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They shoved Drake's face into the carpet, two men holding his arms, a third gripping his skull and jabbing him with the hypo. Gena was cursing in the background, her voice muffled, and Paxton grunted next to him, thrashing on the floor. They were apparently getting the same treatment. A few seconds later, Drake felt the needle slide out of his neck, then they released him and a glossy black dress shoe poked at his forehead.
"On your feet."
Drake didn't move for a second. Breathing hard, he tried to get up, but a wave of vertigo knocked him flat again. Hands grabbed his arms and hauled him off the floor like a doll, pushing him back against the wall next to Gena and Paxton. Shadows crowded around them in a halo of sunlight from the window on the other side of the room. Big shadows. Closing his eyes, he waited for the dizziness to pass, then he opened them again, squinting against the glare.
"Somebody needs a bath," a voice said.
The room was full of suits—half-a-dozen gorillas dressed identically in black slacks, white shirts and black jackets. Spattered with blood, they were all wearing wireless headset mikes, black wristbands and psychedelic power ties that made them look like flashy bankers. One of them, a jaw-grinder with a shaved head, was pointing an AR-15 at Drake's face and a couple of his simian buddies were covering Gena and Paxton. They didn't look like feds or contractors, but Drake realized he'd probably met them before—back in the parking garage after the attack on the hotel. They were an EFFIGY field team. Shadow paramilitary. Maybe the same ones who'd shot Nastya.
"Assholes," Gena yelled at them. "What the hell was that?"
"Got a mouth on her," one of the bullet-heads said.
"All right, all right." The voice coming from the other side of the room was all too familiar. "Don't get your panties in a bunch. You just got vaccinated against the bird flu, OK? We did you a big favor, so listen up. You're covered for now, but it's not going to last forever. Get the picture? Can't have you flippin' out too soon. There's somebody wants to talk to you and he's fussy about germs. Especially this one."
"What're you talking about?" Paxton rasped.
"It's a temporary fix, Cable. Understand? The vaccine's good for a couple days. Three days tops. You cooperate, we keep you going. Give us any trouble and you can join the loons out there and nobody's gonna ask any questions."
"This isn't bird flu," Paxton said. "You know that."
"'Course it's bird flu. It's all over the TV."
Bill Adder was sitting at the head of the conference table, smoking a cigar and blowing smoke at a stack of documents piled in front of him. Sloppy as usual with his tie loose and his sleeves rolled up, he was wearing a Glock in a black-leather shoulder holster and his shirt was stained with blood. Unshaven, pink as a boiled pig, he scratched his wristband, then leaned forward on his elbows. Chewing on his cigar, he squinted at them through a cloud of blue smoke.
"We want to talk to the Internal Counsel," Paxton said. "We've got a right to see the charges in writing and we're demanding a formal review."
"You waived all that." Adder picked up some papers, leafed through the pages and dropped them on the table again. "Got your signatures right here."
"We never signed anything," Paxton protested.
"Got three witnesses say different."
"What the hell do you want?"
"Me?" Adder sat back, clasping his hands on his gut. "I don't want anything. You're being relocated to a secure facility for interrogation. Maybe you didn't notice, but we got a national crisis on our hands and this place ain't safe anymore." He glanced at his watch, then leaned forward and pointed his cigar at Gena. "This bimbo was workin' with Maalik Ahmad the whole time. We figure she was the go-between with Ahmad and Conwell, maybe the courier for the dope on the convoy. Drake was screwing her in Belgrade and they used him to run interference at the hotel—paid him off to blow the surveillance. I never could figure out why you hired him, Cable, but it don't matter now. You're charged with unauthorized access for hacking into Langley and stealing classified documents. You and Viddy. The dot-head's missing right now, but if he's still alive, we'll pick him up sooner or later."
"I never met Conwell in my life," Gena said quietly.
"That's not what he said." Adder leered at her and blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. "He identified you from an old file photo. Got a fit of conscience or something and spilled his guts. Guess he couldn't handle sellin' out his country. Weaponized bird flu. That's some nasty stuff."
"Where is Conwell?" Paxton asked.
"Dead as crap on the road. Hung himself in his cell." Adder shook his head. "We got his confession on video, though. Signed statement. The whole bit. He told us Hahn approached him a couple months ago—picked him up at some bar on Telegraph, got him drunk and screwed his brains out. Classic honeytrap. Conwell figured he was a real ladies man and Hahn's an Agency-trained whore." He grinned at Drake. "What's the matter? Don't tell me you didn't know about that. Langley cut her loose after the Belgrade flap and she went to work for Ahmad. She was his cut-out, picked up the manifest documents and paid Conwell off in pussy and cash. One-hundred large. The son of a bitch sold himself cheap." He shrugged, scratching a jowl. "We recovered the cash easy enough. Traced it back to a shell account in the Caymans. The transfer was set up by one of Ahmad's known associates."
"Nice and tidy," Paxton said.
"It's pretty cut and dry." Adder checked the time again, turning to one of his gorillas. "Get them on board. We're leaving in fifteen minutes."
He got to his feet, collected the papers on the table and stuffed them into a briefcase, puffing on his cigar. The suit with the AR-15 showed Drake a gold tooth, then glanced over at his partners. They started moving around, picking up their gear, leaving him in charge of the prisoners.
"What happened to Nastya?" Paxton asked quietly.
"Now that was a damn shame." Adder waddled across the room, trailing a cloud of smoke, then stopped in front of them and took the cigar out of his mouth, pointing it at Drake. "She was betrayed by her own husband. Ain't that right, Drake? You stalled on the hotel job, gave them time to plant the stuff. Tipped Ahmad when Nastya got suspicious. She figured out what you were doing, so they got rid of her. Picked her up during the evacuation, blew her head off and dumped her in the Bay."
Drake lunged at Adder and grabbed his fat neck with his manacled hands, knocking him backwards into the table. Adder stumbled, dropping the briefcase, papers flying everywhere, then he knocked a chair over and tumbled onto the floor, wheezing and coughing. Drake landed on top of him, hands clamped around his throat, digging into his windpipe, Adder's chubby hands scrabbling at his face. Gena and Paxton were yelling, the guards shouting while he pounded Adder's head against the carpet, then he grabbed him by the cheeks, yanked his head off the floor and lashed it to one side with a crack of snapping bones. Gena landed beside him, gasping, then something hard came down on his head and the room turned sideways and started spinning around, red and throbbing, fading to black...