She felt the muscles tense beneath his windbreaker. “I’ll figure that part out as I go.”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said.
“For what?”
“For getting you mixed up in this,” she said. “Sorry for everything. I made a mess and I dragged you right down into the middle of it.”
He shrugged. “I would have done the same.”
Sam glanced along the snow-covered sidewalk at Duval still huddled on the bench. “Think he’ll come around?”
Noble followed her gaze. “I’m not holding my breath. He’s motivated by fear. Scared people make bad decisions.”
“What motivates you?”
Noble’s brow furrowed and his dark eyes scanned the surface of the lake, lost in thought. His chewed the inside of one cheek while he pondered the question. It was likely something he’d never considered before, at least not in so many words, not consciously anyway. Sam knew she had struck a chord. And she knew the answer to the question even if Jake didn’t. He was motivated by some powerful internal compass that only he could read—a moral code printed on the walls of his heart—and he followed the promptings without regard for countries, politics, or institutions.
He turned to her and their eyes met. Sam felt herself being pulled down into deep pools. He opened his mouth to speak, but his eyes jumped to a spot over her left shoulder. “Looks like he made up his mind.”
Sam felt like a balloon with all the air let out of it. She turned and saw Duval shuffling along the sidewalk. Rotten timing as usual.
He stopped in front of them, stuck his inhaler in his mouth, and took a drag. He gave it a good shake, tried again, then stuffed the empty inhaler back in his pocket. “Alright,” he said. “I’m in. What do you need me to do?”
Chapter Sixty-Five
Women use the restroom roughly every seven seconds, or so it seemed to Ezra, who was back in his cubicle on the first floor pretending to work. In reality, he was watching the door to the women’s room and keeping a mental head count. He needed to sneak inside and get the thumb drive before someone found it, or accidentally tossed it in the garbage, but for every one woman who came out, two more went in, usually in pairs.
Butterflies zipped around inside his stomach at the thought of walking into a women’s restroom. The doors were situated in a hall which opened directly onto the sea of cubicles where anyone could see who was coming and going. The risk was huge, but one he had to take. He needed that thumb drive and the files it contained. It was the only evidence. Without those files, it was Ezra’s word against Coughlin’s.
Dark circles ringed his eyes and his clothes were wrinkled. He hadn’t slept. Instead he spent the whole night watching the street below his apartment. A dark sedan had followed him home from the hospital and when he got to his building, Ezra found his front door open. He had hovered in the hall for what felt like an hour, listening for any sounds from inside. After a few deep breaths, he worked up the courage to enter. Someone had turned his place inside out. The sofa cushions were slashed, drawers were emptied, and several of his collectible action figures lay broken on the floor.
After checking to be sure the apartment was empty, Ezra had wedged his ruined sofa in front of the door and spent the hours until dawn standing at the window with a gun in his hand.
The restless night had taken its toll and now Ezra could barely keep his eyes open. His coat was rumpled, his tie was missing, and he hadn’t shaved. His lips moved silently as he did arithmetic in his head.
Forty-nine cubicles on this wing and six offices. Twenty-seven female employees. It seemed like a statistical impossibility that the restroom would be empty at any given time. It was 5:15 a.m. Fourteen of the women had been to the toilet already. Five had been twice. And Carol Peters had been three times.
There were four women in the restroom at the moment. Ezra twirled a pen and clicked it repeatedly. Click-click-click. His tongue was a dried-out slug suction-cupped to the roof of his mouth. He rocked in his chair and willed the women to finish up and get out. The door swung open. One woman emerged as another two got up and threaded their way between cubicles.
Ezra wanted to scream in frustration. How much coffee did they drink? The two women going in met two coming out. That left three. Ezra planted his feet and readied himself to move.
While he waited, the elevator doors rolled open and a cleaning man pushed a cart to the nearest cubicle. He was a small man in coveralls with a neatly trimmed goatee and thick spectacles. He emptied the trash from the cubicles into a specialized receptacle on his trolley. It had a flanged trap that allowed rubbish to be pushed in but not taken out. When the receptacle was full, it was taken down to the basement and incinerated. The design prevented anyone using trash to pass classified intelligence.
One of the women came out of the restroom, trailing toilet paper from her heel. She was tall with a lot of blonde hair and too much makeup. She gave Ezra a baleful look on her way past. It was a look that said all men are the same, but some are lower than others. Ezra knew which side of that equation he landed on.
He triggered the pen. Click-click-click.
Two women remained in the bathroom. The maintenance man moved along the outside row of cubicles, emptying trashcans and running a small shop vac whenever he found a mess that needed cleaning. He made his way toward the hall, stopped his trolley outside the men’s room door, and unfolded a yellow plastic sandwich board that read Closed for Maintenance.
Sweat broke out on Ezra’s brow. Would the janitor clean inside the women’s room? Or was there a woman for that? Ezra had never bothered to find out. He thought back over the last several months and couldn’t remember ever seeing female cleaning staff.
He worked the pen. Click-click-click.
One of the women came out of the restroom door, talking over her shoulder. The other must be at the sinks, almost ready to leave as well.
Ezra stood. Fear flooded his limbs. He had to force one foot in front of the other. He still held the pen and he dropped it on an empty desk as he passed. A bead of sweat trailed down his cheek. The breath caught in his chest. He was halfway across the office. The cleaning man propped open the men’s room door and went to work with his shop-vac. The steady drone of the vacuum drowned out the friendly chatter of an early morning at the office.
Ezra was almost at the door when the last woman emerged. Now was his chance. He glanced around, made sure no one was watching, then darted inside.
Right away he noticed the smell was better than the men’s room. It smelled like lemon scented air freshener instead of armpit. You wouldn’t want to wear it as cologne, but it didn’t make you gag either. Was the cleaning crew responsible for that? Or did women themselves take care of it, he wondered?
He closed the door behind him, quickly crossed to the second stall on the left-hand side and locked himself in. The small metal box that housed the toilet paper was locked, but Ezra set to work with a pair of paperclips. Dark circles formed under his arms. His fingers trembled. He expected the door to bang open and hear a loud voice demanding to know what he was doing in the women’s room. The lock finally turned. Ezra jerked open the housing and reached behind the half-finished roll of toilet paper. His fingers closed on the thumb drive. Relief flooded through him and a grin spread over his face.
Ezra pocketed the thumb drive, let himself out of the stall, and crossed the bathroom floor. Almost home free! A surge of victory swelled up in his chest. He reached for the door handle, yanked, and was staring into the eyes of a middle-aged woman. Her eyebrows crept up her forehead and her lips parted in an unspoken question.
Ezra cleared his throat, slid past her into the hall, and gave the only excuse that came to mind. “I self-identify as a woman.”
Chapter Sixty-Six
Burke arrived late to work the next morning and found a message from the Director. She wanted to see him as soon as he got in. His first thought was the situation in France. They had either gone through the wreckage and found three
bodies, or none at all. Either way, Burke’s stomach twisted up in knots. Good thing he’d skipped breakfast. Five minutes later, he was sitting in Armstrong’s office, waiting for her to finish up in the bathroom.
A manila file folder laid on the massive desk along with a framed picture of a gawky teenager in braces and pigtails, bearing a striking resemblance to Armstrong.
Burke listened to the sink running and his mind raced through all the possibilities. Would she have asked for a face-to-face if they were alive? Maybe. Probably not, Burke told himself. Either Sam, or Noble, or both were dead. Armstrong had called him into the office to break the news personally. A tight fist cramped down on his guts. They were his recruits, his responsibility. Burke thought of them as his children. He took a deep breath and prepared himself for the worst.
The sink turned off. The bathroom door opened and Armstrong circled around behind her desk. She had her hair up in a bun and held in place with a plastic clip. Her jacket and skirt were pinstriped and immaculately pressed.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said.
“No problem.”
Armstrong sat down, picked up the file folder and her brow creased.
Oh, dear Lord in heaven, they’re both dead, thought Burke.
Armstrong passed the folder to him.
He flipped it open and a lead weight came down on his chest like an anvil. He was staring at a black and white surveillance photo of him and Dana together on her porch. For a moment, Burke was sure he was having a heart attack.
He finally found his words. “You had me tailed?”
“I made it perfectly clear my first day on the job, I was here to put the Company back on the straight and narrow,” Armstrong said. “I expected more of you. Wizard vouched for you, said you were one of the best. Now I have to question his judgement as well. What were you thinking? How long did you think you could get away with it?”
“I guess I’ve got some explaining to do,” Burke said.
“I wish you would,” she said. “You’re a married man sleeping with your secretary, and you know the policy on inter-office romance. What if one of our enemies had found out about this? They’d be using the information to blackmail you right now. For that matter, how do I know that hasn’t happened already?”
Burke closed the file. The photos threw a spotlight on his infidelity. Seeing them somehow made it worse and Armstrong’s disappointment hurt more than the shame of being caught.
Growing up in Savannah, Matt’s grandmother had dragged him to church every Sunday. He vividly remembered sweating through his button-down shirt and the feel of the hard wooden pews while a Baptist preacher spit fire and brimstone. “Your sins, brothers and sisters, will find you out! Yes, sir! Make no mistake. You think it’s a secret but the Loooord knows, brothers and sisters. He sees! And your sins will find you out! On the day of the LOOORD, Jeeeesus will shine a light on your sins! Can I get an Amen?”
The idea of his sins finding him out had terrified young Burke. In those days, he had dreaded Nanna Momma finding out he stole a stick of gum from the Woolworth’s counter. Or that he had cheated off Charlotte Bridger’s math test. As he got older, that fear got lost along the way. The idea of sin and salvation seemed to dull with time and experience. People did bad things all the time and no one ever found out. Working for the CIA, Burke knew this better than most. But his sins had found him out at last, just like the old preacher said they would.
Burke cleared his throat and said, “I messed up.”
Armstrong leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “That’s all you got for me? ‘I messed up?’”
Burke placed the file on her desk. “What else is there to say? I made a mistake. If I could go back in time, I’d handle it differently, but I can’t.”
Armstrong let out a frustrated sigh.
“If someone has to be punished,” Burke said, “it should be me. Dana is young. She’s got her whole life ahead of her. Don’t take this out on her. It’s my fault. I instigated it.”
“Funny. She said the same thing.”
“She’s good at her job,” Burke said. “She’s got a bright career ahead of her. Don’t destroy it because of one indiscretion.”
“Noted,” said Armstrong. “Do you have anything else to offer?”
He shook his head.
Armstrong picked up the folder and tapped the edge of the desk with it. “You’ve got a long history with the CIA, Burke, but I can’t let this slide.”
He gripped the arms of his chair. His legs felt disconnected from his body. The walls of the office seemed to expand and Burke felt like a tiny man sitting in a chair much too big for him. He realized it was like being a nine-year-old boy, his feet dangling off the edge of a hard wooden pew, sweating through his Sunday best. His sins had found him out.
Armstrong’s face was hard, but her eyes had compassion. “I always have need of good operators with field experience, so I’m going to give you a choice.”
Burke felt himself nod and heard words coming out of his mouth. “I’m listening.”
“You can contest this and it’ll get dragged out into the light. There will be an investigation and your reputation will be ruined,” Armstrong said, “Or you can turn in your resignation and walk away with your dignity intact. Set up a private intelligence agency and I’ll send work your way whenever I need something kept off the record.”
Burke snapped back to the present. “You want me to be a mercenary?”
“I believe the official term is private contractor.” She held his gaze without flinching. “Either way, it’ll allow you to take early retirement and collect a few paychecks on the side.”
Burke almost laughed. He had made Jake the same offer two years earlier and Jake had been in no position to refuse. Now the tables had turned. With his marriage falling apart and a divorce on the horizon, early pension wouldn’t cover the cost of living. Burke had no choice. He nodded. “I’ll have my resignation on your desk by the end of the day.”
Armstrong fed the folder through a shredder under her desk. The motor whirred to life and turned the photos into confetti. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry it came to this.”
“I made my choices,” Burke said, as if that settled the matter. He still felt disconnected from his body. Part of him kept expecting to wake up in a cold sweat and realize it was all a dream. He stood up and went to the door.
“Oh, Burke,” Armstrong said. “One more thing.”
He stopped with his hand on the knob.
“They went through the church and didn’t find any bodies,” she told him. “What do you make of that?”
“For what it’s worth,” he said, using her own words, “Jake Noble was one of the best field officers I ever trained. We lost something special when we lost Jake.”
She leaned back in her seat, considered the statement and nodded. “I’ll bear it in mind.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Grey paced the grimy safehouse in Paris, his hands stuffed in his pockets and a frown lining his face. The aging wood floor creaked underfoot and the stink from the bathroom filled the apartment. It had taken them most of the night to sift through the ashes and realize there were no bodies. Duval was in the wind, probably halfway to Kotor by now. His laptop and passwords were gone with him, along with any hope of finding out the name of his failsafe. The rodent was loose in Grey’s belly again, gnawing at his guts. Grey hadn’t slept all night and he could use a good stiff drink, but that would only make the pain in his stomach worse.
Preston was perched on a windowsill, changing the dressing on his hand. The ugly burn had turned raw and gave off a putrid stench like rotting flesh. Without looking up, he said, “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Grey admitted.
“You were the one who convinced me to throw in with Coughlin and Bonner, remember?” Preston said. “You said it would be so easy. We’d make a pile of cash and no one would ever find out. That’s what you said. Now what the
hell are we going to do?”
“Give me time to think,” Grey said.
They had people in Montenegro, but no one had reported seeing anyone matching Duval’s description. Ditto Gunn or Noble. All three had disappeared.
“I’m running,” Preston said. He finished wrapping his hand and stood up. “I’m going today. Right now, in fact.”
“Where would you go?” Grey spread his hands. “The CIA will eventually find us.”
“Duval managed to disappear,” Preston pointed out.
Grey flashed him an annoyed look. “For now. But he can’t stay invisible forever.”
Preston said, “I’m not waiting around for him to expose us. I’m cleaning out my accounts and making a run for it.”
He started for the door.
“Sit down,” Grey ordered.
When Preston didn’t stop, Grey jerked the pistol from his waistband. “I said sit down.”
Preston stopped, his hand on the knob. “You going to shoot me, Grey?”
“If I have to.”
Preston stood there several seconds, staring down the dark aperture of the Sig Sauer. After a minute, he took his hand off the knob, crossed the room and dropped into a swivel chair. “The Cypher Punk release is tomorrow at noon. That gives us less than twenty-four hours to find Duval, learn the name of his failsafe, and eliminate him before proof of our little private enterprise is all over the web.”
“If we scatter, it’ll only confirm our guilt,” Grey told him. “Duval hasn’t released anything yet. We’ve still got time to figure this out, but we have to stay calm and use our heads.”
Preston snorted. “What’s your plan then?”
Grey perched himself on the edge of the desk and crossed his arms, gun still in hand. “Maybe it’s time to flip the script?”
Preston leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. “I’m listening.”
“Coughlin threatened to hang this whole thing around our necks. What if we beat him to the punch? He’s been running side operations and we’ve been doing all his dirty work.” Grey stood up and went back to pacing. “The way I figure it, we can pin the whole thing on him and claim we had no idea the orders weren’t coming direct from the top.”
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