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“We’re going on a cruise?” Washburn said.
“First, I’m going to show you my facility. A place called Oz.”
Washburn’s lip curled. “You’re joking.”
“Have you found me funny up to this point?”
Washburn put up his hands. “Okay. Oz. Where is it?”
“You won’t know that, but I will show you my operation because I need you to believe I can do everything I say I can do.”
“Which is what, exactly?”
“I operate a revolutionary surveillance system. One that needs to be seen to be believed. It’s called Sentinel. I also want you with me when we complete our most important mission using Sentinel’s capabilities. You gave your company the excuse I told you?”
Washburn nodded. “I’m here to review our aid for the Haitian earthquake rebuilding efforts.”
“Good. That will survive scrutiny. Not that anyone will suspect you have anything to do with what’s about to happen.”
“Which is?”
Kensit ignored the question. “Who is standing in your way in the next presidential election?”
“No one’s declared yet, but James Sandecker has a head start as the incumbent vice president if he wants the presidency. Are you saying you have dirt on Sandecker, too?”
“No, he’s squeaky clean. But you’ll need an edge to win in the primary. That’s why we have to make you vice president.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I’m going to kill Sandecker.”
Washburn’s eyes bugged out. “You want me to be party to killing the vice president of the United States?”
“You’ve killed before. You’ll have to kill again if you’re president, you’ll just have drones and soldiers doing it for you. You’re all in, just like I am.”
“You think killing him will make me president?”
“You were the second choice for vice president in the election. You’re nearly certain to be selected as his replacement, making you the instant front-runner.”
“But it’s crazy! Even if I agreed to go along with this, you’d never be able to do it. The Secret Service protects him as well as they protect the president.”
“You leave that to me.”
Washburn eyed him with the implacable face of a career politician. “If I’m ‘all in,’ I think I deserve to know what you’re planning.”
Kensit sighed in annoyance, but he supposed it wouldn’t hurt now to reveal the mission’s goal. All of Washburn’s electronics had been confiscated by Bazin, so there would be no way for him to convey any information until after the deed was done. By then it would be too late for him to chicken out.
/> “In three days the vice president will be returning from a summit in Rio de Janeiro,” Kensit said. “When he is over the Caribbean, I’m going to shoot down Air Force Two.”
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Juan had never met St. Julien Perlmutter in person, but he had consulted with him several times during past missions, most recently about a sunken Chinese junk called the Silent Sea. When Tyler Locke mentioned a potential link between Kensit and a ship called the Roraima, Juan’s first call after leaving Pax River was to Perlmutter. The maritime expert was delighted to hear that Juan was in the neighborhood. A noted gourmand as well, he insisted that Juan and Eric join him for a late lunch at his home.
Juan’s second call was to Langston Overholt, who told him that DNA analysis would take several days even if they could find original samples of Kensit and Pearson’s DNA to compare the tissue found at the crash site. In the meantime, they had to operate under the assumption that Locke’s forensic assessment correctly surmised that it was Kensit whose body wasn’t found and that he was still alive.
Other than the ship connection, the only other lead into Kensit’s motives was the German diary the coworker mentioned. After he brusquely ended his consultation with Pearson, Kensit would have had to find someone else to translate the document for him, a company or individual with expertise in scientific terminology. That narrowed down the list of possible translators considerably, and Overholt told Juan he’d get back to them when he had something.
When he reached Perlmutter’s estate on a brick road flanked by hundred-year-old oaks, Juan wheeled their rental car around the circular drive of the three-story manor and parked on the side in front of a carriage house that rivaled the main house in size. Perlmutter had remodeled this building that once housed ten horses and five carriages, as well as upstairs quarters for stable hands and drivers, to accommodate his vast library. He was renowned for owning the world’s most extensive collection of books, rare documents, and private letters about ships and shipwrecks. If there was any record of a German scientist aboard the Roraima when it sank, St. Julien Perlmutter would know of it.
