by J. K. Kelly
Matt was relishing what he intended to tell this guy next. “Well, your buddy Bruce is now in one over at MI5. My bet is that you’ll join him pretty soon. But maybe you’d fit better into a few buckets, in bits and pieces?” Matt pushed the knife a little further, making sure his prey knew not to think about making a move. Suddenly a knock at the door interrupted their discussion. Matt pushed the knife a bit further, this time making a slight cut into the skin.
“My mate’s a bit sick,” he shouted in a fake English accent, “give us a minute.” Then he turned his full focus back to Melville. With fire in his eyes, Matt whispered, “This one’s for Lois!”
And he shoved the knife hard and fast as far as it would go.
As quickly as Melville had dropped straight to the floor, Matt withdrew the knife. He stepped to the sink, rinsed it off, and slid it back into its case inside his belt. Melville was heavy, and his dead weight made it hard for Matt to slide him into the lone bathroom stall. A fitting place for this bastard to die.
But once that was done, he closed the stall door and unlocked the main one. Stepping out, he encountered three men who were clearly unhappy with having had to hold their water for so long.
“All yours!” he said, keeping his head down and quickly left through the propped-open emergency exit door he had used earlier. Within 60 seconds, he was back in his car and headed away from the bar.
“Heathrow,” he told the driver and felt happy just saying it.
Back at the hotel, he thanked the driver and waved as the car drove away. Wonder how long it will be before they find out the plates on that were switched in the parking garage this morning. Matt laughed to himself. It was time for a beer.
He headed to the bar, thinking about his friend Charlie, and suddenly realized there was more unfinished business he had to attend to. He opted to take a seat in one of the quiet booths in the restaurant rather than sit at the bar. There was nothing to celebrate, other than the fact that he had taken out two very bad guys, soon would be safely out of London, and headed home. He’d seen enough of the UK in recent weeks, and there was still something very important to take care of back in Jackson Hole.
He texted Dale:
HOTEL AOK. ONE STOP TO MAKE IN AM THEN DC TOMORROW
He waited for a response, but without one, he focused on the two beers he had ordered. “I have two hands,” he’d told the server with a smile. He thought about the day, his friend, and all that had happened in such a short period of time. Is this really what I want to do with the rest of my life?
He had more money than he could spend. He could travel the world, hike some hills, climb some mountains, and enjoy all that life had to offer.
Why not do that full time and forget about takng risks?
It was the same conversation he’d had with Dale a long time ago. He couldn’t give the job up, though. They both knew it. The adrenaline was one thing, but his chosen profession, payback or punishment for bullies and bad guys, gave him the satisfaction, the reward that made the risks well worth taking.
His friend Charlie had been made from the same mold. He’d miss his friend. He had so few of them. He formulated a plan for tomorrow, ordered a cheeseburger, medium-well, fries, and a side of mayonnaise, and then put down the phone and focused on his beer. The next morning, he would visit Shirley and Lois to say a very difficult goodbye.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Standing on the sprawling porch of his new home not far from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Matt’s plans were falling into place. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” he told Dale. “I’ll text you the address. Just come after your meeting. Give it a few days, and then I’ll come up, and you can show me your new office at NSA. We have a lot to talk about.”
Matt filled the rest of his day working the legal pad checklist he’d made while flying home from London. Despite the occasional interruption, the day went quickly, and he couldn’t wait to see how his next appointment would play out.
Dale brought her midnight blue Camaro to a stop at the end of the long driveway in the Saint Margaret’s area of Annapolis and gave Matt a stare full of curiosity.
“I should have checked this address out before I left Fort Meade,” she joked as she greeted him with a hug that lasted longer than most of theirs had in recent months. “Did you buy the place?”
He smiled at her and then suggested she follow him to see more. They walked as he gave her the details.
“Four bedrooms, three baths, 2,500 square feet on a little over two acres,” he said. “There’s a three-stall stable with a tack room, kennels – and look at the pastures.” He gestured to the expanse of the property. “All of it fenced, and I got it for under 800 grand.” He grinned.
“You moving here? What about the condo and Bella?” He kept walking.
“Dude,” she asked, stopping and wanting an answer.
“I’ve already moved Bella to her new marina. I’ve bought a spot for her right close to the Chart House.”
“Sweet, and the condo?”
“Sold.”
She looked at him, but he could tell she hadn’t figured out this latest move, at least not yet.
“I want to introduce you to someone very special that I’ve been in love with for a long time now,” he told her softly.
Her heart sank. Then he turned and called, “Lois! Come here, girl! Lois!” Seemingly out of nowhere, a 170-pound Mastiff came running at full speed toward them.
Dale’s jaw dropped. “Holy shit!” was all she could say, and then she said it again. Luckily, Lois slowed down as she closed in on them. The dog greeted Matt and then the new lady with so much enthusiasm that Dale became totally caught up in it all. After getting to know each other better, Lois found distraction in an old peanut butter busy bone, which gave Dale and Matt time to sit down on the front porch and talk over a few beers.
“Cheers to the new house,” she toasted as they bumped bottles. “So, what’s really going on here, Matt?”
He just smiled at her and gazed out over the new property, his new home on the East Coast. He looked down at Lois affectionately and smiled again.
“I couldn’t leave her over there,” he offered. “The dog sitter couldn’t keep her, and Charlie had no relatives or friends who were interested in adopting her.”
“I get that, but what about this place? You bought it for the dog? And no more D.C.? Does that mean you’re retiring?” she asked, a tinge of hope in her voice.
“Well, actually, you had always said we couldn’t be together as long as we were both carrying guns.”
“Okay, and?” she persisted.
“In your new role at the NSA, just a short ride from here, you won’t be carrying a weapon anymore,” he answered with a grin.
She sat back in her chair, processing what he had just said.
“I’m not suggesting anything other than the fact that I love the open spaces, and I only had the condo in D.C. to have somewhere to go when it was too cold to be on the boat. Now I have her docked right down the road from here. I’ve got some land, a dog, and space for horses like we have in Wyoming.”
She looked at him. He knew what she wanted to hear.
“But no, I’m not retiring. I can’t. There’s too much work to do out there, and I can’t sit still for too long. You know that. But when I finally can, there’s plenty of room for a damn rocking chair right here, room for two actually, if it can ever come to that. The only thing that’s retiring is your gun, not mine.” She was lost in thought. Matt watched her eyes and expression closely.
“You can move in and hang out here and take me for another test drive if you want, no strings attached. Get your own place or commute back to D.C. or do whatever you want or feel you have to. But,” he paused, “maybe you can come with me over the weekend to help put Helene’s ashes to rest on the Tetons. This property has a full-time caretaker that keeps after it and loves animals, so Lois has a built-in babysitter. And those two have already hit it off.”
She stared at
him, but he thought he could see a glimmer, and that gave him hope.
“Maybe you can help me try to figure out what Helene was trying to tell me when she switched her ring. Was it a simple mistake, or was she warning me of something?” Matt reached into his pocket, and with the other hand, he reached out for Dale’s right hand. He then showed her the ring.
“Helene loved you like a daughter,” he began, “okay, like a someday daughter-in-law,” he laughed. “But she told me a long time ago that when she was gone, she wanted you to have this. Go ahead, please try it on.” Dale was stunned.
“Matt, it’s been in your family for generations, I couldn’t possibly take it,” she insisted, but he wasn’t having it. “You don’t have to wear it, just keep it somewhere safe is all I ask.”
She stared at Matt. He had no idea what the ring was really all about. Masked as a size adjuster on the inside of the ring, Coleman had a tiny microchip embedded that captured all of the files Matt had been working on when his position within the FBI had become compromised and a few others he knew nothing about. If she or he ever needed a get out of jail card, this was it. Knowing it was best kept in her hands, from him – especially now – she played the role and reluctantly allowed him to slide it on her finger.
“No strings attached?” she confirmed.
“Just keep it safe!” he responded and then turned his attention to the area that surrounded them.
Dale continued to look at him but then turned her gaze to the sunset that was dropping in the distance. She paused, looked back, and told him something she knew would send him into a rage.
“Matt,” she began, “the new job at the NSA also brought some benefits.”
“You get to eat in the special dining room now?” he joked. She wasn’t laughing.
“No, but it does give me access to more assets in the field and in the lab. And just because we didn’t find anything out of the ordinary with Helene’s blood samples, I couldn’t let it end there. I had the NSA lab dive a bit deeper, and you were right, they did find something.”
He sat up with a jerk, and the look she saw in his eyes made her caution him.
“Before we go any further, Matt, you have to remember that the arrangement Helene negotiated with POTUS and the other parties in conflict was that you could not go after anyone on U.S. soil. No investigations, prosecutions, or–”
He cut her off. “Or terminations. I get it. Tell me what you found, and then I can take a few deep breaths and decide how to respond.”
“Helene was murdered. The lab found a very slight trace of an exotic nerve agent in her blood cells. The same type used by the Russians in England a few years ago, only better. It’s faster acting and less traceable. It’s odorless, colorless, works within seconds, and if you don’t know what to look for, a doctor or a lab would miss it completely.”
Matt was furious but able to restrain himself. Arrangement my ass, he thought, it’s time to go hunting for a killer, and I don’t care where they are.
“You’re one of the smartest women I know, Claire,” he told her. “So you’ve probably already figured out how it was administered and who did it. You already know, so go ahead and tell me the rest.” She did.
She laid it out for him. Her investigators had learned that a new domestic helper had been hired at the ranch, a maid, and that the maid had used a syringe to inject the material into Coleman’s nasal spray. After Matt had left the ranch, Dale had sent a team, without any warning of their arrival, to go through the property with a fine-toothed comb. She held the staff for questioning. Employees were reminded they had signed confidentiality agreements, and what happened at the ranch stayed at the ranch. Their agreement wasn’t with Coleman, it was with the U.S. government, and the last thing the FBI, NSA or the CIA wanted was for the public or the president to learn that this was a murder carried out by a Russian assassin in Coleman’s own bedroom. Those agencies would find out who did it and deal with it on their own terms.
The team brought back anything she might have come into contact with, and when they analyzed the liquid in the nasal spray, they had it. Coleman had dealt with serious allergies all her life and relied on pills and pump sprays to help her as best they could.
“When Helene picked up the tainted spray the new maid had left in her bathroom, it took only 30 or 40 seconds for her to realize something was wrong and drop her dead to the floor. She couldn’t call out. The nerve agent wouldn’t have let her. I’m actually shocked that she had the sense, and the ability, to move the ring. The liquid atomized in the spray and went right through her nasal passages to her brain.”
Matt’s mind was racing. He was thinking of all the things that Dale had already thought of and pursued.
“She looked at peace,” Matt volunteered. “It didn’t look painful.”
“No, it would have been like just falling asleep.”
“So this maid, do you have her? And how could she have gotten into the household of the DNI without being screened and then screened again?” Dale was as frustrated as Matt, and they both sat back in their chairs and stared into each other’s eyes for a very long minute.
“No, we don’t have her. She didn’t show up for work the morning Helene died. She called to tell her supervisor that her mother had taken ill in New York and that she was catching an early plane out to be at her side. That’s the last anyone’s seen or heard of her.”
“You know what this means, Claire,” Matt said impatiently.
“Yep, someone either compromised the girl into doing it, or someone on our side looked the other way and let a killer into Helene’s home. Well, it turns out we know who that person is.” Matt stood up from the chair, his face and body tense. He was ready to go after the person, regardless of who they were or where they lived. “Who, who was it, Claire?” he demanded.
“Sam Horton vouched for her, Matt,” she said sadly. “Turns out, he’s been banging her.” Matt’s heart broke. He’d known Sam forever, it seemed. They were like brothers every summer out west, but now he’d let someone into the inner circle, and it cost them both dearly.
“He didn’t know, he couldn’t have known what she was up to,” Matt insisted. “He never would have helped me with the blood samples.” Just then, Lois ran up onto the porch with another bone, and Matt, full of frustration and energy, threw the bone as far and fast as possible for her to chase after.
“You said you couldn’t do it yourself, so you asked Sam to draw the blood,” Dale reminded him. “Without you watching him, he could have given you his own blood for all you know. I doubt he was in on it, but I don’t think anyone should be off the list of suspects right now.”
“Does he know the maid did it?” She shook her head. He didn’t. Once Dale had put it all together, she had Sam’s cell, home, and office phone, police radio, and email accounts monitored. They were able to track his every movement through his cell and the transponder in his sheriff’s office SUV and had a team watching him 24/7.
Matt watched as Lois ran full speed for the bone he’d just tossed, and then spent the next few minutes chasing a grey rabbit that had made the mistake of wandering into the dog’s domain.
That’ll be me on this bitch, he thought to himself.
“You’re planning on flying back out there soon to spread her ashes. Maybe it’s time we both go and sit down at the ranch with our dear Sam – the scandalous sheriff.” Matt agreed, but there was no way he could wait. He wanted on a plane and wanted to be standing in front of Sam as soon as possible.
“It’s not necessarily his fault, Matt, boys will be boys, but unfortunately, some girls will be girls,” Dale stated. “You realize that. But someone got past the people in charge of our national security. That scares me more.” He stared at her, but then his expression changed from anger to sadness.
“I agree. I’m still shocked that whoever this woman was got through to Helene.”
Dale agreed and shook her head to indicate it.
“Remember, we don’t know
why the maid did what she did, if she did it on her own for some reason, if she was coerced, or if she was working for someone. That’s what my team is deep into now.”
“This has so many elements to it my head’s going to explode. How can you trust anybody after an abortion like this?” Matt’s mind was racing again. “Do you think Sam thought he would inherit the ranch when Helene died?”
Dale shrugged her shoulders. The two went back and forth on scenarios, but then she said something that added to the speculation even more.
“Matt, the only way Sam would have inherited the ranch would be if he survived you. Helene had it in her will that if you were dead, the place went to Sam, and if you inherited it and died, it went to Sam, not any of your heirs.”
Matt walked into the house and came back a few minutes later with more beer. “So on another subject, want to see the inside?” he asked.
“Come on, Lois,” Dale yelled at the Mastiff. As Matt walked back through the screen door, he smiled. Gotcha, he thought to himself. He just wished it had been under happier circumstances.
Dale and Matt wound up talking late into the night, and the next morning drove to BWI and took a small private jet Matt chartered to Jackson Hole. They hadn’t been at the ranch long before Sam pulled up to the front of the main house and was welcomed and invited in. Matt and Sam hugged like long-lost brothers preparing to say a final goodbye to a very special woman. There wasn’t much to say, not right now. That could wait. Thirty minutes later, the three of them drove in Sam’s SUV out to a spot at the base of the Grand Teton mountain range.
With some encouragement from Dale in the back seat, Sam drove the SUV up a trail and then turned off to the left.
“This looks like a fitting spot,” she suggested, and the men agreed. After sharing a few of their favorite stories, right at the stroke of high noon, Matt knelt down and poured Coleman’s ashes into a space protected from the wind and rainwater, a spot much like where they would all have rested during a summer hike in younger, happier times.