The End Game (A Brit in the FBI 3)

“What?”

“No blood on my shirt. No rips. Nothing.” He grinned. “Nigel will let me live another day. Maybe.”

He watched her execute a daring move around two taxis, leaving them screaming in her wake. No need for her to speed, but he realized she was pissed.

Nicholas laid his hand on her thigh, felt the sleek play of muscles beneath his fingers, and quickly lifted his hand. “Really, I’m fine. I had no idea our wounded-knee guy even got close to me. You were the one I was worried about.”

Mike looked straight ahead, missed a parked car by an inch. Then she looked at the impossibly handsome face next to her, saw worry—for her, not himself—and threw back her head and laughed. “Yet again, you saved my neck. Thank you, Nicholas. Sorry about your beautiful coat. You want a character witness for Nigel?”

He met her eyes, took his pinkie and put it through the hole, wiggled his finger. “Once Nigel gets a load of this I could have a dozen character witnesses, but I fear it wouldn’t help. As Nigel pointed out last night, however, Barneys will rejoice.”

Nicholas’s mobile rang, and he pulled it from his pocket, put it on speaker. “Gray, what’s happening?”

“The guy you shot in the knee? The NYPD found the brown Honda. It was abandoned at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge. Either they got into another car or they’re on foot. Either way, we lost them. I’ve sent a team to process the car. Perhaps we’ll have some luck lifting fingerprints. Or blood, that’d be good.”

“I will only confirm that I shot the guy in the knee if you promise not to rat me out to Zachery. This isn’t a good time for a hearing and losing my weapon.”

“Yeah, yeah, I promise. You’re a dweeb. As far as I know, you don’t even know how to fire a weapon.”

“Thanks, Gray. Ah, the knee shot? That was only because he was aiming at Mike.”

“I was going to say nice shooting, Tex, but since he got away, forget it.”

Mike said, “Tex? He’s supposed to be James Bond, Gray, not the Lone Ranger.”

Gray laughed, told some agents around him what Mike had said, and there was more laughter.

“All right, you hyena,” Nicholas said, “when you calm down, let me tell you I’m calling Savich to have him plug in MAX.”

Gray gave one last hiccup. “Good idea. Can’t hurt.”

35

BISHOP TAKES B6

Baltimore, Maryland

Zahir Damari loved nothing more than raising his face into a strong stream of hot water in a shower. Since he was staying at a nice hotel, it was piping hot and he knew it wouldn’t run out, like it sometimes did in Jordan, even in his exquisite villa. He washed himself slowly, luxuriating in the loofah gliding over his skin. Everything was back on track.

Once dressed, he applied several layers of makeup and prosthetics using the photo on his current fake passport as a guide. He was always careful, always precise. After a few finishing touches to his hair, he studied the results in the mirror, nodded at his reflection. He looked good; he was ready. If the man he was meeting described him, it wouldn’t matter, since he would be describing another man entirely. Zahir smiled at himself in the mirror. Actually, if the idiot did describe him to anyone at all, even his lovely wife, he wouldn’t live an hour longer.

Before Zahir left for Silver Corner, he called Matthew, to make sure his part of the plan was locked in, and Matthew was ready to pull the trigger. He smiled again as he punched in Matthew’s number—Matthew didn’t realize it, but he was Zahir’s minion, as gullible as only an ideologue could be. There were so many exactly like him on both sides, driven by hate, no real thought to the future or what could be made of the future.

He pictured the beautiful blast at Bayway, the flames that licked into the sky, and the feel of the ground shaking beneath his feet. The power of such a tiny part of that gold coin was amazing.

Matthew didn’t pick up until the fourth ring, and that worried Zahir. He realized immediately something was wrong. Matthew sounded exhausted and depressed, very unlike himself.

“It is Darius. Tell me what is happening?”

“Was it you who set me up? You who betrayed me, set them against me?”

Now, this was interesting, at least for a moment. “Come, Matthew, what are you talking about?”

And it all came spilling out, his killing of both Ian and Vanessa because of their betrayal, and how he’d burned the building down around them. “But maybe it was you, Darius, who betrayed me. Was Vanessa right?”

“What do you think?” You idiot.

“All right, all right, so it was the only thing I could do. I killed them, both of them. Ian tried to protect her, can you believe that?”