Читать книгу The Rapids - Carla Neggers, Carla Neggers - Страница 7

Equal light, level sight.

Falling back on the basics, Rob Dunnemore aimed his .40-caliber Glock and emptied it into the silhouette twenty-five yards away.

Four months ago, he’d been the target. Alive, not a paper silhouette.

Even with ear protection, he could hear the shots echo across the indoor range. He didn’t flinch. He was soaked with sweat under his Kevlar vest. He’d popped off a couple of boxes of ammo and felt the burn in his shoulders and back, another reminder that he was out of practice.

He racked back, then made sure he’d counted his shots right and hadn’t left a round in the chamber. He didn’t want to ruin his practice by putting a bullet in his foot. Shooting was a perishable skill, and he was rusty—he hadn’t done this much in one outing since he’d taken a round to his gut in Central Park almost four months ago.

He’d almost bled to death. He’d lost his spleen. Lying in his hospital bed, helpless, he’d nearly lost his family.

Those hadn’t been good days.

Shrugging off his goggles and ear protection, he could smell the smoke from the powder and the spent ammunition. His hold on his Glock was tighter than it needed to be. A death grip, like a damn rookie’s.

He made sure his gun was clear and safe, then set it on the wood counter in front of him and reeled in his target.

Thirteen in center mass, one a clear miss.

Not bad. Just a hair off a hundred percent.

The rest was a mind game that had nothing to do with technical proficiency.

The door behind him creaked open. “Don’t shoot,” Juliet Longstreet said in her usual cheeky manner. “It’s just me.”

But Rob could tell from her expression that something was up with his fellow deputy U.S. Marshal, and he unclipped his target, loosened his vest. “Hey, Longstreet.”

She nodded to his target. “How’d you do?”

He showed her.

She whistled. “You’ll be back on the street in no time, taking down bad guys.”

Her heart wasn’t in her words. Something had definitely happened. “Juliet—”

“Nick Janssen’s been arrested,” she said quickly.

“Where?”

“Some town in Holland. A Dutch SWAT team picked him up on a tip to our embassy there.”

“When?”

“A couple hours ago.”

Rob pushed back an image of a young Nick Janssen in his mother’s college yearbook and studied Longstreet. They’d been an item for a while, splitting up well before the shooting in May. Juliet had her own demons from those difficult days—she’d nearly become one of Janssen’s victims herself.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah. It brings it all back, that’s all. About time we got the bastard.”

“Any word on extradition?”

“Legal eagles are already on it. The Dutch say they have enough to charge him with Char Brooker’s murder. If we can’t do better than that—” She shrugged, then gave a dry smile. “It’s not as if he succeeded in killing any of us over here.”

“Not for lack of trying.”

Juliet’s eyes seemed to flatten. “Yeah, well. The two goons he sent over here to find out what was going on are dead.”

And she and a former Special Forces officer—dead army captain Charlene Brooker’s husband—had found the bodies. A lunatic out of the Dunnemore past had believed he could use his knowledge of their relationship with President Poe to extract a pardon for Nick Janssen and earn millions for his efforts.

The story, with all its complexities and intricacies, had been fodder for the media for weeks.

“News of the arrest public yet?” Rob asked, keeping his own emotions in check.

Juliet shook her head. “You and I are getting a heads-up before reporters get the bit in their teeth and start calling.”

“For what? To ask us how we feel now that Nick Janssen’s in custody?”

“Pretty much.”

“I’m not talking to any reporters.”

“Me, neither.”

The shooting range was curiously quiet. Rob still could smell the smoke from his practice. He shoved a full magazine into his Glock, aware of Juliet watching him. “Want to shoot a few rounds?” he asked her.

“I’m a better shot than you.”

“Always the ambitious one.”

She smiled, not taking offense where she would have six months ago. “Just stating the facts, Dunnemore. Let me get some ear protection and goggles. It’s too goddamn hot to wear a vest—”

“Wear a vest, Juliet.”

She waved a hand. “Yeah, I guess I’d better, given my luck these days.”

“I suppose we should be relieved now that Janssen’s in custody.”

“I suppose. So why do I feel like another damn shoe’s about to drop? I’m not that paranoid.”

Rob had no answer.

Whether it was instinct or post-trauma stress at work he just knew he shared her sense of dread.

By the time Maggie dragged herself back up to her small apartment it was after midnight. Without hesitation, Dutch police had followed up on her anonymous tip and arrested Nick Janssen without incident. They had no idea who her “friend” was. Neither did she. She was hungry again and heated up leftover Indonesian fried rice, which she ate standing up, pacing, too wired and uneasy yet to settle down.

Her gaze landed on a picture of her father on a sailboat in south Florida. Smiling. She remembered how his eyes would crinkle when he smiled. He’d worked as a consultant for small businesses, mostly in eastern Europe and Russia—supposedly. Maggie had had her doubts, more so since his death. Little things didn’t add up. She suspected he’d played some kind of role in the multifaceted world of intelligence—one that he couldn’t talk about even to his DS-agent daughter. As the sharp edges of her grief had worn down, her questions had become more focused, but answers weren’t any easier to come by. She hated the idea that she might have to learn to live with her questions.

But her father had always been a fairly remote figure to her. Even when she was growing up, he was never around. Her mother finally couldn’t take his long absences anymore, and they’d divorced when Maggie was in high school. He hadn’t changed his ways. He couldn’t. She understood that part. She had that same sense of wanderlust.

“Well, Pop,” she said, dipping her wooden spoon into her pan of spicy vegetables and rice, “we got the bad guy today.”

She didn’t know if he’d ever really approved of her career in diplomatic security. He’d seemed okay with her political science degree in college, then her first job at the State Department. She’d hoped her decision to become a DS officer and the prospect of a foreign service career might have intrigued him, but he’d remained outside her life, not disinterested but not a part of it.

The DS special agent in charge of her field office had given her the news of her father’s death himself.

Philip Spencer had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Except Maggie hadn’t believed it. Still didn’t. Czech authorities, U.S. authorities—she wasn’t getting the whole story. She’d pushed and bucked and bitten off heads, and everywhere, from everyone, she got the same line.

Shot by bank robbers who then got away.

Bullshit.

There were no witnesses. Newspapers, even in Prague, barely covered the story. And the reaction she got from investigators—American and Czech—amounted to stonewalling. But she’d finally backed off. What was the point in sticking her neck out for a man she’d seen maybe a half-dozen times in the five years before his death?

Maggie dumped out the rest of her fried rice and ran cold water into the pan, leaving it until morning.

No one—not the Dutch authorities, not anyone at the American embassy—was celebrating Nick Janssen’s arrest. As pleased as they were with having him in custody, they all knew his tentacles were far-reaching. There was a lot of work yet to be done.

The media were all over the story. The embassy’s public affairs officers as well as the FBI and USMS people back in Washington were fielding questions. Janssen’s attorneys had descended, screaming and hollering. News of Maggie’s anonymous tip was out.

On her way to bed, she noticed that her solitary plant, an orchid she’d bought in deference to the collective Dutch green thumb, looked dead. It was supposed to be a hardy variety that she’d have a difficult time killing, but she’d killed it in less than three weeks.

She took it to the sink, doused it with water and left it next to her soaking leftovers pan. Maybe it’d revive by morning.

She rolled her eyes. Who was she kidding? The thing was dead. To hope otherwise wasn’t optimism—it was refusing to face reality.

And if nothing else, Maggie thought, she was a woman determined to face reality.

Libby Smith left her window open in her room at her small hotel around the corner from where Dutch police had picked up Nick Janssen. It was brazen of her. A risk. But there was no reason for authorities to investigate hotel guests. Even if they did, they’d never suspect her of being anything but what she was: an American antiques dealer, a woman looking for off-the-beaten-track bargains.

What if they had him under surveillance and saw you on the bench with him?

If they caught up with her and asked about it, she’d say she’d stopped to rest her feet and they’d chatted for a few minutes about the sights.

She couldn’t seem to get cool.

She lay naked atop the cotton duvet and noticed the sheen of her sweat in the light from the street. She could hear the traffic, the sound of music playing somewhere not too far off, the voices of people under her window, out enjoying the warm summer night.

The hundred-thousand deposit had been wired into her account. Janssen must have prearranged the transfer.

Libby had never made such money.

And it was just the beginning.

She’d memorized Janssen’s list of targets and burned it, flushing the ashes down her toilet.

Knowing his enemies—and eliminating them—would help her to understand his network and, in time, replace him.

His arrest was inevitable, just a bit earlier than she’d hoped for. Some Dutch Goody Two-shoes must have recognized him and called the police.

The balding man—who was he? Closing her eyes, Libby breathed deeply and tried not to feel as if she were suffocating, told herself the balding man didn’t matter. Only her plan did, her next target. The thrill of her work had satisfied her in the beginning. Now she wanted more.

Money.

Power.

She smiled to herself, relaxing, feeling in control at last.