Clickers III Read online

Simple, right?

  Clark was pretty confident Tony would cooperate. After all, this was a guy who’d negotiated his way into a pretty cool relocation/new identity thanks to Livingston’s Administration. Both his original options would have resulted in painful deaths. That indicated Tony Genova was very interested in staying alive, no matter what the cost. If he dropped dime on the Marano family in exchange for this cushy new life, he’d drop dime again to get Clark what he needed.

  To be exonerated.

  Left alone.

  To live out the rest of his life in peace.

  Livingston had that power. He could end this relentless investigation into former President Jeffrey Tyler’s death. He had the influence to shape and manufacture evidence, which would in turn be used to provide the official documentation on the man’s untimely death. Conspiracy theorists would still ponder the events of that day, would still come to their own crackpot theories, and some would even cling doggedly to the notion that Clark had, indeed, killed President Tyler. But those theories would never go on any official record. Until the current investigation was shut down, a false solution presented, and the trail leading to Clark Arroyo was erased permanently, he could never be at rest.

  He could also stop killing people, too.

  Despite the fact that he was good at it, Clark didn’t really like doing it.

  Unfortunately, the events of the last two years had forced his hand. The killings would never be traced back to him. He’d made sure of that, having been trained by the best and the brightest in the US Government. But Tyler’s foot soldiers were still around, and they were causing trouble for him. They were like cockroaches. Pests that invaded your living space and wreaked havoc until you killed them. And just like cockroaches, they kept popping up and sniffing around, trying to find anything that would bolster their theories that a US Secret Service agent had killed President Jeffrey Tyler in cold blood.

  Thank God much of this had gone under the radar of mainstream America. They’d been too preoccupied with other things; rebuilding the East Coast, dealing with the emotional turmoil of a fallen President, then the brief shift of power to President Bower followed by Livingston’s sweep a little over a year later. Rebuilding and eradicating the Clickers and Dark Ones threat had been foremost on everybody’s minds since then.

  And as that war had gone on, a smaller, more covert, battle was being waged by the last stragglers of the Tyler Administration.

  And that battle had led him here, to the dry desert of Arizona. To Tony Genova’s new life.

  Clark wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand and glanced at his watch. Five minutes had passed since the newcomers had slipped into Tony’s condo unit so effortlessly. Tony would be conscious now. The guy who’d tapped Tony’s neck had used a pressure point technique. If applied properly, it only rendered the victim unconscious for a few minutes. Clark had been planning on using a similar technique on Tony as a first option.

  The RNC had been making noise about President Tyler’s death ever since the smoke cleared from the devastation wreaked in DC. Shell casings found in the secret tunnel where Tyler’s partial remains were found matched the Sig Sauer Clark had bought for his own personal use, which was the handgun he’d pulled out of his glove compartment the night Ken White had escorted him out of the building during the height of Hurricane Gary. Clark had had a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, which he freely gave to the FBI and the Homeland Security agents who’d interviewed him in the weeks following Hurricane Gary: President Tyler was not in his right mind when he’d fired Clark, so he’d retrieved his personal weapon and found a way back in to the White House. He had done this to help serve and protect his country. Yes, he’d made his way upstairs to the conference room where so many of Tyler’s cabinet members had met their untimely deaths, but he’d done so out of an obligation to help his fellow Secret Service agents. In the ensuing firefight he’d shot many Dark Ones. It had been utter chaos. And at the height of it, Clark had found one of the secret passages that led to the underground bunkers and shoved President Tyler inside in an effort to save his life.

  They’d encountered Dark Ones in the tunnels and he’d fired his weapon in self-defense. He’d tried to pull Tyler through an exit in another part of the building, but the Dark Ones were too fast. They’d attacked President Tyler just as the entire building shook—the giant Clicker tearing the White House apart, he later heard. Clark ran down the hallway, already knowing President Tyler was dead, knowing he’d be killed if he tried to intervene. What was the point in trying to save the President now? He had to get out and try to help others.

  Besides, President Tyler’s remains were so mangled there was no evidence of a bullet wound. The official cause of death, according to the government coroner, was by bleeding and trauma due to injuries sustained during an attack by the Dark Ones.

  Tyler’s death had just been one among tens of thousands that night. Although he didn’t find out until later, one of Clark’s daughters had been another. She and her husband were slaughtered in North Carolina when the Clickers came ashore. But that didn’t matter to the people in charge. Her death wasn’t as important as the President’s.

  Clark’s testimony, which Homeland Security and the FBI accepted, hadn’t been enough to satisfy the Tyler Administration loyalists. They’d demanded a full investigation. They were joined by members of both parties. The FBI Investigation backed up Clark Arroyo’s testimony, which was presented to the Pentagon and the Joints Chiefs of Staff. The RNC formed an independent investigation into President Tyler’s death shortly after Livingston was sworn in to office, and his administration cooperated. Thanks to the turmoil caused by Hurricane Gary, and the destruction caused by the Clickers and the Dark Ones, it took well over a year for the wheels to begin grinding on a proper investigation into the events that had taken place in the White House in the early morning hours of July 5, 2006.

  By then, Clark had disappeared.

  On July 7, 2006, during the clean-up operations and the search and destroy missions that were taking part up and down the East Coast, Clark Arroyo had given his exit interview with the Director of the Secret Service. Before he was killed in the slaughter in the White House, Ken White had sent an email via Blackberry to key personnel advising them of Clark’s dismissal. That dismissal was rescinded during his exit interview. Clark didn’t even have to think about it. “I’m done,” he’d said. “Consider me retired.”

  And with that, he’d become a civilian for the first time in almost thirty years.

  And it hadn’t been easy.

  His wife, Lisa, had been upset, of course. His surviving daughter even more so. He’d laid low for the first month or two until he was able to receive his retirement annuity. Once received, he’d called Scott Baker, an old high school buddy of his who worked at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. He’d met Scott for lunch and drinks at his comfortable suburban home one Saturday afternoon and, while Scott’s wife Melanie was out, he’d told his old friend everything.

  Scott had listened, then gave Clark the kind of advice he’d hoped to receive. “There’s talk of Augustus Livingston running for President in 2008. If he wins, he will no doubt use his power to crush the last of Tyler’s Administration. In fact, I wouldn’t put it past him to have some of those guys detained at Guantanamo Bay or another Federal institution. If that happens, you can bet loyalists to the Tyler Administration and those who hold to the same ideology will do everything they can to dig up anything they can find on Tyler’s death. If they connect you to it—and I believe they will, although it will be purely on circumstantial evidence—they will make your life hell. You don’t want to be around for that.”

  “So what should I do?” Clark had asked.

  “Disappear,” Scott had said, and from the tone of his voice Clark could tell his old friend was deadly serious. “Make plans to disappear now. Have you told anybody else what you just told me?”

  Clark told him he hadn’t.

&
nbsp; “Good. Don’t. Let me help you. Give me two weeks and I’ll have everything set up for you.”

  Two weeks later, Scott followed through on his word. He’d presented Clark with a package during their next meeting. “If I were you, I’d transfer as much of your annuity into the offshore account I’ve opened for you. Paperwork on the account is in this package.”

  With that, Clark began thinking about what to do if the time to disappear ever came. In a perfect world, he’d enjoy his early retirement with Lisa. But he couldn’t count on that. Not after what had happened.

  Because if somebody got too nosy and found out what really happened in that secret tunnel in the White House…

  It was Lisa who put his plans on disappearing into overdrive. Two months after his retirement, she told him she wanted a divorce.

  And she wanted half of his retirement funds…

  …and furthermore, she knew what he’d really done to President Jeffrey Tyler…

  It was that revelation that blindsided him. It had also been the first time he’d almost hit a woman. At first he’d said it was because she was

  distraught over the death of their daughter. Lisa insisted that it wasn’t. In the twenty minutes or so that followed these announcements—mostly through angry shouts—Clark learned three things. One, Lisa had been having an affair for the past two years with a member of the RNC; two, her lover, who he later learned idolized President Tyler, had convinced her irrevocably that Clark had shot President Tyler in cold blood; and three, she and her new boyfriend were going to get married…as soon as the ink was dry on the divorce papers and her share of Clark’s retirement funds was in her bank account. He hadn’t transferred those funds into his offshore account, for fear that she’d have been able to follow the trail. Besides, he didn’t need the money she was legally entitled to anyway, especially where he was going once the RNC uncovered the truth about what he’d really done.

  That was the night Clark learned that a 9mm slug had been pulled out of Special Agent Nathan Walpow’s brainpan. One of the casings found in the ruins of the White House conference room where his body (and the eviscerated remains of various members of Tyler’s cabinet had convened during the storm) was matched to the slug, which, in turn, matched Clark’s Sig Sauer. Clark had not mentioned in any of the interviews and statements he’d given to investigators that he’d shot and killed Agent Walpow. Sure, he’d shot the guy, but he wasn’t going to tell them that. All they needed to know was that it had been a chaotic scene. That was more than enough to lead investigators to believe that if Walpow was shot by Clark Arroyo’s gun, it had been an accident.

  Clark wound up having to disappear after all—and a lot sooner than he thought.

  The day after Lisa dropped her bombshell, Clark withdrew everything in his retirement annuity. He received a briefcase full of cash. The bank security guard escorted him to his car. Clark had already packed the vehicle with essential belongings: his laptop and backup external drives containing important files, some clothes, important paperwork, including the documents Scott Baker had given him containing information on his new identity, and some photos of his daughters.

  Then he disappeared.

  And now after almost three years, the trail had led to here. To Tony Genova. Tony was the key to Livingston. And Livingston was the key to making it all go away.

  Clark glanced at his watch. It had been thirty minutes since Tony Genova’s condo unit had been invaded by the still-unknown government agents. Nobody had come out since then.

  Clark considered his options, going over them again in his head.

  If the three assailants had intended to kill Tony, they would have done it already. That eliminated a team of Marano family assassins. He was sure of it. And he was positive that they weren’t employed by the Bureau. Were they CIA? Even less likely. One, they weren’t supposed to operate on US soil, and two, what the hell would they want with Genova anyway? In the dossier Scott Baker had given him a month ago when they’d located Tony’s new whereabouts and identity, Scott had been adamant that Tony did not interest the CIA. “He’s cooperating with the Livingston Administration,” he’d told Clark. “Only two people know of his existence outside of his handlers.”

  That left only one option.

  Black Lodge.

  And if that was the case, and if Black Lodge really existed, the question was this: why were they interested in Tony Genova?

  Clark took a deep breath. He felt his face grow flush with adrenalin. He was at the end of his rope, literally. Last month, Scott Baker had told him that a private investigation firm hired by Tyler Administration loyalists was looking into the circumstances surrounding several mysterious deaths. Keith Simpson, an RNC underling, had been killed in an underground parking garage, his throat slit from ear to ear; Natalie Combs, CEO of a Faith-based group that funded Tyler Administration projects and was a head cheerleader for the investigation into his death, was found dead in her apartment five months later of an apparent suicide. There were others, too, all over the course of the last two years, all people directly or loosely con-nected with the Tyler Administration and the investigation into the former President’s death. “These people are like bloodhounds on the scent,” Scott had said. “They can’t prove you had anything to do with these deaths, but they’ve made the connection. They realize somebody is behind them, maybe more than one person. If they connect you in any way—”

  That was all it had taken. Clark had to get to the source. To the man who was the closest thing to former President Jeffrey Tyler: Donald Barker. The only problem was Barker was in Federal custody at an undisclosed location, and only President Augustus Livingston and a close circle of cabinet members and advisors had direct knowledge of it.

  That was why Clark had come here. To use Tony Genova as a bargaining chip. The exwiseguy was important to the Livingston Administration; even Scott Baker couldn’t get information on why

  Livingston had made such a sweet deal with the guy.

  Clark’s plan with Livingston was simple: give me what I want or I not only expose Tony Genova and make you look bad to the entire country, I can have your illegitimate grandchild killed.

  Clark had found out about Livingston’s son through Scott Baker’s efforts. He learned Livingston had recently made amends with him. During his widespread popularity in the months leading to his ascension to the presidency, Livingston’s son and his new family had come under a brief flurry of media attention. Livingston had quickly put them under Secret Service protection where they remained, to this day.

  Thanks to Clark’s connections, he knew the man’s habits, as well as the daily routine of his wife and child.

  He could have the kid killed easily. He could furnish Livingston with the proof. In fact, the proof was already sitting at the bottom of a barely used coat closet in the man’s house. Hidden beneath a pile of blankets and old clothes was a small box containing enough C-4 to take out the entire house. The trigger was voice-activated. Clark had installed a secondary, non-lethal explosive device in the man’s master bedroom that he would use to demonstrate he wasn’t fooling around. Livingston would have ten minutes to give Clark the access he needed to Donald Barker. If Clark did not have visual and confirmation that Barker was being transported to a less secure location, the C-4 would be detonated.

  Clark knew Tony Genova was one of the few people on the planet who could get access to President Livingston. Scott Baker had told him Livingston had taken a liking to the man. They talked almost weekly. Despite Tony’s back-ground, Livingston had a modicum of trust with the man.

  Livingston would do what Tony asked him to do, no question about it.

  Once Clark had Donald Barker where he wanted him, it would all be over.

  Only now, his plans were foiled.

  Clark thought about what to do. If it was indeed Black Lodge agents that had stormed Tony’s apartment, he might have entered a perfect storm type of situation. It was obvious they didn’t know Clark was watching th
em, didn’t even know Clark’s whereabouts, so he had the element of surprise. The handgun Clark had concealed in his coat was a Desert Eagle .50 caliber job with a custom sound sup-pressor affixed to the barrel. He’d quit carrying a Sig Sauer when he went rogue. Clark was a good shot. He could burst in, take all three of them down quickly, and Tony wouldn’t know what was going on until the unknown agents who’d spoiled the party were dead.

  A buzzer vibrated the watch on Clark’s wrist, indicating that time was up. He had exactly five minutes to eliminate the problem inside Tony’s condominium and convince him to cooperate, or else.

  With the decision in place, Clark relaxed slightly. He could feel the adrenalin surge through his system, priming him up. Time to get moving.

  Clark stepped away from his hiding place and took a quick survey of his surroundings. The courtyard was clear.

  He headed to Tony Genova’s unit. Pulled out the Desert Eagle, and approached the front door.

  He was just about to kick the door in when he felt the presence of a man step up behind him. Clark’s final thought was where the hell did he come from? And then he felt a hand on the base of his neck, he felt his legs give out, and then blackness claimed him.

  In the initial few minutes of the power going out, the confusion inside the research center reached a chaotic level. The sense of desperation was almost palpable. Behind the communications area, Wade and Ed scrambled around, searching for candles and babbling to each other in quavering voices that betrayed their attempts to sound calm. Susan cowered in the corner of the lobby, her voice a sobbing whisper as she kept repeating, “Oh God, I don’t want to die, please don’t let me die!”

  Jennifer was in the lobby, searching for candles or a flashlight—anything that would dispel the darkness—and Susan’s whining was getting on her nerves. “Shut up!” she barked, and instantly regretted it. Susan had never been in this type of situation before. Neither had Ed and Wade for that matter. “Let’s all just calm down and focus. If we start panicking, we won’t make it out of this alive.”