Masquerade by Gayle Lynds Page B

but too many people had access to the safe.
    In fact, too damn many people had access to his office. Just this evening there’d been a new security man standing in the doorway, chatting up his secretary, while he had been packing his briefcase for home. He’d ordered the man away. The fellow had been genuinely apologetic, but still—
    No way would he leave Maynard’s explosive documents in the office. He wanted this bombshell all for himself.
    He’d sleep with the papers under his pillow.
    As his limo pulled up in front of his brownstone, he decided to ring up the new file clerk and invite her over for the evening. She was a delectable little morsel, hardly out of high school. Very young. Very tiny. He liked tiny women. They were so safe.
    As the limo rolled away, he started across the sidewalk. He had a spring to his step just thinking about the little girl.
    Then he heard a sound and turned.
    A blond youth on Rollerblades skated recklessly toward him. The undersecretary caught a brief glimpse of a silvery knife blade. Fear crunched his chest. He opened a hand, ineffectual and too late. The knife slashed up across his palm and lodged itself under his rib cage. The skater toppled onto him.
    Pain and shock rocked the undersecretary. He couldn’t move.
    The mugger rifled his pockets and took his wallet, Rolex watch, and two diamond rings. Then he jammed the knife in farther, pulled it out, and pushed himself back up onto his Rollerblades.
    The undersecretary raised a feeble hand. He wanted to call out, tell the thug to stop. But he couldn’t. The pain receded to a dull nausea. Hot blood covered him. He was dying. With a surge of clarity he decided it was all right. Life had become meaningless. Imagine, he’d actually been looking forward toan evening with a barely literate teenager. He closed his eyes as the thief raced away. His last image was of his brown leather briefcase tight against the youth’s chest.
    At the same time that afternoon, Lucas Maynard stalked the floor of Leslee Pousho’s apartment in Arlington. He’d been a fool. He’d underestimated Hughes Bremner. He’d sensed it in Bremner’s office, and it was confirmed when he’d arrived home.
    Sid Williams and Matt Lister had been waiting. They had used the new laser lock picker to break in. If it hadn’t been for his years of automatic caution and his Walther, he’d never have escaped.
    As he’d walked from the garage toward his front door, he’d spotted the faint movement of the drapes at the window. The old outdoor cat, who never sat at the front door unless someone was in the house, was parked there. He’d turned instantly and raced back to his car. They’d come running out as he backed away. He’d knocked Lister down with a leg shot and forced Williams to dive for cover. Then he was gone.
    He smiled gloomily. None of the Sterling-O’Keefe or M ASQUERADE papers was in the house. Everything was here, in the safe under Leslee’s bed. Now he had to call Clare Edward. The undersecretary would have to arrange protection and a State safe house for him and Leslee. Thank God for Clare Edward. Without the undersecretary, how would he and Leslee get out of this mess?
    Lucas Maynard picked up the phone and dialed.
    At 4:45 P.M. at a busy Georgetown intersection, Hughes Bremner watched the side-view mirror from the back seat of his black government limo. The powerful engine idled. The limo had full, high-security accessories—armor plating, antimine flooring, and bulletproof windows blackened against the world.
    At precisely 4:50 P.M. , a young blond man on Rollerblades sped up the street with traffic, coming up on the limo’s rear.
    Bremner lowered his window. As the racer flew by, he flung inside an expensive, brown-leather briefcase.
    A good shot, it landed almost on Bremner’s lap.
    â€œDulles, Tommy.” Bremner pulled out Lucas Maynard’s manilla envelope