Dead Wrong Read Online Free PDF Page A

the room for a way to summon help. The window? Break the glass and yell? Those two whackos would be on him before he could catch anyone’s attention. There was no ledge, just a nine-floor drop onto concrete.
    He peeked out the doorway toward the reception room where Maria still lay. He blinked: did she just take a breath? At the end of the hall, Washington aimed the gun at McCarthy. “Thought Sikes warned you to stay the fuck down.”
    McCarthy drew back just as bits of drywall sprayed from the jamb, peppering his forehead.
    He brushed a splinter from his forehead and glanced up. He caught sight of the ceiling, then did a double take. A false ceiling actually, made of acoustical tiles and recessed fluorescent lighting, created a space for ventilation ducts, electrical conduits, and plumbing to run to various offices. Could the struts support a man’s weight?
    Good question.
    Quickly, he stepped from a chair onto the desk, pushed up a tile, and poked his head into dense warm darkness. A rectangular grid of inverted steel T-rails bolted into the real concrete ceiling supported the tiles, forming a vertical crawl space three feet high for a maze of pipes, conduits, and heating ducts wrapped in silver insulation.
    He heard Sikes yell something to Washington.
    Okay, here they come .

4
     
C ONFERENCE R OOM , T HE P ENTAGON
    C OLONEL CLYDE CUNNINGHAM pressed a button and the fifty-inch plasma screen came alive with the image of a middle-aged male at a table in a small cramped interrogation room, his interviewer sitting across from him.
    Cunningham scanned the eyes of the seven CIA brass he’d handpicked for this highly sensitive meeting—each a trusted friend. That is, if such a thing existed in the intelligence community.
    On screen, the man—visibly uncomfortable with what he was about to say—started speaking:
    I stop at the curb in front of this tacky joint that claims to be a sports bar on account of they got these bigscreen TVs for watching ESPN. Call it what you want, it’s still a piece of shit tavern filled with alcoholics who think hanging there’s a social outlet. This pale, skinny chick, about twenty, comes over to the passenger window, leans down so I can see her tits, says, “Looking to party?”
    I noticed her on my first pass. Picked her out from the others on account of she’s more attractive and younger. More important, she’s too fucking strung out to be task force. I mean, seriously, how stupid, the cops telling the media about the decoys. What’d they think? It’d scare me off ? Fuck no. Only thing it does is make it more exciting.
    I can still see the red and blue neon on her pale skin. Gave her a kinda punk look. She had this silver ring through her eyebrow and this bar through her lower lip. Always wondered how one of those would feel on my cock.
    I tell her, “Got that right. Wanna come?” Emphasizing the last word, seeing if she’d catch it and say something witty. But she didn’t. Dumb bitch.
    Instead, she fakes this smile. I always know when they’re faking it and I hate that.
    She says, “This girl is always looking for a party. What’d you have in mind?” She’s wearing cutoffs, a skimpy halter, and dirty white low-top deck shoes. It was warm that night. But she’s got this ugly acne on her chin the makeup can’t hide, and her breath stinks. She had to be less than twenty but, Jesus, the meth makes her look more than thirty, especially with two lower teeth gone and these really rotten gums.
    So I tell her, “Hey, you tell me,” ’cause then I knew for sure she’s not a cop. Besides, no cop would be that skanky.
    She opens the door, slides in, puts her hand high on my thigh. “Hundred for a suck and fuck. Fifty for a blow. But you gotta use a rubber to fuck.”
    Way too high. I know damn well I can get her down to twenty, she’s so desperate. But hell, she ain’t leaving with it anyway, so why bother. Instead, I tell her, “Shut the door and let’s party. I know just