by Dave Lacey
“Well you’d better. This is the last piece of the puzzle. If we close this off, you and I may be able to relax for a short while. Before somebody else fucks up.” Rook frowned and pulled back from the phone. The old man never swore; it was a measure of his frustration that he had used such strong language. It took a moment for Rook to realise the line had gone dead.
The temptation was to head straight for the general’s residence to see what he was up to; there was no point sitting here hoping Moretti would turn up, that very rarely solved anything. Just then, one of his technicians interrupted his thoughts.
“Yes?” he barked.
“Sir, I think we picked something up on the device that sits above the general’s front door.”
“You think you picked something up, or you did pick something up?” Rook was in no mood for ineptitude.
“Sir, we think there are two voices on the recording.” The technician was a little bolder now.
“Really?” Rook darted his head round, his interest piqued. “Are they distinct?”
“It would seem so, sir. It would also seem that nobody entered the house after the conversation took place.”
“Oh Christ.” Rook ran a hand over his face. “Okay, let’s assemble a team – we’re going to Chesapeake Beach.” It never ends, he thought; then he corrected himself. It would end at some point, and that would be a blessed relief.
Chapter 42
“What the fuck are you saying, General? This is nuts! You can’t keep this a secret, goddamn it!”
“I know you’re upset, we all were when we first found out. But you have to believe me, these decisions weren’t taken lightly.” The general was doing his best to keep Nick calm, but he would not be patronised.
“You people make me sick. Who made you God, judge and jury? Who gave you the right to decide what people should or shouldn’t know? Why should I believe what you’re telling me? It sounds so ridiculous! Have you any idea what it sounds like?” Nick was pacing back and forth, gesticulating wildly with his hands, his eyes full of fury.
“Detective, do you think for one moment that any of us just accepted it without question? That we are all just drones who do as we’re told, without so much as raising a hand to object? Don’t be childish.” Waldron had gripped his arm. “It took weeks for me to be convinced that what they were telling me was true. I needed proof. But out here, tonight, the only proof I can offer you is my account and my word. For what it’s still worth.” He looked old and tired now, beaten. Nick felt a sudden flare of pity for him.
“General, are you okay?” His anger had drained away. It wasn’t just the pity; the general’s earnest delivery had taken the sting out of his tail too.
“Yes son, I'm fine. Fine as I can be right now. You have to believe me, and you have to believe it. So many people have died for this, not just recently, but in the past too. There are people dying in other parts of the world as we speak. Because of this.” General Waldron leaned back on the rail, his hands rubbing at his face and eyes, trying to erase the painful memories. “My wife died a number of years ago. I was devastated, utterly devastated – I never thought I would love again. Then I met Barbara, Senator Miller, and things changed for me and for her too. It was remarkable, to find that again.”
Waldron spoke with passion, his fist clenched in front of him, then pounded his chest to make his point. “I loved my wife with all of my heart. She was an incredible woman. Loving, understanding, supportive, a spectacular mother, then she was taken from me. To be lucky enough to find another, well, I don’t need to tell you I'm sure. They killed her, Nick. They killed her because she was going to tell the Washington Post. They ripped my life apart for the second time. And now I don’t care about their secret. I welcome what they’ll do to me. But you should be very careful. You’re young, and you might stand a chance when it comes. You’re going to have to forget what I‘ve told you if you want to live.”
“Then why did you tell me? Why tell me if you don’t want me to tell the world? It doesn’t make any sense.” Nick bumped the side of his head with an open palm.
“I told you because I wanted somebody else to know, and selfishly I wanted to abdicate responsibility.” He raised a defensive hand to Nick. “I know how that sounds, I know. But I cannot risk the lives of my children – they’re completely innocent in all this. It's your decision, but, remember, there’s nothing you can do to stop what’s coming, you can only affect people’s knowledge of it.” Nick could feel his anger and frustration rise again; his pity from a few minutes earlier had been replaced by a desire to hit the man in front of him. He grabbed Waldron by the jacket front.
“You selfish old prick. You told me so that you could take a pass on responsibility. You’re just as bad as the people you talk about in your story. This isn’t you being noble or showing generosity of spirit to humankind, this is you being chicken shit. ‘I'm not strong enough, so I’ll let somebody else do the dirty work’. ” Nick stood panting in the constant coastal breeze, his eyes boring into those of the man in front of him.
“I’m aware of what I am, Detective. I’m not delusional in all this. But again, my only concern is for my children – my life is of little importance to me. But do not think too vituperatively of me. Remember, you sought me out, not the other way around. You can’t lay all the blame at the feet of those involved, you have some culpability yourself. The people involved think that they’re doing this for all the right reasons. Misguided as they are, they think this is for the benefit of all.” The general turned to look out on the water. “It's a beautiful place isn’t it? I’ll be happy to die here.”
“What makes you certain you will?” Moretti asked him, releasing the general’s jacket.
“Because I know how these things work, and I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are on their way here as we stand talking. You need to go, Nick. You need be long gone from here when they arrive. They’ll find a way to make it look like our deaths were linked, I assure you.”
“And what about you? Are you just gonna stay here and wait for them?” Nick asked clenching his teeth.
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m tired, Nick, tired of making the effort, tired of restraining my sorrow. You know, when most people get to a certain age, it's not disease that kills them, they simply give up. Most old people are just tired in the end, and whether that’s from fighting illness or just the sheer monotony of life, it all works out the same. It just so happens that for me, the tiredness came a little early. I’ve lost two beautiful, amazing, loving women, and I don’t want to face whatever time is left to me thinking about that loss.”
***
“Surely we can’t be far off now?” Rook asked the driver.
“No, sir. I figure we have around ten miles to go. How do you want to play it?” Robbins spoke over his shoulder.
“We’ll split up and go for the house, but I don’t think he’ll be there. I think he’ll be walking on the coastal path,” Rook decided. They had taken the executive jet from Newark to Deale Airport north of Chesapeake Beach. It had taken them just twenty minutes, but the drive south had taken them a further twenty-five minutes, and Rook had a feeling they would be cutting it fine.
“Yes, sir. And if you’re right?”
“If I'm right, then we’ll split up and head in opposite directions, north and south. Then we’ll close on the coastal path and head back toward each other, hopefully cutting them off. It's dark and nasty out there, so I imagine there’s little chance that we’ll run into any civilians.” He thought for a moment. “We need to kill the cop first, if it's him the general’s walking with. We need to shoot him from the front. We need to make it look like the general shot him first, then in retaliation the cop killed the general. We’ve already come up with some disinformation that we’ll release tomorrow morning to the press.”
Rook stared at the back of the seat in front of him. The speech made him sound like an automaton. “There’ll be a suggestion that the g
eneral may’ve had something to do with the deaths of the senator and her daughter, and that Detective Moretti had been on to him and had driven here to challenge him on it. We won’t need to do too much to back it up – after all, he has been relentless in his pursuit of the general, so the general’s secretary and Moretti’s partner will testify to his single-mindedness on this case. The problem we have is that we can’t use suppressed weapons for this, which could result in some civilian traffic after the event. And I’d really like to use the detective’s gun to shoot the general, but again, that’ll be difficult–”
“Unless, I can neutralise the general before you kill the cop. That way, you can take out the cop’s gun and use it on the general.” The driver said this so matter of factly, he could have been talking about a new recipe for cooking grits. Rook stared at him without speaking; though he had displayed an outward persona of calm efficiency, inside he was sick of the killing. He sat grinding his teeth, his jaw clenched. He had described his plan in detail, but at the back of his mind had been the carefully nourished idea of not killing them. Of course, he knew that wasn’t possible, but it didn’t stop him from thinking about it.
“Sir, are you okay?” Rook snapped out of his thoughts and realised he had been staring without speaking for at least a minute.
“Sorry, I was just running through all possible scenarios. Okay, I think your idea is valid, but let’s see what happens when we get there.”
***
“I think we’ve walked far enough, Detective. We should head back. You have a long drive ahead and you need to be sharp. They’ll be looking for you now.” The general stopped and leaned against the rail. A thought occurred to Nick.
“How do you know they’ll be looking for me?” His brows furrowed.
“I just know. They’ll have been monitoring my calls, and in the last few days you’ve made quite a few. I imagine they were also monitoring the senator’s calls, and you called her also I believe?”
“I did, yeah.” Nick felt stupid now, but how was he to know?
“Let’s head back, Nick, time’s marching on.” They turned and made their way back toward the general’s house. In all, they had probably covered two to three miles on the outward journey, so it would take them around thirty to forty minutes to get back to the house. As Nick’s anger gradually receded, it was replaced by his fear. What was he going to do? Even if he decided to keep things quiet, his life was now in clear and present danger. If they knew he was here, or even if they guessed, he was dead.
The group involved clearly had no qualms about killing a US senator, or, it would seem, the Director of the NSA. If they suspected he knew anything, it would be no problem at all to get rid of him. He had begun to regret his search for the truth, but felt a kernel of relief that he hadn’t dragged Leshaun into it with him. Leshaun was a family man, and Nick winced at the thought of the carnage that would have been wrought had he been implicated.
“Are you okay, Nick?” the general asked him gently, his eyes full of concern.
“Yeah, I'm okay,” Nick said finally, breathing out through pursed lips.
“But you’re thinking about the realities now aren’t you? You’re thinking about what’s going to happen next?”
“You could say that, General.” He felt his anger rise again. “I'm wondering what the fuck I'm gonna do about my situation, now that I know the truth.”
“Detective, console yourself with this thought. If you’d come here and I’d told you nothing, or even if you’d continued to dig and been unsuccessful, they would have killed you sooner or later anyway. That’s how they operate – they couldn’t let you live if it was possible you’d cause problems.” Waldron said.
“You know, General, it does make me feel a little better. I'm still pretty fucked though.” Waldron chuckled at this, but quickly snapped out of it as his gaze sharpened and he focused on something along the path. He stopped and laid a restraining hand on Nick’s arm. Nick turned to see what Waldron had spotted. Straight away, something told Nick the guy coming toward them was out of place, and then the reason hit him. He wasn’t dressed for the cold; he had on a wind breaker, which left him decidedly underdressed.
“Do you have a gun?” the general muttered out of the side of his mouth.
“Yes.”
“Then get ready to use it, but try to wait until we know for certain.” The words and predicted actions were entirely wasted, as Nick nodded in acknowledgment. The dark figure closed the gap, the two men unable to make out the face. Nick licked his lips nervously, his hand slipping into his jacket for the gun in its shoulder holster. The thought of turning and running occurred to Nick, but they wouldn’t make it. As he thought this, the figure raised his arms, and the gun in his hands coughed once.
The general’s head snapped back so violently that Nick heard his neck break. Even if the bullet hadn’t killed him, the resulting injury would have. Time had slowed, and Nick became numb. Seconds before, the general had been talking to him, alive and vital. And now, he lay on the cold ground, his life force snuffed out. As Nick turned slowly back to the approaching figure, he was still unable to comprehend. Through the fog of confusion, he was dimly aware that his own life was now forfeit. His inability to react would result in the loss of his own life.
At that moment, he heard another cough, from behind him this time, and the killer’s body folded in upon itself as he was thrown backward. Nick turned quickly to see another figure move past him to examine the first man’s body.
Finally Nick found his voice. “What the fuck’s going on?” he blurted. The kneeling figure didn’t answer; he seemed to be checking the prone killer’s vital signs. At last, Nick remembered his own weapon, drew it, and placed the muzzle against the back of the man’s neck, his hand shaking.
“Answer me, shithead. I said, what the fuck’s going on? Who are you?” He pointed to the killer.
“Who was he?” The man stood, as if Nick were holding nothing more deadly than a banana to the back of his neck, and turned to face him.
“Hello, Detective. How’re you holding up?” There seemed to be genuine concern in the man’s eyes. Nick’s confusion grew further.
“I’d feel a hell of a lot better if I knew who you were, and who you’re dead friend was.”
“I'm afraid I can’t go into too much detail, Nick. But I can tell you that you’re a very lucky boy. This man –” he gestured to the body of the first shooter “– was an associate of mine, and I came here with him tonight, to kill the general and you.” He nodded his head at Nick to underline the point. “Luckily for you, of late my taste for my particular line of work has diminished to the point where I could see little benefit in ending your life. So, unbeknown to my friend here, I changed the plan at the eleventh hour. My name is Ernestine Rook, by the way.”
“Why kill the general then?” Nick asked.
“Well, I think the general had had enough. I don’t think he had the stomach to carry on. Also, my boss will need something out of tonight to prevent him losing his temper and having me shot. The general told you about our little secret?” Nick moved to deny, but Rook interrupted him. “There’s nothing to fear from me, Nick. I let you live assuming you already knew. So, the general had to go, and his departure will save the lives of his children. But you, I'm afraid, will need to keep a very low profile. I’m going to tell my superior that you weren’t here, which, off the back of me telling him I spoke to your boss to warn you off, should give you some breathing space.” Rook stood and continued to look at him, his eyes narrowing as he assessed Nick.
“Why? Why are you doing this? Why would you kill your friend, but not me?”
“Ah yes, that’s the question isn’t it? I’m tired of the whole sorry affair, and none of this really matters in the grand scheme of things does it? This agent, well, he wasn’t a very pleasant young man. He was insubordinate a short while ago, and I ‘m afraid he liked his work a little too much, much more than was healthy. So, you see, his demise was
somewhat inevitable. As for you, Nick, I hope this evening serves as a warning. My superior and his other agents won’t be so understanding in the future, should you decide not to heed my advice.”
“So how will you explain this?” Nick gestured to the two bodies lying broken on the ground. As if he had forgotten their presence, Rook turned and looked at the two men. A thought seemed to have occurred to him, and he fired another shot into the general’s chest.
“What the hell!” Nick shouted.
“I'm sorry, but I have to make it look like a hit.” Rook then went through the pockets of his accomplice, removing anything he found.
“You’re going to leave him here?” Nick asked, incredulity mixing with anger, his head pushing back as his hands indicated the body.
“Indeed I am, Detective. He has no personal data on record, he has no incriminating documentation about his person. His fingerprints will show that he’s of eastern European descent, after I’ve called it in. It’ll look the way we want it to look. This is what we do, sickening as that may be to you.” Nick watched Rook as he continued to go through the man’s belongings, silently considering the ramifications of everything that had happened.
After a few moments, Nick spoke. “Is it safe for me to go home, or should I go somewhere else?”
“You’re safe to go home, yes. As I said, when I’m done talking to my boss you should be in the clear. But I can’t help you should you decide to talk to others. We’ll continue to monitor your communications. Should anything come up that suggests you’ve been loose lipped, it’ll be very hard to suppress it…and to save you from the same fate as these two gentlemen.” Rook stood up. “It's a big decision, Nick, one that you need to give careful consideration. And remember, it won’t just be your life you put in danger by talking, you’ll also effectively be handing out the black mark to those you speak with.”