“There you go. Sleep well.”
“Thanks,” I smiled. I noticed he left the white card behind. As soon as he closed the door on his way out, I pulled down the shades and picked up the card.
Call me. Don’t say a word. Just listen to me. 202-555-9630.
Chapter Ten --
I pulled out the pink phone and dialed. I was about to say hello when I remembered the instructions.
“Are you okay? If you are, just cough, Riley,” Dix instructed me. I obliged. “I don’t have much time. Here’s what you’re going to do tomorrow. Book yourself a room at the Marriott when you get off the phone with me. Use your regular phone. When you get off the train, look for the car service driver sent to pick you up. Whatever you do, babe, don’t hide away. Get out and about. Get some exercise. Go and explore. And trust me. You may not understand what you’re doing or why you’re doing it, but believe me, it’s a very big deal. Mind-numbingly big, Riley. You take good care of yourself. Be smart. Stay alert.”
There was a long silence between us, filled only by a small sob from me. I missed Dix. What a comfort it would have been to have him here with me, to feel those big, strong arms wrapped around me, to have his lips on mine. I could feel that unknown worry coming between us, even though it was unspoken. If this went bad, and there was a solid chance it could, it would be the end of our marriage. I wasn’t sure how or why, but everything we had was riding on the success of this case. Only trouble was I didn’t really know what the case was. I only knew Dix was taking extraordinary precautions, from the pink cell phone to a number of “angels” looking out for me wherever I went.
“Sleep tight, love.” There it was again, that wistful note in his voice. As if I was about to be set adrift at sea on a “Gilligan’s Island” kind of trip. I would go out for a sail and never return, forever doomed to live my life on an island far from civilization. Maybe that’s what the burn was all about -- the FBI needed someone to fall on the sword if this didn’t work out.
I called information for the number of the Delray Beach Marriott and got connected. I booked a single room with a partial ocean view. I gave them my credit card number and jotted down the confirmation number before hanging up.
It took me awhile to relax enough to fall asleep. But even as I drifted off, I asked myself yet again -- why were those two men after me? What was it about me that made them so determined to follow? Had the FBI set me up? Is that why Dix was so worried?
If the powers that be slipped some misinformation into my file, to try to lure the bad guys down to Delray Beach, it could only mean one thing. They wanted to catch them red-handed. Doing what? I could only hope it wasn’t trying to murder me.
I woke just after eight in the morning, feeling rested. Breakfast in the club car yielded me a newspaper, hot coffee, and an omelet. There were a lot of kids on this trip, traveling with parents. After about half an hour of the constant screams, I went back to my cubicle and buried my head in the first of my paperbacks, grateful for the peace and quiet of the tiny space.
When lunchtime rolled around, I headed to the club car again, this time sitting with a couple from Pennsylvania and a single woman from New Jersey. We passed the time talking about Florida, the price of gasoline, the best travel bargains on the Atlantic coast of Florida, and how to negotiate the best hotel room. By two, I returned to my “roomette” completed the first book, and started on the second. As the train pulled into Delray Beach, I put the novel in my purse and gathered my belongings, anticipating the disembarkation. Time to look for my driver.
Sure enough, there was a big sign with my name on it, held by a woman in a tropical print shirt and a pair of white capri pants.
“Hi,” I smiled at her. “That’s me.”
“Great,” she grinned. “Follow me.”
She led me over to a silver Chrysler minivan, slid open the back door, and once I climbed in with my suitcase, she shut it and climbed into the front. On her dashboard sat a squat little angel, with soft cloth wings, wild curly hair, and a wide smile on the stitched face.
I noticed a pile of papers on the seat next to me. I spied a brochure for the Marriott at the top of the pile. Next to it was a map, with a route highlighted in fluorescent yellow. In capital letters, someone wrote the word “beach” next to an “x”. I noted the cross-street so I would be able to find it.
Twenty minutes later, I had checked in and been taken to my room on the third floor in a quiet corner of the hotel. I stood on the balcony, looking out at a tiny sliver of a beach view in the distance. The room was attractive. My only regret was that Dix wasn’t here to share it with me. He would have enjoyed this place, I decided. The ambiance, the proximity to the ocean. It was pure Dix heaven. Lord, I missed him.
I decided to follow his advice to get out and about, thinking that maybe if I did stroll on the beach, it would assuage the ache that seemed to be deepening inside me. To tell you the truth, I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see him again. That sense of foreboding in me seemed to grow with each passing day as I tried to sort out the mess that was Hambleport.
The first thing I did when I left the balcony was to stand under the shower and wash away two days of accumulated grime from the road. Most of it was mental, so my gesture was symbolic. I needed a clear head desperately. A change of scenery would do me good. My legs still felt wobbly from the constant motion of the train as it rumbled down the tracks. I removed the tags from my new pair of black running shorts and black tank top, threw on my running shoes, and locked my purse in the room safe. With the key card tucked safely in my pocket, I took the elevator down to the lobby. From there, I headed outside and crossed North Ocean Boulevard to the beach. Empty sand chairs and umbrellas faced the ocean, as if waiting for patrons to arrive for the show. I made a note to get up first thing tomorrow morning and bring a cup of coffee down here to watch the sunrise.
As far as beaches go, it was a wide swath of white sand, blue water, and enough seagulls to make me miss Hambleport. In other words, it was lovely. I strolled towards the imaginary yellow trail marked on the map in the courtesy van. At this time of day, most people were coming back from their afternoon in the sea. The hotel’s pool was packed, but the beach was less so.
The gentle wind kissed my cheeks as I headed south. I thought about taking my sneakers off and just enjoying the sensation of the warmer tropical waters on my skin, but something held me back. Maybe it was the look of the runner who passed me in the Miami Dolphins cap. Or maybe it was the sensation that I was being followed. I couldn’t really shake my apprehension.
Oddly enough, it grew stronger when I passed a place called “Boston’s on the Beach”. I knew I was here for a reason. I just didn’t know what that reason was. It could have been an easy explanation. The Red Sox had spring training in Florida. Maybe a lot of folks came down to Delray Beach from New England every year. But the thought that stayed with me was that no matter how Boston’s on the Beach came to be here, it was probably a convenient location for organized criminals to get together for a beer while discussing events back in Massachusetts. It wasn’t that long ago that one of the biggest bad guys in FBI history had been captured after being on the run for so long, and he had spent time in Florida, on the other coast. Maybe he saved this area as his safety zone, the place to conduct business, far enough from his temporary Clearwater home. That’s the way a lot of those drug kingpins did things.
So lost in thought was I that I didn’t realize I was almost alone on the beach by the time I reached the area of Anchor Park, where there was a lot of tree cover on the path to the street. As I made my way up to South Ocean Boulevard, I could feel the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to be here on my own after all. I decided that I would turn away and find a more open route to the main drag. The last thing I wanted was to be ambushed, and judging from the shrubbery, this could be a jungle.
No sooner had I turned away than I heard a noise behind me. It wasn’t a loud noise, but
it was enough to alert me. Sure enough, the guy with the Dolphins cap was running at me like a quarterback heading for a touchdown. I took off at full speed, remembering what Dix had said. There were angels all around me. And yet, here I was, running for my life down the beach at Delray, pursued by a man who was clearly in excellent physical shape, He was gaining on me, that much was clear when I tossed a quick look over my shoulder and saw he was now only ten feet behind me. There were a few people walking along the edge of the sea, but they were too far away to do me much good. I did my best to put on a burst of speed, but moments later I was tackled. One minute I was upright and pounding the sand on my way north. The next, the sand was coming at me at lightning speed and I thought I would find myself digging my grave all the way to China.
It turned out that I wasn’t half wrong. I felt the spray of the incapacitating agent hit my face. Tiny moist droplets that clung to my skin, my hair. Those strong arms pinned mine down, keeping me immobile until the drug took effect. Everything went dreamy as a sense of euphoria dulled the reality of my situation. I felt no pain. I felt no worry. I was on a beach with a strange man. I was unable to move. And yet, I did not struggle. I didn’t even try to escape.
My mind seemed to detach from my body, allowing me a warped view of my peril as I saw myself led back up the tree-covered path and into a black SUV parked on South Ocean Boulevard. I lay down on the seat and curled up, even as my hands and feet were restrained. Even when the SUV pulled out onto the roadway and drove away, I still had no conscious awareness of any danger. Like a sleepwalker just before the REM stage, I was paused between reality and dream, unsure of what I was experiencing.
I woke up sometime later. I can’t tell you how long after I left the beach it was, because there was no clock in the room and the room itself was dark. There were shutters on the windows. In the narrows slits of moonlight that fell across the bed, I could see a white chenille bedspread. The nubs of the woven coverlet left an imprint on my right cheek.
The first thing that captured my attention after that was the sound of voices raised in argument. I followed the sound to the door, doing the bunny hop, and pressed my ear against the wood in the hopes of getting some information.
“She has to die,” said a familiar voice. Agent Cook.
“We kill her and people will think we have something to hide.” I didn’t recognize the man, but he sounded reasonable, given that he didn’t want to kill me.
“We do have something to hide. She and Dixon have spent the better part of the last five years trying to penetrate our organization, Bennett. You think we can just let her walk away? Once she knows Dixon is dead, she’ll be all over this. They’ve been lovers for years.”
Dix is dead? I gave an involuntary gasp as my heart dropped to my feet. There was just enough of the incapacitating agent left to dull the pain, but not enough to keep the tears from forming in my eyes.
“I say we kill them both at the same time, make it look like an accident.”
That meant Dix was alive. There was still a chance, even if it wasn’t much of one.
“An accident that the FBI will know is staged.” Bennett sounded skeptical.
“If we don’t, Matthias is going to face too much scrutiny for the upcoming confirmation. Dixon is getting too close, according to Vlady. His source at the FBI says that the last three shipments almost made it on the DEA watch list as suspicious. Once Washington gives Dixon the new information, he’ll proceed with his investigation and it’s all over. Matthias will go down in flames, Hambleport will be flooded with federal investigators, and we’ll never be able to control the outcome. Don’t forget that Vlady has a lot to lose if folks realize he’s using his position as a congressional aide on the Foreign Affairs Committee to gather intelligence on government operations.” Cook was adamant.
“We need a scapegoat.”
“Like who?”
“What about Horfield? We’ve already had the conversation with him, so we know he’s pretty upset that they nearly got caught. We can control the investigation,” said the second man. “We set him up to take the fall, force him to run, and Matthias gets that diplomatic post.”
“Horfield will never go for it,” the senior FBI agent insisted.
“He will if he thinks we’re protecting his criminal ass. He’ll hit the road and never look back. We could even pretend to put him in witness protection, give him a handler, and that way we’d know where he is when we want him.”
“Vlady wants the hit done. He said that the intelligence network is far more important than the organized crime aspect.”
“You can make him go for it, Cook.” The second man gave the argument his all, trying to convince the corrupted FBI agent that they could pull the scam off. “He trusts you.”
“It’s too risky, Bennett. We fake the intel for HQ, let them think that Dixon went rogue. We spend the next month uncovering evidence that shows he was using his deep cover position to make a small fortune on the side. I’ve got a friend in the DEA down here. The guy has no idea about Hambleport, but if I tell him that I suspect Dixon is dealing on the side, he’ll start to investigate. When the guy spreads the word that Dixon’s FBI, the Colombians will start hunting him down to take out his ass any way they can. We kill Dixon and the girl tonight and it’ll be blamed on the Colombians. It’s just a matter of manipulating the intelligence.”
“And you think you can do this, Cook? You think you can fool the FBI, the DEA, and the Colombians?”
Chapter Eleven --
“I don’t think I can do it, Bennett. I know I can do it. Hell, I’ve been doing it for years. How do you think I made my way up the ranks? By playing nice?”
“How are you going to get Dixon down here?”
“Simple. I’ll call him and tell him I got word from an informant on the street that there’s a hit on the girl and he should keep an eye out for her.”
“How do you explain that you know he’s FBI? His cover is too deep.”
“I don’t tell him I know. I tell him the girl is in real danger, and as her landlord, he should watch out for her and try to persuade her to butt out. I’ll tell him I got a tip the other night in Boston and that I tried to talk her out of getting involved without any success.”
“You really think this will work?”
“Absolutely. I’m counting on it. Matthias promised me that job at State and I intend to take it, just as soon as I put in my retirement papers at the FBI. Can’t happen soon enough for me.”
“Vlady doesn’t like mistakes, Cook. You know he’ll kill you if you screw this up.”
“He’s not going to kill me, Bennett. I’m too valuable to him. I’ve had his back for years and he owes me. Now, let me make those calls and get the ball rolling. I’ll be back.”
Outside the house, I heard a car door slam. About ten minutes later, the car drove away. I assumed it was Cook, getting things done.
I never saw the man called Bennett. He made sure his face was covered every time he came into the dark room to release my hands and feet so I could relieve myself. Twice, he gave me water. Once I got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white bread. The hours crawled by as I lay on the bed. The tears of frustration came and went. I had no way of warning Dix. Where were those angels now?
I can’t tell you what time it was when tires rolled over the gravel in the driveway. I heard muffled sounds of a struggle. The door opened, flooding the room with light so sharp and intense, it hurt my tear-swollen eyes. And then I saw a tall obstacle falling in my direction. Even as I rolled to get out of the way, I knew. Dix.
His face was wet and instinctively I knew it was bloody. There seemed to be a contusion on his forehead. He wasn’t conscious, but occasionally he groaned, as if in pain. His hands and feet were, like mine, bound.
I lay there, next to the man I love, dreading the last hours. I was all the more lonely without his conversation. Not only had those angels deserted me, they had also deserted Dix. There would be no rescue. Cook was
sure to return to finish the job.
I could hear them arguing in the other room. Cook was determined to be in charge and Bennett was just as determined to not let that happen. Several times, over the course of the next hour or two, they sounded as if they were on the phone, in heated discussions with the man they called Vlady.
A little while later, things were quiet. The door opened, and the man with the hood came in to check on Dix. He looked him over, satisfied that Dix posed no threat, and then offered to let me use the bathroom. He escorted me to the bathroom and placed an angel key ring down on the porcelain. Attached to it was a small pen knife. He leaned close to my ear and whispered.
“When you hear the car drive away, you will have exactly ten minutes before the bomb goes off. Get the hell out of here and run like hell. Capisce?”
I nodded, stunned by this turn of events. He stepped back into the bedroom as I shut the bathroom door.
“What the hell is taking you so long in there?” he growled.
“I...I...I’ll be right out,” I stammered. I tinkled as quickly as I could, washed my hands, and slipped the knife and key ring into my shorts pocket. I waited for the man called Bennett to put plastic strips back on my hands and feet, but this time I noticed they weren’t pulled tight. Through the open door, I could see Cook resting on the sofa before Bennett shut the door on his way out. As I eased back down onto the bed, I felt for that pen knife. Should I wait until they leave to remove the restraints? What if ten minutes wasn’t enough to move Dix out of the house and away from the explosion? I began to work my way free of the plastic strips, leaving them intact enough that I could slip them back on. Carefully, I cut almost through the ones on my ankles. Then I did the same for Dix.
Just before the sun crept up, I heard the door slam and a car engine start up. I listened as the car backed out of the driveway. Leaping off the bed, I finished the job. Once I was free, I released Dix’s hands and feet. He was a good head taller than me, something I had always appreciated, just like I loved his strong physique, with all those muscles. Now I cursed the dead weight in my arms, wondering how I was going to manage to pull my still-unconscious husband out of this house to safety.
Run for Your Life, Riley Horton!: A Page 8