End Game Read Free

he came full face on with the ruined remains of what he could only vaguely describe as a human being. His stomach did a very sharp roll.
    Wager, if that was who it was, had been destroyed from the neck up. Something had bitten or chewed out the entire side of his neck on the left side, blood all down the front and side of his white shirt. His face had been massively damaged as well, as if a pack of wild animals had had at him. His nose was mostly gone, his eyebrows shredded, his lips missing, his teeth obscenely white.
    Bambridge stepped back a pace, a sickness rising in his throat. “My God,” he whispered.
    Wager’s body lay on its side in front of a small desk. The chair had been pushed to one side, up against a file cabinet. The back of his trousers was completely covered in fecal matter. He’d lost control of his bowels either at the time of his death or shortly before. If there had been any sign of horror or pain or surprise on his face, it was completely gone. His features had either been eaten away or were covered in blood and tissue—human meat.
    It was the most awful thing Bambridge had ever seen or imagined.
    â€œI’m sorry, sir, but I could not have described this to you,” Blankenship said.
    â€œCould a guard dog have gotten in here?” Bambridge asked. It was the only thing he could think to ask.
    â€œNo, sir. They’re all accounted for. Anyway, none of our dogs would have done something like this.”
    â€œA wild animal?”
    â€œMaybe, but then someone with the proper badges to get into this building, onto this floor, and into this office would have had to let it in.”
    â€œNo one saw or heard a thing?”
    â€œNo, sir.”
    A few splotches of blood had stained the desktop inches from the phone.
    â€œDid he manage to call someone?”
    â€œNo.”
    Bambridge tore his eyes away from the horrible thing on the floor, gagging as the smell, associated with what he was seeing, fully hit him. He walked out into the clean air of the corridor, where he leaned his back against the wall.
    Blankenship joined him. “What’re your orders, sir?”
    â€œAre your people finished?”
    â€œJust about.”
    â€œWhen they are, call the police. I want the body out of here and the mess cleaned up before the morning shift.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    Bambridge looked at him. “I’ll be back later, but right now I’m going home. I need a shower.”
    â€œI understand.”

 
    THREE
    Istvan Fabry at fifty felt like an old man, though he would never admit it to Fanni, his American-born wife, or his sons, Richard and Mark, but Iraq, and later Afghanistan, had worn him to the bone.
    He left the Bubble, which was the CIA’s auditorium, and drove his three-year-old Fusion over to the Scattergood-Thorne house just off the GW Parkway, but still on the CIA’s campus. It was very late, just a bit before 2 A.M. , but he’d always been an extremely light sleeper. Eight hours a night meant a person would be, for all practical purposes, dead for one-third of his life. It wasn’t for Istvan.
    The DCI was hosting a dozen influential congressmen plus a like number of intelligence and counterterrorism professionals from the FBI, the National Security Agency, and other intel and LE agencies to discuss plans for the top-down reorganization of America’s approach to nontraditional warfare. Fabry was front man for the setup, and he wanted to be well ahead of the curve before the 0800 start.
    The Bubble’s projection equipment was loaded with the proper PowerPoint and video programs, mostly of his own creation, and once the presentation was done, the VIPs would be bused over to the house for the actual conference.
    Parking in front of the large colonial that sat partially concealed in the woods just off the GW Parkway, he got out of the car and stopped to listen to the nearly absolute silence. Only a light breeze in the