Close Quarters

SIXTY

The afternoon was growing old when, just over sixty miles south-west of Washington DC, Senator Howard Benson strode up the gravel path to his weekend cottage in Lake of the Woods, Virginia. He was smiling, feeling good about himself and what he’d accomplished. He’d seen off the twin threat of Cready and Conkley, and not even the safe return of Travis and Portman had been enough to dent his self-confidence.

In fact, by some careful positioning, he’d been able to avoid being pulled into the aura of blame that was currently circulating in the corridors of the State Department and the CIA looking for a culprit. He’d also managed to ensure that his contact down the street, the one who went under the name of Gus Boranov, and who’d agreed to have Travis and Watchman taken care of, was keeping his head down with an eternal promise of silence about their recent exchange.

Even his colleagues in the Dupont Group had proved themselves satisfied by the results of their work — well, his work. Given a couple of weeks or so to let the dust settle, he was now confident of being able to deal with Chapin and his ill-considered threats. For now he was content to play along, being the friend and co-conspirator, the hand of influence inside the government machine. But all it would take was a phone call and whatever recordings the elderly lawyer might have made through his internal bugs in the library would be located and wiped clean. When that was done, his recent health scare would rear up into something real — and terminal.

Benson would make absolutely certain of that.

He used his key to open the door, breathing in the warm tang of newly varnished wood and the sharper scent of pine. He’d found the place by chance in a moment of idle on-line property hunting. Built as a small family weekend escape, it was ideal for a single man like himself who occasionally needed time away from the bear pit that was Washington DC. A single call and an above-market offer had been enough to secure it. Now he intended to enjoy it to the full. Maybe he needed some company to help warm the place up a little.

He walked into the main lounge. And stopped dead.

Somebody had been in here. He could feel it in the air. Not the workman who’d remodelled the decking in front of the glass picture windows overlooking the lake; they’d had no need to enter the house to do their work. And not the security team he’d been advised to bring in to sweep the place for bugs. But someone else; someone who had left the barest traces of their passing, like a silent footprint.

He dropped his car keys on a nearby coffee table and hurried up the flight of open redwood stairs to the first level, which held a shower room, dressing room and study. A further flight led to the bedrooms and a bathroom, and the veranda with a spectacular view across the water.

He felt his heart beginning to pound. Whoever had been here was now gone; he could tell that much. But they’d left more than mere traces of their passage. A sheet of paper lay on the floor outside the study. Other sheets lay scattered around inside the room. The oak desk had been plundered, the drawers ripped open and thrown aside, and a filing cabinet lay on its side, the file folders spilling out on to the floor.

He uttered a groan. It wasn’t the furniture that concerned him. Whatever lay in them was of no consequence, the kind of paper records kept by every household across the land; bills, receipts, quotations and building and decorating plans. But nothing sensitive.

What took his breath away was the state of a panel in the wall behind the desk. What had been built to resemble a plain wall was actually a shallow filing recess, secured by an electronic key-card which slid into a concealed slot in the wood. It was where Benson placed his most treasured papers and flash drives, the things most valued that had kept him secure all these years from people who had imagined they could bring him down.

People like Vernon Chapin.

But instinct told him this wasn’t Chapin’s work.

The panel had been smashed and ripped off, exposing the shelves and trays built into the wall. More papers lay about the floor, and he felt as if his heart was going to explode as he saw what else was there.

Photos. Dozens of photos. Obscene and horrible in their vile depictions, the kind of things no normal society would ever condone or understand. He groaned again and kicked them aside in revulsion. There were CDs, too, and flash drives he didn’t recognize but could guess at their contents. This was the kind of destruction of a man’s character that would never go away, false as it was.

He turned to the computer on the desk. It was switched on, humming quietly, and he knew the worst was yet to come. Pictures, flash drives and CDs could be destroyed. But not websites or downloads buried deep in the guts of the system for investigators to find, placed there by an expert.

He felt the final nail of destruction go in when he saw the screen come alive. It was his contacts list, private as well as public, linked to his email and other sites.

This was going to destroy him.

Benson found he was crying. The tears of anger and frustration coursing down his cheeks at the realization that somebody had visited upon him the worst kind of retribution, punishment of a kind that could never be imagined by anyone in his position. No matter what he said, the stigma would stick forever. He’d be finished.

He kicked his way out of the room and stumbled downstairs, hardly able to breath. He veered towards the phone, then stopped. What was he going to do? Call the police? Announce a press conference to protest his innocence? It wouldn’t work; there were too many people ready to line up against him.

But what he could do was take as many down with him. Politicians, senior government staffers, members of the general intelligence community and the military who had opposed him … he had something on them all. He went to a cupboard next to the fire in the main room. Pulled back a sliding door and reached inside for a catch to release a concealed safe built into the wall. Inside he had enough evidence to keep the media and the Washington legal profession busy for years to come.

His cell phone rang.

He debated ignoring it. What was the point? But arrogance quickly took over.

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t bother checking your hidey-hole, Senator. There’s nothing there.’

It was Two-One.

Benson nearly threw up with the shock of hearing the man’s voice. He turned to the cupboard and found the safe door already open, the empty shelves taunting him. Nothing. Not a scrap of paper or an electronic storage item left.

‘What — why are you doing this?’ He felt cheated, his voice rising in a shriek of bitter resentment at this betrayal. ‘Who paid you to do this?’

‘We both know why, Senator. One: you would have betrayed me eventually, sold me out. It’s what men in your position do. As for who paid me … there’s nobody. This one is for free. On me.’ Two-One chuckled softly. ‘Goodbye, Senator. Oh, and you might like to take a look out the window. There’s a surprise out there for you.’

‘Wha—?’ Benson swung round towards the picture window, with its magnificent view over the lake, to the blue sky and the multitude of greens among the trees on the far shore. A flicker of colour came from a sail boat curving gently across the water, and close to, not far from the shoreline in front of the house, a low, sleek shape that he guessed was one of the open water canoeists who roamed the area in all weathers.

It was idyllic. Serene. The kind of scene he had paid for but had never seen enough times to fully appreciate.

It was the last time he was to lay eyes on it.

He frowned, wondering why the canoeist was holding his paddle into his shoulder.

Then he heard a ping and saw a star appear in the centre of the glass. At the same time he felt a shocking blow to his chest, as if he’d been punched. He staggered a little and looked down, the phone dropping from nerveless fingers. A bright red flower had blossomed out of nowhere on his shirt front, horribly vivid, yet somehow unreal. He stared down, uncomprehending. Then the pain began, coursing through his body as his system responded to the invasive shock and trauma, making his legs go numb and his bladder give way in a heated rush that at any other time would have been horribly embarrassing.

Instead he felt sick.

He heard a second ping, but only vaguely, and another flower appeared alongside the first.

Reason told him it should have hurt, just like the first one.

But it didn’t.