If he bought it he’d have to do some heavy renovation. He bought it.
When he’d come to Washington he hadn’t known whether he was going to like it around here. Still wasn’t sure.
When his old boyhood friend Tom Winston became President of the United States, he’d asked John to come along. Said he wanted some Georgia boys around him in Washington, that John was already treating his high blood pressure and he wanted him to keep on doing so.
But John guessed the real reason was that Tom had known how he was hurting, how his life had fallen apart, and had offered him a breather.
John had come to Washington looking for more than a change of routine and a change of scenery—he’d been hoping for a whole new life. He didn’t know if he’d found that. But he had found a peace of sorts, and that was a start. A good start.
2
Michael MacLaglen was fully into Snake mode now.
Last night he’d been sitting in front of the tube—or rather the eight-by-twenty-foot wall screen of his projection TV—watching President Winston commit political sepukku, when the call came. He’d been expecting it.
One word: “Go.” The word had begun the transformation. He’d called Paulie and told him the snatch was on and going down tomorrow. He’d gone online, spent some time lurking the hacker boards, then went to bed.
When he’d hit the pillow he was still mostly Michael MacLaglen. But upon opening his eyes this morning, he was all Snake. The adrenaline had begun to flow—just a mild buzz now, but he knew it would build throughout the day to a rush that would last the duration of the snatch.
And this one could go a couple of weeks—easy. He licked his lips. He hoped so.
Snake had been following the yellow bus for about a mile in his new Jeep Grand Cherokee. He tapped on the steering wheel and acted impatient, looking like any one of the other dozen or so agitated commuters trapped behind the school bus.