Free The Last Spymaster by Gayle Lynds

Jay Tice towered over Westwood. His hands hung open at his sides, his wet legs stood akimbo, and his expression was neutral as he stared down through the ghostly light at the old spy standing in hip boots in the swamp’s choppy water.
    Westwood glared up, his M-16 pointing steadily.
    Tice made no move. “So that’s the way it is. You serious about shooting me?”
    “You’re goddamned right I am!”
    Tice nodded. He peered out, quickly analyzing shapes and colors. “I see your intruder. He’s lying on a log. He’s either unconscious or dead.”
    Giving Westwood no time to respond, Tice jumped down, splashing a dirty wave up onto Westwood’s shirt and face. As Westwood swore and backed away, shaking water off the M-16, Tice pushed into the swamp. The water was like refrigerated flannel, thick with debris, even more difficult to slog through. Everything stank of decay.
    “Damn you, Jay.” Westwood fell in beside him. “Go back. Turn yourself in. They’ve got to be looking for you.”
    “I imagine they are.”
    “You
bastard.
All those years we worked together . . . All those times I trusted you to cover my ass . . . All the people who counted on you . . . How could you have done it? You betrayed all of us! Langley.
America!
”
    “I always protected you.”
    “I never knew you. I swear to God, I never suspected.
Never!
I suppose I’m damn lucky to be alive.”
    “We’re all lucky to be alive. Have you had any other visitors besides this one?”
    Westwood scowled. “And if I have?”
    “Your trespasser was not only armed, he recognized me. That’s when he really wanted to terminate me. A few hours ago another one tried, too.”
    Westwood stared. “What happened to him?”
    “I’m alive,” Tice said grimly.
    The trespasser lay on his back on top of an uprooted tree, eyes closed, arms and legs limp. Now that Tice was close, he saw how young he was, probably not much more than twenty-five. His square face was ashen, the skin blue beneath his black stubble. Black silt covered his clothes. His gun was nowhere in sight.
    “Do you recognize him?” Tice asked.
    “Never saw him before. What about you?”
    “I don’t know him.” He checked. “He’s dead.”
    “Too bad. But what could he expect—coming in here the way he did, trying to wipe us.” With the M-16 in one hand, Westwood used the other to fish through the man’s pockets. He brought out a wallet, a tube of Chap-Stick, an unopened package of M&M’s, and a cell phone. Everything was sodden.
    Tice took the cell. Water flowed from it. He touched the power button. It was as dead as its owner.
    Westwood opened the wallet. “Some cash, but that’s all.” He pocketed it.
    “How did you know he was here?”
    “Surveillance cameras,” Westwood told him. “After he’d been loitering a couple of hours, I walked out to chat. Of course, I took my M-16 and my flag marker—”
    “The one stuck in the grass.”
    He nodded. “I don’t need it, but he could’ve been some tourist whose curiosity had overtaken his common sense. When he faded into the Dismal, I went after him. He pulled a gun, and that changed everything. We did a nasty bit of dancing after that.”
    “What do you want to do with him?” Tice asked. “Might as well leave him. The bobcats or bear will take care of him.”
     
    Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex
Allenwood, Pennsylvania
     
    The FBI and CIA jointly agreed to keep Frank Theosopholis’s murder quiet for the time being, so Elaine continued her probe into both Tice and Theosopholis as if Theosopholis were still alive. She questioned some fifty inmates and prison personnel alone and in groups. The picture she developed of Theosopholis was of a hobbyist. Besides his nightly TV date, he entered sweepstakes and planned get-rich-quick schemes that went nowhere.
    His bunkmate told her, “Hell, I slept through the whole thing. I didn’t know he was gone until the guard kicked my ass outta bed. I hope Theo makes