Samurai Game Read Free Page A

how’s it going?” he greeted as he sauntered over to her car. “Nice night for all this cloak-and-dagger drama.”
    Sheila stuck her head out the window. Her car was still running. “No one followed you?”
    “I don’t think there’s a cow alive on this road tonight. I haven’t seen headlights in the last fifteen minutes.” He resisted rolling his eyes as he held out his hand for the fat envelope. “Senator Lupan will do exactly as I ask him. Tell Whitney he has no worries on that score. The old man can barely breathe without his oxygen. I keep him isolated and happy. He has no family; there’s only me, and no one realizes just how bad that last stroke really was. He relies very heavily on me now.”
    “He can’t step down until this is done, Harry,” Sheila reiterated as she placed the envelope in the aide’s outstretched palm.
    “No worries. He’ll hang in there, if for no other reason than for something to do. He’s sick, but his mind is active and he needs the interaction and the adulation his position provides. I stroke his ego and a few other things for him and he falls right into line.” Harry flashed her his most charming smile. “It’s all good, Sheila. He’ll vote the way we want him to. I guarantee it.”
    “Would you bet your life on it?” Sheila asked with a snide curl of her lip.
    Harry’s smile faded as he turned away from her in disgust. Sheila Benet was a coldhearted bitch. He’d never once failed Dr. Whitney. It didn’t matter how distasteful the task was, he got it done. Just because Sheila had the mad doctor’s ear didn’t make her so damn high and mighty. As many years as he’d been working for Whitney and taking the payoffs from Sheila, one would think she would have tried to be a little friendly.
    “Harry.” Sheila had followed him to his car. “It doesn’t pay in this business to get overconfident. Anyone can be bought. We got to you, didn’t we?”
    Harry gave her a black scowl and tossed the thick envelope of bills in his glove box in disgust, not bothering to count the money. It was always right. He started his car and then slammed the door closed, flipped Sheila off, and took off fast, leaving her standing there.
    “Stupid, uptight woman, probably hasn’t gotten laid in ten years,” he snapped and glanced in his rearview mirror to see that she’d just gotten into her car.
    When he looked toward the road, there was a woman sitting beside him—small, Asian features, hair covered by a tight skullcap. She grabbed the wheel with gloved hands and jerked hard, sending the BMW straight over the cliff, plunging into the deep gorge below. Tree limbs hit the window, smashing the glass, and the car hit another treetop on the way down and began to roll. He shouted, his hoarse voice steadily cursing, although he had no idea what he was saying. When he managed to look again, he was alone in the car—the woman a figment of his imagination.
    Sheila saw Harry’s car abruptly turn straight for the cliff and drive right off of it as she pulled to the shoulder of the road. She slammed on her brakes, her heart pounding. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God,” she chanted.
    Her mouth went dry. With shaking hands she drove to the edge of the road where the car had gone over and climbed out. It was a long way down. Whitney hadn’t been happy about losing Brenda, a key member of his pipeline to Washington, and he really would be upset if Harry was dead. No one else had ever managed Lupan. The senator believed his aide was the only constant in his life who cared about him. He’d be lost without Harry. She couldn’t imagine him doing anything but staying in bed if Harry really died.
    She had no choice but to try to make her way down there and see if he was still alive. Cursing both Whitney and Harry under her breath, she changed from heels to her running shoes, put her hazard lights on, and made her way carefully to the edge. The terrain was very steep in some places but with a little work