The Chaos Kind (John Rain #11)(44)

One of the tables by the windows had a laptop open on it alongside a sheaf of papers. Someone had been working there, obviously. Next to it was a half-eaten salad. Dox thought of the thin woman in the law firm website photo. He hustled over to the table and squatted next to it. There she was, shrunk back against the wall, looking at him fearfully.

“Sharon Hamilton?” he said, extending his hand. “Come with me if you want to live. Hah, I always wanted to say that. I loved it in those Terminator movies.”

She shook her head and pressed herself harder against the wall. Well, so much for breaking the ice with humor.

“My name’s Dox,” he said. “I’m with Alondra Diaz. She’s waiting outside. She was going to come in herself, but there were people here to ambush you and things got a little crazy. Anyway, they can’t harm anyone anymore, but there are others where they came from. You need to trust me, all right?”

She shook her head again.

“Ma’am, I’m not here to hurt you. I’m a friend. And with the people you’ve pissed off with those videos, believe me, you need one.”

She looked at him. He extended his hand further.

This time, she took it.





chapter

thirty-five





HOBBS


I don’t care what the media claims,” Hobbs said, his breath fogging in the cold night air. “And the crazies are going to believe whatever they like, facts be damned. I’m just telling you, I spoke with Judge Ricardo personally. No one presented him with an application for Schrader’s release. He didn’t issue a court order. The courts, and the DOJ, had nothing to do with it. The question is, who did?”

He and Devereaux were strolling on the Mall near the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, their security details paralleling them front and back in the dark. The meeting had been Devereaux’s idea—he said he didn’t trust the secure phones, but Hobbs suspected it was because the man had grown so paranoid he was afraid anything said on the phone might be recorded by the other party. Certainly the same thought had crossed Hobbs’s mind, and more than once.

“Rispel believes it was the Russians,” Devereaux said. “Or possibly the Chinese.”

“Do we have actual evidence of that?”

“No evidence to the contrary.”

They passed a knot of protesters. Their signs were backlit by the lamps lining the Reflecting Pool, and Hobbs couldn’t read them. But the Deep state protects pedophiles chants were clear enough. He felt vaguely sorry for them. Of course there was a “deep state,” or whatever else people might want to call it—not just in America but in every country. How could a society function without a semipermanent core of experts committed to stable governance? As for “protecting pedophiles,” the fact that these people genuinely believed such a thing was real was proof of the need for a club of pragmatic insiders. No one was trying to protect pedophiles. People were simply trying to protect themselves—and by extension, of course, the country.

When they were out of earshot, Devereaux said, “What about Hamilton?”

“No one can reach her. Not even her law firm. Have you tried—”

“Of course. She was using her cellphone heavily at the Seattle Four Seasons until early afternoon, West Coast time.”

“My lord. You mean—”

“Yes,” Devereaux said. “Where there were more killings today. Her cellphone history shows calls to the Federal Detention Center, the Seattle District Court, and her law firm. Presumably she was as stunned as everyone else by her client’s mysterious release and was trying to figure out what the hell was going on.”

For the thousandth time that day, Hobbs thought, How could this have happened?

“Any other calls?”

Devereaux shook his head. “Some incomings from Diaz, and from another number we can’t pin down. But Hamilton is nowhere to be found. And Diaz is also missing.”

“Can you track the phone?”

“No. It’s either destroyed or in a Faraday case. I don’t know what the hell to make of this, I really don’t.”

They walked in silence for a moment. There had to be a way to manage this. There had to be.

“All right, look,” Hobbs said. “I’m just a lawyer. You’re the director of National Intelligence. You tell me it’s Russia, okay, I’ll go with Russia. But we need something. Even if it’s only to feed the media. Justice is facing a ton of questions, and I can’t keep dodging reporters.”

Hobbs heard a cellphone buzz. His, or Devereaux’s? He reached into his coat pocket to check and saw Devereaux doing the same.

There was a text message. Hobbs didn’t recognize the number, but there was a photo attached. For some reason, he felt suddenly queasy. Devereaux was looking intently at his own phone. He must have received a message, too.

He punched in his passcode and the message opened. It was a photo of an empty room. It looked familiar. He wasn’t sure why.

Then he realized. It was the guest room in Schrader’s Kiawah Island mansion. The one where Hobbs had . . . where he had . . .

His heart started pounding and a wave of dizziness washed over him. He fought to conceal the reaction. And then realized that Devereaux was paying him no attention at all. Because the man was so focused on a text message of his own.