The Fix

by David Baldacci

  * * *

  They were seated at a table in the middle of a Vietnamese restaurant in D.C. Brown had suggested it.

  Decker looked at the menu and said, “I don’t recognize one thing on here.”

  “I can order for you, Decker,” said Brown.

  Decker dropped his menu. “Sounds good to me. Do they have fries?”

  Mars handed her his menu. “I’m in the same boat as Decker, so you can order for me too.”

  Brown looked at Jamison. “You good, or you want me to do the honors for you too?”

  “I love Vietnamese food,” replied Jamison in an irritated voice.

  When the waitress came, Brown ordered for the three of them, in Vietnamese.

  “Impressive,” said Mars as the waitress walked off. “I can barely make my way around English.”

  “Come on, Melvin, you graduated from UT early with a business degree,” pointed out Jamison.

  “Prison doesn’t improve one’s brainpower. At least not mine. Not after twenty years.”

  “Did you find anything in the files at Dabney’s office?” Decker asked Brown.

  She shot Mars a glance. “I doubt he’s cleared to hear this.”

  “Neither are we,” pointed out Decker. “You can trust Melvin,” he added.

  “Okay, no, we found nothing in the files, but we’re still looking. We were hoping for a smoking gun but didn’t find one. How about you?”

  “We haven’t found a gun, much less a smoking one. But we have questions, like if Dabney was working with Berkshire, why meet near the Hoover Building? He already had a meeting scheduled that morning. And if she was a spy I doubt she would be attending.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And as Jamison pointed out, if they weren’t working together it’s a helluva coincidence to have one spy kill another unrelated spy.”

  Brown glanced at Jamison. “Another good observation, Jamison. You’re showing a real talent for this area.”

  Jamison didn’t respond to this remark.

  Decker added, “And if Berkshire wasn’t spying anymore, she had a weird retirement. Million-dollar condo and six-figure ride paired with a crappy farmhouse and an old, dented Honda.”

  “I don’t disagree,” said Brown. “It’s all weird.”

  “And we still haven’t accounted for the person who nearly killed me and stole the flash drive. Berkshire was dead and Dabney was on his deathbed at the time. So there’s a third party out there.”

  “Who wanted that flash drive,” observed Brown.

  “And I wonder what was on there?” said Decker.

  “What else? More stolen secrets,” replied Brown.

  “You think?” he said.

  “What else could it be?”

  “If I knew the answer to that I wouldn’t be asking the question. But if Dabney and Berkshire were working together, we should be able to find some connection.”

  “All I can tell you, Decker, is that the first inkling we had that Dabney had gone bad was recently. He’s worked on other DIA projects before and we had no problems. And he also had no incentives to steal. The guy was in great shape financially. It was only this gambling debt problem that pushed him over the edge.” She glanced at Mars. “You carry this to your grave, okay?”

  He put up his hands in mock surrender, smiled, and said, “Hey, I’m on your side, okay? I’m going to forget everything you guys say tonight.”

  Brown smiled and said, “I knew I liked you.” She turned back to Decker. “And Dabney had to routinely take polygraphs to keep his security clearance status up to date. He never failed one.”

  “So you’re convinced that this was just a one-off?”

  “Unless you can show me something to the contrary.”

  Jamison interjected, “But he was able to sell the secrets very quickly.”

  “I know. You said that before and it’s a valid point. But it’s a leap of logic to go from that to the conclusion that the guy’s been stealing secrets for a long time.”

  “Well, we’ll see if we can get your logic to match up with ours at some point,” said Jamison tersely.

  The two women did a bit of a stare-down.

  Fortunately, their food came right then and they started eating.

  Brown eyed Mars. “So how do you spend your time now?”

  “Doing a little coaching at the high school level. Basically trying to figure the rest of my life out.”

  “You two have something in common,” said Decker.

  “What’s that?” asked Mars.

  “You’re both rich.”

  When Mars eyed Brown she said, “Nothing to do with me. I inherited. Just luck of birth.”

  “Yeah, that’s just great,” Jamison muttered under her breath.

  “I don’t think of myself as rich,” said Mars. “Maybe I would if I had earned the money playing ball.”

  “You earned the money, Melvin,” said Decker. “With twenty years of your life.”

  * * *

  After they finished their meal and left the restaurant, Brown walked ahead talking to Mars, while Jamison and Decker were paired up about ten feet behind them.

  “Brown has quite the family lineage,” said Jamison.

  “Well, at least she’s not resting on all her dough and spending her time attending galas and soirees and shit like that. She’s out there in uniform fighting the good fight.”

  “Yeah, she’s absolutely perfect.”

  Decker glanced at her. “You’re sounding jealous again, Alex. It’s not a good look on you.”

  Jamison let out a long breath. “Yeah, I know. But that woman has something about her that just rubs me raw just by looking at her. You ever have anyone like that in your life?”

  “Yeah, my fifth-grade teacher, but I got over it.”

  They watched as something Mars said made Brown laugh out loud. She bumped him lightly with her hip and then tucked her arm through his as they walked along.

  Jamison quickly eyed Decker. “Okay, what’s that about?”

  “What’s what about?” said Decker, who’d been lost in his own thoughts. He wasn’t even looking at the pair up ahead.

  Jamison sighed. “Never mind.”

  CHAPTER

  46

  AFTERWARDS THEY SPLIT UP, with Mars and Brown driving off in their cars and Decker and Jamison going up to their apartment. Decker opened the door to the apartment and they stepped inside.

  “Well, that didn’t get us anywhere,” said Jamison. “Brown obviously really didn’t want to share anything that would help us.”

  When he didn’t answer, she said wearily, “You know, Decker, when a person is talking to you they sort of expect a response.”

  She hung up her coat on a peg by the door and turned around.

  And froze.

  The man had on a black hoodie tightly closed so she couldn’t see his face.

  He had a gun that was pointed at Decker’s chest.

  “Seems we have a visitor,” said Decker.

  The man jerked his gun upward and Decker and Jamison raised their hands over their heads.

  The man tossed a set of cuffs to Jamison. She quickly moved her hands to catch them. The man pointed at Decker.

  “He wants you to cuff me.”

  “I get that. Who are you?”

  The man, in response, pulled the hammer back on his gun.

  “Just do it, Alex. No more questions.”

  She cuffed Decker’s hands behind his back.

  The man came over and inspected them. Then he pushed Decker and Jamison toward the door.

  “Where are we going?” asked Jamison.

  The man rammed his elbow into Decker’s kidney, causing him to collapse against the wall, his features screwed up in pain. Then he hit him across the face with his pistol.

  “Okay, okay, no more questions!” cried out Jamison. She tried to help Decker, but the man pushed her back.

  Decker finally righted himself and, still listing to one side, moved s
lowly toward the door. The man opened it and they all passed through.

  The man said in a low voice, “We meet anyone along the way, you say nothing. You so much as cough, I’ll shoot you both right here. Understand?”

  Jamison said quickly, “We understand.”

  They walked down the stairs and the man held the door open for them. He led them to a black sedan.

  “Get in the driver’s seat,” he said to Jamison.

  He put Decker in the passenger seat and then climbed into the rear seat, his gun trained on Decker. He handed Jamison the car keys and then slipped on his seat belt. “Drive. I’ll tell you where to go.”

  They drove off.

  The man gave directions and Jamison turned down one street after another.

  “Left here,” he said.

  She turned into an alley and drove to the end. There was no outlet.

  Decker peered out the window. The area was blighted and the two buildings on either side of them looked burned out and abandoned.

  “Out,” said the man to Jamison.

  She climbed out of the car.

  “Open his door,” said the man.

  Jamison opened the passenger door and helped Decker out.

  The man used his pistol to point to the left. “In there. Through the doorway.”

  Decker had to duck to avoid hitting his head on the low doorway. Inside it was dark, cold, and clammy.

  “We can’t see,” said Jamison as she moved slowly forward, her hands out in front of her.

  A light came on. The man was holding a flashlight in his left hand.

  “Down the steps over there.”

  Decker turned and said, “Look, your beef is with me, not her. She walks, I give you no trouble.”

  The man shook his head and pointed his gun muzzle in Decker’s face. “Down the steps over there.”

  Decker glanced at Jamison, turned, and led the way down the stairs.

  The room below was littered with debris—beer cans, used condoms, and animal feces.

  Jamison wrinkled her nose up at the sight of all this. She stepped forward until her path was blocked by a wall. She turned around and looked at the man.

  Decker came to stand in front of her, his big body between her and the gunman.

  The man shone his light on them, even as Decker turned around and his gaze dipped to Jamison’s waist.

  He then looked up at her questioningly.

  She slowly nodded.

  “Turn around,” barked the man. “And move away from her.”

  Decker followed these instructions and stepped to the side, closest to the stair leading up out of the room.

  The man set the light down on a pile of boxes so that it was pointing outward and illuminating the room partially. It was then that he opened his hood and slipped it off his head.

  Luis Alvarez, the construction supervisor at the building where Tomas Amaya had worked, stared back at them.

  “We were wondering where you got to, Señor Alvarez,” said Decker. “How’s life been on the run?”

  Alvarez’s face was stone. “You didn’t think I was just walking away, did you?”

  “You really want to add the murders of two ‘federales’ to your rap sheet?” said Decker.

  “With the greatest of pleasure.”

  “The FBI is almost here.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I saw our apartment door had been forced when I walked in. I hit the speed dial in my pocket. Special Agent Bogart has been listening to everything we’ve been saying. And the chip in my phone has led them right here. So you’re screwed.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Take my phone out and see for yourself. It’s been on the whole time.”

  Alvarez looked nervously at Jamison. “Take his phone out and bring it to me. Now!”

  Decker said, “You’re wasting precious time, Luis. Chances are good the Bureau guys will just blow your ass away to avoid having to spend money on prosecuting you.”

  “Bring me the phone!” screamed Alvarez.

  Jamison pulled the phone out of Decker’s pocket. As she did so she glanced at Decker. He whispered something to her.

  She turned, held the phone up, and said, “Here, you sonofabitch.” She tossed it toward Alvarez. When he reached a hand up to catch it, Decker gave a roar and bolted toward the stairs.

  Alvarez took his eyes off the phone, turned, and leveled his gun at Decker.

  A shot rang out.

  Decker stumbled and went down.

  Alvarez looked over at Jamison. A wisp of smoke was coming off the pistol she held in her hand.

  He looked down at the blood coming out of the hole in his chest.

  “Y-you, b-bitch!” he screamed.

  He pointed his gun at her.

  She stumbled back and fell.

  The next second Alvarez was lifted off his feet. His small body sailed across the width of the room and he slammed into the brick wall. He slid down the wall, slumped to the floor, sat up for an instant, touched the wound in his chest, and glanced at Decker, who’d blindsided him.

  “Y-you, a-assho—”

  He slumped over dead before he could finish.

  CHAPTER

  47