140914383X

by Raymond Khoury

“It’s . . . complicated.”

  “Don’t give me that. What’s going on?”

  I had to smile to myself. She was tough, and I needed to remind myself that, whatever happened, she’d be in my corner. “I’ll tell you the whole story when I see you. Long story short, someone got shot and they’ve made it look like I did it.”

  “Which you didn’t, obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  “OK, so there’s nothing to worry about,” she said, maybe more to seek out some reassurance for herself.

  “It’ll be fine,” I said. “But until that’s sorted out, I thought—” and here, I glanced at Nick, who was watching—“it would be better if I handed myself in so no one got the wrong idea.”

  She went quiet for a moment, probably realizing how out of character that was for me.

  “Good,” she just said. “Hang on.”

  I heard her ask the agent, “Are you charging me with anything, or am I free to go?”

  “Go where?”

  She was firm. “Where do you think?”

  He demurred, then said, “Let me make a call.”

  She came back on the line. “I’ll take the first flight up. I should be with you by eight.”

  “No,” I told her. “Go to the house first. I’ll have Nick meet you there. They might want to send people over to have a look around and you should be there. I wouldn’t want your mom to have to deal with that on her own.”

  “She can handle it, Sean.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” I said. “But still . . . go home first. Then come into the city once they’re done.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I said, the prospect of having my own house searched by an ERT crew curdling my insides. “Tess, I’m—I’m really sorry about all this. I really am. But just . . . bear with me. We’ll ride it out, you’ll see. OK?”

  “Of course,” she said. She paused, like she wanted to say more, but couldn’t.

  “Get some sleep,” I finally said. “Tomorrow’s probably going to be a long day for us both.”

  “I love you,” she said.

  I echoed the feeling, then hung up.

  FRIDAY

  16

  Federal Plaza, Lower Manhattan

  So here I was, in a room I was all too familiar with, only this time I was the guy sitting at the bare metal table and cut off from the outside world by a steel-and-glass door and an eight-digit passcode.

  It wasn’t even dawn yet, but we’d been at it for over an hour. Just me, Gallo, and Nick at this point, in the austere, windowless twenty-third floor interview room at Federal Plaza. The forty-one-story building that forms the western edge of Foley Square was the hub of the law enforcement and judicial machinery in Manhattan. It had also been my home away from home for over ten years now. Now, it was my jail. I can’t really say I ever pictured that happening.

  I hadn’t lawyered up, although I knew I might well have to bring one in soon. The cameras, which were located high up on opposite walls, were switched off. Gallo had agreed to that, but not before putting up some stern resistance, which was all for show, of course: he knew keeping our initial conversation off the record covered his ass as well as mine and he needed to get a better handle on what he was dealing with before deciding how best to tackle it.

  The thrust of my argument was simple. Why would I kill Kirby? He’d helped me the first time around, and I needed his help again. Gallo’s cynical response was, I had to admit, one that was hard to bat away: by my own admission, I was charged up, I was desperate for answers; maybe I pulled my gun to threaten him. Maybe he charged me in a fit of rage. Maybe we struggled for the gun, and he ended up dead. And that was aside from the far-from-inconsequential admission that I had admitted blackmailing an employee of the CIA into passing confidential files to me.

  I was getting a taster of how hard it might be to convince a neutral third party about the mystery man in the beard. Of course, Nick and the guys in DC would rake the area for witnesses or CCTV footage that might back up my claims, but frankly, short of a video recording showing him along with what actually happened in that garage, I couldn’t see how that was going to help exonerate me.

  This wasn’t looking good.

  Also, it hadn’t been as easy to keep Kurt’s name out of it as it had with Nick.

  “How’d you ID Kirby as a soft target?” Gallo had asked.

  He may be a prick, but he’s not a dumb prick.

  I’d ducked the unspoken question with Aparo. I needed to duck it again now. “I asked around.”

  “What do you mean, ‘asked around?’ Who?” Gallo’s ego didn’t take kindly to being deflected like that.

  “That’s not relevant right now, all right? I needed someone with access and I asked some people and his name came up. Can we move on?”

  It took a couple of more to-and-fros, but we grudgingly did.

  Gallo’s expression darkened gradually the more I spoke. It was like his eyes were receding into a couple of abysses deep in his skull with every word. I was under no illusions that this was due to any concern over me. It was all about him, obviously. How his lack of oversight could have allowed this to happen, especially seeing as he knew from day one that I was trying to find Reed Corrigan and was getting stonewalled by the CIA at every request.

  This risked sinking him too, perhaps not as badly as me, but still—for someone like Gallo, any impediment to the sacred career path was a major disaster.

  Which is what Nick and I were banking on. And Nick adroitly steered Gallo to the conclusion we wanted. Whether or not he’d go through with it was another matter.

  Throughout all this, an angry cocktail of emotions concerning my partner was roiling inside me. Even though I understood where he was coming from, I was still uber pissed off at how he’d railroaded me; on the other hand, I appreciated how clear-minded and committed he was during all these initial proceedings. I’ve always chided him for his cynical outlook on life, a perspective I’d dubbed “pragmatic nihilism,” as in: life is pretty much bullshit, so you’d better be fully present in those exceptionally rare moments when good stuff happens, because otherwise it’s just completely remorseless bullshit. This wasn’t good stuff in any way and I know he wasn’t enjoying it in any way, but he was totally present and in my corner. But I could see that, even with all the best will in the world, this probably wasn’t going to be enough.

  Especially not when the CIA decided to join the party.

  They arrived at around seven thirty, two of them.

  Annie Deutsch and Nick brought them in before she left again, giving me a glance and a little nod that spoke volumes about the confusion and concern swirling inside her. The door closed, sealing us in, and curt introductions were made. The clear alpha among the two was called Neil Henriksson. He was tall, slim but solid, had carefully trimmed hair that was somehow more beige than blond, and an expression that seemed locked in disdain mode. I could just imagine how much fun he had to be around the house. I didn’t register the name of his minion.

  As they were sitting down, Henriksson said, “OK, Special Agent Reilly, let’s start from the beginning, shall we?”

  Gallo just turned to them calmly and said, “Special Agent Reilly has taken the Fifth and won’t be answering any questions without the presence of his lawyer.”

  Henriksson’s expression shifted dramatically—as in he panned his head around by forty-two degrees.

  “Excuse me?”

  Gallo said, “You heard me.”

  The ADIC was going to try to keep me under his roof. Again, not out of any sudden outpouring of empathy for me. It just gave him more to bargain with in terms of limiting the blowback to his CV before giving me up. And it gave me more time to think and figure out what my next step should be.

  Henriksson didn’t miss a beat. “Maybe you don’t quite grasp what we’re dealing with here. This isn’t a run-of-the-mill murder investigation. This is a matter of national security.”

  Nick
piped in and asked, “How so?”

  “Agent Reilly is wanted for questioning in the murder of an employee of the CIA. An employee with significant security access.”

  “And how is that a matter of national security?”

  “Reilly may be working with elements whose aims are as yet unknown. We need to understand what we’re dealing with and whether or not there has been a breach.”

  Nick nodded sympathetically, then said, “I understand. On the other hand, they might have had a falling out over some chick.” He couldn’t have said it more flippantly if he tried. Then he added, “Unless you know something more specific you’re not sharing with us? Maybe about someone at the agency who goes by the handle of Reed Corrigan? You know, the one this office has put in more than one request about, only to be told he doesn’t exist?” He paused for a second, then before Henriksson answered, he said, “Oh, wait, sorry, I know—you can’t, ’cause it’s classified. Right?”

  Henriksson’s spine straightened as his gaze bored into Nick. “Like I said, this is a matter of national security. My instructions are to escort Agent Reilly down to Langley where our people and the Arlington County CID can question him.”

  “He’s not going anywhere,” Gallo said.

  “The man is believed to have shot an employee of the Agency with B-2 clearance,” Henriksson fired back. “We need to understand what happened and contain any potential security breach. Urgently.”

  “Look, I’m with you on this,” Gallo replied. “We’re on the same side, remember? But my hands are tied. There’s due process involved. Right now, all we have is Reilly handing himself in and saying someone tried to kill him. That’s all we have right now. He’s offering to tell us exactly what happened once his lawyer’s around, which should happen sometime this morning. We can’t even arrest him yet, not without a formal indictment. You have one?”

  Henriksson’s jaw tightened visibly, then he said, “Not yet.”

  “Not to worry. I’ve got the DA coming in shortly.”

  “The murder took place in Virginia.”

  Nick said, “Yeah, but he’s up here, isn’t he?”

  Gallo added, “We need the paperwork sorted out. Until that’s ready, our hands are tied. We can’t process him—or release him.”

  Henriksson took a breath, like he was deciding whether or not to share something—or at least wanting to give that impression. Then the jurisdictional tussle resumed. As I watched them argue, my mind took a step back and I couldn’t help but take note of how they perfectly encapsulated something I’d noticed years ago regarding the vast distance between the country’s agencies and their employees. More often than not, law enforcement seemed to attract passionate races like the Italians and Irish, fiery emotion-driven extraverts with inferiority complexes who shared an unshakeable moral sense bound-up with Catholicism—whether devout or lapsed—and an idea of society rooted in the extended family and a realism that meant being open to people’s better nature, even while accepting that humans are fundamentally flawed. The intelligence agencies, on the other hand, seemed to attract a far colder type: Northern Europeans like Henriksson—introverted, dour Puritan ideologues possessing a self-hating superiority, who see family as a tortuous chore to be endured and society as little more than a paranoia-inducing crowd of sinners who need to be permanently spied upon and are, even when under 24/7 watch, still sinning in their minds.

  I also started to get antsy, like this wasn’t going to work out how Nick imagined. I started to think that I might have to find my own way out of here, which wouldn’t be easy—except that I knew the place inside out. Which meant that although I knew how virtually impossible it would be to escape, I was probably as qualified as it gets to find some minute weakness and exploit it.

  Gallo and Nick stood their ground and won—for now. I wasn’t going anywhere yet. Henriksson and his minion were led out by Gallo while Nick stayed behind.

  “You must be starving,” he said. “I’ll get you something.”

  I nodded, wearily, “Thanks.” I wanted to also thank him for fighting for me, but I was still smarting from his bringing me in. Then my tiredness fell away long enough for me to remember what I needed from him first.

  “Forget the food for a second,” I told him as I checked my watch. “Tess should have landed by now.”

  “She’s coming in, right?”

  “Later, she’s going home first,” I said, then I pointed up at the cameras. “Are they still off?”

  Nick nodded.

  I dropped my voice anyway and leaned in. “I need you to do something first. I need my laptop secured. I don’t want anyone tampering with it.”

  “You want to call her and . . . ?” He didn’t need to finish his thought aloud.

  “No.” I kept my voice down. “I don’t want her implicated in any way, I don’t want to give anyone any cause to hassle her.” I looked at him.

  “What, you want me to . . . ?”

  “I want you to keep it safe. We can do this officially. I’ll give you my formal consent to search my house for evidence. Go there on the basis that you’re bringing her in. Talk to her; tell her what’s going on. Try to give her some reassurance. And take care of that too.”

  He held my gaze, then nodded. “OK.”

  Despite everything, despite the hurricane of conflicting emotions raging inside me, I had to admit it was a bit of a relief to have him there, as my partner, knowing the whole story, looking out for me. I missed having my partner riding shotgun alongside me. I missed this.

  Maybe, one of these days, I’d forgive him after all.

  17

  Ocracoke, North Carolina

  “I just heard from our people in New York. They’re playing hard ball,” Tomblin informed Roos over their encrypted phones.

  Gordon Roos was fuming, but, as always, he never showed it. He was too busy moving chess pieces in his head, anticipating reactions and counter-reactions and deciding on how best to handle the crisis that had mushroomed around them.

  At least they knew more than they did before the screw-up in Arlington: Reilly had found himself a weak link inside the CIA and had leaned on him to help him find Roos. That leak was now plugged, and Reilly was being blamed for it. That wasn’t a bad result at all. But having Reilly in FBI protective custody—that was far from ideal.

  “We need to get him out of their hands fast,” Tomblin added, “shut him up before someone starts taking his blabbing seriously.”

  “Or we take care of him while he’s in there.”

  “That’s the other option. Riskier, of course.”

  “Do we have any assets in place?”

  “A couple of promising candidates,” Tomblin said.

  Roos knew he could count on the man’s judgment. Edward J. Tomblin wasn’t just Roos’s partner back when Roos was an active agent as well as his oldest friend. He was also a very capable man, one of a handful of top-level CIA employees to have survived six administrations.

  They had both been recruited by the CIA straight from college and immediately sent with the legend of medical aid workers to the self-declared Republic of Biafra, where they had forged an unbreakable bond in the ocean of blood that had engulfed south-eastern Nigeria. Although their individual reactions to the atrocities they witnessed there were different—Roos experiencing the first flush of the kill-or-be-killed mindset that had defined him from that point on, while Tomblin established the Zen-like detachment that would serve him equally well, both had emerged with the absolute conviction that they could survive anything.

  In the almost forty years since their first posting, this had indeed proved to be true. Together they had survived the final few months of the Vietnam War, the killing fields of Cambodia and Angola, followed by a few years at the spearhead of the Cold War, where they’d first used the two code names of “Reed Corrigan” for Roos and “Frank Fullerton” for Tomblin.

  It was around that time that the Janitors were born. They’d achieved so much with that small,
covert unit, work they were proud of. Work that had kept the nation safe. And then, after 9/11, their paths had diverged. While the country’s intelligence agencies came under fire, smaller conflicts were brewing and boiling over around the planet. Roos saw the potential to bail on the political infighting and cash in on his connections and expertise by going private. He started hiring himself out to various governments and corporate interests, and he raked in serious fees. He managed to convince Sandman leave the Agency and join him for that ride. With Sandman’s talents to draw on, no boardroom problem was insurmountable, no opposition leader untouchable. They provided discreet, effective solutions to the thorniest of problems. Needless to say, they’d thrived together.

  Tomblin, on the other hand, was less of an adventurer and preferred to weather the storms and stay at the agency. He did well. In fact, he hadn’t possessed an official public job title since 2005, which was when the CIA’s National Clandestine Service was first created in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraq War. The NCS didn’t do “public.” It was the covert, deep-dark arm of an organization that wasn’t exactly an open book itself, and followed an even more aggressive approach to keeping the nation safe. Under its official remit, it had “the national authority for the coordination, de-confliction, and evaluation of clandestine operations across the Intelligence Community of the United States,” meaning it could pretty much do anything it wanted. As the NCS’s Deputy Director, Tomblin oversaw five of its main divisions. This included the Special Activities Division, which conducted both overt action such as paramilitary raids and assassinations in denied areas, and covert action such as PSYOP—Psychological operations.

  And it was because of one aspect of PSYOP—namely, mind control, something they’d both been involved in years earlier, in CIA programs such as MK-Ultra—that they were both in this mess.

  Because of a young boy’s father who just won’t let go.

  Roos had brought this calamity down upon them all: on himself, on Tomblin—who was Roos’s immensely useful, if unofficial, partner in his private global endeavors—and most of all on the man who initially put together and ran the Janitors unit, the man who now stood to lose more than either of them.