The Speed of Sound (Speed of Sound Thrillers #1)(7)

“Yes?”

“I need your help.” Henry’s voice quivered slightly. He knew he sounded high.

“Is the matter urgent?”

“I wouldn’t have called otherwise.”

The phone’s GPS transmitter let the man on the other end know that Henry was calling from inside a hotel in Philadelphia. “What is your room number?”

“It’s 3902.” Henry decided to ignore how unsettling it was that they already knew what hotel he was in. He convinced himself this was a good thing.

“Two friends will be there within ninety minutes. Do not leave your room. Do not communicate with anyone else. When they are outside your door, I will text you.”

The two men were seven minutes early. The time was 2:28 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time when the text message arrived on Henry’s phone: knock knock.

Henry peered through the peephole at the two expressionless men. They wore nylon sweat suits and baseball caps. Phillies and Mets. Henry had never seen either man before, and knew he would never see either one again. He opened the door and stepped back as they entered. Both men put on surgical gloves. There would be no trace they were ever here. They locked the door behind them and moved quickly from room to room to assess the situation.

It was bad.

Henry followed carefully behind them. “Please tell me you guys can get me out of this.”

Mets fan turned to him and spoke evenly and clearly. “You must do exactly as we say.”

“Just tell me what to do.”

Phillies fan pointed to the beige carpet next to the bed where the dead girl was sprawled. “Stand here.”

Henry did so. It seemed a little strange, but he was not about to question a damn thing.

“Face her.”

Henry turned toward the body, even as his instincts told him something was wrong.

Unfortunately, he was right.

The two men moved swiftly and in perfect unison. Mets fan stepped behind Henry, grabbing him from behind. Phillies fan grabbed his right arm, placing a handgun into Henry’s hand and forcing his fingers around the handle. The man’s grip was incredibly strong. There wasn’t anything Henry could do to stop Phillies fan from forcing the gun barrel into Henry’s mouth.

Having thoroughly rehearsed the sequence, Mets fan knew to duck just as Phillies fan pulled the trigger. The back of the congressman’s skull covered a good portion of the wall behind him as he dropped dead to the floor. The weapon remained in his hand. The residue on his fingers would clearly show that he had pulled the trigger. Any forensics expert in the world would conclude this was a suicide. The congressman had gotten away with too much for too long. Anyone who read the newspapers knew it. But his luck had finally run out.

Mets fan retrieved the encrypted phone from Henry’s pocket, and the two assassins exited the room. The body would be discovered shortly after nine o’clock the next morning when he didn’t show up for a breakfast with his chief of staff. A hotel security guard would tweet the news at 9:17 a.m. Within fifteen minutes, the guard would receive competing six-figure offers from three different news outlets for photographic evidence from the scene.

The Democratic Party was going to have to find another front runner for the upcoming presidential election. And the man who had ordered the death of Henry Townsend knew exactly who they were going to turn to.





CHAPTER 7

Harmony House, Woodbury, New Jersey, May 20, 5:30 a.m.

Eddie’s eyes opened bright and early, as they did most mornings. This was his favorite time of day, these very first moments. Because the day would never be more quiet, more peaceful, or more beautiful than it was right now. He just lay there, head resting upon his Batman pillowcase, listening to the magnificent SILENCE. There wasn’t another living soul moving anywhere in Harmony House. But Eddie knew that outside his window, it was a different story. He cracked open the window—no more than an inch, because an inch was all that was needed to let the glorious chorus come pouring in.

This morning it was a black-capped chickadee and a hermit thrush. Other mornings, it was a common tern and a green-winged teal. And if he was really lucky, a blue-winged warbler joined the ornithological chorus, but that was only on rare occasions. The chirps of each bird were distinct. And Eddie could mimic each just about perfectly. Puckering his lips, pulling his cheeks tightly against his teeth, and exhaling ever so slightly in quick bursts, he turned the duo into a trio.

Eddie could talk to the birds.

The three birds seemed to have a lot to say. CHIRP, CHIRP, WHISTLE, WHISTLE. CA-CAW, BRRRIP. It lasted for one minute. Then two. But seemed more like days. By his count, thirty-seven different varieties of birds had made early morning music with him, and he hoped for more. Like a belted kingfisher or a swallow-tailed kite. He hoped that if there was a heaven, one day he would get to sing with a chorus of every kind of bird in existence. How truly glorious that would be.

The only thing Eddie could imagine sounding more beautiful was the sound of his mother’s voice, which was the one voice he most wanted to hear, but was also the one he never could. She had died giving birth to him. One of the few kind aspects to Asperger’s was that it kept Eddie from being burdened with the sense of guilt over her death that many in his situation might suffer. That kind of emotion just didn’t compute. Not for most people diagnosed within the autism spectrum. All he knew was that he wanted to hear his mother.