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The doctor took a right out of the garage, began pedaling down New Hampshire Avenue toward the Potomac. Matthew followed, slowly now, making sure he kept him in sight. A bike meant he lived close by.
Within minutes, they were at the entrance of the Watergate Apartments. The doctor stopped at the Watergate Café. Matthew followed him in, watched him standing in line. He got coffee and a roll, tucked in right there like he was starved.
When he came out of the café, a second coffee in his hand, he walked his bike toward the Watergate garage.
Matthew took him from behind, jerked him back into the bushes, slapping his hand over his mouth. It was risky since there were a couple of people not twenty feet away, but he found, oddly, that he didn’t care. It didn’t take him more than a moment to decide—he slipped his knife into the doctor’s heart, and the man dropped like a stone.
Matthew stripped him of his badge and the white jacket he’d stashed in his messenger bag, plus his wallet, in case they needed two forms of ID. His name was—had been—Aaron Tasker. He left him there in the bushes and didn’t look back. He realized he didn’t feel a thing. Not a single bit of fear or remorse, nothing. He was a man on a mission, and he knew he had to win this time. But what if he didn’t win? Focus, he thought, it’s time to focus.
Matthew took the bike and rode back to the hospital.
As he pedaled, he found himself remembering how he’d felt the moment he’d heard he was a Rhodes scholar and was on his way to Oxford. He remembered how he’d been acknowledged as a genius in the scientific field, remembered the stark happiness, the pride his parents felt, and how he’d basked in the honors flowing over him.
And then the bombings happened, his family blown apart simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And he remembered clearly that day he’d become a different man with a different future.
In a blink of an eye, he’d lost everything, and his rage festered and grew. And he’d met Ian McGuire in that pub in Italy, and they’d hooked up. He remembered Ian praising him endlessly, calling him a genius, so proud of him as he developed his new bomb, one smaller than the usual, and he’d figured out how to make it light and portable, and best of all, undetectable. His invention, his genius, and the rest of the world was still working with DIME bombs, Semtex, C4. He’d created something new. Powerful. And useful.
Matthew had discovered all he had to do was attach a nanotrigger to a small piece of his new metal, and boom. He felt like a god, gloried in what he’d created. Then he saw his mother’s face and knew she wouldn’t be praising his genius. Revenge, Mom, really, all revenge, for you and Dad and my sister, but I’m not going to murder, not like they do. I’m going to cut them off at the knees, let them drown in their oil. And he’d believed it, believed it to his soul. Then.
When Ian had brought Vanessa into his life, and she’d wanted to join him, he was convinced she shared in his beliefs, his goals. But now, in hindsight, he realized she hadn’t shared a thing with him. All she’d wanted was his new bomb.
But he’d been smart, careful; he’d never told her all of it. And then Darius had tested it at Bayway without telling him and he’d been furious until he realized how amazing it had been.
And now Ian was dead, burned to a cinder, and the lying bitch was still breathing his air, but not for long.
• • •
Matthew rode the bike into the garage, chained it to the rack, and walked across the pedestrian bridge into the building, swiped Aaron’s card through the reader, and walked right in the door. No one gave him a second glance. He belonged.
Now he needed to find Vanessa.
GW had multiple ICUs, multiple floors. He couldn’t afford to waste time wandering the halls looking for agents in their dark suits guarding a hospital door. He needed to access the computer system and look her up. He felt the bloody knife move in his pocket as he walked.
68
KING TO G7
Mike stood behind the door where she couldn’t be seen from either the hallway or the windows. Nicholas was in the bathroom, sitting on the counter. There was so much glass in the place, so many open lines of sight to help the nurses keep eyes on their patients, they’d had a hard time finding the perfect places to lie in wait.
Agent Carrie Munson, CIA, was a good ten years older than Vanessa and Mike, a seasoned agent who looked hard as nails. “I’m into krav maga,” she’d told Mike and Nicholas. “Don’t worry about me, I can handle myself. Plus I have this.” She showed them a tidy Glock 17, stashed under her pillow. Mike didn’t doubt Carrie could handle herself, but if Matthew came in gun first, words later, who knew what could happen?
They decided it was better to let Spenser get close, move all the way into Vanessa’s room before they brought him down.
Agents dressed as nurses and orderlies worked alongside the regular staff. They all had photos of Matthew Spenser, not the face you’d think looked like a murderer or a terrorist, maybe a madman, rather the face of a handsome man, serious and thoughtful, one of the first photos of him Vanessa had sent to her uncle.
After an hour on high alert, they all began to tire, to lose focus. Mike was tense. Her shoulders started to ache.
After two hours, Nicholas and Mike switched places.
Nicholas said, “I might consider giving up trying to talk to you if I could have a cup of coffee.”
“Even if there was something to talk about, which there isn’t and never will be, you still couldn’t have any coffee. We need to keep hands free to handle weapons.” As if he didn’t know that.
“I guess tea is out, too?”
Both their earpiece comms units suddenly came to life.
A voice she didn’t recognize, CIA, she assumed, said, “We have him. He’s gotten off the west elevator, moving toward the room. He’s dressed as a doctor, looks like he belongs. He’s not hesitating and that’s smart, so you guys need to be ready.”
