Read Online Armageddon Conspiracy by john thompson - Free Book Online Page B

time, Biddle arrived with an aura of desperate need, but after they had sex he would kneel beside the bed and pray. He made her sit against the headboard, her hands folded, eyes closed, and head bowed until he said, “Amen.” In his prayers he called her names, like “filthy whore” and “diseased cunt,” but when he finished he would hold her and stroke her hair. It was incredibly strange, but she endured it because she also sensed opportunity.
    Now, with Biddle’s plastic case in hand, she went back to the bedroom, removed the cordless phone from its base, took it into the kitchen, and turned on the overhead light. She pulled the back off the phone then used a pair of tweezers to remove a small chip from its foam bed. She attached it to the phone’s wiring as she had been instructed, then replaced the back. With the phone once again on its stand in the bedroom, she searched for Brent’s second phone, which she found in the living room on the floor between a packing box and the window.
    She took it to the kitchen, installed the second chip, and was about to put it back together when she heard a noise. She looked up to see Brent, naked, weaving, holding the doorjamb for support.
    “What are you doing?” he croaked.
    Her heart pounded, but she smiled and cocked her head. “Clumsy me,” she said sheepishly, holding up the backless phone and covering the small plastic case with her arm. “I dropped your phone.”
    He blinked, fighting the drug. “Are you leaving? I know I had too much to drink. I’ve never been unable to . . . please don’t go yet.”
    “I’m not leaving,” she said, standing up and coming over to put her arms around him. “I thought of something I have to do and was going to leave a reminder on my answering machine.”
    He nodded. “Okay,” he rasped.
    “Go back to bed.”
    He turned and stumbled down the hall, and she sighed in relief. When she checked a moment later he was face down on the mattress, snoring loudly. Back in the kitchen, she finished putting the phone together, turned it on, and dialed the number of the FBI’s Manhattan office from memory.
    After two rings a man answered. She recognized the voice.
    “It’s working,” he said. “Get out of there.”
    Anneliës turned off the phone then found a piece of paper and wrote Brent a note saying she’d had a wonderful time and promised to call soon. She pulled on her dress and carried her shoes as she let herself out.

SIXTEEN
NEW YORK, JUNE 26
    THE MOMENT THE ALARM WENT off Brent felt the sharp stabs of sunlight through his eyelids and his head starting to pound. He reached out and whacked the clock radio then lay perfectly still, afraid he’d be sick if he moved another inch. A few glasses of wine—how was it possible to feel this bad?
    He recalled Simone and winced. Horny and impossibly gorgeous—at least that’s what he remembered—only he’d been so wasted that he wondered what she really looked like. He let his hand creep across, found the bed empty, the sheets cold.
    He cracked one eye, enduring the pain, viewing the wreckage of his clothes where he’d tossed them the night before. “Simone?” he croaked. There was no answer. After another second he stood and stumbled into the bathroom. He peed, brushed his teeth, and then managed to hold down several glasses of cold water he drew from the tap.
    Back in the living room, he looked around at his jumbled moving boxes and wondered if it had been a fantasy. Had a beautiful woman really walked out of his kitchen bare-ass naked? Then he remembered what happened next—absolutely nothing because he had passed out. It seemed like a bad joke, he thought as he spotted the scrap of paper atop the clutter on his dining table. “Thanks for a wonderful evening. I’ll call you. Love, Simone.” No phone number. No kidding! Like he’d ever hear from her again. If he didn’t feel so bad he might have laughed.
    He stood there a moment until he remembered something