D.C. Dead (Stone Barrington 22)

“Yes, ma’am,” Holly said, but they had already hung up.

Dino and Holly came into the living room.

“I don’t know about you two,” Stone said, “but I’m exhausted.”

“Then come to bed,” Holly said, heading for the bedroom.

“I guess I’m sleeping alone tonight,” Dino said.

55

TEDDY SET DOWN HIS CESSNA AT MANASSAS AIRPORT WELL after midnight, then taxied to the FBO, which was dark. Everything, including the tower, was closed.

He went to the luggage compartment, got out a case, took the things he needed, then put the case back and locked the compartment. He removed the passenger door from the rear seat and rehung it on the airframe, then locked the airplane.

He went to the FBO door and inspected it for alarm sensors, then he shone a very bright flashlight around the walls, looking for an alarm box. Finding none, he took a set of lockpicks from his pocket and made quick work of opening the door. Inside, he went to the rental car desk and checked the keys hanginb="2em">

He unlocked the rear door of the FBO from the inside and stepped into the parking lot, then he unlocked a Toyota Camry, got in, and started it. A moment later he was on his way to an apartment development a fifteen-minute drive from CIA headquarters.

It was easy enough to find, since there was a large sign at the untended gate offering two- and four-bedroom town houses for rent, furnished or unfurnished. He parked two doors down from Todd Bacon’s house, slipped plastic booties on over his shoes, and, using his flashlight sparingly, walked between the two nearest houses to what would be backyards when the landscaping was developed. The ground was dry. He checked the two houses as he moved along, looking for signs of alarm systems, but he saw none. Bacon’s house would be alarmed only if he had installed the system himself, and he was unlikely to have done that for a rental.

Teddy circumnavigated Bacon’s house, figured out where the ground-floor master bedroom was, then decided that the best way in was the front door. He slipped out of his shoes and booties on the lawn next to the front walk and continued in his stocking feet. On the front porch, he stopped and prepared the materials he had brought with him. The moon gave him all the light he needed.

He donned latex gloves and picked the front door lock easily—it was right out of a hardware store—and let himself into the front hall, silently closing the door behind him. He stopped in the entrance hall for a full minute, listening for signs of life in the house. A faint snore came from the direction of the master bedroom, down the hallway. He walked slowly down the hall, the silenced gun held out in front of him, took a quick look through the open bedroom do

or, then jerked his head back and reviewed what he had seen.

Todd Bacon lay on his back, on the left side of the bed, snoring with each breath. The bedroom was flooded with moonlight. Teddy removed the small plastic hypodermic from his shirt pocket, uncapped it, put the cap into his trousers pocket, then clenched the instrument in his teeth. He walked softly into the bedroom, around the bed, and stopped next to the sleeping man. He took the hypodermic from his mouth, bent over until his lips were near Bacon’s ear, then poked the silencer hard against his temple. “Freeze!” he said. “Not a move, not an eyelash.”

Bacon’s eyes opened, and he did not move. Teddy plunged the short needle of the hypodermic into his carotid artery and pressed the plunger, then pulled it out and set it on the bedside table. This would only take a minute, he knew. When he had been at the CIA, they had tested the drug, first on animals, then on volunteers.

“It’s going to feel nice,” Teddy said. “You’ll feel warm all over, and you’ll be able to see and hear, but you won’t be able to move or speak. Don’t worry, it won’t kill you.” He pressed his fingers against the artery and felt for the pulse. He could feel its rapidity, then it slowed. It was done.

“You just lie quietly there for a minute,” Teddy said. “I’ll be ready for you shortly.” He left the paralyzed man and went into the bathroom. He switched on the light and looked around, checked the medicine cabinet. Then he saw what he wanted, standing in a drinking glass on top of the sink. He walked to the bathtub, closed the drain, and turned on the water, testing the warmth. He wanted it hot. Then he returned to the bedroom.

Bacon’s body was twitching a little as he tried and failed to move. Teddy removed the plastic cap from his pocket, capped the needle, and put the hypodermic into his pocket. Then he pulled back the covers?ied, exposing Bacon’s naked body, then took the man’s head in his hands and dragged him from the bed onto the floor. He took hold of Bacon’s wrists and dragged him into the bathroom, then he muscled the inert form into the bathtub.

“You’re going to have a nice hot bath,” Teddy said, “then you’re going to die.”

Bacon’s eyes swiveled and looked at him, seeming to open wider. “Lauren never knew what hit her when you fired that shot,” Teddy said, “but you’re going to know everything.” He went to the sink and took the straight razor from the glass on the sink. He had planned to use a kitchen knife, but this was much better. He returned to the bathtub and, in turn, made an incision in each of Bacon’s wrists, parallel with the forearm, then he dropped the hands back into the water.

“This is how you commit suicide with a razor,” Teddy said. “You don’t cut across the wrist, but along it. You bleed a lot more that way. Now, you have a couple of minutes before you lose consciousness. Use it to think about the stupid thing you did. Use it to think about that beautiful young woman whose life you took. Your autopsy will show that your cause of death was suicide by blood loss. They’ll never think to do a tox screen, and even if they do, it’s very unlikely that they’ll detect the drug I gave you. No one will ever know why you died but me, and whoever I choose to tell about it.

“Are you a Christian, Todd? I hope so, because then you’ll believe me when I tell you that you will wake up in hell, because you committed the sin of murder.”

Teddy sat by the tub for another couple of minutes, periodically checking Bacon’s pulse. Finally, his heart stopped. His body appeared to be afloat in a bathtub of tomato soup.

Teddy switched off the bathroom light and went back into the bedroom, scuffing the carpet to remove any sign of the body being dragged across the floor. He let himself out of the house, put on his shoes and booties, and walked back to the Toyota.

HALF AN HOUR LATER, Teddy pu

lled into the parking lot at Manassas Airport, still wearing his gloves and booties. He locked the Toyota and went inside through the back door, locking it behind him. He hung the car keys on the board at the rental counter, let himself out the front door onto the ramp, and locked the door behind him.

Back in the airplane, he retrieved his Apple AirBook. He had a strong signal from the FBO’s wireless network. He logged on to the CIA mainframe and sent a single e-mail, then he put away the computer, started the airplane, taxied to the runway, and took off to the south, not turning on his transponder. He flew low until he was sure he was out of Washington Center’s airspace, then he climbed to eight thousand feet, set the autopilot, and entered the code AVL into the GPS. He pressed the DIRECT button on the GPS, then the NAV button on the autopilot, and let it fly him toward Asheville Regional Airport, in North Carolina.

Now, flying through the smooth night air, the starry sky above him, the green landscape below, he allowed himself to weep for Lauren Cade, and what he had lost.

56