Point of Contact

His throbbing head suddenly turned dizzy. He laid a hand on the van to catch himself as his legs began to buckle, but he willed himself to remain standing. A moment later his vision returned. Must have stood up too quickly, he told himself. Or I’m in shock.

And shock would kill him. So would a brain bleed or a dozen other injuries he might have sustained.

Jack grabbed his phone and started to dial the emergency operator but stopped. If he went to the hospital now he’d be there for hours, and whatever was in that warehouse would be gone by the time he got back. The other problem was that Rhodes said to keep a low profile. If he called this in, there would be hospital records to deal with and, worse, hard questions, probably from the police.

More important, he had a job to do.

He knew he was pushing his luck, but he needed to get inside that warehouse. He’d figure out his injury status later. As far as he could tell, he had all of his fingers and toes, and he could still make a fist.

One of the van’s two rear doors was actually smashed open. Jack shoved it open further and checked the back. The cargo area was trashed, though still intact. Boxes of electrical components, spindles of colored wire, and thick paper-bound catalogs and technical manuals were heaped in a pile, having all been thrown from the metal shelving. He spotted a medical kit bolted to the wall and opened it, and found a box of Tylenol packets. He tore one open and tossed the pills in his mouth, chewing them into a bitter paste, his face souring as he swallowed. That would take the edge off, at least.

He crawled around in the pile further, searching for something else — exactly what, he wasn’t sure.

Until he found them.

One was a toolbox. He rooted around in it. Mostly electrical stuff — needle-nosed pliers, wire strippers, small screwdrivers. The heaviest tool he could find was a crescent wrench. Not exactly a weapon of choice, but it was a good hunk of cast steel. No telling who or what he might encounter. He pocketed it.

The other thing he grabbed was heavy but pliable. Probably a dumb idea, but his pounding headache wasn’t going to let him solve any quadratic equations tonight. He decided to trust his instincts.

He extricated himself from the pile of electrical supplies and exited the van with a grunt. When he stood up he saw the street number on the building in front of him. That meant the warehouse was two blocks farther up.

He arranged the items he’d pulled from the van on his person, then checked the street in both directions. He saw a pair of headlights a mile behind him, heading in his direction. Cop car? No flashing lights. But who knows? And if not this one, maybe the next.

If he was going to get in that warehouse, it was now or never.

He dashed across the street in a kind of a run-limp, every muscle in his body screaming, his brain bobbling against his skull with every thudding step.

Jack smiled. It suddenly occurred to him that this easy, white-side vacation Gerry sent him on just might wind up killing him.

* * *

Yong and Meili were dressed now, and staring at the computer screen, watching Jack’s red tracking dot advance toward the warehouse.

“I told you he was persistent,” Yong said.

Meili was on her cell phone.

“He’s on the way.”

49

FALLS CHURCH, VIRGINIA

Rhodes paced the floor of his fourth-floor office, ignoring the magnificent view.

Like his two defense-industry rivals Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, Marin Aerospace was located in Fairfax County, Virginia. It wasn’t a convenient location for manufacturing and it didn’t offer any particular economic or comparative advantages except for one: The small Virginia county in the northernmost reaches of the state sat just across the border from Washington, D.C.

As with every other major corporation in the United States, the most important business decisions Marin Aerospace made occurred in the halls of Congress. Access to legislators was more valuable than raw materials, cash, or credit. Legislative access — crony capitalism — was how Marin Aerospace acquired most of its government contracts, blunted potentially harmful regulations, tempered investigations into cost overruns, and otherwise kept the cash cow flowing with taxpayer-subsidized milk. Rhodes didn’t like the way the game was played — most of his C-suite friends didn’t, either — but he didn’t invent the rules; he mastered them.

But today was a different kind of headache.

The kind that could get him killed.

Or worse.

He could wind up broke.

Rhodes had a lot of personal money riding on this operation. So would Zvezdev. But he wasn’t a fool. He’d crossed Zvezdev once before. “All in the past. Time to make money!” he’d promised. But the wily Bulgarian was still a Slav, and Slavs had long memories — and even longer knives. He didn’t dare cross him again.