High Treason

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“Dad! There’s—” Josef’s words were cut short by Dwhat sounded like a slap.

In the fog of the assault, Nicholas couldn’t react fast enough. He raised his hands to fight his attackers, but a kick to his testicles followed by a blow to his belly made his knees sag.

The men said nothing, but when they spoke, it was in Russian. Just a few words at a time. They worked with what seemed to be a practiced efficiency. They slipped a hood over his head, and cinched it in place. Even as that was happening, they planted a foot in his back and stretched his arms painfully behind him. He knew from the sound and the feel that the bindings on his wrists were handcuffs, but then it felt as if they’d wrapped another length of rope around his elbows.

In less than fifteen seconds, he’d been completely immobilized.

“Where is Josef?” Nicholas grunted. They kicked him again in the balls, but they wouldn’t let him fall. “Please don’t hurt my boy,” he said. “He’s only thirteen. He’s done nothing.” Nicholas had done nothing wrong, either, but he’d confess to the crucifixion of Jesus if would spare his boy this kind of treatment.

They’d hit Josef, for God’s sake. Men beating on a little boy. How could anyone—

Still without a word exchanged between them, the attackers pulled on the rope at his neck, leading him out of his bedroom and into the hallway.

“Josef!” Nicholas cried. “Joey! Are you—”

This time the punch landed in his right kidney, hard enough to make him think that something had maybe ruptured. It was a command to be silent.

“Joey!”

The next punch had to have broken a rib. The pain from the kidney shot lit up his entire torso, from his hip to his shoulder.

“Dad!” It came more as a shriek than a word, and it sounded muffled. The boy yelped in pain after that and fell silent.

But at least he was alive.

And Nicholas was powerless to protect him.

He fought the urge to beg for mercy. Not only would it be useless, but it would give even more of an upper hand to these brutes who already held all the cards. Whatever was going on, Nicholas would be even less a protector — no, he’d become a burden — if he were crippled by these people.

They led him from the front, pulling on the rope as if he were a recalcitrant dog on a leash. Because he’d walked this path countless times over the years, he knew to expect the stairs, but they still arrived before he was ready. A captor in the rear grabbed the triangle formed by his bound arms to keep him falling face-first, but the pace never slowed.

He reflexively counted the thirteen steps to the tile foyer. It all felt so cold on his bare chest and bare feet. He wondered if they’d left the door open.

Then he was outside, surrounded by cold. Combined with the fear, it triggered convulsive shivers. He wanted to ask where they were taking him, and whether they were taking Josef to the same place, but he realized the futility.

Nicholas told himself that there was no reason to kill Josef. Whatever this was about, it had to be Nicholas that they were angry with. Josef was merely — what? In the way, perhaps.

He hadn’t realized that it had snowed until they marched him through it. It didn’t feel more than ankle deep, but after only a few frigid steps, his feet started to cramp from the cold.

Good God, was Josef enduring this same treatment? This same fear and this same pain? He knew they had struck him, but how hard? Was he still conscious?

Was he still—

No. Don’t go there.

It made no sense to consider the worst outcome until he had some idea of what was going on.

Among the thousands of thoughts that raced through his head as his body tried to adjust to the cold and the pain, the one that registered more clearly than any other was how angry Marcie was going to be when she found out what had happened during Josef’s visit to his father.

The thought brought sadness, and the sadness displaced much of his fear. If Nicholas had been a better father, they would still be a family. And if they were still a family, then none of this would have happened. If he were a stronger man, he would be fighting back and his son would be safe.

His kidnappers pulled him to a stop, and then he was airborne, lying faceup in the air with hands firmly around his torso and his legs. They were lifting him.

Seconds later, air barked out of his lungs as they dropped him roughly onto a hard surface. He landed on his side, and as his handcuffs hit the floor, he heard a metallic clank. Metal on metal. And the surface felt corrugated. It felt as if he were on the floor of a van. Or a workingman’s truck.

Panic seized his gut as he thought through the possibilities. They could take him anywhere. Or they could push the vehicle over a cliff, or they could set it on fire with him inside.

Whatever it was, he would be powerless—

He felt something sharp hit his thigh, and then he felt the spreading coldness that could only come from an injection.

Then he felt nothing at all.

Yelena looked confused. “Who are David and Becky?” Jonathan explained. “According to the man who tried to kill them, they were collateral damage.” He gave a brief recap of his interview with the two assassins, leaving out the gory details.

“Do I want to know how you got them to give all of that up?” Irene asked when he was done.

“You know where your people took them, right?” Jonathan asked.

Irene looked at the floor.

“Then you know how we got them to talk. If it makes a difference, I had nothing to do with the methods chosen.”

He shifted his attention back to the First Lady. “So, Mrs. Darmond. Where have you been and what have you been doing since the time of the shooting at the Wild Times?”

“I’ve been trying to get my bearings,” she said. “Trying to make sense of the world. In the confusion after the shootings, Steve and Albert rushed me out a back door. I gave them each a copy of the files I couldn’t decode, and they dropped me off out in the suburbs, in a Hampton Inn.”

This time it was Venice. “Oh, come on. You mean you checked into a hotel and no one recognized you?”

“I already told you,” Yelena said. “I’m very good at disguises.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Then, the next morning, when I was watching the news, I heard that DeShawn Lincoln had been killed and I started to panic.”

Jonathan kept his poker face. “Who’s DeShawn Lincoln?” he baited.

“He’s a DC cop,” she said. “Was. Such a shame. He was friends with Steve, who probably told him more than he should have. We were just so desperate to find out what our options were. Steve told him what we suspected was going on, and he, DeShawn, promised to keep an eye out. Then, what happened happened, and DeShawn ended up killed.

“I tried calling Steve when I heard the news, and when I couldn’t get through, I knew something terrible had happened to him, too. I called Albert Banks, and he had already heard about Steve and he was in a panic. The White House knew what we were trying to do, and they’d put the Secret Service up to cleaning us all out. I was terrified.”

Irene said, “We’re all here, right now, because I got a call from General Grand, chief of staff of the Army. He told me that he had heard from Mrs. Darmond that there was trouble. In fact, he called it a dire threat to the nation.”

“So why are you in Fisherman’s Cove instead of in some situation room somewhere?” Jonathan asked. “Why haven’t you activated some counterterrorism task force to expose the plot and bring the bad guys to justice?”

Irene said, “Accusations are not evidence. If we were to come forward with what we have, the administration would merely deny everything, cancel whatever they had in motion, and make us a laughingstock. And as a flag officer in the United States Army, General Grand would be guilty of high treason.”

Whatever burden Jonathan was feeling before quadrupled. “So, again. Why are you here?”

A long pause.

Irene broke the silence. “You’re a patriot’s patriot,” she said. “We knew you could provide a safe haven.”

“And then what?” Venice asked.

“That’s where it starts to get sketchy,” Irene said with a smile that was clearly designed to disarm.

A double-tap knock on the door prompted Boxers to rise and open it.

David and Becky stood on the other side, and they both looked like hammered shit.

“Welcome back,” Jonathan said. “Did you have a nice escape?”

David led the way into the library. “Oh, man,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe—” He caught his first glimpse of the First Lady and stopped so abruptly that Becky collided into him.

“Oh. My. God,” he said.

It took only a few more seconds for the color to drain from Becky’s face. “Mrs. Darmond?” she said.

Yelena flashed the smile that the tabloids knew so well. “The one and only.” She extended her hand.

Becky took it in both of hers. “It’s an honor to meet you,” she said. “But I’m so sorry about your family.”

Yelena’s face turned to stone as everyone in the room froze. “What about my family?”

“Oh, shit,” David said. “You don’t know.”

Yelena stood. For the first time, Jonathan saw real emotion in her eyes. And the emotion was fear. “What about my family?”

David seemed shocked to be delivering the news. “Your son,” he said. “Nicholas. He’s been kidnapped.”