Part 54 (1/2)

CHAPTER TWENTY

Dear Comrade,

We are Ca.s.sandra. We are loyal.

We are sure you've been watching the bleeding liberal media puppets report on the incidents in New York City. It sickens us to listen to their sobbing, their wailing. While we are nothing but amused by their condemnation of the destruction of their pathetic symbols of the blindly opportunistic society that now holds this country under its rigid thumb, we are angry at their one-dimensional and predictable stand on the issues.

Where is their faith? Where is their comprehension?

They still don't see, still don't understand what we are and what we will mean to them.

Tonight we struck with the fury of the G.o.ds. Tonight we watched the scrambling rats. But this is nothing, nothing to what we will do.

Our adversary, the woman that fate and circ.u.mstance deemed we face down for our mission, has proven difficult. She is skilled and strong, but we would be satisfied with no less. It is true that through her, we have lost a certain monetary payment, which we understand you had hoped to secure quickly.

Do not concern yourself with this matter. Our finances are very solvent, and we will bleed this heedless city to its bones before we are finished.

You must trust that we will finish what he began. You must not falter in your faith and your commitment to the cause. Soon, very soon, the most precious symbol of their corrupt and weeping nation will fall. It is all but done.

When this is accomplished, they will pay.

We will see you, face to face, within forty-eight hours. The necessary papers are in order. This next battle to be waged and won in this place, we will complete personally. He would have expected this. He would have demanded it.

Prepare for the next stage, dear comrade. For we will be with you soon to drink to the one who set us on this path. To celebrate our victory and to set the stage for our new republic.

We are Ca.s.sandra.

Peabody strode toward the conference room. She'd just left Zeke and was feeling a little shaky over the conversation they'd had with their parents over the 'link. Both of them had put the pressure on for their parents to stay out west, though each had separate reasons.

Zeke couldn't stand the thought of them seeing him under the current circ.u.mstances. He wasn't in a cell, but it was close. Peabody was determined to clear her brother and put him back on the path of his life in her own way.

But her mother had struggled not to cry, and her father had looked dazed and helpless. She wasn't going to get the image of their faces out of her head any time soon.

Work was the remedy, she decided. Unearthing that lying, murdering b.i.t.c.h Clarissa. Then snapping her skinny neck like a twig. It was with violence brewing under her starched uniform that she walked into the room and saw McNab.

Oh h.e.l.l, was all she could think, and she marched straight over for coffee.

”You're early.”

”I figured you'd be.” He'd also figured out what he intended to do, and he took the first step by going over and closing the door. ”You're not kicking me out of your way without an explanation.”

”I don't need to explain anything to you. We wanted to have s.e.x, we had it.

Done and over. The lab reports come up?”

”I say it's not done and over.” It should be, he knew it should be. But he'd been thinking about that square, serious face and amazingly lush body for days. Weeks. Jesus, maybe months. He'd d.a.m.n well say when it was done and over.

”I've got more important things on my mind than your ego, McNab.” She took a deliberate sip of coffee. ”Like my semiannual dentist appointment.” ”Why don't you save up your lame insults until you have a better selection? They don't work. I've had you under me.”

And over him, she thought. Around and through. ”Had's the operative word.

Past tense.” ”Why?”

”Because that's how it is.”

He stepped closer, pulled the cup out of her hand, slammed it down. ”Why?” Her heart began to pound. d.a.m.n it, she wasn't supposed to feel anything. ”Because that's the way I want it.”