Long Road Home(56)

“You needed to hear this in person,” Tony said.

Manuel leaned back and sighed. “All right, out with it then.”

Tony reached into his coat pocket and pulled out Jules’s phone. Manuel’s gut tightened.

“I played around with this quite a bit,” Tony began. “The only messages I found stored were the ones you already saw. And there were no records of phone numbers from incoming or outgoing calls. But what I did find were dates and times she received calls.”

Manuel continued to stare at him. “And this is important why?”

“I’m getting to that,” Tony said impatiently. “I fed the information into our database of phone conversations, but there are millions upon millions of conversations to sort through, and with only a date and a time, the likelihood of getting a hit is slim to none. So I had to narrow the search parameters. Think of words that might have been used, not very common words if we were going to come up with a short list.”

Manuel drummed his fingers, waiting for his partner to get to the point. Assuming he had one.

“I tried all sorts of words a man might use when ordering an assassination, but everything I tried came up with no less than a hundred thousand possibilities. Again, not good when time is a factor.”

Tony’s voice went up in excitement. Despite his attempt at disinterest, Manuel leaned forward.

“I noticed in both of the e-mails on Jules’s phone, the man she calls Northstar has a habit of calling her Magalie. So I tried Magalie, used the dates and times of the phone calls Jules received, then weeded through a few thousand French conversations and came across this.”

He reached forward and placed a digital recorder on the coffee table. He pressed the play button with his thumb and stood back.

Manuel flinched when Jules’s wavery voice filtered out of the recorder.

“You don’t need me anymore. Why won’t you just let me go?”

“Oh, but I do need you, Magalie. One last time.”

Manuel’s stomach rolled as he listened to the exchange. Jules sounded so small. Defeated. Then fury washed over him with the next words.

“If you refuse, you can kiss your little boyfriend goodbye. Don’t f**k with me. You know what I’m capable of. Removing lover boy from the picture would be nothing more than swatting an insect with a flyswatter…

“Do this assignment, and you’ll have what you most want. Your freedom. Refuse and I’ll make your life a living hell. Maybe you remember what happened the first time you hesitated.”

Manuel lost Jules’s responses. He focused solely on the bastard taunting her. He knew that voice. But it couldn’t be. It simply could not be.

“Or maybe you liked it? Did you enjoy it, Magalie?”

Then Jules’s tired, defeated voice. Full of resignation.

“I’ll do it.”

Tony reached down and shut off the recorder. Then he stared hard at Manuel. “This is only the beginning, Manuel. Are you prepared to hear the rest?”

“Jesus Christ, Tony! That sounded like Sanderson.”

“It was. It is.”

Manuel’s mouth dropped open. It was incomprehensible. What the hell was the director of Manuel and Tony’s counter-terrorism unit, a man Manuel had trusted, called a friend, doing threatening Jules into assassinating a United States senator?

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Patience was rewarded. Jules knew this. And on the second day of her vigil, she knew her time had come.

She’d come to this secluded garden adjoining the National Cathedral, numb with the depth of her despair. Fueled by the need for revenge, driven to protect Manny with her last breath. And it could well mean the end of her.

She curled her fingers around the cold stock of her gun and waited. Waited for the senator to make his appearance.

The sun was sinking lower in the sky. Only a few hours of daylight remained, yet she knew he would come. Her phone call to the senator’s office would not go ignored. Whether Northstar would accompany him was anyone’s guess, but the senator was a good place to start in her quest for vengeance.

She sucked in the cold air, let it wash over her, then breathed it out again in a visible puff. She knew it was near freezing, and yet she didn’t feel any discomfort. The light jacket she wore was not for warmth, it was to disguise her weapon.

She stared rigidly over the spiraling pathways, waiting for the senator to appear. She’d shoot the bastard, but first she’d make him tell her where she could find Northstar.

Over the last three years, she’d wondered what it would take to completely turn her into the cold-blooded monster she feared. Now she knew. Her transformation was complete. Gone was the girl who felt each kill to her depths, each one chipping away at her soul. She embraced this kill. This one would set her free.

She rocked slightly, the movement soothing, helping her focus on the task at hand. Unbidden images of Manny streaked through her mind. Instantly she was bombarded with pictures of what her life might have been like had Northstar and the senator never crossed her path.

She rocked faster.

More time passed and still no sign of the senator. As the sun dipped lower into the horizon, she continued her vigil. Then, as the shadows crept across the bench where she sat, she saw him.

“Yeah, that was my reaction, too,” Tony said grimly. “But it’s him. After I heard this conversation, I did some digging. I haven’t slept since I don’t know when.”