Power Play (An FBI Thriller) Read Free Page B

forth into this very fine day, but dress warmly or you’ll chilblain your toes. I let you sleep in since you enjoyed such a lovely fun-filled Monday night with a very pretty blonde, oddly enough, ofLatin origin. You might want to call your boss, tell him you’ll be late again. I’ll expect you at my house for breakfast in an hour.” And she rang off.
    He called Savich, who was eating Cheerios, and heard Sean in the background saying he wanted to play tight end for the Patriots like the Gronk, maybe in a couple years when he got big enough. Davis told him about Ms. Black’s call. All Savich said was “I hope there’s not another Jitterbug waiting for you, Davis.”
    Thirty minutes later, as Davis drove his Jeep toward Chevy Chase, he wondered if Ms. Black Leather Biker Babe would be eating grapefruit with them. And how had Mrs. Black known about Elena from Treasury?

 
    Natalie Black’s house
Chevy Chase, Maryland
    Tuesday morning
    D avis pulled his Jeep close to the discreetly inset intercom next to the huge wrought-iron gate on Ridgewood Road, saw the guardhouse was empty, and pushed the button. He looked up, smiled into the camera, and tried to look as nonthreatening as a sheepdog.
    A man’s deep voice came through the intercom, “Yeah, I see it’s you, Mr. Hotshot. Mrs. Black told me to let you in.” He finished off with a snort. Davis didn’t think they were going to be best buds, sharing a beer at the Feathers.
    Davis pulled in front of the beautiful old house, which had probably been built around the beginning of the twentieth century. It had a full three stories with a deep wraparound porch, at least a half-dozen chimneys, and big windows everywhere. It was painted a soft light blue with chocolate trim, though he thought it could use a bit of a touch-up. He stepped out of his Jeep to see a young guy in a green feed cap riding on a mower in clean straight lines over the large front lawn. He breathed in a hint of early springjasmine, his mom’s favorite, triggering a memory of being a teenager and wanting to go back to sleep. It wasn’t breath-seeing cold, but close enough. He zipped up his leather jacket.
    The front door opened and there stood the big man again, Hooley, who’d come busting out of the house yesterday morning, eager and ready to jerk out his tonsils until Natalie had called him off.
    Davis eyed Hooley now, his beefy arms crossed over his beefy chest, a black turtleneck stretched around his thick neck, looking like he could punch out Muhammad Ali in his heyday, and wondered if Hooley’s IQ was a match for his muscles. He walked past the bodyguard, knowing the middle of his back was being tracked. It didn’t occur to him that Hooley was thinking Davis looked like a pussy with a smart mouth, and not even contemplating the size of his brain until he said, “You shouldn’t be here, yahoo,” and he cracked his knuckles for emphasis. “We don’t need you hanging around bragging about how cool you are.”
    Davis turned, gave Hooley an appalled look. “What? You’re saying you don’t think I’m cool, Beef?”
    “My name’s Hooley, jerk-off. My granny looks cooler than you racing in her wheelchair.”
    Not bad.
“You should visit the Bonhomie Club
sometime, meet Fuzz and Marvin. They’ll tell you what a cool guy I am.” He grinned.
    After a moment, Hooley grinned back. It looked painful. “I’ve heard about the backroom poker games there. Follow me. Mrs. Black likes to have breakfast in the sunroom.”
    Davis followed Hooley through a maze of hallways, all wide and high-ceilinged, with original art on the walls, ancient Persian carpets on the polished wood floors. They walked through the kitchen, a modern marvel beneath carved crown moldings fromten decades ago, into the sunroom, obviously added on, a small screened-in room with space heaters going full blast, looking out over a big backyard, beautifully kept, the big stone fence covered with ivy, thick trees behind it.
    “Agent