one jogger had just rounded the corner, out of view, leaving not a soul in sight.
Frankel walked the six yards to his car, clicked the doors open and settled into the driver’s seat. Only when he checked the rearview mirror did he see that there were two men sitting in the back. He jolted, as if ten thousand volts had been put through him, and let out a little yelp.
Instantly a gloved hand was placed flat over his mouth, the fingers forming a ridge that simultaneously blocked his nostrils. He could smell the latex. ‘Don’t scream. Don’t say anything. Just drive.’ It was the older of the two men who spoke: short, muscled, unsmiling. ‘My assistant here is holding a gun which is aimed directly at your back. He will shoot you if you do anything stupid. Do you understand?’
The doctor could hardly breathe. He began to think about his heart and his blood pressure. He stayed frozen.
‘Do you understand me, Dr Frankel?’
‘Yes,’ he said, though the sound was muffled and unintelligible.
‘Good. Now just drive to the end of this street, turn right and park up. Then I’ll take my hand away from your mouth.’ The younger man, with long hair, remained silent. Only the older, broader man spoke. ‘That’s it. Just past this hydrant. OK, here. Just park here.’ The man did as he had promised and took away his hand. Frankel panted, gulping down air.
The men let him do that for a second or two. Then they ordered him to shift himself into the passenger seat. He had to adjust it to make room for his legs: it was set for his wife. Then, calmly, the older of the two men got out of the car and re-entered, this time taking the driving seat, which he too adjusted.
‘We’re going on a little trip,’ he said. ‘The first thing I’m going to need you to do is give my friend your phone. Can you do that?’
Frankel dug into his pocket and handed his phone to the long-haired man sitting behind him. Frankel always associated the back seat with his children and grandchildren. He thought of them now and wondered if he would ever see them again.
‘Don’t worry. You’ll get it back. We just need a little privacy right now. OK?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you comfortable? You OK?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. This won’t take long. We’ll be there in ten minutes. No traffic at this time of day.’ The man smiled, a move that made Frankel queasy.
This was obviously connected to the meeting last night. He was being punished, though for what he could not precisely say. If only he had never opened the door to Kassian and Bruton. If only he had refused to have the conversation. If only he had invoked patient–doctor confidentiality from the start, insisting that there was nothing further to discuss. If only he had left the White House in January, with everyone else. If only he had never joined. If only he had remained in private practice, seeing coughing toddlers and aching seniors in Chevy Chase. If only he could see his children again …
‘Some music, doctor?’ The driver began to fiddle with the radio.
‘No, I don’t want any music. I want you to tell me what’s going on.’ Instantly he felt some pressure in the back of the seat. He did not need to be told that the younger man had pressed the barrel of the gun closer towards him.
The car was now heading east on Military Road. There had never been so little traffic. Each time a stop light appeared, Frankel would pray that it would turn red. And as they crossed 31st it seemed destined to go his way. Surely it couldn’t stay green so long. But somehow it did.
The car barely slowed down. Only once did it draw so close to another vehicle that Frankel could see the face of the driver. He didn’t dare tap on the glass of his window – he thought that would count as the something ‘stupid’ that was punishable by a bullet in the back. But he did try to stare sufficiently hard that he might win the driver’s attention. If he could only make her turn around, he would mouth the word ‘Help!’ But she never turned her head.
Eventually they had reached Rock Creek Park and the driver brought the vehicle to a halt.
‘OK,’ he said, his voice light as he turned off the engine, even cheery. ‘Here’s our stop.’
It was then that Frankel felt the anxiety distil into panic and undiluted adrenalin. He was not a man given to rages; he shouted rarely, but now he heard himself. ‘I will not get out of this car until you tell me who you are and what is going on here! Who are you?’
The older man swivelled to look at him. ‘I’m sorry, doctor, but we can’t tell you that. Believe me, this will work out much better for you if you just do what we say. OK?’
‘No. It’s not OK. I insist you tell me who you are this instant. Otherwise I am staying put. You’ll have to shoot me if you don’t like it.’ He folded his arms, in a gesture of stubborn defiance he might have learned from his three-year-old grandson.
At that, the older man gave a nod to the younger one who got out of the car, closed the rear door and instantly opened the one by Frankel. At the same time, the other man got out too, closing his door and coming round so that the two of them – both packed with muscle – were looming over him, while he remained seated and inside. Now the younger man leaned in and in a single motion unbuckled Frankel and pulled him out, tugging him by the lapels of his jacket.
Then, in a movement that must have looked comic – a parody of the MGM dance routines his mother loved – the two men each took one of Frankel’s arms, threaded it through their own and marched forward, lifting Frankel clean off the ground. He heard the electronic sound of his Honda being locked and sensed the keys being returned to his pocket, and felt ridiculous, lifted so effortlessly by these two men. He could tell it involved no strain for them at all.
They advanced swiftly into the park, along its winding paths, their pace barely slowed by the soft, damp terrain. Eventually they turned off into a kind of dip, where the petals of that spring’s blossom had fallen and were turning into mulch. It was a gorgeous spot, lit only by the odd fragment of morning sunlight.
‘All right, here we are,’ the older man said, as he slowed down and lowered Frankel to the ground. ‘Gun, please.’
The junior reached into his jacket and produced a weapon which a second or two later the doctor recognized as his own. His wife’s Colt .25, a small automatic pistol, nickelplated for a more ‘attractive’ look, right down to the nickel coin embedded into the butt. That was the word she had used when she bought it: ‘attractive’. He had pleaded with her not to bring it into the house; he wanted nothing to do with it. Yet here it was. How on earth had these men got hold of it?
‘OK, so here’s how this is going to work, Dr Frankel. You’re going to do exactly what we say and make this clean and simple. If you don’t, if you make this messy, then you’re going to die anyway – but, after you’re dead, maybe in a few days’ time, we’ll go back and kill your wife and maybe one of your grandkids. Say Joey. Or maybe Olivia. She’s cute. Except, with them, we’ll make it last longer and be more painful. OK? Are we good?’
‘What? What are you saying?’
‘We’re saying you’re going to help us this morning, by taking this gun and putting it under your chin and pulling the trigger. Don’t worry, we’ll help. But it needs to be your prints, I’m afraid.’
Frankel felt his bowels straining. He was so confused, but he believed what these psychopathic men were telling him: that they would not hesitate to kill his family. They wanted this to look like suicide and he had no option but to co-operate.
And yet, such is the survival instinct, his body rebelled against the decision he had half-made. He began to wriggle, to resist. But the younger man simply tightened his grip as easily as if turning the screw on a vice. The doctor remained fixed in place, on this patch of earth, as he felt the older man open up his fingers and put the gun into his hand.
He wondered about accepting the weapon and using