Thin line, p.17
Thin Line, page 17
I tried a different number. Frank Skinner answered immediately.
"What'd you do, Frank?"
"Jack? What're you talking about?" He slurred his speech, sounded like he hadn't slept.
"I got two spooks residing in a rented motel room, and a partner I can't find. What the hell did you do?"
"Nothing, Jack. Jesus." He paused. "After you left, I erased the encounter from my security footage and made myself forget about seeing you."
"Yeah, well, somebody knows we're here."
"You think we're the only ones who might've been monitoring for your re-entry?"
Aside from the racing sports cars, I hadn't noticed anyone on the highways last night.
"Who else knew we were gone?"
"That doesn't matter, Jack. You became a blip on a radar when you came home. And obviously, someone wants to talk to you. Maybe you should go see what they want?"
The door to the room opened. A shadowy figure appeared. The man said something, turned back, and let the door fall shut.
I said, "Yeah, I think I'm gonna pass on that. Do some digging and call me back with what you find out."
After hanging up, I retreated further into the shadows, keeping the room in view. How long would they wait? Would they get a call from Frank, or whomever Frank called, and come looking for me outside? It was times like these that being unarmed was a bad idea. In fact, being unarmed at any time was akin to asking for the chair or the needle. In my world, shadows were everywhere, and they hid the kind of secrets people killed over.
Five minutes turned into ten, then twenty. There was no sign of movement upstairs, or anywhere else in the motel, or its parking lot. Frank hadn't turned me in. Not yet, at least. Or, if he had, they were waiting for me someplace else.
I tried calling Bear again. By the eighth ring, I was ready to smash my phone on the concrete walkway.
And then Bear answered. I told him about the two agents camping out in our room, and the possibility for more.
"I'm five minutes away. Secured us a few helpers. So, if you wanna head up to the room after I get there, we can."
I thought about it for a moment. The room layout gave the men hiding in there the better position. We would have to go through the bottleneck. They could take us one at a time, and there was little we could do to improve our chances of survival.
"Let's skip town. Head back to New York."
"Like that's gonna be any better?"
I didn't think it would be, but everything centered around there. It would be where Taylor would return to. It was where McLellan's corpse had turned up. If we were going to solve anything, it would be there.
"If this is gonna end," I said. "It'll be in the city."
CHAPTER 37
I SPENT THE first hour of the drive looking backward. Couldn't have described one car in front of us. I was more concerned about a black sedan and two government agents who had somehow tracked us down to a motel north of D.C.
The following hour I remained vigilant, but not obsessed. Bear watched, too. Between the two of us, if we were being followed by a single car, or a tag team of two or three, we'd spot them. As it was, nothing stood out. Of course, if they were tracking us another way, which I feared, it didn't matter. They'd find us after we stopped.
"We should ditch our phones," I said.
"Think they're monitoring them?"
"Perhaps." I glanced out the window at the dirty piles of snow that passed in a blur the same way the times I recalled either placing or receiving a call in the past three days. "Can't hurt."
"Maybe a new rental, too."
"Think they tagged it?"
"Where?"
"Outside of Frank's would be my guess. He knew we were coming. Wouldn't put it past him to have someone waiting outside for the sole purpose of getting something on this vehicle to track it."
Bear scratched at the growth of hair on his chin. "Possible, I guess."
The next exit had everything we needed. Food, convenience store, and a car rental place. Bear parked in the back of the store lot, and then headed across the divided highway on foot to get a new rental. I went inside and took care of phones and grabbed drinks and food. Wasn't the best stuff, but it'd do.
I tracked down Bear at the rental place and waited outside, watching for anyone resembling a Fed while he finished up. Ten minutes later, we were in a new sedan stopped in the middle of a U-turn in front of the convenience store where the old vehicle was parked. The store's front doors popped open, and a man stepped out. Short, stocky, older. Looked familiar. His shoulders squared up to us. We straddled the median, squared up to him. Sunglasses shielded his eyes. I couldn't tell where he was looking. He walked toward a Ford Mustang.
The break in traffic Bear waited for appeared. We whipped around the median. I spun in my seat to reestablish visual contact, but the guy was gone.
"What is it?" Bear asked.
"That guy," I said, "he looked familiar."
"From where?"
"That's the problem, man. I don't know."
"One of the guys from the motel?"
"Only saw one."
"How'd you know there were two?"
"When the one guy was getting ready to leave, he said something, or the other guy said something, and the guy in the doorway stopped and shut the door. Besides, no way someone comes after us while flying solo."
Bear stuck his fist out in between us, expecting me to do the same. "You know that's right."
"Anyway, keep an eye out for a Mustang, a red one."
We never spotted the Mustang, but that didn't prevent my mind from chewing on the man I saw, trying to place him. I'd seen lots of guys like him, from the moment I stepped foot on Parris Island, South Carolina, for recruit training. Half the guys in our platoon looked like him. Half the guys in the field working for the CIA looked like him. Almost every Spec Ops guy I ever encountered looked like him.
I called Joe Dunne and left him a message. I figured he'd written us off as being any help to him.
The sun was setting by the time we reached New York. Reds and purples rippled across the sky, fading deeper with every passing second. We pulled into a public garage and ditched the car on the third level. Bear wiped the interior down, erasing any sign of us ever being inside.
We weren't far from the apartment, but I didn't feel comfortable returning there. Sure, it had cash and weapons, but Bear had secured those earlier that day while I was at the motel. Going back to the apartment posed a great risk. The Old Man most likely had it staked out. McSweeney probably did too. I didn't doubt that she knew my identity by this point. If her contact was any good, he'd have figured it out.
"So where to?" Bear asked, stepping over the waist-high concrete barrier on the ground floor of the garage.
I continued to the opening and met him on the sidewalk. We merged into the crowd moving east. There were few people I trusted. Bear was one. The other, while possibly pissed at me, was our only hope at that time.
"Clarissa's," I said.
"She ain't gonna let you in, man. Maybe me, but definitely not you."
"I'll take my chances." We crossed the street, continued toward the bar. "Besides, she's not ready to kick me to the curb yet."
"How can you tell?"
I shrugged. "Just a feeling. Our story isn't complete."
"Whatever." The big man stepped ahead and pulled on the bar's front door.
Soft chatter rose up the six steps that led to the dining room. There were two couples seated at one corner of the bar. Four booths were occupied by unrelated parties. Clarissa stood behind the counter. I crossed the room. She looked up when I placed my hands on the counter.
"Jesus, Jack," she said. Her eyes misted over. "What the hell happened in France?"
"What are you talking about?"
She wiped her eyes with her sleeve as her cheeks reddened. The concerned look on her face turned to one of anger. She stormed toward the kitchen. Looking back at me, she kicked the door open and gestured for me to follow her in.
"I could care less how classified whatever you were doing is or was," she said before I fully crossed the threshold. "You were on TV, fifty or a hundred feet from a man-made crater. They said the bomb was detonated by a terrorist. What the hell is going on?"
I wanted to ask her about the footage she saw. Frank hadn't mentioned it. Pierre hadn't called about it. Instead, I tried to calm Clarissa down. "Look, you're right, I can't talk about that. But it's over, and I'm OK, and so is Bear."
Clarissa looked down at the floor in an effort to hide her tears from me. One dropped, creating a tiny lake on the tile between us. She brought her palms to her face and wiped the rest away. Looking up, her eyeliner smeared along the ridge of her cheekbone, she said, "And this detective. She won't leave me alone."
"McSweeney?"
Clarissa nodded. "And she knows a lot about you, Jack. Too much."
"Like what?"
"Your last name, for starters. She knows you were in the Marines, said your files were classified, but that she knew our connection."
"What'd she say about your father?"
"She knew he was murdered. Said things that I'm pretty sure the public shouldn't have access to."
"Such as?"
"She knew what my dad did, a few details of the program and who you co-oped with. I don't think she realized his murder was connected."
"McSweeney's got a source, a relative or something, working in the NSA. At least I think it's the NSA. They have access to files. Could be any other agency, really, or even someone inside the Pentagon. High enough up, it all blends together."
"What do I do about her, Jack?"
"You tell her where I live?"
"She already knew." She wiped her face again with her sleeve, turning the cloth from white to black. Glancing down at it, she said, "I look like a clown now, don't I?"
"I didn't want to say anything."
Clarissa hit my chest. "Bastard." She smiled, seemingly forgiving me for all past transgressions, if only for a moment.
"As far as McSweeney goes, play her game for now. It might get us further with her."
"OK. Help yourselves to whatever you want behind the bar. I'm gonna clean up. Back out in a sec."
Bear had already helped himself, and a few of the patrons. He'd gone so far as to tie a white apron around his waist. In less than a minute it had three stains. He nodded as I approached, leaned back against the wall.
"Having fun?" I said.
Bear shrugged. "What'd she have to say?"
"The detective knows too much." I took a second to look around the room. Nothing had changed since we walked in with the exception of one person leaving the bar to pick a song on the jukebox. Amos Lee started serenading us through the ceiling-mounted speakers.
"What kind of stuff?"
"Everything. What it really means is that her source knows everything and is feeding it to her."
"Who do you think it is?"
"You know how classified this stuff is. So, pick an acronym and you might be right."
Clarissa returned to the bar, all makeup washed away from her face. It made her look less jaded, more pure. Maybe even more attractive.
"What are you staring at?" she asked.
I said nothing.
"You want to stay at my place tonight?"
"Both of us?" I glanced at Bear, then back at her. "Probably better off in a hotel."
"You know," Bear said, "with all that's going on, and that detective sniffing around, it might be best if we're around her. I think she's good alone here, in public, but at home, maybe we should be there."
Bear had a point. We had at least three, maybe up to five, different groups to deal with. Between the Old Man and his organization, Frank and the SIS, and whoever McLellan worked for, someone might stoop low enough to go after a person we cared about.
Clarissa made the ideal target on several levels. Past, present, future; it was all there.
Not only would we stay with her, I considered cashing in a favor and getting an ex-Special Forces friend to be her bodyguard for the next forty-eight hours.
"So about the Old Man," Bear said. "You really thinking about caving to him?"
The thought had played on my mind as well. "Thing is, Bear, battling him would be the same as taking on a small country. Alone, or with little support." I nodded in his direction.
He nodded back, said nothing.
"He's got his hands into everything, and everywhere. I don't know how far he's penetrated the government, but just the fact that he has makes this difficult. He's got ins with the FBI. I'm sure the CIA, too. Probably a contact or two at the Pentagon. No doubt his local politicians have pockets lined with the Old Man's money. Possibly some at the national level. Is this who I, we, want to go to war with?"
Bear thought it over for a moment. His fingertips worked their way through the growth on his face. We both hadn't shaved the same number of days, yet his beard was three times as thick as mine. Hell, I looked like an out-of-work coffee house barista. He looked like he belonged in the woods, chopping down trees.
"We don't want to go to war with him, no," Bear said. "But do we want to work for him?"
"If you'd have asked me that a few days ago, I'd have said no, absolutely not. But after what we've been through, and the obvious fact that someone we should be able to trust to not stab us in the back has gone and done just that…" I paused and watched Clarissa as she crossed the floor to deliver a round to a table of guys in their early twenties. They were all dressed alike. Chinos and designer shirts. Expensive gel held their spiked, disheveled hair in place.
"I get what you're saying, Jack."
I glanced at the ground and traced an imaginary line with the tip of my foot. "Let's just say that, when it comes to compromising my values and working with the Old Man, the line has grown so thin, I don't know if it even exists anymore."
The bells hanging on the front door jingled as it opened. I looked up, first catching Clarissa's eye. She looked toward the door, then avoided me as her head spun the other direction. Slowly, my gaze drifted, taking in every person at every table in the second it took to sweep the room.
And then I saw McSweeney.
CHAPTER 38
THE DETECTIVE WAS dressed in blue jeans and an off-white sweater. She had unzipped her leather jacket, but left it on. Her hair fell across her shoulders in waves. This was the first time I'd seen it down. The soles of her boots rapped rhythmically against the floor as she crossed the room toward me. Men seated behind her, unable to resist the allure of her footfalls, turned away from their dates to get a glimpse of McSweeney. Her jacket brushed open as she moved, revealing her holstered Glock. She looked from me to Bear, sizing up the big man. Then, with a gesture that lasted a second, she tossed a glance and a nod in Clarissa's direction, confirming what I feared earlier.
Up to that point, there had been two people I knew would never sell me out. Now Bear stood alone.
McSweeney swung her left leg over a barstool, rose over the padded seat, and then settled onto it. The air in the padding hissed out. She seemed comfortable, almost to a fault, for a woman who faced two trained killers. Ones she had to presume were armed.
"Get you something?" Bear said sarcastically.
McSweeney smiled, shook her head, said, "Jack, don't blame Clarissa for this. I had her in a pretty bad spot. If she didn't do this for me, she'd be facing some serious consequences."
I heard the kitchen door swing open and shut. The swishing grew faster and higher pitched with each successive pass through the door frame.
"I need answers from you," McSweeney continued. "Tell me who these men were, and what all of you were doing in the same location."
"Which men?" I said.
"Don't play dumb, Jack."
"Hear from the FBI recently?"
"What's that got to do with this?"
I shrugged, said nothing.
"I hear from them quite often, but not over this. Yet, at least." She sipped from the glass of water Bear had set in front of her. "Back to my question."
"Can't your source tell you this?"
She looked past me, toward the mirrored wall, and shook her head. "Current intelligence isn't their strong suit."
"No, I suppose they're only good at raising the dead." I paused. She said nothing, so I continued. "You know how many people have access to the information you've been given?"
Shrugging, she reestablished eye contact with me.
"A handful," I said. "There are people running the Pentagon who don't know some of the things you've been told."
"Jack, I'm simply trying to get to the bottom of a-"
"What you're trying to do and what you are actually doing are two separate things. You've dug yourself a pretty deep trench, and if you're not careful, someone's gonna bury you in it, McSweeney."
Her cheeks reddened. I couldn't tell if that meant she'd grown embarrassed or angry. I certainly wasn't the first possible witness that gave her push back. Perhaps she thought the information her source provided gave her some kind of an edge or leg-up on me. Fact was, no one in local law enforcement gave me reason for pause, because my contacts always trumped them.
"You want my advice, detective?"
She stared at my forehead, said nothing.
"Take your file and bury it so far in the archives that the cold case unit would need thermal underwear and arctic parkas to come close to sniffing it." I paused to allow her a chance to react. She didn't. I continued. "You don't want the attention that will go with figuring out who these men are. Take me, for example. You've learned things about me that you don't need to know. That you shouldn't know. Not because I'm afraid of you finding out, but because it puts your life in danger should someone ever try to find me. These kinds of people will scour the bowels of the city in an effort to get any shred of information about me. Your name comes up? It's not a knock at the door in the middle of the night you'll be receiving. You'll end up with a bag over your head, in the back of a trunk, driven out into the woods to be tortured until you tell them what little you think you know. Then you're dead. Is this what you want?"
