The parking garage on K Street hummed with a quiet throb of machinery. Utility pipes ran along the low concrete ceiling. The walls and support columns were all painted white, but the paint had flecked off in multiple places, dinged by cars backing in and out of the parking spots. The floor was stained with grease. It was after seven o’clock in the evening, but cars still lined the garage, and there were only a few empty spaces. This was Washington, populated by eager young bureaucrats working crazy hours.
“Tom’s still here,” Abbey said, pointing at a black Lexus parked in a monthly space halfway down the aisle. “I recognize his car.”
Bourne used binoculars to study the Lexus from inside their Jeep, which was parked in the last spot by the wall, its nose facing outward. He noted a Mercedes SUV and a red BMW parked on either side of Tom Blomberg’s Lexus. Both were empty.
“I’ll plant the tracker.”
He got out of the Jeep. Staying close to the cars, he walked casually toward the bank of elevators. His eyes moved constantly, watching for anyone in the shadows. He listened, too, but heard nothing, no footstep on concrete, no metallic click from a gun being cocked. Even so, a trap was always possible.
Bourne kept his head down. He wore a baseball cap and sunglasses. There was one camera monitoring this aisle of the garage, mounted on the ceiling not far from the Lexus. Usually, whoever was watching the surveillance feed in a place like this was a bored security guard reading a book and paying no attention to the people coming and going, at least until a panic button was pushed. Still, Bourne didn’t want to take the chance of someone noticing what he was doing.
When he was near the Lexus, he shoved a hand into his pocket, as if reaching for his keys. He pulled out a handful of change and let the coins spill to the concrete. With an annoyed shake of his head, he began picking them up, and then he walked over to the front wheel of the Lexus. Again he bent down, as if grabbing a loose coin, and quickly shoved a GPS tracker under the car’s wheel well.
He continued to the elevators, then reversed his steps, this time with a phone pressed to his ear, as if taking a call. If anyone was watching, he was just a businessman who’d had a change of plans. He returned to the Jeep and climbed in behind the wheel next to Abbey.
“All set.”
She nodded. Her face was pale and tense.
“Are you ready for this?” Bourne asked. “The approach will be better coming from you. You need to rattle him. Scare him. The point is to get him to make contact with someone else at the Pyramid, and then we can start following the chain.”
“I remember the rules, Jason,” Abbey said. “Once a target is off-balance, keep him that way. Isn’t that what Treadstone taught you?”
Bourne smiled. “That’s right.”
“We did it with that lawyer in New York two years ago, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Believe me, I’m ready to rattle this piece of shit,” Abbey said.
Jason put a hand over hers. “I know you’re angry about what he did to you. Anger is good, but you have to channel it. Let it drive you, but don’t let it get in your head. You still need to think clearly. If you let your emotions win, you’ll make mistakes.”
Abbey nodded, her voice clipped. “I know.”
“I’ll be watching and listening the whole time.” Bourne held up the Smith & Wesson with the laser sight that he’d purchased in Baltimore as they drove south. “If he tries anything, if he threatens you, I’ll be there in seconds.”
“Tom won’t try anything with me.”
“Maybe not, but don’t take any risks. If something feels off, get out of there. You showing up is going to rattle him regardless of what else you say.”
“I get it. Now what?”
“Now we wait.”
They sat next to each other in silence. He felt anxiety radiating from her, however much she pretended she was fine. It had gotten worse as they’d gotten closer to DC. They’d stayed overnight at a motel outside the city and then headed down the coast through New York and New Jersey. Bourne used back roads rather than the interstates; it was easier to see if they were being followed. He also made a couple of stops to restock with cash and locate an additional gun. Then he’d found a range and spent two hours with Abbey, giving her training on how to use his Sig. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like guns. But if the time came, he wanted her to be prepared to use it.
An hour passed. Then two. He began to wonder if Tom Blomberg wasn’t returning to his car that night.
Then Abbey murmured, “There he is.”
Bourne used his binoculars again. He zeroed in on Tom Blomberg shuffling toward his Lexus from the elevators. The oversized newspaperman looked as if he’d had a few drinks, based on the wobble in his walk. He wore an ill-fitting suit, the tie loose. A briefcase swung in one hand.
“You better go,” he told Abbey.
He watched her clench her fists before she got out of the car.
Abbey walked down the middle of the aisle in the parking garage. She made no attempt to hide from Tom, and she wasn’t wearing a disguise. Her emotions spilled over her in waves as she approached him. Fury at what he’d done to her. Regret for the man he once was, for the man she’d thought she knew. Shame that she’d allowed herself to be fooled.
When they’d reconnected after she moved to DC two years earlier, she remembered thinking how much he’d let himself go to pot. The drinking. The weight gain. The black half-moons of sleepless nights under his eyes. Maybe drugs, too. She hadn’t realized it was because he’d sold his soul.
Thinking back, she also recalled an evening with him in a bar in the Hay-Adams. He’d been in a strange, angry mood, spouting off a laundry list of frustrations with the impotent Washington status quo. How bipartisanship was dead. How the simplest things in Congress didn’t get done without a fight. How people couldn’t agree anymore on whether two plus two was really four. He talked about how they—journalists, the media, the people who communicated with Americans—ought to do something about that. That it was their responsibility to make a difference.
He’d asked her a question after their third martini. Would you change the world if you could?
She’d been sober enough to tell him that changing the world wasn’t her job. She was a reporter, and the only way she knew to do that was to squeeze her own biases out of whatever she wrote. Somehow, that answer had disappointed him. And now she understood why.
That had been the pitch. The drunken, awkward, failed attempt to bring her on board. Tom Blomberg had been trying to recruit her as a foot soldier for the Pyramid.
Barely ten yards away, Tom stopped near his Lexus. He finally heard the approaching footsteps and looked her way. When he saw her, his eyes widened, just for a moment. He couldn’t hide his reaction. Shock. Fear. Shame. That look was as close to a confession as she’d ever get. He was the one. He’d fed her to the wolves, regardless of their history together, regardless of their friendship. She’d come to him to do a story about Deborah Mueller, and that was something the Pyramid couldn’t allow.
Just as quickly, he covered by pasting a smile on his face.
“Abbey,” he said, and she could hear whiskey in his voice. She kept walking, until she was close enough to smell it, too. She was right in his face. “Abbey, I’m sorry, but I already told you, I can’t help. I feel bad, but what’s done is done.”
Abbey just stared at him silently, making him uncomfortable. She sent a message with her eyes. I know.
“What do you want?” Tom said awkwardly. “Money?”
“Her name was Louisa,” Abbey hissed.
She and Jason had talked about what to say. How to scare him, throw him off his game. And they’d been right. This was a body blow. Tom’s face twitched at the sound of the name. “What?”
“Her name was Louisa. Did you know that? Of course you did.”
“Abbey, I don’t—”
“Don’t even try to lie to me anymore. I know all about the Pyramid, Tom. I know you’re part of it. Pass along the message. I’m going to destroy it, starting with you. That’s fair, don’t you think? After what you did to me?”
She’d said it. She’d said the word.
The Pyramid.
“First I deal with you,” she went on. “Then Darrell Forster. Then Varak. You’re all going down.”
“Abbey, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he protested, but she could see a sheen of sweat on his face.
“Did you think it was just the cancellation, Tom? Did you think that was all they were going to do to me? I’m curious. I really want to know.” She yanked down the collar of her turtleneck so he could see the purplish line of bruises on her neck. “Or did you realize they were going to kill me, too? Did you know they were going to send a woman to string me up in my hotel room and make it look like I’d hung myself?”
Tom’s eyes widened. “Holy fucking shit.”
“Oh, so you didn’t know. You have one fragment of a soul left. That’s good. Let’s start there.”
“Abbey, I swear to God,” he murmured.
“Tell me why, Tom. You’re good. You’re one of the very best. How could you let it happen? How could you become the very thing that you hated and investigated and wrote about for your whole fucking career?”
She heard Bourne in the receiver in her ear. He was trying to pull her back.
“Easy, Abbey. You’ve done enough. He’s scared. Let it go, and get out of there.”
But she couldn’t let it go. Her voice rose.
“They tried to kill me, Tom. Do you understand that?”
He reached for her shoulder, but she slapped his hand away.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen that way,” he pleaded with her. “Nobody said anything about murder. For God’s sake, you think I’d let anyone harm you if I knew?”
“Louisa was murdered. And you knew about that.”
Tom’s eyes closed. His whole body stiffened. “Choices had to be made. Sacrifices. Louisa didn’t understand that. What were we supposed to do? Allow another far-right fascist in the Senate? The country is coming apart at the seams, Abbey! You know it, I know it, everybody knows it! Are we supposed to stand by like observers and do nothing? Is that the answer?”
Bourne spoke again. “Abbey, walk away.”
She breathed in and out, trying to calm herself. The man in front of her had been a mentor, but now she saw him only as pathetic, as evil. She was done with him. “I’m coming for you,” she said again, her voice level. “Spread the word, Tom. I’m coming for all of you.”
Abbey turned on her heel and marched away.
Behind her, she heard Tom call her name, but then he gave up, letting her go. His footsteps scraped on the concrete floor of the parking garage. She heard the whistle of his car door unlocking as he got inside the Lexus. Ahead of her, Jason emerged from the darkness, the gun still in his hand as he drew near. There was a rumble behind her as the engine of the Lexus fired.
And then, strangely, she saw Jason running. Sprinting. Diving for her.
She heard him shouting, the words echoing from his lips and in the receiver in her ear. “Get down, get down!”
He was right there, crashing into her, pulling her to the hard floor and covering her with his body.
In the next instant, an explosion shattered her ears, metal twisting in a tortured scream, glass landing on them like rain. A shock wave slammed across her body, then a second wave almost immediately after, simultaneous with another explosion. Her brain made somersaults. The garage went silent; she couldn’t hear anything, just a dull buzz. She felt a hot wind of fire, as if the oxygen had been sucked from the air.
Then she was in Jason’s arms.
He was on his feet above her. He picked her up like she was weightless, carrying her through the strange airless silence, taking her quickly away from the burning hulk that had once been Tom Blomberg’s Lexus.