The Double Eagle Read Free Page B

watching the red carpet change color as the crystal drops shattered again and again on its soft pile.
     
    Unexpected and unwanted, a thought had occurred to him then, or rather a question. It had slipped into his head and tiptoed around the edges of his consciousness, taunting him.

    “Is it time?”

    Afterward, he had dismissed it. Not given it much thought. Not wanted to, perhaps. But in the two months since the funeral, the question had returned again and again, each time with increasing urgency. It had haunted him, undermining his every action, investing his every word with doubt and uncertainty. Demanding to be answered.

    And now he knew. It was so clear to him. Like winter turning to spring, it was inevitable. It was time. After this, he was going to walk away.
     
    He slid his mask back on, packed the egg up, shut the safe door, and closed the wooden panel. Stealthily retreating across the room, he made his way back out through the window onto the balcony.

    The sirens far below him seemed louder now, and he found that his heart was beating in time with the thumping blades of the police helicopter that was almost overhead, its spotlight raking over the trees and street below, clearly looking for someone or something. Crouching, he attached the rope to his harness and timed his jump for when the helicopter had made its next pass. In an instant he was gone.
     
    Only an eyelash remained where it had fluttered down from his briefly unmasked face to the floor. It glinted black in the moonlight.

CHAPTER TWO
    J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C .
18 July—7:00 A.M.
     
    S he knew what would happen as the door opened and the dark shape came through it. She fought to stop herself, but it was no use. It never was. She raised the gun in front of her in a classic Weaver stance. Her stronger left arm was slightly flexed, pushing the gun away from her. Her supporting arm was bent and pulling the weapon in to create a properly braced grip, her feet apart with her weak-sided right foot slightly forward.
    She fired three shots right in the kill zone—a perfect equilateral triangle. He was dead before he hit the floor, his white shirt billowing red like a bottle of ink spilled onto blotting paper. It was then, as the light hit his face, only then, that she saw what she had done.
     
    Jennifer Browne woke with a jump, peeled her cheek, sticky with sweat, off the desk’s laminate surface and fumbled for the clock. Blinking hard, her eyes adjusting to the glare of the overhead neon, she checked the time. Seven A.M . Shit. Another all-nighter.

    She stretched and flexed her neck, her back clicking into place. Yawning, she reached down and pulled out the bottom desk drawer, reached inside, and took out a cellophane-wrapped white blouse identical to the one she was wearing. It was resting on two others.
     
    Placing it on her desk, she began to unbutton the one she had on, her fingers stiff as she worked the buttons. Eventually, when it was undone, she stood up and slipped it off, dropping it into the open drawer, which she then nudged shut with her foot.

    She was strikingly beautiful in that effortless, double-take way that some women are. Five feet nine, milky brown skin, slender yet curving where it counted, rounded cheeks, and curly black hair that just kissed her bare shoulders. She wore no jewelry, never had, apart from the Tiffany’s twisted heart necklace that her sister had given her on her eighteenth birthday that nestled in the smooth curve of her breasts.
     
    As she buttoned the blouse and tucked it into the waistband of her black trouser suit, she looked around at the windowless, painted concrete walls that encircled her and smiled, the dimples creasing into her soft brown cheeks. Even though it was small, she had still not quite gotten used to having her own office. Her own space. Her own air. After only three months back in D.C., the novelty had certainly not worn off yet. Not by a long way. Not after three