So far, the altercation had gone unnoticed, but Hayes had been here before and knew it wouldn’t last. Knew he couldn’t hold out against the violence rolling through his veins like lava before it consumed him. Before he gave in to the voice, pulled the pistol from his hip, and put a bullet through the center of the Russian’s forehead.
Summoning the last bit of self-control, Hayes ducked under Vlad’s arm and grabbed the back of his belt. He heaved him to his feet and half carried, half dragged him to the bathroom.
By the time he made it to the first stall, Hayes’s heart was beating like an AK on full auto, his breath coming in deep, ragged gasps. He dumped the Russian unceremoniously onto the shitter, his only thought getting the hell out of the bathroom before he lost control.
Vlad staggered backward, the thump of his body against the wall bringing him back to the land of the living.
The Russian looked up, hand curled protectively around his neck, eyes blinking like a man coming out of a trance.
“I-I don’t . . .” he began in a raspy voice.
But Hayes wasn’t listening.
He pushed off the wall, the collar of his shirt tight as a noose around his throat.
I can’t breathe.
He clawed at the button, his vision tunneling around the edges as he staggered to the sink. He turned on the faucet and splashed a handful of cold water over his face.
Get ahold of yourself.
When his mind had cleared, Hayes turned off the water, dried his face with a handful of paper towels, and was crossing to the door when Vlad broke his silence.
“You need me!” he shouted.
Any other time, the fact that he was leaving the Russian with his life would have been more than enough for Hayes to walk out with his conscience intact.
But this time it was different.
He’d made promises—given his word to a doctor back in Burkina Faso—and there was no way in hell Vlad was going to turn him into a liar.
Dammit.
He turned to the Russian, the voice in his head screaming like a drill sergeant.
You’re fucking up. The man’s a rabid dog. An animal. Do the world a favor and put a bullet in his head before it’s too late.
“I want you to sober up,” he said.
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“I want you to go to the airfield, get the plane fueled up, and wait for me there—you got that?”
“Yes.”
“And Vlad, the next time you pull a blade on me, I’ll kill you.”
3
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The Lincoln Town Car pulled up outside the Congressional Visitors Center and Treadstone Director Levi Shaw climbed out. He flashed his ID card to the security officer at the door and dropped his battered attaché case onto the X-ray machine. After emptying his pockets, he walked through the metal detector and started toward the elevator, where a pair of government-issued pit bulls in matching blue suits stood waiting.
“Morning, Tommy,” he said, noting the hint of a smile at the corner of the taller man’s lips.
“Director Shaw,” the man nodded, following him in and inserting his ID card into the reader.
The light blinked green and the doors hissed closed; Tommy punched the down button before keying up on his radio.
“On our way.”
“Just so you know,” Shaw said, reaching into his pocket and retrieving a hundred-dollar bill, “that last call was bullshit.”
“He was out by a mile,” Tommy grinned, plucking the bill from his hand and holding it up to the light.
“Seriously?” he asked.
“Never know with you Agency boys.”
“Now you’re hurting my feelings,” Shaw said.
Tommy shrugged and, satisfied that the bill was legit, stuffed it into his pocket.
“So, what’s going on?” Shaw asked, face turning serious.
Tommy reached for the radio on his hip and rotated the switch, waiting until it clicked and the red power light went off before answering.
“I don’t know what you did, but the council is pissed.”
“Details, Tommy.”
“It’s about your boy, that’s all I know.”
Fuck.
“Thanks, I owe you one.”
“Least I can do, sir,” he said, turning the radio back on for a second before the elevator settled on its bumper.
The doors hissed open and Shaw followed his minder down the hall, patent leather shoes squeaking off the freshly waxed floor.
To most people it was just another government basement, its bureaucratic beige walls and line of unmarked doors barely worth noticing. But to Shaw it was a reminder of how far he’d come in the last six months. A monument to his unexpected rise from the National Intelligence Program’s administrative graveyard buried deep in the bowels of the Pentagon. The purgatorial pit where Operation Treadstone had been sent to linger until its source funding ran out and it died.
Having his life’s work put to such a slow and painful death had been a hard pill to swallow, but Shaw had come to grips with his fate. Prepared himself for the inevitable moment when the program slipped quietly into nonexistence. But at the final hour, Treadstone was given a reprieve. Saved from the brink of death, Shaw found himself once again standing on center stage.
But that was in the past—right now the only thing that mattered was what lay on the other side of the solid steel door at the end of the hall.
Get your head in the game, Shaw told himself as they rounded the corner, stepping into a short hall with a single door at the end.
At first glance it was just another door, the only feature that hinted at its purpose—the blood-red placard in the center with RESTRICTED ACCESS printed in one-inch letters. But the illusion faded after Tommy swiped his card over the reader. Once the magnetic lock disengaged with a tiny click, the thickness of both the frame and the door itself proved that this was not just another office.
A stern-faced man in black BDUs stood next to the X-ray machine, a second seated inside a bulletproof cube. Both were armed, but unlike the pristine pistols that glinted in the holsters of the security guards upstairs, the SIGs on their hips were battle-worn, the textured grips abraded by years of use.
“Good morning, Director,” the man at the X-ray machine said. “Please place your bag on the belt and empty your pockets in the tray.”
Shaw followed the man’s directions, repeating the same steps he had on entering the building. But this time, instead of walking through a magnetometer he was directed to a full-body scanner and advised to place his hands on his head.