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But that conscience was already carrying the load from years of cold choices, decades of dark decisions. Sure, losing Ice and Indy might be the straw that broke him, but what the hell else could Benson do? Every damn player had to make their own choices. If Ice and Indy had decided to hide out, then shit, that was their choice. They’d have to live with it, and so would Benson. He had to let it play out, let the emotional energy build. Forcing the issue might pop that balloon before it was big enough.
Now Benson noticed Jack glance at his watch. It was a casual gesture, but something in the way Jack’s face tightened stood out, like the kid wasn’t just thinking about the meeting schedule but about some other time-table.
A tingle moved up Benson’s spine as he turned onto the Senator’s quiet street, slowing the car to a crawl. His lips tightened to a thin smile as that tingle spread through his upper back, warming him with that familiar sensation which told him events were shifting in the ether, players lining up in their positions, actors taking their spots on the stage as the universe prepared to raise the cosmic curtain on another act in its infinite game of life and death.
The Senator’s brownstone was silent as death as Benson glided to a stop near the open parking space blocked off by traffic cones. He kept the engine running as Jack got out, swept the surroundings with a practiced gaze, then grabbed the traffic cones by their spindly necks and dragged them out of the way.
Benson parked the Crown Vic, turned off the engine, then glanced at Kaiser, who’d snapped off his seatbelt and was adjusting his bulletproof vest impatiently.
“This is going to be a nonevent,” Kaiser muttered again, pushing open the door and stepping out, his tall lean frame slightly stooped from a decade of sitting behind a desk—the most powerful desk in Virginia, perhaps in the entire United States, but still a damn desk. “We don’t have enough to force Rhett’s hand, and he damn well knows it.”
“Have a little faith, Martin.” Benson got out, closed the door gently, one hand resting on the handle of the Smith and Wesson 9mm holstered on his belt behind his open jacket. “Rhett’s seen the alert from State with that photo of Scarlet. That had to have rattled him, maybe enough to really want a shot at me. Besides, Rhett still doesn’t know for sure what Paige told us, and he’s got enough respect for us to know there’d be no meeting if we didn’t have something up our sleeve.”
Kaiser frowned at him across the dark gray hood of Benson’s car. “Dowe have something up our sleeves, John?”
Benson shrugged as he walked around the front of the car, glancing around the quiet block. The Senator’s home was on a double-plot, which gave it a little space on either side. The next-door homes both had lights on upstairs, but the windows were closed and the drapes were drawn. It was about as quiet as it could get in a city like Washington, DC.
“Maybe it will be a nonevent,” Benson said, completing his own well-practiced visual sweep of the area. He might not be a Delta-trained hunter like Jack, but Benson had a good feel for whether he was about to be attacked. “Street is clear. Which I suspected it would be, of course. Even if Rhett is tempted to hit us, he’s not going to risk bringing anyone else in. No CIA asset is going to take out the Agency Director on U.S. soil.”
Jack grunted, his eyes alert like a wolf’s on a moonless night. “There’s no shortage of freelance killers-for-hire in DC. Please stay behind me at all times, Director Kaiser.”
Kaiser exhaled heavily, then shrugged and let Jack step in front of him as they approached the darkened brownstone. As they got close Kaiser pulled out one of the keycards which Robinson had entrusted him with while the house was empty, just in case the CIA security team needed to check out something. The card temporarily disabled the security system, including the cameras. Robinson didn’t know about this little meeting, and Benson half-hoped he would never need to know, that perhaps it was best if the most likely situation played out and it was indeed a nonevent.
Yeah, Benson thought as a hint of anxiety gnawed at his insides, maybe the three seasoned old CIA dogs would just circle each other, sniffing and growling, posturing and provoking but finally just slinking back into the shadows, all standing down without any of them backing down, implicitly agreeing to a stalemate, calling the game a draw.
And perhaps it will be a draw, Benson thought with an uncharacteristic sinking in his gut. If Rhett didn’t bite, the game was pretty much over. Kaiser couldn’t go to Robinson with a he-said-she-said between Paige and Rhett. Without hard evidence Rhett could just as easily accuse Kaiser of activating Scarlet to silence Indy O’Donnell. It would be a finger-pointing mess, one that could result in Robinson souring on both Kaiser and Rhett, choosing someone like Bill Morris to head up the Agency once the Senator won the White House.
But shit, wasn’t it Bill Morris who’d pushed hard to bring Rhett in from the shadows to Langley, Benson thought grimly. Hell, that might still keep Rhett in the game. For Kaiser there’d be no way back to the CIA, because you don’t get demoted from the Director’s chair, you only get fired. Once Robinson lost faith in Kaiser he was gone, put out to pasture.
Along with Benson and Darkwater.
A flash of hot determination raged through Benson as he watched Kaiser deactivate the security system and push open the steel-plated front door. They were so close, Benson thought feverishly as he glanced over at the American flag hanging dark and silent on the shining flagpole near the front porch. Darkwater was so close to being invited into the White House with Robinson and Delilah. There was no way Benson could let this fail, no way his own decisions three decades ago could come back now to fuck this up.
He wouldn’t let that happen.
Even if he had to sacrifice himself to see this mission through.
Now a burst of wild exhilaration roared through Benson as he suddenly saw it clearly, saw his own endgame in the muted colors of Old Glory on that grinning flagpole. His fingers brushed against the cold handle of his holstered Smith and Wesson handgun, and he grinned in the darkness.
Rhett Rodgers wasn’t leaving this building alive.
Didn’t matter if he kept his cool and didn’t give them an excuse to kill him in self-defense.
Benson would do it in cold blood if it came down to it.
Take the fall himself just to get Rhett Rodgers out of the way.
Benson would be done for—no way he would let Kaiser and Jack cover up an unprovoked cold-blooded murder on U.S. soil. Benson would have to turn himself in—disappearing would only cast suspicion on Kaiser, hurting his reputation, which would defeat the entire purpose.
But with both Benson and Rhett out of the way, there’d be no more risk to Kaiser’s reputation, no reason for Robinson to consider replacing him as CIA Director.
And Kaiser had to survive as CIA Director.
That was the only way Darkwater would survive.
Because whether Kaiser knew it or not, he was a Darkwater man. He could take this thing forward with the help of Ax and Amy and the rest of the Darkwater men and women.
They’d all seen how this living breathing conscious thing called Darkwater had evolved over the past seven years, how it had dragged all of them into its spinning vortex of cosmic energy, how it had its own fate, its own destiny, its own mission.
