Jack & Jill

didn’t make much noise as he gently raised the garage door. He quickly ducked under the partially open door and he was
inside.
    He went straight to the Nutone security box and punched in the code. So much for high security in the suburbs. There was no effective protection, really. Not from people like him.
    He entered the main part of the house. His heart pounded like a battering ram inside his chest. There was a sheen of sweat on his neck now. He could picture Aiden’s face. He could see Aiden as if he were standing there beside him.
    Everything was peaceful and quiet and orderly inside the house. Fridge gently humming. Kids’ artwork and a school lunch menu attached to the door with magnets. That made his heart sink.
Aiden’s kids.
    Aiden Junior was nine years old. Charise was six. The wife, Merrill, was thirty-four, fifteen years younger than her husband. It was her second marriage, his third. They’d seemed very much in love the last time he had seen them together.
    Jack moved quickly into the living room. He stopped breathing.
    Someone was in the living room!
    Jack whirled to the left. He yanked up his pistol and pointed it at the man.
Jesus God, it was only a goddamn mirror!
He was looking at his own image.
    He managed to catch his breath, then continued on his mission, his heart still thundering. He hurried through the living room. It was so familiar, lots of memories seeping into his consciousness. Painful thoughts. He pushed them aside.
    He began to climb up plush carpeted stairs, then stopped for a second. For the first time, he had doubts.
    There can’t be any doubts! Doubt and uncertainty weren’t allowed! Not in this. Not in Jack and Jill.
    He remembered the upstairs hallway, knew the house very well. He’d been here before—as a “friendly.”
    The master bedroom was the last door on the right.
    There would be weapons in the bedroom. A .357 in the drawer of the night table. An automatic taped under the bed.
    He knew. He knew. He knew everything.
    If Aiden had already heard him, everything would be over. The game would end right there. This would be it for Jack and Jill.
    Nutcruncher time. Weird thoughts. Too many of them.
    He had finally gone to see
Pulp Fiction
the night before. It hadn’t relaxed him, though he’d laughed out loud several times.
Sick story; he was even sicker; America was sickest of all.
    Don’t think anymore,
he warned himself.
Just do this. Do it efficiently. Do it now! Do it fast! Get out!
    Jack kills American celebrities! Various and sundry bigshots. That’s what he does. Be Jack!
    But he wasn’t really Jack!
    He wasn’t really Sam Harrison!
    Don’t think,
he commanded himself again as he hurried down the upstairs hallway to the master bedroom.
    Be Jack.
    Kill.

CHAPTER
57

    JACK—whoever the hell he was—was three or four steps from the master bedroom when its varnished wood door suddenly opened.
    A tall, balding man stepped out into the hall. Very hairy arms and legs. Bare, bony feet; toes splayed. Only half awake. In the middle of a jaw-cracking yawn.
    He had on blue plaid boxer shorts, nothing else. A good build, still athletic-looking; just a hint of a spare tire above the boxers’ elastic” band. Still formidable after all the years of D.C. power lunches.
    General Aiden Cornwall!
    “You!
You son of a bitch!”
he whispered as he suddenly saw Jack in the upstairs hallway. “I knew it might be you.” Yes, Aiden Cornwall knew
everything
in an instant. He had solved the mystery; a lot of mysteries, actually. He understood Jack and Jill. Where it was going. And why it was going there:
why it had to be this way. Why there could be no turning back.
    Jack fired the silenced Beretta twice and the target collapsed. Jack quickly stepped forward and caught the lifeless body before it could thud loudly against the floor.
    He held the body in his arms, lowering it slowly to the carpet.
His friend,
whatever that meant now. He stayed down on his knees for a long moment. His heart was exploding.
    He hadn’t realized how hard this one was going to be until now. Not until this instant.
    He looked down into the startled gray blue eyes of
the former
member of the Joint Chiefs, part of the White House’s Jack and Jill emergency task force.
    One of the hounds had been taken out. Just like that. Jack and Jill had struck back boldly at the manhunters! They had shown their strength again.
    He took a note from his pocket. He left a calling card on Aiden Cornwall’s