“Sounds like this conversation is turning into ‘talk to my lawyer.’ I don’t know anything about any murders.”
“There’s a burned up body in your old apartment in Spanish Harlem which tells us differently.”
“Really? Don’t know anything about that either.”
“Of course not.”
“Is that your case, Wokowski?”
“No, it isn’t, but we may have something to offer you to make all your troubles disappear.”
“I told you I’m not interested.”
“It’s a better offer than federal prison.”
“If you boys had any evidence against me, I’d be in handcuffs in the back of your car.”
Wokowski frowned but he didn’t give in. “It comes from high up.”
“If you were from the company, I’d be in the trunk of your car.”
“Not the CIA, the NCTC.”
“Those guys who compile all the data on the terrorists and throw it to you feds so you can fumble the ball and screw up everything like you did in San Bernardino?”
Wokowski’s look turned from sarcastic to sour as he ignored the comment. “The director of the NCTC, Nathan Anderson, wants you to come back to work for the government, doing the same type of jobs you did before.”
“No thanks. I’m retired.”
“You’d be a free agent, but if you ever got caught, all bets are off.”
Maynard was frowning.
“I have a feeling the cowboy’s not on the same page as you fellas.”
“That’s right, I’m not. I think you did the Phoenix murder and I aim to prosecute you for it.”
“If I knew what the hell you’re talking about, and I don’t, I think you need something called evidence. Hunches don’t result in too many convictions nowadays.”
“What should I tell the director about his offer?”
Robert leaned close to Wokowski. “You tell him he can stick it where the sun don’t shine.”
“Mr. Garcia, I should remind you that we’re the federal government...”
“Yeah, the biggest bunch of crooks there ever was.”
“…And if we can catch you this easily, you won’t be able to hide again.”
“Didn’t know I was hiding. Anyway, thanks for the chat.”
Robert swung a leg over his bike and started the ignition.
“You’ll be hearing from the NYPD about the dead man that was found in your apartment.”
“Look forward to it.” Robert saluted and took off. Maynard’s eyes were trained on him as if they were looking at him through a gunsight. Robert’s life was over – again.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
Robert used counter-surveillance measures to make his way back to the apartment. He took a different route, and doubled back several times to assure he was not being tailed before heading to the place that he had called home. Now it was just a place. The dog greeted him on opening the door with the usual fervor. Robert petted him and fed him, and sat at the table and watched for the sixty seconds it took him to eat his food. Then, he took the dog to the kennel. He booked it for three weeks, but gave them an overstuffed wad of cash enough to cover six months.
“Put the rest on my account, in case I’m a little longer.”
The surprised clerk looked at the lump of cash like it was a rare moon rock and began counting it into the drawer. Robert got down on his knees and rubbed the dog behind the ears. The dog whined because he knew he was being abandoned yet another time. He had been a great friend to Robert, and Robert knew he would never see him again.
The dog and the girl.
The girl would not be receiving a farewell like the dog. Robert was already gone. That night, he cleared out and wiped down his apartment. He filled up an abandoned shopping cart with his possessions and took them to a nearby dumpster, where he burned them. Then he made his way to the storage unit, where he wiped down his Honda and left it in the locker. It would be a good payoff once they foreclosed on it for the bill. Robert hopped on the 990 and drove away from the dog, the girl, Las Vegas, and the life of Julio Ignacio.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
Robert had to put some mileage between himself and Las Vegas before deciding where to make his next base camp. This time, it had to be somewhere he didn’t need to worry about licenses or registrations, girls or dogs. He headed to Denver, knowing he could get lost in the crowd while he was looking for a more secluded place to light. He was tired when he arrived in town, so he cruised around looking for a place to rest where he could remain anonymous. He found it with the Jacaro Motel on Colorado Boulevard.
The Jacaro Motel was right out of the 1950s. Although it looked like it had never been remodeled since then, Robert could see that a few coats of paint had been splashed on the walls over the years. Robert signed the register as “Ben Frank” and when the clerk asked for his ID, he handed him a stack of hundreds.
“That’s my ID. This is for the room.” Robert shoved another hundred over the desk. The clerk took the hint and pocketed the wad, smiled with hospitality, and slid his key to him.
“Welcome to the Jacaro, Mr. Frank.”
Robert nodded and snatched the key. He then began his research project on his computer. This time it was not to identify his new target but to locate a place to live that was remote enough not to have neighbors and close enough to the city to not be noticed coming and going for supplies.
Robert finally found the area he was looking for: A secluded forest community with mostly vacation cabins. People who did happen to live there would be less likely to be alarmed by seeing an unfamiliar face because the cabins in the area were mostly for rent. Robert couldn’t rent one over the Internet, so he called a couple of numbers and arranged to meet the owners of two different cabins. He took a ride out to Pine, Colorado to check them out. It was only an hour’s drive from the big city but a world away, nestled against the base of the Rocky Mountains. The area also was not mapped for GPS navigation systems, and registered as “off-road” to them, another plus for Robert.
At the second cabin he visited, Robert was lucky to find Rocky Melville, the owner, an Army vet who had actually lived in his cabin from time to time. He was an old school old- timer who didn’t have a smartphone and thought the Internet was some kind of fishing appliance, although he did offer free WiFi, which Robert, of course, would never use. He would hack into a different neighbor’s system if ever the need arose.
Rocky’s wrinkled eyes widened when Robert offered to pay him cash for six months in advance, and he smiled with his lips to cover a bottom row of rotting teeth. He told Robert a sob story about the IRS and how every time he took a charge card or check, he had to whip the money out of his checking account right quick or they would take it. The cabin was in his dead sister’s name, but he had never transferred the title to himself because he didn’t want the government to get it. The rental agreement between Rocky and Robert was a handshake.
“I’ll take it.”
“Great! Now let me show you some of the benefits.”
Rocky led Robert outside to the storage shed and unlocked and opened the door. Inside was a hodge-podge of clutter, typical of a hoarder, with piles of moldy magazines on the floor, a collection of hats hung on a rack against the wall, heads of deer and dozens of sets of antlers, and an assortment of fishing poles.
“Are you a fisherman, Sam?”
Robert had a half-second delayed reaction upon hearing his new pseudonym for the first time.
“Oh, yeah, I do like to fish.”
Rocky proudly motioned to a corner of assorted fishing gear. “Here I’ve got all of my fishing equipment, which you’re welcome to use at any time.”
“Much obliged.”
There was not one but at least six tackle boxes overflowing with gear and about twenty spools of fishing line of various sizes.
“There’s a lot of good fishing in the creeks and streams around here. That trout’s awful tasty. Once you have it, you won’t want to eat
anything else. And the Pine River’s got some great fly fishing. You ever done any fly fishing?”
“No.”
Rocky opened a case gleaming with shiny flies, almost alive with their fringes and shredded feathers in fiery oranges, blood reds, cobalt blues, iridescent violets and cornhusk yellows.
“Patience. That’s the key. You have enough patience and the big ones will always come to you.”
Robert nodded and the old man directed him back inside.
“Do any hunting, Sam?”
Robert grinned. “All my life.”
“Then let me show you something really special.”
Under a stag head in the living room above the fireplace was a rifle in a glass case. Rocky fished in his pocket, withdrew the key, opened the case and lifted out the rifle. He held it like a baby in his hands as he presented it to Robert carefully.
“This is a mighty fine rifle, Sam. Put that big one up there down. I keep most of the trophies in the shed because they’re not for most people, but this one was special. I remember the time I bagged him. He was a beauty, that one, and put many a good steak on the table.”
Robert took the gun gently from Rocky. It was a lovely Mannlicher-Schoenauer, an Australian-made deer rifle. He held it up to his cheek and looked through the sight out the window.
“That Mannlicher’s a beauty. Since I know you’re a real hunting man, you’re welcome to use it at your leisure.”
“Thanks, Rocky. I’ll take good care of it.”
“I know you will.” Rocky handed him the key and walked outside with Robert. Rocky held up his finger.
“I didn’t show you the garage.”
Rocky walked over to the garage and unlocked the door. Like the shed, it was overstuffed with useless treasures, but also had an old 70s style Ford Ranger pickup in the middle of all that clutter.
“Noticed you had just a motorbike. Well this baby is good for small trips to town to pick up supplies. It’s all registered and insured. You can use it when you need to go pick up your staples.”
The last of the keys, which belonged to the pickup, was placed into Robert’s open palm.
After Rocky had left, Robert paced the property and its surroundings to get a lay of the land. It was a rustic cabin with a wood burning fireplace and a propane-powered kitchen and plenty of property separated it from the neighboring structures. Rocky told him the fishing was good in the mountain area surrounding the cabin which gave Robert the notion of living off the land. If he could do that it would minimize his appearances in public. It was a stone’s throw to a thick clump of trees which marked the beginning of the forest, with several trails running into it.
Robert took the pickup back to Denver to fetch supplies. He couldn’t risk being seen in any smaller towns closer to the cabin. He picked up some ammo for the rifle in a sporting goods store, along with some extra hunting gear and a few fishing items (even though Rocky had too many). Then he shopped in a 24-hour discount grocery store to stock the cabin with enough staples to last the season. Robert headed back to Pine, stopping only on the way for a burger. With luck (and some skill), he would not have to make too many more return trips.
As Robert settled into his new cabin abode, it was dark, cold and quiet. He had been in less favorable conditions – sliding in the mud into a foxhole with mortars and shells exploding overhead, for example – but he had never experienced an existence that was this quiet before. Inside was only the creaking of the floorboards of the musty cabin, outside the faint buzzing sound of night insects. There was nobody here to bother him – no dog asking for food or to go out or to be caressed. No girl bugging him on the phone. Robert never had a problem being alone, but, for the first time in years, he felt lonely.
The cabin was dark and chilly. Instead of peace, all Robert found was inquietude. Every creak of the settling of the cabin and every brush of the wind outside had him pulling out his gun and creeping up to the window to look outside through the corner of it. He went to the bathroom to dress his wound, sliding off the sticky old gauze, cleaning the injury over the sink with alcohol and patching it up with new material. That kept Robert busy for less than half an hour before that unsettling feeling came back.
Robert lay in bed and stared at the large, cracked redwood beams in the ceiling. He loosened his grip on the Glock and put it under the pillow next to his head. It looked to be a long night.
CHAPTER FORTY THREE
Nathan Anderson squirmed in his chair. He slammed down his pen and regarded Wokowski and Samuels with incredulity.
“What do you mean: you lost him?”
“We lost him, sir. He just, well, he vanished.”
“Well, why didn’t you arrest him?”
Wokowski looked down at the floor and then back up at Anderson defiantly.
“No warrant, no indictment, he wasn’t fleeing the scene of any crime – there was nothing we could have arrested him for.”
“And did you communicate my offer?”
Wokowski looked away. “Yes, we did.”
“What did he say?”
With a frown and a grin of embarrassment, Wokowski answered, “He said you could stick your offer where the sun don’t shine, sir.”
Anderson’s lips puckered as he frowned with disgust. “Then we have to neutralize him.”
“Sir, we can’t kill him.”
“That’s not what I meant, Wokowski. I meant he’s got to be taken off the streets, with a warrant, without a warrant. I don’t care how you get him, just get him and figure out a way to make it stick so he’s not out there going around killing people.”
“It’s not that simple, sir.”
“That’s why we have the FBI, the best law enforcement institution in the world. Let’s get it done, gentlemen.”
Anderson stood and the two agents got the idea. They got up and left his office.
Out of hearing distance of the office, Wokowski said, “He sounds like a football coach.”
“Yeah, with no playbook.”
Wokowski and Samuels discussed the dilemma and decided it would be best solved by their “real” boss, Bill Carpenter. Two agents from Washington didn’t have the capacity to put a dragnet over the city of Las Vegas, if Paladine was even still there. They were going to need a bigger force.
***
A shrill, inhuman shriek sound startled Robert out of his sleep. He tried to reach for his gun, but he was paralyzed. The shadow of an approaching figure danced in the moon-lit corridor. Robert tried to move again, but he couldn’t. He tried to roll out of the bed but he remained stationary. The figure was getting closer and Robert could hear the sound of breathing as the shadows grew taller and moved into the room. Then it was clear who the intruder was. Standing in the doorway was an ISIS jihadist, holding a scimitar. He ginned deviously as he approached the bed, and raised his weapon above Robert’s neck.
Robert opened his eyes, grabbed his gun and was on his feet in less than a second after waking. He rotated on his feet as an axis, doing a 360-degree spin of the room with his Glock, then went to the window, peeled open the blinds and looked out. Dawn was breaking and he had made it through the first night alive.
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
The phone rang, breaking Joshua Maynard’s concentration. He picked it up, angrily and impatiently.
“Yes?”
“Josh, where are you?”
It was the shrill voice of Joshua’s ex-wife, Cynthia. She always had a way about her and that way usually rubbed Joshua the wrong way, especially when she was in “crisis mode,” which was often.
“I’m at home, working on a case.”
“Josh, it’s Saturday and you’re thirty minutes late to pick up the kids!”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry. I’m coming now.”
“Save it! I’ll drop them at my mother’s.”
Josh could feel her seething over the phone.
“No, no, I’m coming, I’m coming.”
It was a cold reception at the ex-house of Jos
hua Maynard. Not from Erica and Jim, who were always happy to see him, but from Cynthia, who stayed back and let her new husband, Ken, take care of the transfer. In Ken, Cynthia had found everything that lacked in Joshua – a man who was so attentive, he sacrificed his own masculinity just to please her every whim. But he was a good stepfather to the kids, so Joshua couldn’t complain – well, maybe too good.
Five-year-old Erica jumped into the arms of her father, while seven-year-old Jim hung his head. He loved his dad, but was going to miss hanging out with the neighborhood boys this weekend. They had planned a street baseball game and he was supposed to play first base.
Erica was bubbling with conversation, while Josh tried to pull it out of Jim with a series of questions like, “How’s it going at school?” that were met with one syllable answers like “fine.” In contrast to Erica’s diarrhea of the mouth, Jim’s monotone answers told Josh just where he stood with his son. When he and Cynthia were together, he was a great father and a bad husband. Without her he was just a terrible father.
Maynard didn’t have any plans for the kids, so he took them back to his house, turned on the television and went back to work. The guilt hung like a shadow over his shoulder as he sat at his computer, answering questions from time to time from the kids, but he soon drifted back into a workaholic state as he surfed the latest data on Paladine.
***
As the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months, Robert almost lost track of the sunrises and sunsets. He was trying to live the life of a hermit, but it wasn’t working well for him. He cast his line into the stream and kicked back on the soft pad of pine needles against a redwood tree. He didn’t quite have the hang of fly fishing, so he decided to start the old fashioned way. He had dozed off to the music of chirping birds for about half an hour when he felt a pull on his line and tightened his grip on the pole. He jerked his wrist and reeled as the fish fought against his efforts, bending and stretching his pole to the breaking point. Finally, the fish lost and Robert swung it into his net. He set it on the floor of the forest, wrenched the hook out of its mouth and watched it flop about. The fish was a beautiful green rainbow trout with a shiny orange tint and black spots. He kept at it for another two hours, until he had added four more fish to his quota.