"There's no way I can see to resolve that now," Mary said. "Too late to ask the three of them any more questions. Think you can find out who the undersecretary is?"
"I can try, but that one's buried deep. We might have more luck with Lee's mystery man."
"It's not going to be easy to figure out who that is, either," Mary said.
When we pressed Lee on the subject of who was giving him his orders, he only said, "The man who took over from O'Hanlon."
No matter how we phrased the question, Lee couldn't identify the man.
Lee met him once, but Lee was blindfolded. Asked about the man's voice, Lee said he never heard it before. Two men picked him up and took him to meet his new contact after O'Hanlon's death. That's when he first heard the man speak. His voice was distinctive, easily recognized over the telephone. Lee described it as having just a hint of an accent, but not one he could place. Lee never saw the man or his two messengers again.
The new man established his credentials by rattling off all the things that O'Hanlon knew about Lee. That included some embarrassing facts about things Lee did aboard O'Hanlon's yacht years earlier.
"There must be a clue in those files of yours," I said.
"Maybe. Have you talked to your code-breaker friend? About the files?"
"Not yet, but that's the next thing on my list. Speaking of lists, let's talk about where we go from here."
"Okay. What are you thinking we should do next?"
"Given that they have us both linked to the Kelley hit, we might want to put some space between us for a while."
Mary let out a loud sigh and took her eyes off the road to look at me for a long moment.
"Relieved or disappointed?" I asked.
"Yes. Both. Disappointed because I know you're right. Relieved because now I don't have to persuade you. Teaming up on two hits in a row might be seen as a pattern."
"Only if somebody knows we were both on the Lee job," I said. "I'm the one with the clear motive." Let's see how you respond to that one. Who knew you were going to kill Lee, besides your pal Phorcys?
"That's so. But Lee knew I was part of the Kelley job, and we traveled from the VI to Miami together. Plus, they've got me down as the one who wiped out the remains of O'Hanlon's bunch. I've got the same worry you do. We need to split up for a while."
"I'll miss you," I said.
"I know. I'll miss you, too. But it's only until we get this sorted out."
I nodded. "Got any ideas on how to split up?"
"The car's in my name, and I know my way around Florida. How about if I drop you off at the Miami airport? You can head back to Island Girl."
"Works for me. There're plenty of early morning flights that'll put me in puddle-jumper range of Tortola. Drop me at one of the airport hotels; I’ll get a room and crash for a while. What're you going to do?"
"Stay out of sight and see if I can figure out who's picking up the pieces of O'Hanlon's empire. We can use the blind email drop to compare notes, and maybe slip in some calls on burner phones. Keep me up to date about breaking the code for the names in the files. That could make a big difference to me."
"Yes, I will. I have a few ideas; I may give it a whirl on my own. I've got idle time ahead of me, sounds like."
"You worried about using your code breaker friend?"
"Yes, until I figure out what's going on with Nora's replacement. That's assuming they even want to keep me on the team."
"You think they might not?"
"I don't know."
"If somebody stepped into her job, how would they go about approaching you?"
"Cautiously. A real replacement would have all kinds of background information they could use to convince me they were legit."
"Then you think there are people there besides Nora who would know about you?"
"Yes. After all, this is the government. I don't know if the undersecretary knows who I am. But you can bet they know how many people there are like me, and how Nora kept in touch with us. It won't be quick and clean. There'll be lots of dancing around on both sides while we check each other out. I went through that with Nora, years ago."
"Is the person she replaced still around?"
"Maybe. If he is, that could make it quicker, but I wouldn't count on it."
"Can I ask a super-personal question, Finn?"
"Sure. Ask."
"Do you even want to keep your relationship with them?"
"I've gone both ways on that since all this happened. On the one hand, it's all I know. On the other, there's this woman in my life now. Part of me wishes we could put all this excitement behind us and have a normal, boring life."
"Are you mocking me?"
"Mocking you? Why do you — "
"Because of my fantasy. I — "
"No, Mary. I'm not mocking you. When you told me about that, well, that's when I knew for sure that… Well, like I said when you told me, it's my fantasy too."
"Hold on to that, Finn. If we both want it to happen, we'll make it happen."
"I don't know if it'll be that easy. They may not let me go; a person like me, with all my secrets — I'm a hell of a liability."
"I understand. But what can they do if you don't want to play their game anymore?"
"You know damn well what they can do. I'm an expendable asset to them."
"Yes. I get that. But you told me once you were hard to kill."
"Hard. But not impossible."
"That was before you teamed up with me, partner. You may not be immortal now, but you're at least twice as hard to kill as you were before you had me watching your back. If you want out, I'll help."
"Sounds like a recruiting pitch." I winked at her. "What is it you want from me, and who would I be working for?"
"I want your undying love and affection. And you'd be working for us."
"Who's us?"
"You and me, you cynical old man. Us. Nobody else."
"Who do I have to kill to get the job?" I asked, grinning at her.
"I don't know yet, but I'll let you know. Keep checking the email drop."
She turned onto the airport access road and followed the signs for lodging. "I'll meet you in Puerto Real in about two weeks. Just give it enough time for the dust to clear, and then we can start over," she said.
Pulling into the parking area of a seedy looking motel with a neon “Vacancy” sign, she stopped the car. "You promised me uninhabited islands. I've been thinking about that. We could…"
She gave me one of those smiles as she let her unfinished sentence hang in the silence.
"What do you think?" she asked, finally.
"Not Puerto Real. We already did that; somebody might remember. Head for Guánica. I'll be anchored in Bahia Guánica. Know where it is?"
"South coast, right?"
"Yes. You been there?"
"Not yet, but I'm looking forward to it. And those islands."
She leaned across the console. Wrapping her arms around me, she gave me a soft, lingering kiss.
"Stay well, sailor. See you soon."
"Yes, ma'am. You take care."
As I got out, she popped the trunk. I retrieved my duffle bag and closed the lid. She blew me a kiss in the rear-view mirror and pulled out into traffic. I shouldered my duffle bag and went inside.
34
There were plenty of seats on the early bird flight to St. Thomas. I bought a ticket and cleared security as soon as they opened. Forty minutes before boarding, I stood at a plate-glass window looking out at the planes on the taxiway.
When I went through security, they made me turn on my laptop and the satellite phone. As I was putting the phone away, I saw there was a voicemail. That alarmed me. There was only one other phone that could call my sat phone. That was Nora's sat phone, and Nora was dead.
On my way to the gates, I kept an eye on the signal strength indicator on the sat phone. Service could be tricky indoors. The phone acquired a solid signal through the windows, and I was out of the traffic p
attern between security and the gates, so I had a little privacy. I stopped and leaned back against the glass.
Taking a deep breath, I thought about what I was about to do before pressing the sat phone's green button. The time stamp on the screen for the voicemail notification was from 8:37 last night. That was when Mary and I were interrogating Lee. The phone was in my bag in the trunk of the rental car then, so it didn't have service. Besides, it wasn’t turned on then. The last time I used it was before we met Nora and Kelley in St. Thomas, and I turned it off right after Nora told me where to meet her.
I powered it on and waited for it to boot up when I was at the security checkpoint a few minutes ago. The phone must have acquired a signal at the security checkpoint and downloaded the voicemail notification then, while I was messing with my laptop.
Nora gave me this phone when I met her in St. Martin a few days ago. She confirmed then that no one else knew about it. Only she had the number, she assured me. Mary and I saw Nora die about 36 hours before the voicemail was left, so somebody besides Nora left it.
When she gave this phone to me, Nora also told me the phone's location tracking function was disabled, but now I wondered. After hearing from Senator Lee that Nora betrayed me, I couldn't trust anything she told me.
If she lied about the tracking function, somebody could have picked up my location when I turned the phone on at security. Retrieving the message wouldn't increase my exposure much at this point.
Whoever found the bodies of Nora and Kelley and the two goons must have taken Nora's phone and left the voicemail. Then it sunk in with me that nobody but Nora knew how to unlock her sat phone.
I decided to retrieve the voicemail and see who left it. Then I would sanitize the phone and dispose of it. I entered all the codes and called voicemail, nearly dropping the phone when I heard the message.
"Hi, Finn. Don't hang up; it's really me. I know this is a shock based on what you thought you saw at the resort yesterday, but trust me. I'm okay, and we need to talk. It's too complicated for voicemail, so call me when you get this. It's urgent that I let you know what's happening."
It was Nora’s voice. I listened to the recorded date and time at the end of the message, just in case the time stamp on my phone's screen was wrong. It wasn't. Rattled, I thought about the possibilities. The message was from last night — 36 hours after Kelley’s man blew Nora’s head off.
There could have been somebody besides Kelley and his two thugs involved in interrogating Nora. Maybe she gave up the unlock codes for the phone. But I recognized her voice.
Could they have forced her to record the message in advance? Why would they have done that? Did they expect that they would need to track me down? If so, I just gave away my location. Might as well go for broke.
I entered the unlock code again and called Nora's phone.
"Hello, Finn," she answered. "Thanks for trusting me. Obviously, what happened at the resort the day before yesterday was staged. I'll tell you as much as I can, okay?"
"I saw that guy blow somebody's brains out through the side of that black cloth bag. That clearly wasn't you, but — "
"But you heard my voice. I was in an adjoining room with a transmitter. There was a receiver and a speaker in the bag over that woman's head. It was a setup."
"You set me up?"
"No, not you. We set up Kelley. We knew he was dirty."
"But you couldn't have been sure we'd kill him."
"You weren't supposed to kill him. You said you were alone. We were going to tape his demand for the girl and the files and use it to hang him."
This wasn't making sense. And who was “we?” "Why did Kelley trust you, if he was dirty?"
"We double-crossed him. We convinced him that we thought you were the dirty one, that you were working with that girl and the people trying to take over from O'Hanlon. We made him think we were setting you up. But he was really our target."
"What about the woman?"
"Like I said, we weren't expecting the girl to be with you. You told me you were alone, remember? We thought she was in—"
"Not her," I said. "The woman Kelley's guy shot — the one I thought was you. That wasn't staged."
"Yes, it was."
"They killed her, Nora. I know what a head shot at close range looks like. That was the real thing."
"Oh, yeah. Sure. But she was expendable. That was part of the setup; she had it coming. She was going to die anyway."
"And what made you think I wouldn't kill Kelley and his boys?"
"You said you were alone. We didn't expect the girl to come in."
"You know my skills. The girl, as you call her, was incidental. I was about to take out Kelley and his two goons when she came in. I knew she might show up, but I wasn't counting on it. Those guys were complete amateurs; they couldn't get out of their own way. You know my track record; they were dead when they let me walk in that room without killing me on the spot."
"It's a relief to hear you haven't lost your confidence."
"Uh-huh. So let's see if I understand what you're telling me. You thought I would walk in and watch Kelley kill the woman who was posing as you. After he showed me how serious he was, I would agree to turn over the girl and the files within 48 hours and, then I would walk out of the room. Was that the plan?"
"In essence, yes. I planned to catch up with you right after you left. We would have busted Kelley, and I would have filled you in."
"And then what?"
"We planned to flip Kelley and go after the people up the line from him."
"I see. So this was all a setup to make Kelley roll over?"
"Yes."
"And who is this 'we' you keep referring to?"
"You know I can't tell you that."
"What about your suspension from duty?"
"Part of the setup."
"Why not trust me to be part of the team?"
"Need to know."
Somehow, I knew we would get to that point.
"Where do we go from here?" I asked.
"Your mission is complete. Enjoy your retirement for a while. Just kick back and take it easy. I'll be in touch one of these days, when I have another project for you. Meanwhile, you've earned a nice bonus for this job. Any more questions?"
Like you would answer them. "Um, yes. About this phone…"
"Hang on to it. That one's not compromised."
"You told me location tracking wasn't enabled."
"Oh, right. I forgot about that. Don't worry; I can have that fixed remotely. Give me 24 hours and I'll be able to find you again, just like old times. And I like your new girlfriend."
"Glad you approve. I've got to move. I'm starting to attract attention. Thanks for the recap. Later."
With that, I disconnected the call and snapped the battery pack off the back of the phone. Using my fingernail, I opened the SIM carrier and removed the SIM. I walked up the concourse toward the gate for my flight, stopping in the men's room.
In one of the stalls, I wrapped the SIM in toilet tissue and flushed it. I went out to the sinks and pretended to wash my hands while I made sure I was alone. Satisfied, I wiped the phone to get rid of my prints and dropped it in the large wastebasket with the wet paper towels. Picking up the wastebasket, I shook it vigorously to settle the phone close to the bottom.
I used another damp paper towel to scrub my prints from the battery pack and wrapped it in the used towel. On my way to the gate, I dropped the battery pack in another waste bin next to a fast-food place.
At the gate, I checked in and sat down with my duffle bag between my feet. They wouldn't board my flight for a few minutes; I would use the time to consider my next move.
Nora or Phyllis? Whatever her name was, I wasn't finished with her. She may have been lying about location tracking being disabled in the phone. She lied about enough other things. If the tracking function was on, she could put me in the neighborhood of Lee's villa around the time he overdosed. She could also track me to the Miami
airport, but after that, she would have a harder time.
She was telling part of the truth about the encounter at the resort in St. Thomas. It was a setup, all right, but Kelley wasn't the target. Mary was. And my daughter. I would never forgive Nora for that. Nora was crooked, as Mary suggested earlier. And I wasn't through avenging my daughter's kidnapping. Not by a long way. We made Lee pay, and Mary's friend Phorcys took care of the people who snatched Abby, but Nora was still out there. For a while, anyway.
Nora was working with whoever was paying Kelley, and they wanted the files Mary took. That was consistent with the senator's story about Phyllis Greer, as he referred to Nora.
And she made no reference on the phone just now to my daughter's kidnapping. Why didn't she try to explain that away? Was it possible she didn't know about it? But Kelley knew; he mentioned "leverage you can't even imagine" when his thug killed that woman.
It made no sense that Nora failed to mention Abby's kidnapping. Unless she was feigning ignorance to keep up the pretense that she was setting up Kelley.
If that story were true, it would have been possible she didn't know about the kidnapping. That was a nice try, clever on Nora's part. But that story wasn't true. It overlooked the other evidence of her guilt.
Nora didn't know Senator Lee was dead, or she would have guessed her charade was over. When she got the news, she wouldn't believe he committed suicide. She knew too much about this business.
It was still too early for the senator's body to have been discovered. When Mary and I questioned him a few hours ago, he told us his mistress was waiting for him in the Bahamas. He planned to meet her there this evening.
With the mistress away, his maid and butler would be the most likely ones to find him. They were scheduled to go to his place later this afternoon to finish cleaning up after last night's party. I saw the notation on his desk calendar when I planted the suicide note on his desk. His body wouldn't be discovered for a while yet. So Nora didn't know.
When she found out Lee was dead, Nora would conclude that Mary or I killed him. Further, she would assume that we interrogated him and learned about her duplicity.
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