Breakpoint Read Free Page B

House, looked pained. “Oh, I can’t tell the White House that. They won’t like that at all.”
    1330 EST
Pentagon Officers’ Athletic Center (POAC)
Arlington, Virginia
    â€œI’m open!” Jimmy yelled across the court, then leaped to catch the ball thrown to him in response. He spun, dribbled, and went for the three-pointer. The ball rolled around the rim like a train on a rail, then just dropped in and through. As he raised his clenched fists over his head, Jimmy felt the vibration near his waist and pulled the Bluetooth earpiece out of his pocket. Walking to the side of the court, he pointed to the bench, to Darren, the tech-support guy who never got to play. “You’re in.”
    â€œYah get one decent basket and yah walk off! What the fuck, Jimmy?” he heard a teammate say.
    â€œDetective Foley,” said the voice in his ear, “this is Operations. The Director would like you to meet him at the British Embassy ASAP. Can I tell him your ETA?”
    Jimmy Foley looked down at his sweat-drenched T-shirt and calculated how fast he could shower, change, and get on his Harley Fat Boy. “Where’s the embassy?”
    There was a pause, which at first he assumed was the duty officer on the other end looking up the address. Then, from the officer’s tone, he realized it had been stunned silence at Jimmy’s ignorance at what apparently everyone in Washington should have known. “On Embassy Row? Mass. Ave?”
    â€œThirty minutes from now,” Jimmy guessed as he moved into the locker room. “Say, two o’clock.” Turning the corner on the row of lockers, Jimmy’s six-foot-two-inch frame almost collided with the frail, naked body of a man in his seventies or eighties. The skin seemed to hang off the old man’s body. The POAC, as Jimmy’s military buddies called their gym, always had retired colonels and generals doddering around trying to stay fit, trying to recall their younger, military lives. “Sorry, General,” Jimmy mumbled as he deked around the open locker door. He looked at the old man and admired the fact that he was still keeping in some sort of shape. He thought of his father, locked up inside a jumbled mind, staring at a television in an assisted-living home on Long Island. Wouldn’t it be great if he could take his dad to a gym and work out with him once in a while?
    â€œThat’s Admiral, not General, asshole,” Jimmy heard behind him as he threw his clothes on the floor and moved off toward the showers.
    1335 EST
Northeast Women’s Crisis Center
2nd Street NE, Washington, D.C.
    â€œI gots to get out of D.C.,” the woman on the other side of the desk said. “My man is gonna find me. Thought I saw his ass down the corner yesterday. Only so many battered shelters in this town. He gonna find me.”
    Susan Connor looked at the woman. It was possible they were about the same age, but the woman looked older, her eyes sunken, her nose broken. “You’re afraid he’ll hurt you again if he finds you?” Susan asked.
    â€œHe ain’t bringin’ me fuckin’ flowers, sister. Wants his money back, but I done spent all that on the bus tickets, get the kids gone to my momma.”
    Susan felt unsure of what to do or say, which was unusual for her. This was really not her world. “I’m sure the people here at the center could get you a lawyer, get a judge to issue a restraining order to keep him away from you….”
    The woman’s mouth dropped open and she stared at Susan, dumbfounded. “You talkin’ ’bout me going to court? When I ain’t been arrested? And Darnell gonna care what some guy in a robe say?”
    â€œLook, we can help.” Susan stopped as she heard the tone in her earpiece. She pressed the receive button. “Connor here.” The woman shook her head and wandered off to sit with three others watching a