Stone Cold Read online

  ANNABELLE CONROY stretched out her long legs and watched the landscape drift by outside the window of the Amtrak Acela train car. She almost never took the train anywhere; her ride was typically at 39,000 feet where she popped peanuts, sipped watered-down seven-dollar cocktails, and dreamt up the next con. Today she was on the train because her companion, Milton Farb, would not set foot on anything that had the capacity and intent to leave the ground.

  “Flying is the safest way to travel, Milton,” she’d informed him.

  “Not if you’re on a plane that’s in a death spiral. Then your chances of dying are roughly one hundred percent. And I don’t like those odds.”

  It was hard to argue with geniuses, Annabelle had discovered. Still, Milton, the man with the photographic memory and a budding talent for brilliantly lying to people, had done good work. They had left Boston after a successful job. The item was back where it needed to be and no one had thought to call the cops. In Annabelle’s world of high-stakes cons that was equal to perfection.

  Thirty minutes later, as Amtrak’s only bullet train service wound its way down the East Coast and pulled into a station, Annabelle glanced out the window and involuntarily shuddered when the conductor announced they were arriving in Newark, New Jersey. Jersey was Jerry Bagger land, although thankfully the Acela train didn’t stop at Atlantic City where the maniacal casino boss had his empire. If it did Annabelle wouldn’t have been on it.

  Yet she was smart enough to realize that Jerry Bagger had every motivation to leave Atlantic City and come looking for her wherever she might be. When you ripped a guy like that off for $40 million, assuming that Bagger would do his best to tear thousands of pieces of your flesh off one at a time was hardly irrational thinking.

  She glanced over at Milton, who looked about eighteen with his boyish face and longish hair. In reality the man was pushing fifty. He was on his computer, doing something that neither Annabelle nor anyone else below the level of genius would be able to understand.

  Bored, Annabelle rose, went to the café car and purchased a beer and a bag of chips. On the way back she spied a New York Times lying discarded on one of the café tables. She sat down on a stool, drank her beer and munched her chips as she idly turned the pages looking for that one bit of information that might spark her next adventure. Once she got back to Washington, D.C., she had some decisions to make, chiefly whether to stay put or flee the country. She knew what her answer should be. A no-name island in the South Pacific was the safest place for her right now, where she could just wait out the tsunami named Jerry. Bagger was in his mid-sixties and her long con against him had without a doubt considerably raised the man’s blood pressure. With a little luck he’d soon croak from a heart attack and she would be scot-free. However, she couldn’t count on that. With Jerry you just had to figure that all your luck would turn out to be bad.

  It shouldn’t have been a difficult decision and yet it was. She had grown close, or as close as someone like her could get, to an oddball collection of men who called themselves the Camel Club. She smiled to herself as she thought about the foursome, one of whom was named Caleb Shaw and worked at the Library of Congress. He reminded her remarkably of the cowardly lion from The Wizard of Oz. Then her smile faded. Oliver Stone, the head of this little band of miscreants, was something altogether more. He must’ve had one hell of a past, Annabelle thought—a history that might even surpass hers in the unusual and extraordinary department, and that was saying something. She didn’t know if she could say good-bye to Oliver Stone. She doubted she would ever run across another one like him.

  Her gaze flicked up at a young man passing by who did not attempt to hide his admiration for her tall, curvy figure, long blonde hair, and thirty-six-year-old face that, if it didn’t actually hit the “wow” level, came awfully close. This was so despite a small, fishhook-shaped scar under her eye; a present from her father, Paddy Conroy, the best short con artist of his generation, and the world’s worst father, at least in his only child’s estimation.

  “Hey,” the young man said. With his lean physique, tousled hair and expensive clothes that were designed to appear cheap and grungy, he looked like an Abercrombie & Fitch ad. She quickly sized him up as a privileged college kid with far more money than was healthy and the insufferably cocky attitude to match.

  “Hey back at you,” she said and returned to her newspaper.

  “Where you headed to?” he asked, sitting down next to her.

  “Not where you’re headed.”

  “But you don’t know where I’m going,” he said in a playful tone.

  “That’s sort of the point, right?”

  He either didn’t get her point or didn’t care. “I go to Harvard.”

  “Wow, I never would’ve guessed that.”

  “But I’m from Philly. The Main Line. My parents have an estate there.”

  “Wow again. It’s nice to have parents who have estates,” she said in a clearly uninterested tone.

  “It’s also nice to have parents who are out of the country half the time. I’m having a little party there tonight. It’s going to be a wild ride. You interested?”

  Annabelle could feel the guy’s gaze running down her. Okay, here we go again. She knew she shouldn’t, but with guys like this she just couldn’t seem to help herself.

  She closed the newspaper. “I don’t know. When you say wild, how wild do you mean?”

  “How wild do you want it to be?” She could see him forming the word “baby,” but he apparently thought better of using it, at least so soon in the conversation.

  “I hate being disappointed.”

  He touched her arm. “I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”

  She smiled and patted his hand. “So what are we talking about here? Booze and sex?”

  “A given.” He squeezed her arm. “Hey, I’m up in first class, why don’t you join me?”

  “You have anything other than booze and sex going on?”

  “You like to get into the details?”

  “It’s all in the details, uh . . .”

  “Steve. Steve Brinkman.” He gave a practiced little chuckle. “You know, one of those Brinkmans. My father’s the vice chairman of one of the biggest banks in the country.”

  “FYI, Steve, if you’ve just got coke at this party, and I’m not talking the soft drink, that would definitely disappoint me.”

  “What are you looking for? I’m sure I can get it. I’ve got connections.”

  “Goofballs, Dollies, Hog, with artillery to do it right, and no lemonade, lemonade always pisses me off,” she added, referring to crap-quality drugs.

  “Wow, you know your stuff,” Steve said, nervously looking around at the other people in the café car.

  “You ever chased the dragon, Steve?” she asked.

  “Uh, no.”

  “It’s a funky way to inhale heroin. It’ll give you the greatest pop in the world, if it doesn’t kill you.”

  He removed his hand from her arm. “Doesn’t sound very smart.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty. Why?”

  “I like my men a little younger than that. I find that when a guy reaches eighteen he’s left his best ball-banging behind. So you gonna have any minors at this party?”

  He rose. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

  “Oh, I’m not picky. It can be guys or girls. I mean, when you’re shit-faced on meth, who cares?”

  “Okay, I’m leaving now,” Steve said hurriedly.

  “One more thing.” Annabelle took out her wallet and flashed a fake badge at him. She said in a low voice, “You recognize the DEA insignia, Steve? For Drug Enforcement Agency?”

  “Omigod!”

  “And now that you’ve told me about mommy and daddy Brinkman’s estate on the Main Line, I’m sure my strike team will have no problem finding the place. That is if you’re still intending on having a wild party.”

  “Please, I swear to God, I was just . . .�
� He put a hand out to steady himself. Annabelle seized it and gave his fingers a hard squeeze.

  “Go back to Harvard, Stevie, and when you graduate, you can screw up your life however you want to. But in the future just be careful what you say to strange women on trains.”

  She watched him hurry down the aisle and disappear safely back into first class.

  Annabelle finished her beer and idly read the last couple pages of the newspaper. Now it was her turn to have the blood drain from her face.

  An American tentatively identified as Anthony Wallace had been found nearly beaten to death at a Portugal seaside estate. Three other people had been found murdered at the home on a remote stretch of shoreline. Robbery was thought to be the motive. Although Wallace was still alive, he was in a coma after suffering extensive brain injuries and doctors were not hopeful for a recovery.

  Annabelle tore out the story and walked unsteadily back to her seat.

  Jerry Bagger had gotten to Tony, one of her partners in the con. An estate? She’d expressly told Tony to lay low and not flash the cash. He hadn’t listened and now he was brain dead. Jerry typically didn’t leave any witnesses behind.

  But what had Jerry managed to beat out of Tony? She knew the answer to that question. Everything.

  Milton stopped typing on his computer and gazed up at her. “You okay?”

  Annabelle didn’t answer. As the train sailed back to D.C. she looked out the window but didn’t see the Jersey countryside. Her confidence evaporated, she now only saw graphic details of her coming death, courtesy of Jerry Bagger.

  CHAPTER 5

  OLIVER STONE MANAGED to lift the old, mossy tombstone to an upright position and packed dirt around it to keep it there. He sat back on his haunches and wiped his brow. He had a portable radio beside him on the ground turned to the local all-news station. Stone craved information like others needed oxygen. As he listened to the radio he got an unexpected jolt. There would be an awards ceremony at the White House that very afternoon where none other than Carter Gray, recently retired chief of the nation’s intelligence agencies, was scheduled to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Gray had served his country with distinction for nearly four decades, the announcer read, and quoted the president as saying that Carter Gray was a man that all of America should be proud of; a true patriot and public servant.

  Stone didn’t exactly agree with this assessment. In fact, he’d been the reason Carter Gray had abruptly resigned from his post as the nation’s intelligence czar.

  Stone thought to himself, If only the president knew that the man he’s going to be presenting that medal to is the same man who was prepared to put a bullet through his head. The country would never be ready for that truth.

  He looked at his watch. The dead could certainly exist without him for a little while. An hour later, showered and dressed in his best clothes, which consisted of secondhand issue from Goodwill, he walked out of his cottage, where he was caretaker of Mt. Zion Cemetery, a stop on the Underground Railroad and the final resting place of notable African Americans from the nineteenth century. The trip from the outskirts of Georgetown to the White House was eaten up quickly by the long strides of Stone’s lean six-foot-two-inch frame.

  At age sixty-one, he had lost very little of his energy and vigor. With his close-cropped white hair, he looked like a retired Marine drill sergeant. He was still a commander of sorts, though his ragtag regiment called the Camel Club was completely unofficial. It consisted of himself and three others: Caleb Shaw, Reuben Rhodes and Milton Farb.

  And yet Stone might have to add another name to the roster, Annabelle Conroy. She had nearly died along with the rest of them in their last adventure. The truth was, Annabelle was as nimble, capable and nervy a person as Stone had ever met. Yet his gut told him the woman, who was attending to a piece of unfinished business with Milton Farb’s help, would be leaving them soon. Someone was after her, Stone knew, someone Annabelle actually feared. And under those circumstances sometimes the smartest move was to run. Stone understood that concept very well.

  The White House was dead ahead. He would never be allowed to enter the hallowed front gates and lacked even the right to stand on that coveted side of Pennsylvania Avenue. What he could do was wait in Lafayette Park across the street. He used to have a tent there until the Secret Service recently made him take it down. Yet freedom of speech was still alive and well in America and thus his banner had remained. Unfurled between two pieces of rebar stuck in the ground, it read, “I want the truth.” So did a few other people in this town, it was rumored. To date, Stone had never heard of anyone actually finding it within the confines of the world capital of spin and deceit.

  He passed the time chatting with a couple of uniformed Secret Service agents he knew. When the White House gates started to open, he broke off his conversation and watched the black sedan coming out. He couldn’t see through the tinted glass, but for some reason he knew that Carter Gray was inside the Town Car. Perhaps it was the man’s smell.

  His hunch proved right when the window came down and he found himself eye to eye with the ex–intelligence chief, new Medal of Freedom winner and major Oliver Stone hater.

  As the car slowed to make the turn onto the street, Gray’s wide, bespectacled face stared impassively at him. Then, smiling, Gray held up his big, shiny medal so Stone could see it.

  Not having a medal of his own, Stone opted for giving Gray the finger. The man’s smile turned to a snarl and the window zipped back up.

  Stone turned and walked back to his cemetery feeling the trip had been damn well worth it.

  When Carter Gray’s car turned onto 17th Street, another vehicle followed it. Harry Finn had driven into D.C. that morning. He too had heard of Gray’s big day at the White House and like Oliver Stone had come down to see the man. While Stone had ventured here to show defiance to a man he loathed, Finn had come to continue devising a suitable way to kill Gray.

  The drive took them out of D.C. and into Maryland, up to the waterfront city of Annapolis situated on the Chesapeake Bay. It was famous for, among other things, its crab cakes and for being home to the U.S. Naval Academy. Gray had recently traded his remote Virginia farm for an isolated place on a cliff overlooking the bay. Since he was no longer with the government his security detail was much smaller than it had been. Yet because he was a former director of Central Intelligence he still received daily briefings. And he had two guards assigned to him because his past work had angered a number of America’s enemies, who would love nothing better than to put a slug right between Gray’s close-set eyes.

  Finn knew killing Gray would be far more difficult than bagging someone like Dan Ross. Because of the complexities, this was one of countless trips he had made reconnoitering Gray. Each time he had used a different vehicle rented under fake names and worn disguises to avoid any profiling. And even if he lost the Town Car in traffic he knew where it was going. He only broke off the tail when the car pulled onto a private gravel road and headed toward Gray’s house and the cliffs, where thirty feet down the waters of the bay boomed against solid rock.

  Later, using long-range binoculars while perched in a tree, Finn saw the thing in the rear of Gray’s house that would enable him to kill the man. He actually smiled as the plan swiftly came together in his mind.

  That night he took his daughter, Susie, to swim practice. As he sat in the bleachers and proudly watched her small body glide in perfect form across the pool, he imagined the last few seconds of Carter Gray’s life. It all would be worth it.

  He drove his daughter home, helped put her and her ten-year-old brother Patrick to bed, had an argument with his teenager and then shot hoops with the boy in the driveway of their home until both were sweating and laughing. Later, he made love to his wife, Amanda, whom everyone called Mandy, and, restless, got up around midnight and packed school lunches for the next day. He also signed a permission slip for his oldest, David, to go on an upcoming
field trip to the U.S. Capitol and other downtown sights. David would be attending high school next year and Finn and Mandy had taken him to several school open houses. David liked math and science. He would probably end up being an engineer, Finn thought. Mechanically inclined too, Finn had almost gone that route before his life had taken a bit of a detour. He’d joined the navy, and quickly worked himself to an elite status.

  Finn was a former Navy SEAL with special ops experience and combat duty on his résumé. And he possessed unique foreign-language skills from immersion school in California, where he’d spent a chunk of his life learning Arabic, and later acquired the dialects the school hadn’t taught him when on the ground in that part of the world. With his current job he traveled a good deal but he was also home a lot. He almost never missed a sporting or major school event. He was there for his children in the hope that they would be there for him later. That’s the best a parent could shoot for, he felt.

  He finished the lunches, went to his small den, closed the door and began drawing up firm plans for Carter Gray. Out of practicality it would not mirror his confrontation with Dan Ross. Yet Finn had never been one to pound a round peg into a square hole. Even killers had to be flexible; in fact, perhaps the most flexible of all.

  Finn’s gaze settled on the pictures of his three kids that sat on his desk front and center. Birth and death. It was the same for everyone. You started breathing on one end and stopped on the other. What you did in between defined who and what you were. Yet Harry Finn realized he would be awfully difficult to categorize. Some days even he didn’t truly understand it.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE RENTAL CAR pulled up to the gates of the cemetery as Oliver Stone was finishing some work. As he brushed off his pants and glanced that way, he had a feeling of déjà vu. She had done this to him before, but had eventually come back. Somehow Stone didn’t think the lady would let that happen again. He would have to see what he could do about that, because he didn’t want to lose her.

  Annabelle Conroy got out of the car and walked through the open gates. Her long black coat flapped open in the wind, revealing a brown knee-length skirt and boots; her hair was hidden underneath a wide-brimmed floppy hat. Stone closed the door on the small storage shed near his cottage and padlocked it.

  He said, “Milton told me your trip to Boston was a great success. I don’t believe I’ve heard the words ‘brilliant,’ ‘amazing’ and