his wife’s nond script Bonneville and cradled a can of Diet Coke between
his knees. Occasionally he would glance at the house that he had
observed his partner entering at 12:14 a.m. and where he’d caught a
glimpse of the Chief of Staff in attire that didn’t indicate the visit
was a business one. With his long-range lens he had gotten two pictures
of that particular scene that Russell would have killed to get her hands
on. The lights in the house had moved progressively from room to room
until they reached the east side of the place, when all lights were
dramatically extinguished.
Burton looked at the dormant taillights of his partner’s car.
The kid had made a mistake. Being here. This Was a career ender, maybe
for both him and Russell. Burton thought back to that night. Collin
racing back to the house. Russell white as a sheet. Why? In all the
confusion Burton had forgotten to ask. And then they were smashing
through cornfields after someone who shouldn’t have been there but sure
as hell had been.
But Collin had gone back in that house for a reason. And Burton decided
it was time he found out what that reason was. He had a dim feeling of a
conspiracy slowly evolving.
Since he had been excluded from participating, he naturally concluded
that he was probably not intended to benefit from that conspiracy. Not
for one moment did he believe that Russell was interested solely in what
was behind his partner’s zipper. She was not that type, not by a long
shot.
Everything she did had a Purpose, an important Purpose. A
good fuck from a Young buck was not nearly important enough.
Another two hours passed. Burton looked at his watch and then stiffened
as he saw Collin open the front door, move slowly down the walk and get
in his car. As he drove by, Burton ducked down in his seat, feeling
slightly g Ity at this ui surveillance of a fellow agent. He watched the
wink of a turn signal as the Ford made its way out of the high-priced
area.
Burton looked back up at the house. A light came on in what probably was
the living room. It was late, but apparently the lady of the house was
still going strong. Her stamina was legendary around the White House.
Burton briefly wondered if she exhibited that same endurance between the
sheets. Two minutes later the street was empty. The light in the house
remained on.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE
PLANE LAMED AND THUNDERED TO A MP ON THE SHORT strip of tarmac
constituting National Airport’s main runway, hit an immediate left a few
hundred yards from the tiny inlet that accessed the enthusiasts, and
taxiepdotomac for the swarms of weekend boat to gate number nine. An
airport security officer was answering questions from a group of
anxious, camera-toting tourists and did not observe the man walking
rapidly past him. Not that identification was going to be made anyway.
Luther’s return trip had followed the circuity of his exit. A stopover
in Miami, and then Dallas/Fort Worth.
He grabbed a cab and watched the south-moving rushhour traffic on the
George Washington Parkway as weary commuters threaded their way home.
The skies promised more rain, and the wind whipped through the
tree-lined parkway meandering lazily on its parallel course with the
Potomac. Planes periodically rocketed into the air, banking left and
rapidly disappearing into the clouds.
One more battle beckoned Luther. The image of a righteously indignant
President Richmond pounding the lectern in his impassioned speech
against violence, his smug Chief of Staff by his side, was the one
constant in Luther’s life now.
The old, tired and fearful man who had fled the country was no longer
tired, no longer fearful. The overriding guilt at allowing a young woman
to die had been replaced with an overriding hate, an anger that surged
through every nerve in his body. If he was to be, of sorts, Christine
Sullivan’s avenging angel, he would perform that task with every ounce
of energy and every shred of ingenuity he had left.
Luther settled back into his seat, munched on some crackers saved from