by Chris Mooney
But even if those two conditions weren't involved, he still would have granted Pasha's request for secrecy. His time served in foster homes and the orphanage had taught him how to ferret out liars and people's hidden agendas. Conway was sure of one thing on this earth: Pasha Romanov was not a liar. Private, maybe even secretive, but trustworthy.
A few minutes later, Bouchard stopped walking. They stood near the edge of a cliff that overlooked the sweeping flat earth of Austin, the bridge, and below it, the river littered with powerboats and sailboats whose canvas sails swelled in the wind.
"I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you," Bouchard said, his voice scratchy. He coughed to clear his throat.
"My hands have been full. I take it you've seen the news about Angel Eyes."
"And McFadden."
Bouchard gritted his teeth, the muscles along his jawline flexing.
"His treason is taking on epidemic proportions. It's a goddamn mess," he said. Over his shoulder, the sky had grown darker. He took off his sunglasses and tucked them inside his jacket pocket. Even in the twilight his eyes looked worn.
"I'm sorry about Pasha, Stephen. I know how important she was to you."
Conway played the role of the grieving lover.
"Her body," he started, and cleared his throat.
"We haven't ID'd any of the bodies yet. It's…" Bouchard started to say and then his voice trailed off. He shoved his hands into his pockets, shook his head, and sighed, and as he looked out at the water below, he jiggled his change and keys.
"It's going to be a long and painful process. What happened here…
I've never lost men like that. I'm still having a hard time accepting what happened."
Conway studied the man for a moment. His grief seemed genuine. Conway removed the 8-by-10-inch envelope wedged in his back waistband and handed it to Bouchard.
"Angel Eyes left these for me in my hospital room," Conway said.
"While I was sleeping."
As Bouchard went through the pictures, studying each with great care, Conway watched his boss's face, checking for surprise, shock something that would validate Pasha's theory. The man's face was as readable as stone. If anything, he looked shell-shocked.
"Why would Angel Eyes leave those pictures?" Conway asked.
"To keep you on the edge. To let you know he was coming."
"Dixon's alive."
Bouchard looked up from the pictures, the meaning in his eyes veiled.
From his back pocket Conway removed the jewel case that contained a burned copy of Dixon's torture session and held it up in the air. He kept the original for himself.
"Last night someone left this compact disc inside the condo. I was afraid the CD might be infected with a virus, and since my home PC doesn't have the latest virus updates, I drove over to Del-burn and used one of our secured computers."
"How did you get in?" Bouchard asked. Conway didn't work there and didn't have a key. But Pasha did.
"Pasha's keys. She left a spare set at the condo," Conway lied.
"Nobody's answering the phone. Where's the rest of the team?"
"They're all dead."
"Including your Hazard Team?"
Bouchard nodded. Conway watched him carefully now.
"Steve, when you called Delburn, the switchboard patched your call to my car. I was on my way to the safe house I keep here in Austin. The DO of Operations called and wanted to talk to me about McFadden the shit had hit the fan big time back at headquarters. I had classified files on a compromised operation that McFadden worked on. We had hours to go before the exchange at the airport, so I decided to drive out. I was about twenty minutes away from Delburn when you called. When we got off the phone, I turned around and headed back to Delburn."
Bouchard looked disgusted.
"They were all dead."
"What happened to all the bodies?"
"A special team came in and removed them."
Right. Can't have the local police investigating the matter, Conway thought.
"Same with the Hazard Team and surveillance team that was supposed to be guarding you. They were killed with nerve gas. Someone rigged the vans," Bouchard said.
"Someone sold us out."
"McFadden?"
"Yes. It was John."
"You know him?"
"John used to work for me. We used to be good friends." Bouchard's tone was flat, almost detached.
"He and I were at the funeral for one of my men. We were both pallbearers. I found out this week that McFadden sold him out for five grand, and there was the son of a bitch on the opposite side of me that day, choking back tears." Bouchard slid the pictures back into the envelope, rolled it up and tapped it against his leg.
"All those years we were searching for the mole and that fuck was right under my nose, selling us all out."
"So you knew we had a mole."
"What we knew was that for the past ten years, a man we called Hijack was selling out some of our top agents. The problem is McFadden didn't have any abnormalities in his background. McFadden's a die-hard Catholic. Has four kids, went to church every Sunday, didn't have any marital problems, didn't drink or gamble or have any additional source of income. He passed all the five-year background checks. He knew how to play the game. When it came to tradecraft, McFadden was a pro."
"Then why did he sell us out?"
"We'll never know."
"Not talking?"
"He's dead."
Conway felt his heartbeat surge.
"He went to sleep last night and never woke up," Bouchard said.
"Poisoned, probably. We're looking into it. As for why he sold us out, it's going to be one of the great mysteries of life."
If Bouchard was lying, he was a great actor. Still, Conway heeded Pasha's words and studied the man.
"Why would Angel Eyes take over Delburn?" Conway asked.
"It doesn't fit his MO."
"Simple. It's our base of operations. Once inside, he would be able to locate all of our surveillance and Hazard Teams, would be able to overhear any conversation. He took what he needed and then started wiping us out." Bouchard looked at the CD gripped in Con-way's hand and said, "What's on it?"
"Dixon's torture session. Angel Eyes thinks Dixon knows the decryption code."
"He does."
"It doesn't work. The code's been changed. Without the decryption code, the suit is worthless."
"Unless Angel Eyes can hack his way past it."
"Unlikely."
"Nice work, Stephen. Because of you, the suit is safe."
"I didn't encrypt the software. It was Randy."
"So you don't know the decryption code?"
"I don't remember much from the lab. A tile fell on my forehead and cracked my skull open. After that, it's all one big blur."
"Do you remember what happened that day?"
"Most of it."
"Tell me."
Conway did, in great detail, including his conversation with Rombardo Conway told the man everything except his early-morning meeting with Pasha. Thirty minutes later, when he had finished talking, Bouchard was quiet. The wind had picked up and moved around them, and the air was noticeably cooler.
"Keith Harring and his men never made it out of the airport," Bouchard said.
"The person who called you was an imposter. Angel Eyes used Harring's name to lure you inside the lab. Steve, do you think Dix was in on it?"
"No. Up in the plane, he was scared to death. It wasn't an act."
"Angel Eyes must have been monitoring us all this time. That's the only way he could know about Harring the only way he could stay ahead of us. Jesus Christ. I can't believe how smoothly he pulled this off."
"Why didn't you contact me once you got to Delburn?"
"I tried calling you from the car and couldn't get through. When I got back to Delburn, the majority of the communications equipment had been destroyed. I couldn't call you. Angel Eyes also took the tape backups. He raided the place, Steve,
and destroyed everyone and everything there. I drove to Praxis but by the time I got there Angel Eyes was long gone."
Conway said, "I take it Rombardo didn't relay my message."
"No, he didn't."
"So he's one of us."
"He's our liaison inside the Austin police." Bouchard stared out at some point below the cliff. He seemed focused on a thought.
"I can't lock onto the suit's emergency transponder."
"Why?"
"To activate the transponder, the suit needs to be on, and you can't turn it on unless you access the computer system on the wrist unit. But if you had the decryption code, you would be able to turn on the computer and activate the transponder."
"I don't know the code," Conway said.
"Randy must have told you something in the lab."
"He was dying. He wasn't making any sense."
"Tell me."
"Randy said the words mittens and cat food."
"Randy owned a cat, right?"
"The girl he met down here, she sometimes kept it at his apartment.
This evil black thing called Lissy. Scratched the hell out of everyone and everything." Conway handed Bouchard the CD.
"They've already chopped off two of Dixon's fingers. If we don't find him soon, they're won't be much left."
"When Angel Eyes figures out that Dixon doesn't know the decryption code, he'll target the person who does."
"Randy's dead."
"Which means you're next in line."
Bouchard considered a private question. He studied the ground for a moment, and when he looked up, his eyes seemed clouded.
"Stephen, when I got back to Delburn, the communications system was destroyed. Fortunately, the system mails an encrypted copy of each call to an offsite office. When you were at the lab, you said you made a final call to Delburn."
"That's right. I told you what I said."
"Yes, you did. My question is, do you know who answered the phone?"
"It was loud. There were explosions, I couldn't hear, but it was a man's voice. I thought I was… I thought I was going to die so I told the team member what I knew."
"But did you recognize the voice on the other end?"
Conway thought about it.
"No. For a brief second, I thought I had called a friend of mine, John Riley."
"You did."
For a moment Conway was too stunned to speak.
Then he saw the tightening in Bouchard's eyes, felt the way the air seemed to grow colder. Conway felt his stomach tighten as Bouchard took in a deep breath and formed his next choice of words.
"John Riley," Bouchard said.
"What's wrong?"
"He's dead, Stephen. Angel Eyes killed him."
Shock mushroomed from deep in Conway's stomach and then spread across his skin, making it tingle. It's a mistake, a voice reassured him.
John Riley has nothing to do with the CIA or Angel Eyes, Bouchard's got it wrong.
Conway met Bouchard's sad gaze and an icy vapor filled his heart.
"I'm sorry, Stephen. It's true."
Bouchard went to put his hand on Conway's shoulder but he had pulled away and turned into the wind. He wasn't going to let his emotions get him, not here in front of his boss. Pull it together, man.
"How did he die?" Conway asked, his mind filling with the images from Dixon's torture video.
"That's not important."
"Tell me."
Conway could hear Bouchard shift his weight, the man's shoes crunching under the rocks as he moved closer and then stopped.
"Cocaine laced with rat poison," Bouchard said.
"I'm not going to lie to you, Stephen. It was an awful way to go."
Conway placed his hands on his hips and looked down at the brightly lit boats the size of bath toys moving across the water. Then he closed his eyes and saw a pitch-black sky. How he wanted to be swallowed inside that void, to feel nothing. Old memories of Riley, events he hadn't thought about in years, all of them came to him in a rush. He couldn't shut them off. Odd how the mind loved to betray you at your most vulnerable moments.
"I remember an interesting story from your personal file," Bouchard said, his voice closer now, directly behind him.
"That foster family that took you in, the Merrills, their eldest son, Todd, almost beat you to death that day he supposedly caught you helping yourself to the mother's jewelry. The mother came home just in time and had you rushed to the hospital. The police found the pearl necklace inside your jeans pocket and sent you back to St. Anthony's.
You were thirteen."
Conway opened his eyes and stared at the water.
"Three years, and during that time you picked up weight lifting and trained in kenpo karate, focusing on it with such intensity that it frightened your teachers and counselors back at the boy's home. You told them you were channeling your anger, but what you were really doing was compartmentalizing it, using it to prepare yourself for your showdown with Todd Merrill. You thought about him day and night. Then, one summer night when you knew he was alone, you went up to his house.
When he opened the door and saw you, he didn't have a chance, did he?"
Conway turned around and faced Bouchard.
"The extensive plastic surgery never removed all the scars," Bouchard continued.
"Every time he looked in the mirror, all he would see would be that day you kept smashing his face against the bathroom mirror, kept kicking him while he was on the ground, the way he curled up on the bathroom floor, crying and shaking, begging for you to stop. That earned you a one-year stint in a juvenile correction center. The parents would have pressed for a stiffer sentence if they hadn't just discovered that their son was busted at school for being a dealer. It's not the sort of thing one likes to advertise. Not in Newton, anyway."
"That was a long time ago," Conway said, his voice steady.
"I'm not proud of that moment."
"But you don't regret doing it, do you?"
"I'm not sure what you're asking me."
"If you can package your grief and rage on John Riley's death, if you can keep your head clear and focused, then I can use you in Boston."
"Boston?"
"Two days ago Echelon picked up a transmission from a cell phone. The message said, "The suit is useless to us without the decryption code.
Dixon doesn't know it. Pick Conway up." He believes you know the decryption code."
"But why would Angel Eyes want Riley " Conway's throat seized up at the thought of the word dead.
"His men were inside the lab, at Delburn they know Riley doesn't know the decryption code."
"It's payback for what happened inside the lab. More importantly, your friend's death keeps you out in the open, keeps you visible."
"What you need is for me to act as a lightning rod," Conway said.
"The bait to bring Angel Eyes in."
"He knows you'll be coming home for the funeral."
"And then he'll try to pick me up."
"If you don't want in, I understand. I can hide you so Angel Eyes will never be able to find you. But that won't stop him from striking again at what's closest to your heart."
"Book," Conway said. Jackson Booker, or Book, was now the only remaining member of Conway's self-labeled family. Booker and Pasha, the only two people left. If they were taken from him Don't think about it.
"I've got to call and warn Book," Conway said.
"This operation is classified, Stephen."
"I'm not going to leave him hanging in the wind."
"I've already put people on Booker and his family. They're being watched around the clock."
"So was Dixon."
"Stephen, I'm personally overseeing this operation. There will be no mistakes." The world had turned dark. The full moon's silver light sparkled on the slick black waters below like slivers of mirrored glass.
"You're the best shot to draw Angel Eyes out and to save Dixon. He's alive. They'll keep him alive until th
e suit is operational."
Bouchard reached inside his suit-jacket pocket and handed Con-way a small cell phone and a bulky white envelope bound with elastic. Conway opened the envelope and in the moonlight saw the cash, all one-hundred-dollar bills, and a plane ticket for Boston. The flight left early tomorrow morning.
"I can use your help, Stephen, but the decision is yours. You've already put your life on the line. God knows I'll understand if you say no."
Cowardice ranked right up there with stealing and lying. Conway had never run away or turned his back on anything in his life. He wasn't about to start now.
"I'm in."
"Jonathan Cole will be your handler," Bouchard said.
"He's already in Boston heading up the operation. His number is written on the back of your plane ticket. After the funeral is over, and once you feel settled, call him. You are to report to no one but him or me, understand?"
Conway nodded.
"On your belt, is that your Palm Pilot?"
"The detective, Rombardo, gave it back to me," Conway lied.
"Let me have it. Mr. Cole will provide you with a new one that's retrofitted with new transmitters and new features. He'll also provide you with new gear when you meet up with him in Boston."
Conway handed the Palm Pilot to Bouchard, who took it and then turned it over with both hands, staring at it like it was some weird, foreign contraption.
"I'm sorry about what happened to your friend," Bouchard said.
"I'm sure he meant the world to you."
Conway felt a heavy hand wrap around his neck, squeeze it in a fatherly fashion, and then drop away. He stood motionless, listening to the sound of Bouchard's shoes crunching across the gravel grow distant. A moment later there was only the wind. Confident he was alone, Conway surrendered himself to the cold truth, grateful for the darkness that hid him.
An hour until the flight back to Virginia, Raymond Bouchard parked the rental, a roomy Ford Explorer, in the most remote location at the airport, backing the SUV up against the wall so he could look out the front window and see anyone who might approach him. What he wanted was privacy. He removed the laptop from his briefcase and got to work.
Raymond had watched the video all the way through and had just started going through the pictures when his satellite phone rang. He placed the pictures on the passenger's seat, on top of his laptop and Stephen's Palm Pilot, and then picked up the phone and dialed the number. Next came the familiar deep, dry wheeze of Misha's voice.