Another notable change Tom saw right away was that Raveis was armed.
A leather paddle holster at the two o’clock position on his belt held a Smith & Wesson M&P.
Raveis’s leather jacket was open, allowing him easy and fast access to his weapon.
Neither man did anything other than look at each other for a moment.
“It’s good to see you, son,” Raveis said finally.
Tom wasn’t interested in pleasantries. “I need to know where the Colonel is,” he said.
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you with that.”
“Why not?”
“The man has been thinking moves ahead of all of us for two decades. You really believe he doesn’t have an undisclosed location somewhere that he has managed to keep from us?”
“He tried to have me killed. Twice.”
“I know.”
“And now he has Hammerton.”
“Of course he does.”
“What does that mean?”
“You were always the ideal operative, Tom, as far as the Colonel was concerned, and for a number of reasons. He could dangle the chance of killing the Benefactor in front of you for as long as he wanted. What man wouldn’t want to avenge his murdered family? And if you didn’t want the Benefactor dead, if you didn’t take that particular bait, then you’d definitely want the Benefactor dead because he was, as we have been telling you for two years, actively seeking to kill you and everyone you care about. This meant that in you the Colonel had someone he could use as he saw fit. More important, he’d be keeping a close eye on what he knew was a potential threat. As long as you didn’t learn the truth, you were an asset. And if and when that changed, or if it even just looked like it was about to change, then he’d have you right there within easy striking distance. Of course, that’s where it would end for you. An op would go bad, and you’d be killed in the line of duty, mourned by all who care about you. And then, lo and behold, your friends are now the ideal operatives. Their grief makes them easy to manipulate into accomplishing whatever suited the Colonel. False intel—so easy to manufacture—is all he’d need to have them eager to do his bidding.”
“Carrington was set up, wasn’t he?”
Raveis nodded. “The Colonel is very good at covering his tracks. And there’s always somebody nearby to take the fall for him. Carrington took the fall for the Algerian finding you in Vermont. And I was to take the fall for your father walking into that hotel room.”
“You talked him into it. I saw the videos.”
“And yet you’re here,” Raveis said. “Nice to know that your tendency to give others the benefit of the doubt isn’t just reserved for your friends.”
“The tapes aren’t the whole story, are they?”
“Far from it.”
“So enlighten me.”
“The truth is, as much as I’d like to claim innocence, it’s the opposite. I manipulated your father into taking on a suicide mission. I instructed Smith to remain in the next room, no matter what happened. I betrayed my friend knowingly, all in the name of procuring DOD black-budget money. It was a sacrifice we had to make. The decision was ours—the Colonel’s and mine, that is. We kept Smith in the dark on this one. Like you, he was burdened with a conscience. But he did what he was ordered to do—sit tight while your father was killed.”
“You said the Colonel was responsible for the Algerian finding us in Vermont. Why did he do that?”
“To kill the Nakash girl, in part to cover up the fact that Ballantine wasn’t a defector.”
“If he wasn’t a defector, what was he?”
“Part of an exchange program.”
“Between the Benefactor and the Colonel.”
“Yes. They realized at one point they could go on fighting each other—his people killing ours, our people killing his—or they could negotiate a détente that was beneficial to both parties. In exchange for the Benefactor staying out of the US, the Colonel would hunt and kill the Benefactor’s rivals. If for some reason an operation had to be conducted on US soil, it had to be cleared through the Colonel and involve what he liked to call an adviser. Ballantine was one such adviser. With us eliminating his rivals, who just happened to be our enemies, the Benefactor faced limited competition abroad. He would rake in the money, and as long as the Colonel’s organization was taking out terrorists and those who support them, we’d continue to receive DOD funding.”
“The Colonel is his own shadow agent,” Tom said.
“Exactly. Ballantine was in danger of being exposed, so the Colonel tipped off the Benefactor, and a ten-man team led by the Algerian came to your place. If the Colonel had to lose you, so be it. Business is sacrifice. But you beat those odds, you fought your way out, saved Stella and the Nakash girl, and to the Colonel’s relief, one night later, you put a bullet into Ballantine’s head. Evidence implicating Carrington was planted—evidence that turned Hammerton against Carrington.” Raveis paused. “Division is useful; it’s one of the Colonel’s favorite tactics. In this game it was especially useful because it drove apart the two men the Colonel feared the most.”
“Esa Hirsh claims she killed Hammerton’s former CO. A year after my father was killed.”
Raveis nodded. “Which meant you and Hammerton posed the same threat to the Colonel—you each would have a reason to come after him should the truth get out. It’s interesting, Tom, that everything the Colonel ascribed to the Benefactor—that the Benefactor wanted you dead because you might one day come after him for killing your family—was also his fear. The fact that the Colonel had you trained to do the very things he feared you might one day do to him is a testament to what a gambler the man is. It’s his pathology. And I’m confident it’s what will one day lead him to his ugly end.”
“How long has the Colonel had this understanding with the Benefactor?”
“It came about after your father’s death. The attack on your mother and sister, that was real. That was an attack on all of us. That was a defining moment, and it brought all of us together for a time, at least. But then the Colonel made his deal—a deal that required the occasional sacrifice of our own people.”
“Why, though?” Tom said. “Why sacrifice our own assets?”
“Our funding was dependent on fear. Absent a clear and present danger, our leaders tend toward complacency. A frightened government is one that pays. So when it became necessary, when all that we built was on the line, another tragedy involving one of our own was orchestrated.”
“Hammerton’s former commander,” Tom said.
“Yes. Your death up in Vermont would have helped the cause as well. After all, what’s an organization tasked with staving off chaos without chaos? What’s a fire department without fire?”
Tom looked around the room. “And now you’re on the run, just like Carrington.”
“If only you’d had the good sense to die, Tom,” Raveis mused. “Things would have been very different indeed. But you didn’t, and the Colonel played the only hand he could—turning you against me so you’d kill me for him. I’m curious, what did he use to frame me?”
“Two years ago he told me that the Colt I’d used during my first op had been destroyed. But Smith had it, and he gave it to Carrington to give to me.”
Raveis thought about that. “That was it?”
“No. The cell phone pic of Stella that your NSA friend intercepted. It was in a file that was given to Esa Hirsh by the Benefactor. The file also contained dossiers and photographs of everyone I know. Some of the photos had been taken outside the Cahill estate on Shelter Island by a surveillance team. No one but you and the Colonel knew we were there.”
Raveis smiled. “And of the two of us, who was the bigger asshole?”
Tom understood that to be a rhetorical question, so he didn’t answer it. “If my getting killed was better for you, then why did you give me the vest?”
Raveis smiled again, knowingly this time. “A lapse in judgment,” he joked.
Tom thought about that for a moment, remembered his conversation with Torres after she had looked over the blueprints to the factory. “Before I left to meet Carrington, Torres tried to talk me out of going. You sent her to do that.”
Raveis nodded. “Yeah. I knew something more was going on. If this was the Colonel making his play against you, I couldn’t stop you from going, not directly, not in front of Slattery. But I could do whatever it took to give you a fighting chance at getting back alive. The vest, some of my best men to escort you back, Torres next to you to keep an eye on you for me—whatever I could think to do, I did.”
“Why couldn’t you say anything in front of Slattery?”
“Let me put it this way: you weren’t the first one to try to find out what you could about her. If Torres had run the plates like you’d asked, she would have hit the same roadblock I hit, which is that Slattery’s vehicles are all registered to a limited-liability corporation out of New Haven created by an attorney over a decade ago. She—Angela Slattery, that is—owned nothing, had no history that went back further than ten years. People with no past have no past for a reason, Tom. I decided to work with her under the assumption that she was working for the Colonel. I said nothing in front of her that I didn’t want the Colonel to know. There were even occasions when I intentionally offered her misinformation. This is the life we live.”
“But you and I were alone in your garage after she left. You could have said something then.”
“Have we ever really trusted each other, Tom? And what if the Colonel had gotten to you already? What if he had turned you against me? That was always part of his plan—just one of his many possible uses for you, and one of the many possible outcomes for me.” He paused. “The problem with making a devil’s bargain is you’re bound to the devil for the rest of your life. And if, like me, you know things that the devil doesn’t want anyone to know, then he sees you as a problem that he will someday have to deal with. Two mornings ago, riding with you and Slattery, I was wondering if that day had finally come. By later that night, when you were attacked by one of the Benefactor’s best—an attack that killed some of my best—I knew that day had arrived.”
“The Colonel is cleaning house.”
“Yes.”
“Why now, though?”
“Carrington got his hands on the evidence Smith had stolen before he disappeared. It wasn’t just the videos, it was documents, too. The genie was out of the bottle, and the Colonel knew there was no putting it back, which meant he’d have to kill everyone who knew about it. You, me, Smith. It was smart for you to get Stella out when you did. If Cahill had gotten there an hour later, she’d be in the Colonel’s hands now, too.”
Tom didn’t want to imagine that. He took a breath, let it out.
“It’s difficult to control a man who has nothing you can take away from him,” Raveis said. “After your discharge you roamed around alone for five years. The Colonel just waited that out, knew it would change sooner or later. And then Stella came along. Obviously there is nothing you wouldn’t do to keep her safe. The Colonel knew then that he could use you. And as time went on, the list of pressure points grew. Cahill, Hammerton, Grunn, MacManus, Montrose, Garrick, Torres—an embarrassment of riches for a man like the Colonel. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned about you over these past two years, Tom, it’s that the scars you carry because of what happened to you—not the physical scars on your chest from Afghanistan but the emotional scars because you were unable to save your family—those very scars are what make you vulnerable to that exact kind of manipulation we’re experts at applying. I’m sorry to say it, Tom, but it’s that very weakness in you that the Colonel is banking on now.”
“Hammerton is bait.”
“The Colonel knows you won’t run and leave Hammerton for dead, though you should. He knows he can use Hammerton to draw you back out into the open if he needs to. He would want to cover every contingency, which includes the possibility of you and me doing what we’re doing right now. Another contingency he would prepare for is the possibility of your friends learning the truth at some point as well. Grunn, Cahill, Stella—every one of them will die. He’ll use them for a while if he can, send them on ops until he doesn’t trust them anymore, at which point he’ll send them on a suicide mission. Just like your father. Or maybe he’ll just play it safe from the start, lure them out as soon as possible, using you or a video recording he made of you before he killed you or cryptic texts asking for help that your friends think are from you. Either way, he’ll get them to come to him, and one way or another, when it suits him, he will kill them.”
No one spoke for a moment.
Finally, Raveis said, “I won’t insult you by saying that I could always use more people on my team. We’re both hunted men. Strength in numbers and all that. But there’s no time to go back for Hammerton. We leave the city tonight.”
Tom shook his head.
“You won’t ever find me once I disappear. There won’t be any codes or ciphers, no secret back-channel communications like you and Carrington had. I can’t risk the chance of someone using you to draw me out into the open.”
“I understand,” Tom said.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you. But I can tell you this: if things go south for him, and he wants you to find him, like I wanted you to find me, then he left you a way. What’s the point of him taking Hammerton as insurance if he can’t bait you with him? Did the Colonel give you a cell phone, or maybe a number to call in case you got into trouble, anything like that?”
“No. But Slattery has a cell he calls at certain times during the day. She drives to a safe location to take the calls, keeps the phone shut down the rest of the time.”
“Then that’s how he’ll get you. When the time is right for him. Unfortunately, that puts Slattery on the kill list, too.”
“There has to be a way to reach him.”
“This is the Colonel, Tom. This is what he does, who he is. Like I said, unless he wanted you to find him—”
“Cahill,” Tom said.
“What about him?”
“The Colonel called Cahill. He made a point of telling me he had called him.”
“Then that’s how you can reach him. But it also means it’s possible that he knows where they are.”
Tom turned, exited the room, and headed toward the stairs. The cell phone was in his hand as he took the first flight.
The phone’s signal was weak, and what Tom had to communicate was too much for a text anyway, so he focused on getting down to the lobby as fast as he could so he could call.
He remembered where the rotted steps were, slowed as much as he dared as he approached them, then skipped them and resumed his quick descent.
Reaching the lobby, he bolted for the door. Torres was on her cell phone—Raveis had likely called her to instruct his bodyguards to stand down.
Baffled but motionless, the men watched as Tom moved past them and exited the hotel.
It was raining harder now, but Tom didn’t care. Entering Cahill’s number, he pressed the “Talk” button and brought the phone to his ear.
As it rang he saw three of Raveis’s men step out onto the sidewalk, positioning themselves like sentries—one looking east, another looking west, the third scanning the buildings across the street.
Torres stepped into the hotel doorway and watched Tom.
The phone rang three times before it was answered. Tom heard Cahill’s voice and felt a wave of relief.
“It’s me,” Tom said. “You need to relocate.”
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t have a lot of time. Go somewhere else, don’t tell me where. And after we hang up, ditch this phone.”
“We won’t be able to reach you.”
“Tell Stella we’ll use the system we put in place the last time we were together. She’ll know what that means. I’ll use it to reach out when I can.”
“Tom, what’s going on?”
Tom didn
’t respond at first. He considered the possibility that this call was being monitored. The Colonel had the resources for such a thing. And if the Colonel or someone working for the Colonel was listening in, then this was Tom’s chance to prove that Cahill and those with him didn’t know the truth.
But Tom knew that was a foolish hope, and anyway, Cahill needed to know, just like Tom had, exactly what it was he would be running from.
“The Colonel has betrayed us,” Tom said. “The Colonel is the shadow agent.”
There was a moment of silence. Finally, Cahill spoke, his tone grave. “What else do you need from me?”
“The Colonel called you last night. I need the number he called you from.”
Fifty
Soaked through, Tom was in the hotel bar, facing Raveis and Torres.
Raveis said to one of his men, “Get him some clothes.”
That man passed the order on to another, who left the room.
Tom heard the hotel door open, the sound of the driving rain echoing down the entranceway. The door was closed again, and the sound diminished sharply.
“So what’s the plan, Tom?” Raveis said.
“The Colonel likes to make deals. So I’ll make him one.”
Torres asked, “What deal?”
“Me for all of them. In exchange for my life, he forgets about the others. He can kill me or employ me, but they go free.”
“That won’t be enough,” Raveis said.
“It’s all I have.”
Raveis glanced at Torres. She watched him, waiting. Finally, he nodded, and she stepped to the bar, opened a small backpack laid upon it, and removed her tablet.
As far as Tom could tell, it was the same tablet she had used to show him the blueprints of the abandoned factory in Ansonia.
Walking back toward him, she began touching the display with her index finger, navigating an app.
“Smith wasn’t the only computer whiz we employed,” Raveis said. “And he wasn’t the only one to collect evidence.”
Torres reached Tom and pressed the display with her finger a few more times before handing him the device.
The Shadow Agent Page 29