The Camel Club (Camel Club 1)

And though John Carr wasn’t buried in that grave, he was still supposed to be dead. The initial hit on him killed only his wife. But there had been another attempt deemed successful, though no body had been recovered; it was presumably in the bellies of fish in the middle of the ocean. Perhaps Gray was simply jumping to conclusions. The man he’d seen was thin and seemingly frail. Could that be the mighty John Carr? The years could take their toll, but still, with a man like Carr, Gray figured age would simply bounce off him. Yet the man had been standing directly in front of the grave marked for John Carr. And hadn’t he managed to disappear, much like the legendary Carr made a career out of doing?

Gray’s pulse accelerated as he thought how close he’d possibly been to a man who’d been betrayed by his country. And not just any man, but a man who, in his time, was the perfect killing machine for the United States government. Until, that is, he became a liability, as such men often did.

Carter Gray put away the box and left the room of old secrets with a curious emotion filling his chest. Carter Gray feared a dead man who, inexplicably, might still be among the living.

Later, back at his home, Gray lit the candles in his bedroom as he kept glancing at the photos on his mantel. In a few minutes it would be midnight, and September 11 would be with him again. He sat in the chair next to his bed and opened his Bible. Carter Gray had been baptized a Catholic, had dutifully performed his first Communion at age seven and his Confirmation at age thirteen and had even been an altar boy. Since reaching adulthood, however, he had never once set foot inside a church unless it was for some political function. With his occupation, religion had never seemed to be that relevant. However, his wife had been a devout Catholic, and their daughter, Maggie, had been raised in that faith.

Now, with both of them gone, Gray had taken up reading the Bible. It wasn’t for his salvation, but as a way of picking up the banner for his fallen family, although, he had to admit, the words did give him some level of comfort. Tonight he read out loud some passages from Corinthians and another from Leviticus and then ventured into the Psalms. It was now well past midnight, and he knelt down in front of the photos and performed his prayers, although they were more akin to conversations with his dead family. He almost always broke down and cried during this ritual. The tears felt deserved and, in a sense, were healing. Yet, as he sat back in his chair with his Bible, Gray’s thoughts returned once more to a burial plot with an empty coffin. Is John Carr dead or alive?

Tom Hemingway returned to his apartment, the receipt with the name Chastity Hayes safely in his pocket. He made his usual tea and drank it barefoot, standing by the window looking out onto the Capitol grounds. A lot had happened in the last twenty-four hours and none of it positive from his perspective.

His pathetic duo of Reinke and Peters had missed two targets tonight, and now Alex Ford and Kate Adams would no doubt go straight to their respective agencies and demand that full investigations move forward. Added to that was the fact that Carter Gray was talking about the resurrection of the dead. In Hemingway’s mind that was a clear reference to all the terrorists supposedly killed by their colleagues. That had prompted Hemingway’s hurried message to Captain Jack.

He turned from the window and looked at a portrait on the wall. It was a very good likeness of his father, the Honorable Franklin T. Hemingway, ambassador to some of the most difficult territories in the world of diplomacy. And his last post proved to be too violent even for him. A bullet in China ended the career of a man who had devoted his life to cobbling peace where none seemed possible.

The son had not followed the father’s footsteps principally because Tom Hemingway didn’t believe he possessed the necessary skills and qualities that went into a successful statesman. And back then he was an angry young man. While that fury had diminished over the years, it had never entirely gone away. Why should it? At his funeral it was said by many distinguished voices from all over the world that Franklin Hemingway would be sorely missed as a global peacemaker. Hemingway still felt the loss of his mentor as strongly this minute as he had felt it the day an assassin’s bullet ended his father’s life. For him, time lessened nothing. It only intensified the sense of agony he’d carried with him since learning that precious, valiant heart had stopped beating.

CHAPTER

45

TYLER REINKE’S HOME WAS VERY sparsely furnished. Reuben and Stone crawled on their bellies to each room, hoping for anything that could be useful, but came away disappointed each time. They passed the front door where another alarm code pad was mounted and slithered up the stairs after the fat tabby.

When they reached the bedroom, something caught Reuben’s eye.

“Our Mr. Reinke is a chopper pilot.” He picked up the only picture on the nightstand. In it Tyler Reinke was at the controls of a sleek black helicopter.

“Any insignias on it?” Stone asked as he searched other parts of the room.

“Nope.” Reuben put the picture back down after using a corner of the bedspread to wipe off any fingerprints.

Stone had rummaged around in the closet and came out carrying a small box.

“Financial records,” he said in response to Reuben’s questioning look.

He took out a stack and started going through them, scanning each page.

“Anything of interest?”

Stone held up one page. “It seems this account is set up under a false name, although the address matches the house we’re in. However, I’m afraid I have little experience with financial portfolios.”

“Let me take a look.” Reuben spent some time going over the statements and some handwritten notes also contained in the batch. “It looks like Reinke, if this is his account statement, has recently bought an enormous long-put option on margin.”

“Long-put option on margin? What’s that?”

“Margin means he’s borrowed money to purchase his position and he has the option to sell the position at a certain level. According to these handwritten notes, he’s essentially betting the farm that the S&P will take a dive. So it’s like sell low and buy back high. That’s not what you usually want, but in this case you can make enormous amounts of money doing that very thing. And the amount at risk is far more than someone would make off a government salary. That’s why it’s on margin.”

“I had no idea you knew so much about finances.”

“Hey, a guy likes to take a plunge every now and then. And I don’t plan on working on that damn loading dock until I croak, I can tell you that.”

“But how would he know that it’s going down? It’s one thing to have inside info on one stock, but the whole market?” Stone thought for a moment. “But then again, the financial markets almost always drop in the face of an unforeseen catastrophe.”

“What, like an earthquake?” Reuben said.

“But also with man-made catastrophes. On 9/11 I recall they had

to close the stock market and calm everyone down. Left to its own devices, the market would’ve plunged. It still went down when it reopened after 9/11. Unscrupulous people with advance knowledge could’ve made a fortune.”

“So maybe Reinke knows of a coming catastrophe?” Reuben said nervously.

“Or else he’s helping create one,” Stone replied.

As soon as they saw the car approaching from their hiding place off the road, Milton got on his cell phone and called Reuben. Well, he attempted to call, but no ringing sound came. He looked at his cell phone and his heart sank.

Caleb glanced at him as the headlights crept closer.

“Call them!”

“There’s no signal strength.”

“What!”

“There’s no signal strength here. It must be a bad cell zone. I can’t get through.”

Caleb pointed at the oncoming car. “That is very likely a murderer in there.”

“Caleb, there’s nothing I can do.”

“Damn these high-tech abominations,” Caleb said angrily. “They never work when you really need them to.”

The other car turned off the road and headed to Reinke’s house.

“That’s Tyler Reinke’s car. I recognized it,” Caleb said.

“I know, I did too,” a panicked Milton added. “What are we going to do?”

Caleb started the car. “Well, I’m certainly not going to let them kill Oliver and Reuben while we just sit here with useless technology. Hold on!”

Milton braced himself as Caleb hit the gas and the Malibu sprang forward.

They squealed back onto the road, where Caleb floored it and took the turn toward Reinke’s house just barely on four wheels.