Liars & Thieves: A Novel by Stephen Coonts

Author:Stephen Coonts [Coonts, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Adventure
ISBN: 0312936214
Amazon: B003HOXLW0
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2004-05-11T05:00:00+00:00

After Kelly Erlanger took a powder, Jake Grafton wandered into the kitchen. I trailed along behind. Mikhail Goncharov was sitting at the small round table drinking soda pop and Callie was fixing sandwiches.

“Would you like a sandwich, Tommy?” she asked. “Ham and Swiss or tuna salad ?” She didn’t remark on the commotion in the living room, nor did she ask if Kelly Erlanger was going to join us. The thought occurred to me that Callie Grafton was as tough as her husband.

“Ham and Swiss, please.” I dropped into a chair beside Goncharov. “Is it amnesia?”

“He doesn’t seem to remember anything,” she said without turning around.

“I’ve heard these hard-drive crashes are sometimes temporary,” I said, just to make conversation. “Of course, what I know about it wouldn’t fill a thimble.” There was a napkin dispenser on the table. I helped myself to one; I used it to swab at the scratch on my cheek, which was still burning. There was a trace of blood.

Jake Grafton pulled three beers from the fridge and handed me one. It tasted great. He opened another and put it in front of Goncharov, who abandoned the soda pop and took a long swig.

After I had a couple of slurps, I said to him, “Kelly must be making a beeline for a pay phone. She might have already told them about this house. They could be here in the next five minutes.”

Grafton savored a swig of beer, swallowed it, and nodded.

“Maybe I’m just a nervous Nellie, Admiral, but if they hit us here in this house, we’re dead.”

“I called some friends yesterday,” Jake said. “They arrived this morning.”

“Oh.”

Callie put a sandwich in front of Goncharov and one in front of me. She had even put mustard on mine. I took a bite and worked on it a while. “Who are they?”

“Snake-eaters. There are a half dozen of them out there.”

“I didn’t see anyone … and I was looking.”

“They’re hard to see,” he admitted. When Callie served his sandwich, he sat down beside me. “Tell me about yesterday, everything you can remember.”

I was still talking when Callie took Goncharov upstairs to the guest room for a nap. He had only eaten a few bites of his sandwich.

Telling Jake Grafton everything I knew made me feel better. He asked a few questions to clarify points, but other than that, he had little to say. When I had run down and he was out of questions, I asked one. “Do you really think they’ll kill her?”

“She called Dell Royston from every stop. Sarah Houston said it sounded like there was water running in the background every time. She said Goncharov had amnesia, told him where you were going, the name of the motel where you spent the night, my name, address, everything she could think of.”

“Why didn’t they hit us in the motel?”

“Too dangerous, too many witnesses, and Royston didn’t want you killing any more of his people. Apparently they signed up for murder, not combat.”

Dell Royston, a political operative at the White House.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.