Night’s Landing

Thirty-Three

Janssen cocooned himself in the fishy, salty-smelling woolen blanket and tried to stay warm deep in the bowels of the ancient trawler that was taking him to safety. Away from luxury, away from hope. He hadn’t slept in hours, because when he did, he dreamed of his mother crying for him on her deathbed, of Betsy Dunnemore smiling at him at eighteen and making his heart melt. He’d let them both down.

John Wesley Poe.

Conroy Fontaine.

He was the psycho who’d interfered in his life and shot the marshals in Central Park. Who’d tried to extort five million dollars from him for a pardon that was even more of a fantasy-a flight of fancy-than Janssen’s own dream of getting Betsy Dunnemore to intervene with the president on his behalf.

Conroy had weaseled his way into Janssen’s life last fall and learned everything about him.

No, not everything. Too much, certainly, but not everything.

Not the location of his safe houses. Not his backup plans once he knew there was little hope for a simple conviction on tax evasion charges.

Five years in prison? He’d be lucky now to avoid the death penalty.

Charlene Brooker, lowly army intelligence officer, had been pulling at the thread that would unravel everything and set him up for big trouble. Her meeting with Betsy-beautiful Betsy-was the last straw for Janssen.

But it was Conroy Fontaine with his crazy idea that he was the president’s half brother who’d destroyed the careful life Nicholas had constructed for himself, all in an attempt to extort money from him for a pardon and manipulate the president of the United States into acknowledging him as his brother.

The crazy fuck.

Now the authorities apparently had the concrete information they needed to turn the suspicions of a murdered military intelligence officer into a full-blown investigation of all his activities.

He had become one of the most wanted criminals in the world.

But he was prepared. He had a plan for just such a worst-case scenario.

He would survive. He’d always survived.

The Dutch police, the Swiss police, U.S. law enforcement, Interpol-they all wanted his scalp. But at least with them, even with all he’d done, it was professional, not personal. They would capture him and bring him to trial. They wouldn’t slit his throat in the night.

With Ethan Brooker, it was different. It was very personal.

The hatch creaked open. “Sir?”

“What is it?” Janssen asked irritably.

“I have news of the man you wanted me to-”

Brooker. “Yes, what?”

“The FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service want him for questioning in that mess that happened in Tennessee. He’s disappeared.”

Just as I feared.

Janssen had two choices. One, he could let Ethan Brooker come to him. Two, he could get to Ethan Brooker before Brooker got to him.

He pulled the blanket over him, shivering on the cold, skinny mat under him.

Those weren’t any choices at all.