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"You had no right to take it that far. I pay you. I did not sanction any killings . . ." |
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DeVoe shrugged and blew his gum, his eyes drifting to Claire over the pink bubble. |
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"Julius, we had no choice," she said. |
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"Wonderful, now we've got blood on our hands. In two days I move across the street, commissioner of biotechnology and accomplice to murder." |
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"And two days ago," Claire said evenly, "we shared a lunch with the president and the first lady of the United States. Doesn't that mean something to you?" |
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"Good Lord, not enough to kill for" |
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"I doubt you'd say that if one of them had decided to go public on Black Flag." |
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"Or worse," DeVoe put in. "This week you went from a brilliant, if relatively unknown, microbiologist to a famous person. A VIP. You're big time now, Juliusa national political figure and close personal friend of the chief executive. All you'd need is for one of those little worms to turn on their TV, see you up there smiling with the president's arm around you, tooling about the nation's capital in a limo . . . and feeling a tad disgruntled, they think, Why that son of a bitch! Julius, do you know what a little blackmail note out of your past can do to your sense of well-being, not to mention your bank account? Well, we've prevented all that." |
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Julius's voice was just above a whisper. "What did you do to them?" |
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"What difference does it make?" |
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"I want to know, damn it." |
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DeVoe shrugged. "We've got a guy named Roman who brokers people who do that kind of work. I'm not sure who did the actual hit. That's Roman's end, but he's got the best. We used him before when I did some jobs for ATF. Trust me, it's all neat, clean. No footprints. Nothing traceable, nothing to worry about. They were made to look like accidentsdrowningor suicide . . . like that." |
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Julius took a deep breath. "All of them?" |
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DeVoe chewed noisily as he squinted at a note pad. "Karsky, Terranova, Wiley . . ." he read. |
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Julius closed his eyes. "They were friends of mine." |
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