Kurt gave me a curious look. “Our man Stan?”
“Exactly. See if you can find out what his calendar looks like for Thursday.”
He scratched the top of his ear with his thumb. “This Thursday? The day after tomorrow?”
“Yep.”
“Thursday was Stan’s booty night.”
I said, “I’m wondering if it still is.”
He nodded slowly to himself, the ear-scratching slowing down too. “No problemo. Easily done.”
“Great. Thanks.” I tapped the printouts as I stood up. “I’ll let you know what I find.”
“Cool,” he said as he got off the bench too. “I’ll say hi to Gigi from you.”
I gave him a chastening scowl.
He said, “Dude, lighten up. It’s Christmas.”
I took a couple of steps, then turned back toward him.
“Treat her right, Kurt. She seems like a keeper. But don’t let her push it too far. I don’t want either of you ending up in an orange jumpsuit or as permanent houseguests of the Ecuadorian embassy. Not so soon after you’ve found each other.”
Kurt beamed and patted his heart. “Thanks, man. Truly. I’m just . . . thanks.”
“Don’t push it, Jaegers. My Christmas spirit only extends so far.” I turned and walked away. I couldn’t resist a smile as I headed back toward the Expedition, but I felt deflated. The Kurt route—now the Kurt and Gigi route—was going nowhere. Once he got me the info I needed about Kirby, I thought I might have to set him loose. I’d miss him—but this was getting us nowhere, and it was putting him and his archmage, whatever that was, at risk.
I was getting into the Expedition when my work BlackBerry rang.
I checked the screen. There was no number appearing on it. It was a private caller.
I took the call.
“Agent Reilly?”
I froze. The voice was cavernous and artificially monotone. The caller was using an electronic voice changer.
Never a good sign.
5
In these situations, my mind immediately goes to Tess, Kim and Alex.
I don’t know why. I don’t usually deal with psychos or serial killers. The cases I normally work on rarely have the kind of personal angle that can spiral into a vendetta against my loved ones or me. But right there and then, I thought of them. And it sent a spasm of worry through me.
I just said, “I’m listening.”
“Are you interested in justice?”
I forced out a small chortle. “It’s really hard to take that question seriously from someone who sounds like he has a Darth Vader fetish.”
The man paused, then said, “I know things, Agent Reilly. Things you need to hear. Things I need you to do something about. Many innocent people have died because of this. The question is, are you ready to put your life on the line to do something about it?”
I didn’t know what to make of this. We get these whackos more frequently than you’d think, but they usually call the Bureau’s switchboard. Special Agents’ cell phone numbers aren’t easy to get hold of.
I said, “That’s kind of my job description. Who are you? How’d you get this number?”
“What I know, what I want to tell you about, goes way back. It involves a lot of people. Powerful people.”
“OK, I’m going to hang up now, cause we’ve hit our quota on scoops about Area 51 and—”
He interrupted me. “What about your father Colin? You hit your quota on that too?”
That got my attention.
I caught my breath as the savage image that had been seared into my mind ever since I was ten came bursting out of the cage I tried to keep it in, the image of my dad in his office at home, slumped at his desk with a gun by his hand and the back of his head blown off.
“What do you know about my dad?”
“The truth. Look, I’m prepared to tell you everything. All the information you need, proof to back it up. I’ve kept a record of it all and I’ll give it to you. But I need to know you’ll make sure it gets out.”
I was seething inside, but I knew how to keep it at bay and stay calm. I was fully aware that I was probably being played, but whoever it was was pressing some pretty nasty buttons inside me. “You didn’t answer my question.”
After a moment, I heard him cough—a weird, jarring sound, when it comes out through a voice box—then he said, “Let’s not play games and let’s not waste each other’s time. I can’t stay on this call much longer. All you need to know is, this is on the level and I need you to hear the truth—about your dad, about the others, about Azorian . . . just meet me.”
I didn’t have much choice. “Where and when?”
“Tomorrow. One o’clock. Times Square. By the Duffy statue. You know where it is, right?”
“Of course.”
“Come alone. I won’t show if I think you’ve got anyone else there. And, Reilly? Keep it quiet. I’m saying this for your own good.”
“Oh?”
“The last person I reached out to—the only person I tried to tell about it—he’s dead. And I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant, not that death ever is, but—burning to death in his own home because of some electrical fire the day after I called him? Give me a break. I told him not to look into it, but some of these guys, it’s just in their blood. They can’t help themselves.”
“Then why not cut the whole charade and come in to Federal Plaza? I can protect you.”
His voice stayed calm. “No. You can’t.”
“You’d be in federal custody. My custody.”
“No. The people I’m talking about—they’re your own people. That’s why I need you to hear it first. Alone. So you can think about what you're going to do about it before they come after you too.”
I couldn’t help but sense that he was telling the truth. He was scared. Even with the voice box, the fear was palpably there.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll be there.”
“Good. Let’s just both hope you stay alive long enough for it.”
Then the line went dead.
6
Ocracoke, North Carolina
“We have a problem.”
Gordon Roos frowned as he settled into an armchair on the wide deck and looked out over the sleepy, small harbor. Steam rose from the mug of coffee he held in his other hand, vaporizing in the crisp evening air.
He took a sip, then said, “We always have problems. So what else is new?”
“It’s Padley.”
The Outer Banks hardly ever saw snow. A couple of winters back, they’d had several inches, which was all the more notable for its idiosyncrasy. Roos didn’t mind it. He liked the added privacy it offered. Since his move to Ocracoke, he was even more remote than his previous house further up the coast, and it was exactly how he liked it—as long as he could hop in and out efficiently, and fast. His car rarely left the island. He kept a Cessna Skyhawk single-engine prop plane at the small airport, which was little more than a runway with a small, unattended cottage for a terminal. He also kept a sixty-foot sport fisher in the harbor, but that purely for pleasure.
He loved the winters here. The late fall tourists were long gone, leaving the island to its few hundred year-round inhabitants. His house was part of a small cluster of buildings on the south-east side of Silver Lake harbor, all of which were occupied by locals. On one side was an artist. On the other, a folk musician, of a style that Roos found rather pleasing—which was fortunate, given the man’s proclivity for late night sessions. The neighbors mostly kept to themselves, though they always shared a drink at Christmas, a tradition that Roos found he enjoyed much more since his wife had left him. They’d never had kids, so there were no big family gatherings over the holidays, no grandchildren running around opening presents, and his parents were also long dead—Roos himself was over sixty—so he had zero obligations on that front too.
He had been looking forward to a quiet holiday season—reading, playing some golf and some platform tennis, taking his
sport fisher out into the Gulf Stream for some bluefish tuna, and bringing in the occasional paid companion for an overnight or two of carnal bliss. Roos was in great shape and prided himself on his fitness. In fact, his deep-seated need to deny nature its natural course and stay young physically was almost obsessive, and he was pulling it off: given his looks and the upbeat, animalistic energy he projected—particularly towards attractive women—most people he met assumed he was at least ten years younger than he really was.
The holiday season was shaping up nicely indeed, but then the call had come in on his encrypted satphone. Only one person had the phone’s number. Edward Tomblin had been Roos’s decades-long colleague at the CIA, though unlike Roos, Tomblin was still at the agency. Tomblin was also Roos’s closest—and perhaps his only, in the true sense of the term, at least within the limitations of their line of work—friend. And Roos knew his friend well enough to read the gravity in his tone.
He asked, “Say again?”
“The leak? With the reporter? It was Padley. He’s going off the reservation—or, more like, he’s lost his fucking mind.”
Roos took a moment to process it as he took another sip of his coffee. He felt the pleasing sting of the hot liquid as it hit the back of his throat and jacked his sharp mind into even more focus.
“How do we know this?”
“He made a second call. We only caught it because it was to someone on an active watch list. ”
“Who?”
“Oh, you’re going to love this. Reilly. Sean Reilly.”
The sting turned venomous.
“What did he tell him?”
“Not much. Just that he has stuff for him. Information. Records—of everything. Stuff he wants Reilly to go public with. Stuff that includes his dad. The doc’s playing it smart, though. He’s using a prepaid and a voice changer. He also avoided using any keywords we would have picked up. We only fingered him after we ran the recording through our red list and got a match. I guess he doesn’t know we have decryption software for any voice box he can get hold of in this country.”
“Or anywhere else, for that matter.”
“I was being modest.”
So they’d got lucky. They would have missed the call if they hadn’t been monitoring Reilly.
Reilly. That damned Reilly. Again.
Roos put that particular sting aside. “Padley, of all people? Why? And why now?”
“He’s dying.”
“What?”
“We ran a full sweep on the prick after we ID’d him. Turns out he’s got pancreatic cancer. Aggressive and metastasized. He’s terminal. Doesn’t have long.”
“Jesus.” Roos let out a long breath, then took another sip. He’d been in the game long enough that he already knew what they’d need to do. The thought still displeased him.
He liked the doc. Sure, the man had some irritating idiosyncrasies. Today, people would probably consider him to have some level of Asperger’s. But they were all control freaks in their own way. The nature of the business demanded it. Lives were often at stake—especially their own. You learned early on that the only person you could definitely rely on was yourself.
But this—this was a shock. Padley had come to them. He’d never wavered in his commitment, never questioned the tasks he’d been assigned, even when he wasn’t given all the information, information that may have made him question things. To turn like this, to sell you out, for—what?
“So this is about redemption?” Roos asked. “The good doc wants to repent so he can get on the guest list at the pearly gates?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
Roos nodded to himself as he took in a lone sailing yacht that was motoring into the harbor. “OK,” he said. “I don’t see how we have a choice here. I’ll get the Sandman to take care of it.”
“No point bringing the doc in for a chat and showing him the error of his ways, is there?”
“What’s the point of that? He’s dying anyway. I almost feel bad that we’re saving that backstabbing little shit from all the crap that’s waiting for him. I watched my dad go through it . . . Hell, if you ever see me about to go through something like that, do me favor and sick Sandman on me.”
Tomblin chortled. “It would be my pleasure.”
It was Roos’s turn to chuckle. “Asshole.”
“What about Reilly?”
“What about Reilly, indeed.”
Roos had wanted to deal with Reilly a few months ago, after they found out he was gunning for “Reed Corrigan”—Roos’s code name on some of the CIA projects he worked on with Tomblin, back when Roos was still an active agent. Tomblin had counseled him to wait. Reilly turned into even more of a pest when he got involved in the Sokolov affair and prevented Roos from getting his hands on the fugitive Russian scientist who’d managed to give both the KGB and the CIA the slip, the incredible—and outrageously dangerous—technology he’d invented, and the monster payday that would have ensued. Then the son of a bitch went and saved the president’s life and Roos had to back off, big time.
He wouldn’t back off now.
“I think he needs to be item two on Sandman’s to-do list.”
Tomblin seemed to demur the length of a breath, then said, “Agreed.”
“Especially now. Reilly can’t be allowed to interfere this time. But we need to be real careful with him. He’s a slippery bastard.”
“Reilly’s girl—she’s a handful too.”
“The novelist?”
“Yes. We need to make sure she doesn’t have a bone to chew on after it’s done.”
“Sandman hasn’t let us down yet.”
“True,” Tomblin said. “But like you said—she’s like him. Resourceful.”
“According to the surveillance logs, he doesn’t seem to be sharing everything with her, correct?”
“Yes. The bastard’s keeping us in the dark too, but at the same time, it just might end up being what keeps her alive.”
“If she decides to turn into a pain, we’ll just have to deal with her,” Roos told him. “In the meantime, keep me posted. And better get our lapdog up to speed too. Maybe he’ll finally start earning that retainer we’re paying him.”
“Agreed.”
Roos clicked off and looked out. The yacht was reversing into its slot. He kept his gaze on it, judging the skipper’s maneuvering.
For any mere mortal, the news was more than unsettling, but Roos had seen a lot worse over the course of his long career in the shadows. It took a hell of a lot to rattle him. He’d chuckled when he’d seen Mark Rylance’s character in Bridge of Spies repeatedly answer “Would it help?” every time Tom Hanks asked him if he was worried; it mirrored his own take on events, events that took place is a far more brutal version of the world he’d watched on screen. Calmness under fire was crucial in his line of work, perhaps the key quality an agent needed to possess. It was something Roos had mastered.
He wasn’t about to change any of his plans. He would finish his coffee, take another look at the weather forecast, then go for a jog along the dunes, like he did most every evening. He was even considering getting a dog. He’d had one when he was a boy, but his father had shot it just before they’d moved to the city.
If he did buy a dog, the only person who was going to shoot it was him. And then only to spare it the years that Roos had no intention of suffering through himself. He figured he had ten good years left—twenty if he were lucky—more than enough for the useful lifespan of a purebred.
He smiled at the continuing years of uninterrupted leisure stretching out in front of him. He firmly believed he’d earned them many times over. And nothing—nothing, especially not Sean Reilly—was going to interfere with that.
7
Lower Manhattan, New York City
We were all at the Beekman, one of our favorite haunts, a family-run Irish pub that purportedly served the best pint of Guinness in the entire city. Not that I would know. I was enjoying my second ice-heavy Coke, the
decision not to drink having already earned me an hour of slating from the more old-school agents.
Our boss, Ron Gallo, hadn’t even bothered to show. No surprise there: the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office was the kind of leader who thought getting down and dirty with the troops would lower him in their estimation. As if that were possible. He and I had little time for each other anyway. I don’t know if it was due to his particularly poor management skills, although he ticked all the boxes: anger fits, hogging credit, going back on his word. He just exuded that smarmy, insincere, politically astute career focus that made me picture a weasel every time I saw his elongated, narrow-eyed face.
I was still weary from all the overnight stints in New Jersey, for sure—that, and that damn phone call. It was still weighing heavily on my mind when I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to find myself facing Special Agent Annie Deutsch. I knew only rudimentary facts about her due to her being the most recent addition to the office. Right now, she was smiling, the cocktail in her left hand and the general camaraderie around us having obviously served to loosen her attitude. I feared for her around Nick. Although she was a petite brunette and thus didn’t conform to his usual bombastic type, he’d commented on her attractiveness a few times already.
“Agent Reilly?”
“Agent Deutsch.”
I detected the stirrings of a smile. “It’s Annie.”
“Sean.”
Her eyes sparkled with that same elusive combination of intelligence, wit and lightly worn acceptance of a sure-fire ability to attract attention that I found so appealing in Tess.
She leaned in and whispered, close to my ear. “I need to get away from Lendowski. He seems to think I want his tongue down my ear.”
I looked around. I could see Lendowski laughing loudly a few feet away from us, his leer locked on Deutsch. “Why me?”
I was only half joking.
Lendowski’s often-embarrassing exploits with the ladies were widely known within the Bureau, mainly because he insisted on sharing them with anyone who would listen. He made Nick look like a monk. Lendowski had narrowly avoided at least three sexual harassment charges, and he always seemed to emerge looking like the victim, which was no mean feat for a guy who wouldn’t look out of place on the WWE Network. He also loved to gamble, maybe even more than he loved annoying women.