Final Finesse Read online

  “I tried. I put together a bunch of stats for our CEO. Then we got word late today that Senator Walker is trying to delay the hearing again until sometime next week to give us a chance to finish our investigations and get our act together. I hope to hell he can pull it off.”

  “Thank God for small favors,” she said. “But now, when do you have to leave?”

  “Flight leaves at 11:30. Guess I should be out of here by nine,” he glanced at her and added, “or maybe a bit later. It’ll only take about a half an hour to get to Dulles from here. But since it’s an international flight, well, you know how they want you there way in advance and all that nonsense.”

  “Have you packed yet?”

  “Oh yeah. Did that as soon as I got home. I wanted to clear the evening to be with you,” he said, pulling her close to him and lowering his mouth to hers.

  He lingered. She felt languid. The tension from the day’s events seemed to ebb a bit. But it was replaced by a different kind of restlessness. She knew the feeling well even though she had only experienced it recently. It happened every time she was near this man. She wanted him. She needed him, and yet he was leaving her. She stole a glance at her watch. Not much time.

  As if he were reading her mind, he pulled her up from the couch, took her hand and led her down the hall to his bedroom. She made a mild protest.

  “Come with me Samantha. I know I have to leave, but …” He suddenly turned and yanked her to him, kissing her with such force, she could hardly breathe. He pushed her against the wall and pressed his body to hers. She could feel his rigidity, his strength, his weight as she leaned into him and he deepened the kiss. “Got to have you, Sam. Please.” He grabbed her arm and drew her into a room with a king size bed, a couple of bedside tables and windows looking out at the same cityscape, with the lamp posts lining Key Bridge in the foreground and twinkling lights of Georgetown just beyond.

  Yes. I want to have him too.

  Later, lying in bed together, he shifted his weight and stroked her cheek. Samantha’s long, wavy hair was splayed out across the pillows, tousled and tangled. Tripp gently ran his fingers through it and murmured, “God, you’re beautiful. I’m really going to miss you.”

  She opened her eyes and saw him staring down at her. He was going to miss her. But for how long? When would he come back? What would happen when he did come back? Would they see each other every day again? Could she get through the days without seeing him? Suddenly she felt lonely again. Lonely in his arms. She brushed aside the strange thought and met his gaze.

  “When will you be back?”

  “I’ll try to make it in a few days. A week at most.”

  “Christmas is coming,” she murmured.

  “I know. What would you like from South America?”

  What would she like? Him. Just him. “Uh, I don’t know. Just come back safely. That would be the best Christmas present of all,” she said with a sigh.

  “That’s the easy part. You sure you don’t want to send me off on some shopping spree?” he asked with a slow grin.

  “How can you think about shopping at a time like this?” she said.

  “Well, don’t worry. I’ll think of something. Tell you what. When I get back, if things have quieted down a bit …”

  “That’s a pretty big if,” she said.

  “I know, but let’s say they do. So I’ll get back, and then maybe you can take a few days off for Christmas, and we’ll head down to Naples.”

  “Naples?”

  “Sure. That’s where my folks live. Well, they live there in the winter. In a place called Port Royal. It’s on the water. Nice beaches, palm trees, great weather. Trust me, it beats the heck out of what we’re going through up here. What do you think?”

  He wants to take me to meet his parents? She was stunned. Or was she? Yes, this whole affair had happened awfully fast. Then again, how much time did you need to figure out you absolutely fit together? A week? A month? A year?

  It had taken her much longer to get used to the idea of spending her time, her life, with Dexter. That had turned out to be a good time in her life. Until … she pushed thoughts of her former husband aside and thought about Tripp’s invitation. She wasn’t keen on flying. The whole fear of heights thing still haunted her. But as she analyzed her reaction, she realized that going to Naples with this man would be the best Christmas vacation she could imagine.

  The trouble was she could never leave town in the midst of a national security crisis like this one. And even if, by some miracle, they solve this dreadful puzzle and caught the bad guys, she had no idea if she could get away then. Nobody on the White House staff had set vacations. You simply served at the pleasure of the president and that meant you were on call 24/7. But, as Tripp said, if things calmed, she certainly deserved a few days off.

  “I’d love to go with you,” she said, reaching up and gently touching his face. He took her fingers, kissed them and replied, “That’s my girl. We’ll try to make it happen.”

  He looked over at the alarm clock on the bedside table and rolled away. “And now I’ve got to make something else happen. Like get my act in gear.” He got up from the bed, leaving the sheets in a rumpled mess. “C’mon in here. Time for another quick shower.”

  She followed his lead into the marble bathroom. She saw two shiny sinks but thought they looked like two gigantic cereal bowls stacked on top of a slab of gray marble. Not quite her style, she mused, but she could hardly fault this man for his taste in fixtures. No, come to think of it, she couldn’t really fault him for anything.

  Tripp turned on the water and tossed a pair of white towels onto a hook just inside the glass door. She stepped and let the warm water sluice over her as he moved in behind her. He took the bar of soap and began to lather her body. As his hands roamed down to her legs, he turned her around and moaned, “Once more with feeling?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CARACAS–SATURDAY MORNING

  Tripp stretched his legs as far as he could in the first class cabin, finished his coffee and handed his tray to the flight attendant. “We’ll be landing in a few minutes, Mr. Adams. Hope you got some rest.”

  “I tried,” he said. “Never do sleep much on these international flights. At least I hope we’ll have some decent weather here.”

  “Oh, for sure,” the attractive woman said. “This time of year, it’s pretty dry and warm. Probably in the 80’s, I’d say. Now I’d better get back to the galley. If you need anything else, you just hit the call button.”

  As she headed down the aisle, Tripp noticed a nice pair of legs. At another time, in another life, I might have gone after that one. But not now. He thought about Samantha and looked at his watch. When they landed she’d be in her morning staff meeting and some other meetings she had told him about. He wanted to talk to her, but figured that could wait until he got to his hotel. Maybe he’d just send a quick text from the car.

  He knew that even on a Saturday, he’d have some sort of welcoming committee from GeoGlobal’s Caracas office. It might be Victor Aguilar himself. They had planned it so Tripp could spend two days getting ready for his meetings with Rossi and other energy officials. The entire GeoGlobal team would be working all weekend to try and stave off the latest onslaught on the company.

  Tripp glanced down at his briefcase stuffed under the seat in front of him. It was jammed with briefing papers on the planned nationalization, the points that Victor had made, the counter-points made by the Venezuelan energy officials and a list of extensive talking points and positions Tripp could pursue with the Venezuelans.

  “We will be landing in Caracas shortly where the temperature is eight-six degrees Fahrenheit. Please fasten your seat belts. We’ll be on the ground soon. Thank you for flying with us. It’s been a pleasure to have you on board.”

  The announcement was then repeated in Spanish, giving the temperature in Centigrade. Tripp understood those phrases as well. He had studied Spanish at St. Albans and again at Princeton.
That was one of the reasons GeoGlobal had sent him on this mission. Maybe if I had studied French or German I wouldn’t have had to leave D.C … and Samantha, he thought.

  After a smooth landing, Tripp cleared customs, and moved out of the baggage claim area. “Tripp, welcome to Caracas.” It was Victor Aguilar himself rushing up to greet him, hand outstretched. “Good to see you. How was your flight?” “Good food, decent wine, didn’t sleep much, but that’s par for the course. Nice of you to come get me,” Tripp said, shaking hands and following Victor out into the bright sunshine of a Venezuelan morning.

  “We have your security detail in those cars over there,” Victor said, pointing to a pair of shiny black limousines.”

  “Kinda obvious, isn’t it?” Tripp asked. “I mean, driving around town in limos?”

  “Actually, they help get us through some of the worst traffic, get parking spaces, get respect, if you know what I mean.”

  “I guess,” Tripp said, climbing into the back seat of the first car.

  Victor pointed to the driver. “This is Manuel. Manny for short, He’s been driving for us for years now. And next to him, that’s Steve. He’s one of your bodyguards.”

  Tripp leaned forward to greet the two men. “Manny? Steve? Good to meet you.”

  “They’re good people. Manny’s quite the guy. Has a big family. Six kids. And Steve? He’s American. From Oklahoma. Former military. He’s been pretty worried about that first gas line explosion. He’s got family up there, and he calls them all the time. Been working for us for about two years now. Does a good job.” Victor turned and motioned to the car behind them. And there’s more security in the back-up car.”

  “Do we really need all of this?” Tripp asked. “You’d think one guy would be enough. I mean, who knows I’m even here?”

  “That’s just it. We don’t announce where our people are going, but Rossi evidently put out a press release about how an executive of GeoGlobal was coming down to try to renegotiate the whole nationalization contract and how the strong Venezuelan government was going to stand firm for the sake of the people and all that nonsense. So all of this,” he motioned to the bodyguard in the front seat and the car behind them. “This is company orders. You can’t be too careful around here. The government has enough problems on their hands. They never seem able to control the street crime or the protest marches that go on although they do arrest people all the time.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Worst murder rate in all of South America, sorry to say,” Victor said.

  “I guess I didn’t realize that. Who are the worst offenders? I know about the poor people here who can’t find enough food or medicine, but what about the drug dealers?”

  “While most everyone else is living in poverty, the cartels are still raking it in. But they do have their own troubles with rival gangs. Then you have local policemen who take bribes to protect certain neighborhoods or switch sides.”

  “Protection money? Like what goes on in Chicago,” Tripp said. “They have an incredible murder rate too.

  “This city is more like Moscow right now,” Victor said. “You’ve got corrupt policemen, gang leaders, drug cartels. It’s much worse than Rio. There, they steal your gold watch. Here? Here it’s a blood bath in some areas, quiet in others where el presidente has rounded up so many opposition figures, the people are afraid to speak up. In light of all of this, I’ve got my orders. You don’t go anywhere, and I mean anywhere without Steve in the front seat and the backup car trailing you.”

  “Got it,” Tripp said.

  They drove through heavy traffic, never noticing the dark Suburu that shadowed the two limos all the way through the city. They didn’t see the driver talking on his cell phone, giving descriptions of the limos, the people inside and the precise route they were taking.

  Tripp dug into his pocket, pulled out his cell and turned to Victor. “Excuse me a minute. Just want to send a quick text to someone.” He punched in Samantha’s number and quickly hit a few keys. “Arrived in Caracas. Nice and warm here, just like Naples will be. Meetings later …” He looked up and saw a sign that read, POLICE DETOUR and stopped writing.

  “Here we go again,” Victor said, glancing out the window at a barricade ahead manned by two men in police uniforms. One of the officers waved Tripp’s car through. Manny turned right, as directed, and drove around a bend in the road. Victor looked through the back window. “Backup car’s not there. Must have been detained for some reason. Maybe we should wait.”

  Manny started to slow down just as a large truck pulled up behind them, effectively cutting off the backup car. Another truck came from a side road and slammed to a halt just in front of the limo.

  Manny jammed on his brakes and barely avoided a collision with the truck. “What the hell?” he shouted. They were completely hemmed in. There was nowhere to go.

  Tripp shoved the cell back in his pocket and tensed as four men jumped out of the first truck armed with MP-5 submachine guns. They rushed to the front of the limo, and, shouting in Spanish, opened fire on the men in the front seat. The windshield shattered in a hail of glass shards. Steve drew his gun. He aimed and fired through the windshield, killing one man, but the other three had moved to the side.

  “Down, get down,” Steve shouted. Victor and Tripp hit the floor of the back seat.

  “Christ! Are there any weapons back here?” Tripp yelled to Steve.

  “Not back there.”

  “Shit,” Tripp exclaimed. “Where’s the backup car?”

  “Truck cut them off. These must be pros,” Manny yelled.

  Steve fired again, and they heard one of the attackers scream in pain. One of the others raised up from his crouched position just outside the car, aimed and opened fire on Steve.

  Tripp looked up to see his bodyguard’s head slam back against the front seat, blood and flesh were splattered across the console.

  “Holy shit!” Tripp cried out as Manny made a futile effort to turn the wheel and steer the limo off the road around the truck. But there wasn’t enough space. They were trapped. The two remaining men converged on the front door, yanked it open and shot Manny in the chest.

  “God in heaven,” Victor screamed.

  Tripp jumped up and tried to reach into the front seat for Steve’s gun, but it had fallen to the floor. He heard more gunfire coming from way behind them. They must be attacking the backup car.

  The two men outside shot at the door lock and pulled the back door open. They shoved Victor aside and grabbed Tripp. He struggled, kicked, and tried to get a grip on one of them. If only he could wrest the MP-5 away, he’d have a chance. Maybe he could save Victor.

  One of the men hit Tripp with the butt of his gun. “What are you doing, you fool?” the other man shouted in Spanish. “We need him alive.”

  “I just knocked him out so he wouldn’t fight us. Now we can get him into the truck.”

  “What are you doing with him?” Victor shouted.

  “Shut up or you’ll end up like the others.” Then with one man aiming his gun at Victor he said, “Stay there or we take you too.”

  The first man hauled Tripp out of the back seat and dragged him over to the truck. The second man waved his gun at Victor. “Don’t move.”

  Victor didn’t have a weapon. He had no choice but to cower in the corner of the backseat. He watched in horror as the men lifted Tripp into the back of the truck and threw a tarp over his inert body. One man got into the back while the other raced to the driver’s seat, got in, and sped away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  WASHINGTON, D.C.–SATURDAY EVENING

  This is so weird. Samantha read the abbreviated message on her cell for the umpteenth time that day. “Arrived in Caracas. Nice and warm here, just like Naples will be. Meetings later …” and then, nothing. Must have either run out his battery or been in a bad zone. She clicked it off and shoved it into her black evening bag. She had sent several messages back to him, but so far hadn’t received a
response. She’d keep checking it whenever she had a discreet moment during the evening.

  She was waiting to get into the vice president’s residence at One Observatory Circle for his annual Christmas reception. She wasn’t in much of a party mood, but figured this was a must-show-up deal, so she had no choice but to take a break from the memos, crisis meetings and constant phone calls to attend this shindig.

  She was behind at least a dozen other cars all lined up like nutcrackers in Tchaikovsky’s ballet. As Samantha inched her jeep forward, she speculated on who else might be on the guest list.

  Jayson Keller was becoming quite the talk of the town. After his wife died some years ago, the handsome politician stayed out of the social scene for quite a while, but now was getting back into the swing of things.

  She had heard that he even tried to put a move on the brainy scientist, Dr. Cameron Talbot, a while back. But evidently Hunt Daniels won that competition. Interesting that Dr. Talbot had chosen the quiet, intense NSC staffer over the dynamic vice president. After all, he was the odds on favorite to win the next election, and she could have become first lady of the land.

  On the other hand, as Samantha thought about it, if she had a choice like that, between someone like Jayson Keller and someone like Tripp Adams, she had no doubt she’d grab Tripp. In a heartbeat. Whenever she thought about him, her heart seemed to skip a beat.

  She had thought about Tripp all day while she was working at the White House. Everyone in her directorate worked on Saturdays and sometimes on Sundays. Especially when they had a crisis on their hands.

  She had convened her inter-agency group and pressed Dave Major about his FBI field staff and what they were doing on the pipeline investigation. She had also quizzed Will Raymond about any CIA intel on the attacks, but both had come up empty. The same held for contacts at Transportation, Energy, and DHS. At least they had a lot of people in Oklahoma and Kansas searching for clues, interviewing residents and going over the GeoGlobal investigations.