The Devil's Teardrop Read Online Free PDF

terrorists. That’s the rule in Washington. Don’t you read Department of State advisories?”
    “No, I don’t,” Kennedy said. “Nobody sends ’em to me. Wendy, get started on that money. And Agent Lukas . . . go catch this son of a bitch.”
    * * *
    The sandwich was okay.
    Not great.
    Gilbert Havel decided that after he got the money he was going to the Jockey Club and having a real steak. A filet mignon. And a bottle of champagne.
    He finished his coffee and kept his eye on the entrance to City Hall.
    The chief of police of the District had come and gone quickly. A dozen reporters and camera crews had beenturned away from the front door, directed toward an entrance on the side of the building. They hadn’t looked happy. Then a couple of what were clearly FBI agents had disappeared into City Hall some time ago, a man and a woman, and hadn’t emerged. It was definitely a Bureau operation. Well, he’d known it would be.
    So far no surprises.
    Havel looked at his watch. Time to go to the safe house, call the helicopter charterer. There was a lot to get ready for. The plans for picking up the $20 million were elaborate—and the plans for getting away afterward were even more so.
    Havel paid his check—with old, crumpled singles—and pulled his coat and cap on again. He left the coffee shop, turned off the sidewalk and walked quickly through an alley, eyes down. The Judiciary Square Metro stop was right beneath City Hall but he knew it would be watched by police or agents so he headed for Pennsylvania Avenue, where he’d get a bus down to Southeast D.C.
    White man in a black man’s ’hood.
    Life sure is funny sometimes.
    Gilbert Havel emerged from the alley and turned onto a side street that would take him to Pennsylvania. The light changed to green. Havel stepped into the intersection. Suddenly, a flash of dark motion from his left. He turned his head. Thinking: Shit, he doesn’t see me! He doesn’t see me he doesn’t—
    “Hey!” Havel cried.
    The driver of the large delivery truck had been looking at an invoice and had sped through the red light. He glanced up, horrified. With a huge squeal of brakes the truck slammed directly into Havel. The driver screaming, “Christ, no! Christ . . .”
    The truck caught Havel between its front fender and a parked car, crushing him. The driver leapt out and stared in shock. “You weren’t looking! It wasn’t my fault!” Then he looked around and saw that the light had been against him. “Oh, Jesus.” He saw two people running toward him from the corner. He debated for a moment. But panic took over and he leapt into his truck. He gunned the engine and backed away then sped down the street, skidding around the corner.
    The passersby, two men in their thirties, ran up to Havel. One bent down to check for a pulse. The other just stood over him, staring at the huge pool of blood.
    “That truck,” the standing one whispered, “he just took off! He just left!” Then he asked his friend, “Is he dead?”
    “Oh, yeah,” the other man said. “Oh, yeah, he’s dead.”

3
    Where?
    Margaret Lukas lay on her lean belly on a rise overlooking the Beltway.
    Traffic sped past, an endless stream.
    She looked at her watch again. And thought: Where are you?
    Her belly hurt, her back hurt, her elbows hurt.
    There’d been no way to get a mobile command post near the ransom drop zone—even a disguised MCP—and not be seen by the extortionist if he was anywhere near. So here she was, in jeans, jacket and cap turned backward, like a sniper or gangsta, lying on the rock-hard ground. Where they’d been for an hour.
    “Sounds like water,” Cage said.
    “What?”
    “The traffic.”
    He lay on his belly too, next to her, their thighs nearly touching—the way lovers might lie on a beach watching the sunset. They studied the field a hundred yards away.They were overlooking the money drop near Gallows Road—yes, “Gallows,” an irony so rich that not one of the agents