DEADLY DRIVER Page 18

  Kyoto laughed as they embraced and held tight for a moment. She stepped back and smiled, pulling at his hand to take him for a tour.

  She looked stunning—hair pulled back, white t-shirt, tight jeans, barefoot on the plush grey carpet. It all worked for him. History remembered the Watergate for its role in the end of the Nixon presidency, back in the summer of 1972. Nearly fifty years later, Bryce and Kyoto’s generation was familiar only with the name, not the history behind it.

  When Bryce had first learned of her new address, he recalled a few details about the place from school assignments, reading about the scandals and Nixon’s resignation, the man shamed into it because he had broken the law. Among other things, his re-election campaign had put former spies and fixers from the CIA and other intelligence services to work. They had broken into the Democratic National Party’s offices located in the Watergate complex to obtain intel on the competition. Over time, more and more incriminating information, including audiotapes of the president himself, would bring his reign to an embarrassing end.

  And now I’m working for the CIA, he thought as he followed Kyoto. For that matter, I wonder how much spying has gone on in racing, to try to gain an advantage by stealing info on the competition.

  First, she led him to the cluster of windows that revealed a view of the river and the tree-covered banks over on the Virginia side. The rooms were full of new furniture and fixtures, some still in boxes or shrouded in bubble wrap. But the massive flat-screen was mounted across from an inviting large brown leather sofa.

  Bryce laughed to himself, remembering how long it had taken him to set up his address in Monte Carlo. Once the television and sofa were installed, he’d lost his appetite for setting up a second home and went off to race, again and again. Suddenly, his senses alerted him. He smelled something wonderful and followed his nose straight into the kitchen.

  “I was going to show you the bedroom but you’re in here?” she joked.

  He turned and smiled at her as he peeked under a few lids and then opened the oven to inspect the main course. She slapped him on the wrist and pushed him away from the food prep area but then dove back into an embrace with him. Bryce thought about turning down the dials on the stove and delaying dinner a bit, but a knock at the door brought his plan to a sudden stop.

  “Company?” he asked curiously. He slid back into the kitchen while she went to the door. Bryce went about opening the wine he’d brought and then noticed there were three settings at the table.

  He could hear Kyoto speaking with someone in the hallway and turned when he heard her say, “Bryce, I want you to meet my brother - Jon.”

  She was beaming, standing alongside a young man who could have been her twin. Bryce put down the wine and stepped forward to shake hands. He laughed at Jon’s expression; his mouth and eyes wide open in surprise. Bryce had seen the look a million times when people recognized him. He wrapped his arms around Jon. Two brothers had raised Bryce; neither of them ever said, “I love you” or verbally expressed feelings for one another very often. But they were huggers.

  Strangely, Jon seemed unwilling to return his embrace. Bryce could feel the other man’s arms just hanging at his side. Bryce stepped back to see his face. The look in Jon’s eyes wasn’t that of star-struck awe. It was fear.

  “Earth to Jon,” Kyoto joked, poking her brother in the side.

  “I remember the picture you sent to me and father,” he finally said, his voice strained. “You and Bryce Winters the Formula One driver.” He stepped back a foot. “I-I didn’t know you actually knew him.”

  She laughed, as did Bryce who then turned his focus back on the wine. Maybe the booze will relax him. After a toast, Kyoto insisted Jon and Bryce sit together in the living room while she finished preparing the meal. When she checked on them a few minutes later she laughed when she saw them engrossed in a premier league soccer match from England on the TV.

  “Good to see you two have something more in common than just me,” she said. “Dinner in five minutes. And it won’t be in front of the television on my new sofa.”

  *

  “That’s god-damned Bryce Winters taking a leak in your bathroom!” Jon whispered in his sister’s ear as she spooned the last bit of mashed potatoes into a serving dish.

  She just smiled at him. “I haven’t felt like this about anyone in years,” she responded in a whispered tone and kept working.

  What the fuck! Jon thought in frustration as he tried to process what was happening. His sister had no idea what she had gotten herself into. The fact that she’d fallen for the man Jon had identified as an international killer was something that only happened in the movies. This wasn’t possible; the world couldn’t be this damn small. Not with my sister.

  By the time Bryce returned to the kitchen, Jon was near panic, inside. He excused himself and locked himself in her bathroom to try and process what the hell was going on and what to do about it. He knew he couldn’t tell Kyoto what he had learned of the man she was falling in love with. That would likely cost him his job. Maybe even result in prison time. Even worse, if he revealed what he knew to his sister and destroyed her relationship with Bryce, the race driver might pay him back by throwing his body in a dumpster in DC. This was crazy!

  What the fuck, he said to himself again. I’m just an analyst; this is way higher than my pay grade. A knock at the door snapped him back. It was his sister. “Dinner’s getting cold, stop playing in there and come join us. He doesn’t bite.”

  Perhaps it was the three glasses of wine that helped relax him. One was usually his limit. Soccer, the sites and the history of the city two of the three now worked in, and food consumed them during turkey dinner that came with all the trimmings.

  “It’s not Thanksgiving,” Kyoto had toasted earlier. “But I have so much to be thankful for.” She looked to Jon and then to Bryce while taking his hand in hers.

  Jon returned an encouraging smile but knew, one way or another, he had to get her away from this man. Bryce Winters and Jack Madigan, had been flagged as killers, assigned to one covert assignment after another. No way could he allow his sister to continue seeing, and sleeping with, Winters. But as soon as they finished eating and adjourned to the living room, the turkey and wine began to take their toll. The room seemed to spin. He felt confused enough by the situation and now the alcohol was taking its toll. Finding a solution, he decided, would need to wait. He was done. He closed his eyes, leaned back into the sofa cushion.

  He remembered feeling his sister place a blanket over him there on the sofa. She must have turned off the television and the lights. By the time he woke up early the next morning, his head nearly clear, Bryce was long gone.

  He could hear Kyoto in the bedroom, rushing to get dressed. He poured a coffee from the pot she’d made, trying to think of what to say to her. When he heard her finally come into the kitchen, he turned to face her, the words prepared to break her heart.

  She flashed him a huge smile, and his heart sank. That smile wasn’t for him. She was in love, and he knew they were screwed.

  *

  Arlington, Virginia. When it came to professional assassins—whether a government agency, the military, or a freelancer employed by a wealthy criminal, Bryce had learned they were an eclectic bunch at best. In the case of the “three musketeers” as they were nicknamed at the CIA, they were professionals and while never willing to be labeled as assassins, they were known to do whatever it took- whatever it took – to accomplish an assignment or protect the United States. In the case of their orders regarding Bryce Winters, they were conflicted. Having received specific instructions from their new superior, Sandra Jennings, they sat in the back booth of a bar in Arlington and stared into space. As their server brought them another round of beer and shots, they made their traditional boilermakers and downed them in short order.

  “We can’t touch the prick now, not as long as she’s in the mix,” Russo said as Chadwick and Brownell nodded. “None of the directions we
wanted to take were practical, or they violated orders, except the one. Since Madigan agreed to this long before we got the memo, it’s game on as far as I’m concerned. We just won’t tell him to call it off.” Chadwick said, waving for yet another round.

  “Plausible deniability has to be maintained,” Chadwick stated emphatically. “I’m not giving up my pension or freedom over this.” They waited until the server removed their empty glassware before continuing.

  “So, we are in agreement?” Brownell said. “Once Madigan makes his move, he’ll wind up as dead as Bryce Winters.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Twenty-four hours after their dinner at the Watergate and then a meeting at the team’s HQ in the Midlands, Bryce typed in the alarm code and turned the key to enter his hillside condo overlooking the Med in Monte Carlo. It was late. Weather in England had delayed the departure of his private charter to Nice. Keys dropped on the tray on the table by the door, bags beneath them. He walked through to the kitchen, adjusted the thermostat to a cozier 72 degrees, grabbed a beer from the bar, and then spent a few minutes just admiring his home away from home.

  He’d hired an interior designer to mimic what he’d loved about the Greek isle Santorini. The walls were painted a shade of pale white, the tile floors mostly blues and golds, and the furniture white and bright throughout. In daylight, if someone didn’t know better, they could very easily believe they were above the water in Greece, until they looked down on the motor and sailing yachts in the marina below. Monaco’s presidential palace tucked away on the far hill off to the right.

  He’d slept on the plane so wasn’t ready to call it a night, not yet. Bryce spent a good ten minutes in the long hallway that led straight from the entry door to the patio overlooking the sea.

  Monte Carlo was far from Vermont and even farther from Park City, but the photos he’d hung in the hallway made it all seem a bit closer. There were large, mounted photos by his favorite wildlife photographer Tom Mangelsen. Grizzlies from Montana and Alaska and a lion much like those he had seen in Africa, healthier and happier than those he’d seen in zoos. On the wall opposite the predators, he had mounted football and motorsport photography by Mark Rebilas from Phoenix. He’d never met either man but greatly admired their work.

  After a few days of rest, biking and hiking, rest, time in the gym, and then more rest, he’d reset the alarm and board another jet. This one headed for Shanghai. But a text came through that threw him a curve ball. It was from Jack Madigan.

  Got dinner plans?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Ameer Kazaan’s Bombardier 8000 jet was a pearl white beauty with a red-and-blue stripe that grew thicker as it spread from nose to tail. Bryce hadn’t flown on this one, yet was thrilled when he saw it pull up on the tarmac at the private terminal of the Nice airport. With comfortable seating, tan leather captain’s chairs, contrasting darker appointments and plush carpet, the accommodations for eighteen were spacious and comfortable.

  The cabin was half empty until Bryce and the team’s new technical consultant, Jack Madigan, came aboard. Most of the team was heading from the Midlands in the U.K. to China on commercial flights, via Frankfurt or Istanbul. Bryce’s chief engineer Freddie Burns and his four-man team were able to fly private as part of their contract with Kazaan. And there was always to be an open seat for their star driver. Dickie Jones, Bryce’s teammate, was somewhere over Europe at this hour, flying commercial but up front in first class.

  After exchanging greetings and a few jokes, Bryce and Madigan left the engineers to the meeting they’d been in the middle of and headed to the back of the cabin to continue their dinner discussion from the night before.

  *

  Madigan hadn’t spoken with Bryce in months. But, after being so close for so many years, the time they had spent apart reminded Bryce of how much he cared for and had missed his dear friend. Dinner the night before was pizza, delivered so they could talk without the interruption of excited fans hoping for a photo, an autograph, or in rare instances, pulling up a chair and joining the party.

  F1’s security team didn’t shadow him at home unless there was a specific threat. But if he’d gone out, two highly qualified security experts posing as a young couple on holiday, would have shadowed his every move. They and a dozen others worked shifts on the local police force, were retired military, or both, and provided protection when called on by Bryce or many of the other drivers who called the hillside their home. His security didn’t come cheap, but it was necessary.

  While they had waited for the food to arrive, the two had caught up as long-lost friends, picking up where they had left off nearly five months prior. Madigan’s temper had cooled but began to resurface as they fought over the last slice of pepperoni pizza.

  “This whole thing could have gone so wrong,” Jack had told him and then dug up the hard feelings he’d expressed in Mexico and later in Abu Dhabi. After pushing the empty box out of the way, Bryce gave in and let his guest have the last piece.

  Madigan shoved his chair back and threw the food across the room. “I loved her, God-damn it, and you took her from me!” he shouted. “Don’t give me any of Pete’s bullshit either, Bryce. He left a voicemail on my phone two days after the last race and apologized, if you want to call it that. Listen,” he said as he played the recording he’d kept of the last words he’d heard from the assassin.

  “Hey Jack,” the message began, “I really am sorry that I ruined your love life. I truly am. But remember, she was cheating on her husband, so what does that tell you? That you were that special she’d leave him for you, only to leave you to wonder if she was playing hide and seek with some other swingin’ dick out there, too? Long term, you’re better off without her. Move on. Don’t blame Bryce for this. He didn’t know you had feelings for her. He thought you resented her for blackmailing you, just as much as he did. So anyway, sorry I used the taser on you. I needed to be able to do what I thought was right if either of those pricks decided to screw with our boy.”

  Madigan looked at Bryce, who was listening to every word as the recording continued.

  “Listen, you boys get your butts out from under the CIA boot they’ve got on your necks. I’m here in Africa now. I just left a note for Bryce, but I’ll tell you. I’m dying and will be gone before Christmas. Sorry I messed things up for you both. I never intended for either of you to get caught up in my shit. Find yourself a good-looking woman back there in Charlotte once you’re done with the road. There’s plenty of them out there looking for a good man. And you are one, even if you are a prick sometimes.”

  They heard Pete begin to laugh as he delivered those last words and they responded in kind, Madigan seeing a tear well up in Bryce’s eye. He watched as Bryce got up from the table to grab two more beers from the bar.

  “I’ll say it again, Jack, and I mean it with all my heart. I am sorry. If I had known, Pete would not have been in Baja.” He came back to the table and sat down, pulling a one Euro coin from his pocket. He stared at his friend until he saw a change, a very slight one, in Madigan’s expression.

  “Flip ya to see who cleans that up?” Bryce said with a smile that Madigan then reflected.

  Having lost the bet, Madigan cleaned up the pizza he’d smashed against the sliding glass door. Then they sat and retold stories of their earlier days in racing. Madigan announced that he’d sold his modest home in North Carolina, as it had only been a spot for pit stops all these years.

  “I was thinking about buying a place somewhere in the Mountain West, maybe Utah, out close to the track in Salt Lake. I hear there might be a driving school opening up there soon. Thought I could get a job there if they’re hiring.” He saw Bryce’s face develop a grin from ear to ear.

  “Oh yeah, one last thing. I joined the team this morning. Signed the docs and flew here to tell you I’ll be alongside for as long as you keep chasing that second title.”

  Bryce’s smile was exactly what Madigan had hoped for.

  “Oh, and one
more last thing. The CIA wants me to kill you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The race in China went perfectly. Even though Bryce kept looking over his shoulder, he heard nothing from the CIA or Lee or the MSS. He did as Lee had asked back in Paris, behaved himself in her country and left without trying to terminate anyone. Luckily, the agency had not asked him to do anything or move on anyone there but she wouldn’t have known that.

  The next race took place at Baku in Azerbaijan – a street circuit off the shores of the Caspian Sea. To the north was Russia, to the south Iran. He thought for sure the CIA would have a job for him, the area was dead center between two of America’s most dangerous adversaries. Bryce hadn’t heard a word although he thought he’d seen Jason Ryan’s face pop up in a crowd of onlookers but had disappeared as Bryce did a double take. Two weeks later the tour was back in Spain on the same track where the pre-season testing had launched the racing calendar. Bryce hadn’t heard anything from his handlers prior to Catalunya either but thinking back to the man he had helped kill with the pace car ride, and fearing repercussions from any of the man’s family or business connections, Bryce kept his appearance schedule light and the security around him much heavier. As they separated at the airport for flights back to England and Monaco, Burns and Bryce joked that Madigan had been a much-needed lucky charm. With back to back wins and a second place, the quest for another F1 World Championship for the team, and for Bryce, now seemed possible.

  The schedule kept rolling and the next event, one that he had always found most challenging, would take place just a short ride down to sea level from his European home. A win in the Monaco Grand Prix was the most prestigious, coveted prize for any driver, second only to the series title. Bryce was thrilled Kyoto had agreed to make her first trip ever to Monte Carlo. He was looking forward to showing her the city. It would also be the first race she would attend in person; she’d always passed on her father’s invitations to join him in Japan. The race itself was one of the most intense experiences in racing he had ever competed in and he couldn’t wait for the weekend to arrive.