by S L Shelton
He raised an eyebrow before nodding his understanding and approval.
“And that’s when the woman showed up,” he added.
“Yes. I had just used Gaines’s satellite phone to call Agent Temple when she walked in on me,” I replied. “I only had time to pocket the cutters I found in the box and flip through a couple of pages of some account info.”
“Describe the account pages,” one of the analysts inserted.
“They were summary pages,” I replied. “I counted twenty-two. They had roughly ten to twelve entries per page, containing bank transaction IDs and receiving accounts.”
“What happened to the pages?” he asked, jotting down notes.
“She left with them.”
“You’re jumping ahead,” John cautioned the analyst.
“Sorry,” he replied. “Go back to when the woman came in.”
“She caught me going through Gaines’s items then ordered me at gunpoint to put zip cuffs on,” I replied.
“She had those with her?” another analyst asked.
I nodded. “Yes…and that’s about the time Agent Temple came in and disarmed her,” I said. “She gave up without a struggle.”
“What did the woman look like?” Johnson asked.
“She had a very light cocoa complexion and long black hair framing an oval face,” I replied. “Very full, sensual lips—like Angelina lips. She was quite attractive. If I had to guess, I'd say she was Middle Eastern or possibly Indian, but she also had some Caucasian features so I can't be certain.”
Johnson and Raimy exchanged a brief glance and then Raimy leaned forward. “Did she have an accent of any sort?”
I shook my head. “Not foreign, if that's what you mean,” I recalled. “East Coast, perhaps. To be honest, she may have been a New York supermodel…she was that hot.”
The analyst took the notes, shifting uncomfortably with my description. I actually saw a flush of color work its way to his face. I noted he was not the only one who had been taken off guard by my frank description. Agent Raimy pursed her lips. Johnson just grinned.
“Agent Temple was about to cut me free when Gaines entered the room and hit him with his gun,” I said. “I tried to warn him, but Gaines was too fast.”
“Go on,” Johnson urged.
“Gaines ordered the woman to take the papers and go.” I closed my eyes to recall the exact words. “He said, ‘Get the account lists and go. It’s a problem anyone knows you were here.’ She replied, ‘Mark, you can’t kill them.’ He said, ‘Don’t count on it.’”
“Are these quotes verbatim?” one of the two female analysts asked.
“I believe so. Yes,” I replied and then closed my eyes to continue. “Then he said, ‘Get the list and go before you end up like Dee.’ He seemed to get angry as he mentioned that name. Then he asked her if she had more cuffs. She gave him a few and then left, saying she was sorry about his sister before he yelled at her to leave again.”
“Any idea who this ‘Dee’ is he was talking about?” Johnson asked.
I shook my head. “I asked him, but he kicked me in the chest,” I replied. “That’s when I pulled the clippers out and cut my cuffs. He discovered his missing multi-tool just then.”
“And that’s when the fight occurred?” Raimy asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “Do you need me to go over that?”
Raimy was shaking her head when Johnson inserted himself. “I’d like to hear about it,” he said. “We have Agent Temple’s account, but I’d be interested in it from your point of view.”
I heard the sarcastic emphasis on the word “Agent” but was more interested in how John could have seen the fight if he was unconscious. He smiled at me and nodded his head.
You son of a bitch, I thought. You were awake!
“As soon as he realized I had his cutters, Gaines rushed me,” I said, recounting what I remembered. “I was already on the floor from when he had kicked me over. I got a lucky kick in and knocked his gun out of his hand, before he threw himself down on me, trying to use his elbows and knees to subdue me. I managed to roll away from him, and then used his metal container to block the next assault, giving me time to get on my feet. That’s when he produced a telescoping metal baton. It glanced off my shoulder and struck me pretty solidly in the skull.
“I actually started to black out, but a strong memory pulled me out of it,” I said trying to recall the event without bringing the emotion back to the surface.
“What memory?” Raimy asked.
I looked at John, and he nodded that it was okay to speak freely.
“When I was in Europe last year, a Bosnian Serb Mercenary by the name of Majmun captured me by knocking me unconscious and then tortured me with a propane torch,” I said. “As I started blacking out yesterday, I could smell burning flesh. It sent me into a half-delirious rage, and I attacked.”
“And that’s when you subdued Gaines?” she asked.
I grimaced at the word. I had actually beaten him to within an inch of his life, but I just nodded confirmation.
“What happened next?”
“I was having a hard time getting rid of the cobwebs after the fight, so I walked out into the alley to try and clear my head,” I continued, glazing over my delirious attempt on John's life. “That’s when the other guy showed up.”
“Did you get the impression he was working with Gaines?” Johnson asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know, but I doubt it,” I replied.
“What makes you say that?” one of the male analysts asked.
“Gaines drove straight to Colorado Springs after his sister was murdered. Immediately found, tortured, then killed the men responsible, and then proceeded straight to Burbank on his own, stopping only to change vehicles and pick up supplies in Barstow,” I said. “Aside from the woman who showed up for the papers—who by the way didn’t seem to know what Gaines was doing—he had been acting on his own, using old Agency cover IDs to make his way across country. The guys that came after us in the alley only seemed interested in killing everyone on the scene.”
Johnson and Raimy both nodded.
“If we provided you with a sketch artist, do you think you could recall what the gunman in the alley looked like?” one of the female analysts asked.
I nodded.
Just then, the intercom cracked to life. “I’m going to have to pause the debrief,” came the burly male voice across the speaker. I assumed it was John’s boss—Director Burgess. AKA Papa. “I’ve just been handed details that change the disposition of this investigation.”
“Yes, sir,” Agent Johnson said.
“John. Can you come into my office?” the man on the intercom asked. “And have Mr. Wolfe hang around a bit longer.”
“Yes, sir,” John replied. “Alright, folks. Looks like we are in a holding pattern for the moment. I’ll let you know what our next steps will be.”
Everyone rose and began to leave. I shook hands with the two Agents before they departed and then the analysts, one at a time, as they filed out of the conference room.
Once they were gone, John walked to one of the connecting doors. He turned to me before leaving the room. “I’ll be right back,” he said in a quiet voice and smiled reassuringly.
While he was gone, I refilled my coffee cup and looked for the least offensive snacks on the other side of the room. There was a tray with various breads, crackers, dips, and some raw veggies. I grabbed a handful of the veggies and wandered around the room crunching them as I inspected the audio and video equipment.
A few moments later, John came back in.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s it for today.”
“What happened?”
“I’ll explain on the way back to Fairfax,” he said in a lowered voice.
“I thought I was supposed to hang around.”
“Something came up,” John replied. “I’ll explain on the way back to Fairfax.”
**
On the ride bac
k, John was quiet as we left Langley.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” he replied. “You did great…excellent recall.”
“You could have told me you were conscious during my fight with Gaines,” I said accusingly.
A serious look washed across his face. “There are varying levels of consciousness,” he replied. “I just got to see the end—when you threw him on the ground and started tenderizing his face.”
I stared at him for a second, trying to fit the new information into the fuzzy timeline for the fight, and then nodded my understanding.
“So why did the debriefing end so abruptly?”
John took a deep breath before speaking. “My debrief was last night,” he said. “We’ve been up all night trying to find a mug shot match from my description of her.”
“You found her then?” I asked. “Who is she?”
“No,” he said. “We still don’t know who she is yet.”
“Then what happened?” I asked again.
“I was unconscious when Gaines talked to her,” he said. “That’s the main reason I came to get you this morning—to fill in those holes.”
“And?”
“And…you did an awesome job,” he smirked, knowing that wasn't what I was asking.
“Don’t leave me hanging,” I said with a mild whine.
“As soon as you mentioned ‘Dee’, the research people were on top of it,” he said.
“So your boss wasn’t the only one listening in,” I confirmed.
He nodded. “The reference to ‘Dee’ changed the search parameters, and they got a hit immediately,” he confessed. “Do you remember a couple of weeks ago there was a story in the news about a gang-related attack in Arlington? A federal employee had been caught in the crossfire.”
I closed my eyes and let the recall of the news story from two weeks ago flit across my consciousness. I must have only seen the headline because no other details came to me.
“I remember reading something about it,” I said. “That was Dee?”
John nodded again. “An unidentified male was seen leaving the area,” John continued. “He fit Gaines’s description, but no one tied it together until you mentioned ‘Dee.’”
“Who was she?” I asked.
“Deidre Faulks, Department of Justice, and as soon as they tested the connection, they found out what she was working on.”
I stared at him, waiting for him to reveal his information.
He smiled tauntingly without looking at me. “She was tracking payoffs to government employees,” he revealed finally. “Transactions matched to bank accounts.”
“The pages!” I breathed.
John nodded. “Looks that way,” he replied. “It looks like Gaines was helping her.”
“So the thing with his sister,” I said, staring blankly at the dashboard as my flow chart started auto filling before my eyes. “That was probably a warning.”
“You're jumping too far ahead of the facts,” John cautioned. “We don’t know that.”
“What?” I asked incredulously. “You think he was on his way to hand off the papers and just decided to stop on the way to kill the men who killed his sister?”
He thought for a moment. “Well, when you put it like that—”
“Gaines on the East Coast, with a federal investigator, gets shot up and disappears,” I offered, bolstering my theory. “Gaines on West Coast, pops his head up after sister is killed, then gets shot up with federal investigators in an alley.”
John set his jaw firmly. Something I said had upset him.
“That means they found him because of something we did,” John inserted quietly.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Probably.”
“Shit,” he muttered.
“So what happens now?”
“More than likely, we’ll hand Mark over to Justice and let them figure out what was on those printouts,” he said. “But there’s another wrinkle.”
I let my mind wander across the connections and then took a leap of logic.
“Another agency wants him?” I guessed with the aid of my flow chart.
He snapped his head around and shot me a hard look. “What makes you say that?” he asked.
“Payments to government employees, CIA cover ID blown, and a man who’s an expert at disappearing gets sandwiched between killers on two coasts,” I said. “Call me paranoid, but it sounds like spy shit to me.”
He continued to look at me for a moment longer.
“Watch the road,” I said nervously.
He turned his attention back to the highway before speaking again. “Homeland Security wants him,” John replied. “They put in the request for transfer of custody last night.”
“Hmmmm,” I mumbled. “Smells fishy.”
“Agreed,” John replied. “But they do have a legal leg to stand on.”
“Will they get him?” I asked.
“Unlikely,” John responded, shaking his head. “Justice will fight tooth and nail for him if for no other reason than to find the connection to Faulks’s murder.”
“Would the account numbers help?” I asked.
He turned to look at me again. “You got the pages?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No—watch the road,” I repeated and then explained. “I looked at them for a good forty-five seconds or so before the hot chick burst in on me. I can probably give you twenty or so transactions and maybe fifteen account numbers.”
“Names?” he asked.
I shook my head again. “No. She came in just as I flipped to the names pages,” I replied with regret in my voice. “I just saw that there were names. I didn’t get enough of a look to lock them in.”
“Yes,” he replied. “Justice will probably want those account numbers if you can remember any.”
“No problem.”
He grinned. “I'm going to like working with you,” he said. “That’s some high-speed shit you’ve got going between your ears.”
“Yeah, well—” I started, about to say I was having second thoughts, but then I changed course. “If Barb comes back, I think she's going to demand my resignation from government service.”
“Yeah,” he said, a question forming on his face. “What happened with Barb last night?”
“She said she was tired of me playing junior James Bond and that she was going to get ‘Daddy’ to shut it down.”
“Oh, shit,” he said, his mouth pulling down into a frown. “How’d that go?”
“I told her I was sick of people making life decisions for me without my input and that she probably wasn’t going to be happy with the new me,” I replied. “She didn’t take that well.”
“You didn’t let her know I spilled the beans on Gretel, did you?” he asked.
I looked away in embarrassment. “I may have let something slip.”
“Oh shit,” he said.
“Not by name,” I inserted quickly. “But I’m sure she figured it out.”
“Damn it all,” he muttered after a second.
We rode in silence until we were back at my condo.
“I’m sorry, John,” I said sincerely as I got out.
“What? Oh, don’t worry about it,” he said. “You were in a bad way last night. Besides, there won’t be any fallout. He can’t submit a complaint without revealing he used his influence for personal reasons.”
I suddenly realized he had not been upset by my disclosure due to any order he had disobeyed—he was worried Barb would hate him and force me to stop working for him. Though I was following Dr. Hebron’s instructions, letting the situation with Barb “percolate”, I still felt very strongly that our relationship was over. I didn’t mention this to John out of deference to Dr. Hebron’s suggestion—but I didn’t think he had anything to worry about.
“Hey,” he said, as if just remembering something important. “I’ve got a project cooking—not related to this. I can’t give you a frame of reference
, but I’ve got some movement profiles I’d like you to look at tomorrow.”
“Cool,” I replied. “Another TravTech project?”
“Yeah. I’ll send the data over tonight on the secure server. Take a look at it and let me know if you see anything interesting.”
“Alright,” I replied with satisfaction, excited for my next “assignment”.
“Get some rest,” he said.
“Call me if you need anything else.”
“Will do,” he replied as he put his truck into gear. “And Scott. Good job, man.”
I shot him a crooked smile and waved goodbye. As he drove off, I realized how late it was and how hungry I was. So I went in and rewarded myself with a Delmonico steak from the freezer.
Shortly before I went to bed, my phone chimed—text message from Bonny:
I hope your conference or whatever went okay. Just wanted to see if Barb's dad was okay. She was vague on details. See you in the morning. Bon
What? I thought.
I wasn't touching that one with a ten-foot pole. I had the sudden desire to call Barb and ask if everything was okay, but decided that if it were something important or if he was in the hospital or something, she would call. After all, if she had even been vague with Bonbon, privacy must have been an issue.
It was the second night since returning from Europe that no one else was in my condo but me. Barb, Bonbon, or Storc had spent the night every night during the first week back, and Barb had spent every night since, inching her way into my bed until it felt normal.
Last night was the first time I'd slept in an empty house in a while. Sadly, my first night alone in months had come after an adrenaline-charged couple of days and my restless sleep had reflected the tension and conflict. But when I lay down to sleep tonight, I was out like a light, dead to the world…until the dream with my dad started again.
**
11:35 p.m.—WCAC Radio Studios in Chicago, Illinois
HARRY SCOGGINS was no more than a shadowy figure moving through the darkened hallways of the small radio studio, having entered the building through a roof access only moments earlier. He had expertly disabled the alarm system before continuing into the production area on the same floor. To him, this was easy money—it didn’t matter to him that he didn’t know who was on the other end of the contract. He liked it that way.