Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)(23)

She screamed again, yanked her car into first gear and slammed down on the gas pedal. With a squeal of tortured tires, the Toyota shot away.

Chapter Eight

THE IMMACULATE INTERIOR of the back of the limousine was just as it should be, luxurious and contained. The man liked to have his environment comfortable and controlled. It brought him a sense of calm and peace, which allowed him to focus on his work.

The seats were made from butter-soft Italian leather. There was a small but perfectly stocked wet bar that included champagne and several bottles of a 1999 Royal DeMaria Riesling Icewine. The fridge was stocked with petit fours; smoked salmon pâté and organic whole grain crackers; boiled quail’s eggs with a lemon-mayonnaise dip; melon balls made from honeydew, cantaloupe and watermelon; and several different kinds of fresh sushi. There was also a flat-screen HDTV that he kept on mute, perpetually tuned to CNN.

The man divided his attention between watching the ticker tape headlines running along the bottom of the screen and the spring scenery that scrolled past his windows.

His cell phone rang. It was one of his employees, and this was a phone call that he had been waiting for, so he answered and listened. “You’re quite sure that he’s dead? And it can’t be traced back to you? Excellent. Thank the Senator for his help. Tell him that I too am looking forward to a mutually beneficial future.” The man smiled out at the bright spring day. He asked his companion, “Do you play chess?”

“What?”

“Forgive me,” the man said. “I thought I said that quite clearly. Do. You. Play. Chess.”

“No, I do not f**king play f**king chess.”

“Do you know anything about the game?”

“For Christ’s sake, who cares?”

“Manners.” The man kept his voice mild, but his gaze turned into spears of ice. “I do, and you would do well to remember that I am driving this conversation.”

A pause. His companion said, “I only know the basic moves, and nothing at all about the maneuvers or strategies. I know just enough about the game to know that’s like labeling primary colors to a master painter like Renoir.”

The man was somewhat mollified. He relaxed back in his seat and chose, for the time being, to ignore his companion’s truculent attitude. “Nicely put. Chess has been called the game of kings, you know, as it was deemed a worthy occupation for sovereigns.”

“I presume you are driving this conversation to somewhere specific.”

The man said, “Then there is the analogy as well. Politics is like a game of chess. There are the pieces, and then there are the players. Dorothy Dunnett, a well-known Scottish novelist, used the analogy in a series of historical novels filled with political intrigue. Have you read her work?”

“No.” His companion closed his eyes, his expression indifferent.

“You should pay attention,” the man said, his tone flat. “I am telling you the most important thing you have heard in your life.”

His companion took a deep breath then opened his eyes and looked at him. “Fine. Do go on.”

The man said, “There is another game beyond the game of kings. It is a shadow game, and it has been played for millennia behind the panoply of human things. Like politics, the board and the pieces of the shadow game have shifted and changed through time, but in this game, the players have remained the same. I have just removed a piece from the game. We should call him a bishop. Like any chess piece he could only make certain moves, but they were damn good ones. I’ll give him that for his epitaph.”

“You had a man killed because of a game in your head.”

“No, I had a man killed because he could sense changes in spirit as he stood near his king and worked to protect him. With this man out of the way, I now have much more leisure and opportunity to take the king. All it will take is the highest-level security clearance, the right time and place and a handshake, and when I do it, it will strengthen my position in the game tenfold.”

“Oh I see. So basically you had a man killed because of a game in your head. I suppose I could congratulate you,” said his companion. “But I won’t.”

“Indeed,” said the man. The corner of his mouth twitched. “The fact of the victory will have to be congratulations enough.”

The ancient game, so long played, was coming to a head. There had been many peaks and valleys over the years, intense maneuvering and vicious skirmishes followed by periods of quiet and a wintering of conflict. Dared he hope they were at long last heading into the endgame?

The man remembered his first years on earth, that giddy rush of exhilaration he had felt after having been imprisoned for so long. He had been free at last and this whole world lay before him like a virgin with her thighs spread wide.

He had to admit it might have gone to his head a little.

He had not been a happy camper when he had found that a group of his people had followed him to earth. That first conflict . . . A frown marred his handsome brow. He didn’t like to remember it.

It had begun so well, his first life in this place. He had lived in a golden land, and his childhood had been one long ascendant journey to self-discovery. He had been born to rule, not by birth but by ability, and by right, and he had taken that golden land of Babylon and made it his own. He became king and imposed his law, his order, enacting his own manifest destiny.