. Then everything happened at once—in slow motion.

  I heard Mark yell “NOW!” as he rushed forward, pushed Virna aside and tackled the gunman.

  Adams turned his attention for a split second in the direction of Mark’s shout. I didn’t take my eyes off my target. When he refocused on me, he temporarily lost his peripheral vision that would have alerted him to the second man walking up beside him. Adams was smart and stood very still as Mark’s man jabbed a .45 in his side.

  I holstered my weapon and walked up to him and said, “I’ll consider both of your requests.”

  Cops were running across the street. I pulled my INTERPOL ID out and held it high for them to see. INTERPOL has no arresting power in any country, other than to lend assistance. Out of the corner of my eyes I could see another of Mark’s men escorting Virna away toward the street and the car Mark had earlier parked for an emergency getaway. She didn’t need to be associated with what would come next.

  In fifteen-seconds it was all over.

  The police examined my ID. The man holding Adams captive was an off-duty police officer, one of Mark’s many operatives. He identified himself and quickly explained what had transpired—the apprehension of two men connected to a kidnapping and killing in Switzerland. Other cops and a detective who had just been walking past, started canvassing the crowd, borrowing cameras and phones. Taking statements.

  Ten minutes later I was in the back seat of a police SUV on my way to the station to fill out a statement. I played Adams’ last whispered command over and over in my mind, “Kill me now or Virna dies now.” It made no sense. Maybe I could ask him later.

  My statement only took an hour. I spent the remainder of the morning hugging and kissing Virna, and recounting our journeys across the country—her with the Nemesis cult leader, me with a bunch of military brass that just found out they had been part of the President Christoph cult and were only jus
t realizing the ramifications.

  At noon, Mark escorted Virna and me into the elevator and up to the thirtieth floor where we exited and walked down the wood-paneled corridor to the office door adorned with a simple brass plaque: Raymond Mattock, Attorney at Law.

  Delaware Lane, Ray’s confidential secretary was waiting for us. She and Virna had become close friends the day I introduced Virna as my soul mate and soon to be Mrs. Luke Cassine. The women hugged, longer than strangers might think appropriate. There was something about the way she pressed her body into Virna that intrigued me. Della never hid her preferences, even though she and I shared an intimate moment years ago.

  After the girls had exchanged a few inaudible giggles, Della gave equal time to me, but more on the sisterly side of an embrace. Her body still felt great in my arms. Not as great as Virna—but still great.

  She punched Mark on the arm. He said, “High, beautiful.” It was their thing. I suspected there had been more between them a long time ago as well, but that was then and this is now, and oil and water don’t mix.

  When we were all done feeling each other up, she showed us into the conference room where our host from only a few days ago, the famous attorney, Raymond Mattock, was waiting at the head of the table shuffling some documents.

  Ray pushed the papers aside and gave his best effort at a self-deprecating greeting. “Okay. Lesson learned. From now on I’ll keep my doors and windows locked and the security system armed. But you guys,” pointing to me and Virna, “need to wear pajamas, for Christ sake.”