CHAPTER 51

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

NASH found his wife in the study on the first floor, checking her e-mail. He entered the wood-paneled room and closed the door. Maggie glanced up at him, the expression on her face making it clear that she was angry. He studied her profile, her determined frown, her posture she’d gotten from all the ballet lessons she’d taken as a child. He loved her deeply but at this moment it all reminded him of how much of a spoiled brat she could be at times. Maggie’s way or the highway, was the saying her two brothers and sister were fond of using.

Nash plopped down in the overstuffed leather chair next to the fireplace and said, “Would you care to hear your son’s side of the story?”

Maggie didn’t bother to look up. “Save your breath. I’m sending the dean an e-mail right now. If I get out in front of this I might be able to salvage our son’s educational aspirations.”

“I think they’re your aspirations, Maggie.”

“If you’re going to try and bait me into an argument, just leave. Go right now.” She pointed at the door. “The only chance we have of salvaging this is by begging for forgiveness. Any penalty other than expulsion. I’m informing the dean as well as several of his teachers that we’re going to pull him off the lacrosse team.”

“The hell you are. You’re not pulling him off the lacrosse team, and he’s not one of your clients. You’re not going to lobby your way out of this.”

“Oh… he’s done with lacrosse,” she said, as if it was a forgone conclusion. “And that camp he wanted to go to this summer… that’s gone too. Just let me send this e-mail and then…” She stopped suddenly and looked at her husband, who was now bent over next to the desk.

Nash found the power cord for the computer and decided enough was enough. He yanked the cord from the back of the computer and stood.

“What the hell did you just do?” Maggie screamed.

“I just saved you from embarrassing yourself.”

Maggie cupped her face in her hands and stared at the screen. “You are the last person who should be trying to handle this. I’m the one with the experience in dealing with crisis situations…”

She continued to frantically state her case, but Nash stopped listening. He wanted to scream back at her that she didn’t know jack shit about what he did for a living. He wanted to explain the complicated operations he ran against some of the most formidable organizations on the planet. He wanted to tell her that when he fucked up, people died, and when she fucked up, her spoiled clients went somewhere else with their bag of cash. But he couldn’t, because at the end of the day it was his decision to stick with a thankless job that had almost killed him, might still kill him, and very likely might land him in jail.

“Maggie, I’m your husband, and I love you, and you are going to shut up and listen to me for a moment.”

She stood and angrily said, “Don’t you tell me to shut up.”

“Derek, that little shit, told Rory that he wanted to fuck Shannon.”

“Excuse me?” Maggie said in near shock.

“He said he wanted to fuck our daughter, and Rory told him if he said it again, he was going to hit him. So do you know what that little shit did?”

Maggie shook her head.

“He called you a MILF.”

“A MILF.”

“Yep, a Mom I’d Like to Fuck.”

Maggie’s eyes opened in shock and her jaw hung loose. “That is disgusting.”

“It sure is,” Nash said, picking up steam. “He told Rory he wanted to fuck you.”

“Oh, my God,” Maggie said with a horrified look on her face.

“So, tell me, little Miss Harvard Law, how do you feel now about jumping all over your son? How do you feel about not letting him tell his side of the story?”

She was speechless for a moment and then said, “Obviously, I let my emotions get the best of me. But there was a better way to handle this,” she added with a bit of an indignant tone creeping back into her voice. “Rory can’t go around punching his friends every time they say something that upsets him.”

“Can you ever just admit you’re wrong?”

“I’m not wrong, Michael.”

“Oh…” Nash sighed. “The kid did the right thing.”

“No, he didn’t. Sidwell has a zero tolerance policy.”

“Fuck Sidwell, and stop acting like a lawyer. This is our son we’re talking about.”

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Do you know how many times I’ve heard you tell your clients to shut up?” he shot back. “That when they get blindsided by something, to shut their mouths until they get all the facts? That’s your motto, and you chose not to live by it tonight. Rory came home, you jumped to a bunch of conclusions, and you hammered him, like a petty third-world dictator.”

“That is debatable, but the one thing that isn’t is that violence is not the answer. It is not the way to solve problems.”

“Shut up, Maggie,” Nash said hotly. “I love you and I’ll always love you, so I’m going to tell you to just shut that pretty little mouth of yours. Stop being a lawyer and start being a mother. Rory gave that little shit plenty of warnings and he chose to ignore them. He pushed and then Rory gave him exactly what he deserved.”

Maggie tried to speak, but Nash put out his hand. “Don’t! Don’t say another word. It was your idea to send him to that damn elite school. I was fine with Shannon going there. They have a great theater program, but it’s not the right place for Rory. It’s a damn dilettante factory.”

Maggie crossed her arms across her chest and looked defiantly at her husband. “Is that all?”

Out of sheer frustration, Nash started to walk away and then turned back and said, “You have a son up there who loves you. Loves you enough to defend your honor, and in this day and age that’s something you should be proud of. He’s in a lot of pain right now. He’s confused because he thinks he did the right thing.”

“I feel bad about not giving him a chance to tell his side of the story, but Michael…”

“Don’t but me. I don’t want to hear any buts. Would you rather have him walking around telling his friends how big of a bitch you are… because I’ll tell you right now, there’s plenty of kids his age doing exactly that.”

Maggie nodded slowly and seemed to be thinking about what she would do.

“If you love him as much as he loves you,” Nash said, “you’ll go up there right now and apologize, and you won’t bring up any of this zero tolerance bullshit.”

“Fine,” she relented. “Just give me a minute.”

CHAPTER 52

WASHINGTON, D.C.

RALPH Wassen sat at the bar and took a sip of his Manhattan. It was his second in a little less than an hour. At a quarter to twelve on a Tuesday evening the place had plenty of open seats. The person he was supposed to meet was late, and it didn’t surprise him one bit, even though he didn’t know the man. He knew enough about him, though, to understand that he would make him wait. He had no hard evidence that told him so, it was more intuition. Wassen had canceled a date for this little rendezvous, and he was hoping he wouldn’t regret the decision, since his love life had all but dried up in the last year. He kept telling himself it was the demands of work, but he knew it was more than that. He was growing tired of all the jetting around to New York and Miami. Turning fifty had sobered him to the fact that there were fewer years ahead than behind.

Wassen didn’t even notice that the man had arrived until the bartender came over and asked if he could get him something to drink.

The man answered in his deep, steady voice. Wassen looked up and saw the man’s reflection in the mirror behind the bar. The sight of him standing behind him and the sound of his voice sent a stab of fear through Wassen’s veins. Wassen swiveled his chair to the left and realized the man must have come through the back door. He was wearing a black field jacket with a mandarin collar and plenty of pockets. Wassen imagined them filled with all types of gadgets, most of them lethal.