purpose brutally fulfilled. She rubbed her wrists where he had clenched
them. She could feel the abrasions. Her breasts hurt where he had mauled
them. Burton’s warning came back to her. Christine Sullivan, too, had
been mangled, and not just by the agents’ bullets.
She slowly moved her head back and forth, fought to hold back the tears.
She had wanted this so badly. Had wanted Alan Richmond to make love to
her; she had imagined it would be so romantic, so idyllic. Two
intelligent, powerful and dynamic people. The perfect couple. How
wonderful it should have been. And then the vision of the man startled
her back to reality; pounding away at her, with no more emotion on his
features than if he had been masturbating alone in the toilet with the
latest Penthouse. He had never even kissed her; had never even spoken.
He had just pulled off her clothes as soon as she came in the bedroom,
sunk his hardened flesh into her and now he was gone. It had all taken
barely ten minutes. And now she was alone. Chief of Staff!
Chief Whore more like it.
She wanted to scream’out I fucked you! You bastard! I fucked you in
that room that night and there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it
you sonofabitch.
Her tears wet the pillow and she cursed herself for breaking down and
crying yet again. She had been so sure of her abilities, so confident
that she could control him. God, she had been so wrong. The man had
people killed. Walter Sullivan. Walter Sullivan had been killed,
murdered, with the knowledge, indeed the blessing, of the President of
the United States. When Richmond had told her she couldn’t believe it.
He said he wanted to keep her fully informed. Fully terrified was more
like it. She had no idea what he was up to now. She was no longer a
central part of this campaign and she thanked God that she wasn’t.
She sat up in bed, pulled the ripped nightgown over her quivering body.
Shame rocked her again, momentarily. Of course she was now his personal
whore. And his consideration for that was his unspoken promise not to
crush her. But was that all? Was that really all?
She huddled the blanket around her and looked into the darkness of the
room. She was an accomplice. But she was also something more. She was a
witness. Luther Whitney had also been a witness. And now he was dead.
And Richmond had calmly ordered the execution of one of his oldest and
dearest friends. If he could do that, what was her life worth?
The answer to that question was shockingly clear.
She bit into her hand until it hurt. She looked at the doorway through
which he had disappeared. Was he in there? in the dark, listening?
thinking about what to do with her? A cold shudder of fear grabbed her
and did not leave. She was caught. For once in her life she had no
options. She wasn’t sure if she would even survive.
JACK DROPPED THE BOX ON THE BED, TOOK OFF HIS COAT, looked out the
window of his hotel room and then sat down.
He was pretty sure he hadn’t been followed. He had gotten out of the
building so fast. He had remembered, at the last minute, to ditch his
car. He didn’t really know who was pursuing him, but he assumed they
were sophisticated enough to trace his car’s whereabouts.
He checked his watch. The cab had dropped him off at the hotel barely
fifteen minutes ago. It was a nondescript place, a hotel where tourists
on the cheap would stay and then wander around the city to get their
fill of the country’s history before heading back home. It was out of
the way but then he wanted out of the way.
Jack looked at the box and then decided he had waited long enough. A few
seconds later he had it open and was staring at the object inside the
plastic bag.
A knife? He looked at it more closely. No, it was a letter opener, one
of the old-fashioned kind. He held the bag by its ends and examined the