by M. A. Lawson
“My people found several phone calls between Dylan Otis and Jamal Howard. We don’t have recordings, but we know that the calls were made. We couldn’t find any link between Fang and Howard, so it appears that Otis may have sent Howard to kill you.”
“Thanks,” Kay said. “Now will you tell me where Otis is?”
“He’s at a place called the Starlight Motel in Miami.”
“Miami?”
“Yes.”
“What’s he doing there?”
“I’m not sure, but he visited a man named Solomon Goldman, who owns a pawnshop there. According to the FBI, Goldman’s a well-connected guy, someone who can turn Otis’s gold into cash and get him a new ID. So my guess is that Otis is planning to get out of the country and Goldman is helping him.”
Kay looked away to hide her reaction to the bombshell that Prescott had just dropped. She wasn’t shocked that Otis was trying to flee the country; it was something else that Prescott had said.
“Is there anything else?” Kay said.
Prescott rose. “I don’t care what you do, Hamilton, as long as Otis isn’t arrested.” She turned to leave, then said, “Oh, I almost forgot.” She took a cell phone out of her purse and put it on the table in front of Kay. “That’s to replace the phone you put in Otis’s truck. Use it to call me, but only if you feel it’s absolutely necessary.”
Prescott left the café—but this time it was Kay’s eyes boring holes into Prescott’s back.
• • •
KAY LOOKED DOWN at the phone and thought, You treacherous cunt.
How had Prescott known that Otis had gold? She hadn’t told Prescott about it.
She must have heard them talking about it through the fucking iPhone she’d given her. Cell phones these days made it possible to not only track people but also to eavesdrop easily.
And that’s what Prescott must have done. When Kay caught up with Otis at Billy’s place, Kay remembered saying to Otis: I don’t care about you—you’re just hired help—and I don’t care about all that gold and cash on the coffee table.
So that must be how Prescott had known about the gold, but Kay suddenly had a bigger revelation: Prescott had been willing to let Otis and Billy kill her. Prescott must have known that she was in trouble, but instead of sending in the cops or the NSA to help her, she’d been willing to let her die.
• • •
PRESCOTT RETURNED to Fort Meade and called Beckman. “I’m e-mailing you a picture of a woman. She’ll show up at the motel where Otis is staying in the next few hours. Call me when you see her.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Prescott glanced at her watch. Even though it was almost ten p.m., she decided that now would be a good time to update her partners. She knew they wouldn’t care about the hour any more than she did, not when it came to Hamilton.
33
DAY 5—10 P.M.
Kay needed to get to Miami before Otis left the country, but she didn’t want her name on a flight manifest, and she knew that she couldn’t take a commercial flight with what she was planning to bring with her.
She left her cell phone and the NSA phone that Prescott had given her in her apartment, and took the stairs down to Eloise Voss’s place. Eloise would still be up; she was a night owl. She smiled when she saw Kay, then seeing the tense expression on Kay’s face, said, “You’re not here to borrow my new Beretta, are you?”
“No. I just need to use your phone.”
“Okay,” Eloise said. “I assume you can’t tell me why you can’t use your own phone.”
“I’m sorry,” Kay said, “but I can’t.”
“Okay,” Eloise said. “Do you need privacy?”
“Do you mind?” Kay asked.
Kay called Eli and told him what she needed: a charter flight to Miami that night. Callahan had a couple of charter outfits he used, but Kay didn’t know how to get hold of them. Eli would.
“What are you doing, Kay?” he asked.
“Eli, I don’t have time to tell you right now and I’m not using a secure phone.”
Her statement was greeted with silence.
“Eli, please. Just get me a plane.”
“Okay. But it may take a while at this time of night. I’ll call you when I’ve got something.”
“Don’t call my cell phone, Eli. Call me at this number.” She gave him Eloise’s number and hung up before he could ask more questions or change his mind.
She called out to Eloise that she was off the phone, and told her that she had to wait for a call back.
“Would you like a drink while you’re waiting?” Eloise said.
“Maybe some coffee,” Kay said. “No booze.”
“You lead an interesting life, young lady.”
Eloise made her a cup of coffee using one of those fancy machines that makes a single cup at a time, and poured a brandy for herself. Knowing Kay wouldn’t tell her what she was doing, Eloise said, “So how’s your daughter doing? I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“Eloise,” Kay said, “I swear when this is all over with I’m going to treat you to the best steak dinner in Washington.”
Forty minutes later, Eli called back and told her a charter flight was waiting for her at National.
Eli concluded the call by saying, “Be careful, Kay.”
Kay returned to her apartment and packed a knapsack. She tossed in enough clothes for a couple of days, but before she placed the clothes inside, she checked every item to make sure there weren’t listening or tracking devices sewn into a lining or disguised to look like a button. She also packed a wig with short dark hair, followed by her new Glock, a Taser, night-vision binoculars, and a jackknife with a four-inch blade. It was a good thing she was taking a charter flight.
The last things she tossed into the knapsack were a driver’s license and a few credit cards that belonged to a woman named Elle McDonald. Considering what she was planning to do, she didn’t want to use her real name or allow anyone to be able to prove she’d been in Miami. She had several sets of false identities from Callahan, but she also still had an alias from her time in the DEA. She’d gone undercover for a long period in Miami and still had the IDs she’d used, which were made out to one Elle McDonald. Although Prescott might know about her aliases from her time at the Callahan Group, Kay doubted that she would know about McDonald.
One thing she did not pack was her cell phone, and she certainly had no intention of taking the cell phone that Prescott had given her. She took the NSA iPhone and placed it in front of the clock radio beside her bed and tuned the radio so that the only sound coming out of the speaker was irritating static. She was hoping that the NSA would think that the iPhone had malfunctioned—and if not, she would at least drive whoever was monitoring her insane.
She took a cab to National Airport, and the plane took off twenty minutes later. The only people on board were Kay and two handsome young pilots. No one searched her before she boarded.
34
DAY 5—11 P.M.
Prescott once again arrived first at the room in the Key Bridge Marriott.
Lincoln arrived next. He was dressed in a suit and tie, which made Prescott wonder if there was some CIA op happening that required him to burn the midnight oil at Langley. Grayson arrived five minutes later, dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, both spattered with paint.
“Okay,” she said. “It appears that Callahan is going to make it. I had one of our doctors take a look at his electronic medical records, and he says Callahan’s improving and he’ll recover completely unless something drastic happens.”
“Thank God,” Grayson said.
“How long will that take?” Lincoln asked.
Prescott shrugged. “Probably a month before he’s able to function normally, but since all he does is sit at a desk, he may be able to come back to work sooner than that.
”
“What about Hamilton?” Lincoln asked.
“She’s the reason I called this meeting. Hamilton has tracked down the people who stole the safe from Callahan’s office. She’s killed a second one.”
“Jesus,” Grayson muttered.
“She’s also identified the leader of the group, a bank robber named Dylan Otis. She planted a cell phone in Otis’s vehicle, and we’ve tracked him to Miami. Hamilton also knows that Fang Zhou was the one who hired Otis.”
“For God’s sake, Olivia,” Lincoln said.
“Hey! Don’t you dare take that tone with me. You wouldn’t have been able to control that woman either.”
Lincoln made an expression that Prescott interpreted as: Well, I don’t know about that—and she felt like hitting him.
“I’ve told Hamilton that she has to leave Fang Zhou alone,” Prescott said.
“Do you think she will?” Grayson said.
“Yes,” Prescott said. “I think she understands the importance of not exposing the operation involving Winston. The problem, however, is that Hamilton wants . . . Hell, I guess she wants justice. She wants someone to pay for killing the innocents, people like Sally Ann Danzinger and the men who worked for Callahan.”
“So what are you going to do?” Lincoln asked.
“I gave her Otis’s location.”
“She’ll kill him,” Grayson said.
“Yes, Grayson, she’ll kill him. And who cares if she does? At least this way she’s less likely to go after Fang.”
“But then what?” Lincoln said. “We still have the problem that Hamilton knows—or thinks she knows—that you’re controlling Callahan.”
“I think,” Prescott said, “that what Grayson said the last time we met was correct, that Hamilton won’t expose me and she’ll never talk about the Callahan Group.”
“Well, I’m really glad to hear you say that,” Grayson said.
“I’ll have to admit that I’ve come to admire Hamilton,” Prescott said with a straight face. “It would be a shame to lose her.” She rose, signaling an end to the meeting. “So, gentlemen, we’ll soon be back to business as usual.”
Olivia Prescott was an excellent liar. She had no intention of telling Lincoln and Grayson what she had planned for Hamilton. What they didn’t seem to understand—particularly Grayson—was that Hamilton posed a threat to her personally that she couldn’t allow to stand.
35
DAY 5—11 P.M.
As Kay was wending her way toward Miami, and while Olivia Prescott was meeting with her partners, Fang Zhou was speaking with his wife in Beijing, where it was eleven in the morning. His wife said, as she always did, that she missed him terribly and wanted to know when he’d be home again. He, in turn, said he missed her, too, and that he wasn’t sure when his horrible boss would permit him to return. She then told him he needed to speak to his son.
His son was permitted to play his video games for one hour a day but had been violating this rule and had been disrespectful toward his mother when she scolded him. Fang told her to put the boy on the phone. He said stern, fatherly things to him—how his studies came first and that disrespecting his mother was not to be tolerated—but his heart wasn’t in it. They then talked about his son’s performance on his soccer team; he was an excellent player and might one day be good enough for the national team.
After he’d spoken to his family, he checked the Internet again for news of Kay Hamilton. He’d been hoping to find confirmation of her death, but so far there hadn’t been a report of a murder at her address. Ten minutes later, he found out why.
“It’s me,” Jamal said when Fang answered his phone. Fang recognized Jamal’s voice.
“What can I do for you?” Fang said.
“We need to meet again. My ass is in a crack.”
“Does that mean you failed to complete the job I paid you for?”
“We need to meet,” Jamal said, evading the question.
“All right,” Fang said.
“Where?” Jamal said.
“Let me think.” He paused and then said, “Do you remember the park where we met once, the one by the river.” Fang meant the same dilapidated park where he’d killed James Parker.
“Yeah, I remember. How soon can you get there?”
“I can leave immediately,” Fang said.
• • •
AT MIDNIGHT, Fang pulled into the parking lot of the park near the Anacostia River. He saw only one other car: a black Honda with shiny hubcaps and one of those absurd spoilers on the trunk, like the Honda was an Indy racer. His headlights revealed Jamal in the driver’s seat. Fang parked and joined Jamal in the Honda.
“What’s the problem?” he asked.
“I fucked up,” Jamal said. “I went to take care of that bitch, but I was arrested inside her apartment building.”
“Arrested for what? Attempted murder?”
“No. For carrying an unregistered weapon. This old lady saw me and . . . Never mind the fuckin’ details.”
Jamal was too embarrassed to admit that a woman in her seventies had gotten the drop on him. He still couldn’t believe the old woman had been packing a gun.
“I see,” Fang said. “Do the police know why you were carrying a gun?”
“Shit no. I didn’t tell them anything. I sure as shit didn’t tell them you sent me.”
“Good,” Fang said. He believed him. Jamal was too street savvy to tell the police anything. On the other hand, what if the police connected him to Danzinger’s murder? Would Jamal give him up then?
Jamal had suddenly become a liability.
“There’s no way I’m doing time, so I’m going to skip town before the trial. The D.C. cops won’t try that hard to find me. It’s just a fuckin’ gun charge.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is the bondsman. My bail was set at fifty grand, and if I skip, he’ll come after me. He’s a tough motherfucker and he’s smart, so he might find me. I need to give him fifty Gs to keep him from coming after me, which is pretty much all the cash I got. So I need money. Enough to take off for a while, enough to live on until things cool down.”
“I see,” Fang said again. He wondered what Jamal had done with all the money he’d already paid him. Fang reached into one of his jacket pockets, and Jamal stiffened and reached toward his waist.
Fang pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and Jamal relaxed and said, “Aw, man, please don’t smoke in my ride.”
“Okay,” Fang said, and he put the cigarette pack back in his pocket and when his hand came back out it was holding the small .380 he’d been carrying. He pulled the trigger once, shooting Jamal in the side, then pulled it three more times. The last shot he fired was into Jamal’s head.
Jamal had become a complication he didn’t need.
36
DAY 6—6 A.M.
Kay’s charter flight had landed in Miami at about five a.m. She rented a car using the Elle McDonald ID and drove straight to the Starlight Motel. She didn’t know which room Otis was in, but saw a black Toyota Tundra with a crew cab in the parking lot. She was certain it was Otis’s truck, even though it had Florida license plates. She thought about finding out Otis’s room number, then decided not to. It was too risky to approach him in a crowded motel. She’d have to wait for him to leave.
She didn’t know if Otis was an early riser or not, but she decided to take the chance that he wasn’t. She drove to a nearby 7-Eleven, ate a hot breakfast sandwich, and stocked up on water, Coke, and a couple of sandwiches. She had no idea how long she’d be watching Otis. She also bought a Miami Heat baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses with large black frames.
She drove back to the Starlight Motel wearing the black wig she’d brought with her and the Miami Heat ball cap and sunglasses. From her parking spot she could see Otis’s Tundra, h
alf the rooms in the motel, and a gated area around a small swimming pool. She hoped that Otis would leave the motel soon and drive to some isolated place where she could deal with him.
Later, she thought, Be careful what you wish for.
• • •
OTIS WOKE UP AT NINE, feeling fairly good. His knee still ached, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been. He peeled off the bandage the fat nurse had applied; the wound looked awful—the crude stiches, the swelling, an actual divot where part of his knee was missing—but it wasn’t bleeding and it wasn’t oozing pus. He rebandaged it to keep it clean and so he wouldn’t have to look at it.
He dressed in some of the new clothes he’d gotten the day before. Since it was Florida in July, he chose a sleeveless T-shirt, cargo shorts, and flip-flops. He left the motel, leaning on the cane; he wasn’t able to run or even walk very far, but at least he could get around. There was a diner only a block from the motel and he decided to walk there. That turned out to be a huge mistake. It took him fifteen minutes to get there, and by the time he arrived he was drenched with sweat and his knee felt like it was on fire.
After breakfast, he’d go back to the motel and wait. That’s all he could do. Wait for his new ID and for the cash from Goldman. That almost made him smile: Goldman the gold man.
• • •
KAY WATCHED OTIS hobble toward a diner using a cane. He was obviously in pain, and that made her smile. Even better, the knee injury made Otis less mobile and gave her an advantage when it came to a fight. And there was going to be a fight.
• • •
BECKMAN CALLED PRESCOTT.
“I think she’s here,” Beckman said. “The woman whose picture you sent me.”
“What do you mean, you think?” Prescott said.
“I mean it’s hard to be sure. She’s wearing big sunglasses and a baseball cap, and her hair’s black and not blond like it is in the picture. But it looks like her. She’s parked in a car about half a block from the motel, and she’s been there since about seven this morning.”