Run for Cover

by Michael Ledwidge

  “You can take the girl out of LA, huh,” Amy said, giving her a wink. “I already gave you the Wi-Fi. Anything else, Kit?”

  “No, I’m set. You’re the best, Amy.”

  Kit smiled at her old friend’s back as she left, feeling somewhat guilty. She hated telling a lie. She looked down at her phone vibrating atop the cheap table and saw it was Sinclair calling back.

  Well, at least to a good person, she thought as she picked it up.

  65

  “Kit, hey. Skype is in the building here. How’s things on your end?” Sinclair said.

  “Getting there,” Kit said, folding open her laptop and plugging it in.

  “Great,” Sinclair said as Kit typed in the office Wi-Fi password Amy had given her.

  Kit clicked on the link that was waiting on the website and suddenly Sinclair appeared on the screen, waving at her from behind his desk. She looked at his tie. His hairstyle was even shorter and blander now. He’d gotten it cut, she realized.

  “There you are, Kit. Ta-da, the magic of modern technology, huh?” he said.

  She looked at his eyes. There were bags under them. He was aging right before her eyes.

  “Woo-hoo,” Kit said quietly, turning off her phone as she sat.

  “So tell me,” Sinclair said, putting his chin on his palm. “How the heck did you end up in Denver, Kit? Last time we spoke, you had your head in a paint tray at home or something.”

  “I’m glad you asked, Francis,” Kit said, grinning as she stared into his eyes. “It’s a funny story. The second I hung up with you, an old girlfriend of mine called and asked me to be her maid of honor. She lives over here in Colorado Springs, and her original maid of honor bailed at the last second. Pain in my butt, but an hour later, I was on a plane. I thought I could get back in time, but I missed my flight. Can you believe all that?”

  The blank expression on Sinclair’s stressed face seemed to indicate a no to that one.

  But he liked to lie, too, didn’t he? Kit thought. Through his shiny perfect teeth.

  “Get out! A last-second maid of honor? That’s something else. But wait, you weren’t invited to the wedding originally?”

  “Oh, I was invited, but I decided not to go what with getting shot and all,” Kit said, nodding. “But she was a good friend once and she was in a bind.”

  She looked Sinclair in the eye.

  “You know how important that is, right, Francis? Loyalty to friends?” she said.

  “Of course. I get it,” the weasel said, looking away.

  Yeah, right, Kit thought. You don’t get shit.

  Sinclair checked his watch.

  Not a Rolex yet, she noted, but he was trying, wasn’t he?

  “Listen, Kit. Turns out you’re not the only one running late to the meeting. It’s actually going to be another half an hour before the rest of the crew gets here.”

  “Perfect,” Kit said. “I’ll grab a cup of coffee. Reconnect at, let’s say, nine forty-five? Or text me if it’s sooner. How’s that sound?”

  “Um,” he said.

  “Um what, Francis?”

  “Nothing. Okay. Perfect. Half an hour,” he said. “I’ll text you.”

  Kit stood and took a deep breath.

  Phase one, check mark, she thought.

  Now for the fuzzy part.

  Amy wasn’t at her desk when Kit got to it, but when she turned she saw her friend coming down the cubicle lane with a new ream of printer paper in her hands.

  “Hey, Kit? What’s up?”

  “Amy,” Kit said checking her watch. “I hate to bother you even more, but it turns out there’s actually some classified information my team needs to share with me. You guys have a SCIF here, right?”

  Amy blinked at her. There was a puzzled look on her face.

  “Yes, I think so. I heard it’s up on fourteen next to the SAC’s office. Your case is going that deep, huh? Counterintelligence deep?”

  Kit nodded.

  “What’s the protocol for using the SCIF? Do we need to talk to the SAC or something? I’ve never even been in one.”

  “I have no idea,” Amy said. “I never had to use it myself. Let’s stick our heads into my boss’s office and see.”

  66

  Down on the street on the corner of 17th and Champa, Gannon sat at a red light, lightly drumming his fingers on the Armada’s wheel.

  He watched as a young bearded dude pedaling a city rental bike went by in the crosswalk followed by a nice-looking young mom in yoga pants pushing a stroller. Beyond them on the southeast corner, a helpful city worker in a neon-yellow jacket was changing out the bag on the corner trash barrel.

  “I could live here,” Gannon said to himself with a nod as the light went green and he wheeled a slow turn past a corner pool hall.

  Declan and I could buy an apartment here and move in and never look back.

  From the moment Kit had gone into the federal building, Gannon had started looping and re-looping Denver’s central business district, and he was actually quite impressed. The light was spectacular, for one thing. It was extremely clean and easy to move around, and there was parking everywhere. It was mostly new buildings, but if you liked architecture, there was an old opera house and several old hotels and banks and the courthouses.

  The square grid blocks reminded Gannon of his old stomping grounds of Manhattan, only with about ninety-eight thousand percent less traffic. It had all the shopping and the feel of a real city but unlike his old hometown, it wasn’t falling apart at the seams. He didn’t spot even one rat.

  He was on 14th Street coming along the opera house pavilion when he lifted his cup and noticed he was out of coffee. He was right by the opera house entrance and when he looked forward, he saw the neon sign of a coffee cup in a shop window up ahead.

  “You have to be kidding me,” Gannon said as he saw there was an actual free parking spot right out in front of it.

  Gannon laughed as he parked and got out, trying to imagine the odds of finding a free parking spot on Broadway out in front of Lincoln Center in the middle of a workday.

  He was heading back out of the coffee joint with a large paper cup of Italian roast, still marveling at how clean the restroom was, when he looked through the glass door and suddenly halted.

  Then instead of heading out, he turned on his heel and decided to get back on line again.

  Because something was wrong.

  Across the street, there was the guy in an EMT uniform and there was something not right about him. He was a short broad-shouldered guy just standing there with his wide back to the coffee shop.

  Gannon had to stop himself from snapping his finger as he suddenly realized it.

  “Can I help you...again?” said the same coffee clerk he’d dealt with two minutes before.

  Gannon stood there wide-eyed, staring at him. Then he glanced out of the corner of his eye again back out through the glass.

  It was his build, Gannon thought. Five-seven or so with the same broad shoulders and the hunched way he stood. It was him. It was actually him.

  The guy from the strip club parking lot video he and Kit had watched over and over again.

  “Sir? Can I help you?” said the clerk again.

  Why in the name of all things holy is Tracy Sandhurst’s killer across the damn street?

  “Yeah, uh, you guys have donuts?” Gannon said.

  “Sure do. What kind?” the clerk said.

  “Forget it,” Gannon said as he turned and headed quickly out the door.

  The fake EMT guy started moving just as Gannon came back out the door. He began to walk in parallel with him across the street.

  Every and all of Gannon’s doubts were erased as he watched him walk in his peripheral vision. He had the same slight hitch-and-roll gait, the same slight sideways swing of his right
foot.

  Gannon was climbing back into the Armada when he saw Tracy’s killer get into the white-and-orange ambulance across the street to his rear on the corner. The ambulance had just pulled past him and he was just about to pull out behind it when he glanced back into the mirror and noticed the idling silver Suburban on the corner of the next block directly behind him.

  There were two formidable-looking men in the front seat. The black guy driving had a full beard and a Detroit Tigers ball cap and next to him was a square-jawed bald white guy.

  Gannon looked at the white guy’s no-nonsense expression. His bald head resembled that of a ball-peen hammer. They were both wearing sunglasses so you couldn’t tell where they were looking.

  Couple of heavy-duty customers, Gannon thought, taking in their aura of menace. Plus at least two more in the ambulance. Two teams.

  If not more.

  Gannon tapped his fingers on the wheel, feeling an actual chill in his spine as he realized what the hell he was in the middle of now.

  “Here we go again,” he said as he turned the Armada’s engine over with a roar.

  67

  Maniscalco had just Zippo-ed up another Marlboro when he got the beep from Westergaard.

  “Where are you now?” his South African boss said in his snotty accent.

  “We’re in Canada,” Maniscalco yelled as he clacked the Zippo closed. “Where do you think? Did the link go down? Me and Davies are in front of him back near the highway. Patchell and Davenport are behind him. We keep leapfrogging him. He just keeps driving the hell around.”

  “Wait, he’s slowing down,” Davies said from behind the ambulance’s wheel.

  “He make you?” Westergaard said.

  “Give me a second with all the questions here. Jeez,” Maniscalco said, turning as they pulled over.

  “Shit, you’re right. He’s stopping now. What is that place, Charlie?” he said to Davies.

  “I don’t know. There’s a neon cross,” Davies said. “A church? No, it’s a homeless shelter. Look, he’s parked right out in front of it. Now he’s getting out.”

  “What’s this clown doing?” Maniscalco said as they watched him head inside. “Making a fricking donation?”

  “Get back out on foot, Maniscalco,” Westergaard said.

  “Me again? On foot. I only got one! Get Davies to do it. I’m the gimp, remember?”

  “Manny’s right. Send in Davies,” Davenport said from the other car that had pulled over across the street from shelter. “Davies could pass for a stumble bum easy.”

  “Hold up,” Maniscalco said. “None of us can go in. Are you kidding me? It’s all bums in there. He’ll see us in a second.”

  “Shut up,” Westergaard commanded. “All of you. I don’t care. One of you get the hell in there now.”

  “I got this,” Patchell said in his Texas accent from the Suburban.

  “That’s the spirit, Patchell,” Maniscalco said. “Show us how it’s done.”

  They watched the six-foot-three bald mercenary get out of the Suburban and cross the street and head inside. He wasn’t in there two minutes before they saw the people running out. There had to be twenty homeless men yelling and laughing as they ran.

  “What in the hell did you do, Patchell?” Maniscalco said. “Flash your johnson at them? Why are they all running?”

  “How should I know?” the Texan said.

  Maniscalco hopped out of the ambulance and entered into the fray of the running men on the sidewalk. He almost clotheslined one of the homeless guys as he rode him down to the concrete against a fence.

  “What the hell, man? What the hell?” the bum said.

  He was a skinny little man. He was about sixty years old and smelled like piss and had maybe two teeth.

  “PD,” Maniscalco said. “What the hell are you doing? Why are you all running?”

  “For the money, man,” the bum said.

  “What money?”

  “White homeboy just came in the shelter handing out hundreds if we race around the block. Whoever wins gonna get two thousand,” he said.

  “You have to be shitting me,” Maniscalco said, letting the guy go. “You picking this up?” Maniscalco said. “You watching this skid row marathon with that eye in the sky? I’m not Sun Tzu like you, Westergaard, but I’m thinking this is some sort of diversionary tactic here.”

  “Manny’s right,” Patchell said from inside. “He made us.”

  “How can you be sure?” Westergaard said.

  “Because there’s some drunk old dude in here wearing the target’s gray suit jacket,” Patchell said.

  68

  Dawn Warner sat at the conference table staring at her phone.

  “Hello,” Sinclair said from it.

  “What’s going on?” she said.

  “I’m still waiting for my team here to get the meeting going.”

  “Where’s Hagen?”

  “She went to get a cup of coffee.”

  “You don’t have eyes on her?”

  “Not right this second.”

  “Is the Skype connection on?”

  “Yes, but it’s just showing her empty chair.”

  “For how long?”

  “Ten, twenty minutes now. Why? What’s up?” Sinclair said.

  “Moment to moment, remember, Francis? Moment to moment! Twenty minutes? Are you crazy?”

  “I’m doing everything you said,” Sinclair said. “I can’t have a meeting without my team, can I? First you said she wasn’t coming, so I told my guys to forget the meeting. My closest guys are up in Baltimore, and they’re stuck in traffic coming back.”

  Warner felt it in her gut then. Something was off. Hagen was bluffing them. The bold little bitch was doing something, playing some kind of game. What kind she didn’t know. Only that it was bad news.

  “Get on her now, Sinclair. Call her. You need to maintain eye contact with her in that building at all freaking times.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so. Listen closely to the words that come out of my mouth and do what I say. That’s your job. I want her in front of that Skype camera now.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m texting her.”

  Dawn Warner picked up a whiteboard marker and began stabbing its cap into her palm as she paced back and forth.

  “What’s up, Boss?” said Fitzgerald sheepishly.

  “Screw it,” Dawn Warner said as she began to stab the marker repeatedly into her thigh.

  Her gut didn’t lie. Had never failed her. Twenty minutes was too long. Her gut was telling her they needed to talk to Denver. Dicey or not, they needed to bring Denver in on this.

  She suddenly flung the marker across the conference table as hard as she could. It sailed off the other end and clicked off a filing cabinet before it landed in the corner wastebasket with a bright clang.

  She hit the button on the phone for her secretary.

  “Yes?”

  “Roberta, get me the Denver Special Agent in Charge now.”

  69

  The claustrophobic inside of the bright antiseptic white-walled SCIF had the feel of a high-tech confessional.

  Or a high-tech prison cell, Kit thought grimly as she clicked shut the thin metal door behind her.

  She turned back and stood for a moment looking at the desk against the SCIF’s glowing white wall. There was a wide-screen iMac computer on top of it, and in front of the desk was a cheap black leather rolling office chair.

  It seemed normal enough. She tried to reassure herself. It looked fine, like a cubicle.

  In the belly of a flying saucer, she thought, trying to tamp down her rapidly building panic.

  She forced herself to walk over and sit in the chair. As she looked down, she saw there was a wastepaper basket under the desk with two empty Poland Sprin
g water bottles lying in it.

  She tried to piece together the significance of them and, failing to do so, finally reached out and slowly laid her fingers atop the wireless mouse in front of the iMac screen.

  She instantly lifted her hand off the mouse as the NSA eagle and key logo appeared, filling the wide screen.

  She sat examining it closely. She’d seen the logo before, of course, but for the first time, she’d noticed how angry the expression on the eagle’s face was. And how sharp the talons that gripped the silver key seemed.

  Beneath the seal, along the bottom of the screen, there was a black box. It had a blinking white cursor inside of it, and beside the box on the left, it read,

  DESIGNATION:

  Shitting bricks, Kit thought as she took out the paper she had written on that morning.

  She typed in the code Dennis’s NSA friend, Ian Parker, had given her.

  Then she squeezed her eyes shut as she placed the pad of her right forefinger to the slick white plastic of the mouse and slowly pushed down until she finally heard the click.

  When she opened her eyes again slightly, the NSA angry eagle and DESIGNATION screen were gone. They had been replaced by a new white screen with the word PROCESSING in the top left-hand corner followed by several blinking black dots.

  She stared at the flashing dots, feeling like Alice free-falling down the rabbit hole.

  It was connecting to the mother lode, she thought.

  All the data on earth.

  Then suddenly as she watched there was a flash, and a grid of small photograph boxes began filling the screen. On each one was their first victim with a box around her face. There were dates along the tops of them. GPS coordinates.

  Kit felt hot and like she was going to vomit. Then the grid finally stopped.

  There were about twenty pages of images and she scrolled down with the mouse until she got to the last, most recent one.

  In it was the victim with someone. It looked like a man, but the image was small so she wasn’t completely sure.

  She felt her heart begin beating harder and faster when she saw the date on it was three days before the body was found.