The Solomon Effect Read Free Page A

she’d been seeing Jax for almost a month now. They had a relaxing long weekend planned, starting with an early dinner and tickets to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, followed by a couple days of sailing in the Chesapeake.
    “Who’d you have to kill to get this place, anyway?” she asked as he peeled the foil off the top of the wine bottle.
    Built of brick with white trim and louvered shutters, the elegant townhouse overlooking the Potomac River in Old Alexandria was way, way beyond the reach of most CIA operatives. Especially disgraced ones. He eased the cork from the bottle. “Senator James Herman Winston.”
    She gave a startled laugh, her nose crinkling in a way he liked. She was smart and funny without being at all pretentious, which was remarkable, considering that she was both gorgeous and a rising star with the biggest lobbying firm on the Hill.
    She watched him pour the wine. “I’d heard a rumor your grandfather was Senator Winston, but I didn’t believe it.”
    The Winstons were one of those venerable old New England families that could trace their eminently respectable lineage back to Colonial days. Which was why the Senator had never quite recovered from his only daughter Sophie’s short, disastrous marriage to a guitar-playing hippie namedAiden Xavier Alexander. Jax handed her a glass. “He had a hard time believing it himself.”
    “Good Lord,” said Kelly, her eyes suddenly going wide. “That means your mother is Sophie Talbot.”
    “Well, her name was Talbot the last I checked. But she’s had so many husbands I sometimes have a hard time keeping track.” Sophie had divorced Jax’s father when Jax was four, with a new husband—and a new name—appearing every few years since then. After the disaster of her first marriage, Sophie had made sure all her subsequent husbands were rich, powerful men.
    Kelly laughed again. Then her smile faded. “That must have been tough, growing up.”
    “Nah. Growing up in the projects is tough. Being shunted off to boarding schools from the age of six is just…” He hesitated, searching for the right word.
    “Lonely,” she finished for him.
    “Well, yeah.”
    They stood for a time watching the breeze billowing the canvas of a small sailboat as it headed toward shore. Jax felt his cell phone begin to vibrate. He ignored it.
    “Mmmm,” said Kelly, closing her eyes as she took a sip of the wine. “No one makes wine like the French.”
    Jax’s cell stopped vibrating. He turned the bottle so she could see the label. “It’s Australian. A McWilliams.”
    She choked on her wine, her laughter ringing out clear and uninhibited. “Oops.”
    He smiled, enjoying the way the setting sun brought out the subtle tones of auburn in her long dark hair…and heard the phone in the kitchen begin to ring.
    “Sounds like someone’s kinda desperate to get ahold of you,” she said.
    Jax set aside his wineglass. “I need to go check on the salmon anyway. Be right back.”
    Even before he saw that the number was blocked on his caller ID, Jax knew who it was. Cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder, Jax eased open the oven door. “I’ve got three days off, Matt. Remember? Leave me alone.”
    The voice on the other end of the phone gave a gruff laugh. “All leave has been canceled until after Halloween. Or hadn’t you heard?”
    Jax reached for the oven mitts. “All leave has been canceled for essential personnel. There aren’t many advantages to being on the DCI’s shitlist, but in this instance, being labeled ‘nonessential personnel’ is one of them.”
    “Looks like you’re more essential than you thought. The DCI himself wants you in on this.”
    Jax set the hot poaching pan on the kitchen’s marble-topped island with a soft thump. “That sounds ominous. Is he hoping it’ll get me killed, or just humiliated?”
    “Maybe both.”

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    Division Thirteen, CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia:
Saturday 24 October 5:25 P.M. local