Blackmail Earth (36 page)

“No. And it’s getting smaller all the time,” he laughed.

“Don’t joke,” she chided him gently. “This is serious.”

“I know, and I’m a survivor. I want my people to survive, and we won’t if we don’t stand up to the Islamists.” He looked away and cleared his throat. “I’ve lost Basheera and Senada, but everybody is going to lose someone if things don’t change.” He stood up. “I should let you go. I’ve got to go, too. So little dirt, so little time.” He smiled once more, bent over, and kissed her. She smelled the sea air on his skin and felt the tingle move to her lips.

“Be careful,” she said.

“Travel well.”

Minutes later, as she was also about to leave the balcony, her cell went off.

“Did you really record Marv without his knowledge?” James Elfren asked in his high-pitched voice, not bothering with a greeting of any kind.

“Record him? Of course not. Did he say that? That’s bizarre.” All’s fair in love and network wars. “Why would he say that?”

“I don’t know but he did. And he’s really upset. Regardless, I take it that you two had quite a row.”

“He was screaming at me, if that’s what you mean. He was out of control. And he called Nicci a lesbo, which I—”

“I can’t mediate this at a distance,” Elfren cut in. “But is it correct that you and Alicia are also having difficulties?”

Jenna suddenly felt like the problem child. “That’s why Marv called me, because of her. It’s not like they’re separate issues. She was trying to script me.”

“She doesn’t see it that way.”

“You talked to her?”
Already?

“Yes. I’m not assigning blame here, but to keep our coverage on track, I do think you and Nicci ought to—”

“We’ve already made the decision to come back. I would never stay here under these circumstances. We’re booked to fly out in a couple of hours. Marv said that the two of us are suspended from the show.”

“He might have overreacted.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Jenna, I really can’t do this long distance. There’s a lot of anger in the air. Come back, call me when you get some sleep, and we’ll sort it out.”

When he ended the call, Jenna found that Nicci had sidled up to her. “Not good news, I take it,” the producer said.

“I don’t know. Elfren says Marv might have overreacted with the suspension.”

“Might have?” Nicci stomped her foot on the decking.

“And that Alicia’s version is very different from mine. Not exactly a bulletin, that. I really wish I had a recording of her.”

“I guess we better get ready to do battle when we get back there.”

Jenna grabbed her bags and tried to gird herself for what was to come.

But nothing she’d heard from Marv or Elfren, or experienced firsthand with Alicia—and nothing she might have imagined happening on board the supertanker—could possibly have matched the murderous fury that awaited everyone on the other side of the world.

CHAPTER 22

A thick, funereal haze hung over New York City. From Jenna’s window seat, she could catch only blurry views of the buildings and bridges below, gloomy glimpses that seemed to mirror the dim prospects of a planet under siege.

Inky waterways appeared as the Airbus descended, and daytime headlights glistened like glittery scales on the snakelike expressways that curled around JFK.

Jenna and Nicci were nearing the end of a full day of travel, sleeping when they weren’t keeping abreast of developments in the Maldives. But gruesome as the tanker takeover was, Jenna worried even more about those North Korean rockets. She hadn’t received a single call, text, or e-mail from Vice President Andrew Percy’s office, despite having left messages twice during a two-hour layover in Dubai.

Nicci, who prided herself on being a “cat napper of the first degree,” was shedding her blanket and awakening from her most recent snooze.

“Are you heading straight home?” Jenna asked. Nicci had a one-bedroom apartment in the West Village with more charm than half a dozen high rises in Midtown.

The weather producer nodded and yawned. “I’m planning on at least one day to chill after I call Mikey.” Her agent, who looked as boyish as his name suggested, would soon go head-to-head with the suits on the eighth floor. Jenna had already texted her own agent, a former Marine who had issued his opening salvo within minutes of receiving her message.

“Keep your phone handy,” Jenna said. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything from Elfren or Percy.” Though she was increasingly doubtful about the latter. Granted, the vice president was a key player in the cabinet, which had plenty on its plate, but in the IM age what would it take to text her? She was on his frickin’ task force, after all. Meantime, the sulfate rockets in North Korea awaited a launch order from a leader widely regarded as a nutbar of the first order.

How does that happen?
she asked herself.
How does a total demento get to the point where he can end the world?

With a seat-jarring
thump
the jet touched down, and an hour later Jenna was in a taxi heading to Penn Station, bypassing her own apartment for a direct trip to Dafoe’s arms.

The familiar smells of the city—not entirely unappealing with their kindred associations of home, excitement, and meteorology—greeted her in force as she fled into the station’s bustling main concourse. She might not have noticed an Asian man in a black shirt and slacks if he hadn’t had his eyes fixed so firmly on her.

Jenna let her vision glide right over him. She’d learned in her first few months on
The Morning Show
that any kind of eye contact could generate the exclamation, “You’re Jenna Withers!” Her fans were the nicest people, but once she stopped to say hello, it was practically impossible to get moving again.

But the Asian man didn’t look like the others. His gaze felt as sharp as a bone saw.

You’re paranoid,
she told herself as she stepped onto the down escalator.
Who’s going to be tailing you here? They would have had to have been listening to your calls and reading your messages.

But Jenna had developed a clear sense of how it felt to be watched. It happened everywhere she went. She’d never bemoaned this, but at the same time she’d never felt so baldly observed as she did at this very moment.

As she walked down the platform, she turned and swept her eyes intently over the crowd of afternoon commuters who were making an early getaway.

She boarded the same train that she’d taken on her first trip up to see Dafoe. Today, she anticipated her lover’s lair even more keenly, the memory of their frantic lovemaking suddenly as fresh as her feelings of longing.

Lost in reverie, Jenna idly scanned the platform. That’s when she spotted the Korean’s purposeful gait. She did not look at him directly, but from the corner of her eye she tracked his progress toward her train until he disappeared into the car behind her. She particularly noted how his gaze moved over the windows, including the one that framed her unmistakable face.

She didn’t think he’d spotted her. His eyes never lingered, and Jenna had an urge to slip off the train and make a run for it. Or stay and call the NYPD.

And then what?
she scolded herself.
Tell them that a Korean caught your eye at Penn Station, and then caught the same train you’re on—along with hundreds of other people? That’s not even a coincidence. That really is paranoia. How idiotic would that sound on Page Six?

But the scolding she gave herself didn’t ease the eerie sense of eyes boring into the back of her head. In seconds, hairs on the nape of her neck sprang up, a sensation so uneasy that she tried to press them back down, but those pushy little Cassandras would not lie still for long.

Jenna looked back several times, but never saw the Asian man. An hour north of the city, she called Dafoe, catching him at his computer.

She greeted him warmly, then quickly told him what she’d been experiencing. “I feel silly,” she added sheepishly.

“Trust your feelings,” he responded. “At times like this, that old reptilian brain of ours can protect us from the animals still out there. Sounds like your brain is sending you a warning and then some.”

Words that brought to mind the almost preternatural awareness that she’d once had of a bear in the Colorado Front Range—confirmed when her group’s guide pointed out the critter’s unmistakable scat, and seconds later noted a grizzly across a broad glen.

But this creature had left no trace—except for those recalcitrant hairs.

The train pulled into another station. Four more stops and she’d be with Dafoe. “I’ll feel a whole lot better just seeing you.”

He assured her that he’d be waiting.

She hung up and looked around, then impulsively stepped off the train to see if the Korean followed her, only to find him on the platform, looking quickly away from her.

With a torpedoed stomach, she moved back on board.

“Are you okay?” a conductor asked her.

She nodded before telling herself not to be such a hero. “I think I’m being followed by a Korean man in the car behind us.”

“That guy?” The conductor nodded at the man, who was walking away from the train as purposefully as he had hurried to it only an hour ago. She felt so ridiculous that she blushed. “Sorry. That’s him and he’s clearly got more important things on his mind than me. I’m really sorry.”

“Hey, that’s fine,” the conductor said. “And I like the way you do the weather. Been missing you the last few mornings.”

“Thanks. I’m coming back from a long trip and I think I need to get some sleep.”

The final leg of the train trip felt interminable. Her worry lightened only when she spotted Dafoe on the platform, looking as scrubbed and cheerful as he’d appeared only a few weeks ago. His appearance reminded her of how disheveled she felt from a full day of travel. But she hugged him unabashedly. Then they embraced, and she didn’t care, in their fiercely rekindled passion, that a busybody with a cellphone might be shooting video of her and planning a YouTube entry called “Weather Woman Kisses Up a Storm.”

As their lips separated, she realized, astonished, that Dafoe was “the one.” She’d never felt that way before, not with Rafan, not with anyone.
But why would you have,
she asked herself,
if he’s really “the one”? You had to wait and now he’s here.

He took her suitcase, and as they turned to leave the wooden platform, Jenna spotted another Korean man. Like the guy who’d gotten off the train a few stops earlier, he was dressed in black.
Like they’ve got uniforms.
She squeezed Dafoe’s hand in panic.

With a glance of his own, Dafoe took note and led her to his pickup. She slid to the middle seat and buckled up, watching the Korean open the rear passenger door of a black Expedition with smoked windows.

Coincidence?
she asked herself, and then Dafoe.

“We’ll keep an eye on them. Forensia and Sang-mi
might
have been followed yesterday by Koreans in a RAV4.”

“I hate even talking like this.” As she spoke, the black SUV pulled away. “And thar she goes,” Jenna said. “Okay, that’s it, I’m just going to chill.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and took a great big breath of him, smiling at the faintly sweet scent of hay and sunshine that rose from his skin and clothes.

“You want to hear the latest on the GreenSpirit case, or do you want to take a break from that, too?” Dafoe asked, checking his side view before driving off.

“No, tell me. What’s up?”

“They arrested a kid for the murder.”

“A kid? Who?”

“A high school senior named Jason Robb. The team quarterback. They got him yesterday.”

“Why do they think he did it? Did they say?”

“He threatened Forensia and the other Pagans on the night that she was initiated. Which was the night before GreenSpirit was murdered.”

“Do you think he did it?”

“The cops do. The sheriff found a bandana of Jason’s with GreenSpirit’s blood on it. The FBI lab confirmed it.” He rested his hand on Jenna’s leg. “I don’t mean to alarm you but that car is behind us now, and it left the station before we did.”

“Don’t go to your place,” she said right away. “It’s too isolated.” She adjusted the rearview mirror, as if she were checking her lipstick or hair, and saw the hulking SUV about six car lengths back. “Let’s head to town, and if they follow us, let’s go right to the sheriff’s office.”

Dafoe executed a quick turn on to a narrow country road. “Are they following us?” he asked Jenna, who still had the rearview.

“No, they kept going straight.”

“We might be okay.”

But Jenna felt jumpy and hoped like hell that Dafoe knew where the tight country lane would take them.

He made a series of turns that led them back to the road to his farm. He reached over and took the mirror, adjusting it and assuring her that he’d keep his eyes open for the Expedition.

Jenna nodded and tried to breathe, but it wasn’t easy. Those hairs on the back of her neck were making their prickly presence known again.

Dafoe slowed and entered the long driveway to his house. Seconds later, he said, “They’re still here,” with no attempt to hide his uneasiness.

“What?” Jenna twisted around, expecting to see the Expedition churning up a tunnel of dust behind them.

“I’m sorry. I meant Forensia and Sang-mi. You thought I meant that black car?”

“No apologies necessary. But you did sound worried.”

“Just disappointed,” Dafoe said. “They told me that they’d be done with their work and gone so we could have some privacy.”

Privacy would have been nice, but at this moment Jenna was happy just to feel safe.

The feeling didn’t last long. When they reached the porch, they saw Forensia sitting by the window with Dafoe’s rifle in her hands and Sang-mi by her side. Bayou rose gingerly, wagging his tail.

They hurried inside. “What’s going on?” Dafoe asked. “And give me that rifle. You’re making me nervous.”

Forensia handed it over. “You shouldn’t be worried about me making you nervous.” She spoke with her eyes still on the driveway. “You should be worried about the big, black SUV that was here right after you left. It was idling out on the road when I saw it.”