Havoc - v4 by Jack du Brul

in Atlanta the day after tomorrow. I just have to file a report with my contact at the UN, Adam Burke.”
    If she said no, she said no. It would only cost him an hour’s delay until the next flight to Reagan National, but if she said yes then maybe it would help heal a little of the loneliness that had dogged him for the past six months.
    With Atlanta being their hub, he assumed she’d made reservations for a Delta flight. He’d stepped out of the airport and begun searching for a skycap to ask where their terminal was located, when he saw her across the traffic-choked street. He was about to call her name when she reached a black Town Car.
    She didn’t look back or even acknowledge the driver holding the door as she ducked into the backseat. Mercer waited until the Lincoln was rolling before dashing out into traffic. A cabbie leaned on his horn and a traffic cop shouted. Mercer ignored them, angling so he could see the vehicle’s license plate. The white background and black letters were distinctive, and suddenly a great many things came clear, while even more became confused.
    The Town Car was registered to the United States government.
     

Arlington, Virginia
     
    It seemed to Mercer that the block of brownstones on his street was the last stretch of what had once been a charming suburb. Arlington had grown in the decade since he’d bought the three-story row house. It was now mostly anonymous high-rise apartment towers and office parks, with a few box stores thrown in to complete the sprawl trifecta.
    Mercer’s street was lined with identical buildings, red stone structures with dressed block entrances, narrow windows, and shade trees along the curb. Traffic was generally light outside rush hour, and it wasn’t unusual to see mothers allowing their kids to play outdoors. It was almost as if time had left the street alone for the past sixty years.
    Usually Mercer felt a calming wave as he entered his house. He owned the entire building and had remodeled the space so an atrium lofted to the third floor and a circular staircase spiraled down to the first. On the second floor were a niche library, two spare bedrooms, and a room outfitted with a five-stool mahogany bar, matching wainscoting with brass accents, and clubby leather furniture. It was a space designed to evoke a nineteenth-century gentleman’s club, and other than the plasma TV and the 1950s-era lock-lever refrigerator behind the bar, the effect was perfect. The master suite took up the entire third floor. Bathed by a pair of skylights, Mercer’s bedroom was larger than most apartments in Arlington, and the marble bathroom was the only one he knew of that had a urinal tucked in beside the toilet.
    He strode through the front door and made straight for his home office on the ground floor. He felt no sense of homecoming, nothing but the hot anger that had been with him since seeing Cali get into a government car. He wasn’t going to allow himself to speculate until he was sure, but now that he was within minutes of knowing, all kinds of scenarios played out in his mind. None of them were very good.
    He snatched the phone from his desk and dialed information. He heard a female voice and was about to ask for the number of the CDC in Atlanta when he did the acoustical version of a double take. He listened to the voice more carefully.
    “God, Harry, you are so big. I don’t think Chantelle and I can take you but we’re willing to try. You just have to promise to be gentle.”
    “
What the…?
”
    “We’re both still virgins, you know, Harry. You’ll be our first time.”
    “Who the hell is this?” Mercer demanded. Before the woman could reply, Mercer heard the sound of snoring through the open line. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered and killed the connection.
    He left his travel bag on the desk and mounted the circular stairs to the second floor. Just as he thought. Harry White was sprawled on one of the couches, the cordless phone lying on his